The John H. Hauberg Historical Essays Compiled and Edited by O. FRITIOF ANDER LINCOLN ROOM UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY MEMORIAL the Class of 1901 founded by HARLAN HOYT HORNER and HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER THE JOHN H. HAUBERG HISTORICAL ESSAYS Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/johnhhauberghistOOaugu JOHN H. HAUBERG IN HIS LIBRARY The John hi Hauberg htistorical Essays Compiled and Edited by O. FRITIOF ANDER Essays Written by Paul M. Angle Harry E. Pratt E. E. Dale Carl Wittke Paul W. Gates Conrad Bergendoff Foreword by Merle Curti AUGUSTANA LIBRARY PUBLICATIONS Number 26 LUCIEN WHITE, General Editor Copyright, 1954 By Denkmann Memorial Library AUGUSTANA COLLEGE IT printed! |1_IN US A J AUGUSTANA BOOK CONCERN Printers and Binders Rock Island, Illinois CONTENTS PAGE DEDICATION vii By O. Fritiof Ander FOREWORD xi By Merle Curti THE CHANGING LINCOLN 1 By Paul M. Angle ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN THE BLACK HAWK WAR 18 By Harry E. Pratt PIONEER SPEECH 29 By Edward Everett Dale THE GERMAN FORTY-EIGHTERS 41 By Carl Wittke WEYERHAEUSER AND CHIPPEWA LOGGING INDUSTRY ... 50 By Paul W. Gates IN THE AMERICAN TRADITION 65 By Conrad Bergendoff ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE John H. Hauberg Frontispiece John H. Hauberg's Parents, Mr. and Mrs. M. D. Hauberg, from a photo- graph taken in 1905 vi Mr. and Mrs. John H. Hauberg at Yosemite Park in 1936 vii Statue of Captain Abraham Lincoln at Dixon, Illinois 20 Historic Lincoln Cottonwood Tree near Black Hawk School 21 Letter Written by Captain Bowling Green 28 Letterheads of Early Lumber Companies 56 Winter Hike with the Black Hawk Hiking Club 64 Picture from Powwow Days at Black Hawk State Park 65 vi JOHN H. HAUBERGS PARENTS, MR. AND MRS. M. D. HAUBERG, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN 1905 MR. AND MRS. JOHN H. HAUBERG AT YOSEMITE PARK IN 1936 ^Dedication On November 22, 1954, Mr. John H. Hauberg will celebrate his 85 th birthday, and on this occasion Augustana College wishes to honor him by the publication of a volume of historical essays on topics which have long been of interest to him as an historian and regionalist. John H. Hauberg served as a member of the Board of Directors of Augustana from 1912 until 1948. No other person in the history of the college has a record of similar service. Augustana College is almost an hundred years old. Yet the Hauberg name has been inti- mately associated with it for almost half of that period. His wife's family name is enshrined in the Denkmann Memorial Library. The fact that Mr. and Mrs. Hauberg have been among the most generous and loyal supporters of the college would be sufficient reason for the college to dedicate a special Library publication to them. But this "festschrift" is aimed to honor John Hauberg as an historian and re- gionalist. At the beginning of this century he interviewed pioneers of Rock Island County and recorded their stories. He obtained their pictures and searched the archives for interesting old records. Hauberg won recognition as a regionalist of note and as an authority on the history of Illinois and Rock Island County. History became to him more than a hobby; it became a way of life. Though few persons could have been more sympathetic with the pioneer than Hauberg, his inherent sense of justice caused him to feel deeply sympathetic with the Indian whom the white man crowded vii out. In spite of the fact that Illinois became a state in 1818, white settlement in northern Illinois continued to be sparse for several years. Here the Mississippi River came to serve a significant role in the ad- vance of the white man, and a clash with the Indians seemed almost inevitable. The erection of Fort Armstrong promised a degree of security, but not peace. Trading with the Indians and farming grew as more and more daring men ventured along the Mississippi both below and above the fort. Then came the Black Hawk War and upon this and its hero, Black Hawk, Hauberg centered a major portion of his interest. The Black Hawk War opened this area of Illinois for white settlement. Further danger from the Indians had been removed. More and more immigrants came up the Mississippi River, and with the building of the Rock Island Railroad a new era began in Rock Island County. To the older immigrants from New England, the Middle Atlantic and the border states were added those of German and Scandinavian origin. Mr. Hauberg's grandfather came to the United States in 1848 and later established himself at Andalusia, where in all essentials the life of the frontier still prevailed. But industries grew, and the cultural life of the county was greatly advanced when Augustana College was moved from Paxton, Illinois, to Rock Island in 1875. As these develop- ments occurred, the Mississippi River's importance in the economic life of the community declined. It passed into romance and legend. Civilization had reached the banks of the ''Father of Waters" and passed over its banks. But all was not gain. As the westward movement had showed little regard for the rights of the red man, it was no more considerate of nature itself. The wanton destruction by the white man of nature's great resources disturbed Hauberg. From the lessons indelibly written in the pages of history Hauberg became inspired to leadership in a viii significant program of conservation and preservation which has resulted in the creation of a number of county forest preserves. Hauberg has during the last few years engaged in extensive research on the history of the Weyerhaeuser and Denkmann lumber interests which had their significant beginnings in Rock Island. Here F. C. A. Denkmann, the father of Mrs. Hauberg, played a most im- portant role as the foundations were laid for the vast fortunes of the Weyerhaeusers and Denkmanns. He was president and general man- ager of the original Weyerhaeuser-Denkmann lumber industries until his death in 1905. As a regionalist Hauberg has won wide recognition, serving for many years as a member of the Board of Directors of the Illinois State Historical Society. Of his many honors he treasures few higher than that which came to him when he was elected president of this society. In the planning and preparing of this "festschrift" Mr. Hauberg's major interests in history have been kept in mind, and I wish to express my thanks to the contributors for their essays and to the writer of the foreword. The essayists are: Paul M. Angle, Secretary and Director of Chicago Historical Society; Harry E. Pratt, Illinois State Historian, and Secretary of the Illinois State Historical Society; Edward Everett Dale, Research Professor of History, Emeritus, University of Oklahoma; Carl Wittke, Dean of Graduate School of Western Reserve University; Paul W. Gates, Head of Department of History, Cornell University; and Conrad Bergendoff, President of Augustana College. The foreword was written by Merle Curti, Frederick Jackson Turner Professor of History, University of Wisconsin, and President of the American Historical Association. The contributors represent America's best known scholars in the fields of history closest to Mr. Hauberg's heart. O. Fritiof Ander Denkmann Memorial Library November 22, 1954 Augustana College IX Foreword The historians whose essays appear in this volume are of course too well known to the world of scholarship and to the reading public to need any introduction. The high quality of anything they write can be taken for granted. But in the essays here presented these men have, it seems to me, made a quite special kind of contribution. All of them have written in fields which they have cultivated inten- sively over many years and of which they are masters. They have brought to these essays not only a profound knowledge of the themes they have chosen; they have also written with a freshness and joyous- ness that are thoroughly engaging. The book that results has many merits indeed. It can be and in most cases will be read in a single sitting. In no other place can one find just what one finds here — the highly informative and judicious essay of Paul M. Angle on what is really new in Lincoln scholarship; the delightful and unforgettable account of Abraham Lincoln in the Black Hawk War that Harry E. Pratt has contributed; the succinct and salty distillation of a vast knowledge of pioneer speech from the pen of E. E. Dale; the lucid, humane, and appreciative essay of Carl Wittke on the German Forty-Eighters, which gives us in summary form the insights and generalizations of the greatest authority on the subject; and the vigorous and new study Paul W. Gates has made of a neglected but highly important figure in the economic history of America — Fred- erick Weyerhaeuser. The range of these essays at first glance seems rather wide, and XI it is. But there is a nice unity in them. For they illuminate the two themes that have been the special historical interest of the man in whose honor the volume has been prepared — the pioneer experiences of the Middle West and the Lincoln theme. In reading the manuscript of this volume I especially enjoyed President Conrad BergendofFs essay on John Henry Hauberg — "In the American Tradition." This introduced me to one who has been known to me chiefly by name and whom I now feel it is my privilege to know. The rich imagery, the rhythmic cadences, the depth of feeling of President BergendofFs piece make it more than an introduction to and an appreciation of Mr. Hauberg. The essay is a testimony to a remarkable understanding of the best in the American tradition. And now I express my appreciation to Professor O. Fritiof Ander for permitting me to be one of the very first readers of this volume. I recommend it heartily to others who I am sure will also enjoy it and profit from it. Merle Curti Xll The Changing Lincoln By PAUL M. ANGLE |~N the first sixty years following the death of Lincoln — from -*■ 1865 to 1925 — well over three thousand books, pamphlets, and magazine articles were written about him. Their authors included rep- resentatives of almost every articulate class in the country — ministers, journalists, lawyers, politicians, orators, even artists, business men, and soldiers. But the professional historians were almost unrepresented. It was not until 1899 that the first history professor — Robert Dickin- son Sheppard of Northwestern University — tried his hand at a biog- raphy, and then the result was only a character sketch of 116 pages. In the next twenty years just an even dozen productions by professional historians made their appearance, and most of them were hack jobs rather than sound pieces of research. This lack of representation is not as strange as it seems at first. The "professional historian,' ' in the sense in which I use the term, hardly existed until twenty years after Lincoln's death. History, if taught at all in an American college, was the province of a broken-down min- ister who had to be provided with a job. Not until 1884 were there enough trained men in this country to organize a national association of American historians. Even then, not only biography but also most American historical subjects were frowned upon. The leading men in the universities were German-trained, and German pedanticism and absorption in European subjects led many of them to look on the 1 history of their own country as something unworthy of their efforts. Besides, there was a widespread belief that the Lincoln theme, if not exhausted, had at least been worked to the point of diminishing returns. The men who had known Lincoln well had written their books, and no one else could ever enjoy their peculiar advantage. In the 'nineties Ida M. Tarbell had interviewed hundreds who had known Lincoln casually, and it was unlikely that any more personal recollec- tions of consequence could be turned up. Dozens and dozens of spe- cialized studies had appeared. What else remained to be done? Nevertheless, about 1925, professional scholars began to turn to the life of Lincoln. By that time most of the original group of German- trained historians were dead. Even the men brought up under their influence were passing from the scene. In their places were younger scholars who had come up in American universities. War and unsettled conditions after 1914 had forced many of those who might have turned to Europe to stay at home. The first World War, moreover, had brought about a resurgence of nationalism which, in American historical circles, led many a student to his own country's past. It was inevitable that the life of Lincoln, bulking so big in the national record, should draw its share of investigators. In the thirty years that have passed since then, scholarly studies have flowed steadily from the presses. To define the difference between scholarly studies and the great mass of Lincoln literature is not easy, but perhaps the distinction can be clarified by outlining the cardinal convictions of the professional historian. The professional historian is far more distrustful of what he finds in print than the non-professional historical writer is likely to be. The professional historian holds that any scrap of contemporary evidence is to be preferred to later testimony or to what he calls secondary writ- ings. He insists upon adequate documentation, preferably in the form of footnotes. He prides himself upon his objectivity, and strives to achieve 2 as dispassionate an attitude toward the human beings of whom he writes as the physicist has toward the inanimate matter of his concern. Most of the recent spade work on the life of Lincoln has been per- formed in this spirit. What is the result? What, to use the words of my title, is the changing Lincoln? A summary requires several headings, which I shall make in the form of direct assertions. 1. The stature and standing of Thomas Lincoln have been raised considerably. For fifty years biographers made a scapegoat of Lincoln's father. Old Tom was a shiftless vagrant, content with poverty, unable or unwilling to provide his family with more than the barest necessities of life. He was characterized not only as illiterate (in contrast to Nancy Hanks, who was often pictured reading the Bible to little Abraham), but also as opposing his son's striving for education. Much was made of his moves from farm to farm, of the "half -faced" camp in which the family lived for a time after settling in Indiana, of young Lincoln's short periods of schooling, of the father's insistence that the boy turn over his earnings until he was twenty-one. Of course the status of the family reflected the character of Thomas Lincoln. All were "poor whites," dregs even of frontier society, from whom nothing could be expected. Therefore the greater wonder — so the biographers seemed to think — to be found in the Lincoln of world fame. Today that conception is in the discard. Tom Lincoln and his clan have risen several planes in frontier society. Documents in Kentucky courthouses prove that the father of Abraham Lincoln held one posi- tion of trust after another, that he met his financial obligations, that his removals were no more frequent and no more the result of shiftlessness than those of thousands of other pioneers, and that his family lived as well as their neighbors in similar circumstances. Several of Thomas Lincoln's signatures have been found, while Nancy Hanks, 3 on the contrary, customarily made her mark. In education, Thomas Lincoln did as well for his children as most parents of his time and place, and there is no good reason for believing that he looked with anything but pride on the ambitions of his son. As for the half -faced camp — well, many new settlers lived in such a structure until a per- manent cabin could be built, and doubtless that is all the Lincolns did. And when the father appropriated the son's earnings during the latter's minority, he was only following both law and custom. Thomas Lincoln, in short, looks like the average man of his time and place, while the circumstances, financial and social, of his family were the circumstances of most settlers in a raw, undeveloped country. 2. Lincoln's romance with Ann Rutledge has been heavily dis- counted. This famous story has had a curious history. Almost unknown until William H. Herndon made it the subject of a lecture in 1866, the episode was used gingerly by early writers. Then romantic appeal over- came caution. Ann Rutledge became the only woman Lincoln ever loved, her death drove him to the verge of insanity, her spirit was his companion throughout his life. The public, going even farther, ac- cepted Edgar Lee Masters' beautiful lines, "Out of me unworthy and unknown The vibrations of deathless music," as literal history. When the Alton railroad, fifteen years ago, put two new streamliners on its Chicago-Springfield-St. Louis run, what did it call them? The Abraham Lincoln, and — if you please — the Ann Rut- ledge! They still bear those names, although the Alton is now a part of the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio — the Rebel Route! But when the scholars went to work on the Ann Rutledge story, they began to look for the evidence. There wasn't any, at least in the professional historian's sense. Testimony to the effect that Lincoln and Ann were in love was first recorded twenty-seven years after her death, 4 and in twenty-seven years both memory and imagination can run wild. The only scrap of contemporary evidence bearing at all on the subject indicates that Lincoln was his normal self, instead of half -demented, a few weeks after Ann's death. It was emphasized that within a year of Ann's death Lincoln was proposing marriage to Mary Owens, and that within five years he was engaged to Mary Todd. As for spiritual companionship, a better knowledge of psychology has led to the con- clusion that whatever Lincoln's feeling for Ann Rutledge in life may have been, it must have been pretty well diluted before many years had passed. And so the current verdict: Lincoln and Ann Rutledge may have been in love, may even have planned to marry. No one knows. But one can be sure that she did not monopolize Lincoln's love, nor did she exert any appreciable influence on his life after her death. 3. Another beloved folktale — the story of Lincoln's failure to appear at his wedding — has been discredited. In classic form, the story runs that on the 1st of January, 1841, guests were gathered at the home of Ninian W. Edwards, where Mary Todd lived, in pleasurable expectation, with the bride-to-be, "bedecked in veil and silken gown, and nervously toying with the flowers in her hair," waiting in an adjoining room. Only the groom was lacking. An hour passed, then another. Messengers sent out to locate the delinquent Lincoln came back to report that they were unable to find him. The bride, in grief, retired to her room; the guests left in embarrassment. Finally, at daybreak, Lincoln was found. He was on the verge of de- rangement. His friends, fearing suicide, watched him night and day. For weeks he absented himself from the legislature or attended its sessions only perfunctorily. In time his melancholia lifted, but it was not until the summer of 1841, months later, when he made a long visit to the home of a friend in Kentucky, that full recovery was effected. It is a dramatic story. Unfortunately, when viewed with the jaun- 5 diced eye of historical scholarship, it appears to be an impossible one. William H. Herndon, on whose authority it rests, nowhere claimed or even implied that he was one of the disappointed guests. Reminiscences, reduced to writing long after the event, were his sole source of infor- mation, and a tyro in historical criticism could see that they were hopelessly contradictory. (Future historians, incidentally, are likely to be even less impressed by Herndon's ipse dixit than those of the recent past. Benjamin P. Thomas's Portrait for Posterity, published in 1947, and David Donald's Lincoln's Herndon, issued in 1948, have handed Herndon's reputation for accuracy some severe jolts.) The skeptical spirit has led to other conclusions. The wedding incident, as Herndon described it, was flatly out of keeping with the well established character of Lincoln. The marriage license records of Lincoln's home county, well preserved and apparently complete, show that no license was issued to him either on January 1, 1841, when the marriage was to have taken place, or earlier. Then chance and good luck turned up a letter written by Mary Todd in the summer of 1841, which shows conclusively that she bore the defaulting bridegroom no ill will, and was anxious that the old relationship should be resumed. Would that have been the case, it was asked, if Lincoln had publicly humiliated her? Under analysis, the devastating effect on Lincoln also shrank in importance. Resort to the journal of the Illinois House of Representa- tives showed that Lincoln attended the daily sessions for nearly two weeks after January 1, though he usually responded to only a few of each day's roll calls. Then for five days he was absent altogether. Before the end of the month, however, he was again attending regularly and participating fully in legislative activities. The Kentucky visit, more- over, was telescoped in time once Lincoln's day-by-day activities were established. From then it was seen that Lincoln was absent from Spring- 6 field just one month, and that two of the four weeks were spent in traveling to and from his destination. Obviously, more than two weeks would have been required for the curing of any mental illness of consequence. Millions still believe, and probably will always believe, that Lin- coln, filled with last-minute foreboding, shirked his wedding, and then hovered on the edge of insanity induced by the mental anguish the decision had cost him. Scholarly opinion, on the other hand, refuses to accept anything more lurid than a broken engagement. That this crisis caused Lincoln great perturbation is beyond doubt; that it drove him to the limits of normality and broke his health is an exaggeration. 4. Mary Todd Lincoln has finally emerged as a credible person- ality, neither she-devil, as one school of writers has depicted her, nor saint, as her apologists have claimed. This new and more realistic interpretation is the result of several trends in research and historical reasoning. One factor has been the dis- crediting, or partial discrediting, of the Ann Rutledge story. As long as the modest maid of New Salem held Lincoln's love there was only a secondary place in his life for Mary Todd, and to make of Mary Todd a shrew who deserved nothing better seemed quite proper. On the other hand, if Lincoln's love for Ann Rutledge withered after her death, it was fitting that his wife should be a woman worthy of her position. In the second place, critical appraisal has undermined the histor- ical foundation of many of the most vicious tales of Mrs. Lincoln's ec- centricities. When traced to their source, many could be attributed to the animus of William H. Herndon, who was usually exaggerating gossip; others were simply folklore, unworthy of credence. Some, how- ever, were well vouched for. But scholars, applying a little common sense, could easily come to the conclusion that the river of marital life is rarely free of rough water, and that in the case of the Lincolns, the rough water was simply encountered oftener than with most couples. 7 Research, too, has made its contribution. Much used to be made of the fact that Lincoln was the only member of the eighth circuit bar who customarily attended all the courts in that huge district. Each week-end, said the biographers, the lawyers and the judge would de- part for their cheerful firesides, leaving only Lincoln to endure the barren discomforts of a country tavern until the next court convened. The inference was plain — for him the poor hospitality of a village inn was preferable to what was mistakenly described as his home. The in- ference was baseless. To be sure, Lincoln was the only lawyer who attended all the courts of the circuit, and in the earlier years of his prac- tice he was frequently away from home for long periods on this account. But as soon as the construction of railroads made it possible for him to get home on week-ends, home he went. Evidently he rode the whole circuit not because Mrs. Lincoln made home disagreeable, but because that was the way he preferred to practice law. Medical knowledge has helped to bring about a better understand- ing of Mrs. Lincoln's personality. Her confinement, a decade after Lin- coln's death, in a private hospital for the mentally ill has been brought into the open and has served to mollify earlier judgments. Now she is re- garded as a high strung woman who was subjected to one strain after another until, with her husband's assassination, the cord of sanity snapped. After 1865, it is admitted, she was irresponsible; but that is no reason for attributing to her before that date the vagaries that char- acterized the last seventeen years of her life. 5. The impecunious Lincoln, so little endowed with this world's goods that he had to borrow the cost of his trip to Washington for the inauguration, has been proved to be pure myth. Such is the burden of one of the most original, most painstaking pieces of research in the Lincoln field for many years — the Personal Finances of Abraham Lincoln, by Harry E. Pratt. Using bank accounts, state and county records, and the private papers of the administrator 8 of Lincoln's estate, Pratt pieced together an amazingly complete record of Lincoln's personal financial transactions. That record shows that while Lincoln indulged in some shoestring financing as a young mer- chant, he landed on his feet in a few years and never slipped again. His practice provided a comfortable living and gave him some surplus for investment. By the time of his election in 1860, he had accumulated an estate worth approximately $15,000, which, translated into our money, would be the equivalent of at least $75,000, and had plenty of cash in the bank for the trip to Washington. As President, he saved nearly two-thirds of his salary, and put the money into government bonds. His administrator, David Davis of the U. S. Supreme Court, found assets of $83,000; by skillful handling he added $28,000 to that sum by the time the estate was divided among Mrs. Lincoln and her two surviving sons. Lincoln's finances may not be a subject of crucial importance, but Pratt's investigation shows graphically what may happen to long- cherished beliefs when a first-rate scholar gets to work on them. It also adds detail to the prevailing conception of Lincoln as a man cautious, conservative (as opposed to impulsive), and ever mindful of reality, even when manifested in the financial requirements of a growing family. 6. Realism, rather than piety, has come to characterize the ap- proach to Lincoln's political career and political methods. A realistic account of Lincoln in politics was perhaps the greatest contribution of Albert J. Beveridge's unfinished biography. A senator for twelve years, and a veteran of many a campaign in a state (Indiana) where politics is anything but a parlor game, Beveridge was well equipped for ripping off the cover of pure idealism under which idol- ators had hidden, often unwittingly, the practical political machinations of Abraham Lincoln. Perhaps Beveridge's temperamental affinity to Douglas, who frequently usurps Lincoln's place as the hero of the 9 biography, was an added incentive. At any rate, to Beveridge, Lincoln in the Illinois legislature, in the national House of Representatives, and in the campaigns of the 'fifties out of which grew the Republican party, was usually as much politician as patriot. And the interpretation has persisted. (Politicians, said Lincoln, are "a set of men who have interests aside from the interests of the people, and who, to say the most of them, are, taken as a mass, at least one long step removed from honest men. I say this," he added, "with the greater freedom because, being a poli- tician myself, none can regard it as personal.") Close studies of Lincoln's nomination in I860 have supported Beveridge's interpretation. Lincoln was hardly the reluctant recipient of his party's highest honor. Once convinced that he had a chance to win the nomination, he went after it hammer and tongs, though with consummate skill. At Chicago his managers pulled wires and traded jobs for support in the best American tradition. Lincoln had told them he would authorize no promises and would be bound by none, but as a good politician he honored scrupulously the deals that won him the nomination. But the conclusive demonstration of Lincoln's political realism is to be found in the work of a team of Columbia professors, Harry J. Carman and Reinhard H. Luthin. To most people and to all politicians, politics means jobs. In Lincoln and the Patronage these two authors show what Lincoln did with federal offices — not merely the cabinet positions and diplomatic posts, but such mine-run offices as marshal- ships, postmasterships, Indian agencies, and judges' posts. He filled them, in a word, in accordance with the prevailing principle that the victor deserved first place at the trough. ( Purists should remember that the merit system was no more than a reformer's dream in 1860, or even 1865.) Not only that: he chose his favored victors with such rare 10 skill that in the great majority of cases either his party or policy profited by the appointment. 7. Lincoln's policy between his inauguration on March 4, 1861, and the assault on Fort Sumter six weeks later — one of the most crit- ical periods in American history — has finally been clarified. For many years students have argued about what Lincoln intended to do with reference to the states in secession. What was the policy he announced in his inaugural address — to "take care . . . that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States," and "to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the govern- ment" — to mean when translated into a course of action? In the last ten years that question has been answered with author- ity, principally by David M. Potter of the Yale history faculty, in a book entitled Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis. Potter's argument is too involved, too close-knit, to be summarized. However, it may not be misleading to say that he contends that when Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861, he did so in the conviction that the Union could be preserved without war. Lincoln believed that the majority of the South- ern people wanted to stay in the Union, and he intended to give the secessionists no provocation, in the form of an overt act, for resorting to war in an effort to consummate the separatist movement they had initiated. If he gave them no good cause for war, he was confident that the seceding states would eventually return to their allegiance. But events forced his hand. Provisions ran low at Fort Sumter, and he had to decide either to reinforce the fort, provision it, or abandon it. Even then he was willing to give it up, but only on condition that Fort Pickens, also threatened, could be held as the symbol of national authority. By great bad luck the Pickens expedition was bungled, and Anderson ran out of provisions at Sumter. As Lincoln saw it, he had no alternative to ordering the relief expedition forward. This is as far as Potter goes. A further question, however, has been 11 the subject of hot historical debate. What, exactly, did Lincoln have in mind when he sent the expedition with provisions only, not reinforce- ments, for Sumter? Southern scholars, best represented by the late Charles W. Ramsdell of the University of Texas, contend heatedly that Lincoln was purposely tempting the South to attack Sumter, and thus put itself in the wrong in the eyes of the North and of the world — a charge that echoes familiarly in air still stirred by the reverberations of Pearl Harbor. Northern scholars, James G. Randall in particular, have as stoutly denied that Lincoln's purpose was anything but pacific. In his Lincoln the President Randall summed up in a sentence, albeit a long one: "That Lincoln, under severest pressure from Northern ad- visers demanding firmness, and under pledge to maintain Federal au- thority with no need of bloodshed, was drawn by untoward circum- stances into a reluctant and non-aggressive provisioning of the Charles- ton fort, which he sought to control in such a way as to avoid provoca- tion and to preserve the status quo as he found it, seems the more valid conclusion/* Since Lincoln's policy in these critical weeks must always be a matter of deduction, and since professional historians seem to be suscep- tible to the same prejudices that affect the rest of mankind, the subject will probably continue to be controversial. That, of course, is one reason why the life of Lincoln is of perennial interest. If, to some far distant generation, the 19th century becomes ancient history, one may be reasonably certain that even then many a hot argument will have as its subject Lincoln's policy between March 4, 1861, and the Southern assault on Sumter. 8. And one may be reasonably certain that scholars centuries hence will be arguing the case of George B. McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac until Lincoln cashiered him in the fall of 1862. Nicolay and Hay, in their monumental Abraham Lincoln: A 12 History, drew a word picture of McClellan that went unchallenged until recent years. He was swollen with egotism; he was insulting to the President and sometimes outright insubordinate; he consistently underestimated his own strength and overestimated that of the enemy; time after time he brought his army to fighting pitch and then pro- crastinated until the chance to use it was gone. Lincoln, on the other hand, was the personification of patience and charity. He overlooked McClellan's snubs and condescension; he sent him all the troops he asked for and more; he relinquished his own preference for an overland campaign in deference to McClellan's desire to transport his army by sea. To be sure, Lincoln held McDowell's corps for the defence of Washington after he had promised it to McClellan, but that was only after the latter had disobeyed explicit orders to leave the Capital ade- quately protected. After Burnside's defeat Lincoln swallowed his pride and restored McClellan to command. It was only when his command- er's refusal to follow up the advantage he gained at the Battle of An- tietam tried even Lincoln's saintly patience that the President finally cashiered his general. And, Nicolay and Hay imply, most tardily. Lately a number of students have scanned the evidence with critical eyes, and emerged as defenders of Little Mac. Most recent and most thoroughgoing is James G. Randall, whose Lincoln the President has already been cited. In that book Professor Randall developed the pro-McClellan argument in strong terms. After the first few months, he held, Lincoln not only failed to co-operate with his commander; he also interfered with him repeatedly while he was engaged in operations in the field. The removal of McClellan after the Peninsular campaign was a plain surrender to political pressure. Even after he was restored to command, Lincoln withheld from him the full confidence that the general deserved. That he should have been trusted fully is proved by his great ability as an organizer, which even his enemies do not deny, 13 and by Lee's considered judgment that of all the Union commanders who opposed him in four years of fighting, McClellan was the ablest. Like the question of Lincoln's Sumter policy, the McClellan con- troversy will probably never be settled, for it, too, is a matter of em- phasis and interpretation. A recent participant in the argument — Kenneth P. Williams, in Lincoln Finds a General — goes after Mc- Clellan fully as hard as any of the early critics; while the most recent — Bruce Catton, in Mr. Lincoln's Army — is hardly less severe. What- ever the prevailing estimate, the stature of Lincoln is bound to be affected by it. The two men were so directly connected, as field com- mander and commander-in-chief, that as one's reputation rises, the other's must fall. The ultimate fate of McClellan at the hand of his- torians is, therefore, a major factor in the Lincoln legend. 9. The Radical Republicans — Ben Wade, Zachariah Chandler, Charles Sumner, and others of their kind — have taken some hard his- torical raps. The uncompromising, anti-slavery members of the Republican party have never been in too high repute with Lincoln biographers. By their demand for emancipation before the country was ready for it, by their vindictiveness toward the South, by their general cantankerous- ness, they often caused Lincoln more trouble than his Democratic op- ponents. Until recently, however, their chief fault has been considered an excess of zeal. Most biographers have been willing to admit that the Radicals acted, although mistakenly, from patriotic motives. But lately a succession of writers have charged the Radicals with a degree of partizanship that amounts to disloyalty. The case is best developed by T. Harry Williams, of Louisiana State University, in his Lincoln and the Radicals. Wade, Chandler, Stevens and their followers in the House and Senate; Chase and Stanton in the cabinet; McDowell, Fremont, Pope, Hooker, Butler, and many a lesser officer in the army are shown putting personal and political advantage above the national 14 interest. Their means, moreover, were often such as to make a decent man wince. Williams contends that in their contest with Lincoln — their prin- cipal antagonist — the Radicals won. This view is a reversal of his- torical opinion. Most biographers have maintained that in political maneuvering Lincoln was a match for the whole radical wing, and that his victory over its members lacked conclusiveness only because his own death intervened. Again the question is one of emphasis and interpre- tation, and therefore not likely to be answered with finality. 10. The assassination has become the most controversial ques- tion in Lincoln biography, with half a dozen well established historical reputations under jaundiced scrutiny. The furor in this case originated with a chemist rather than a pro- fessional historian, although Otto Eisenschiml's historical creed, if not his performance, would be acceptable to most scholastics. Why Was Lincoln Murdered?, published in 1937, brought to light much new evidence on the assassination of Lincoln, and enabled its author to ask a series of questions which were themselves charges. Why, for example, did Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, who knew the name of Lin- coln's assassin long before midnight on April 14, wait until 3:00 A.M. on the 15 th to make it public? Why was news of the assassination with- held from Richmond, the assassin's most natural destination, until three days after the event? Why was every road out of Washington barred almost immediately except the road to Port Tobacco, which the mur- derer was most likely to take? These are only a few of the many ominous questions which Eisenschiml has asked. The inference is that there was design behind the mysterious circumstances. The design, k is implied more or less clearly, points to the Radical Republicans, and to Stanton especially, although Eisenschiml carefully points out that no positive evidence connects either Stanton or his political associates with the crime. 15 The general public — or rather that small fraction of it that reads books — has been deeply impressed by Eisenschiml's work. It would be difficult, however, to find a professional historian who believes that Stanton or any other Northerner was implicated in Lincoln's assassina- tion. The controversy, nevertheless, has had its effect on historical think- ing. If the strange omissions which Eisenschiml has uncovered were no more than the result of bungling in the War Department, as most students believe, then Edwin M. Stanton was anything but the ruth- lessly efficient driver of the earlier writers. Randall, who epitomized so many recent historical conclusions, expressed prevalent academic opinion when he asserted that Stanton was two-faced, impossible to work with, "as unstable as he was arrogant and stubborn," and the head of a department marked by 'uncertainty and futility." What, it is now time to ask, does all this add up to as far as Lin- coln's place in history is concerned? In the first place, it represents a considerable rectification of the factual record of his life. It has been demonstrated that his early years were spent in at least average circumstances; the not-very-important matter of his love affairs has been straightened out; his wife's personality has come to be better understood; and his financial habits have been well established. In the second place, there has been a decided gain in realism. Lin- coln's handling of the patronage, his policy on the eve of war, his share of responsibility for military failures, the inside politics of his admin- istration — all these phases of his career stand out in sharper outline than they did a generation ago. Considered dispassionately, the fruits of this research would seem to do little credit to Lincoln's reputation. Yet Carman and Luthin, who show that he could and did pass out jobs as facilely as a Chicago alder- man, conclude that "to witness how, as a politician, he utilized the 16 patronage in holding together diverse conflicting factions in common purposes — the preservation of the Union, the success of his adminis- tration, and the rewarding of the party faithful — is only to enhance the greatness of Lincoln." Potter, close student of the outbreak of the Civil War, clears Lincoln of the charge that he pursued a deliberately provocative course. T. Harry Williams, who gives the victory to the Radicals in their contest with the President, leaves no doubt that his sympathies lie with the vanquished. And Randall, whose spirited de- fense of McClellan logically impugns Lincoln, avoided that conclusion by asserting that the jettisoning of the commander of the Army of the Potomac "was an act of a buffeted President in whose mind there were enough doubts of McClellan's usefulness to give weight to heavy and unremitting attacks of a sort which any President would have found it hard to resist." The answer seems to be that professional historians find it no less difficult than ordinary laymen to think of Lincoln unemotionally. Admit that he put a few scamps in office, or kept them there, in order to pay political debts. Admit that he improvised, unsuccessfully, at a critical time when a clear course steadfastly followed might have avoid- ed war. Admit, as many will not, that he sacrificed his ablest general to prejudiced clamor. What are these, in the eyes of mere men, in com- parison with the tremendous drama of his life? What are these when measured against his transparent honesty, his earthy humor, his com- monness, his humanity, and his high purpose? No more, even to the scholars, than scratches on the massive foundation of his fame. 17 Abraham Lincoln in the Black Hawk War By HARRY E. PRATT By the way, Mr. Speaker, did you know I am a military hero? Yes sir; in the days of the Black Hawk war, I fought, bled, and came away. Speaking of Gen: Cass' career, reminds me of my own. I was not at Still- man's defeat, but I was about as near it, as Cass was to Hull's surrender; and, like him, I saw the place very soon afterwards. It is quite certain I did not break my sword, for I had none to break; b.ut I bent a musket pretty badly on one occasion. If Cass broke his sword, the idea is, he broke it in de(s)peration; I bent the musket by accident. If Gen: Cass went in ad- vance of me in picking huckleberries, I guess I surpassed him in charges upon the wild onions. If he saw any live, fighting indians, it was more than I did; but I had a good many bloody struggles with the musquetoes; and, although I never fainted from loss of blood, I can truly say I was often very hungry. Mr. Speaker, if I should ever conclude to doff whatever our democratic friends may suppose there is of black cockade federalism about me, and thereupon, they shall take me up as their candidate for the Presi- dency, I protest they shall not make fun of me, as they have of Gen: Cass, by attempting to write me into a military hero. Abraham Lincoln, the "military hero," was referring to his eighty days' service in 1832 when he volunteered with sixty-five other young men from the New Salem neighborhood to drive the Sac and Fox led by Black Hawk back across the Mississippi River. Governor John Reynolds' call for volunteers from the militia reached New Salem on April 19. Two days later the recruits gathered at the farm of Dallas 18 Scott on Richland Creek, nine miles southwest of New Salem. They formed themselves into a company, and Abraham, as he wrote in I860, "to his own surprize, was elected captain of it . . . has not since had any success in life which gave him so much satisfaction. He went through the campaign, served near three months, met the ordinary hardships of such an expedition, but was in no battle. He now owns, in Iowa, the land [160 acres] upon which his own warrants for this service were located." Lincoln was the logical choice to lead the company since these same friends had elected him captain of their local militia company on April 5. For some thirty days, until May 27, he served as captain of the volunteers. Again heeding the call of Governor Reynolds he reenlisted with three hundred others for twenty days, serving as a private under Captain Elijah lies in the mounted Independent Rangers. Captain lies was one of the founding fathers of Springfield, Illinois. Lincoln's third enlistment, for thirty days, was again as a private, in the Independent Spy Company of Captain Jacob M. Early, a Spring- field physician, politician and Methodist preacher. On July 10, 1832, at the mouth of White Water River near Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, Lin- coln wrote the mustering out roll of the company for Captain Early and then set off on foot for New Salem some 250 miles to the south. He had done no fighting and had seen no unfriendly Indians. He had traveled some 1,400 miles, taken his first look at five rivers, the Missis- sippi, Rock, Fever, Kishwaukee and the Fox. He visited Galena, Ottawa and Dixon, towns to which he would return a quarter-century later as a Republican Party campaigner. He had served with his friends from New Salem, and their con- tinued confidence in him was expressed on August 6, 1832, when he received 277 of the 300 votes cast in New Salem precinct as the local candidate for a seat in the House of the Illinois General Assembly. War service had brought his first view of how the United States Army con- 19 ducted a war, although it was said that a less efficient commander than General Henry Atkinson could scarcely have been found. Lincoln was mustered in and out of Captain lies' company by Lieutenant Robert Anderson, whose distress call as Major Anderson at Fort Sumter pre- sented Lincoln with his first pressing problem as President. He saw much of Colonel Zachary Taylor, and the favorable impression may have influenced him to campaign in 1848 more vigorously in his behalf for President than he did for any other Whig or Republican nominee, with the possible exception of William Henry Harrison in 1840. Cap- tain William S. Harney and Lieutenant Albert Sidney Johnston be- came better known to Lincoln as Civil War generals. He did not meet Jefferson Davis. William Cullen Bryant did not see Lincoln's company on its way to war, despite claims to the contrary. The Black Hawk War was a minor conflict of short duration, with but two engagements meriting the title of battles — Wisconsin Heights and Bad Axe. However, it was one of the most decisive of Indian wars. Only one white soldier was killed at the Heights, and six at the mouth of the Bad Axe River when Black Hawk's band was annihilated on August 2, 1832. In all, seventy-one whites were killed from May to August. On only two occasions were more than five whites killed at one time. Twelve soldiers of Major Isaiah Stillman's command were killed in the rout of his force on May 14, the first bloodshed of the war; and fifteen whites were massacred at the home of William Davis on Indian Creek in present La Salle County, Illinois. The kidnapping there of nineteen-year-old Sylvia and seventeen-year-old Rachel Hall and their ransom ten days later was the most romantic tale of the war. The Sac and Fox had been forced to remove west of the Mississippi River in 1831, agreeing not to return. However, on April 5, 1832, Black Hawk crossed the river into Illinois for the purpose, as he de- clared, of raising corn along Rock River. With him were four to frve hundred horsemen, old men and boys in charge of the canoes, as well 20 STATUE OF CAPTAIN ABRAHAM LINCOLN AT DIXON, ILLINOIS HISTORIC LINCOLN COTTONWOOD TREE NEAR BLACK HAWK SCHOOL as women and children, making a total of about two thousand persons. Turning north the Indians moved to Rock River and then up that stream past the Winnebago Prophet's village (now Prophetstown). If the news of their passage through Dixon's Ferry on April 28 had immediately reached Governor Reynolds at Beardstown he would have ordered his 1,600 mounted militia to march to the Ferry instead of to Yellow Banks (Oquawka) on the Mississippi. Lincoln's company, sworn into state service on April 28, drew supplies for the next day's march — soap, candles, flint, fifty gridirons, four tin buckets, seven coffee boilers, seven tin pans, sixteen tin cups and thirty muskets and bayonets. When Lincoln returned these arms, three muskets and nine bayonets were missing. The eighty-five-mile cross-country march from Beardstown to Oquawka took four and one-half days; roads and bridges were non- existent, Crooked Creek was out of its banks, and Henderson River was fifty yards wide and running "like a mill-tail. ,, By felling trees into the river at different places, the volunteers crossed, swimming their horses. Food was scarce in Yellow Banks and foragers from Captain Lincoln's company preyed on the hogs on nearby farms before the arrival on May 5 of the steamboat Java with supplies from Fort Armstrong on Rock Island. The march northward was resumed in the morning, and after making thirty miles they halted on Camp Creek. At nightfall on May 7 Governor Reynolds made camp at the old Sac village three miles southeast of the mouth of Rock River and turned his men over to Gen- eral Henry Atkinson of the United States Army. Captain Lincoln and the rest of the Illinois volunteers were mustered into Federal service. General Atkinson sent three spies up Rock River to find Black Hawk and reviewed his new soldiers. He then issued 2,000 musketball cart- ridges, 35 barrels of flour, 20 barrels of pork and 3 barrels of whiskey. The 1,500 Illinoisans under General Samuel Whiteside began 21 the march up the left bank of the Rock River, following the trail of Black Hawk. General Atkinson, with ten companies of regulars, which totaled only 320 men, followed in keel and mackinaw boats. Colonel Zachary Taylor was in immediate command of the regulars and the unmounted Illinois infantry. The baggage wagons often mired down in the swamps along the trail, calling for yeoman service from men and officers in pushing and pulling through the black muck and tangled roots. The tents, of poor quality, afforded little protection against the spring rains. Men and horses were exhausted by the day and a half march to the Prophet's Village. Captain Lincoln's cheerfulness and ability to see some humor in any trying situation was a valuable asset. Setting fire to the Indian huts, the force then continued the laborious march. Twelve miles north they met the three spies with an Indian pris- oner who reported that Black Hawk was not far away. General White- side abandoned twenty cumbersome wagons loaded with provisions, drawn by slow-moving oxen. He ordered a forced march to Dixon's Ferry, and at ten o'clock the next morning the little army arrived with less than two days' provisions. In Dixon, Atkinson and Reynolds found two battalions of volun- teers from central Illinois. Spoiling for a fight and with the Governor's permission Majors Stillman and Bailey, with four days' provisions, started up the left bank of the Rock River on the morning of May 13. The 260 men went to "reconnoitre the frontiers, and report where the enemy were lodged," supposedly at the head of Old Man's Creek (now Stillman's Run) about twenty-five miles to the north. Rivalry between Stillman and Bailey and their men and lack of discipline brought on disaster. At dusk on May 14 several groups of Stillman's men rushed out of camp and attacked Black Hawk's truce bearers, bringing on a battle with forty Indians. The whites were soon routed and left twelve dead when they fled back to Dixon's Ferry. The survivors arrived in 22 the early morning, turning Lincoln's company into an uproar as each reporter described the terrible slaughter. The mad scramble of return- ing soldiers disheartened those at the Ferry and they demanded their discharges. Governor Reynolds issued a call for 2,000 volunteers to rendezvous on June 10 at Hennepin on the Illinois River, forty-four miles south of Dixon's Ferry. General Whiteside, not waiting for General Atkinson and the regulars who were ten miles below Dixon's Ferry, marched out his army, including Lincoln's company, for the site of Stillman's engage- ment. Arriving an hour before sunset on May 15, they found the bodies of the slain, scalped and mangled in the most barbarous manner. The dead soldiers were buried and a hasty march made by the hungry army back to the Ferry. General Atkinson arrived at noon with 320 regulars and 165 volunteers and learned that any peace overtures that Black Hawk may have been ready to make were now useless. Colonel Samuel Thompson's regiment, to which Lincoln's com- pany belonged, drew 1,590 pounds of pork, 2,385 pounds of flour, and 76 pounds of soap, in preparation for the next day's march. General Atkinson ordered the volunteers and regulars to march up Rock River, with the latter taking the supplies and six-pound cannon by keel boat. William S. Hamilton, son of former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, went ahead with a small party to Syca- more Creek to locate the position and route of the hostile Indians. Ostensibly the march was in pursuit of the Indians, but its real purpose was to keep the volunteers busy so they would not desert and go home. Three days later General Atkinson started back with the regulars to Dixon's Ferry, the general headquarters and base of opera- tions. Colonel Zachary Taylor was ordered to accompany the volunteers as Inspector General, and to "superintend their movements, order of encampment, of battle, etc." Captain W. S. Harney was sent along as assistant inspector. 23 General Whiteside, with 1,400 men — including Captain Lin- coln's company — marched northeast to the Kishwaukee River, then along the south bank of Sycamore Creek, now the south branch of the Kishwaukee. At a small Potawatomi village near present-day Sycamore, a crisis developed when the troops demanded their discharge. Governor Reynolds called Lincoln and the other captains together and asked for a vote on ( 1 ) continuing the pursuit of the enemy or ( 2 ) going home. When a tie vote was announced, General Whiteside wrathfully de- clared that he would no longer lead such men except to be discharged. The march south to Ottawa, the place of discharge, began, but was in- terrupted by a day spent in searching the men for articles of plunder taken from two deserted villages of friendly Indians. Mustering out began upon arrival at Ottawa on May 26. Captain Lincoln's company was mustered out of service of the United States Army by Nathaniel Buckmaster, brigade major. Governor Reynolds and Colonel Taylor urged the men to reenlist, but persuaded only 300 of the 1,400. Lincoln's reenlistment may have been prompted by several rea- sons: recognition of the need of protection for the northern Illinois settlers, that the Offutt store in New Salem had 'winked out" and he had no job to which to return, and that as an announced candidate for the legislature it might be politically expedient to see the job through. Lieutenant Robert Anderson mustered Lincoln and sixty others into the company of mounted Independent Rangers under Captain Elijah lies. The company had several former generals, colonels and captains. Lincoln furnished his own arms valued at $10 and a horse and equipment worth $120. Colonel Jacob Fry, in command of the new Illinois Corps of Vol- unteers, moved his command to the south side of the Illinois River at Ottawa, opposite the mouth of the Fox River, to put Fort Johnson into the best condition possible to protect the settlers of the neighborhood. 24 Governor Reynolds' call for volunteers was responded to by Lin- coln's friend Captain Bowling Green of New Salem in the following letter written on June 4, 1832: I have Raised a Malitia Company to Defend the frontiers if necessery. We shall wait your order if you think proper we should Like to Range on the frontiers at any of the points where it is Dangerous The Boys has all got home well except [Joseph] Hohimer, he is yet Like to Die They appeared to Complain of the officers when they first home, but all appear satisfied, and willing to go back if it is thought proper, the people is alarmed in Fulton County and sent to me, to Come with men to their assistance, no more. War is the order of the Day. P.S. We are not anxious if the good of the country Does not Require Captain lies' company was ordered on June 5 to be prepared to march "on an excursion of several days." The day was spent running bullets and getting flintlocks in order. General Atkinson expressed satisfaction with Captain lies' men and urged them to reenlist at the end of their twenty days' service and "share with him the trials, dangers, and he hopes, honors of anticipated conquest." Reduced to forty-eight men, the lies company left Ottawa on a march to Dixon's Ferry with orders to report to Colonel Zachary Taylor. Desiring to be as little en- cumbered as possible they took nothing "other than blankets, tin cups, coffee pots, canteens, a wallet of bread, and some fat side meat," which they ate raw or broiled. Upon arrival at Dixon's Ferry the company was ordered to follow the Kellogg Trail to Galena. Captain lies was in- structed to collect all information about the enemy. On the afternoon of June 8 they met Colonel Henry Dodge with 150 men coming from Galena, but they continued the trail and camped the following night near Apple River Fort. There on the previous night Indians had stolen twelve horses and that afternoon had shot at and chased two men into the fort. The company slept with their guns in their arms. Lieutenant Colonel James D. Henry, Sangamon County sheriff and victor at the Battle of Bad Axe two months later, drilled the men at odd times dur- ing the night. The company arrived in Galena to find the townspeople 25 completely demoralized. Captain lies believed the citizens so terrified they would not prevent the Indians from recrossing the Mississippi were they to pass in sight of their doors. On the return march to Dixon's Ferry the lies company passed a camp of 170 Sioux, Menominee and Winnebago Indians at Buffalo Grove under the command of Colonel Hamilton. lies reported to Colonel Taylor that the small parties of hostile Indians who had com- mitted minor depredations seemed more anxious to get horses than scalps. On June 16 Captain lies' company, after a two-day march from Dixon's Ferry, arrived at Fort Wiibourn on the south side of the Illinois River, opposite present-day Peru. It was the supply depot at the head of steamboat navigation. His twenty-day enlistment over, Private Lin- coln was mustered out of service by Lieutenant Anderson, and then reenlisted in the Independent Spy Company under Captain Jacob M. Early. The company was given certain privileges: camping within the lines, freedom from camp duties, and drawing rations as often and as much as they pleased. General Atkinson issued an order against the sale of "ardent spirits" to the Illinois soldiers who had been mustered into service. Captain Early's company, mustered in on June 20, was ordered two days later to Dixon's Ferry to report to General Hugh Brady. Major John Dement with a small force was attacked at Kellogg's Grove, thirty-eight miles northwest of Dixon's Ferry, on June 25 by a party of Sacs commanded by Black Hawk. Five whites were killed and Captain Early was ordered out on an all-night march to the scene of the conflict. The company arrived on the morning of June 26, and Early reported by dispatch to General Atkinson as follows: I arived here by day brake this morning & found Gen Poseys men encamped here The circumstances connected with the attack on Maj. Dements Bat. are as well as I can gether substantially these Yesterday morning the Maj. ordered out a small party for the purpose of examining 26 a trail leading to the Mississippi. The detachment had not proceeded more than half a mile when they discovered a few Indians at a small distance from them the men rushed on them in a disorderly manner till they came to the main body of the Indians where they ware secreted in a thicket on seeing the Indians the men wheeled & fled precipitately & all the efforts of Maj. Dement to rally them was unavailing (for at the time the men commenced retreating before the Indians Maj. Dement came up with a reinforcement from the garison The Maj. stated to me that his force on the field was equal in numbers to that of the enemy After the men re- treated to the fort the Indians surrounded the house & commenced killing the Horses, they kept up a constant fire on the House & Horses for 2 or 3 hours. Major Dement Lost 5 killed & several wounded but none mortally when the Indians left the ground they retreated toward their encampment on the 4 lakes [now Madison, Wisconsin] When Gen Posey came up about an hour by sun he sent a regiment in the direction in which the Indians had retired. When they had proceeded about Yi mile the Indians showed themselves from a thick wood which skirted the praeria in which the men where retired to their camps without engageing the enemy. The trail spoken of above has not yet been examined Gen Posy says he will send a detachment with me to examine it. As soon as I see it you shall have the best information in my power to give you . . . P.S. 6 Indians have been found dead on the ground Returning to Dixon's Ferry the Spy Company joined Brigadier General James D. Henry's brigade of 900 Illinois volunteers, and 440 regulars under Colonel Taylor, on the march up the left bank of the Rock River. Private Lincoln packed fifteen days' provisions. Six days of march brought them into Michigan Territory (now Wisconsin) past Turtle Village (now Beloit), and on to Lake Koshkonong where they found the main trail of Black Hawk's warriors. Captain Early's company scouted the western boundary of the lake, but found nothing. Lincoln's mess was composed of his stepbrother, John D. John- ston, G. B. Fanchier, George M. Harrison, privates, and First Corporal R. M. Wyatt. The army went off on a two-day wild-goose chase through the swamp and sink holes up White Water River, with Early's company scouring the country in search of the Indians without success. General 27 Atkinson accepted the advice of his Winnebago Indian guides that the stream could not be turned and that Black Hawk's band was "up the country." Upon return to the mouth of White Water, supplies were exhausted and Atkinson decided to dismiss the independent commands. Captain Early called on Lincoln to write the mustering out roll. On his own papers Lincoln could read that he was honorably discharged "with the special thanks of Brigadier General H. Atkinson, Commander in Chief of the Army of the Illinois Frontier ... at Headquarters on White Water of Rock River." Lincoln's horse and that of George M. Harrison were stolen on the day that he was mustered out, July 10; thus most of the 250-mile journey homeward by way of Dixon's Ferry to Peoria was on foot. Lin- coln and Harrison there purchased a canoe in which they made the trip down the Illinois River to Havana. Selling their canoe, the two Black Hawk War "heroes" walked the twenty-eight mile hot, sandy trail to New Salem. This study is based largely on the Black Hawk War Collection in the Illinois State Historical Library. The papers were gathered by Lieu- tenant Robert Anderson during the war and were presented by his widow to Governor John P. Altgeld for the State of Illinois in 1894. 28 ~\l^ >' rjL^lf/f/k / t <* / 4 *v-£ 'S $/ y tJL ^^ '\ tf % $/k A, tsrc iuJ CU<^v«^ */- ^ ^^ LETTER WRITTEN BY CAPTAIN BOWLING GREEN ^ ^>_ »"*^ Pioneer Speech By EDWARD EVERETT DALE The speech of any people is a reflection of their pattern of life. The hardy pioneers who generation after generation moved westward to occupy lands in that ever changing region called the American Fron- tier had lifeways that were in many respects very similar. There were variations due to time and physiographic and climatic conditions, but all pioneers cleared farms, or broke the virgin prairie sod, built themselves crude homes, and depended to a considerable extent upon game and fish, or the gathering of native products for their food supply. Life was hard and narrow, but they established social contacts with their neigh- bors, built schools and churches, and eventually brought civilization to what had been a raw and untamed land. Their experiences in conquering the wilderness, however, brought new words, phrases, and expressions to their language and these lin- gered long after the conditions which had produced them had disap- peared. Even today traces of their speech still crop out to remind us of a type of life now gone forever. When some person asks you to visit him asserting that "the latchstring always hangs outside the door" or remarks that he has sold his business "lock, stock and barrel" you know exactly what he means even though you have never lived in a log cabin or have seldom seen a gun of the old fashioned type used by the early hunter. Our first pioneers were, of course, those adventurous souls who sailed westward from Britain to plant the first seeds of European civil- 29 ization in the American wilderness of Virginia or Massachusetts. They landed English in speech, manners and customs, and habits of thought, but all these began to be changed by the conditions under which they lived. It was not long until their speech had undergone what might be called "a sea change." Many new words and expressions had crept into their language which must at first have seemed puzzling to the new arrivals. Obviously the first immigrants or explorers had found themselves faced with the task of giving names to the new lands, as well as to the capes, bays, gulfs, rivers, and mountains, or to the first towns and settle- ments. With true British loyalty to king and country, names of members of the royal family or of the old home town or region were accorded first honors. Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, New York, New Jersey, Jamestown, Charleston, New London, Salem, Dover, Williamsburg, the James, York, and Charles rivers, or Cape Charles and Cape Henry, and a host of others are familiar examples. Also discoverers and early explorers, with true pioneer modesty, often gave their own names to lakes, rivers, and mountains, as Lake Champlain, the Hudson River, and Fremont's Peak. As settlement advanced westward and the mother country became more remote and memories of royalty faded, the names of American leaders or of the old home town farther east were substi- tuted for the earlier English terms. Washington, Jefferson City, Jack- son, Franklin, Lincoln, Leesburg, Booneville, Salem, Portland, Custer City, Pike's Peak, Long's Peak, Lawrence, Madison, Fayetteville, Lex- ington, and many more give testimony to this habit of the early explorers and settlers. From the very first, however, and throughout the entire period of exploring and peopling the American West, the pioneers were in close contact with the aboriginal inhabitants of the land and from the In- dians came a large proportion of our place names. These include the names of more than half of the states extending from Massachusetts 30 to Utah and from Minnesota to Texas or Alabama as well as many of our most important lakes and rivers as the Mississippi, Ohio, and Mis- souri, as well as Lakes Huron, Erie, Winnepesaukee, and numerous others. The Indians not only furnished many place names but added many new words and phrases to the language. The early colonists found in America many new products, birds, animals, and numerous strange articles, customs and institutions. For these the Indians had names which the whites soon began to use. They include not only such com- mon nouns as tobacco, potato, tomato, hominy, succotash, wampum, wigwam, squaw, papoose, tepee, calumet, and moccasin but numerous expressions still in common use. Many persons who have seldom or never seen an Indian ' put on their war paint," "hold a pow wow," 'make medicine," "do a war dance," and "go on the war path." Later they may decide to "smoke the peace pipe," and "bury the hatchet." It is not, however, the contributions of the Indians that made the speech of the pioneers so picturesque and colorful. Rather it was the phrases and expressions coined by the people themselves and growing out of their experiences of daily life. These must be given as they were spoken for any attempt to put them into good English would destroy their flavor and make many of them meaningless or even ludicrous. They were apt, expressive, and filled with meaning. Usually they were highly condensed without a single superfluous word, and are charac- terized by their vivid imagery. The pioneer, like the Indian, was a close observer. He saw every detail and in speaking of something did not describe it. Rather he painted a word picture in a single apt phrase — a picture so clear cut and colorful that any further description was not necessary. He did not tell the listener but preferred to show him and this he did with one pungent, salty phrase that usually meant more than could any long and involved explanation. "Yes, I know that old man," said Tom Smith of Arkansas speaking of an opinionated, narrow- 31 minded individual of the community, "He's one of these fellers that looks through a knot hole with both eyes." And do you know his cousin Sam," he continued, "Sam alius reminds me of a little dog in high oats." On every frontier the need of securing meat by hunting plus the occasional danger of Indian attack made every man or boy more or less proficient in the use of firearms. The common type of gun in early pioneer days was the flintlock rifle loaded from the muzzle by placing the bullet on a small circular piece of cloth called the "patching" and using a long ramrod to push it down against the charge of powder which had been poured into the muzzle of the gun. Near the base of the barrel was a small circular receptacle called the "pan," which was connected with its interior by a small hole. The gun was fired by plac- ing a few grains of powder in the pan, and these were ignited by a spark struck by the falling hammer from a flint fixed just above it. A shotgun or fowling piece was loaded by pouring the charge of powder into the muzzle and hammering down a wad of paper or tow against it with the ramrod. A charge of shot was then poured in and held in place by a second wad pounded lightly down on top of it. This mechanism gave rise to a number of pioneer expressions. If the tiny hole leading from the pan to the interior of the barrel be- came clogged there was merely a flash of powder in the pan when the hammer was snapped, but the weapon did not fire. In consequence any abortive action was "only a flash in the pan." A person ready for action was said to be "all cocked and primed to go" and one who stood very erect "looked like he had swallered a ramrod." When the gun was fired the patching was ignited by the burning powder. Certainty of a battle or skirmish was indicated by saying: "We sure will smell the patchin' before morning." A worthless individual "was not worth th' powder and lead it 'ud take to kill him," and one who had finished his life's work was said to have "shot his wad." To "give 'em both barrels" meant your best efforts, and a scantily clad girl was alleged "not to have on 32 clothes enough to wad a shot gun." "Wouldn't that cock yer pistol?" meant would it not startle you and any guarantee of safety in govern- ment or business was "a gun behind the door." Other expressions with respect to guns were common. A gun was sometimes given a name as "Old Betsy." A long revolver was called a "hog leg" and buckshot was known as "blue whizzers." When an eastern tenderfoot proudly displayed a small nickel plated pistol to the ranch foreman the latter exclaimed: "Bud, if you'd ever shoot me with that thing and I ever found it out I shore would beat up on you." "I'll never pull a gun and try to bluff you," said a young cowhand, "any time my gun comes out it'll come out a-smokin'!" When the short, slight Sam Thompson was told he had better not quarrel with Mike O'Don- nell who was six and a half feet tall and weighed two hundred and fifty pounds, Sam only said: "I don't care how big he is; Colts make all men equal." "But suppose he catches you some time when you don't have your Colts?" he was asked. "Well in that case," said Sam, "I'll just out with my old knife and whittle him down to my size." Hunting and its natural partner fishing brought in many terms. "Gentle as a fawn," "wild as a buck," "squall like a catamount," or "he fit like a pan'ter," were common expressions. "A fightin' fool" was said to be able to "lick his weight in wild cats," and an individual regarded as too hasty was warned not "to get ahead of the hounds." One who was in error was alleged to be "barkin' up the wrong tree," and anyone who had been "played for a sucker" was said to have "swallered it hook, line, and sinker." "Wouldn't that set yer cork to bobbin," meant would it not make you nervous and a man ready for any emergency was said to be "loaded for bear." Life on the frontier, however, was by no means all hunting and fishing and fighting Indians. Fields must be cleared and plowed, crops tilled, water and wood provided for household use, domestic animals cared for, corn taken to mill to be ground, and the country store visited 33 to barter butter, eggs, and coon skins for groceries, dry goods, and no- tions. This system of barter no doubt gave rise to the expression: "I've got a little tradin' to do at the store." Also there were all the daily chores of cooking, sweeping, washing, ironing, feeding, and all the other little tasks of daily life. The children must be fed, clothed, taught, and disciplined and some attention given to social life, school, church, recreation, and local government. All of these affected the speech of the people and created many colorful and picturesque phrases and ex- pressions. Some of these were connected with food, which is the most funda- mental of all human needs. Cream gravy, or white sauce, was a staple article of diet. Any left over was usually given to the dogs which is no doubt the reason why it was often called "hush puppy gravy" to dis- tinguish it from "calico gravy" served with fried ham. "Corn dodgers" made from scalded meal seasoned with chopped onion were fried in deep fat and served with fish in the South. These were also called "hush puppies" no doubt for the same reason. A plate of large, tough biscuits was said to "look like a gang of terrapins a-comin'," and one bachelor was said to make "good, firm biscuits" while another could "make bis- cuits with woman tracks on em." "Open face pie with pumpkin move- ment" is self explanatory and frosted layer cake was inelegantly re- ferred to as "stair steps cake with calf slobbers on it." "That's the best pie I ever flopped my lip over," said an old Texan noted for his love of good food, "but I've alius been a good eater; guess I'll dig my grave with my teeth." "But you don't get fat," someone ob- served. "Get fat? No of course I don't," was the answer. "Guess I just eat so much it makes me pore to carry it.'' "Does Mrs. Simpson feed you pretty well?" someone once asked one of the hired men of a wealthy widow. "No, not too good," was the reply, "usually we have apologies for breakfast, promises for dinner, and disappointment for supper." 34 Other expressions with respect to food were common. Sauce to be poured over pudding was "whippem-whoppem," eggs were "cackle berries" or "hen berries," and rice "moonshine." In the Cow Country syrup was "lick," gravy "sop," and bread pudding "slumgullion." Coffee was "so strong it could git up and walk," and steak "so tough you couldn't stick a fork in the gravy," "Come to see us," said Farmer Tay- lor, "we alius has bread or meat one and if you'll come we will put the big pot in the little 'un and make soup out of the skillet." "Speakin of coffee," a member of a threshing crew once remarked, "lots of people don't know how little water it takes to make good coffee." "Anyhow," he continued, "there ain't any such thing as strong coffee; just weak people." One of the most common characteristics of the pioneer's speech, as is also true of his humor, was exaggeration which took the form of either overstatement or understatement of fact. Some of his expressions may have been a trifle crude but they were highly descriptive and vivid. Today we would say that "the man's eyes widened and his face turned pale from fright." Bill Jones expressed the same idea but in more color- ful phraseology. "Old Hank shore wuz skeered," he declared, "why his eyes looked just like fried eggs in a slop bucket." "I saw him," said another, "his eyes stuck out until you could have roped 'em with a grapevine and he ran so fast that when he finally stopped it took his shadder twenty minutes to ketch up with him." A man was said to have run "like a skeered Indian," and a frightened Negro's eyes looked like "two biled eggs in a pot of coffee." "How are you today," an old teamster was once asked. "Oh, fat as a match and straight as a fishhook" was the prompt reply. Other in- quiries as to a neighbor's health were likely to meet the response; "All so's to be up," "all so's to be about," or "all able to eat our daily allow- ance." "How's your fat?" was likely to meet the response: "Just a little bit streaked." Other highly exaggerated expressions were common. A 35 knife was "so dull you could ride to mill on it," a girl's hair hung down about her face until "she looked like a steer a-peekin' through a brush fence," and she was so thin that "she had to stand twice in the same place to make a shadder." A man with projecting front teeth looked like "he could bite a pun'kin through the fence" and a horse was "so pore that you had to tie a knot in his tail to keep him from slippin' through the collar." The ground was so muddy that "it would bog the shadder of a buzzard," and the region was "so sickly that it ud take two frogs to live a year there." An individual convalescing from an illness "looked like he had been pulled through a knot hole," or "like he had been chewed up and spit out." There was an alliterative quality about many frontier phrases and in some a rhythm that was almost poetic. A dejected appearing person "looked like he had supped sorrow out of a big spoon." An unfortunate one "had the luck of a lousy calf — live all winter and die in the spring." A man was so ignorant that "he didn't know B from a bull's foot" and determination to do something was expressed by saying "I'll make a spoon or spile a horn." It was said that he "took to th' tall timber" or "came out of there like a bat out of a burnin' stump." When someone remarked that Jane's sweetheart was very short and slender Jane only replied: "Well, I've alius heerd that precious goods is put up in small packages." The homespun philosophy of the pioneer was responsible for wise sayings that were almost proverbs. "Even a blind sow will find an acorn once in a while"; "the world is gettin' weaker and wiser"; "you can't put an old head on young shoulders"; and <% k f s a mighty dry year when the crab grass fails" are all familiar examples. The chagrin and embarrassment of an individual were often de- scribed in apt terms. "Old Wes looked down his nose like a pore sow." "He took the dry grins." Or "Sam was like the little boy th* calf run over — he didn't have much to say." Sneers and jeers, or terms of re- proach and ridicule were common. "He's so contrary that if he ever 36 gets drowned I'll hunt up stream for him"; "if I could buy him for what he's worth and sell him for what he thinks he's worth I shore would get rich"; and "I wouldn't trust that feller as far as I could throw a steer by th' tail — why he'd rather lie on ninety days' time than tell th' truth for cash." All these are self explanatory as is the saying: "Why, I could lick a whole cow pen full of chaps like you and mind the gate." A man was sometimes said to "stumble around like a blind dog in a meat house" or "like a blind horse in a paw paw patch." To say that a man who would do that "ort to be shot, hung, and snake bit" was to refer to the three most common causes of sudden death in a frontier community. Commendation of an individual's efforts was sometimes expressed in the language of the region. When an old cowman yielded to the entreaties of his wife to go to church after protesting that he would not be able to understand the words of "that big preacher" he was agreeably surprised. The minister delivered a sermon couched in such simple lan- guage that the old ranchman was delighted and told the eminent divine so in these words: "Well parson, you shore did put th' fodder down where th' calves could reach it." Yet, a compliment was sometimes more or less "left-handed." When Uncle Bill Carter, who was notori- ously stingy and disagreeable, died, the neighbors came in "to sit up with the corpse." Under the time-honored tradition that one should never speak evil of the dead, conversation with respect to the deceased languished until Ab Walker suddenly spoke up with considerable en- thusiasm. "Well, there's one thing you can say fer Uncle Bill; he wuzn't as mean all th' time as he wuz some of the time." Words were often used in curious fashion. It became "hit," fire "fahr," James "Jeems," and the plural you became "you-uns." A bag was a "poke" and one was warned in alliterative fashion "not to buy a pig in a poke." People were said to "tote water from the spring," or to "pack in some wood," or "carry the cow to the pasture." Nouns were 37 doubled as "ham meat," "hound dog," "man person," "biscuit bread," and "widder woman." Nouns were turned into verbs. A man "neigh- bored his meals," and did not mind work but hated to be "muled around." Hospitable and generous individuals were referred to as "mighty clever people" and inability to move a boulder or a log was due to the fact that "a man can't get no purchase on it." The pioneer, moreover, often defended his use of words quite ably. "Why do you say you are 'satisfied' that this corn will make forty bushels to the acre?" an old farmer of the Ozarks was once asked. "Satisfied means the same as contented." "No such thing," was the prompt response. "I'm satisfied that Nigger Sam over here is stealin' my chickens but I shore ain't contented about it." There was no answer. Like the little boy that the calf ran over, the questioner "didn't have much to say." Social life, courtship, and marriage brought out many interesting expressions. A girl who seemed interested in a young man was said to have "set her cap for him" and a young fellow diligently wooing a girl was said to be "waitin' on her," which was truly an apt phrase! "I saw John and Mary sittin' on the bench talkin' and you couldn't see daylight between em," an old lady remarked. A man who had evident- ly decided to get married was said to "have set out," boys were reported to "have gone a-gallin'," and a bouquet of flowers "smelled like gals a-goin' to meetin'." John and Bill called so frequently on the Waldrip sisters that "Miz Waldrip says she can't throw out a pan of water with- out thro win' it on one of them boys." "Why didn't you come to the party last night?" someone asked Bessie Hall. "J ust couldn't come," was the reply, "it uz too fur and snaky." "I told my wife I'd be home by five," said Hank Thompson to the other loafers at the country store, "and here it is nearly seven." "Well, when you do get there you'll likely get all beat up and have yer tobaccer took away from you." There were many sharp retorts of a would-be humorous nature and a host of miscellaneous terms which require no explanation. "Don't 38 let that take up with you," a boy was warned when he had picked up a knife in order to examine it. "To carry water on both shoulders" meant to refuse to take a stand on a question and "He's any man's dog that will hunt with him" had about the same connotation. "If he wuz my boy I'd tie him up and whup him till he broke loose," said Uncle Jimmy Williams referring to a bad boy in the community. "There's a lot of new ideas about education comin' out," said a backwoods school teacher, "and if anything new bobs up it ain't three days till most of the biggest school men in our county are whuppin theirselves with their hats to get in on it." "You had better let me alone," said a boy to a bullying neighbor lad. "If you don't in about a minute you'll find yourself goin' around with your hand on your head and a knot under it." "If I could get that job I'd cut my galluses and go straight up" needs no comment nor does the saying "if you bored a hole in his head you wouldn't find brains enough to grease the gimlet." "If it had been a snake it would have bit me" meant that the object for which you had been searching had been found almost under your hand. "If Mary likes that feller she shore has got a taste for roughness" is self explanatory as is the saying "she nearly shook th' bark off th' trees with th' chills." Some old time pioneers had a gift for words that meant little but were designed to be humorous. "I'd like to sell you that cow," said Bill Jones, "she's a good cow and she's been sold a lot of times with a whole passel of extras. A pitchfork, a log chain, and a double barrel shot gun always go with her. She never had a calf. Her mother before her never had one. She was raised by her grandmother!" The similes of the pioneer settler always had to do with his daily life. An individual was characterized as "bull headed," "splay footed," "gimlet eyed," "whey bellied," "bushy headed," or "her tongue was tied in the middle and loose at both ends." A man did not have any feet but "only eighteen inch bends in his legs," and "Tom Burton's wife 39 is so ugly that they have to blindfold th' baby to get him to nurse." A balky horse "wouldn't pull th' hat off yer head," and the frontier equiva- lent of "something rotten in Denmark" was "there's somethin' dead up th' creek" or "there's a bug under th' chip." The settlement of the prairie West brought in a number of new expressions though the old ones developed in wooded regions farther east still persisted even in a new environment. "I hate to sleep with that feller," said Slim Stevens, "he alius wants to take his hundred and sixty right in th' middle of the bed and give me eighty acres on each side." "Don't churn dasher th' calves," a settler was warned by the old ranchman who had furnished him some cows to milk. A man "couldn't hit a barn door" or "rope a pile of buck horns" or "was all swelled up like a pizened pup." "He'll do to tie to;" "This ain't buyin' the baby a new dress or payin' for the one it's already wore out;" "he had th' gall of a government mule" or "he's tall as a telegraph pole but not quite so heavy set" are all typical. Defiance was expressed by: "Sic yer pup on," "Cut yer dog loose," or "If you think you know any games I can't play just start one of 'em up." A girl was "all dressed up like a Christmas tree," and a fervent kiss "sounded like a cow pullin' her foot out of the mud." Such ex- amples of frontier expressions might be continued almost indefinitely, but enough and more than enough have been given to show that the speech of the American pioneers was vivid, colorful, and filled with meaning. Pioneer life in our country has gone forever, but the frontier still exists as a state of mind long after the conditions which produced that state of mind have passed. Perhaps some study of the picturesque lan- guage of our pioneer forebears might be useful to writers and lecturers by enabling them to draw from the apt, condensed expressions of the frontier settlers something that will enrich their own speech and enable them to express themselves in more colorful fashion. 40 The German Forty- eighters By CARL WITTKE The United States was a child of revolution, and its Declaration of Independence has been a beacon for people everywhere who yearned to be free. For a century and a half, the doors to America stood open, and practically unguarded, to all who sought liberty and economic opportunity in a New World unfettered by the class restrictions of the Old. Our immigration legislation, until the close of the nineteenth century, was particularly favorable to men and women whose views on politics or religion may have gotten them into trouble with the authori- ties of their home countries. The United States, in a very real sense, was the mother of exiles who left their native land for conscience sake, or because they wanted to live out their lives in the free atmosphere of America. The Republic gave them shelter and new opportunities and, in turn, won their loyal devotion. It was a vital part of the Amer- ican tradition of democracy not to distinguish between those who came by way of Plymouth Rock, Castle Garden or Ellis Island, as the United States became a haven of refuge for all who wanted to share in the democratic adventure in a new land. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Era were responsible for the first substantial group of political refugees who sought a fresh start in America. The number included Irish Republican patriots, like the Emmetts and the Macnevens, who left their native island as a result of the unsuccessful risings of 1798 and 1803, refugees from France, 41 and a few Poles. After the reaction of the Age of Metternich descended upon Europe, a number of German liberals, like Karl Follen who be- came a teacher at Harvard, and Francis Lieber, one of the first distin- guished American political scientists, joined the exodus. The latter had not only fought as a lad for the liberation of his country from Napoleon, but also in the war for Greek independence. The abortive revolutions of the early 1830's produced another crop of German refugees, among them such distinguished Americans as the Wesselhbft and Seidensticker family of Philadelphia, and Gustav Kbrner and Fried- rich Engelmann of Illinois. Political exiles of the Kossuth rebellion in 1848 in Hungary scattered over the United States and were joined by Czechs, Poles, and others, and Garibaldi once made candles on Staten Island before he fought for the liberation and unification of Italy. Many of these exiles not only found new opportunities in America for their uprooted lives, but hoped to make the United States an active champion of republicanism throughout Europe. Of all this remarkable group, however, the German Forty-eighters were the most numerous and the most distinguished. Though the num- ber of active revolutionists who came to the United States was relatively small — it has been estimated between four and ten thousand — it included men of such outstanding spirit and intellectual capacity that they were able to provide a cultural leaven for the large German immi- grant element already here and about to come in a huge migration from Germany, and no other comparable group made such a significant political and cultural contribution in the whole history of American immigration. It was during their ascendancy, from about 1850 to 1870, that the Germans in America experienced their "Hellenic Age." It may be that the older German element was ready for a cultural renaissance and that one would have occurred even if these refugees had not come in such large numbers a century ago. Certainly many typically German institutions were in existence when they began to 42 come. But there can be no doubt that the Forty-eighters speeded the process and gave new vitality and direction to the German community in America. They were the bearers of the principles of the European Enlightenment, and the champions of a cosmopolitan humanitarianism, based upon the natural rights of man, and they had espoused these liberal views courageously and eloquently in the ill-fated German revo- lutions of 1848 and 1849. Their liberalism had an international flavor and in a sense, represented the sprouting of the seeds of the French Revolution of 1789 which the Napoleonic Era had scattered over Europe. In Germany, these intellectuals joined with laborers, farmers, students and others to give battle to autocracy, the vestiges of medieval feudal privileges, the police state, and the union of altar and throne. The German revolution was distinguished by the large number of intel- lectuals who participated in the uprisings and by a moral idealism which made it essentially a humane revolution. It was a tragedy for the liberal forces that have always been present in Germany, and for the world at large, that the movement ended in failure and disillusion- ment. The decade before the Civil War was marked by the influx of men and women whose lives had been completely uprooted by the European catastrophe in liberalism, and who had to try to rebuild their lives, often among terrible hardships, in a strange and new land. In many ways, their experiences are comparable with those of the uprooted intellectu- als of Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy and Bolshevik Russia, in our own time. Many of the newcomers were former officials, students, Ph.D.'s from the universities, journalists and others whose previous experience did not fit them in any practical way for the grim business of making a living in the United States. Many found freedom in Amer- ica, but no bread; yet they remained to make their contribution to an emerging America, especially in the field of art, learning, letters, jour- nalism, the professions, and solid, capable craftsmanship. Indeed, many 43 of them believed they had a mission to convert what they considered the cultural wilderness of an American frontier country into a bloom- ing garden in which the finest flowers of European civilization might burst again into full bloom. The Forty-eighters not only wanted to rebuild their own lives in America, but they had the highest ideals for the whole German element in the United States. It is true that for the first few years their eyes turned across the Atlantic in homesickness and in the hope that they might soon be called back to lead the new revolution which never came. For a time, there was a certain German "Fenian" spirit among the Forty-eighters, and many of them worked hard to get financial and other aid for a new uprising, and tried to persuade the United States to abandon its neutrality, and boldly strike out on a new foreign policy to advance the cause of republicanism throughout the world. But these efforts proved unsuccessful, and as the memories of Europe faded with the passing years, the Forty-eighters became integrated into American life, and by the time of the Civil War, large numbers of them gave fervent testimony to their loyalty to their adopted fatherland in the bloody battles to preserve the Union. It is impossible to enumerate the scores of prominent Forty-eight- ers who left their mark upon the America of their day, but they came from many walks of life and attained distinction in many fields. In the space available, one can only suggest briefly some of the fields in which they were particularly active. 1 A number of the most vocal Forty-eighters were freethinking radicals, especially in the field of religion. They revolted against cler- icalism and supernaturalism and what they considered the bigotry of American Puritanism and nativism. They insisted that religion must be reconciled with modern science and philosophy, and they cham- pioned the liberalism of the Continental Sunday in a long struggle with 1. For more details, see Carl Wittke: Refugees of Revolution (Philadelphia, 1952.) 44 American Sabbatarianism. Their views varied from a liberal type of religion to agnosticism and atheism, and they found themselves in sharp conflict with the German Catholic and Lutheran churches, a result which had far-reaching consequences for the German group in America. Their battle against what they called obscurantism and superstition was not always carried out with proper tact and tolerance; it created a rift between the older German immigration and the new; and in the minds of their outraged critics, all Forty-eighters were indiscriminately labelled 'infidels" and "atheists." The German Turner organizations which sprang up in the United States after 1848, as a specific creation of the Forty-eighters, were generally sympathetic with the new ration- alism, and they combined an interest in physical training with an ardent and sometimes intolerant advocacy of radical reforms, which included many socialistic proposals, and sweeping changes in the American sys- tem of government which were calculated to make it more directly responsive to all the people. The German-language press in this country, the most important of all the foreign-language newspapers, experienced a remarkable renaissance as highly educated Forty-eighters either found employment on the older papers, or founded scores of new ones which they made the vehicles of their own special brand of personal journalism. These papers were marked by high standards of journalism. The editorials were often the most important part of the paper; the editors wrote a fine German style, and many considered it to be their main function to educate their readers on a wide variety of subjects, rather than fill their columns with local news and advertising. In the 1850's, when party lines were being redrawn because of the slavery controversy which was rapidly approaching a shooting crisis, the German press played an extraordinarily important role, and even Lincoln for a short time owned a German paper in Springfield, Illinois, and had it edited in the interest of his candidacy among the German voters. In the 45 struggle to preserve the Union, the frustrated idealists of 1848 found a new channel for their moral fervor and their passion for reform. They supported the new Republican party, and that party recognized their importance as political leaders of the German group by establishing a foreign-voters speakers' bureau and issuing campaign literature in German, and many outstanding Forty-eighters, like Hecker, Schurz, Hassaurek, Solger, Thieme and many others actively campaigned for Lincoln. During the Civil War many Forty-eighters took up arms again in what they considered a new struggle for their liberal, humanitarian reforms; hundreds volunteered for military service, and men like Schurz, Sigel, Willich, Blenker, Hecker and others, held commissions in the Union army. The pattern of German social life in this country was greatly en- riched by the leadership of these political refugees. They introduced the Turnvereine; they joined the singing societies and local militia com- panies; they organized dramatic societies to raise the level of the Ger- man theatre in this country; they sponsored libraries and reading clubs and lecture series; and they were the leaders in organizing notable cele- brations throughout the country on the anniversaries of Schiller and Humboldt. Many of them were competent public lecturers and writers on a great variety of subjects. In the field of education, German intellectuals were shocked by the low level of American pedagogy and the inadequacies of the edu- cational system at the time of their arrival in the United States. Fried- rich Knapp established his famous Institute in Baltimore, where he used the pedagogical methods of Pestalozzi, and where in his later days Henry L. Mencken was one of his students. Karl Douai wrote extensive- ly on teaching methods, published textbooks, and was a leader in sev- eral important conventions of German teachers. Franz Sigel taught at a progressive school in New York, and Mrs. Carl Schurz was a pioneer in the kindergarten movement. Physical education and the manual arts, 46 badly neglected at the time in American schools, received the special support of the German element. In the field of medicine, at a time when American medical train- ing left much to be desired, the names of German-trained physicians, like Dr. Hermann Kiefer of Detroit, Dr. Ernst Krackowitzer of New York, Dr. Gustav Brlihl of Cincinnati and Dr. Abraham Jacobi are outstanding. Jacobi was one of our first pediatricians, lectured as a professor of medicine in New York, and founded the Journal of Ob- stetrics. Although his professional duties were numerous and onerous, he remained an outstanding liberal intellectual who gave generously of his time to a wide variety of cultural activities on the part of the German element in America. In the allied field of pharmacy, the Ger- man trained apothecary, who had been trained in the fundamentals of chemistry, and was shocked by the lack of such training for American druggists and the loose system under which they got their licenses, established the Deutsche Apotheke which became an institution in all the leading cities, and guaranteed the services of professional apothe- caries. Similar contributions were made in other fields, such as law and engineering, to say nothing of the vast field of learning and letters. Many of the refugees rurned to law and had little difficulty gaining admission to the bar at a time when standards were still surprisingly low, and some became successful engineers and put the training which they had acquired in the technical schools of Europe to good and profit- able use in the many building projects of a rapidly expanding United States. The list of Forty-eighters whose names became prominent in the United States among the German element and who were known to many beyond their own group included such outstanding political leaders as Carl Schurz, who became a United States Senator and a mem- ber of a president's cabinet; journalists like Karl Heinzen, Gottfried Kellner, Lorenz Brentano, Hermann Raster, Wilhelm Rapp, Julius 47 Frobel, August Becker, Frit2 Anneke, and Christian Esselen; publicists like Gustave Struve; lawyers like Friedrich Kapp; liter ary figures like Carl Heinrich Schnauffer; radical reformers like Wilhelm Weitling; leading pedagogues like Douai and Knapp, and scores of others scat- tered through many professions. All of them were intellectuals of con- siderable achievement; some of them were highly educated in the best universities and technical schools of Germany, and most of them were men of character and integrity, disciplined to think for themselves and to act independently. No group quite like these German emigres of a century ago ever appeared again in the history of American immigration, with the pos- sible exception of some of the intellectuals who came to the United States from Hitler's Germany in our time. Not all the Forty-eighters were successful in their new environment, and among them there was a small proportion of mere adventurers and rolling stones that never would have gathered much moss anywhere. Most of them, however, were successful in finding new roots for their uprooted lives. Their in- fluence was important, and even decisive in politics, especially in 1856 and I860; and in the field of journalism, which was their chief instru- ment for filtering their advanced ideas down to the German masses, many were outstanding. The German press never again reached the standards of excellence and influence which it had during the period of the Forty-eighters, for some of them were among the best educated Americans of their day. If they were sometimes impatient and unwise in the methods they used to express their eagerness for reform and higher cultural values, it is true nevertheless that much that was best in German community life in the United States stems from the Forty- eighter influence. As the Forty-eighters grew older, became Americanized, and lost much of the fire of their youth, the flowering time of German culture in America came to an end. The "spirit of 1848" eventually burned it- 48 self out in the United States, as it did in Germany after the triumph of Bismarck. But while it lasted, the German element in this country enjoyed, for a brief period, the political, social, and cultural leadership of men who were in every sense the literal heirs of Germany's golden age of liberalism and rationalism, in the tradition of Kant, Schiller, Lessing, and Feuerbach. Not their numbers, but their ability and their spirit made the Forty-eighters a unique element in the history of Amer- ican immigration, for it was they who sent the intellectual spark into the rather inert German masses and helped transform them into one of the most important elements in the cosmopolitan American popula- tion of a century ago. 49 Weyerhaeuser and Chippewa Logging Industry By Paul W. Gates The lumber industry with all its picturesqueness, its dramatic quality, the boldness of its developers and the daring courage of its operators has only recently attracted the interest of the scholarly world. One can search the great histories of the past and find few or no allusions to it except where it may have influenced colonial relations. That great reference work, the Dictionary of American Biography, among the many thousands of men whose careers it sketched found space for only eight lumbermen, who mostly rated because of their political career or their philanthropy; and among these eight is not found the one man above all who belonged there. This too, in spite of the fact that the lumber industry constituted one of the largest businesses in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, being outranked only by the cotton goods industry in the num- ber of people employed and by the flour and meal industry in the value of its products. The lumber industry differed from its principal com- petitors in that it was widely scattered in many small plants, there being over 21,000 establishments engaged in the sawing of lumber and the manufacture of wood products. Bangor, Maine, Williamsport, Penn- sylvania, and Glens Falls, New York, were major centers of saw mills. Early mills were crude, they wasted much lumber, employed labor in- 50 efficiently, their machinery was not very modern and their production was small. It was settlement of the treeless prairies of Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, later Kansas and Nebraska and other parts of the Missouri Basin that changed the picture of the lumber industry. Prairie settlers quickly exhausted the meager supply of hardwoods growing along the streams and then sought out the pine for building purposes that existed in such vast abundance in the northern reaches of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. By the hundreds of thousands land seekers were pressing into the prairies of Illinois, the rolling country of central Iowa, the fertile regions farther west, creating an ever-growing demand for pine lumber to construct their homes, their corn cribs and barns. Their needs sent contractors and loggers in increasing numbers into the pineries to cut, bank and drive down the Wisconsin, the Black, the Chippewa and the St. Croix Rivers millions of logs destined for sawing into boards at the newly developing mills on the lower portion of these rivers and on the Mississippi. Nature determined the location of the early river towns by pro- viding sites having water power, easy access to the main stream and hinterland certain to draw population. From St. Paul to St. Louis on the Mississippi was a string of river towns built around saw mills in- cluding Wabasha, Winona, LaCrosse, Prairie du Chien, Dubuque, Clin- ton, Davenport, Rock Island, Moline, Muscatine, Quincy, Keokuk and Hannibal. On the Wisconsin were Wausau, Stevens Point and Port- age; on the Chippewa Eau Claire, Chippewa Falls and Menomonie and on the St. Croix Stillwater and Hudson. Michigan and eastern Wiscon- sin pineries also contributed to meeting this ever-growing demand for lumber but we are concentrating in this account on the lumber industry in the Mississippi Valley and its principal logging tributary, the Chip- pewa Valley. In each of these mill villages one or more of the early saw mill 51 LIBRARY U «^«Sirf OF mm* men survived competition, panics and depressions, price changes, dis- astrous floods and fires and with the ever-growing demand for lumber in the prairies and the extension of railroads enlarged their plant capacity, modernized their equipment and increased their staff to make sure that they secured their share of the market. Where a few thousand dollars sufficed to finance an early mill, after the Civil War it took a number of scores of thousands by mid-century and by the late seventies and eighties three, four and five hundred thousand, even a million, dollars and more to purchase or construct mills with large capacity and modern machinery. Capital needs of this size led to consolidation, part- nership and incorporation. So there emerged a rugged class of mill proprietors whose names were written large in the history of the river towns and, indeed, in the records of the northern pinery counties. Many families have carried over into recent times as leaders not only in in- dustry but in banking, philanthropy, civic leadership and politics. One need only recall the great firms of Laird, Norton & Co. and Youmans Bros. & Hodgkins of Winona, Keator Dimmock & Gould of Moline, C. Lamb & Sons and W. J. Young & Co. of Clinton, P. Musser & Co. and Hershey & Irvine of Muscatine, David Joyce of Lyons, Knapp Stout & Co. of Menomonie, the Eau Claire Lumber Co. of Eau Claire, and Weyerhaeuser & Denkmann of Rock Island. These com- panies and firms constituted the cream of the lumber industry of the Mississippi, their great period of prosperity and development being in the eighties. Long before then, however, they fell afoul of land dealers and speculators in the upper reaches of the river at the same time they came into conflict with the mill men of Eau Claire who wanted to pre- serve the business of sawing lumber from the pine logs for their own mills rather than to see it float down the Mississippi to the mills at Wabasha, Winona, La Crosse, Clinton, Rock Island and Hannibal. Out of this clash with the Eau Claire mill men came the necessity for organizing the down river interests for mutual protection at Madi- 52 son where efforts were made to prevent them from building booms at Beef Slough to sort logs and to deny them free navigation on the Chip- pewa. At the same time the down river mill men, who had never found it necessary to invest heavily in timber land because of its abundance in the pineries now found themselves faced with the fact that the pine lands on the Chippewa were being grabbed up by the Chippewa Falls, Eau Claire and Menomonie mill men and by investors from other re- gions who foresaw that Wisconsin stumpage, because of its location on rivers that flowed through the rapidly growing prairie communities, would rise in value as settlement progressed. The story of the conflict between the Eau Claire interests and the down river men over the control of Beef Slough and the right to run logs down the Chippewa to the Slough for sorting and booming and rafting need not detain us here for it has been well related by Frederick Merk and Robert Fries. 1 The down river mill men were in the fight to the finish for if defeated they would either have to seek logs else- where at greater cost or become mere yarding, distributing and sales agencies for the Chippewa mills. At this point Frederick Weyerhaeuser brought together the owners of the largest mills on the Mississippi for the purpose of gaining control and operating the valuable booming privilege of Beef Slough. Unsuccessful preliminary skirmishes were followed by a legislative stratagem that brought success. The Slough was acquired and made the center of booming and rafting operations of the down river men thereafter. At the same time Weyerhaeuser and other Mississippi mill men organized the Mississippi River Logging Co., perhaps the greatest private river control and log driving company, its capital being set at one million dollars. This company, whose stock of forty or forty-two shares was held by the cooperating mill men, was to run the logs cut by its contractors and by those of its members down 1. Frederick Merk, Economic History of Wisconsin During the Civil War Decade, State His- torical Society of Wisconsin, Publications, Studies, I, (Madison, 1916) ; Robert Fries, Empire in Pine. The Story of Lumbering in Wisconsin, 1830-1900 (Madison, 1951). Agnes M. Larson, His- tory of the White Pine Industry in Minnesota (Minneapolis, 1949), is also useful. 53 the Chippewa in a main drive, thus bringing order in part to the river. Continued rivalry existed between the two groups but the greater or- ganizing ability and economic power of the Mississippi River Logging Co. under Weyerhaeuser 's leadership prevailed. Ultimately, the Missis- sippi River Logging Co. either bought or assimilated most of the Chip- pewa mill interests, thus finally establishing peace. Output of some principal lumber companies in Mississippi Valley 1881. 2 Number Mills Board Feet Knapp Stout & Co., Menomonie 90,000,000 Eau Claire Lumber Co., Eau Claire 5 89,431,000 W. J. Young & Co., Clinton 2 62,000,000 C Lamb & Sons, Clinton 4 61,237,250 Chippewa Lumber & Boom Co., Chippewa Falls 56,450,000 Weyerhaeuser & Denkmann, Rock Island 37,212,400 Few or none of the great mill men of the Mississippi attempted to anticipate their future needs for stumpage by buying from the Federal Government, as did Knapp Stout & Co., the largest individual operating company in the United States, or Isaac Staples of Stillwater, the Eau Claire Lumber Co. or the Pillsburys or other up river mill men. Some large acquisitions of government land by mill men in the Upper Mississippi Valley: Name Location of Mill Acreage Eau Claire Lumber Co. Eau Claire 70,000 Samuel F. Hersey of Hersey & Staples Stillwater 19,000 Judd, Walker & Co. Marine 7,500 Knapp Stout & Co. Menomonie 135,285 Dorilus Morrison Minneapolis 42,000 John, George & Charles Pillsbury Minneapolis 74,000 Pound, Halbert & Co. Chippewa Falls 27,000 Henry C. Putnam Eau Claire 23,000 Isaac Staples Stillwater 105,000 Union Lumber Co. Chippewa Falls 9,000 2. Northtvestern Lumberman, April 1882, pp. 19-25. 54 The reason for this failure to buy timber land when it was avail- able at government prices is difficult to understand, particularly as it was the view of influential contemporaries that the profits in the lum- ber industry came less from the manufacture and sale of lumber and more from the rise in stumpage values. 3 Weyerhaeuser and other down river mill men seemed to prefer not to tie up their funds for any long period of time in land or stumpage, knowing as they did that the land jobber element which bought to anticipate rising prices would have to hold for ten or twenty years before their investments would come into demand, during which time their interest, taxes, losses by fire, blows and theft would be heavy. Furthermore, buying timber land at the government auction just after it was surveyed and before cruisers had worked through it to make estimates of it and long before there was any real demand for it which might justify making careful recon- naissance to determine roughly the amount of pine it held was like buying a pig in a poke. The up river men would use the surveyors' notes and from such other information as came to them as well as their cursory examination of townships in which they might be interested were willing to buy on the gamble that most or a considerable portion of the selections they made would have sufficient pine to make their investment worth while. There was a lot of guess work in early entering of land for its timber at the auction with which the mill men like Knapp Stout & Co., Thorp and Carson were familiar but absentee specu- lators in pine were not, and sometimes they were misled by the land lookers who invested for them. Weyerhaeuser bought timber land only after the most careful examination made personally or by skilled and reliable cruisers by which he knew roughly the amount of good and common white pine and Norway pine. For the long pull investment he had little capital. 3. Northwestern Lumberman, Oct. 22, 1881, p. 1, quoting a Maine lumberman ; April 11, 1885, p. 1, quoting a wealthy Muskegon manufacturer, and July 19, 1890, p. 3, quoting C. T. Hills of Muskegon ; Smith Robertson, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Sept. 2, 1882, to E. L. Williams, Pine land collection, Regional History, Cornell University. 55 Instead he and his associates used their resources to expand their mill capacity, develop retail outlets, and to bring control to the rivers on which they operated through the construction of dams and removal of snags and rocks that would retard log running. They did, however, pursue a policy of buying logs from independent men when the price of logs and lumber was low; when the price was high they logged on their own land. 4 It is not true to say, as some writers have, that Weyerhaeuser never bought land from the government, for he did but he bought very little directly. Not even the exciting auction sales of pine land on the Chip- pewa that were held in 1869 and 1873 induced Weyerhaeuser or other down river men to bid. 5 At the first of these auctions when 76,000 acres were sold there were in attendance and bidding not only repre- sentatives of local interests like Knapp Stout & Co., Thorp Chapman & Co., Philetus Sawyer, Cadwallader C. Washburn, Cyrus Woodman, Henry H. Hewitt, but also some of the most important lumbermen of other areas like Henry W. Sage and John McGraw whose mills in the Bay City, Michigan, area were among the largest in that State. H. M. Early of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, William A. Rust of Saginaw City, Jeremiah W. Dwight of Dryden, New York, and Francis Palms of De- troit. Again, at the sale in 1873 at Eau Claire, with some 100 buyers present none of the much sought pine land went to the down river men. 6 Though the down river mill men showed no great anxiety to an- ticipate their timber needs, other speculatively inclined people, lumber- men from older states, and petty and large capitalists from other sec- tions poured funds into Eau Claire, Hudson, Stillwater and other land 4. Testimony of Artemus Lamb of C. Lamb & Son, Clinton, Iowa, in New York Court of Appeals, In the Matter of the Estate of John McGraw, vol. 3, p. 1131. An example of the type of improvement made in the Chippewa by Weyerhaeuser, Young, Lamb, Youmans and Swift is reported in a clipping from the Chippetva Times of 1878. A twenty foot high dam, 600 feet long, was being built at Little Falls to provide water for floating the logs with a "big splash." 5. Well before Frederick Weyerhaeuser 's death his son, Charles Augustus, purchased 13,000 acres of Chippewa Indian pine lands in Minnesota in 1896. F. O. Hixson of LaCrosse bought 14,000 acres at the 1869 sale and Laird, Norton & Co. made a small purchase. The latter firm bought 6,903 acres of the government on the Flambeau River in 1884. 6. Eau Claire Free Press, Aug. 18, 19, 20, 29, 1873. 56 si -CL ;C^f^ -^ vi, 7- *x«i6iSiWfS^| *rf^* /* 'x 4^A -^£x LETTERHEADS OF EARLY LUMBER COMPANIES offices in northwestern Wisconsin and Minnesota to acquire pine land selected for them by the numerous land lookers who offered their serv- ices for a share of the land. The pine land business assumed large proportions in all three of the lake states with many investors acquir- ing holdings in two or more major watersheds. Those who had capital to carry their investment were generally able to profit while others who had overpurchased and found it difficult to carry their holdings had to sell at a loss. Pine land speculations ran from a few thousand acres to a half million acres though few accumulated holdings of the later size. Francis Palms, Detroit millionaire pine land dealer, purchased from the gov- ernment a total of 286,000 acres of which 112,000 were in Wisconsin, much being on the Chippewa River. In addition, in partnership with Frederick Driggs, he acquired 200,000 acres in the northern peninsula of Michigan. Other large purchasers were Governor Abner Coburn, millionaire lumberman of Maine, Calvin F. Howe, of New York City, Jay Cooke, banker and promoter of the Northern Pacific Railroad, and greatest of them all, Ezra Cornell, wealthy promoter of the telegraph industry and founder of Cornell University for which he made the pine land speculation. A half million acres were acquired by Cornell on the Chippewa River and its branches, making the University the owner of more choice pine land than any other group. Some large purchases of timber land in the lake states by absentees Name Residence Location of Land Acres Orrin T. Higgins Cattaraugus Co., N. Y. Minnesota 50,000 Calvin F. Howe New York Minnesota 105,000 William C. Yawkey Detroit Minnesota 67,000 C. F. Ruggles Manistee, Michigan Minnesota 30,000 John P. Webber Bangor, Maine Minnesota 22,000 Howard Gilliat London, England Minnesota 19,000 Jesse Spaulding and H. H. Porter Chicago Wise & Mich. 118,000 Abner Coburn Skowhegan, Maine Mich., Wise, Minn. 33,000 57 Name Residence Location of Land Acres Darling and Wright Detroit Minnesota 22,000 William S. Patrick Detroit Mich. & Wise 67,000 William A. Rust Mich. & Wise. 38,000 William A. Woodward and family Vails Gate, N. Y. Wisconsin 33,000 William E. Dodge New York Wisconsin 10,000 Charles D. Gilmore Washington, D. C Wise. & Minn. 72,000 Sage & McGraw Ithaca, N. Y. Wise, Mich., Minn. 48,000 McGraw and Dwight Ithaca, N. Y. Wisconsin 34,000 By 1875 proprietors of the great mills of Hershey & Irvine, W. J. Young, C. Lamb & Sons, and Weyerhaeuser & Denkmann, having ex- hausted the lands which were easily picked up from owners lacking the means to carry their investment for the long pull, were ready to come to terms with Cornell University, Francis Palms and other sub- stantial pine land dealers. Their need for pine coincided with the realization even by the strongest holders that they could not hold out much longer without some sales, so pressing were the taxes and other costs of carrying their investment. Ezra Cornell had entered into his large speculation without any experience in the land business or knowl- edge of the lumber industry. He had been bamboozled by his major agent, had been told that the lands selected for him all were covered with dense growths of pine, and had been led to believe that the in- vestment would carry itself and would not need supplementary funds from himself or the University. By 1870 it was apparent he had been misled, the costs were mounting, and early return from the investment was essential if the University were to thrive. At this point two trustees who were thereafter to be largely responsible for the management of the land business undertook to purchase 50,000 acres each for $4 an acre. 7 Their agreement permitted them to select the best of the pine land. It was the 5 0,000 acres, bought jointly by John McGraw and two 7. For the management of the Cornell lands see Paul W. Gates, Wisconsin Pine Lands of Cornell University. A Study in Land Policy and Absentee Ownership (Ithaca, 1943). 58 partners, which the Weyerhaeuser group purchased in 1875 for $10 an acre. Thus had values appreciated in five years. 8 With half a billion feet of pine secured in this transaction and with smaller purchases acquired from other sources the down river men were assured an adequate supply of logs for some time in the diminished market of the seventies. The turn in economic conditions came in 1879 and with it an improved market for lumber. Again the down river men had to bid actively for many hundreds of millions of feet off stumpage, for now they were cutting and running through their sorting and rafting works over 400,000,000 feet of pine logs annually. 9 Increasingly rapid cutting and the beginnings of talk about exhaus- tion resulting from the publication of stumpage figures in the Census Report of 1880 had the effect of sending prices of pine up rapidly and urged haste in picking up first-rate pine land. Yet, indiscriminate com- petition among the big mill users would have been disastrous by play- ing right into the hands of the speculator holders, some of the repre- sentatives of which were bulling the market by exaggerating the danger of early exhaustion. Consequently, the cool hand of Weyerhaeuser and the mutual respect the various members of the pool had for each other tended to avoid the scramble that they might otherwise have fallen into. The new instrument that brought cooperation and generally mutual accord on the Chippewa above Eau Claire was the Chippewa Logging 8. As planned in March, 1875, W. J. Young & Co., and C. Lamb & Sons were each to have one third of the deal and Hershey & Irvine and Weyerhaeuser & Denkmann were each to have one sixth. The mill capacity of the first two named firms were the greatest on the river. H. C. Putnam, of Eau Claire, agent for the Cornell lands and for Sage and McGraw lands owned one tenth interest in the 50,000 acre deal. The profits of this deal from the time of purchase in 1870 to sale to the down river mill men in 1875 were $219,192 over all costs including interest, or more than 100% in less than five years. Putnam also had charge of cutting timber on the land after the down river men had bought it. In this as in many other deals he showed an un- canny facility of making more than one profit on a transaction. Details of the deal are from his correspondence, now partly in the possession of Regional History, Cornell University. 9. Chippetva Herald, Nov. 11, 1881, Nov. 24, 1882, Nov. 16, 1883, and Aug. 7, 1885. Logs Put Through Beef Slough Year Number of board feet of logs 1881 405,000,000 1882 437,000,000 1883 430,000,000 1885 500,000,000 59 Co., called the pool. As in the Mississippi River Logging Co. all the large down river mills had shares in this company, W. J. Young & Co. and C. Lamb & Sons having each six, the Hershey Lumber Co. having five, Weyerhaeuser & Denkmann and Laird, Norton & Co. having four, the Musser Lumber Co. having three and five other mills having a total of eight. The major difference was that the pool also included the Eau Claire mill men whose differences with the down river operators had been so bitter in the past. 10 Major purchasers of Chippewa pine after 1880 were the Missis- sippi River Logging Co., the Chippewa Logging Co., and Knapp Stout & Co., which had come to dominate logging and lumber on the Red Cedar. Individual firms in the pool also bought though not as heavily. For example, W. J. Young & Co., whose six shares in the Mississippi River Logging Co. did not assure an adequate supply of logs, with the aid of eastern capital provided by John McGraw bought 60,000 acres of timbered land in Wisconsin which was estimated to contain 324,000,000 feet of pine. 11 As president and leading figure in the pool Weyerhaeuser spent a good deal of time journeying to New York, Ithaca, Detroit, Wash- ington and elsewhere to negotiate for the purchase of pine land. 12 Deals were made with holders of pine land in Troy, Boston, New York, Wil- liamsport and many other places in the east. Again and again Weyer- haeuser went back to Francis Palms of Detroit, D. M. Peck of Williams- port, Henry W. Sage of Ithaca and Cornell University for pine land. In 1880 he bought some 23,000 acres from Palms at about $10 an 10. Frederick Weyerhaeuser lists the shares held by the down river men and the Eau Claire interests in a letter written at Chippewa Falls, June 21, 1884, to E. L. Williams, Regional History, Cornell University. Included in the list are the Empire, Eau Claire, Valley, Northwestern, Daniel Shaw, Badger State, and Dells lumber companies. 11. New York Court of Appeals, Testimony in the Matter of the Estate of John McGraw, vol. 3, 1072 ff. This collection contains much useful information on the W. J. Young & Co. operations. 12. Three major visits were made by Weyerhaeuser to Ithaca to make deals for land, in 1878, 1885 and 1893. He was accompanied on these trips by the more influential of his associates such as W. J. Young, J. G. Thorp, Edward Rutledge, William Carson. Correspondence in Re- gional History. 60 acre. Three purchases of Sage brought him 10,530 acres in 1882-1885 for which Weyerhaeuser paid a high price of $44 an acre, but he secured some of the choicest and thickest stands of Wisconsin pine which had earlier been selected by H. C. Putnam for Cornell University in 1866 at little more than a dollar an acre in cost and sold in 1870 to Sage for $4 an acre. Next to the choice Sage and McGraw lands Weyerhaeuser wanted most to come to terms with Cornell University over its Chip- pewa lands which contained heavy stands of pine. Already Knapp Stout & Co. had gobbled up a big tract of 30,999 acres on the Red Cedar having 216,000,000 feet of pine for $477,550. Meantime, Weyerhaeuser had made a further step toward bring- ing under control of the down river men the Chippewa River, the stumpage on its drainage basin and the big mills located on it by pur- chasing in 1881 the Chippewa Lumber and Boom Co. at Chippewa Falls for $1,275,000. This was said to be the largest saw mill under one roof in the world. 13 The purchase included 100,000 acres of which one half contained the original stand of pine and the other half had been only partially lumbered over. At the very moment Weyerhaeuser was buying this great mill it was completing purchase of an additional 25,000 acres of pine land. Weyerhaeuser negotiated agreements for the purchase of nine small tracts from Cornell University in 1880-1882 while individual partners in the pool also made a number of small purchases, but the big sale that both sides wished to make was pending for a long time before the two parties could come to terms. Finally, on August 1, 1882, Weyerhaeuser and Sage, Chairman of the Land Committee of the Uni- versity, agreed on the purchase of 109,600 acres containing 597,000,000 feet of pine for $1,841,746, which was probably the largest single sale of pine land up to this time. 14 13. Chippewa Herald, April 8, 1881 ; Historical and Biographical Album of the Chippewa Valley, edited by George Forrester (Chicago, 1891), 85-86. 14. The contract called for $3 per thousand of board feet and fifty cents an acre for the land with a minor abatement. 61 This huge deal did not satisfy Weyerhaeuser for within a few weeks he opened negotiations for the purchase of the remaining lands of the University which he hoped to acquire at the same price, that is $3 per thousand for the pine and fifty cents an acre for the land. The 106,950 acres with their estimated 313,224,000 feet of pine would have brought in an additional tidy sum to Cornell and would have per- mitted ending the land business which took much of the time of the administrators and trustees, but they refused to allow the pine to go for the same price. Instead, they asked $3-50 per thousand which Weyerhaeuser could not bring himself to accept, and the deal fell through, fortunately for the University. Subsequent estimates raised the stumpage to 374,000,000 which brought four, five and six dollars a thousand. Weyerhaeuser and associates were later to buy much of this stumpage at such prices but it should be noted that Cornell had to carry the land with attendant risks and costs for eight and ten years before their market price reached this level. Meantime, fires had gone through part of the land and ruined some of the pine. 15 For the remainder of the eighties and into the nineties Weyer- haeuser and his associated mill men continued to buy from Cornell. The most heavily timbered tract acquired from Cornell was bought by Charles L. Colman of La Crosse. This was a quarter section on the Eau Claire River containing 17,500 board feet to the acre which brought the record price of $83 an acre in 1891. The last substantial sale to the Weyerhaeuser associates was made to Edward Rutledge in 1893. The estimated 27,649,000 feet of pine on 8,625 acres brought $150,000. During this same period the Weyerhaeuser group was picking up tracts great and small from other holders that contained many hundred mil- lions of board feet of pine. The climax of purchasing by the down river men came in 1887 15. Henry W. Sage, Ithaca, Sept. 26, 1882, to Weyerhaeuser, impression copy, Regional His- tory. All figures concerning prices, stumpage and sales of Cornell lands are taken from Convey- ance Record, Wisconsin Pine Land Collection, Regional History, Cornell University. 62 when they negotiated for the purchase of two great companies, Knapp Stout & Co., and the Eau Claire Lumber Co. For a time the purchase of the former seemed to be close to completion, it being rumored that documents had been signed for the transfer to Weyerhaeuser and asso- ciates of all the mills, stumpage and facilities of the Menomonie firm for $7,500,000. Weyerhaeuser himself was opposed to such a price and the deal fell through. 16 While negotiating for Knapp Stout & Co., Weyerhaeuser carried to completion a deal for the purchase of the Eau Claire Lumber Co. with its great mills employing 1800 men and cutting from 75,000,000 to 90,000,000 feet of lumber yearly, and land con- taining more than half a billion feet of pine. 17 Purchase of the mills at Chippewa Falls and Eau Claire and close cooperation with the smaller mills at Eau Claire assured Weyerhaeuser and his partners in the pool integration of lumbering and log driving operations in the entire Chippewa Valley, save on the Red Cedar branch where Knapp Stout was supreme. At the same time the large acquisi- tions of pine stumpage made possible the continued operation of the mills in the pool from Chippewa Falls to St. Louis as long as the pine lasted. There was to be no highly competitive scramble for pine; each cooperating member was assured its share of the winter cut in propor- tion to its investment in the Mississippi River and Chippewa Logging Companies. Yet fair prices were paid for stumpage to the speculative holders who had the foresight to invest in the fifties and sixties. In closing this brief account of the dependence of the saw mill men of the Mississippi on the Chippewa pineries it should be remembered that long before the Chippewa pine was exhausted the down river men were pushing into the St. Croix Valley and elsewhere in the upper reaches of the Mississippi where they were establishing mills at Minne- 16. Northtvestern Lumberman, Sept. 24, 1887, p. 9, Oct. 1, 1887, p. 21 ; Taylor County Star and Neivs, Oct. 11, 1887 ; E. L. Williams, Ithaca, Oct. 18, 1887 ; to W. J. Young, and copy of letter of Frederick Weyerhaeuser, Oct. 7, 1887, to Young, Regional History. 17. Northivestern Lumberman, Sept. 24, 1887, p. 9, Oct. 1, 1887, p. 2 ; Weyerhaeuser to Young as in previous note. 63 apolis and Hayward and at Cloquet on the St. Louis River. In the nineties their operations were largely centered at these mills. By then, the Chippewa Valley was nearly done, so far as the lumber industry was concerned. Again, Weyerhaeuser was one of the central figures in the industry, as still later he was to be in the Pacific Northwest. From the time of his first deal with Cornell University in 1875 until the last in 1893 Frederick Weyerhaeuser was on the best of terms and was held in the highest regard by the officials of Cornell Univer- sity who liked to deal with him because he was scrupulously fair. His visits to Ithaca were looked forward to and every effort was put forth to make them enjoyable. Though Sage and Weyerhaeuser did not al- ways come to agreement in their numerous relations they always held each other in high regard for integrity, judgment, and business ability. 64 WINTER HIKE WITH THE BLACK HAWK HIKING CLUB PICTURE FROM POWWOW DAYS AT BLACK HAWK STATE PARK In T he American Tradition By CONRAD BERGENDOFF \y /hen the descendants of Black Hawk made John Hauberg an W Indian chief it was something more than a gesture of gratitude for his interest in their tribal traditions. It was their way of paying homage to a personality they really admired as a big Brave and who had conquered their hearts in a way different from the white men who had taken away their lands. But more than they realized they paid tribute to the kind of American who has created a new tradition in a wilderness that needed more than settlers to make it a civilization. The elements of a saga are here, waiting for some coming bard to shape into a poem which future generations will recite as they seek to understand the spirit of those who moulded America here in the valley of the Mississippi. For America is more than the story of the Connecticut, or the Hudson, or the Ohio. It is the story of every region of this fair land where men and women have become rooted in the soil and born a fruit peculiar to their environment. Not that they reflect only this or that landscape, but humanity is a mysterious product of earth and sky, plain or mountain, blended with aspirations and yearn- ings defying any chemical analyses. The vintage is here and now, but the seed or root may have had a long history in some other land. Here in the strange surroundings of a new world or new home men and women emerge as personalities within whom the old and new produce the American. 65 Both through his mother and his father John Henry Hauberg inherited a culture indigenous to the land of the Rhine and the Elbe. We too easily picture the immigrants from old lands of Europe as carrying all their possessions in their hands as they landed on Castle Island. In their memories, in their habits, in their hearts they carried the building material of American thought and life! Schooled in the ancient arts of earning a living on land, in forest, or on sea, they needed only the unbounded opportunities of a free and open America for their talents and ambitions. The American tradition reaches far back into the unmeasured memories of a virile race. When in April of 1853 Grandfather John D. Hauberg moved into a log cabin which he had built with a skill learned with axe and saw in the forests of Germany, it was into no empty rooms the family came. "The most precious property," John H. Hauberg recounts, "were the heirlooms which had been brought from across the sea — the big, heavy old trunk which had belonged to Mrs. Hauberg's great great grandmother; the spinning wheel which she inherited from her par- ents; the leather-bound Bible which had been her grandparents'; and the Lutheran hymn book, in leather with silver clasp, the gift of her brother as they were leaving for the New World. Then there was the old cane to be looked after. It had been John D. Hauberg's grand- father's and was doubtless handed to the departing emigrants with a wish for good luck." Symbols, each one of them, of a fortune of the spirit bequeathed by former generations! Symbols of work and faith and worship — and earned leisure. No individual is poor in mind or spirit who can look gratefully back upon great great grandparents. The tributaries of the Mississippi Valley folk rise far off in other uplands. And the Hauberg cabin was the first on this site which once the Potawatomies, the Sauk and Fox roamed. Here these German immi- grants and their descendants would build, first with sod and logs, then 66 with brick and stone. Half a century was to elapse before the mortgage was to be paid off, and by that time a second generation and a third came on the scene. John D.'s son, Marx Detlev had won the heart of the neighbor Frels' daughter, Anna Margaret, and John Henry was one of their nine children. All the elements of pioneer life were there on the virgin soil of Coe Township — the building of homes, the start- ing of schools and churches, the laying out of roads, the care of the sick among neighbors, the beginning of local governments and the interest in national affairs. One breathed the free air of the prairie and looked into the far distances. No Past stood in the way — here the Past belonged to the Indians and they were gone. One could forge his own future here, one could see the rewards of his labor. A new land was opening up, a vast future. Something of the thrill of it was in the new railroad. Something of it was in the growing fields. For a moment the Civil War cast an ominous shadow. But that passed and hopes were bright again. John Hauberg belongs to the pioneers. He loves this land beside the Father of Waters. He has sensed the strength of its people, with their feet on their own ground. Tree and flower speak to him of a good earth. His grandfather once walked 90 miles in one day to claim a portion of these homesteads. His grandson has taught hundreds the joy of claiming the beauties of woodland, prairie, and ravine, as he has led them on the trails of the Black Hawk Hiking Club. To a younger gen- eration he has communicated the enthusiasm he himself long ago ac- quired in preserving the freedom of the American frontier. He has understood the language of the hidden water-fall, of the color of soft maples in autumn, of the timid flower emerging with the melting snow. He knows the joy of the explorer, of the far traveller who makes his fire in the shadows of the mountains, and sleeps in bed-roll under the pines of a northern lake. No wonder a snow-clad mountain range is named for him in the Antarctic! He is content with the simple, essential, 61 joys of those who feel the pulse of life in the seasons and live close to the marvels of Nature. John Henry wrote of his ancestors some years ago, "Church work and community service have been liberally infused into the veins of their descendants — Whether one regards such service, all voluntary and unpaid, as helpful or otherwise, the fact remains: To a very large proportion, they load themselves with it." Of none in the family can it be more true than of himself. Though trained in law and involved in great business enterprises, he has made his business subservient to the art of community service. His work with boys years ago in Sunday School and Fife and Drum Corps have yielded a rich harvest in men who since have become leaders in church and civil service. A beloved and devoted wife shared these interests until today hardly a charitable enterprise exists in this region which has not felt the kindly help of Susan Denkmann and John Hauberg. Their name is enshrined in the Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A., in the Library building of Augustana College, in the Hauberg Camp on the Mississippi, and in countless hearts known only to their benefactors. We would be justified in speaking of the Hauberg tradition when we think of the making of the American tradition. For the patronage of arts and letters is in the best American tradition — a sort of noblesse oblige which in the New World is not the quality of an inherited aris- tocracy but the achievement of a spirit which is interested in all that is noble, beautiful, inspiring. Today it is not uncommon that a peculiar kind of vulgarity is espoused by some people who have wealth but do not know how to use it. Sometimes Europeans make merry of the newly rich and their antics. But may we not hope that the Hauberg tradition will become the American tradition? For it sees wealth as a responsi- bility, and an opportunity for a rich life, rich because it enriches the lives of others. In only one respect do we envy the riches of the Hau- 68 berg type — the riches of friendships, which have accumulated through the years, faster than any compounding of interest. It is characteristic of this type of happiness which finds its fulfill- ment in the homely, earthy, simple pleasures, that it recognizes the essentials as opposed to the trivialities of life. The encouragement of these essentials is itself a sign of faith in them and of their importance. But it reveals itself also in the avocations which claim one's interest. Two of John Hauberg's intense interests illustrate his character. Why his long standing desire to know completely the story of Black Hawk? Is it not because here in the valley of the Rock and Mississippi Rivers was played out the tragedy of the red man? Was this the inevitable result of the meeting of Indian and white man? May it be that we have not yet learned the secret of the relationship of the races on one com- mon earth? The Indian Museum in Black Hawk State Park is the work of John Hauberg, and a tribute to a people and a leader misunderstood and mistreated by those who robbed them of their lands. Is there here a silent question mark posed to America today as it meets other peoples and other races in places far away? Is it not a part of the American tra- dition to learn from the Past? Equally illuminating is John Hauberg's other love — Abraham Lincoln. He is a Lincoln scholar, a collector of Lincoln lore. He is affectionately regarded by the historians of this state and of its greatest son. How has he attained this national distinction? Is it because himself a son of the soil he understands this hero of the prairies? There is an affinity of spirit which spans centuries and continents. It makes those of like ideals kin with one another. No man can love Lincoln and fol- low his every move who does not deep within himself share the thoughts and hopes of this friend of man. It is of course easy to follow the American tradition by paying lip service to Abraham Lincoln. But some there are who find in Lincoln the embodiment of their own best thoughts and fairest dreams of what America may be. 69 Not unlike Lincoln is Hauberg's own affirmation of faith. A half century ago he noted in a little album, "What's in a name, What's in a Life? ( Is it worth while?' is often asked, 'We die as beasts nor rise again, 'Once dead and everything is past'" ff I hold it true there is a Guide Whom we should serve with meekness here Nor always ask the reason why Whene'er the purpose is not clear." How far need one go to find these great satisfactions of a true American? John Hauberg has found them in the valley of the Missis- sippi — on the high prairie east of Hampton where his forefathers built a stone homestead overlooking the "Docia"; in Rock Island County where he knows every noble cause that moves the heart and every secret place where spring flowers first appear; on every trail where the Black Hawk Hiking Club renews its love of God's great garden; on the height of Black Hawk's Watch Tower where the Past still speaks; in Illinois, the land of Lincoln. He has found them in the old family photograph album, in the large bulky family Bible, in his own library where each book recalls a friend and where his own voluminous notes on his experiences add their wisdom to this treasure trove. He has found them in the far view over the fields of the neighbors to the eastward, from the ancestral home, and from his own home, in the far view over the Mississippi to the westward. There the sun sets and he hears the refrain of "circle" at the end of the day on the Big Hike: Day is done Gone the sun From the lake, From the hills, From the sky. All is well. Safely rest. God is nigh. 70