Lincoln's Resolute Unionist: Hamilton Gamble, Dred Scott Dissenter and Missouri's Civil War Governor (review)

In Lincoln's Resolute Unionist, Dennis K. Boman provides a detailed and closely researched account of the career of an obscure, yet important, figure. Called out of semiretirement to fill the gap left by the abdication of Missouri's elected governor and legislature, Hamilton Gamble proved an able and conscientious administrator. Furthermore, Boman argues, Gamble, by his statesmanlike commitment to the "rights of all Missourians," both "secured Missouri for the Union" and contributed to the efficient prosecution of the war in the western theater (xi, 240).

Hampered somewhat by a dearth of sources—Gamble left no journal or diary—Boman relies at times on supposition to explain Gamble's motivations. Nonetheless, his use of published and unpublished legal histories, as well as court cases themselves, permits Boman to trace the roots of Gamble's political moderation to his early career. Reared and educated in Virginia, Gamble was resentful, like many Southerners, of Northern interference with the institution. Nonetheless, he prioritized social stability and the rule of law over proslavery partisanship in his legislation as state representative and his decisions as judge.

As the sectional crisis worsened, Gamble continued to maintain the commitment to "limited government and clearly defined spheres of authority," which, according to Boman, he had demonstrated in his dissent from the proslavery majority opinion in Scott vs. Emerson (89). Finding that despite compromise efforts, conflict between secessionists and Unionists had resulted in the "hurried departure" of the governor and legislature, and left Missouri without a government, Gamble took the lead in organizing the state convention and was soon appointed provisional governor (111).

In his discussion of the war years, Boman's evidence base strengthens. Correspondence between Gamble, his generals, and state and federal officials allows a fuller treatment of various political controversies and a clearer explanation of Gamble's intent. As governor, Gamble opposed secession, and although he likely mistrusted Lincoln's Republicanism, he proved willing to support the president in "coercing" the South (104). He quickly mobilized the state for war by his management of state resources freeing federal troops to attack the Confederacy. Given the partisan warfare that surfaced within the state itself, Gamble found himself confronted with an additional set of difficulties, which he met, Boman suggests, with much the same concern for the law and the public good that he had earlier exhibited. Although he ultimately found it necessary to order officers to kill suspected guerrillas found "with arms in their hands" and to propose various schemes for gradual emancipation, he consistently maintained an opposition to the radical methods proposed by Republican statesmen (156).

Boman's biography of Gamble offers an interesting portrait of an individual who, in a state divided between radicals and secessionists and plagued by brutal partisan violence, attempted both to aggressively further the Union war effort and forestall disruptive social change. In shedding new light on an obscure figure, and on Missouri's internal politics, Boman also adds to the reader's understanding of the tension and cooperation between the priorities of the Lincoln administration and the state governments of the border states.