Lincoln and Oregon Country Politics in the Civil War Era

Preface

ix Preface One day after the presidential elections in November 1864 Abraham Lincoln telegraphed the tentative results to his wonderfully opinionated but supportive old friend from Springfield, Dr. Anson G. Henry, in faraway Washington Territory. Lincoln told the political doctor that it looked increasingly likely he had been reelected to a second term. Lincoln’s strong connection to Dr. Henry personalizes the president’s persisting political links to the Oregon Country, stretching back nearly two decades to the mid-1840s. Although Lincoln spent but a few days west of the Mississippi River and never traveled farther west than eastern Kansas, he had a demonstrable impact on the politics of the American West, his influences radiating out even to the most distant of the western subregions, the Oregon Country, or the Pacific Northwest. This brief volume traces these increasingly strong political bonds between Abraham Lincoln and the Oregon Country. It is primarily a study of political history, although discussions sometimes spill over, in abbreviated form, into other areas such as Indian relations, military policies, and North-South ideological conflicts. Lincoln’s fingerprints on the Oregon Country appear clearly in his political connections with the region. In fact, no national figure did more than Abraham Lincoln to shape regional politics in the Oregon Country in the 1860s. The story moves chronologically from the 1840s to the mid-1860s— and then beyond. The first chapter traces Lincoln’s and Oregon’s pre1850 experiences and the Illinois politician’s contacts with the Far Corner. Chapter 2 treats Lincoln’s connections with the Oregon Country in the 1850s, especially through his friendships with Illinoisans who had moved to Oregon: David Logan, Dr. Henry, Simeon Francis, and Edward D. Baker. The crucial election of 1860 and Lincoln’s roles nationally and in the Pacific Northwest are the subject of Chapter 3. The book’s longest section, Chapter 4, deals with Lincoln and the Oregon Country in the Civil War years, from 1861 to 1864. Chapter 5 discusses Lincoln’s actions and successes in his reelection of 1864. The final section, Chapter 6, focuses on Lincoln’s last months and more extensively on the Oregon Country’s reactions to his tragic assassination and the region’s Lincoln and Oregon Country Politics in the Civil War Era x gradual memorializing of Lincoln, especially in the Lincoln centennial and bicentennial celebrations. The concluding bibliographical section features extensive discussions of the major sources for this study and includes a thorough listing of these books and essays. This short study advances a central thesis about Abraham Lincoln, the Oregon Country, and the Civil War. For well over a century, historians have portrayed most westerners, and nearly all inhabitants of the Oregon Country, as distant spectators, uninvolved in the events and discussions that divided the United States leading to and within its most fractious years of conflict. That view no longer serves well in understanding the ties between Abraham Lincoln and the Oregon Country during the Civil War era. Instead, the Pacific Northwest tied itself to the nation, including links to politics, Indian relations, military policies, civil and legal rights, and northern and southern sociocultural conflicts. This volume attempts to illuminate the clear connections between the East and West by focusing on Lincoln’s political connections to the Oregon Country. Rather than uninvolved spectators, residents of the Pacific Northwest reacted strongly to national ideas and events of the Civil War years. Their political bonds with Lincoln are but one clear indication of their participation in national happenings in the Civil War era. This book also serves as an exemplar of what historian Elliott West terms the Greater Reconstruction. West contends that we need to rethink and rewrite mid-nineteenth-century American history in order to demonstrate that the two most important events of the time—the expansion of the American West and the Civil War—were not separate, isolated events. Instead they were joined experiences, mutually shaping one another from the 1840s to about 1880. This examination of Lincoln’s political connections with the Oregon Country provides one example of how studies of the Greater Reconstruction illuminate the interrelations of East and West through notably significant cross-continental influences. Tracing these lines of influence stretching from Washington, D.C., to the Far Northwest illuminates both Civil War era politics as well as the political development of the Oregon Country. h h h PREFACE xi I am much indebted to several...