USA > Illinois > The era of the Civil War, 1848-1870 > Part 32
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328
THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
an almost solid Lincoln phalanx.45 It was no wonder then that Lincoln swept all before him and that McClellan was buried in this famous landslide of November, 1864, when Illinois con- tributed 30,736 to the heavy popular majority piled up for her favorite son.
What, then, was the meaning of Lincoln's reelection? It was the inevitable triumph of right, of the union, announced his supporters. Democrats, however, took a different view. "This result," declared the State Register, "is the heaviest calamity that ever befell this nation; [it is ] the farewell to civil liberty, to a republican form of government, and to the unity of these States." "Lincoln re-elected himself in spite of the people," insisted the Joliet Signal.46
The republicans considered it a splendid victory, for the party, if not for the administration. They had thrown their entire strength into the national campaign knowing that upon it would depend the outcome of the state election and of the congressional contests. Thus it was that Lincoln carried the republican ticket for state offices to victory together with eleven out of the fourteen republican candidates for congress, while both houses of the legislature went strongly republican. Major General Richard J. Oglesby, of Decatur, was accordingly elected governor to succeed Governor Yates over James C. Robinson, the democratic candidate. The veteran "Long John " Wentworth was again sent to congress from the Chicago district, where he defeated Cyrus H. McCormick, the reaper manufacturer. Another notable republican congressional tri- umph took place in the heart of Egypt, where A. J. Kuykendall, aided by the work of John A. Logan, unseated Logan's former law partner, William Joshua Allen, the anti-war democrat. The logical fruits of the republican legislative victory were gathered in the election of Richard Yates to the United States senate to succeed William A. Richardson; this was the reward
45 The Chicago Tribune, November 11, 1864, assigned an important share in the union victory to the German vote which finally lined up with the Illinois Staats-Zeitung, a consistent supporter of the Lincoln administration. Many Germans, however, like the editors of the Springfield Illinois Staats Anzeiger went so far as to support McClellan and Pendleton. Chicago Times, October 6, 8, 1864.
46 Illinois State Register, November 10, 1864; Joliet Signal, December 6, 1864.
329
THE REELECTION OF LINCOLN
for four years of patriotic service as the war governor of the great prairie state.
The republican landslide of 1864 wiped out the troublous memories of democratic success in the two previous years, when the only real bond to the federal administration was to be found in republican control of the state executive offices. It was, indeed, at the very time, when the democratic party threatened to sweep the republicans from this last point of vantage, that the tide of war had turned and played havoc with the prog- nostications of the political prophets. Then the despaired of victory proved so sweeping that it laid the foundations for con- tinued republican control of this old democratic stronghold and the traditions of the eighteen fifties and the early sixties yielded to a new order of things.
XV. POPULATION IN WARTIME
T HE high water mark of the tide of humanity that swept out to the Illinois prairies was reached on the eve of the Civil War. Then came that upheaval that absorbed all the energies of the American people and repelled the stream of immigration that had been flowing across the Atlantic. Amer- ica still continued to be symbolic of that large allowance of liberty for which so many Europeans longed; but, in view of the forecasts of the ruling class of Europe, they were fearful that it would be swept away in the torrent of blood in which the institution of slavery had deluged the American nation.
The traditions of northern freedom, however, still had a charm for certain Americans; from the slaveholding states there now poured a fresh stream of immigrants for whom the atmosphere of human slavery became as suffocatingly intoler- able as any economic and political oppression in the old world. The lands along the Illinois Central had already become a lodestone for ambitious agriculturists from Tennessee and Ala- bama, even from far off Georgia-all eager to absorb the spirit that was transforming the prairies of Illinois into a gar- den state. With the first clash of arms the stream became a swollen torrent, bearing with it political refugees who refused to remain in a slaveholding republic founded upon the ruins of the old American union. The railroads developed a large business transporting families, with their furniture and agri- cultural implements, to points in Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin; steamers made their way up the Mississippi crowded with refugee pilgrims to the land of freedom; swarms of Missouri- ans driven from their homes by secessionists crossed the river to Illinois bringing their teams, cattle, and remaining worldly goods1 -though some of these exiles returned to their homes
1 Rockford Register: February 16, 1861; Rockford Republican, April 11, 1861; Jonesboro Gazette, August 10, 1861; Quincy Whig clipped in Rockford
330
44-
46+404
36-
JO DAVIESO
STEPHENSON WINNEBAGO
BOONLA
MCHENEY
= 26-
30-
57+
350
CARROLL
OGLE
24- DE KALB
KANE
WHITESIDE
- LEE
COOL
ENDA
135
ROCK ISLAND
BUREAU
LA SALLE
28-
HENRY
GRUNDY
321
MERCER
RUIN
40
TSTARK
:26
HENDERSON
WARREN
KNOX
25+
LIVINGSTON
- WOODFORD
IROQUOIS
THANCOCK -MCDONOUOH
20
-- 23+
40-
MASON
SCHUYLER
49
DE WITT
FFFF SONLOGAN
CHAMPAION
VERMILION
ADAMS
BROWN
CASS
37-
PIATT
35-
SANGAMON
15-
DOUGLAS
EDOAR
PIKE
SCOTT
31+
CHRISTIAN
FOREENE
BHELBY
ARK
ALHOUN
JERSEY
FAYETTE
EFFINOHAM
JASPER
CRAWFORD
BOND
20+
27+
26-
-22+
CLAY
RICHLAND
41-
CLINTON
17-
ST CLAIR
015-
22-
WAYNE
WASHINGTON
JEFFERSON
ONROE
More than 50
30-
RANDOLPH
PERRY
217
WHITE
FRANKLIN
40 to 50
16+
231
24-
JACKSON
SALINE
WILLIAMSON
30 to 40
215
20 HARDIN
UNION
JOHNSON
POPE
20 to 30
ALEXANT
26
DER
ALABSAC
21+
P
Less than 20
MACOUPIN+ MONTGOMERY 20
+91
15+CUMBERLAND
26-
. 25%
45-
MADISON
A WRENCE
Population of Illinois per Square Mile in 1860
34
MENARD
14
MACON
38r
36+
MORGAN
19
MOULTRIE
COLES
29
TAZEWELL
FORD
FULTON
McLEAN
KANKAKEE
I MARSHALL
+3-
30
24
WILL
DU PAGE
-28-
30%
- MARION
WABASH-
EDWARD.
25-
HAMILTON
21+
LASK
3
1 311
33 1
POPULATION IN WARTIME
in Missouri when the state was swept clear of secession and order was restored there. Victories of the union armies re- leased new streams from all the border states; this was par- ticularly noticeable in the spring of 1863, when the Illinois Central distributed hundreds of families from Virginia, Ten- nessee, Kentucky, and Missouri as candidates for the charity of the different communities. Friends and relatives in those parts of southern and central Illinois that had been settled by recent immigrants from the border states welcomed the new arrivals.2
Many of these refugees were women and children who represented the bone and sinew of the upper south; the men were usually in the southern or union armies, although some fled north to escape conscription. Many, too, belonged to the uneducated, non-slaveholding poor white class and presented a sorry appearance; even the women were usually snuff dippers or tobacco chewers and " a considerable sum of the money given to them, was immediately invested in snuff and tobacco."3 All were received kindly, however, and treated charitably. The mayor of Centralia protested when General Buford " forced" one hundred and twenty paupers upon the city; but the union men welcomed them and the school directors placed at their disposal a large seminary building, the only vacant building in the city.4
Cairo was the Ellis Island for this immigration. Steamer after steamer arrived with cargoes of human freight and the nearby towns of Anna and Jonesboro received refugees until the people protested their inability to provide for more. Ac- commodations at Cairo were extremely inadequate and as the government did not assume complete responsibility for their welfare, great destitution and suffering often developed among the refugees. Families were sometimes left a good part of the night on the cold and muddy levee without shelter or even blankets, and even after aid had been dispensed in securing Republican, October 17, 1861; Illinois State Journal, December 6, 1861; Rock River Democrat, March 11, 1862; Mississippi Blätter, June 8, 1862.
2 Illinois State Journal, April 2, May 20, June 9, September 11, 1863; Canton Weekly Register, April 6, 1863; Belleville Advocate, April 17, 1863; Cairo Weekly Democrat, March 6, 1864.
3 Cairo Morning News, June 25, 1863.
+ Cairo Gazette, July 2, 1863.
-
332
THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
quarters, the immigrants were often lost sight of in the end- less stream that poured in; a relief committee found forty-two crowded into a single room of an abandoned barracks. Over three thousand, not including children, were given money contributions, clothing, and food by the local agent of the United States Sanitary Commission in the last six months of 1863. Some of these refugees were transported to Chicago and upper Illinois, where the adjustment to their new homes was often made under difficulties. One shipment of one hun- dred and fifty persons reached Springfield in January, 1865, after trying experiences; at Cairo they had been kept five days on an overloaded boat, without places to sleep, and with scarcely any food; the Illinois Central railroad agents then placed them in hog cars, which had not been cleaned since used, and they were transported in a severe midwinter temperature to Deca- tur, covering the two hundred miles in seventy-two hours, and thence they were brought to Springfield.5 Although relief work was organized by the refugee relief committee in Chicago and in other parts of the state, yet it was always inadequate to the demand and numerous deaths among these poor folk resulted from the neglect and exposure which they under- went.
The problem of union refugees was complicated by bands of Missouri ruffians who came into Illinois representing them- selves as expelled unionists; they were soon, however, under suspicion as akin to those bushwhackers who came over to carry on their depredations in copperhead districts. Again it appeared that the Missouri military authorities were often banishing convicted rebels to Illinois whose citizens protested against the " making of Illinois a 'Botany Bay' for the traitors of Missouri." " Moreover, the new Missouri constitution dis- franchised certain classes as a result of which a number of noted
5 Chicago Times, January 12, 1864; Cairo Weekly Democrat, January 13, 1864; Rockford Register, January 16, 1864; Cairo Democrat, February 3, June 1, 1864; Cairo Morning News, July 30, 1864; Rockford Democrat, Jan- uary 5, 1865; Chicago Tribune, January 16, 1865. These refugees were expected to relieve the labor shortage. See Mississippi Blätter, March 6, 1864; Cairo Democrat, February 9, 1865. In 1865 an industrial home for refugees was established at Chicago. Chicago Times, February 23, June 27, 1865.
6 Jonesboro Gazette, August 10, 1861; Illinois State Journal, February 17, March 28, 1864; Chicago Tribune, July 6, 1865.
.
333
POPULATION IN WARTIME
bushwhackers, guerrillas, and rebel soldiers moved over into the southern counties of Illinois.
Another species of immigrants came from southern climes to this new Canaan at the north. These were the Negro free- men, an element which the state in all its traditions had pre- viously refused to welcome. At the outbreak of the war it was even a crime for a Negro to set his foot upon Illinois soil; a year later another constitutional provision to renew the man- date in the fundamental law was submitted to the people of the state by the constitutional convention of 1862; and the voters of both parties declared with a majority of over 150,000, out of an aggregate vote of 240,000, that they were still opposed to letting down the barriers to Negro immigration.
If Illinois was hostile to the free Negro, there could be no question as to its stand in regard to the fugitive slave, and it is not to be wondered that, in spite of southern prophecies, the inauguration of President Lincoln did nothing to open a haven of refuge for the fugitive slave in Illinois. Certain Illinois democrats were desirous that new guarantees to the south be furnished by state legislation in aid of the fugitive slave law, but Lincoln and the republicans were content with a faithful execution of the law and with preventing obstructions to its enforcement by northern legislation.7 Lincoln's newly appointed federal marshals did not shirk their obligations; Marshal f. Russell Jones of the northern district was soon assisting the man hunters in recovering their property in Chicago; and, within a month of Lincoln's inauguration, considerable excite- ment was aroused when the family of Onesimus Harris was sent back to bondage in Missouri. Marshal Jones seemed in this case to surpass all his predecessors in office in his zealous enforcement of the law. As a result the colored population of the city, no longer regarding it as a place of safety, began to leave for her Majesty's dominions; within a week the exodus from the panic-stricken colored quarters became a veritable stampede.8
Under the federal confiscation laws, however, and under the
7 Belleville Advocate, January 25, February 1, 1861.
8 Chicago Tribune, April 4, 6, 1861; Illinois State Journal, April 4, 5, 1861 ; Rockford Register, April 6, 1861; Prairie Farmer, April 11, 1861.
334
THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
policies of commanders in the field, slaves of rebel planters who were captured by the federal armies or had fled to the union lines were given a status as "contrabands" and their masters' claims were declared forfeited. Thereupon, large numbers of contrabands made their appearance at Cairo and began to distribute themselves over the state. This influx began just as the new constitution of 1862 was submitted to the voters of the state, and they spoke decisively. Yet in mid- summer by arrangement between the secretary of war and the military commander at Cairo under the second confiscation act, the contrabands continued to pour into Cairo until the levees were "so dark with negroes that pedestrians found it difficult to peregrinate without lanterns." 9 From Cairo, which was under martial law and legally amenable to such a policy, the Illinois Central carried one to four carloads northward daily and distributed them in various parts of the state. Al- though republicans urged the farmers to welcome this source of cheap help, the democrats set up a howl about an impending reduction of wages and consequent distress among the laboring classes. When General Tuttle, commander at Cairo, formally invited the mayor of Chicago to cooperate in securing employ- ment for Negro immigrants in that city, Mayor Francis C. Sherman, a democrat, with the approval of the city council, refused to act in violation of the state law " to the great injus- tice of our laboring population;" yet, refugees soon began to arrive in daily shipments of from eighty to one hundred and sixty.10 Quincy and other Mississippi river ports were also receiving heavy consignments, and the people of Rock Island county therefore held a public meeting to consider the best mode of staying the influx.
Republicans were fast learning, to their sorrow, however, that race prejudice was no respecter of parties; they were greatly weakened, if not defeated, by this new issue in the election of 1862. Leonard Swett of Bloomington, republican candidate for congress, tried to stem the tide that was turning
9 Cairo Gazette, August 19, 1862.
10 Joliet Signal, September 23, 30, 1862 ; Illinois State Register, September 30, October 7, 8, 1862; Champaign County Democrat, October 9, 1862; Jonesboro Gazette, October 11, 18, 1862; Rockford Register, October 11, 1862; Carbondale Times clipped in Belleville Advocate, October 24, 1862.
335
POPULATION IN WARTIME
against him by publicly announcing his belief that the importa- tion of colored persons into Illinois would degrade white labor and demoralize the people. The republican press was indeed glad when it was able to announce, though already too late, that the war department had forbidden the sending of any more "contrabands" to Illinois; a few months later General Hurlbut transferred the contraband camp at Cairo to Island Number 10.11
With' Lincoln's emancipation proclamation Congressman J. C. Allen rigorously attacked republican policy and declared his fears that the state would now be overrun with freedmen; and although the Chicago Tribune optimistically prophesied that the Negro would "shape his bearings and route by the Southern Cross instead of the North Star," 12 only the proroga- tion of the legislature of 1863 prevented the enactment of new and more drastic guarantees against the impending immigra- tion. The democrats, meantime, used the courts to enforce existing legislation; in February, 1863, six Negroes were con- victed at Carthage of living within the state contrary to the black laws and were thereupon sold for their fines to the high- est bidders. In July a Negro who returned with Dr. L. D. Kellogg, surgeon in the Seventeenth Illinois regiment, was sen- tenced and sold in like manner. The following month, Annie Long, a young colored woman who claimed that she had come into Edgar county merely to visit, was fined $50 and costs for violation of the law and advertised for sale until the funds were advanced by republican sympathizers.13 Such action, to- gether with the cooperation of the federal authorities at Cairo, for the time practically ended the influx of freedmen through southern Illinois.
In 1865 the repeal of the black laws after a campaign by
11 Illinois State Journal, October 15, 22, 1862; Cairo Gazette, April 2, 16, 1863. William Yocum, superintendent of contrabands at Cairo, was later con- victed of selling contrabands back into slavery in Kentucky; a Reverend Mr. Rodgers, chaplain of contrabands and General N. B. Buford were also accused of sharing in the profits of such illegal sales. Cairo Democrat, December 13, 1863; Illinois State Journal, June 25, 1864.
12 Belleville Democrat, November 1, 1862; Chicago Tribune, December 6, 1862.
13 Rockford Register, March 7, 1863; Canton Weekly Register, August 3, 1863; Paris Beacon clipped in Illinois State Journal, August 19, 1863; Chicago Tribune, August 21, 1863.
336
THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
the radical republicans provided an open door to prospective Negro immigrants to Illinois.14 Immediately they began to settle in various parts of the state, although new opportunities for the freedman in the south checked the northward flow. The new immigrants were distributed over the state by agents of the Northwestern Freedman's Aid Commission, which had been organized in 1863, for the relief of the colored popula- tion in the south.15 The Negro population of the state in- creased more than threefold, reaching a total of 28,762. Of this population over four thousand out of sheer inertia re- mained behind in Cairo and its vicinity, where the ante-bellum population had been only fifty-five; in the main Negroes, how- ever, sought the more hospitable atmosphere of Chicago and other antislavery centers like Quincy, Galesburg, Jacksonville, and Springfield. They thus became an urban population -the hewers of wood and drawers of water for their more pros- perous white neighbors.
The war spirit served to break down some of the barriers against the Negro. Illinoisians were among the earliest advo- cates of Negro soldiers and hundreds of colored troops were recruited in the state as volunteers or as substitutes under the draft. In civil life, too, the Negro was given increased oppor- tunities. Colored women were admitted to the Chicago Ladies Loyal League; Negro graduates appeared in the commence- ment exercises of Knox and Lombard colleges, while the doors of Shurtleff College and of the state normal school were opened to colored students.16 The passage of the civil rights bill in 1866 guaranteed the Negroes against legal discrimination; the colored residents of Chicago and Cairo celebrated this event in a large meeting. In practice, however, the word "white"
14 The author of the black laws of 1855 was John A. Logan, who introduced them in the lower house in 1853; they were presented in the senate by A. J. Kuykendall. These two men and S. W. Moulton, a prominent supporter, were then democrats, but in 1865 were prominent members of the union party, the last two having just been elected to congress. Chicago Tribune, January 16, 1865.
15 Carthage Republican, July 27, August 24, 1865; Central Illinois Gazette, October 13, 1865; Illinois State Register, April 8, 1865; Cairo Bulletin clipped in ibid., March 26, 1870. In 1864 the Quincy branch had a department at the local Sanitary Fair to raise funds to provide for the Negro refugees in that city in violation of the black laws. Rockford Republican, August 20, 1864, April 8, 1865. 16 Chicago Times, July 1, 1864; Chicago Tribune, January 18, 1868; Illinois Democrat, March 28, 1868; Belleville Democrat, March 19, 1868.
337
POPULATION IN WARTIME
remained in the school laws of Illinois; and although in some instances the Negroes were provided with segregated public schools, most communities excluded colored children from the schools with the provision that upon application the school taxes would be refunded to colored taxpayers.17 These ostra- cized residents, already accustomed to religious worship in their own Methodist or Baptist churches, often raised funds for their own schools.
Much of the atmosphere of persecution began to disappear. There were still outbursts of negrophobia, but the maltreat- ment of inoffensive Negroes came pretty much to an end when civil rights were conferred upon that race. The regalia of colored secret societies, "white muslin belts and scarfs, embel- lished with blue, pink, black, yellow and white ribbons; large rosettes, sprigs of cedar, brass buttons, vari-colored tassels," began to appear on the streets on Sundays and holidays.18 Negro military companies began to parade in uniform. Mid- summer became a season of the festive picnicking and merry- making, so compelling for the members of the race.
In the course of the decade the colored population of the state became more aggressive in the assertion of its rights. A mass convention at Springfield in January, 1865, petitioned the legislature to repeal "the laws now in force against us on ac- count of our complexion;" a state delegate convention eight months later initiated their annual plea for impartial suffrage. The republicans not only agitated for Negro franchise but courted the prospective Negro vote by suggestions of future officeholding. In 1868 a group of local republican merchants urged the nomination of Captain James W. Brockway, of the Twentieth United States colored infantry, for the office of collector of South Chicago; a year later Governor Palmer explained to the colored residents of Springfield that they were eligible for any office under the constitution. The news of the ratification of the fifteenth amendment on March 30, 1870, resulted in grand demonstrations by the colored residents of the chief cities of the state; and on April 5, under the new dis-
17 Chicago Tribune, April 13, 1866; Cairo Times clipped in Belleville Advo- cate, May 18, 1866; Canton Weekly Register, April 17, November 13, 1868. The annual taxes paid by colored residents of Cairo were about twenty dollars. 18 Cairo Democrat, November 12, 1867.
338
THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
pensation, they participated for the first time in Illinois elections. 19
The war interrupted the westward movement of the native American population just at a time when the Illinois prairies were receiving a large share of hardy settlers. With the return of peace there came a renewed immigration from the eastern states, and Illinois had a special welcome for the Yankees who came to swell the New England towns and villages of northern Illinois. "You may know them by their neat churches and school-houses, and by the trees and flowers in their fenced yards," was the proud boast of a Massachusetts editor.20 Theodore Tilton, editor of the New York Independent, travel- ing over the plains of Illinois on a lecture tour, was impressed with the thrift, energy, growth, and civil progress of the west- ern communities ; he came to feel that " the beauty of the New England character is not seen at its best till it ripens a while in the West. True, there is more wealth, more cul- ture, more social refinement in the Eastern towns; but in the Western there is more of that indefinable quality which (for want of a better name) we call character, That is to say, there is more individuality, more freedom from conventional restraint, more independence in manners and opinions, more flavor of native originality." 21
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