Michigan Civil War Blog

Nearly 150 years ago ...

Two short of that, to be exact, General R.E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to forces under command of General U.S. Grant. The two years leading up to that point -- could anyone have seen that the war in Virginia would be over, in some 700 more days, on that April 9th of 1863? So long a time period, and yet so short.

Grant had a number of Michigan connections. We'll take a look at those over these next few months, so stay tuned.

War on the Waters, II

What would you say if you stumbled across an artifact from one of our Nation's wars that you never expected to see on your home turf? For example, would you be shocked if you were walking through your town's central park and there, mounted for all to see for many years but always overlooked, was ... George Washington's sword ... Teddy Roosevelt's hat and glasses ... George S. Patton's sidearms ... Norman Schwartkopf's uniform ... a piece of the World Trade Center ... or some other memento that evokes in its physical presence what words alone can never bring alive?

In Michigan, unbeknownst to most, are at least a half-dozen such artifacts from what is arguably the most memorable U.S. Navy ship of the Civil War. Not the Monitor, for its fame derives largely from one battle. No, the vessel in question is the U.S.S. Hartford, the flagship of the most famous Northern admiral, David Farragut. Years after the war, when the ship was being scrapped, a congressman representing northern Michigan somehow designated a number of the ship's Dahlgren cannons for removal to his district. At least several remain.

Where? Petoskey, Harbor Springs, Mackinaw City, Cheboygan, Boyne City, and Gaylord all are said to be home to at least one.

If you can find them out, let us know where they are ...

And just to be clear, this ain't no April Fools joke.

War on the Waters, I

Craig Symonds' 2008 Lincoln and His Admirals is truly an admirable book. Beyond the Monitor and the Merrimack, beyond the Kearsarge and the Alabama, beyond almost all other short-hand accounts of the naval aspect of the Civil War, the book tells the fulsome story of ships and their role in the conflict. How many Civil War enthusiasts know that African-Americans served aboard U.S. Navy ships from the beginning of, even before, the War? How many understand Lincoln's approach to naval affairs? How many have looked at the OR but not the ORN? This is a classic volume that belongs in every Civil War library.

Did Michigan have any role in this sphere? The book makes a mention, at page 301: "That night a large crowd, led by the band of the 27th Michigan regiment, marched to the White House to serenade Lincoln in celebration of Grant's presumed victory in the Wilderness." Oops: that's an infantry unit! Guess you have to go to Michigan and the Civil War: A Great and Bloody Sacrifice to find out.

But post no. 2, to emerge in the next few days, will tell a story about Michigan and the naval side of things that neither book mentions ...

Civil War Symposium: 1863, The Turning Point of the Civil War

On April 6, a Civil War Symposium sponsored by the Friends of Michigan History, Inc. and the Michigan Historical Center will be held at the Center, 702 West Kalamazoo, Lansing, from 8:00 AM - 2:30 PM. The Schedule is: 

8:00 AM – 9:00 AM – Registration and Refreshments

9:00 AM – 9:15 AM - Welcome – Sandra S. Clark, Michigan Historical Center Director; Welcome - Keith G. Harrison, Friends of Michigan History Inc. Board Member & Michigan Civil War Sesquicentennial History Partners Chair

9:15 AM – 9:20 AM - Sandra Clark - Introduction of Keynote Speaker

9:20AM – 10:20 AM – Keynote Presentation - Dr. Roger Rosentreter, MSU Professor of History

10:30 AM – 11:30 AM: Early Concurrent Session

Women in the Civil War - Dr. Marilyn Culpepper, Retired MSU Professor of American Thought and Language

Food during the Civil War - Mr. Eric Perkins, Michigan Historical Center Historian

Tools and Resources to Research the Civil War - Mr. Mark Harvey, State Archivist & Mr. Jesse Lasorda, Lansing Historian

Recent Books on the Civil War - Mr. Mark Hoffman, Civil War Author & Michigan Department of Natural Resources Chief Administrative Officer

Lunch Break

11:45 AM – 12:45 PM: Concurrent Morning Sessions

The Battle of Gettysburg Revisited - Mr. David Finney, Renowned Civil War Historian & Retired Farmington Hills Teacher

President Lincoln – A Portrait in Time - Mr. Rick Brown, Lincoln Historian

The 102nd United States Colored Troops - Mr. Jerome Peebles, 102nd USCT Historian

1:30 PM – 2:30 PM: Concurrent Afternoon Sessions

The Siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi and the Battle of Gettysburg from a Geographer’s Perspective - Mr. Morris Thomas, MSU Professor of Geography

International Intrigue or "Cotton was not King” - Dr. Tim McLin, LCC History Professor

Women in the Civil War - Mr. Bruce Butgereit, History Remembered, Inc Executive Director & Michigan Civil War Sesquicentennial History Partners Board Member.

The Michigan Cavalry Brigades and Weapons of Mass Destruction - Mr. & Mrs. Gary Christmann, Retired Educators.

The cost is $20.00 per person (includes, registration, box lunch, and free parking). Contact: Keith Harrison, Treasurer, Friends of Michigan History, Inc at pcinc@prodigy.net or by telephone at 517-694-9394.

"Among the Enemy"

That's the title of a talk on the relationship between Union occupation troops and Southern civilians to be given by Mark Hoffman, Civil War scholar, author of My Brave Engineers, the First Michigan Engineers & Mechanics, and State administrator in the Department of Natural Resources, at the 55th annual Local History Conference of the Historical Society of Michigan. He's the luncheon keynote at noon on Saturday, March 23, with info available at www.hsmichigan.org or by calling 800-692-1828. Highly recommended!

The Ante-Bellum Democratic Governors of Michigan: 3

Continuing our time travel into the Civil War record of these statesmen, today we look at John Steward Barry:

"Governor of Michigan from 1842-1844 and 1849-1850. A Jeffersonian Democrat from New England, Barry moved to Michigan in 1834 and built his home in Constantine shortly afterward. While maintaining his mercantile and gubernatorial interests, Barry won election as a state senator in 1837 and served until his candidacy." (Source: Michigan Historic Sites Online).

According to the 1892 Portrait and Biographical Album of Ingham & Livingston Counties, “He was twice Presidential Elector, and his last public service was that of a delegate to the National Democratic Convention held in Chicago in 1864.  …  His political connections were always with the Democratic party, and his opinions were usually extreme.  Mr. Barry retired to private life after the beginning of the ascendancy of the Republican party, and carried on his mercantile business at Constantine.”

This is a bit of a contrast to Hershock's The Paradox of Progress, which says that his 1854 candidacy for governor was on a platform that included the principle of Congressional non-interference in the domestic legislation of the States and Territories (p. 134). He was a victim of a "political revolution in Michigan" (p. 135) when the Republican candidate, Kinsley Bingham, took 53% to Barry's 47%. Yet he himself was opposed to the extension of slavery (p. 9). When he ran in 1860, he lost to Austin Blair 57-43 (p. 269).

But what did he do during the war, especially in that first year, like Douglas?

The Bentley is apparently not of much help; his papers consist of "Land patents, 1850-1851. 2 oversize items and one photograph."

Wikipedia says this, but without sources: "Throughout his career, he was a supporter of the Wilmot Proviso, intended to stop the spread of slavery, but he remained a member of the Democratic Party, becoming sympathetic with the 'ultra' wing during the Civil War."

Concluding this little series, one is left with the idea that the Democratic ex-governors did not take the Douglas tack. Rather than support the war effort as the Little Giant did, it appears they stayed on the sidelines.

Coming to Fremont

March 7 , 2013, 7:00 p.m.

Jack Dempsey will give a talk based on his book Michigan and the Civil War: a Great and Bloody Sacrifice which was a 2012 Michigan Notable Book title.  Community Room at the Fremont Area District Library, 104 E. Main Street, Fremont, MI 49412, 231-924-3480.

The Ante-Bellum Democratic Governors of Michigan: 2

Continuing our journey back in time to see what the ante-bellum Democratic Governors of Michigan did during the Civil War, today we find:

“Robert McClelland served in the Michigan Constitution Convention of 1835 and was elected to the state legislature in 1837. He became mayor of Monroe in 1841, was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1845, and in 1851 was elected governor of Michigan. He was appointed Secretary of the Interior by President Pierce in 1853. He served for four years.” (Source: Michigan Historic Sites Online)

This doesn’t tell us what he did during the Civil War. The Biographical Dictionary of the United States Congress says after his Interior post he “resumed the practice of law in Detroit, Mich.” and was a “delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 1848, 1852, and 1868.” So he apparently did not participate in 1860 or 1864. According to the Dictionary of American Biography, Volume XI, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1933, “In 1857 McClelland returned to Michigan, settling down in Detroit to twenty-three years of legal practice. He returned to public service briefly in 1867 as a member of the Michigan constitutional convention. In personality he was always plain and unprepossessing; his manners were somewhat brusque and forbidding; and he was regular and painstaking in his mode of life to an extent which in his later years became proverbial among his neighbors.”

The Elmwood Cemetery website, where he was interred, adds this: “On the eve of the Civil War he advocated moderation and compromise.”

According to the website for distinguished alums of Dickinson College, “McClelland became, among other things, a strong advocate for states' rights, including the right of a state to permit slavery. His star rose in the party and he represented Michigan in several national conventions. He also was an active member of the constitutional convention in Michigan in 1850 and the chair of the state Democratic Convention that year. In 1851, he was elected governor of Michigan and re-elected by an even greater majority in 1852 [defeating Zachariah Chandler]. Soon after, having noted his active part in his presidential election, President Franklin Pierce named him to the cabinet as Secretary of the Interior. In that position, McClelland advised the president to follow his neutral policy concerning Kansas, but most of his recommendations for reform made little progress. Nonetheless, he built a reputation for organization and honesty in a previously chaotic and corrupt department. After James Buchanan's inauguration in 1857, McClelland retired to a long and successful private practice in Detroit. He sat again in a Michigan state constitutional convention in 1867.”

An excellent work by Martin J. Hershock, distinguished history professor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, entitled The Paradox of Progress about the 1837-1878 period in Michigan, says McClleland blamed Republicans for creating the secession crisis in late 1860 (p. 162) and in turn was accused of disloyalty (p. 169). McClelland battled abolitionism (p. 170), criticized the conduct of the war (p. 171), and lamented the Emancipation Proclamation.

Without more research, the conclusion seems to be that he then laid rather low during the rest of the conflict. But the online summary of his papers at the Bentley Historical Library holds a hint: "The collection includes Latin salutatory for the opening of Dickinson College, 1829, biographical sketch, letter, 1861, to Augusta McClelland affirming his strong loyalty to the Union, two notebooks containing campaign speeches and notes on the Civil War”. Those documents might shed light on the matter and help make a more complete assessment.

From the Keweenaw to Green Bay

Today, 150 years ago, President Lincoln signed into law an Act of Congress "granting lands to the States of Michigan and Wisconsin, to aid in the construction of a 'military road' from Fort Wilkins, Copper Harbor, Kewenaw county, in the State of Michigan, to Fort Howard, Green Bay, in the State of Wisconsin."

The military wagon road would originate at Fort Wilkins, proceed to Houghton and Portage Lake and "thence, in a southerly direction, to the State line of Wisconsin."

The Ante-Bellum Democratic Governors of Michigan: 1

The topic of the pre-Civil War Michigan Democratic Governors' activities during the conflict occurred to me recently when reading about the role that Stephen A. Douglas played in the 1860 election. Once it was apparent to him that he would not win, and then in the months after Lincoln's election and through the Fort Sumter crisis, Douglas played a pro-Union and anti-secession role until his untimely death. So the question occurred: what did Michigan's ex-Governors who were of the Democratic party do once the Civil War broke out? We will head backwards in time as we take up each one in turn ...

Today we look at the last Dem to hold the highest office before the Republican ascendancy:

"Andrew Parsons was born in Hoosick, New York, in 1817. In 1836 he settled in Shiawassee County and at the age of nineteen was elected the first county clerk. After holding a number of county and state offices, Parsons in 1852 became a regent of the University of Michigan. The same year he was elected lieutenant-governor, and he became acting governor in March 1853 upon the resignation of Governor Robert McClelland. The formation of the Republican party in 1854 badly split the Democratic forces and perhaps accounted for Parsons's failure to receive the gubernatorial nomination. Instead, Parsons was elected to the state legislature from Shiawassee County. He fell ill during the legislative session of 1855 and returned to Corunna, where he died on June 6, 1855." (Source: Michigan Historical Marker text, registered Site S0295; erected 1969; location: 318 McNeil Street, Corunna)

That answers that, sadly. Governor Parsons, the "boy Clerk", was gone long before the War.