Lincoln and Oregon Country Politics in the Civil War Era

6. Lincoln and the Oregon Country, 1865 and Beyond

145 Chapter 6: Lincoln and the Oregon Country: 1865 and Beyond D r. Anson G. Henry’s itchy feet of ambition were burning again. He had worked energetically to get his good friend Abraham Lincoln reelected in 1864. That had occurred. Now, his own ambitions were pushing to the forefront. He had been surveyor-general in Washington Territory for nearly three and a half years. That position had been satisfying, but now it was time to move up. To achieve that dream, he had to make another time-consuming and sometimes dangerous trip to Washington, D. C. There, he would see his good friend Mr. Lincoln and plead his case. In the next few weeks, Lincoln’s closest personal link with the Oregon Country would be disconnected and rearranged, with the indefatigable political doctor now at the president’s back door. Indeed, in the five months following Lincoln’s reelection in November 1864, his connections with the Oregon Country nearly disappeared. Both ends of the linkage seemed burdened with too many changes. Lincoln’s heavy duties of keeping the Union ship afloat and bringing the ruinous war to a close sidelined nearly all other pressing obligations. He had little or no time for the West and Pacific Northwest, including Oregon and the territories. At the western end, Lincoln’s appointed governors—Pickering, Lyon, and Edgerton—were, as we have seen, all struggling in territories where Democratic majorities, including thousands of Copperheads, were opposing their Republican policies. Lincoln’s political friends were also off-scene—Baker dead, David Logan nowhere to be found, and Simeon Francis strangely silent and uncommunicative. Would Lincoln’s ties to the Oregon Country virtually fall apart and disappear? Lincoln and Oregon Country Politics in the Civil War Era 146 h h h The ambitious Dr. Henry did not want the Lincoln connections to fall away. He desired, in fact, to close the gap between himself and Lincoln. He wanted more than he currently had. After loyally serving Lincoln in Washington Territory and pushing for the president’s reelection, Henry thought he deserved advancement. For a dozen years he had pushed for Whig and Republican interests through support of partisan and patronage decisions in the Oregon Country; now, the good doctor headed to the nation’s capital to cultivate more diligently his own political garden. That meant getting to his friend in the White House, as Henry had in 1863, to urge patronage decisions on the president, including a new plum for himself. Who could know the disappointments and tragedies that lay in wait for both the political doctor and the man in the White House? Henry secured a leave in December 1864, headed for San Francisco, and made for Washington, D.C., where he arrived early the next February . As he embarked for California, he reiterated his dream in the Dr. Anson G. Henry was a lifelong friend of Abraham and Mary Lincoln. He became Lincoln’s strongest, most enduring political link to the Oregon Country in the 1850s and 1860s. Lincoln appointed him surveyor-general of Washington Territory. Henry’s life ended tragically a few weeks after Lincoln’s assassination. (Oregon Historical Society Research Library, image 9152.) LINCOLN AND THE OREGON COUNTRY: 1865 AND BEYOND 147 first of a set of revealing letters to his supportive wife, Eliza. “I have no misgivings about being able to accomplish all I hoped for when I left home,” he wrote. In a second letter sent days later from San Francisco, Henry was more specific—and yet mysterious. “I feel very confident of realizing all reasonable expectations in regard to matters in Washington Territory.” He was sure, he told Eliza, that he could “secure the mission to Honolulu,” but he still hoped for “the Miracle we talked of.” Was Henry expecting a cabinet position or, less ambitiously, to be named the bureau chief, for example, of Indian affairs? Most certainly he wanted a westerner—or two—to be high up in Lincoln’s cabinet or among his chief advisors.1 Early in February Dr. Henry was in Washington, D.C., “flourishing largely on Mrs. Lincoln’s capital.” He had been recognized in Washington, albeit rather awkwardly, as Mary Lincoln’s escort, and he was becoming well acquainted with the new senator from Oregon, George H. Williams. But he had been unable to talk with the president, and acrimonious divisions over patronage between Henry and Governor Pickering and...