USA > Indiana > Historic Indiana : being chapters in the story of the Hoosier state from the romantic period of foreign exploration and dominion through pioneer days, stirring war times, and periods of peaceful progress, to the present time > Part 20
USA > Indiana > Historic Indiana : being chapters in the story of the Hoosier state from the romantic period of foreign exploration and dominion through pioneer days, stirring war times, and periods of peaceful progress, to the present time, centennial ed. > Part 20
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In the Forties and Fifties
In the social life "before the war," there was much more light-heartedness and gayety than in the present time. The country was in its youth. Communities had not plunged into the seething turmoil of social unrest. Literature and the drama were not depressed by morbid introspection and joyless disillusionment. Few were richer than they needed to be, and not many more were poorer than they should have been. There was little misery to depress the fortunate that could not be relieved by my Lady Bountiful sending her basket of provisions and necessities to the needy. Each neighborhood took care of its own unfortunate and shiftless.
"This gay insouciance, this forgetfulness that the world existed for any but a single class," says Lowell, "has been impossible of late years. Perhaps opportunity for all was the touchstone of blithe spirits. There was a cheerfulness and contentme it with things as they were, which is no unsound philosophy for the mass of mankind. It certainly was a comfortable time. If there was dis- content, it was individual, and not in the air; sporadic, not epidemic. Responsibility for the universe had not yet been invented. Post and telegraph were not so im- portunate as now. Now all the ologies follow us in our newspapers to our burrows and crowd upon us with the pertinacious benevolence of subscription books. Even the right of sanctuary is denied. One has a notion that in those old times the days were longer than now, that a man called to-day his own, by a securer title, and held his hours with a sense of divine right, now obsolete."
The West being detached from great cities and their depressing poverty, led this unharassed life, and it was reflected in the simple joys of their social inter-
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course. Indiana towns had few idle persons, work was a necessity for all; but there was time for rest as well as for toil; and there was a rural freedom to pursue one's bent.
Hospitality toward incoming settlers was proverbial. If a desirable family came into a neighborhood, the very fact that it was to cast in its lot with the town was enough to warrant a welcome. Naturally, society was provincial. In the community all knew each other, and felt at liberty to follow their impulses. As Mr. Tarkington says, they were a natural people who had not learned to be self-conscious enough to fear doing a pretty thing openly, without mocking them- selves for it.
An ever-present interest in Indiana was politics, and that question certainly absorbed the attention of all classes in 1840. The principal events of the year, both social and political, clustered about the campaign of William Henry Harrison for the Pres- idency, against Martin Van Buren, who was then the incumbent. Harrison had not only been famous on this frontier as an Indian fighter and shrewd in management, but had been appointed Governor of Indiana while it was yet a Territory, and also was the hero of the battle of Tippecanoe. Naturally his party, in the State where he had dwelt so long, rallied with great enthusiasm to his support. Very spectacular mass meetings, barbecues, celebrations, and proces- sions were a part of the means to keep up the excite- ment of the time. One Indiana celebration is still recalled as the most unique of its day. That was the great gathering on the scene of General Harrison's victory at Battle Ground. From far and near, even from New York State to Illinois, the Whigs came in
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long processions to the event. There were wagons with log cabins on them. Standing in the door, men served hard cider from barrels, with a long-handled gourd, to the throng as they passed along. Other wagons held great canoes filled with young ladies who were dressed in white, with sashes of the national colors. There were great "floats," made to represent the conditions of frontier life when Harrison began his career in Indiana; and on these wagons were glee clubs singing the lately improvised campaign songs. One very popular topical song began:
"What has caused this great commotion, motion, motion the Country through?
It is the ball a rolling on, for Tippecanoe and Tyler too. With them we'll beat little Van,
Van, Van is a used up man.
Farewell, dear Van, You're not our man, To guide the ship of state."
Owing to this enthusiasm, and the "hard times" cry which made the masses demand a change, the Whigs swept the country when election day arrived. Indiana was jubilant over the election to the Pres- idency of her favorite candidate.
About 1840, a very tragic phase in the history of the country vitally affected the States along the Ohio River. The anti-slavery sentiment, which each year had grown more intense, crystallized into organized societies, advocating the emancipation of the slaves, and rendering assistance to those who stole away from their masters and made a break for freedom. Although four fifths of the people in the southern counties were in sympathy with the South still,
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Indiana had many ardent spirits who entered into this opposition to slavery. After the passage of the Fugi- tive Slave Law, fourteen Northern States practically nullified the national statute, by enacting State legis- lation for the protection of runaway slaves. Zealous opponents of the traffic sometimes advocated armed resistance to the slave-owner seeking to reclaim his human chattels. Abolitionists despaired of a remedy by law, and gradually worked out a system of friendly routes and welcoming stations for fugitive slaves, which came to be known as the "Underground Railway." The league had boats in which they transported the negroes across the Ohio River at five or six points, and started them northward. The homes that would aid the runaways formed many routes in the chain from Dixie to Canada, where the slave reached foreign territory and freedom. Solitary and in groups, the negroes came trembling across the Ohio in the dead of night, shoeless and ill-clad, to the homes of free negroes or of their white deliverers. The women maintained sewing-circles to prepare clothing for these fugitives, and the men carried them forward in wagons to the next resident who was known as a member of the Underground Railway. In the course of a year, thousands of blacks made this effort to escape and were helped along the Indiana routes toward freedom. Mr. Hanover, the chief of the workers, assured Colonel Cockrum that for seven years more than an average of four thousand fugitive slaves passed, each year, through the hands of the men who were on duty in the Indiana district. Not forgetting other human- itarians who labored in this cause, it is conceded that the members of the Society of Friends were among the foremost in acting upon their convictions
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An Advertisement of the Underground Railway. (From The Western Citizen, Published July, 1844.)
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In the Forties and Fifties
against the traffic in human beings. Benjamin Thomas gave a farm at Spartansburg, for a school for the fugitives; Benjamin Stanton, Pusey Graves, and others published an anti-slavery paper, without profit, for the promulgation of anti-slavery ideas. William Lacey, who rescued Eliza, of Uncle Tom's Cabin fame, and sent her by the Indiana route to Canada, was one of the secret-service band that pa- trolled the banks of the Ohio watching for escaping slaves, and directing them where they might find protection. Levi Coffin's house is said to have afforded shelter for thousands of fugitives. Joel Parker and Nathan Thomas not only expended untiring energy in helping slaves on their way, but they also conducted free-labor stores for the many citizens who, at great inconvenience to . themselves, would not use the products of slave labor. Dr. Posey used his coal mines to secrete the travellers; and a lumber barque was maintained on Lake Michigan to carry fugitive slaves across to foreign territory. Orators like Dr. Bennett and Mr. Graves lectured throughout the State, and elsewhere, amidst great persecution and contumely. One of the songs sung at this period to arouse enthusiasm for the wronged began:
" Ho the car Emancipation Moves majestic through the nation."
Colored men who were natural orators spoke at these meetings, telling their experiences and struggles to gain freedom, making stirring appeals for their race, that moved the people to sympathy and action in their behalf. The self-sacrificing labors of the anti-slavery people, throughout all of those dark years, was not undergone for any pleasure there was
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in it. Their endeavor came from deep convictions prompting them to the performance of hazardous duties and distasteful ministrations. The Fugitive Slave Law made it a crime to aid escaping slaves, and the masters, following close upon the trail of their "property," searched houses and caused arrests of suspected citizens. Neighbors who sympathized with the Southern section scorned the acquaintance of the "black abolitionists." Through danger of arrest and social ostracism these single-hearted people hero- ically maintained their unceasing efforts for the free- dom of the slaves, during the forties and fifties; until the Emancipation Proclamation removed the necessity for their efforts, and the shadow of slavery from the land.
In 1844, the electric telegraph was invented, and an Indiana lady, Miss Annie Ellsworth, dictated the first message ever transmitted: "Behold what hath God wrought."
An amusing phase of village life at that time in Indiana were the primitive appliances for protection against fire. Mr. Condit's droll description of the conditions at Terre Haute shows them to be typical of the other towns of the State:
"In the early history of the village, the first organ- ization of a fire company was, in a sense, no organization, that is, the Village Bucket-line brigade was a voluntary affair. By common consent, every villager, old and young, was a member. Next to the ringing of the bell of the public crier and his loud cry, 'A child lost!' nothing ap- pealed to the sympathies of the community so strongly as the midnight cry of, 'Fire! fire! fire!' The words were taken up by every villager as he issued from his gate, bucket in hand, on the run, guided by the light of the
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In the Forties and Fifties
blazing building. At the fire every man was his own chief, and with a quick eye was called to see, and to do, the most needful thing. So each one quickly found his place either in rescuing the sick and helpless; in carrying out furniture; in manning the pumps or wells; in falling into lines for passing the full buckets of water and re- turning the empty ones to be again refilled; or it may be in standing upon the roof and fighting the flames with the buckets of water as they were passed up to him. The fiercer the fire the harder the fight, in which every volunteer was enthusiastic; knowing that his work was important though his place was only in the bucket-line. The Village Bucket-line brigade held sway till 1838; when by action of the Common Council the first hand engine was purchased. This was a real live engine, to be worked and pulled by hand, yet it was worthy of having a house and a special keeper. In 1839, the Council ordered the following pre- miums to be awarded. For the first hogshead of water delivered at the fire, three dollars; for the second, two dollars; and for the third, one dollar; and after that, for every hogshead, till the fire was extinguished, twenty- five cents. When a fire alarm came, every drayman in town started on a mad race to the fire; but first it was helter-skelter for the river, where his hogshead was quickly filled. It was a wild and exciting scramble of odd-looking men, and old drays and spavined horses." 1
Indiana people were greatly disturbed over the sudden death of President William Henry Harrison, whom they regarded as their own representative; and events did not reconcile them to his successor. Naturally the Whig element in the State became greatly disgruntled with Vice-President Tyler's policy during the remaining four years of the term, but the State was largely Democratic, and sided with him regarding the annex-
1Condit, B., Early History of Terre Haute, page 168. New York, 1900.
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ation of Texas. There was, also, much bluster through- out the West during President Polk's campaign, over the claims of Great Britain regarding Oregon. With the other States west of the Alleghanies, Indiana joined in the cry of her own United States Senator, Edward Hannegan, of "Fifty-four forty or fight." But when the boundary line was peaceably settled, by treaty, on the 49th parallel, the South and West accepted that solution of the question, and resumed the agitation over Mexico's denial of our claims regard- ing the Rio Grande, as the boundary line between the two countries. Indiana being largely settled by people of Southern birth, who scoffed at any fears of slavery extension, the State fell in line with the prevailing sentiment of the South, and West, as against the East, and favored a war with Mexico. Indiana village life was greatly excited over the issue. There was much speech-making, and "resolving" that Texas was in the right.
When it was declared by the government on May 15, 1846, that "War existed by the act of Mexico"- when she was but defending her own territory-the State of Indiana was "roused to arms." In the ap- proaching conflict with Mexico, Indiana was ready for her part. New England was declaring that the South had incited the war, to increase slave territory. The majority in Indiana asserted, with the South, that Texas was already independent of Mexico; that the Republic had asked for annexation, and if it was per- sistently refused admission into the Union, might form European alliances which the United States would, in the end, have to destroy for her own safety. Better an immediate war with Mexico, declared the statesmen, than to leave Texas in nominal independence, to
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In the Forties and Fifties
involve us in ultimate war with France and England. Whatever justice there was in the arguments of the factions, it ended in the American army of occupation moving towards the border, and when the Mexican troops crossed the Rio Grande, volunteers were called for amidst the greatest enthusiasm in Indiana. Bells were rung, mass meetings were called, and enlistment was so vigorous that eight regiments of Indiana infantry responded to the call. The services of five regiments were accepted by the War Department. All of these passed through many of the trials and dangers of the war; many companies were decimated by disease on the scorched plains and the low river banks. Others were fortunate enough to be ordered forward, and distinguished themselves in action. The First Indiana regiment was left by General Zachary Taylor, the commanding General, to languish in the miasma at the mouth of the Rio, until, as General Patterson said twenty years later, while he knew his action in sending the troops on was without authority, still it was a venture with humanity at the bottom, for such a want of wholesome food, such hopelessness in suffering, such wholesale dying, he had never thought to see in an American camp. The gallant Third Indiana regiment had a more brilliant opportunity to make a record at the front. The Second regiment suffered from unjust military reports of General Taylor and Jefferson Davis, regarding an unequal engagement, at Buena Vista; where, fighting a force of Mexicans, eighteen to their one, they were called by their mistaken Colonel to retreat. In surprise and panic they obeyed; but not before they had left ninety of their three hundred and sixty men dead or wounded on the field. Afterward, the remaining
19
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Historic Indiana
troops rallied without the Colonel, and fought bravely to the end. It is to the honor of the State, that In- diana did not give her electoral vote for President to General Taylor after his unwarranted report re- garding the Second regiment; and the enduring enmity of the people followed Jefferson Davis for his unfair criticisms. Many of the volunteers from Indiana, in this unholy war, as General Grant always called it, learned the arts of war in these campaigns, only to use their knowledge in the greater civil conflict, a few years later on.
When the treaty of peace was signed in 1848, and General Taylor was elected President on the glory gained at Buena Vista, the Indiana troops returned to their homes, the heroes of their generation. Peace celebrations were held in every district, and "Re- member the Alamo" was heard on every tongue. There are many people still living who recall the fervor of the welcome home to the sun-bronzed soldiers from the Mexican plains. Many of these volunteers, said Judge Ristine, in a touching memorial of his old neighbors, sleep their last sleep on the plains of Mexico; others returned to die at home; a few are with us yet. Among the settlers of that rude frontier of Texas, were Hoosier soldiers who remained to enter lands in the new domain. Many of the men who served on the long marches over those southwestern plains, and the trail to the Pacific, returned in the following year on the pilgrimage for the quest of gold. They had secured the California country to the United States, and explorations had begun immediately; gold was discovered and the craze of '49 swept the country. Most of the people who went out to the coast from Indiana journeyed overland in the long
LIE VETTE PUBLIC LIBRARY
One of the Old Colonial Homes Long Since Passed into Other Uses.
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In the Forties and Fifties
trains. The gold-seekers travelled in company as a protection against the Indians. Besides the dangers from the savages, many other hardships were endured by the emigrants. Burning deserts were traversed, where only alkaline waters were to be found. Six months was not an unusual time for the long journey. The pace was necessarily snail-like. They travelled in covered wagons drawn by horses or oxen. Slowly these great caravans plodded the weary way toward the Pacific. Indiana women who had been gently reared died of sickness and exposure on the way. Children were born to them out on the great solitary plains, and husbands felt their hold on life slip from them, and said farewell to their helpless families, as they closed their eyes in death beneath the stars on the mountain heights. A few of the Hoosier gold-hunters found paying mines; many others, as the chances for fortunes disappeared, straggled back to old Indiana as to an Eldorado. Some remained and prospered in commercial or professional life. This excitement over California gold absorbed the attention of the nation from '49 to '53, but nowhere did it enlist more interest than among the enterprising and venturesome Hoosiers.
Along in the fifties, the agitation regarding slavery swayed and rocked the nation, and Indiana was a storm centre. As General Wallace has said:
"The whole North was alive with 'isms,' some purely sentimental, some sound in morals, each one, however an army of zealots. These, it is to be added, all had in their organization men of far sight, scheming and struggling to bring about a general coalition, without which there could be no effective opposition to the Democratic party. It was from these nebulous conditions that the new Re- publican party was formed. Old party lines were broken
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up and many life-long Democrats found themselves aligned with Whigs whom they had combated in many a previous campaign." 1
Indiana had been regarded as safely Democratic, in the all-powerful grasp of Senators Bright, Thomas A. Hendricks, and Joseph E. McDonald, but the Whigs, and one wing of the Democratic party, gradually joined forces to make up the working staff of the Republican party in Indiana. They had, as leaders, such men as Henry S. Lane, John Defress, Schuyler Colfax, George W. Julian, Owen, Allen, and Morton. Through great tribulation and the weighing of prin- ciples on the slavery question against a possible national conflict, came these thousands of men into the ranks of a new political party; and the fifties passed out of the calendar of years, in Indiana, amidst sharp political divisions between old neighbors; and as the decade closed, there were ominous signs of the strife which broke upon the country in 1861.
1 Wallace, Lew, Autobiography.
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CHAPTER XIV
INDIANA AS AFFECTED BY THE CIVIL WAR
TO O trace Indiana's part in the Civil War would be to write her history during that period, for Indiana lived the war, and scarcely any- thing else for four years. But many of the happenings within her borders, during that time, differed from some of the Northern States and resulted from the character of her early settlement. Governor Morton expressed a truth when he wrote to President Lincoln that "the case of Indiana was peculiar in that it had, probably, a larger proportion of inhabitants of Southern birth or parentage-many of these, of course, with Southern proclivities-than any other free State." Indeed, southern Indiana was considered one of the outlying provinces of the empire of slavery. When we recall that, as a territory, she was almost rent asunder over the question of entering the Union as a free State; that the State was admitted with slaves still in the possession of a part of the settlers; that all of the fourteen counties which comprised the new State were mainly settled from slave States, and that south of the National Road the Southern sympathizers had a controlling political majority; that in 1840, when William Henry Harrison was elected Presi- dent, but one vote was recorded for the abolitionist
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Historic Indiana
candidate; that in I851, when Indiana's new constitu- tion was adopted, it included a provision for the exclu- sion and colonization of negroes and mulattoes and that this article was submitted, as a distinct proposition, to the people of the State for their approval, and was adopted by a vote of 109,976 to 21,066; again that for forty-four years after the admission of the State-that is, from 1816 to the election of Lincoln in 1860-the electoral vote of Indiana was given to the Democratic party, with the exception of two campaigns when William Henry Harrison was the candidate of the Whigs in 1836 and 1840 ;- recalling these significant facts in the history of Indiana, it will be easy to picture the state of mind which pre- vailed at the approach of the war with their Southern neighbors, and during that struggle; for all of the citizens were not pro-slave in sentiment.
A visitor to the State a dozen years before the war, in commenting on an ordinary national election, as he saw it in Indiana, said that a stranger to our government, looking on, would naturally suppose that it was the last night we were to enjoy our Union; would think that the excited parties would never be reconciled to the success of their opponents, but rally under their leaders and contest their power at the point of the sword. It is not difficult to imagine the strained relations existing between such violently opposed factions, and the result of such sentiments during the deplorable conflict. Ties of kindred were severed, neighborhoods became divided, the bitter dissensions knew no sex, no church, no age. Ministers of the gospel took sides, and found Bible texts for either side of the question. Newspapers were full of incendiary utterances. Orators fulminated and
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Indiana as Affected by the Civil War 295
people wrangled and argued as they never have since.
"Ef dey's one thing topper God's worl yo' pa do despi'cibly and contestibly despise, hate, cuss, an' outrageously 'bominate, it are a Ab'litionist, an' dey's a considabul sprinklin' erroun' 'bout de kentry," said a knowing Indiana servant before the war. This was true of a vast number of the residents who were of Southern extraction,-they had a violent hatred of abolitionists. On the other hand many of these same abolitionists, defiantly if secretly, allied them- selves with the "Underground Railway." Slavery was just over the border. In their opinion that in- stitution was mortally wicked. Danger did not deter them from aiding the slave to escape from his master, and gain freedom in Canada. Earnest men and women in Indiana secretly helped Sambo and Chloe along another stage in their journey. The true story of the efforts of that secret band-it can hardly be termed an organization-would be a thrilling tale. Before day dawn, the hunted slave or groups of slaves would tremblingly approach a homestead, be quietly given a day's rest, shelter, food, fresh clothing, and then at night passed on to the next station of the Underground Railway. In a few hours more if hunters from the South came for their "property," they also must be fed, and detained as long as possible. No record, perhaps, exists of the members of this society or of the unfortunates whom they helped. It was against the Fugitive Slave Law and only justified by the greater law of humanity. Suspicion often prompted espionage, and this engendered hate and recrimination. Householders were sometimes imprisoned for helping slaves to escape and then it became known that their
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