Sea to Shining Sea

by Michael Phillips

  Then the door opened and Uncle Nick walked in with his family. Cal immediately jumped up, shook Uncle Nick’s hand and greeted Aunt Katie warmly. Everyone took seats and the conversation resumed.

  After about five minutes, suddenly a puzzled expression came over Cal’s face. “Say, where is your sister?” he asked Aunt Katie. “Edie was her name, was it not? I had hoped to see her again too.”

  The room was silent a moment.

  “She left for the East,” Katie said. Her tone reflected the sadness she and all the rest of us had felt at Edie’s parting.

  “When?” asked Cal.

  “Right after the Sumter incident,” replied Uncle Nick.

  “She said she had to go—that with the South under attack, she had to be where her home would always be.”

  An odd look came over Cal’s face. What Aunt Katie had said seemed to strike deeply into him for some reason.

  “We tried to get her to stay,” said Uncle Nick. “Told her it was the South doing the attacking, and that if it did come to war, there couldn’t be no safer place for her than right here.”

  “She hardly had any family left, anyway,” said Almeda. “We told her we loved her and that we’d try to be family to her now that her husband was gone. But once news about Sumter came, she changed. She was distant after that. I knew she wasn’t at home here.”

  “Nothing we said could change her mind,” said Katie, starting to cry quietly. Almeda was sitting next to her and put her arm around her to comfort her. “I asked her what if we never saw each other again. But she just kept saying she had to be with her new country. It was almost as if we were suddenly strangers.”

  Katie could say no more. She broke down and wept.

  Cal hadn’t said another word, and the faraway look remained in his eyes for some time. He seemed very thoughtful and distracted and didn’t say much the rest of the evening.

  The outbreak of war between the North and South was bound, it seemed, to touch everyone in the country closely, sooner or later.

  Already the pain was starting to come into people’s lives.

  Chapter 46

  The Campaigns of the Summer of 1861

  Just like Abraham Lincoln, Leland Stanford faced two Democrats in running for governor—a southern Democrat and a Union Democrat. The campaign was a short one, lasting mainly just through the months of July and August.

  Stanford had lots of supporters in the state besides me. Once I began to realize just how much support he did have, in fact, I wondered why he had thought of me at all.

  Thomas Starr King, now a strong ally, traveled throughout the state speaking for Mr. Stanford. And as everybody was finding out, he was one of the best orators in the whole country. A group of San Francisco businessmen who were normally Democrats backed Mr. Stanford, too. Like him, they were strong supporters of the Union even if they hadn’t voted for Mr. Lincoln. A man named Levi Strauss was one of the most famous of these men, and since they were all influential, a lot of people took their advice when it came time to vote.

  One person who wasn’t so enthusiastic, though it made me mad at the time he told me, was a certain individual out of my past I’d tried hard to forget—Robin T. O’Flaridy.

  I had seen his byline occasionally—he called himself R. Thomas O’Flaridy. When we ran into each other one day in the Alta building, he took me aside and spoke softly to me.

  “Corrie, do me a favor and take one last bit of advice from an old friend,” he said.

  “An old friend?” I said, laughing. “After all you’ve pulled on me?”

  “All in the past, Corrie,” smiled Robin. “Part of the business, you know. Surely you’ve forgiven me by now.”

  “Oh, I suppose. How could I hold a grudge against a struggling fellow writer.”

  “Struggling?” he repeated. “Did you see my piece on the new wharf?”

  “Yes, Robin,” I answered, “and a great article it was, too.”

  “That’s better.”

  “So,” I said, “what’s the advice you have for me?”

  A serious expression came over his face. For a moment it almost confused me because it was so very different than the normal Robin O’Flaridy look I had grown accustomed to.

  “How much do you know about Leland Stanford?” he asked.

  “I don’t know . . . quite a bit, I suppose,” I answered.

  “I mean, how well do you really know him? How well do you know what kind of person he is?”

  “I . . . I thought I did. I’ve spent time with him. I like him. He’s very kind to me.”

  “Perhaps. But I have a hunch, Corrie, that he may just be using you for his own ends.”

  “What! How can you possibly say such a thing?” I was annoyed.

  “He’s a businessman, Corrie. I’ve been around this city long enough to know some things. The whole deal with the railroad—I tell you, Corrie, it’s not as clean and innocent as it seems. There are huge amounts of money involved. Huge, I tell you, and your friend Stanford and his cohorts are right in the thick of it.”

  “What are you insinuating?” I asked coolly.

  “I’m not insinuating anything other than that the railroad’s not primarily about politics—it’s about money. I have the feeling Stanford only wants to be governor to line his own pockets and get richer than he already is. I know about these guys, Corrie—him, Hopkins, Crocker. They’re businessmen, not politicians. All they are is a new breed of forty-niner, a new kind of gold miner. Some might even call them claim jumpers.”

  “How dare you, Robin? I won’t even listen to you. Who would say such a thing?”

  “Ever heard of Theodore Dehone Judah?”

  “Of course I’ve heard of him.”

  “He might agree with me.”

  “I don’t believe a word of it. Why are you telling me this, Robin? Are you working for the Democrats in this election?” Again the same peculiar look came over Robin’s face.

  “Look, Corrie,” he said, “I’m only concerned for you. Believe me, I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Why do I have such a difficult time believing your sincerity?” I said sarcastically. Immediately I regretted the words. The look on his face changed to one of pain.

  “I’m sorry, Robin,” I said. “I didn’t mean it.”

  “Well, Corrie, I do mean it. Concern for you was the only reason I said anything about it at all.”

  “All right, Robin . . . thank you.”

  “Just watch your step, Corrie. That’s all. And be careful about that Burton fellow too.”

  “Cal?” I said.

  “I’m not so sure about him either. I’ve heard—”

  “I’ll watch my step, like you said, but I won’t listen to you say a word against Cal,” I interrupted, getting irritated again.

  Robin seemed to think better of pursuing it, and he said nothing more. But the look on his face remained with me all the rest of the day. Strange as it was to say, I had the feeling he really was sincerely thinking of me. But then, I thought he was being sincere that night when we’d escaped from Sonora together, too, and he had double-crossed me!

  I didn’t think much more about what he’d said, and continued working for the campaign as before. Mr. Stanford himself traveled through all the northern part of the state—through all the mining regions, from Weaverville up north on the Trinity River all the way down to Sonora in the south. Naturally he came to Miracle Springs too, where I got to stand beside him and speak to my own hometown.

  I didn’t really do all that much for him, but Mr. Stanford took me with him to lots of the smaller places like Miracle Springs, introduced me to people as if I were more important than he was, and always let me say a few things, either about him or about Mr. Lincoln or the need to be loyal to the Union. He treated me so kindly, and told me—whether it was true or not—that I was helping his campaign a great deal.

  The other campaign of that summer was not such a pleasant one. It was taking place twenty-five hun
dred miles away—and was not a political campaign, but a military one.

  The attack on Fort Sumter had taken place in April. But for the next two months nothing happened. Both North and South were busy recruiting, training, and building up their armies. I later heard that the moods of the general public were very different during this time.

  In the South, wealthy landowners and the leaders who had organized the Confederacy were all confident—confident that right was on their side, certain that they were doing the just and honorable thing, confident in their strength, sure of victory. Somebody I later interviewed told me it was a self-righteous kind of confidence. God and the Bible were on their side, so how could they do anything but win? The young soldiers of the southern army, though not so religious or philosophical about it, mostly felt the same way.

  But hundreds of thousands of people in the South, however, neither leaders nor soldiers nor landowners, were shocked by what had happened. They believed that slavery was permissible. They believed in the ways of the South, in southern culture and their southern heritage. But whether it was worth waging a war over, such people had grave doubts. Surely, they thought, some more sensible solution or compromise could be found than to have to kill over it! Though most of these people remained loyal to the Confederacy, many of them wondered if their own leaders—Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens and General Beauregard, who had attacked and toppled Fort Sumter, and General Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jackson, and all the political leaders who had defected from Washington in favor of the Confederacy—weren’t doing just as much to destroy the South as the evil Yankees and their sinister head, Abraham Lincoln. These people were scared.

  As for the slaves in the South, most of the ones I talked to later didn’t have the slightest notion that all the fighting was for them. They were at least the outward symbol of why the Civil War was fought, but they didn’t know it. Freedom for them might as well have been a word in a foreign language. Even if they had freedom, they wouldn’t have known what to do with it. In the meantime, their lives went on as they always had—a life of drudgery, toil, and hopelessness.

  Above the Mason-Dixon Line, however, the mood was far different. People there were mad. It was time the South was put in its place, slavery put an end to, and the country made one again. The South could not be allowed to get away with attacking the very foundation of Freedom itself—the United States government. They wanted something done. They called for retribution, for punishment of the South.

  Therefore, when news came that the new Confederate Congress was going to meet for the first time, and not down in Montgomery, Alabama, but up in Richmond, Virginia—only a hundred and ten miles south of Washington—the anger of the North rose to explosive heights. The call went out—the southern Congress must not be allowed to meet on July 20!

  The New York Tribune took up the banner and repeated what it called the “Nation’s War Cry” in every edition it printed: Forward to Richmond! Forward to Richmond! The Rebel Congress must not be allowed to meet there on the twentieth of July! By that date the place must be held by the National Army!

  President Lincoln, as well as everyone on both sides, thought that the war would be short. Here was a chance, he believed, to deal a quick and decisive blow to the upstart Rebel army and cripple the new government of the Confederacy by taking control of its new capital—all at once!

  But standing in the way, between the northern army and Richmond, were 30,000 Confederate troops. Lincoln gave the order to advance, defeat the Rebel army, and move south to take Richmond.

  The battle of Bull Run near Centreville, Virginia, took place July 21.

  The two armies were approximately equal in size. All kinds of maneuvering went on among the generals of both sides, trying to trick the other. But down on the fields where shots were being fired, young inexperienced boys who were hardly trained and who had never fought before were shooting guns and killing one another! Which side would panic first?

  It turned out that the southern leaders were more skilled in battle tactics than those of the North. After hours of fighting on that hot summer’s day, by attacks and counterattacks, they fooled the blue units of the Federal army into thinking they had more reinforcements than they really did. The boys in blue panicked and finally turned around to flee. The gray units surged forward after them.

  A full retreat was on, all the way back thirty miles to Washington! The severity of the conflict was still so little understood that hundreds of northerners had ridden out toward the battle in buggies and carriages to watch. These sightseers crowded the roads, making the safe retreat of the army all the more difficult. Suddenly toward them came a streaming mass of fugitives! They turned and fled in panic too, as back to the capital rushed tens of thousands of soldiers and citizens, with the victorious and shouting Confederate army behind them!

  The South had won the first major battle of the campaign. Many brave young Union soldiers had been killed.

  Fortunately for the North, the southern leaders did not press the victory and keep going. Otherwise they might have taken Washington itself. For either side, Bull Run might have ended the contest early.

  But it would not.

  This was no small conflict that had any chance of being resolved politically or easily or quickly.

  A full-fledged war had begun. The North was shocked by the southern victory. But the defeat at Bull Run only made them all the more determined. Lincoln sent out a call for more men.

  Everyone was beginning to realize that this was going to be a long and difficult war.

  Chapter 47

  The War in California

  California wasn’t the only state split over loyalties to the North and South. In June, after Virginia had joined the Confederacy, the western part of that state broke away and formed a new state, loyal to the Union, called West Virginia.

  When news of it came, I found myself wondering if such a thing was bound to happen to California one day.

  The election for governor, however, would serve to put the dispute to rest. It was a campaign fought not just along Republican-Democrat lines, but North-South as well. A famous lawyer named Edmond Randolph made fiery speeches against Mr. Stanford. He was outspoken in his calling for Confederate victories in the East, and after Bull Run, claimed that the South would put an end to the war any day. “If this be rebellion,” he cried in a speech that I heard when I was in Sacramento with Cal and Mr. Stanford, “then I am a rebel. Do you want a traitor? Then I am a traitor.”

  There were far more Democrats in California than Republicans. But the split between them kept being the most important factor of all. The Democrats got almost 64,000 votes in September. Mr. Stanford got only 56,000.

  But since he was running against two Democrats, he was elected governor even with a minority!

  I expected Cal to be happier over the victory than he was. This was one of those “opportunities” he was always talking about. He was going to be personal assistant to the governor of the state! He had talked about it before with such a light in his eyes that I would have thought nothing could please him more. He had made it seem like getting to the nation’s Capitol was his greatest goal, and that Mr. Stanford would be the one to take him there. But the southern victory at Bull Run seemed to shake him, and even after the election, he was still quieter than usual. We were all worried when we heard the army had been defeated and had to retreat. But Cal seemed more upset about it than I could understand.

  Mr. Stanford was so behind the North, the Union, and Mr. Lincoln that the Republican victory ended once and for all any possibility that California would support the South or would withdraw from the Union to form a new republic of some kind. Talk of a third country, and even talk of splitting the state, diminished. The War Between the States was the most important thing on everyone’s minds, and the Pony Express deliveries with papers from the East were anticipated eagerly to find out if any more battles had been fought or if anything else had happened. Nothing much did happen, though,
throughout the whole rest of that summer and fall.

  But just because Mr. Stanford was now governor did not mean support for the southern cause stopped altogether. It just meant the state would officially be pro-North. So all the supporters of the Confederacy—and there were lots of them!—had to go into hiding. They had lost their chance to take California into the Confederacy with the vote. So they turned instead to hidden and underground plots and schemes. There was news every week, it seemed, of some new threat that had been exposed, even threats of plots to take over California for the South.

  All kinds of secret societies of southern sympathizers sprang up. Mr. Kemble told me there were as many as fifty thousand people involved, but I don’t know if that was true. They caused mischief, but after the middle of 1861 there weren’t any serious uprisings.

  The debate over which side was “right” in the war continued. William Scott, the pastor of one of San Francisco’s largest churches, the Calvary Presbyterian Church, openly preached his belief in the Confederate cause. He outraged many people in the state, including my editor, Mr. Kemble, who knew him personally.

  Besides men, money was something the Union army needed more than anything. The North was not as economically strong as the South, and to feed, clothe, and pay an army was expensive.

  California was too far away to help with any actual fighting. It was too small a state to be able to provide very many men. But there was one thing that California had more of than any other state in either the Union or the Confederacy.

  That was gold. California could help President Lincoln finance the war, if nothing else.

  The Unitarian pastor Thomas Starr King, who had become a good friend of Governor Stanford, turned his speaking skills and popularity in a new direction. He began to organize a fund-raising drive in California in order to send money to Washington.

  Of course whenever money is involved in anything, there is always the chance of deception and robbery. Since the first gold miners had started pulling gold out of the rivers and streams of California in 1848, there had been claim jumpers and thieves. Now, with southern supporters carrying out their designs more secretively, and with their bitterness over losing California’s support for the Confederate cause, there was worry that they would try to steal what Mr. King was able to raise.