The Politicization of Union Soldiers in the Midwest

On February 14, 1863, Illinois representative Isaac Funk delivered a scathing rebuke to antiwar Democrats in the state legislature. He denounced the new majority party as traitors and secessionists. Anger over the continuing war, especially the recent issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, had led Democrats to a victory in elections the previous fall. Many of the new legislators who took their seats in this new session were not only Democrats, but Peace Democrats. These "Copperheads," Funk and many others believed, were prepared to make substantial cuts to the state's war effort and might even push for western secession. Facing electoral rejection for the first time since the war had begun, Republicans like Funk took the offensive. Funk aligned himself with the soldiers, crying out "for the lives of our brave volunteers in the field … the widows and orphans at home." And what was the source of those widows and orphans? "Traitors and villains in this senate," he stated, "killing my neighbors' boys now fighting in the field." The speech was reprinted as a part of the pamphlet, The Loyalist's Ammunition, which contained commentary on the gallery around Funk, highlighting the "tremendous cheering" and announcing that the publisher "never before witnessed so much excitement in an assembly."¹

More than generating a reaction in Illinois, Funk's attacks on Copperheadism at home and in the government stirred the hearts of many soldiers. James C. Rice, referring to the "gloriously eloquent and patriotic speech," implored Funk to continue, saying, "you must hush the voice of treason at the North, and at the South, we will hush it, under God & General Hooker with the bayonet." J. H. Wickizer reported that Funk's "great speech in the Senate" had "been read with enthusiastic cheers, around a thousand campfires. It has strengthened their hearts and nerved them." Funk received a number of similar sentiments from other soldiers, echoing a belief that those at home who defended the cause were as much a part of the war effort as the soldiers themselves. Captain A. B. Conway, an Illinois native serving in the 10th Iowa, felt sufficiently moved not only to distribute the address among his men but also to write to Funk to express gratitude for the sentiment. "I read it with pleasure," he wrote in support to Funk, "& handed it over to my men to read. Every man in my company shall read it or hear it read … that speech does them as much good as two months wages." Funk's papers, deposited at the Illinois State Library, consist mainly of congratulatory letters in response to that particular speech, many from Union soldiers such as Captain Conway.²

A speech like Funk's was not simply a morale boost, but rather part of a greater struggle to maintain northern support for the war, one that directly involved the soldiers. Traditionally the army had remained separated from politics in American society, a distance that many soldiers identified and expected to keep upon their enlistment. By 1864, though, soldiers from states across the Union were voting in the presidential election, and directly involved themselves in American politics in a variety of other ways. The process of bringing soldiers from the Lower North, Union states bordering the Ohio River, into politics reflected the region's unique political circumstances. Heightened political divisions, particularly surrounding the presence of a strong antiwar "Copperhead" movement provided opportunities for politicians to engage Union soldiers, highlighting the differences between prowar Republicans and "secesh" Democrats. This culminated with the extension of voting rights to some Union soldiers in 1863 and 1864, as well as additional efforts to directly influence the votes of civilians throughout the war. The process of soldiers' politicization, bringing them into the political process and driving them into the waiting arms of Republican candidates, was driven in this region by the Copperheads' loud and obvious presence.

The states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, are part of a region Civil War historians have taken to calling the "Lower North." Recent work, such as Christopher Phillips's The Rivers Ran Backward, connects these states to a larger middle...