Merry Christmas!

Although I don't have a direct Civil War tie at my fingertips, I do want to wish all of you readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I also want to thank you for your patience--I've been working through some computer issues for the last month, but everything now seems to be in working order, so I should be able to update the blog more frequently!

A Collection of California/Civil War Links

Here are a few interesting sites that feature information on California's role in the Civil War.

California in the American Civil War from Wikipedia

Californians in the Civil War from the California Department of Parks and Recreation

The Civil War in California State Parks from the California Department of Parks and Recreation

The Golden State and the Civil War from LearnCalifornia.org

Civil War History in California from the San Francisco Chronicle

California in the Civil War from Drum Barracks

Californians Serving in the Civil War from the California State Military Museum

Lincoln and Thanksgiving

In 1863, President Lincoln issued the following declaration, establishing Thanksgiving as a national holiday:

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

Click here to learn more about Lincoln's ongoing interest in California. 

The Grand Army of the Republic

The Grand Army of the Republic, or GAR, was founded on April 6, 1866, in Decatur, Illinois. This veterans' organization was open to honorably discharged veterans of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Revenue Cutter Service who served during the war.

The GAR began as a fraternal organization, but soon developed into a force for veteran's affairs, including working to ensure soldiers' pensions and constructing soldiers' home. The GAR final meeting took place in 1949 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Its last member, Albert Woolson, died in 1956 at  age 109.

During the GAR National Encampment held in San Francisco in 1886, the Department of New York presented a banner to the Department of California. Here's the banner in the encampment's grand procession. (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA)

The GAR's Department of California and Nevada was organized on February 21, 1868. Eventually, the department was home to nearly 200 individual posts, all of which were named for deceased veterans. No two posts in the same department were supposed to be named for the same deceased veteran. While the last National Encampment was held in 1949, the Department of California and Nevada continued to hold their annual Department Encampments into the 1950s.



The last member of the Department, William Allen Magee of Company M, 12th Ohio Cavalry, died in Long Beach, California, on January 23, 1953 at age 106.

Here's a close-up of the banner the Department of California received at the 1886 GAR National Encampment (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA).

The group continues today as the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War. It is open to descendants of honorably discharged Union veterans. The National Archives also has Civil War veterans' information available in its military holdings.

The Battle of Ball's Bluff, October 21, 1861

On October 21, 1861, Col. Edward Dickinson Baker (right) became the only sitting U.S. senator to die in battle, leading his troops at the Battle of Ball's Bluff in Virginia. Six months earlier, the Secretary of War authorized him to organize an infantry regiment to be taken as part of the quota from California. Baker organized the California Brigade (mostly from the Philadelphia area) and served as its colonel. Shortly afterward, he received command of a brigade in General Charles Pomeroy Stone's division, guarding Potomac River fords north of Washington. Baker's death was dramatized in "Death of Col. Baker," a steel engraving (left) by H. Wright Smith after drawing by F.O.C. Darley, copyrighted by Hurlbut Williams & Co. (Photos from Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

Col. Baker is buried in San Francisco National Cemetery in California, where I took this photo of his tombstone. The back of the tombstone describes him as "eminent San Francisco lawyer" and "United States senator from Oregon." Baker and Abraham Lincoln became friends when both lived in Illinois, and Lincoln thought so much of the friendship and the man that he named his second son Edward Baker Lincoln.  Col. Baker and his family lived in San Francisco from 1851 to 1860, when they moved to Oregon so he could become a Republican senator from the state. His son and namesake, who escorted his father's body to Washington, DC, after Ball's Bluff, died while in serving in the Army in Vancouver, Washington.

Saluting America's First Aeronaut

The Civil War marked the beginning of modern warfare, at least in terms of communications and reconnaissance. We've already looked at the 150th anniversary of the telegraph, and this year marks the 150th anniversary of the use of aerial observers in American warfare. Professor Thaddeus Sobieski Coulincourt Lowe was an inventor who proposed using balloons to observe Confederate positions and troop movements to President Lincoln on June 11, 1861. Lincoln approved the plan, and Lowe first flew his balloon, the Intrepid, over the First Battle of Bull Run. After his success, Lincoln ordered the formation of the Union Army Balloon Corps and named Lowe chief aeronaut.

The first photo shows his balloon camp at Gaines Mills, Virginia, in 1862. He is in the balloon basket as it's about to lift off. The second photo shows Lowe in camp in 1861. After the war, he and his family moved to Pasadena, California, where he opened several ice plants, founded the Citizen's Bank of Los Angeles and became involved in the Mount Lowe Railway, a line designed to transport people to the crest of the San Gabriel Mountains. (Photos from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

The Sesquicentennial of the Telegraph

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the invention of the telegraph. On Oct. 24, 1861, California chief justice Stephen J. Field sent a congratulatory wire from San Francisco to Abraham Lincoln in Washington, DC, on the successful completion of the cross-country project, which spelled the end of the Pony Express and could be considered the start of the wiring of America.

Building the project presented its own set of challenges for Western Union, including a shortage of wood through what is now Nevada, and the unintentional destruction of some poles across what is now Wyoming by itchy buffalo, which scratched themselves on the poles and knocked some of them down.

The telegraph revolutionized communications from the east to the west, and it even created its own  shorthand, which was used primarily by wire service reporters who were filing their stories with eastern news bureaus. Reporters used the numbers "73" for goodbye, and "30" to indicate the end of a story. (Hey, now I know where the ##30## comes from from j-school. Life is a an ongoing learning experience!) They used these and other abbreviations to keep the wires as free of clutter as possible.

The Union Army strung 15,000 miles of telegraph wire solely for military use during the Civil War. Keeping it repaired was likely a full-time job. (Photo from Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

During the Civil War, the telegraph made it easier for the military and the media to communicate with the capitals and newspaper offices. The Union army strung about 15,000 miles of wire solely for military telegraphic use, and telegraphers brought their battery wagons close to the front lines to power their machines. Generals could send battle reports to Washington and Richmond, and reporters could file stories with their editors faster than ever before.

By 2006, Western Union had stopped sending telegrams altogether, relying instead on customers wiring money to one another as the bulk of its business.

A Piece of Postal History

Collecting California Civil War memorabilia is not the easiest hobby to pursue, but anyone who knows me will tell you "easy" is not always the way I choose. This is a patriotic envelope that has a particularly nice rendition of the state seal and an appropriate-to-the-times message.

Historian Offers New Civil War Casualty Figures

Historian J. David Hacker has devised new casualty figures for the Civil War, which he discusses in-depth in an article in the December issue of Civil War History.

Many historians have disputed the widely accepted figure of 620,000 Americans killed, noting that the 258,000 Confederate casualties is too low. However, detailed records on troop strength were kept sporadically on both sides, so establishing a more accurate estimate has proved difficult.

Hacker used 1870 census figures as the basis for his calculations and came up with an estimated total of between 650,000 to 850,000 casualties.

Click here for more details on Hacker's work.

California's Contributions by the Numbers

Here's a quick summary of California's casualties in the war:

15,725 total troops (of the 2,778,304 total Union force)

108 killed or mortally wounded
344 died from disease
62 died accidentally
59 died in other non-combat incidents
573 total deaths

I'm still trying to locate a reliable figure for combat wounded and will post it when I locate it.

A Civil War California Reading List

Here's a list of some of my favorite California-related Civil War history books:


Army of the Pacific by Aurora Hunt
The Beat of the Drum: The History, People, & Events of Drum Barracks Wilmington, California by Don McDowell
Blood and Treasure: Confederate Empire in the Southwest by Donald S. Frazier, PhD
The Boys in the Sky-Blue Pants by Dorothy Clora Cragen
Brigham and the Brigadier: General Patrick Connor and His California Volunteers in Utah and Along the Overland Trail by James F. Varley
The California Column in New Mexico by Darlis Miller
California Sabers: The 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry in the Civil War by James McLean
The Civil War in Arizona: The Story of the California Volunteers, 1861-1865 by Andrew Masich 
Confederate Pathway to the Pacific: Major Sherod Hunter and Arizona Territory, C.S.A by L. Boyd Finch
Glory Hunter: A Biography of Patrick Edward Connor by Brigham Madsen
Major General James Henry Carleton 1814-1873: Western Frontier Dragoon by Aurora Hunt
Their Horses Climbed Trees by Keith Rogers

Sharing My Years of Study

Welcome to my California and the Civil War blog, which finally provides me a place to share information I've gathered through years of study and research.

Let's get right to the elephant in the room, shall we? What connection did California have to the Civil War? Although a great deal of distance lies between the main battlefields of the war and the gold fields of the 31st state, California' 16,000-man contribution to the war effort surpassed the total number of men in the pre-war Regular Army. While the majority of California's volunteers manned frontier posts so Regular Army troops could travel east and join the fighting, some Californians saw combat at Gettysburg and on other fields.

Looking at the bigger picture, California was a destination visited by some of the pivotal figures in the war: Henry Wager Halleck, Joe Hooker, Ulysses Simpson Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman and Winfield Scott Hancock passed through the state before the war, as did Albert Sidney Johnston, John Bell Hood, William Dorsey Pender, Richard Brooke Garnett and Lewis Addison Armistead.

California also proved a haven for some old soldiers, including William Starke Rosecrans, Thomas Turpin Crittenden, Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana, Tyree Harris Bell, George Blake Cosby, Henry Brevard Davidson and Edward Higgins.

In this blog, I'll offer information on men and battles, as well as monuments and museums that you can visit to learn more about this overlooked aspect of our country's Civil War history.