USA > Washington > History of Washington; the rise and progress of an American state, Vol. IV > Part 10
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Captain D. A. Russell was engaged in the defenses of Washington during the winter of 1861-62, and afterwards appointed colonel of the 7th Massachusetts regiment. He was in most of the great battles in the Peninsular campaign, and later at Antietam, after which he was promoted brigadier- general. Later he was at Fredericksburg, Salem and Beverly Ford, and commanded a division in the 6th corps in the battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania and North Anna. He was sent with Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley, and was killed at the head of his column, at Opequan.
There were other officers of the 4th and 9th infantry, and the 3d artillery who won distinction after serving in the
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Indian wars in Washington. Among these were Lieutenant J. W. Forsythe, who was for many years General Sheridan's chief of staff, Lieutenants Robert McFeely and D. B. McKib- ben, who were prominent in the quartermaster and com- missary departments, and Captains John H. Winder and James J. Archer, who rose to the rank of general in the Con- federate army. The latter was taken prisoner in the first day's fighting at Gettysburg.
Major Granville O. Haller's intimate connection with many of the leading events of the Indian war has already been frequently mentioned. After that war he was stationed at Port Townsend and Bellingham, and at the latter place suppressed an incipient Indian uprising, which broke out just as he was leaving for San Juan Island, in 1859. In 1860 he was sent to Fort Mojave in Arizona, where he remained until 1861, when he was ordered East. On arriving in New York he found that he had been already made major of the 7th New York regiment, but as it had been captured and paroled, and could not enter active service again until ex- changed, he reported to General McClellan, and soon became a member of his staff. Later the 93d New York regiment was assigned to him, as general headquarter's guard. After serving through the Virginia and Maryland campaigns, on the Rappahannock, under Burnside, and for a short time under Hooker, he was made provost-marshal-general for the State of Maryland, and during the Gettysburg cam- paign was a member of General Couch's staff, at Har- risburg. When Early was approaching the Susquehanna, he was sent to warn the farmers to remove their horses and cattle across the river and to take such measures as he could by aid of the citizens, to prevent the rebels from crossing by the Columbia bridge, and he was near
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at hand when the bridge was burned, and Early forced to turn back.
Shortly afterwards he was relieved from command and dismissed from the service by order from the war department, "for disloyal conduct, and the utterance of disloyal senti- ments," and although he made persistent demand for trial, and to be confronted with his accusers, this was steadily refused and he was never able to learn who his accusers were, or the specific charge they made against him, until 1879, when his case was heard by order of Congress and he was triumphantly vindicated.
Meantime he had returned to Washington, where he had engaged in farming and milling on Whidby Island, and in merchandising at various points, with varying success. After his restoration to the army, with the full rank of colonel, he was assigned to command the 23d regiment, and remained with it until 1882, when he was retired.
But Washington's great soldier and greatest contribution to the Union cause was Major-General Isaac I. Stevens. He had served the territory well as a delegate in Congress, through one term; had been reëlected, and was working earnestly and with untiring industry to promote her interests, when the war broke out. He had secured the ratification of his Indian treaties, completed the report of his railroad recon- noissance, which he had pushed through in spite of all opposi- tion, and secured many appropriations for building roads, and making other improvements that were urgently needed, as well as for paying the war debt. He had also made many speeches in Congress, and public addresses in various places, of which the far-away territory was the unvarying topic. No man then living knew so much about its actual wealth in natural resources, and few who are now alive appreciated
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more fully its possibilities for future development. No one who has ever lived has done more to bring it into general notice, and prepare the way for its advancement. His railroad survey was the means on which he chiefly relied to bring it into connection with the older portions of the country, and so hasten its development. At that time it was opposed by the South, which then dominated both branches of Congress, while it aroused but little interest in the North. But his interest in it never wavered, and opposition only stimulated his efforts. As a means of advancing it, as well as of affording a new road for settlers through the mountains, he secured a liberal appropriation to open a wagon road from Fort Benton to Walla Walla, and sturdy John Mullan, who had been his most efficient lieutenant in the survey, built it, and it bears his name to this day. Other roads were opened, notably one from Olympia to Vancouver; new postal routes were established; aids to commerce of various sorts in the Sound and Straits of Fuca, and along the Columbia were provided for, and much else was done that to most other men would have seemed, and possibly have been, impossible.
While engaged in this important work for the benefit of his constituents, Governor Stevens did not fail to take an active and zealous interest in general politics. He was active and prominent in the councils of his party, and was accustomed to hear the threats of disunion then so frequently made, though he did not believe those who made them seri- ously intended to carry them into execution. He attended the Democratic National Convention at Charleston in 1860, as a delegate for Oregon-as Washington being a territory was not then represented in such assemblies-and earnestly advocated the nomination of his friend, Ex-Governor Lane,
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for president. The convention was disrupted, as is now well remembered, and the factional convention which sub- sequently assembled at Richmond, nominated Breckenridge for president, and Lane for vice-president. Stevens was made chairman of the executive committee, and conducted an active campaign in all the States, though the party, being now divided, had no hope of success.
During the anxious months which intervened between the election and inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, Stevens did what he could to stem the tide of disunion, and when war became inevitable, he was among the first to begin active measures to save the government. During the winter he helped to organize the militia of the District of Columbia, and fre- quently called upon President Buchanan, to urge him to resist the demands of the secessionists. In March he returned to the coast, confidently expecting a renomina- tion at the convention of his party which was to be held in May. The convention met at Vancouver, but although his friends seemed to be in the majority, he was not successful, and Selucius Garfielde won the empty honor, and was defeated at the election by William H. Wal- lace.
In a letter dated at Portland May 22d, Governor Stevens tendered his services in the field to the secretary of war, and on his arrival in New York, he was appointed colonel of the 79th Highlanders, a regiment which had been badly cut up at Bull Run, and was now much demoralized. It was in fact in a condition of mutiny, but its new colonel soon established discipline, and although its members were for a time resolved to disband and go home, they soon submitted to discipline, and became one of the best regiments in the service.
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Colonel Stevens was appointed brigadier-general in Sep- tember, and sent south with the expedition to Port Royal, the Highlanders being part of his brigade. He was present at the attack on the Confederate batteries on the Coosaw, and Stone River, and commanded the main column in the attack on Secessionville. After the retreat of McClellan from the James River, he was recalled to the defense of Washington, was made a major-general and assigned to the command of a division in Pope's army. He distinguished himself in the battle of Mannassas, the second Bull Run, and was killed two days later at the battle of Chantilly, late in the afternoon of September 1, 1862. He fell at a time when a thunderstorm, so terrific that the roar of battle could scarcely be heard above it, was just breaking over the field. The dense clouds had almost obscured the light of day, although it was scarcely later than 5 o'clock. The Con- federate forces, flushed with the advantages they had gained during the preceding days, were advancing to the charge, and the Union troops were beginning to give way, when Stevens, seizing the colors of his old regiment, the 79th, was riding along the line to rally them, when a bullet struck him in the temple and killed him in- stantly.
Within the same hour another major-general, equally beloved, and an equally aggressive fighter, the gallant Phil. Kearney, fell shot to death on the same field. The stirring lines of Edmund Clarence Stedman, entitled "Kearney at Seven Pines," might have been as appropriately written of one as the other :
O, evil the black shroud of night at Chantilly,
That hid him from sight of his brave men and tried!
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Foul, foul sped the bullet that clipped the white lily,
The flower of our knighthood, the whole army's pride! Yet we dream that he still-in that shadowy region
Where the dead form their ranks at the wan drummer's sign-
Rides on, as of old, down the length of his legion,
And the word still is "Forward!" along the whole line.
CHAPTER LIII.
PROGRESS OF EVENTS.
F EW of Governor Stevens' immediate successors were able to direct events as he had done. Happily they were rarely called upon to do so. J. Patton Anderson, ex-marshal and ex-delegate in Congress, who was appointed governor, when Stevens resigned im- mediately after his election as delegate, did not qualify, and Fayette McMullen of Virginia, his successor, spent a considerable part of his term of office outside the territory. He sent but one message to the legislature, and that was delivered soon after his arrival, and contains little that is or was of value. It bears no evidence that he was a man of ability or special fitness for the office, and its most important suggestion was that the legislature should protest against the attempt of Oregon to annex the Walla Walla region. After securing a divorce from his wife, by act of the legis- lature, he married a Miss Mary Wood of Thurston County, and returned to Virginia in July 1858. He subsequently became a member of the Confederate Congress. Secretary Mason again served as governor until the close of McMullen's term, when Richard A. Gholson of Kentucky was appointed.
The most serious matter that McMullen was called upon to deal with while in the territory, was the attempt of the military officers at Fort Steilacoom, and the Hudson's Bay people at Nisqually, to save Leschi from the gallows. He dealt with this with firmness, and was supported in the course he followed by a strong preponderance of public sentiment.
Gholson arrived in the territory early in July 1859, and within three weeks thereafter, on July 18th, Secretary Mason died, after an illness of only three days. Mason was almost universally beloved by the people of the territory, whom he had now served for nearly six years, half of which time
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approximately he had been acting governor. Although but twenty-nine years old when he died, he had met all the grave responsibilities of that high office with ability and promptness, and discharged all its duties with such fidelity and success, as to meet the approval of those for whom he acted, as well as of the people generally. His funeral was held in the capitol, and Governor Stevens, who was then in the territory, pronounced his funeral oration. He was buried at Bush's Prairie, beside his friend George W. Stevens, the governor's nephew, who had been drowned at the crossing of the Skookum Chuck in February 1856. In January 1864, the legislature changed the name of Sawamish to Mason County in his honor.
Gholson served both as governor and secretary until Henry M. McGill was appointed to the latter office. McGill arrived at Olympia in November, and in the following May Gholson returned to Kentucky, where he made an ineffectual attempt to take that State out of the Union. He did not return to the territory, and McGill served out his term as acting governor.
While Gholson was in the territory, the San Juan episode engaged public attention to a large extent. The northern Indians were still troublesome, and their incursions gave both the settlers and the authorities much cause for alarm. But the governor found no means to make effective defense against their raids, and the settlers were left to defend them- selves as best they could. Although the territory now had "about 1,000 muskets," as he informed General Harney,* "150 of which were rifled," and although he had "an abiding faith that the citizens of the territory will, with enthusiastic alacrity, respond to any call necessary for the defense of
*Letter of August 21, 1859.
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individual rights, the rights of their country, or their coun- try's honor," he made no arrangements for them to defend themselves. It was during his administration that the little ships Blue Wing and Ellen Maria were attacked and all on board murdered near Vashon Island. D. Hunt, a deputy-marshal, was also murdered on Whidby Island, and seven miners on their way to Fort Langley, on the Fraser, were massacred. A white woman was captured about the same time and carried away into captivity. It was not safe for any but armed parties to go anywhere upon the waters of Admiralty Inlet, among the islands of the San Juan Archipelago, or along the shore of Bellingham Bay.
It would seem that such a condition of things would have prompted a governor who "had large ideas of the impor- tance of an executive position," as Gholson is said to have had, and with so many resources at his command, to organize a defense that would be effective. A moderate force, under the command of an energetic and experienced Indian fighter like Maxon, or indeed almost any of the captains or lieu- tenants of the 2d regiment, would have kept these marauders in check, and given the inhabitants of the islands complete protection. But Gholson apparently had no thought of preparing any means for defense so reasonable and so effective. Instead, he is said to have contemplated issuing a proclamation authorizing the citizens to fit out vessels to make reprisals on the inhabitants of British Columbia, because their government did not prevent the Indians from crossing the boundary to commit these depredations .*
*Bancroft quotes Strong as saying that Gholson "finally hit upon the happy project of getting out a proclamation, authorizing the citizens of the territory to arm and fit out vessels for the purpose of making reprisals against the English for permitting the northern Indians to leave British Columbia and commit depredations in Washington Territory-regular
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After Mr. Lincoln became president, W. H. Wallace was named as governor. He was in Washington when the appointment was tendered him, having gone there as a repre- sentative citizen and an old acquaintance of the president, to recommend the removal of some territorial officials whose loyalty was distrusted and secure the appointment of others whose patriotism there was no occasion to doubt. During his absence he was nominated by the republicans as their candidate for delegate, and upon his return he accepted the nomination, and never qualified as governor. The election was then drawing near and if he assumed the office he would be required to resign it in a few weeks if elected delegate. Moreover the capital fight was then getting very warm, and as governor he would be drawn into it in a way that might prejudice his chance of election as delegate, while as a private citizen he might practically leave the question aside. He accordingly allowed Mr. Turney, the new secretary to act as governor until William Pickering of Illinois, an old acquaintance of the president, was appointed. Pickering was past sixty years of age, and not a man of great experience in managing public affairs, yet he proved to be a very acceptable governor during the four ensuing years. Pending his arrival in the territory, L. J. S. Turney, who had succeeded McGill as secretary, acted as governor for some months. Elwood Evans succeeded Turney as secretary in 1862, and held the office until 1867, dur- ing which period he was also acting governor at various times.
letters of marque and reprisal! Strong, to whom he showed the proclama- tion, assured him it would make him the most famous man upon the Pacific Coast. But Tilton, who was also informed of it, put a stop to it." Bancroft's "Washington," p. 212.
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Up to this time all the governors except Stevens had been absent so much of the time that the legislature, in January 1866, adopted a memorial praying Congress to permit the citizens of the territory to elect their own officers. "During the past year," this memorial said, "two of our three judges have been absent from the territory for many months, and both at the same time, so that in consequence of their absence, the people of the territory have suffered serious inconvenience and embarrassment." It further recited that the territory was so far from the seat of government, and its special and business relations of such a peculiar character, as "to require that they be put in charge of the best of men acquainted with them, and we are satisfied, from our past experience as a territory, that men cannot be found, as a general rule, to be sent to us from abroad, who will have or can have that identification with our interests which is required for the intelligent and faithful discharge of the duties of office among us."
But this earnest cry and prayer did not prevail, and the general government continued to appoint governors, secre- taries, marshals, attorneys and judges for the territory, as for others, for more than twenty years longer.
The people of the territory had shown an active interest in their public affairs, even when it was a part of Oregon. At the first election after their arrival, their votes had determined the choice of governor for that territory, but no party organizations seem to have been formed or attempted until after the separation. Then steps were soon taken to organize the Democratic Party, and a Whig organization, which put W. H. Wallace in the field as candidate for dele- gate against Columbia Lancaster, was formed a little later. In 1855, J. Patton Anderson, Democrat, defeated Judge
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Strong, the Whig candidate, and Joseph Cushman, who was at that time manager for the Kendall Company, a trading concern which owned ships and maintained a general store in Olympia, received forty-one votes as the candidate of the Free-Soil Party. All the conventions were held that year at Olympia. There were forty-seven delegates in that of the Democrats, and the candidates were: Columbia Lancaster, Governor Stevens, Isaac N. Ebey, J. Patton Anderson, Harry R. Crosbie, Charles H. Mason and Henry C. Mosely. Governor Stevens' name was withdrawn after the tenth ballot, but no nomination was made until the twenty-ninth, when Anderson won. The Whig convention was composed of forty delegates, and Elwood Evans pre- sided. The candidates were: W. H. Wallace, Judge Gil- more Hays, George Gibbs, William Strong, Alexander S. Abernethy and Hugh A. Goldsborough. Twenty-one ballots were taken before a choice was made.
The legislature met annually and was always Demo- cratic until the winter of 1862-63. The members of the lower house were chosen annually, as were the county officers; members of the Council were elected for three years. The campaigns were usually spirited, particularly in the alternate years, when a delegate to Congress was to be chosen. In 1858 the name Whig began to disappear and Republican to be substituted. While this probably did not affect the organization, as the Whigs, with the addition of the Free-Soilers, really became the Republican Party, the Democrats regularly elected the delegate until 1861, when W. H. Wallace defeated Garfielde.
The Democratic territorial convention was held that year at Vancouver, and while Governor Stevens had returned to the territory from Washington, in the hope and expectation
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of securing a renomination as delegate, he was defeated. He had been too actively and openly opposed to secession to please some of the delegates who had come to the territory from the Southern States, and since his return had so frankly avowed his determination to sustain the new administration in enforcing the laws and maintaining the Union, as to dis- please others. He had been chosen captain of a military company, the organization of which had been begun at Olympia after his arrival, and had accepted, and this seems to have displeased others who were not disposed at that time to go so far as to take up arms to sustain a Republican president. News of the attack on Fort Sumpter had only recently been received, and many of the delegates felt that they must soon decide for themselves, whether they would support the Lincoln administration in defending the Union, or encourage the secessionists in their determination to destroy it. They were not quite prepared to make the decision, and therefore, although friendly to Stevens, were reluctant to approve the course he had chosen by giving him a renomination. But he was able to secure the adop- tion of resolutions favoring the Union, and then gracefully accepted the nomination of his principal competitor.
This halting policy had the same effect on the party in the territory as in the states. The more ardent Unionists in it went over, temporarily at least, to the opposition; the remainder, though loyal to the Union for the most part, when they saw how the issue was made up, and rendering it loyal support, nevertheless became the minority party, and, although strong enough to elect some of their candidates now and again, generally remained in the minority for a number of years. In 1863, George E. Cole, a Democrat, was elected delegate. This was the year in which great
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Democratic gains were made in most of the older States, outside of New England, and the Republican majority in Congress was greatly reduced. Cole had been a resident of Oregon until two years previously, but had gone to eastern Washington during the gold excitement, and engaged in steamboating and general business. He had two competi- tors, the regular Republican nominee being Joseph Raynor, a Methodist preacher, who, like himself, had been a resident of Oregon until two years earlier, and L. J. S. Turney, the ex-secretary of the territory, who received only 98 votes. Cole's majority over Raynor was 185, and the total vote cast was 3,057.
Two years later A. A. Denny was elected over James Tilton, who had been adjutant-general during the Indian war, and had removed Denny from the command of Company A. Tilton had come to the territory as its first surveyor-general, and was a Democrat appointed by a Demo- cratic president. He was, however, a loyal supporter of the Union cause, although he did not escape being classed as a "Copperhead," as sympathizers with secession were called, during the campaign. He was opposed by some of his old-time party associates, who had gone over to the Republicans, most notable among these being Selucius Garfielde, who only four years earlier had been the Demo- cratic nominee. Denny had been a member of every legis- lature from that first elected after Governor Stevens' arrival, down to 1861, when he was appointed register of the land office at Olympia, which position he held until elected delegate. He served but one term as delegate and was succeeded by Alvan Flanders, who defeated Frank Clark, the lawyer who had defended Leschi, by a majority of only 153 in a total of about 5,000 votes. Flanders was a
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Republican who had left the Democratic Party before the war began. He had come to the coast in 1851, and had lived in San Francisco for several years. He had served two terms in the California legislature, had held a posi- tion in the mint, and afterwards in the land office at Humboldt. He had come to Washington in 1863 and en- gaged in business at Wallula.
So far in the history of the territory, party attachments had been regulated, for the most part, by party issues. Democrats, Whigs and Republicans had loyally supported the candidates of their parties, and local or personal influences had rarely been strong enough to make changes that were perceptible in the returns. In Stevens' time, it is true, personal feeling ran high, especially in his first campaign, when his course in proclaiming martial law was still the subject of excited discussion, and some Democrats opposed, and some Whigs supported him. But this disturbing influ- ence gradually wore away, and those who had temporarily abandoned the standards they were accustomed to follow, returned to their allegiance. But now President Johnson's quarrel with his party, which began soon after he took office, had caused some changes of party alignment, as it had in most other states and territories. The "Washington Stand- ard," which had been established as a Republican paper at Olympia in 1860, followed Johnson over to the Democratic Party, and some Democrats who had voted for Mr. Lincoln in 1864, and for other Republican candidates during the war, as the surest and best means of sustaining the Union cause, now went back to their earlier allegiance. This to some extent, no doubt, accounted for the small major- ity Flanders received over Clark in the election for dele- gate.
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