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