Customer Reviews

The California Gold Rush and the Coming of the Civil War

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This was an extremely interesting book that discusses a time period (between the Gold Rush and the outbreak of the Civil War) in California history that has been downplayed.

The book opens with a 1859 dual in San Francisco between David Broderick, California's US Senator, and David Terry, a former Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court over slavery-related politics in which Broderick was mortally wounded. It then moves back in time to the discovery of Gold in the Mother Lode and the increasing value of California to the nation. From that point, Richards then demonstrates how political and social tensions became so fierce in California in the 1850's.

The book provides an nice overview of the history of the Gold Rush and then illustrates the surpising number of cross-influences between California and the growing sectional conflict in the nation. It discusses in some detail early California politics in the 1850's and how much it was affected by activist pro-slavery and abolitionist forces. As an example, I was quite surprised the number of times that they proposed dividing California in two - a free Northern half and a pro-slave Southern half. In fact, a proposal to do just that was approved by both the California Assembly and Senate and signed by the Governor in the late 1850's. Only James Buchanan's relcutance to push it forward to avoid antagonizing an increasingly polarized congress stopped it for good.

This is a great book for people interested in California history or people interested in the build up to the Civil War on a national stage. Readers interested in both topics will be especially delighted.

Most books about the American Civil War ignore the West. At best they will take up the 1862 Confederate invasion of New Mexico, and perhaps mention that a handful of Confederate troops made it as far west as Tucson.

Otherwise, aside from the Union occupation of New Orleans, Grant's actions in Tennessee and Mississippi, and Sherman's March to the Sea, most books on the conflict concentrate on Lee's campaigns in Virginia and his two invasions of the North. Books about the approach of the war take up the issues of slavery and States' Rights in the context of the politics in the East and the repercussions of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The West is not usually discussed. Yet, California's gold helped finance the Union victory, and Californians were deeply involved in the politics that led to the conflict.

Leonard L. Richards, professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, tries to redress this imbalance. In this new book he takes up the politics of California, from the entrance of John C. Frémont on the eve of the Mexican War, through the Gold Rush and California's admission as a state, to the 1860 election that led to the war.

Many Northern Californians today often wonder why the state couldn't have been divided into two? The more ecologically-minded north could manage its own water, and the thirsty south would have had to limit its unbridled growth. Richards tells us how the state almost did become divided, several times in fact. The closest division came was in 1858 when the California legislature passed an act to separate the state, creating a Territory of Colorado south of the vicinity of San Luis Obispo. Richards says this was because of a desire among the Mexicans of the south for more self-determination, but they would have never succeeded without the votes of the pro-Southern Democrats in the north who hoped to create a slave state in southern California.

The southern part of the state voted three to one in a referendum in support of the plan, but the US Congress, faced with the approaching Civil War, ignored the proposal. Considering the great interest among many in Congress and the Buchanan Administration in the vain attempt to create a pro-slavery Kansas, their negligence of a much more possible new slave state in southern California is surprising, but by 1858 the Republicans were in the ascendancy and the Democrats were fragmenting.

Against the background of the national debate, Richards describes the local politics in California, a free state dominated by pro-slavery Southerners, highlighted by a famous duel between the pro-slavery Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court and an anti-slavery US Senator. The several plans to create a transcontinental railroad are also described against the background of the slavery issue and the Kansas statehood debate.

My only wish is that the Epilogue, a concise summary of California and California soldiers during the Civil War, should instead have been expanded into several chapters. The book is called "...the Coming of the Civil War" and that's what it is. But when there are so few books that discuss California during the war, it would have been nice if Richards could have written more.

A Close Run Thing: California, CSA

The California Gold Rush and the Coming of the Civil War, Richards, Leonard L., Knopf Publishing, 304 pp., illus., maps, 2007.

Gold Rush! California, like Kansas in the 1850s, was caught between pro- and anti-slavery settlers. To migrating Southerners, the labor-intensive mines in the Sierra Nevada Mountains begged for slave labor. Southern slave holders, who did not migrate to California, viewed Californaia as a new market for slaves. The Mexican state of California became the U.S. state of California through intense political maneuvering, timely military presence, and impassioned hypocritical rhetoric. A 'free state' (wage labor as opposed to slave labor) California narrowly missed being divided, north to south, wage labor and slave labor.

Conversely, Northern migrants envisioned the building of ports which in turn would lead to extensive participation in the China trade. The struggle for California statehood, the divisions within the Democratic Party, the contentious spirit of the American (Know Nothing) Party, the demise of the Whig Party, and the explosive growth of the Republican Party is subperbly described by the author. Slanders, duels, law suits, graft, were a frequent occurrence. In an era when voters received paper ballots at home and then went to the polls, party organization was essential.

The author offers telling details within in the mural of the political, social and economic panorama of California. Richards opens the story with the murder of an Irish Catholic Democratic U.S. Senator and ends the book with the unmourned death of one of the conspirators 20 years later. In the middle of the work, Richards reveals that the senator predicted his own death within a next few months. Seamlessly moving from the Sierra Nevada goldfields to San Fransico, from Panama and to the halls of Congress, and then back again, Professor Richards tells a story of gold and railroads, Mexicans and Anglos, miners and politicians, frontier women and ballroom damsels.

Refreshingly, Richards draws his conclusions hestitantly. He offers no platitudes nor does he reveal an agenda. The reader draws his own conclusions and meanings regarding the Slave Power Conspiracy, Stephen Douglas' quest for a railroad for the West, James Buchanan's activism and paralysis, and John Fremont's reputation and his actual accomplishments. This reader realized how close California was to becoming North California and South California. How may have the Civil War turned out if the North had not received almost $3 million dollars a month during the Civil War from the California gold fields? How may have the war turned out if gold had been king and cotton had been queen of the South?

This is a very random but interesting collection of stories from the gold rush to the civil war in California but lacked a solid thesis to connect them together. The book does do an excellent job of showing how California became a state via its population boom. It tracks the lives of those who impacted California from the Pathfinder, to Thomas Hart Benton and Jefferson Davis as well as the players within California many of whom would shape the transcontinental railroad. As noted by an earlier review it does provide a very interesting glimpse as to why the territories of California, Nevada and Colorado/Utah became the states that they did through the slavery question and how California was forced to remain together rather than try to solve the national slave problem from the local perspective. For those looking for more on the history of California and want to learn more about the little known stories this is a great book to start doing so but it does not tell a coherent story and remains a random collection.

Academically, this UCB/UCD grad & U of Mass history professor is sound, a bit dry, perhaps a bit overreaching at times. Growing up in Northern section, I was aware of the conflict, that California once might have been split. But the title and, indeed, the quality antique photos upon the cover, were misleading, for this is not about the Gold Rush and its participants, but rather about the "Great Men" who played the "Great Roles" and "made" the history, and their immediate compatriots.... not about the common fellows who traveled from Northern and Southern States, and how they, now 2-3000 miles from home, were terribly torn by the oncoming conflict, what they felt and experienced, how it impacted in the camps and on the flats, and the choices they came to make, which is what I'd hoped for. For that, one star; for the academics, 4, averaging on the lower side.

The book starts and ends with the duel between Senator Broderick and California Supreme Court Justice Terry. In between it tells stories from California history from before the gold rush to the civil war. The initial portion of the book focuses on the fairly well known history of early settler's, Sutter, and the stampede for gold. The most intriguing part here was the story of transportation to California and Vanderbilt's vindictiveness against those that wronged him.

The bulk of the book covers the movers and shakers in California at the time. These are the stories of men that left there home states in pursuit of greater political power in California. These stories are tied to the quest of politicians in Washington to balance the free and slave state needs. The story of the southern "Chivs" in California is especially interesting.

The many different threads all seem to tie in to the story of California. However, the story ends before the civil war, with the war only mentioned briefly in the epilogue. With the emphasis of the title I would expect a little more coverage at least up to the start of the war.

I think that the authro had an interesting hypothesis and did attack the Civil War from an interesting perspective. But, the bottom line is that California was never really threatened to become a slave state or leave the Union at the time of the Civil War. I think it was a real stretch to suggest that those hypotheses were any more than very unlikely and really didn't even come close to happening. I believe that the vote was over 80% in favor of "free state" status.