"Destined to produce [a] ... revolution": Michigan's Iron Ore Industry in the Civil War

THE MICHIGAN HISTORICAL REVIEW 39:2 (Fall 2013): 21-49.© 2013 by Central Michigan University. ISSN 0890-1686 All Rights Reserved. “Destined to produce [a] . . . revolution”: Michigan’s Iron Ore Industry in the Civil War by Terry Reynolds These ores seem destined to produce an entire revolution in the iron trade of this country… (“Iron Ores of Lake Superior,” Chicago Tribune, Feb. 23, 1864) The records of our industrial pursuits exhibit probably no such example of the rapid development of any industry, as… the progress of iron ore mining in Michigan. (Bulletin of the American Iron & Steel Association, 2, Dec. 11, 1867) Three times in 1860, miners in the recently opened iron ore pits of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula went on strike. Their actions, largely peaceful, attracted no attention outside of the immediate region. Local mine agents quickly and quietly settled the conflicts without external interference, either by discharging the striking miners or by agreeing to small wage increases.1 In 1864 and 1865 the story was different. In June 1864 and in July 1865, Michigan’s iron miners struck again. In both cases the strikes turned vicious, with strikers threatening not only the mines but the port city of Marquette, 12 to 15 miles distant, where agents of the iron mining companies had their offices. In both cases the threat of violence led to the dispatch of federal troops and a federal gunboat, the U.S.S. Michigan, to restore order and to protect property.2 The contrast between the pre-Civil War strikes of 1860 and those of 1864 and 1865 illustrate in a nutshell the Civil War’s impact on Michigan’s nascent iron ore industry. Before the war, the industry’s limited importance meant events at the iron mines attracted little 1 F. P. Mills to H. B. Tuttle, March 3, 1860, “Agency at Marquette, Letters, 1860,” Item 2724, MS 86-100, Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company Collections, Archives of Michigan, Northern Michigan University repository, Marquette, Michigan (hereafter CCI); R. Nelson to Tuttle, March 12 and May 13, 1860, ibid.; Peter White to Tuttle, March 12, 1860, “Letters, T-Z, 1860,” ibid.; and Tuttle to Samuel L. Mather, July 5, 1860, “H. B. Tuttle’s Letters, 1860,” ibid. 2 See notes 87 and 93 for documentation of the 1864 and 1865 strikes. 22 The Michigan Historical Review attention outside the region. By the end of the war, however, the industry had achieved sufficient importance to merit the dispatch of naval vessels and troops to keep the mines in operation. The Civil War provided the stimulus needed to transition Michigan’s iron ore industry from marginality to importance. It affected Michigan’s iron mining region in at least five major ways. First and foremost, wartime demand for Michigan ores accelerated ore and charcoal iron production in existing mines and furnaces and prompted the emergence of new mining and furnace ventures. Second, wartime demand increased the ties between the ore producing companies operating in the Upper Peninsula and blast furnace operators in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio—soon to be the heart of the American iron and steel industry. These ties included not only extended commercial ties but also improved transportation links. Third, the war accelerated investment in Michigan mines. Fourth, the growing scale of ore production led to the first tentative moves toward mechanization in Michigan’s iron mines. Fifth, and finally, the war’s production pressures exacerbated labor shortages and dramatically increased the scale of the region’s labor problems.3 Michigan’s Iron Region in 1860 Michigan’s ante-bellum iron ore industry was small, consisting of only three mines opened between 1847 and 1858. The mines, located in the “Siberia of Michigan,” as the Upper Peninsula was sometimes called, had only tenuous connections to the mainstream of American commerce and industry.4 A single-track railroad, completed in 1858, linked the mines to the small port town of Marquette, described as “a lonesome and forlorn looking place” by an 1858 immigrant. Its population was around 500. Ishpeming, site of two of the mines and not yet formally named, could scarcely be called a “settlement,” with no 3 The only previous account of the impact of the...