On February 25, the two girls will share their exhibit to the world. As a huge fan of PKD, I am both excited and nervous with the exhibit they will produce. For me, as with any history fair project, it begins with a thesis – what is it the exhibit is going to argue. From a historical perspective, there are many things you could do with PKD as a history fair exhibit. These include:

1. The effect of the Cold War on his works

2. The effect his works had on the movies

3. The effect of McCarthyism on his own paranoia

4. The Role of Dick’s works as warnings about the future

5. The effect of the counterculture on his works

6. How did Dick develop and write his most famous works?

7. The use of technology in the works of PKD

8. Many more…

Regardless of the thesis, the exhibit does not matter if the students can not find sources. Over the years I have collected some digitized sources of letters of PKD. The most obvious place to start would be the bound volumes of PKD letters. Unfortunately, most students cannot go out and purchase them (cost prohibitive), nor are the students able to check the volumes out of a local library as most libraries do not contain the works. Have no fear, the Internet is here!!! With a simple search for PKD letters, one is not only able to find actual text of PKD letters, but more importantly for the history fair students, actual images of those letters. Some are available at the PKD official web site, others are from assorted sites in the cybersphere.

Aside from letters, the next best source of information would be actual interviews and magazine articles including Paul Williams’ 1974 Rolling Stone piece on PKD which is available in pdf format. A student could use YouTube Interviews, old newspaper critiques. Proquest has access to Chicago Tribune and New York Times databases. Some of these articles are enlightening to see how PKD was viewed in his time period.

As for books about PKD, there are a few biographies of Phil out on the market. I am not a big fan of biographies. Yes, I am a historian, but no, I prefer to weave  history together through documents, interviews, newspapers, and magazines. Secondary sources are only useful to a point. The main primary source of any PKD exhibit will be the works of PKD. 200+ short stories and 30+ novels tell more of the man than almost any biography could. Even the video, The Penultimate Truth, is a better source than most PKD biographies.

The reason I like videos, or educational films, are the interviews. This film interviews 3 of PKD’s wives and a step-daughter. It is a thorough work which I enjoy watching it again from time to time. It examines his whole career in 90 minutes and the picture painted of the man is as complex as any book, even more so as PKD’s friends recall the climactic points of his life. For that matter, they could even email and interview Johnathon Lethem, blogger David Gill, or even one PKD’s wives who both recently wrote memoirs on PKD.

As the two girls begin their quest to explore the mind of PKD, I have to remind myself not to get too involved. Even though I have been waiting for this someone to do this exhibit for years, I also want them to find things on their own as young historians. The last thing I want is for them to be turned off to not only history, but the work of PKD. My job will be to ask the questions. Their job is to find the answers. If they ask for help I will, but they have to do the research. They have to do the writing. They have to do the organizing, and most importantly, they have to do the analysis. I will be excited to see what they construct. When it is done, I will put up a picture of the exhibit here on this post or blog. And maybe, just maybe, it will do well. And maybe, they will become fans of PKD.

The Work Station of PKD

Backtracks on PKD

http://historyrat.wordpress.com/2009/04/04/philip-k-dick-the-face-of-the-21st-century-fiction/

http://historyrat.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/rethinking-philip-k-dick-the-influence-of-the-cold-war/

Grant at Cold Harbor

The Battle of Cold Harbor is not like any other battle in the American Civil War. In one hour, on June 3, 1864, over 7,000 Union forces were killed or wounded in an attack on entrenched Confederate positions. Historian Ernest B. Ferguson called it “mindless slaughter” and “not war but murder”. Grant later acknowledged it was the only attack he wished he had not ordered. But this battle, despite its devastation and carnage, marked a turning point in battle strategy for both Union and Confederate commanders.

At the beginning of 1864, the Union had undergone significant changes in its command structures. Lincoln, after having gone through George McClellan (twice) Joseph Hooker, Irvin McDowell, Ambrose Burnside, and George Meade as heads of the Army of the Potomac, took a different approach towards catching and destroying Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. Ulysses S. Grant, former commander of the Army of the Tennessee, was placed in charge of all Union forces. Later, after criticism of Grant surfaced over Grant’s use of force and large loss of life, Lincoln would say of Grant, “I can’t spare this man. He fights.”

And fight Lee is what Grant would do in 1864. Grant’s pursuit of Lee began at the Battle of the Wilderness. With over 100,000 men, Grant’s pursuit of the 62,000 Confederate Army of Northern Virginia began on May 5, 1864. Over three days, Grant’s forces tussled with Lee’s. Both sides suffered heavy casualties. On May 7, Grant pulled away from the battle and began a surprise move toward the south, toward Richmond. Lee, although the military victor at the Wilderness, was now playing second fiddle. Grant forced Lee to pursue him. Grant was on the offensive and Lee and the Confederacy were on the defensive. The two sides next engaged that May at Spotsylvania Court House, just a few miles from the Wilderness. From May 8 through May 21, 1864, Grant attacked Lee at will, but yet Grant was unable to defeat Lee. Casualties were heavy for the two week battle with over 32,000 killed or wounded. The Confederates held. However, Grant’s intended tactics of constant war was beginning to have an effect on the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee’s numbers were dropping.

The two sides next met at North Anna from May 23–26, 1864. Grant wasted no time in being the aggressor while Lee was able to defend his positions with light casualties. However, Grant still was able to move around the flank of Lee at the end of the battle to continue the Union march toward Richmond. Just as at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House, Grant withdrew his forces to begin the offensive anew. This time, the battle would be much different.

Most people tend to think of a battle as happening over 1-2, maybe even three days during the Civil War. The Battle of Cold Harbor would take place over a two week period from May 31 to June 12. However, the greatest loss of life would be on June 3 for which the battle is mostly known. Lee, although having been given 7,000 more men through the arrival of P.G.T. Beauregard, was wearing down. Grant’s persistent attacks forced Lee to use every available man. If the lines ever broke, then the Army of Northern Virginia would be finished. For Lee, this meant no reserve forces would be available and Lee had to use new tactics.

What had made the American Civil War so deadly up to this point had been a combination of technology and tactics.
The Technology
1. New rifles – the barrels of the rifles had grooves bored in them to spin the bullet through the rifle. This spin created not only more accurate weapons, but also created more distance
2. The Mini Ball – manufactured at the Springfield, Illinois Armory, the .56 caliber bullet did not just kill soldiers on contact, it destroyed and shattered bones. The shattering, along with the trace of the bullet, created infection throughout the surrounding tissue. Thus, amputation became the common surgery to avoid infection. A wound in the stomach was often considered fatal.
3. Fuses – Artillery commanders could now adjust their shells to explode after short intervals or long intervals giving the commanders a variety of methods in which to kill advancing troops or troops in entrenched positions at a distance.
The Tactics
1. Formations – Both sides used the standard formation of marching abreast toward enemy positions. Combined with the new weapons, this meant high casualty rates for both sides – but mainly the aggressor. The defensive positions held the advantage throughout the war except in sieges.
2. Lee often split his army – For one reason, Lee was always outnumbered. Lee would then use these smaller force to out maneuver the Union at almost every battle (except Gettysburg and Antietam). With his numbers wearing thin as a result of constant warfare, Lee would have to come up with a new defensive plan. He no longer had the numbers or reserves to divide his army in the face a superior foe.

The resulting change in tactics at Cold Harbor was to build earthworks, a.k.a. trenches. Although this type of warfare would become popular in World War I, Lee used it to his advantage at Cold Harbor. The forest provided cover and terrain suitable for defensive positions to ensure that the Army of Northern Virginia could defend and hold them.

On the morning of June 3, Grant had his forces move on two of the entrenched positions around Cold Harbor. Attacks began as early as 4 a.m. By noon, over 7,000 (some reports say 10,000) Union casualties laid on the battlefield. Grant would say of the attack,

I regret this assault more than any one I have ever ordered. I regarded it as a stern necessity, and believed that it would bring compensating results; but it has proved, no advantages have been gained sufficient to justify the heavy losses suffered. (Ferguson, 2000, p. 178)

Over the next nine days, the two sides continued to hammer away at each other. Newspapers hammered away at Grant, calling him a “Butcher.” Lincoln was not dissuaded. He knew, like Grant, that Lee was starting to wear thin. Had the attack succeeded, the Army of Northern Virginia would have been destroyed. Lincoln had the man he wanted to end the war in command. Grant, above all else, had taken control of the war. It was Grant who decided the terms of battle. Lee was in no position to do so.

After the Battle of Cold Harbor, Grant made another swing around Lee’s line, and instead of heading for nearby Richmond, the capital, Grant swung towards Petersburg. Using the lessons of Cold Harbor and Vicksburg, Grant laid siege to Petersburg for nine months. Lee, once again, built massive earthworks and trenches to defend against an attack and to place himself between Grant and Richmond. The tactics had changed. Cold Harbor made sure of it.

With most of Lee’s army hungry, and some shoeless, it would only be a matter of time for Lee and Grant knew it – thus the siege. A Captain in the Army of Northern Virginia stated after the Battle of Cold Harbor, “We are being conquered by the splendor of our own victories, and Grant accepts defeat with that consolation” (Ferguson, 2000, p.256). It was only a matter of time now before Lee surrendered, only a matter of time.

My Great-Grandfather, Albert Tell Slusher, was 14 during this campaign. A bit young for battle, he still was one of thousands of young boys who enlisted in the Army of Northern Virginia to hold off Grant. He would be at Cold Harbor. He would be at Petersburg, Richmond, and Appomattox Court House, too. He helped fire artillery according to his pension records. I never met the man. He died some 40+ years before I was born. Luckily, it was not 100 years.

Cleaning up one of the battlefields at Cold Harbor

For Further Reading
Not War But Murder: Cold Harbor 1864 by Ernest B. Ferguson

Teaching U.S. History before the dawn of the Internet was just as challenging as today. Whether it was filmstrips, overhead projectors, ditto machines, reel-to-reel films, or carbon copies, some sort of technology has always existed for History teachers to try to engage their students. When I began teaching, I relied quite heavily on the textbook. It was my crutch. As those first weeks went by, I knew the textbook was not going to get me through the year. I had to come up with other strategies to engage students. There was the VCR, the map worksheet, the occasional simulation, or music of the time period. It did not matter what I did, I was not going to reach every student in the classroom. I had to think in those terms. Mind you, this was only my first month as a teacher, but that is how I thought. I brought in editorial cartoons from newspapers.  This began to reach them. The funny drawing began to connect with them. Soon, other strategies worked. Arguments, debates, and other strategies where students get to take a stand for something that mattered to them. Creativity mattered. Thus, I realized that after two months of teaching, the key for students to learn was that when they entered the classroom, they knew they would be engaged somehow, someway.

In 1996, everything changed. The school put a computer in my classroom. And that computer was hooked up to the Internet. The Internet changed how I accessed historical materials, how I tested, and even how I learned. When broadband came to town so did online video. Over the last 15 years, the computer has transformed how I plan, edit, write, and deliver curriculum. Sometimes, I think maybe it was better the old way. Just because you have the technology doesn’t mean you should use it all the time. It took me a few years to realize that. Today, I only have a few videos I show and most of them are digital. They exist on a flash drive or DVD.

The greatest gift of the Internet for students has been as a visual tool. It is much easier to go find an image of someone, or something, and show the students how things were. It even has added to the aura of developing suppositions about what happened before during and after. It makes no sense for students to go look up stuff on the Internet and spit it back at you. As a teacher, you need to find a way for students to use the information on the Internet to make an argument, not just to copy and paste information – because that is what they do if you don’t engage them.

But for me, the greatest gift as a teacher is that I am now able to access almost any primary document from a major historical event. To have my students read them, whether it is a battlefield map from Gettysburg or a letter from Jefferson to Lewis and Clark or a photograph from the Great Depression, the primary document allows me to place my students in history and teach them not only about history but also more importantly, making choices, how to think critically, and how to plan ahead. In addition, the document teaches context. Something always came before and something will happen after a choice is made. Consequences – what a concept for eighth graders!

One year ago, I spoke at the National Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference in Denver about how I teach the Cuban Missile Crisis with primary documents. It is one of my favorite parts of the curriculum to teach. But as more and more history is being unearthed and uploaded, decisions are going to have to be made about what is taught and what is not taught. I remember in high school, my teacher made it to the Great Depression. That’s it. No World War II. No Vietnam. No Civil Rights Movement. No Cuban Missile Crisis. In the small rural school I currently teach at, I am the only History teacher in the 8th grade. I get to choose what I teach and how I teach. Many districts are not like that. Most districts in fact are not like that. Still, what History are we going to teach in the 21st Century? And is it going to be a textbook driven class?

Jackie Robinson steals home

I rarely use the textbook at all. I haven’t for years. It goes all the way back to my first year of teaching when I realized Jackie Robinson was not in the textbook. I knew then I could rely on a book that did not have such a monumental event in it. There was not even a mention of the Negro Leagues nor sports in general except in passing. In my current design, I have several lessons throughout the year about baseball. One is on how it developed during the Civil War. Other lessons are on baseball in the 1920s, 30s, 40s, and beyond. Each lesson is a microcosm for issues in society of the time period. Whether it is new inventions, electrification, race, steroids, and the use of technology, I think any teacher would be remiss if they didn’t teach how baseball shows how our nation has changed over the past 150 years. Any sport, whether it is the NBA, the NFL, or boxing, gives students a glimpse into how sports reflects society. It is an amazing sight to watch students faces light up when they see Muhammad Ali in his prime. But the bigger issues I see in his face are race, religion, and Vietnam – all in one man.

In the last few years, I have contemplated changing the Units which I teach. The main reason is that the eighth graders I have now will be taking US History through 1914 as sophomores. My class is US History 1865-present. There is some overlap between the two grade levels. But, that is not always a bad thing. The high school teacher spends more time on the Progressive Era and I spend more time on local and Illinois History in that era. It all works out.

What I have been struggling with most the past few months is how to quantify the current era of America History. It is easy to look back and to organize units based on historical periods. Most history teachers use the following
1. Colonial and Revolutionary Era
2. Early America
3. Westward Expansion
4. Civil War and Reconstruction
5. The Transformation of the US
6. The US as a World Power
7. The 20s and 30s
8. World War II
9. The Post War World 1945-1963
And that is where things begin to get murky. In my 1865-Present class, I use the following units after JFK:
10. Massive Change: The 1960s – Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, Music, and Nixon
11. Conservative America – The shift in America to a more conservative philosophy is highlighted in this unit as it goes from Ford and Carter to Reagan, Bush 41, and Clinton.

The trouble for me has been in looking ahead to this year. Do I put George W. Bush in the Conservative unit or do I start a new unit? And if I put Bush 43 in a new unit with Obama, what do I call it? I am tempted to call it “Catastrophic America” but I don’t know how history is going to be played out. Starting with September 11th and continuing with the 2007-2008 economic meltdown from which we have yet to recover, it is tempting to name it “Catastrophic” although some might find the title of the unit a bit harsh, but that is what it has been. From oil spills to hurricanes to political infighting, it has been an era defined by how differing views on how government should handle those two events.

I don’t know why I am spending a lot of time and energy thinking about this, but this is what I do. I think before I teach.

Charlie Birger

Charlie Birger was born in Russia. At an early age, the family immigrated to the United States. The family settled in St. Louis. At the age of 17, Charlie joined the Army. His job was to break horses. It seems odd but that is what he was good at. However, the need for breaking wild horses was nearing an end as the industrial age and automobiles began to dominated the economy. After getting out of the service, Virden worked odd jobs in St. Louis before settling for a while in Virden, Illinois. His stay was not long there, either. Charlie ran a pool hall. And to put it mildly, the small town did not take kindly to his methods. Eventually, Birger made his way to southern Illinois to work in the coal mines. It was here that Birger fell in love with the region and its people.

Southern Illinois is not what most people think of when they think of Illinois. It consists of rolling hills, wide valleys, beautiful vistas, and sits in between the Wabash, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers. Unlike the rolling prairies of central Illinois, the region is then filled with forests and is southern in culture and climate compared to rest of Illinois. Here, Birger would make his home for the rest of his life.

Charlie Birger soon turned from mining to being a businessman. He would open up a small restaurant that turned in to a drinking establishment. In addition to food and drink, other assorted vices soon made their way into Birger’s new business. Charlie was good at what he did. He was charming, dashing, and took care of those less fortunate. He was like Robin Hood in one sense, but in another way, he was not. Charlie was not afraid to kill those who got in way. One included his competition, another bar owner in town. Birger even helped the local police from time to time. By 1920, Harrisburg, Illinois might as well been called Birgerville. However, things changed with the 18th Amendment and Prohibition.

Birger’s Prohibition life was more sordid and more bloody. His business soon became known as Shady Rest. It was intended as a stop over for people running alcohol from Florida to St. Louis. But it was more than that. Birger was asked to leave by county authorities but Birger laughed it off. He only fortified his facilities even more. Birger’s bootlegging business soon took off. Another area gang, the Shelton Brothers of West City, soon were at odds with Birger. Long before Al Capone came to power in Chicago, the rival gangs of southern Illinois were competing and killing in style using Tommy guns. Both sides built armored cars that were more like tanks. The Sheltons even bombed Birger’s Shady Rest from the air.

In 1922, the county of Williamson soon exploded. Not only was there alcohol, but there was a miner’s strike that resulted in the Herrin Massacre. To qualm the area, some ministers in the country called on an unexpected source to clean up the county. Enter the Ku Klux Klan. The ministers wanted the KKK to clean out the alcohol, bootleggers, and new immigrants. Eventually, the Klan would get Birger arrested. In 1924, Birger was released from prison in Danville. Meanwhile, the Shelton Brothers began to fight against the Klan. The Brothers formed a group to fight the Klan called the Knights of the Flaming Circle. Many shootouts between the Klan and the bootleggers took place. Eventually, the National Guard was called in. Depending on what county you were in, determined who was arrested. Eventually, the leader of the Klan, Escelene Young, was killed by a sheriff’s deputy in a cigar shop. The deputy also died. With Escelene Young out of the way, 1925 saw the KKK begin to fade away in southern Illinois. However, the coming election in 1925 saw conflict between the two sides. Shootouts even occurred at the polling place, the Masonic Lodge, in Herrin.

Birger and his gang

The elections of Harley Boswell as State’s Attorney in Williamson County saw the biggest change. Boswell, the former attorney for Young, soon dropped any cases against Shelton. The following years saw Birger’s power wane. Birger, whose Shady Rest would be burnt down, tried to continue his business. In his attempt to regain power, Birger had the mayor of West City, Joseph Adams, killed. In addition, Birger had two women, Laurie and Ethel Price, killed at the same time as Joe Adams. The public would not stand for how far Birger was taking his war with the Sheltons. In the trial of Joe Adams, Birger would be found guilty along with the two men who pulled the trigger. Those men got sent to prison. Birger was to hang for his crimes.

Birger’s coming execution became the hottest ticket in town. Only 100 people were given entrance to the courtyard. However, many more claimed to be there. Pictures of the execution show pictures of people clinging to the branches of the tree. Birger wore a black hood at his hanging so as not to look like a member of the KKK. In 1928, Birger showed up to his execution in a dapper suit and smile. He knew he was the star of the show that day. Before the hood was placed on his head, Birger stated, “It’s a beautiful world.”

Birger's Execution

Birger would be buried in a cemetery with his born name, Shachna Itzik Birger. After his death, his legend continued to grow. In an area short on heroes, Birger stands as larger-than-life than figure. Many songs were written about Birger and his execution including this one:

Charlie Birger Time

A group’s gathering, it must be getting close
Gonna get their money’s worth tonight
Are they my enemies, who wanna see me squirm
Or friends, who wanna see me off right
Can’t help but smile at how they do it here
Both sides downstate they thirst for blood
You heard it once, this world is beautiful
That’s what I said, but I’m really thinking

All of you are coming with me
Knots and rope alone won’t get me
You or me will, learn the hard way

And it’s a beautiful world, that’s what I said
To remember me by
And it’s a beautiful world, that’s what I said
But I’m really thinking

All of you are coming with me
Knots and rope alone won’t get me
You or me will, learn the hard way
All of you are coming with me
Knots and rope alone won’t get me
You or me will, learn the hard way

However beloved Birger was, there are many who do not see him as a romantic hero of Prohibition. The producer of the documentary The Legend of Charlie Birger, David Kidd, stated:

“Today, everywhere we look, the image of the gangster is being transformed into a likable character…a friendly sort who only gave the public what it wanted—good times and harmless fun in a dry and colorless era. The past looks great through these rose-colored glasses, until you examine the life and times of a gangster like Charlie Birger. In doing so you soon discover that the rose-colored glasses have been tinted with blood. And so it is with the legend of Charlie Birger. No matter how it’s dressed up and presented, our system of justice hangs in the balance. This is the legacy, not the legend, of Charlie Birger.”

Southern Illinois will always wrestle with the deeds of Birger during Prohibition. Which will be greater, the legacy or the Legend?

For further reading
A Knight of Another Sort: Prohibition Days and Charlie Birger By Gary DeNeal
Bloody Williamson: A Chapter in American Lawlessness By Paul M. Angle

For further viewing
The Legend of Charlie Birger by WSIU-TV

In 1843, Joseph Glidden moved to Ogle County with his young wife and sons. They would all perish in the next few years except for Joseph. Leaving Ogle County in 1850, Glidden settled on a farm 1 mile west of DeKalb. In 1851, he would marry Lucinda Warne. The land, 600 acres in all, required a lot of work. Throughout the 1850s and 1860s, Glidden prospered and was a stalwart member of the community. For several years he was sheriff of the county in addition to being a farmer.

Issac Ellwood had a different route to the county. Ellwood, as a young man, worked on boats traversing the Erie Canal, worked as a clerk in a store, and went to California in 1851 as part of the Gold Rush. Whether it was working in the mines or in a store, Ellwood was quite frugal and saved his money. Ellwood would spend 4 years in California before heading back east. Ellwood made his way to DeKalb in 1855. Upon arrival, he set up a hardware store in the little town of 500.

While Glidden and Ellwood were both born in the US, Jacob Haish was born in Germany and immigrated to the US in 1836. In the 1840s, Haish first made his way to DuPage County before marrying and moving to the DeKalb area. While Glidden was a farmer and sheriff, and Ellwood a businessman, Haish was a carpenter. He set up shop in DeKalb in 1853. It was Haish who first had the idea for a new kind of fencing. Haish originally tried using Osage Orange bushes to keep livestock in. The thorns of the bushes were very similar to the barbs of what would soon be barbed wire. However, the bushes took up too much space and took too long to grow in addition to maintaining. They also did not adjust well to the climate of the North.

As these three men plied their individual trades, they all became very prosperous in their own right. They did know each other (It’s hard not to in a town of only 500-700). Legend has it that the three men all attended a local fair where they saw the latest style of fencing called barbed wire. Actually, barbed wire had been around since the 1840s. Not the wire that we know today, but early predecessors nonetheless. At the fair, this version of barbed wire was attached to wood. It was not a stand alone fence or wire. All three men purportedly left the fair feeling that they could do better. Legend also has it that by the early 1870s, Glidden’s wife, Lucinda, was tired of the cattle roaming all over the place. She urged her husband to do something about it.

In spite of local local legend and myth, both Glidden and Haish set about in the early 1870s to make a new, better version of fencing. Glidden often used hairpins of his wife to test out his latest model. Glidden began applying for patents on barbed wire as early as 1873. But his 1874 version would become the most widely known. Dubbed “The Winner”, for reasons that will be explained later, the two wires intertwined with a single barb.

Glidden's Patent

Haish had begun work on his own version. Haish’s version was very similar to Glidden’s. It contained two wires strung together and a single barb. Like Glidden, Haish began work in 1873 on his barbed wire. It was not until 1875 that Haish perfected his version of barbed wire with the “S Barb”. Over the next twenty years, the two men would spend over $2 million in litigation over who had the idea and patent first. They both would make millions more in manufacturing but eventually they would settle out of court. Each would pay the other the same amount per pound produced. However, Glidden’s patent would be declared “the winner”.

Haish's Patent

Issac Ellwood was not an inventor but he was a shrewd businessman. For the vast sum of $250, Ellwood went into business with Glidden manufacturing the wire. Both men became very rich very fast. Glidden would not stay in the business long. He sold his interest, and kept a royalty, to Washburn and Moen. Glidden would go on to own the local newspaper, bank, hotel, and many other businesses in the now thriving capital of barbed wire.

As for the wire, it transformed the west. The long cattle drives were now over. Railroads came to town to pick up the cattle. The occasional range war sprang up as emotions boiled over water rights and land access to take the cattle to the railroad. Indians called the wire “The Devil’s Rope” for what it could do to flesh. Some states even tried to outlaw the wire. They failed.

But in the 1870s and 1880s, railroad companies loved the wire. Instead of having to pay out damages to farmers whose cattle wandered aimlessly on to the tracks, the railroad companies used the wire to stop livestock from running in to the train.

But back in DeKalb, barbed wire made the town. Using immigrant labor, Swedes came to work in the barbed wire factories, each employing near a 100 men. The town grew and with it, Glidden, Ellwood, and Haish each were philanthropic with their wealth. From banks to a post office to a hospital to a library, the three men provided much needed capital for many public works.

In the 1890s, the three men, along with Clinton Rosette, sought to bring a teacher’s college to DeKalb. The men, who had different political philosophies, set aside their differences to make it happen. DeKalb, along with Dixon and Rockford, were the final cities in competition for the college. The three men knew that if DeKalb got the college, then the community would thrive even more. Glidden offered 60 acres to be set aside for the college and Ellwood would provide interest free loans for the construction of what would later be called Altgeld Hall. A plaque of the four men (Rosette included) hangs in the library at NIU, aptly named, Founders Memorial Library. And NIU’s sprawling campus now encircles the Glidden homestead.

No matter where you go in DeKalb, or the county, you are reminded of the influence that these three men have had. From roads to streets to buildings and a University, the town still remembers. Ellwood’s house still stands as do Glidden’s homestead and barn. Unfortunately, Haish’s home was destroyed in the early 1960s. Their influence as barons and pillars of the community still stands.

Altgeld Hall today

For further reading on the impact of Barbed Wire – Read The Devil’s Rope

For further viewing – See Barbed Wire Pioneers produced the Department of Communications at NIU.

Photograph (c) Bernard J. Kleina

From 1956-1963, there was little the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. could not do. Along with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King went from an unknown and newly appointed Baptist minister to the face, and voice, of the Civil Rights Movement in the South. After King’s I Have a Dream speech in front of the Washington Monument, two pieces of legislation would soon be passed to end segregation as the country knew it in public in the south. Jim Crow, for all intents and purposes was dead. Many in the country thought Jim Crow died with the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act in 1964 and 1965. However, Jim Crow was still alive and living in the North.

The Civil Rights Movement in the South had been about ending segregation in public. However in Mississippi, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee had fought for voter registration and an end to poll taxes. In the North however, little changed. While blacks did have the right to vote, and the right to ride public transportation, and the right to attend schools with mixed races, they did not have the ability to buy a home in an all white neighborhood. Many blacks were stuck in high rise public housing. There was no way out of the ghetto if no one would sell them a house. Thus was born the Chicago Freedom Movement.

Civil Rights in the North was far different from the movement in the South. In the South, the government institutions were the ones perpetrating segregation and racism. In the north, it was something that was just understood. There were no laws segregating housing. There were no laws to deny a black man from getting a job. That’s just how it worked. However, after World War II, the city of Chicago had changed drastically.

White flight had been happening in Chicago since the 1920s. Once automobiles, roads, and new forms of transportation were built, more and more white people began to move out to the suburbs. After World War II, returning soldiers created a boom in population in both white and black neighborhoods. The makeup of the city changed even more in the 1950s with the construction of Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System. Initially, the expressway system was built to evacuate the city in case of nuclear  attack. Instead, the new freeways made long commutes more possible. The suburbs just kept growing. The resulting shrinking of Chicago created places for black people to move to but no one would sell to blacks.

Ron Shaw, a dear friend of my wife, published A Final Push for National Legislation: The Chicago Freedom Movement in 2001 in the Illinois State Historical Society Journal. The 29 page excerpt from Shaw’s then soon-to-be dissertation on the Freedom Movement examined the roots of the Freedom Movement going back to 1962. Outside of the South, King did not hold much sway. Whether it was riots in Philadelphia, Detroit, or the horrific 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles, King was not the golden boy everyone outside of the South.

Beginning in 1966, King and Al Raby targeted to bring the Civil Rights Movement to the North, Chicago to be exact. Marches were held, speeches were given, and eventually in July, King addressed a crowd of 55,000 at Soldier Field. After the speech, King and 5,000 supporters marched to City Hall. In the spirit of Martin Luther, the demands of the Chicago Freedom Movement were taped to the door. Here is a list of items the Freedom Movement requested of various organizations

Real Estate Boards and Brokers
1. Public statements that all listings will be available on a nondiscriminatory basis.

Banks and Savings Institutions
1. Public statements of a nondiscriminatory mortgage policy so that loans will be available to any qualified borrower without regard to the racial composition of the area.

The Mayor and City Council
1. Publication of headcounts of Caucasians, Negroes and Latin Americans for all city departments and for all firms from which city purchases are made.
2. Revocation of contracts with firms that do not have a full scale fair employment practice.
3. Creation of a citizens review board for grievances against police brutality and false arrests or stops and seizures.
4. Ordinance giving ready access to the names of owners and investors for all slum properties.
5. A saturation program of increased garbage collection, street cleaning, and building inspection services in the slum properties.

Political Parties
1. The requirement that precinct captains be residents of their precincts.

Chicago Housing Authority and the Chicago Dwelling Association
1. Program to rehabilitate present public housing including such items as locked lobbies, rest-rooms in recreation areas, increased police protection and child care centers on every third floor.
2. Program to increase vastly the supply of low-cost housing on a scattered basis for both low and middle income families.

Business
1. Basic headcounts, including Caucasian, Negro and Latin American, by job classification and income level, made public.
2. Racial steps to upgrade and to integrate all departments, all levels of employments.

Unions
1. Headcounts in unions for apprentices, journeymen and union staff and officials by job classification.
2. A cash program to remedy any inequities discovered by the headcount.
3. Indenture of at least 400 Negro and Latin American apprentices in the craft unions.

Governor
1. Prepare legislative proposals for a $2.00 state minimum wage law and for credit reform, including the abolition of garnishment and wage assignment.

Illinois Public Aid Commission and the Cook County Department of Public Aid
1. Encouragement of grievance procedures for the welfare recipients so that recipients know that they can be members of and represented by a welfare union or a community organization.
2. Institution of a declaration of income system to replace the degrading investigation and means test for welfare eligibility.

Federal Government
1. Executive enforcement of Title I of the 1964 Civil Rights Act regarding the complaint against the Chicago Board of Education.
2. An executive order for Federal supervision of the nondiscriminatory granting of loans by banks and savings institutions that are members of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
3. Passage of the 1966 Civil Rights Act without any deletions or crippling amendments.
4. Direct funding of Chicago community organizations by the Office of Economic Opportunity.

People
1. Financial support of the Freedom Movement.
2. Selective buying campaigns against businesses that boycott the products of Negro-owned companies.
3. Participation in the Freedom movement target campaigns for this summer, including volunteer services and membership in one of the Freedom Movement Organizations.

Initially, MLK thought he would find some support in city hall. After all, many blacks were in the Daley administration. They, however, warned MLK not to come to Chicago. While Daley did change some city services, the Freedom Movement did little that summer. King had a difficult time containing the protestors to non-violent demonstrations. Whether it was Gage Park, or a rally downtown, King met with vitriol and hatred from white crowds. Rocks were thrown, insults hurled. Andrew Young, a supporter of King, stated that he never saw anything like this in the South. The Mobs seemed to come out of their homes as the Freedom Movement approached. Young stated that in the South, they would face a couple hundred. In Chicago, they faced thousands of angry protestors.

The movement began to antagonize the situation by organizing a march in Cicero. The former home of Al Capone was not the kind of place a black man wanted to be caught in at night. In Illinois, these are called sundown towns. Now, most sundown towns were found in southern Illinois where the black population worked in the small town during the day but left before the sun went down. In order to prevent a racial disaster, a summit was held between MLK, the Chicago Freedom Movement, Daley, and others. Ron Shaw writes:

The first “summit meeting” took place on Wednesday, August 17, 1966 at St. James’s Episcopal Church. King, Raby, Young, Bevel, Jackson, and William C. Berry of the Chicago Urban League among others represented the CFM. The other group consisted of Daley, Alderman Thomas Keane, members of the CCRR, and delegates from the real estate board, businesses, industry, and the banks. Ben W. Heineman, president of the Chicago and Northwestern Transportation Company presided as chairman. Once the meeting began, it was immediately clear that “Daley would agree to virtually anything in order to secure a cancellation of the marches.” This presented the CFM with an advantage; however, the stance taken by the Chicago Real Estate Board (CREB) remained the critical question. CREB representative Ross Beatty claimed no responsibility on the part of realtors for segregation, claiming they had no power to change social attitudes or solve problems.

Change, while minimal from the Daley regime, was not going to be forthcoming as much as King had hoped. It was a sad conclusion. While an agreement was reached between the movement, the luster began to fall off of King. He would soon vanish from Chicago and Jesse Jackson was left to run Operation Breadbasket (later renamed Operation Push). The march in Cicero went on. It did not go well.

In the end, the first two paragraphs of the agreement read:

1. It is hereby declared the policy of the City of Chicago to assure full and equal opportunity to all residents of the City to obtain fair and adequate housing for themselves and their families in the City of Chicago without discrimination against them because of their race, color, religion, national origin or ancestry.

2. It is further declared to be the policy of the City of Chicago that no owner, lessee, sublessee, assignee, managing agent, or other person, firm or corporation having the right to sell, rent or lease any housing accommodation, within the City of Chicago, or any agent of any of these, should refuse to sell, rent, lease or otherwise deny or withhold from any person or group of persons such housing accommodations because of the race, color, religion, national origin or ancestry of such person or persons or discriminate against any person because of his race, color, religion, national origin or ancestry in the terms, conditions, or privileges of the sale, rental on lease of any housing accommodation or in the furnishing of facilities or services in connection therewith.

Chicago today still has many of the same issues in 2011 as it did in 1966. Gone are the large tracts of Public Housing, but the issues still remain somewhat. He in our tiny rural town of 2000, we have Hispanic, white, and African-American living in close proximity peacefully. But in the inner city, the issues have not gone. PBS recently reported the following:

The U.S. population is more racially and ethnically diverse than ever before. Yet for the most part, America’s neighborhoods remain highly segregated. The only areas that have become more integrated since 1970 are cities with small minority populations.

• On the whole, segregation is highest in the major metropolitan areas of the Midwest and Northeast and lower in the West and South.
• The 2000 census shows that overall the nation’s largest cities have lost large numbers of white residents to suburban and outlying areas. The urban populace is becoming increasingly Latino and Asian, with a slight increase in Black residents.
• According to the Lewis Mumford Center at the University of Albany, segregation has increased in almost every large suburban area from 1990 to 2000.
• Across the nation, four out of five whites live outside of the cities and 86 percent of whites live in neighborhoods where minorities make up less than 1 percent of the population. In contrast, 70 percent of Blacks and Latinos live in the cities or inner-ring suburbs.
• According to the Census Bureau’s 1999 American Housing Survey, 74 percent of suburban residents owned their own homes, while only about half of urban residents are homeowners. The proportion is similar when you compare homeowners by race – in 1999, 74 percent of whites were homeowners, while only 45 percent of Latinos, 46 percent of Blacks and 51 percent of Asians owned their homes.

The job remains undone. And the sad part is it may always remain undone.

For further reading, read Ron Shaw’s A Final Push for National Legislation: The Chicago Freedom Movement

or you can watch the Emmy Award Winning

EYES ON THE PRIZE TWO SOCIETIES

Born in Chicago in 1871, she became one of the first female architects in the country after receiving her degree from MIT in 1894. She briefly worked for her cousin Dwight Perkins before switching jobs to work for Frank Lloyd Wright in 1895. It was in Wright’s employ that the then Marion Mahony stood out. First, she was Wright’s first employee. Second, her work, influenced by Japanese prints helped make Wright’s career. Mahony became not only an architect but also helped design much of the inside of a Wright home including lead glass, murals, mosaics, furniture, and other assorted fixtures. If it was up to Wright, no one would have ever heard of Miss Mahony. He liked to make people think that the “Prairie School” was all his vision. In fact, according to Mahony, Louis Sullivan was the originator of the style. Wright, however, liked to take credit wherever he could including Mahony’s work. Barry Byrne, a member of Wright’s studio recalled:

“She was the most talented member of Frank Lloyd Wright’s staff … Mr. Wright would occasionally sit at Marion’s board and work on her drawings, and I recall one hilarious occasion when his work ruined the drawing. On that occasion Andrew Willatzen, an outspoken member of the staff, loudly proclaimed that Marion Mahony was Wright’s superior as a draftsman. As a matter of fact, she was. Wright took the statement of her superiority equably.”

In 1910, the Wasmuth Portfolio was published. It was a collection of Lithographs of Frank Lloyd Wright’s work up to that time. However, over half of the 100 lithographs in the collection were actually the work of Miss Mahony. The collection would be influential through Europe on future architects.

Marion's drawing of a Frank Lloyd Wright Home in Springfield, Illinois

It was during her 14 year tenure working for Wright that Marion grew as an architect and in her drawings. It was also where and when she would meet her husband, Walter Burley Griffin, also a Wright employee. In 1909, Wright had up and gone off to Europe in a scandalous affair. His firm had been sold. Mahony and Griffin stayed on with their new employer von Holst for a while before marrying and starting their own firm. They would not stay long in the states. They did however have a huge impact on the Prairie School before they left.

The Griffins in Australia

In addition to Walter’s work, Marion designed homes herself. The Mueller family of Decatur, Illinois had several elegant prairie style homes designed by Miss Griffin. In addition, near Mason City, Iowa at a place called Rock crest Rock Glen, the largest collection of prairie style homes in existence were designed by the Griffins.

A Mueller home in Decatur, Illinois designed by Miss Mahony

Together, the couple wanted to achieve great things. Australia was having a contest to design their new capital city from Scratch. With Walter’s designs and Marion’s drawing of his designs, Walter won the contract to design Canberra, Australia. The couple left the US in 1914. Over the next 25 years, the couple worked together in Australia, India, and the US designing hundreds of homes and buildings. Along the way, Marion took meticulous notes and even more so, meticulous records of their work. In the 1930s, Marion would publish their life together abroad in a book called: The Magic of America. The 1300 page work is staggering in its content and context.

A drawing for Canberra by Marion Mahony Griffin - I just love not only the style, colors, and layout, but look at the font design.

Notice the influence of Japanese prints on her work

Professor Alice T. Friedman speaks eloquently of Marion’s work. She states,

For Mahony, who was raised in a world that fostered gender equality and collaboration in a range of pursuits — from progressive educational philosophies that redefined the nature of teaching and learning, to shared household management and economic interdependence among family members and friends, to political activism in campaigns for women’s suffrage and improved working conditions — being an architect and a collaborator were not mutually exclusive conditions. On the contrary, they were the building blocks of her identity as a professional, as a social reformer, and as a woman.

Friedman a professor of the History of American Art at Wellesley College wrote a very extensive piece that goes into more detail than this short little blog.

But here’s the crux of it: Marion Mahony Griffin was a trailblazer. She was unlike any other professional woman from that era. In fact, professional women from the era are few. In addition to her architecture, Marion Mahony Griffin’s drawings have left an indelible mark on design and decor. For several years, as a history fair advisor, I have been trying to get some of my students to tackle her as a topic. She would be difficult. But once a thesis was developed the project would unfold with Marion’s art at the center.

The logo of Marion Mahony Griffin

For Ronald Reagan, he grew up in one of these small towns in northern Illinois, 12 miles from where I grew up. However, it took a while for those Conservative values to take hold in Reagan. Many people forget that Reagan was originally a Democrat in the 1940s and 1950s. As head of the Screen Actors Guild, Reagan, while a staunch anti-communist, was quite liberal. Things for Reagan changed in the early 1950s. The first event that influenced his shift from the left to the right occurred when Reagan would meet, and marry, actress Nancy Davis. Combined with Reagan’s work for the General Electric Theater TV show, Reagan shifted to the right, an almost libertarian point of view. As part of his duties as host of the show, Reagan would travel across the country and met people at GE plants across America. It was during those tours meeting the middle class that his philosophy began to shift to less government intrusion and lower taxes. In the early 1950s, the tax rate for Americans earning $10,000/year was at 38% (which very few did – the minimum wage was not even a $1/hour). For 8 years, Reagan work for GE actually turned into a political apprenticeship of sorts.

Reagan’s conservative philosophy was rooted in the words of John Winthrop. The famous City” on Hill” from the 1600s defined Reagan’s vision, and version, of conservatism and of America.

“for wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us”

It is out of the “City on a Hill” that the Reagan Conservative philosophy is born. At a commencement speech at his alma mater, Eureka College, in 1957, he stated:

Looming large in your inheritance is this country, this land America, placed as it is between two great oceans. Those who discovered and pioneered it had to have rare qualities of courage and imagination nor did these qualities stop there. Even the modern-day immigrants have been possessed of courage beyond that of their neighbors. The courage to tear up centuries-old roots and leave their homelands, to come to this land where even the language was strange. Such courage is part of our inheritance, all of us spring from these special people and these qualities have contributed to the make-up of the American personality.

Reagan had a vision of what America was supposed to be, what is was once, and what it could be again.

In the 1960s, Reagan’s philosophy began to move more to the right. At a time when America was moving to the left, and New Dealers were roaming the halls of Congress, Reagan stood in stark contrast to mainstream politics. In 1964, Reagan supported Republican candidate Barry Goldwater. Reagan’s stump speech became the foundation of his philosophy.

I am going to talk of controversial things. I make no apology for this.

It’s time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, “We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government.”

This idea — that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream-the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, “The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.”

The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.

Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, “What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.” But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.

Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we’re denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They tell us we’re always “against,” never “for” anything.

We are for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we have accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem. However, we are against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments….

We are for aiding our allies by sharing our material blessings with nations which share our fundamental beliefs, but we are against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world.

We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward restoring for our children the American Dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him…. But we can not have such reform while our tax policy is engineered by people who view the tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure….

Have we the courage and the will to face up to the immorality and discrimination of the progressive tax, and demand a return to traditional proportionate taxation? … Today in our country the tax collector’s share is 37 cents of every dollar earned. Freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp.

Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor’s fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can’t socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he’ll eat you last.

If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what’s at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation.

They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Winston Churchill said that “the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits-not animals.” And he said, “There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.

Goldwater lost and lost big. Despite the loss, Reagan’s views did not waver. In 1965, Reagan came out against Medicare and other government programs including welfare. In 1966, Reagan dipped his feet into politics when he ran for Governor of California.

Despite cat calls for his lack of actual political experience, Reagan surprisingly defeated incumbent Governor Pat Brown. His charm, and down home family values, sparked an interest in the populace. Over the next eight years, Reagan further established his conservative values. It is one thing to have those values, it is another to govern with those values. Reagan struggled and at times compromised his values and then wished he hadn’t. His first action, a 10% across the board cut in government spending, met with disruptions and discontent at many college campuses across the state. For the first time, many college students in California would have to pay tuition. They were not happy. Protests broke out. Reagan was not afraid to use force to keep the peace on those campuses. Using the National Guard to occupy Berkley for 17 days, while Conservative, came across as an extremist at the time. However, Californians did not see it that way. The majority of Californians liked Reagan’s reaction. To 1960s Californians, they now had a hero in a time of massive change in the country.

Whether it was abortion, dealing with the antiwar movement, or communism, as Governor, Reagan honed his media and governing skills. After his 1970 re-election, Reagan set out in his second term to follow through on his own values of less government, lower taxes. He succeeded in restructuring welfare by working with the Democratic legislature of California. His second term was quite a success in California. A groundswell began for Reagan to run for President.

The national political scene had changed by 1976. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the Republican mainstream was very moderate. With Nixon’s resignation in 1974, the mood of the Republican Party was slowly changing. President Ford’s firing of Nixon’s appointments was shocking as the moderate wing of the party was replaced by more Conservative thinkers. Ford, using his Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld and a young Richard Cheney, began a shift in the party away from Nixon moderates. In 1976,  America was not ready for a Conservative President. Ford beat out Reagan for the Republican nomination but the experience brought Reagan’s political views to a nation. Jimmy Carter would win the presidency and the next four years set up Reagan and his conservative views as a stark contrast to Carter’s. A new Republican Party would be born.

The 1980 campaign saw Reagan run on a just a few key ideas
1. Less Government
2. Stronger Defense
3. Anti-Communism
4. A belief that America could be strong again

Here is an ad that touted Reagan’s experience as Governor and his views on Government

America responded overwhelmingly to Reagan, and against Carter, and a shift to Conservatism in America reached fruition. Reagan’s effect on future Republicans would be huge. This coming school year (1011-2012) sees National History Day using the theme of: Revolution, Reaction, and Reform in History. While Reagan’s conservative beliefs have reshaped the Republican Party, these beliefs, their formation, and influence would be an excellent topic to do a project on. I know two of my students have already expressed an interest. For me, as a paper judge as well, what I would look for in this project is how the times and experiences of Reagan shaped his political philosophy. And was that philosophy a reaction to the times? Finally, how did the Conservative philosophy actually reform politics besides beliefs about the role of government? What actions are considered Reaganesque? I would really enjoy a project that delves deeply into this issue.

For further Reading and Resources for any student doing a NHD project on Reagan
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/reagan/player/
Not only is there a 4 hour video on Reagan, but there is wealth of resources including primary documents, quotes, and interviews.

Grant liked to attack things head on. As Lincoln said of his talents, “I can’t spare this man, he fights!” Vicksburg was someplace he would not be able to do so. Geographically, Vicksburg sits high above the Mississippi River. Its rolling hills and cliff make it the perfect place to defend. A bend in the Mississippi River makes it almost impossible to travel down the river unnoticed. But in the spring of 1863, the weather and floods changed all that.

Grant, as the head of the Army of the Tennessee (River) had started off in Cairo, Illinois in 1862 and had worked his way down through Kentucky and Tennessee. Taking Forts Donelson and Henry, Shiloh, and Corinth, Grant and his army had almost cut the Confederacy in half per Winfield Scott’s Anaconda Plan. Admiral Farragut had taken New Orleans in early 1862. The only holdouts in the spring of 1863 were Vicksburg and the lowly Port Hudson. However, Grant’s success was not met with plaudits and parades. The northern press had chastised his tactics for the loss of life, while others intimated at his taste for the finer beverages of the day.

If Grant had his way, he would have taken Vicksburg by land. In fact, as early as December of 1862, Grant tried to take Vicksburg. The city held strong. Under the command of John Pemberton, a 30,000 strong force held the heights. A ball was held to celebrate the Confederate successes in holding off Grant. That same night, Grant used recent flooding to make a break and take his 40,000 strong force through bends. The Army of the Tennessee mad eland south of Vicksburg and then made its way up to Jackson (the capital) and then across over to Vicksburg. The defenses around Vicksburg, along with the Geography, made it impossible for Grant to take the city by force. Instead, Grant decided to take advantage of his supply lines being in tact along with control of nearby rail and river traffic. Beginning on May 19, 1863, the Siege of Vicksburg was under way.

Siege warfare is not a new tactic. Greeks, Persians, Romans, and Medieval armies used it to perfection. Grant knew it was only a matter of time. The city’s only hope was rescue from another Confederate Army. Pemberton could not break out for that would leave the city unguarded. In addition, the city had no way to get food in. In a 12 mile loop, Grant’s Army had the Confederates surrounded. Citizens ate whatever they could eat during the 46 day siege. In addition, the Union guns, on land and on the river, kept up a barrage to drive home the terror of this war. This diary entry by Dora Miller describes the terror she faced:

June 25th. – A horrible day. The most horrible yet to me, because I’ve lost my nerve. We were all in the cellar, when a shell came tearing through the roof, burst upstairs, tore up that room, and the pieces coming through both floors down into the cellar. One of them tore open the leg of H_’s pantaloons. This was tangible proof the cellar was no place of protection from them. On the heels of them came Mr. J_ , to tell us that the young Mrs. P_ had had her thigh-bone crushed. When Martha went for the milk she came back horror-stricken to tell us the black girl there had her arm taken off by a shell. For the first time I quailed. I do not think people who are physically brave deserve much credit for it; it is a matter of nerves. In this way I am constitutionally brave, and seldom think of danger till it is over; and death has not the terrors for me it has for some others. Every night I had lain down expecting death, and every morning rose to the same prospect, without being unnerved. It was for H_ I trembled. But now I first seemed to realize that something worse than death might come; I might be crippled, and not be killed. Life, without all one’s powers and limbs, was a thought that broke down my courage. I said to H_, “You must get me out of this horrible place; I cannot stay; I know I shall be crippled.” Now the regret comes that I lost control, because H_ is worried, and has lost his composure, because my coolness has broken down.

On July 3, Gettysburg ended. No one was going to come to the rescue. No Union troops were going to go east and leave Vicksburg by itself as Robert E. Lee once pined. No, this was it. On July 4, the Confederate forces under Pemberton surrendered. The Confederates were not taken prisoner. There were just too many of them! While casualties were low for the siege, there was no way for Grant to feed and house the vast numbers. Originally, Grant had wanted unconditional surrender but was talked out of it by logistical horror stories from his commanders. On July 4, 1863, Union forces took control of the city. It would be a long time before the city would celebrate the holiday. The Confederate soldiers agreed to not take up arms against the Union.

After the siege, Grant would head east into Chattanooga and eastern Tennessee. By the end of the year, his victories resulted in his promotion to being in charge of all Union forces. With Vicksburg in Union hands, river and rail traffic within the Confederacy stopped. It was the high water mark for the Confederacy. From here on out, the South would be running on fumes. It could not keep up with industry and the population of the north.

In 2005, my lovely wife and I toured the National Military Park in Vicksburg. It was the first week in June and the temperature was 90 degrees and humid. I can only imagine the conditions the soldiers and citizens endured that summer.

The Union Battery Lines

The Big Muddy

The view from Union Lines

One of hundreds of monuments to those who served

The Cemetery overlooking the river

Since 1820, the young United States of America compromised about how slavery would, and could, spread in the young nation. At that time, Maine was to enter to the union as a free state, Missouri as a slave state. Any other state that joined the Union above 36 degrees and 30 minutes latitude would be free, below slave. This “Missouri Compromise” was deemed as a way to hold off dealing with the issue of slavery for infinity if necessary. Slave states liked the compromise as it kept in balance in the Senate the number of slave and free states. Free states liked the compromise because the growth of slavery was kept in check.  In 1848, everything changed.

1848 saw the end of the US-Mexican War. The resulting treaty saw the US receive parts of 8 future states. This Mexican Cession changed the shape of the country. A gold rush in California sped up the process. The population of California boomed and had enough people to make a state. The problem was half of California lay above 36’30, and half below. The state could not be half-free and half-slave. In addition, what was to become of the territories in the Mexican Cession. Some states even claimed land in this cession. A compromise awaited.

In the compromise, Texas was to give up it claims for land in the cession in return for 10 million dollars. In addition, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah were to be set up without discussing slavery. That determination was to made by popular sovereignty when the territory applied for state hood. The slave trade would be abolished in the District of Columbia. California was to be admitted as a free state. Finally, to quell the slave states, the Fugitive Slave Act was passed. The Fugitive Slave Act was very controversial. This law allowed southerners to go into the north to find and return escaped slaves. As a result, many freed blacks began making their way to Canada.

Throughout the 1850s, the question of the spread of slavery began to grow. Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas helped to write not only the Compromise of 1850, but also the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Douglas was a proponent of popular sovereignty wherein the people in a state or territory decide whether or not slavery is permitted. Based on the compromise of 1820, the federal government had decided whether land was to be free or slave. This clash over who decides would not only lead to bloodshed in Kansas and Nebraska in the 1850s, but all over the nation.

By 1858, Illinois had become the center of the debate. A new party, established in 1854, had only one purpose – to end slavery. This new Republican Party garnered most of its members from the defunct Whig Party. One of its early members was Abraham Lincoln. A lawyer, born in Kentucky, raised in Indiana, and a resident of Illinois since the early 1830s, was a well known orator, lawyer, and state legislator. Lincoln was running for the Senate seat that year in hopes of defeating Douglas. The two men agreed to a series of debates to be held in seven Illinois cities – Freeport, Charleston, Alton, Jonesboro, Galesburg, Quincy, and Ottawa.

A Cartoon from the 1858 Campaign

The format for these debates consisted of the first man talking for an hour, followed by the second man for an hour a half. Finally, the first man was allowed to retort for a half an hour. There were no questions from the audience. At the time, Illinois was divided as was much of the nation. The northern half of the state had become Republican, while the southern half was Democratic (Today, it is the exact opposite). There was no radio, TV, but there were plenty of newspapers there. Depending on the newspaper, the point of view of the debate was different.

The first debate was held in Ottawa. A crowd of 12,000 strained their ears to listen. Press from all over the nation took notice. The New York Tribune stated,

“Of the two, all partiality being left out of the question, we think Mr. Lincoln has decidedly the advantage. Not only are his doctrines better and truer than those of his antagonist, but he states them with more propriety and cogency, and with an infinitely better temper.”

And throughout that late summer and early fall, the two men met. Some days it was hot, some days it was cold. It is hard to get a true measure of who won each debate as each newspaper was fiercely loyal to the candidate they favored. That’s right, the press was biased back in 1858.. Papers like the Chicago Tribune extolled the virtues of Abraham Lincoln. Papers in southern Illinois propped up Douglas and his views on slavery.

Here is an example from an article entitled “Douglas and the Monkey Show” from the Illinois State Register in Springfield from August of 1858, four days before the debate in Ottawa.

August 23, 1858.

Correspondence of the Illinois State Journal.

This morning two steamers arrived at our landing, contained Col. Woods’ great show — the principle feature of which was Donetti’s performing monkeys and dogs. At noon, the great debater on negro equality, amalgamation, abolition and popular sovereignty, arrived on the cars from Lewistown. A large number ran to the boats to see the bearded woman, fat woman and the stream caliope, while an equal number were attracted to the part of town at which it was supposed Douglas would enter. There was about as much excitement and enthusiasm in the one crowd as in the other. From all I could see this evening, those who witnessed the monkey performance at the boats, are better pleased at their outlay of a quarter, than are those who heard the growling and saw the contortions of Douglas.

A crowd of 10,000 persons was promised today; but 2,500 people, nearly half of whom were Republicans, were all that came up to see the sights and hear the noises. I say half were Republicans, and this certainly seemed to be the cause, judging from their expressions favorable to Lincoln and derogatory to Douglas and his principles. A large number of Republicans have already arrived, who are delegates to the Congressional Convention to nominate a candidate to represent the fourth Congressional district. Three hundred persons from Mercer county alone, came in to-day for this purpose, and I observe Republicans delegates from Mason, Stark, Knox, Woodford, Tazewell and other counties.

Douglas spoke in the Court House Square at 3 o’clock this afternoon. There was little new in his harangue, other than ringing a few changes on “the lie,” “infamous liar,” “knave,” and such choice Senatorial language, applied to his competitors. In the commencement today, he only charged Lincoln with making an “infamous blunder,” instead of “infamous lie,” as he usually has it; but he soon changed the mild phase for that to which he is most accustomed , and it went off glibly from his tongue. The epithets of sneak, coward, liar, amalgamationist, were freely applied to his co-Senator, Trumbull. But the words fell heavily on his auditors. General disgust took the place of enthusiasm; and if Douglas daily loses 100 votes from his cause by such tirades, as it is confidently believed he does, at least twice this number came over to the Republican cause today.

A remarkable fact is, that there were scarcely any Germans, and even very few Irish in the crowd here. Another fact is, that here, where the Administration has numerous friends, he took pains to defend Buchanan as against Trumbull, a thing he has not done elsewhere. The truth is, Douglas is losing ground and has long since lost his temper. He feels his cause a sinking one, and he has a bout run his race. It would not be surprising for him to back square out of the race. His voice is failing, and he can scarcely pronounce his words. Standing six feet from him today, I observed that he omitted many of the smaller words entirely, and half the syllables of larger words; doing it in such a manner as to render it intelligible to a close observer, but very disagreeable. It is to be hoped that he will not entirely break down, for he is making Lincoln votes at every point he goes.

His winding up assertion was that Kellogg would be defeated this election in the fourth district, while the truth is, to hold his own he would receive some 1,600 majority, and those best posted say 3,000 is the least majority calculated on for him. Tomorrow is the convention at this place for making the nomination. It is understood that Kellogg will be nominated by acclamation. Addresses will be delivered by Mr. K. and other speakers, and in the afternoon Mr. Lincoln will speak to one of the largest audiences ever congregated in this part of the State. He arrived on the cars this evening and met with a warm reception by the committee of arrangements and the assembled delegates, who escorted him in carriages to the Peoria House.

A crowd of about 1,000 persons, three-fourths of whom were Republicans, gathered in the square this evening to hear a few small guns of the Douglas party. A large portion of the Simon pure preferred visiting the whisky shops, the effects of which visits are plainly visible on many who are attempting to hurrah for Douglas. As I write, cheers are going up for Lincoln in all directions, and the little dugout is taking his departure for Lacon, where speaks tomorrow.

Thursday morning, 19th. Several hundred delegates are assembling in the Court House hall to nominate Congressman for this district. Banners are flying from all the prominent points, inscribed with mottoes such as “Illinois is for Lincoln!” Hon. Wm. Kellogg will doubtless be nominated by acclimation. I will write you this evening the result of this day’s proceedings, which bid fair to be most harmonious and interesting.

This article gives you an idea of how newspapers reported the events of the day even from the headlines.

However, despite all the press, both negative and positive, Douglas would win re-election to the Senate.

Out of the debates came two very important things..

1. The issue of slavery was not going to be settled by a senatorial campaign in a then western state.

2. The Republican Party now had a spokesman who spoke eloquently about slavery. Lincoln was now a national figure of prominence. The Republican Party had a candidate that the North could understand.His eloquence and ability to weave a narrative, came across in these debates.

In two years time, the two candidates ran against each other for President of the United States. This time, Lincoln would win. Without the debates, Lincoln’s prominence as a national figure could not have been attained.

The Illinois State Register summed it up succinctly when they proclaimed after the Freeport Debate:

Aug. 30, 1858.

This has been a grand day for Lincoln and a glorious one for the Republican cause. The great discussion between Lincoln and Douglas has resulted in the overwhelming discomfiture of the “little giant.” He was completely wiped out and annihilated. To use his own choice vernacular, he was thoroughly “trotted through.” Lincoln “brought him to his milk” in a most triumphant manner.

And later in the article they added

What shall I say of the speaking? Lincoln made a most powerful speech, and charged home upon Douglas with a vengeance which was perfectly overwhelming. There was no escape from the coils which Lincoln wound around him, and his speech in reply was without spirit, without power and labored throughout. His platitudes about amalgamation and nigger equality — his only political stock in trade — were too old, too stupid to be listened to with patience. Lincoln’s half hour rejoinder was admirable, and clinched the argument of the first speech so that Douglas fairly squirmed under the infliction. At the close, cheer after cheer for Lincoln rent the air in prolonged shouts. The whole crowd seemed, with one voice, to join in the enthusiasm for “Old Abe,” while Douglas crawled off to his quarters like a whipped spaniel.

At night, and now while I write, a tremendous meeting is being held in front of the Hotel, and Lovejoy is making a speech every word of which brings the blood from the negroites. The Douglas followers tried to get up a meeting at the Court House, but failed. I close as I commenced, by saying this has been a grand day for Lincoln an a glorious one for the cause. — It is thought that Douglas, sick of his seven appointments, will decline to meet Lincoln in any further debate. If he will only keep on the track, every meeting will make hundreds of votes for us.

It was, after all, a different kind of debate.

Lincoln circa 1858. To run for President, he would grow a beard to look more distiguished.

There are two good websites on which to explore this topic even further

The first one is by Northern Illinois University. It provides a variety of resources and newspaper accounts of the debates.

http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/lincolndouglas/

The second web site is also good and uses footnoted resources in its recollections of the debate.

http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/inside.asp?ID=21&subjectID=2

Each year, out of 40 students, I average about 5-6 students doing research papers on the Underground Railroad in Illinois. Each one is different. No two are ever alike. Here are some examples of topics about the Underground Railroad in Illinois.
1. Owen Lovejoy – Princeton abolitionist
2. Elijah Lovejoy – printer and abolitionist publisher
3. Deacon David West – Sycamore farmer
4. The Equality Slave House – a reverse site for taking escaped slaves back to the south
5. Quilt Codes
6. Songs of the Underground Railroad
7. The Vocabulary of the Underground Railroad
8. The Mayfield Township Church
9. and dozens more!!! One PDF file list over 50 sites in Illinois confirmed to be sites on the UGGR

All throughout Illinois, there are hundreds of stories of people, who at great risk to their own life, helped former slaves on the path to Canada. Why? Why was Illinois such a hot bed for the Underground Railroad? It has to do with timing.

Illinois became a state in 1818. Illinois was bordered by Kentucky and Missouri via the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers in the south and west, and in the northeast, Lake Michigan graced its shores. These geographic features made it an ideal place in which to escape. In a world where the fastest way to get from point A to point B was by water, Illinois was the place. Add in the Illinois River, it was almost a straight shot by water.

In addition, Illinois was not very populated outside of Southern Illinois in the 1820s and 1830s. The map on the right shows early Illinois counties along with its borders. Notice, the northwestern section of Illinois is labeled as the military tract. This was land set aside for veterans of the war of 1812. The border between Wisconsin and Illinois was the Illinois River in 1818. It would later be moved a little bit later. The area where Chicago would sprout up in the 1830s is not even in Illinois. Once the Erie Canal was built, Illinois would move to grab a larger share of the lake shore from Wisconsin. As a result, most of the northern part of the state was mostly uninhabited until the 1830s.

In the 1820s, Illinois had a hard time getting settled. Churches from New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Virginia started most communities. Along with the church, came the views of the church. Many of the denominations abhorred the practice of slavery and placed those views in the church doctrine. Once a community was established, it soon became a proponent of abolition. As towns began to grow up along the rivers in the 1820, the Illinois River valley soon became the route to travel.

In the 1830s, Illinois changed drastically. Several events made Illinois go from a backwater western state into an economic powerhouse and a major player in the nation and on the Underground Railroad. First the Black Hawk War paved the way for settlement of Northern Illinois. In addition, John Deere’s plow and Cyrus McCormick’s reaper made it possible to now partake in large scale farming of the thick, rich, and black Illinois prairie soil. Add in the mining of lead in Galena, the founding of the city of Chicago, and the building of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, all the conditions were in place by 1840 for Illinois to explode. And it did. Add in a real railroad in the 1840s and everything was set. In doing so, the UGRR also moved into the northern part of the state.

DeKalb County in the 1840s and 1850s was built on farming. Its location west of Chicago saw the real railroad expand westward from Lake Michigan. As a result, the area became one of the last stops on the UGRR. The aforementioned abolitionist churches were present in DeKalb County as well. The Sycamore Congregational and the Mayfield Township Church (still standing) were two churches who practiced abolition openly. In fact, many of the leaders of the churches were also the leaders of Sycamore and the county, which Sycamore is the county seat. In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act made it illegal to aid a runaway slave. So, while posters were being put up in Sycamore, the halls of government blocks away were filled with people helping the slaves to escape.

David West owned a farm east of Sycamore. He was a deacon in the local church. He built a special wagon to hide slaves as he took grain east to

what is now the St. Charles and Geneva area. During the 1850s, West and his family would often climb into a buggy at night and act as decoys. When the slave catchers stopped the buggy, they would open it up to find it filled with white people. West’s 15 year old son would often drive the wagon in place of his father. Many other prominent citizens of Sycamore built special hiding places in their houses. If one drives through Sycamore today, many of the gorgeous homes built before the war still ring the downtown area.

As the slaves made their way from the Princeton area in Sycamore, many would often stay only a few days so as not to be caught. However, during the winter, the climate of Northern Illinois could wreak havoc on the escape. Many abolitionists often harbored the slaves for months. The roads would be impassable, the snow too deep, or the Lake too frozen for the slaves to go on.

At the Sycamore Public Library today, the Joiner Room is solely dedicated to the Sycamore’s role in the Underground Railroad. For any student investigating this topic, a visit there is a must. In addition, James Macon’s 2002 documentary “Wade in the Water” is also a must. The documentary (by a then college student) looks at the development of the UGRR in DeKalb County. From the unmentioned James Nickerson, Jesse Kellogg, and many others, the story of the Underground Railroad in DeKalb County is filled with rich tales of deception, bravery, and heroism. It is a topic of which I never tire.

One of my student's projects from 2000 about the Mayfield Township Church about 1 mile from his house

One of my student's projects from 2010 on The Mayfield Township Church. The project was on display at the 150th anniversary of the church!

The fact that battle took place in south east Tennessee was not where Grant wanted his next battle to take place. Grant’s objective was 20 miles away at a railroad junction in Corinth, Mississippi. As part of the Anaconda Plan, Grant was trying to cut the Confederacy in half by capturing railroads and the Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers that connected the Confederacy. Corinth contained a railroad junction. Capturing the junction would be a coup for Grant. Grant and the Army of the Tennessee made their way down the Tennessee River and began disembarking near Pittsburg Landing, about 2 miles from the Shiloh church. AT Pittsburg Landing, Grant was to hook up with Buell’s Army of the Ohio and then reek havoc on the South. Upon receiving word of Grant’s arrival in SE Tennessee, General Albert Sidney Johnston began organizing a complex plan to drive Grant from his positions and all the way back to the Snake Creek, and thus destroying the Army of the Tennessee before Grant and Buell could combine forces. Things did not go as planned, for either side.

April 6, 1862
The Confederates, stationed at Corinth, surprised the Army of the Tennessee at 6 a.m. Grant did not think the Confederates would dare leave Corinth. As a result, the Union had no defensive positions established. On the other hand, the Confederate attack, although 44,000 strong did not dispel the Army of the Tennessee from the grounds near the Shiloh Church. Ironically, Shiloh is a Hebrew word meaning Peace. The battle this day, and the next, would be anything but peaceful.

Throughout the 6th, Johnston attempted to push Grant’s forces back into the river and nearby Snake Creek. The Union took up a defensive position in what has become known as the legendary “Hornet’s Nest” for which the battle is also known. Throughout the day, the Confederates sent wave after wave of soldiers at the Union entrenchment. They all failed. Johnston was mortally wounded that afternoon. PGT Beauregard took command. Rather than bypassing the “Hornet’s Nest” and focusing on the Union forces at Pittsburg Landing, Beauregard kept hammering away at  a futile position, much to the chagrin and detriment of his troops. Eventually, the Hornet’s Nest fell. The Union fell back to even more defensible positions around Pittsburg Landing.

Even southern newspapers of the day had all but declared victory after April 6

Both sides had suffered heavy casualties on the first day, an estimated 8,000 plus . As night began to fall, the Confederates believed they would be victorious come morning. The night proved to be decisive. A thunderstorm battered the Confederate positions. Along with constant shelling by Union gunboats along the Tennessee and nearby creeks, the Confederates were left in tatters by the morning. What had been a force of 44,000, some estimate that only 20,000-28,000 were left come the morning of the 7th. Grant, meanwhile, had been reinforced by the Army of the Ohio. The second day of fighting would bring a greater number of killed and wounded.

April 7
The day began with what the Confederates saw as a surprising Union advance. The whole day became surprising for Beauregard as Grant, Buell, and Sherman attacked the Confederates at every opportunity. By the afternoon, Beauregard had left the territory he had only gained the day before. His men, tired, hungry, and disheveled, gave up the battlefield that night and straggled back into Mississippi. Over 23,000 casualties showed that this war, this Civil War, would be anything but Civil. The aftermath of the battle saw Grant chastised in the Press for his command and inability to command the battlefield the first day despite being four miles away on crutches when the battle began. Grant was also criticized for his failure to properly set up a defensive position upon his arrival in south east Tennessee. Grant had instead chose to drill his young army. Despite calls to sack Grant, Lincoln paid no heed. “I can’t spare this man, he fights.” The victory to Lincoln was still a victory. In the east, the Army of the Potomac had yet to taste it. Lincoln knew Grant would taste it yet again. It would be at Corinth after a long siege.

A cartoon of the day lampoons the Confederate retreat

Although Grant was attacked by surprise, Shiloh was only the beginning of a year of hell for Confederate forces opposing him. Grant, rather than attack head on in the next year, did so sparingly. He used the tactics of siege warfare not only at Corinth but again at Vicksburg, both times to success.

In 2005, my wife and I traveled to Shiloh. Here are some pictures of the hallowed scene.

Pittsburg Landing along the Tennessee River where Grant made his camp on the night of the 6th

The Shiloh Church for which the battle is named. It is a replica.

The Bloody Pond where dehydrated soldiers attempted to drink and clean wounds

The Hornet's Nest where most of the fighting took place on April 6

Louis Maurer, Lithograph, Currier & Ives, October 1860

Every day starts the same for me. I wake up, shut off the alarm, let the dogs out, fix my cereal, let the dogs back in, feed the dogs, and turn on the computer. My daily dose of the Internet begins by looking at the cartoons of the day. From Clay Bennett to John Sherffius to Daryl Cagle’s Cartoon Index, I find it a good way to get ready for the day before I check my fantasy baseball standings. As a history teacher, I find cartoons an easy way to engage  students in a discussion about a topic and to develop critical thinking skills. The story of America can be told through the use of the political cartoon. Whereas today’s high literacy rate and dwindling newspaper rate would make one think the art of the political cartoon is dying, it is not. In the 1700s and 1800s, the cartoon reached across an America where the majority of Americans could not read or write. From Thomas Nast’s iconic Boss Tweed to Herb Block’s classic takes on Nixon and Reagan, the pen has often been mightier than the sword.

Abraham Lincoln was no different. From his rise to national fame in 1858, Lincoln was an easy draw. His long frame, shaggy mane, and other physical features made him a favorite of cartoonists. From the 1860 campaign to his death in 1865, cartoonists deftly drew the rail-splitting Lincoln with ease and with caricature. In one of the most pivotal elections in 1860, the cartoonists captured heavy issues of the day along with the young man from Illinois with all his prairie charm and legend.

Passage Through Baltimore by Adalbert Volck

In 1861, Lincoln’s entrance into Washington in secret to avoid a plot to harm him, the President-elect, acting on information from Allan Pinkerton,made his way surreptitiously into the Capitol. The cartoonists in the south captured the moment in black and white and portrayed the President-elect as a coward. That is what is great about the political cartoon. The point of view of the cartoonists are as varied as the cartoons.

While it would be impossible to post and discuss every famous cartoon about Lincoln’s presidency in one post, it is possible to discuss three web sites which contain excellent collections of cartoons from the time period that display not only the admiration of the 16th President, but also the disdain for him.
http://assemblyman-eph.blogspot.com/2009/04/abraham-lincoln-political-cartoons.html
This website contains a collection of cartoons specifically from the 1860 and 1864 Presidential elections. Not only does the site contain cartoons but also there is a discussion of each cartoon. Each cartoon also lists the source

http://elections.harpweek.com/1860/cartoons-1860-list.asp?Year=1860
Harper’s Weekly was one of the premier magazines of the mid to late 1800s. This site, like the previous website, also details a collection of cartoons from the 1860 and 1864 elections. However, this site differs in that the cartoons were exclusive to being published in Harper’s Weekly.

http://abrahamlincolnsclassroom.org/Cartoon_Corner/index.asp
This website is mother of all Lincoln cartoon sites. Hundreds of cartoons are detailed here including captions.Not only are there cartoons from the elections, but there are collections on topics from his cabinet to patronage to black soldiers to the war. It truly is a treasure trove of views.

As a big proponent of history fair here in Illinois, I have been trying to get one of my students to tackle this topic for their history fair project. I think the analytical aspects of how cartoonists saw the 16th president would be a fun project in which to compare the cartoons, and cartoonists, themselves.

Louis Maurer, Currier and Ives, New York

For example, my favorite Lincoln cartoon of all time is this one. For me, it is the baseball lore within the cartoon that I find appealing. The detail I also find to be amazing. However, notice the word balloons and title of the cartoon. It reads,

Bell: It appears to me very singular that we three should strike “foul” and be “put out” while old Abe made such a “good lick.
Douglas: That’s because he had that confounded rail, to strike with. I thought our fusion would be a “short stop” to his career.
Breckinridge: I guess I’d better leave for Kentucky, for I smell something strong around here, and begin to think that we are completely “skunked.”
Lincoln: Gentlemen, if any of you should ever take a hand in another match at this game, remember that you must have “a good bat” and strike a “fair ball” to make a “clean score” & a “home run.”

You don’t see that many word bubbles in today’s works. Usually, a sentence is all you can see. Depending on the cartoonist, you will see the occasional title. The use of the so many words in a period where the majority of Americans could not read or write is an interesting comment on the seriousness of the intent of the cartoonist. By comparing the cartoons and their design, one could gain a better understanding of not only the issues of the time period, but also, the perceptions of different parts of the country.

The obelisk at the tomb - 2005

In a few days, I will take 21 students down to Springfield for the Illinois History Expo, or as it is better known, the State History Fair. My students will be competing against themselves to bring home a Superior, or blue, ribbon. As part of the annual trek, the students will visit many sites including Lincoln’s Home, the Lincoln Presidential Museum, New Salem State Park, and Lincoln’s Tomb. Visiting the tomb is always a somber affair for me. After a day of competition, we walk to the tomb. It is a ten minute walk from our hotel.

The tomb itself has a storied history. After Lincoln’s Assassination on April 15, 1865, a fight began as to where Lincoln would be buried. The town leaders of Springfield wanted Lincoln to be buried within the then city limits of the town. The leaders foresaw the burial of Lincoln would be a boon to the local economy. Mary, and the family, wanted the body to be interned at Oak Ridge Cemetery, just north of Springfield. The family won.

The actual tomb has undergone many transformations over the years. In in its first 36 years, the actual body of Lincoln was at risk from grave robbers. Initially, the body, and two of his sons, were placed in a public receiving vault. In December of 1865, the bodies were moved to a vault near the bottom of a hill to the north of the current tomb. Construction for the tomb began in 1871 and was finished in 1874.

Lincoln’s rest has never been peaceful. It is estimated the body has moved 17 times. It is an ironic twist of fate that the President who made “greenbacks” the currency of the United States, that counterfeiters would attempt to steal Lincoln in 1876. Benjamin F. Boyd was a skillful counterfeiter. His specialty was engraving plates. The Secret Service, which at that time dealt originally with counterfeiting, had pursued Boyd for several years. Captain Patrick D. Tyrrell chased Boyd for over 8 months and throughout five states. In the small Mississippi River town of Fulton, Illinois, Tyrrell caught Boyd. Boyd got ten years for his crimes. However, the story of stealing Lincoln’s body only begins there.

The tomb from the north circa late 1800s. You can make out the old vault in the bottom right quarter of the photograph

Boyd was a key figure to a syndicate of counterfeiting based in central Illinois. James “Big Jim” Kinealy, who ran the counterfeit ring, was at a loss after Boyd’s arrest. Kinealy needed to get Boyd out of jail or his crime empire would be in ruins.  Kinealy devised a plan to steal Lincoln out of the tomb. The original plot was soon discovered in the summer of 1876. The gang relocated to Chicago.

At a drinking establishment known as The Hub, the plot reemerged. Terrence Mullen, a bartender and part owner of the Hub with Kinealy, was part of the plot along with Jack Hughes and Jim Morrissey. Little did Kinealy know, Morrissey was actually Louis Swegles, an under cover Secret Service agent working for Tyrrell. When Mullen asked Morrissey his occupation, Morrissey replied, “I’m the boss body snatcher of Chicago!” On November 6, 1876, the crew traveled by train to Springfield. They would scout out the tomb. The next day would be election day and the day of the deed. The plan called for stealing the body and burying it in the Indiana Dunes. To return the body, Mullen would ask for Boyd’s release and $200,000. Kinealy began to put together a crew to steal the body. Swegles reported the plan to Tyrrell and a plan was put into place to stop the crime.

But grave robbing was not much of a crime in Illinois at the time. There were no laws on many of the books throughout the state. On November 7, 1876, Mullen, et al., attempted the deed. It was botched by both the robbers and those attempting to stop the robbery. Tyrrell and a group of agents hid in the front hall of the tomb. Swegles (Morrissey) had been assigned the task of driving the getaway wagon. Swegles was to strike a match when the crime had begun. Tyrrell and his men would wait for the signal.

In the tomb, Mullen filed through the lock and opened the door to the burial chamber. There lay the sarcophagus of President Lincoln. Topped with a

Terrence Mullen - Illinois State Historical Library

heavy marble lid, the robbers found it difficult to remove the lid to get to the coffin. Swegles, held the lantern while the robbers worked. When it came time to remove the coffin, Mullins dispatched Swegles and Swegles signaled Tyrrell at this time. Taking off their shoes for silence, the Secret Service men crept around the tomb and ordered the gang to surrender. When they looked in, they saw the coffin partway out of the sarcophagus and no robbers. The robbers had gone out for some fresh air. The grave robbers got away for the night. They returned to Chicago. Swegles, the gang thought, had been caught.

Upon returning to Chicago, Swegles was already waiting for them. The next night, November 8, Tyrrell and his men raided The Hub and arrested Mullen and Hughes. Because grave robbing was not a crime, the two were charged with attempted larceny of the body from the Lincoln Monument Association association and conspiracy. The criminals only received a year sentence for conspiring to steal the coffin valued at $75.

The body of Lincoln would be stored in the basement for two years. As mourners came by, little did they know that the sarcophagus was empty. The custodian of the tomb, John Carrol Power, stored it there the morning after the attempted robbery. The 500 pound coffin was in the basement with stacked lumber on top of it. Eventually Lincoln’s body would be buried in the basement of the tomb, not upstairs in the sarcophagus. Power, and Robert Todd Lincoln, believed this would deter any future attempts at stealing Lincoln. In 1887, a vault in the tomb was created for Abe and Mary Todd. The inside of the coffin was inspected to make sure that Lincoln was still in his coffin.

The final resting place for Lincoln was placed 10 feet below the sarcophagus on September 26, 1901. The coffin was encased in concrete. This would be the final time the coffin of Abraham Lincoln was inspected. Upon opening, witnesses claimed that Lincoln was in there. Because of the length of the funeral train ride, Lincoln had been embalmed with more material than the average body. His face bronzed from the bruising of the bullet, made the President appear like the statue that adorns the front of the tomb. On his chest, bits of red material lay from the flag that was draped there.

As the day of the state history fair winds down, I will once again pay my respects to the man who lead the fight to save the Union. As I take my hat off when I enter the tomb, I will remember the hallowed tales of how Abraham Lincoln finally came to rest in peace.

The front of the tomb in 2005

For further reading:

Stealing Lincoln’s Body by Thomas Craughwell

Guiteau was born in Freeport in 1841. His early life was filled with moving and the death of his mother when he was 5. The family eventually returned to Freeport. Guiteau attempted to attend the University of Michigan. He could not pass the entrance exam. Guiteau failed at many endeavors while trying to forge a life. Whether  it was at religion, newspaper, editing, law, or marriage, Guiteau failed due to his own mental leanings. He plagiarized religious philosophy, references, and whatever else he wrote. He believed himself greater than he actually was.

Guiteau was a person who wanted to be part of something. He wanted to be somebody. He thought he was. In 1880, Guiteau joined the Republican Party. Guiteau was a supporter of Ulysses S. Grant and delivered a speech called “Grant v. Hancock.” After Garfield’s nomination and election, Guiteau changed the title to Garfield v. Hancock. Guiteau believed he single-handedly was responsible for Garfield’s election.

In January 1881, Guiteau moved to Washington in what he believed to be an awaiting of an appointment by Garfield to some important post. Guiteau wanted an ambassadorship to either Vienna, or as he repeatedly tried, Paris. Garfield never gave Guiteau the time of day. Guiteau was like a fringe figure at this point. However, he did not see himself that way. Guiteau thought of himself as a stalwart, a faction in the Republican Party. After four months of attempting to get an audience with Garfield, Guiteau changed plans. He felt his odds were better with Vice-President Chester Arthur at the helm, a fellow (supposedly)  stalwart. Guiteau bought a gun and practiced on the bank of the Potomac.

On July 2, 1881, at the Baltimore and Potomac Station, Guiteau shot Garfield twice. One was a flesh wound, the other hit Garfield in his back. It would take two months before Garfield would die. One day, the papers would pronounce his recovery, the next day, a relapse. In the following months, what came out about Guiteau was just how mad he was. Guiteau claimed he was acting on behalf of God. Upon his incarceration, he wrote General William Tecumseh Sherman:

To General Sherman:

I have just shot the President.  I shot him several times as I wished  him to go as easily as possible. His death was a political necessity.

I am a lawyer, theologian, and politician. I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts. I was with General Grant and the rest of our men, in New York during the canvass.

I am going to the Jail. Please order out your troops, and take possession of the jail at once.

Very respectfully,
Charles Guiteau.

Sherman replied he never had heard of nor met Guiteau.

More madness followed. Guiteau’s trial would begin in November of that year. His lawyers tried to paint Guiteau as an insane man. The defense saw Guiteau as a man who sought revenge for a post that never came. Guiteau saw himself differently, “I am a man of destiny as much as the Savior, or Paul, or Martin Luther.” Throughout the trial, Guiteau’s ramblings often included poetry, references  to God, and even some speeches alluded to his seeking the company of a nice, young, 30 year-old Christian woman through the proceedings.

The proceedings saw insanity on trial as much as Guiteau. Witnesses were brought forth to describe Guiteau’s behavior and brain and Guiteau’s visions of grandeur. The prosecution sought to discredit each and every witness brought forth on Guiteau’s behalf. One so-called expert witness was a veterinarian. In the end, Guiteau’s own behavior at his trial spoke volumes. Guiteau proclaimed, “Some of these days instead of saying ‘Guiteau the assassin’, they will say ‘Guiteau the patriot’.”

It took the jury only one hour to reach a verdict, guilty. Even the reading of the verdict was a work of madness.

Charles Guiteau: “I am not guilty of the charge set forth in the indictment. It was God’s act, not mine, and God will take care of it, and don’t let the American people forget it. He will take care of it and every officer of the Government, from the Executive down to the Marshall, taking in every man on that jury and every member of this bench will pay for it, and the American nation will roll in blood if my body goes into the ground and I am hung.”

Judge Cox: “One cannot doubt, that you understood the nature and consequences of your crime or that you had the moral capacity to recognize its iniquity. Your own wretched sophistry, not inspiration overcame the promptings of conscience. Any error of mine, may be appealed to the supreme court of the District sitting in banc. At the moment, however, it is my duty to pronounce the sentence of the law that you be taken to the common jail of the District, from whence you came, and be kept in confinement, and on Friday, the 30th of June, 1882, you will be taken to the place prepared for the execution, within the walls of said jail, and there, between the hours of 12 M and 2 P.M., you be hanged by the neck until you are dead. And may the Lord have mercy on your soul.”

Charles Guiteau: “And may God have mercy on your soul, I had rather stand where I am than where the jury does or where your Honor does…. I am not afraid to die… I know where I stand on this business. I am here as God’s man and don’t you forget it. God Almighty will curse every man who has had anything to do with this act.”

After all appeals were exhausted, even to President Arthur, Charles Guiteau was hung on June 20, 1882. Today, Guiteau and a trial would most likely have never seen a court room. Guiteau’s narcissistic inability to grasp the basics tenets and concepts of day-to-day reality would result in his spending life in a mental institution.

For more information:
Douglas Linder Great Trials Web Site

In the 1920s, farmers went through massive changes in the decade. No longer was the horse or oxen the main mode of transportation. Tractors, trucks, and other motorized vehicles changed farming drastically. The truly mechanized farm could plant more, grow more, and harvest more than ever before. Machines invented in the 1870s made it possible to milk more. For farmers everything was just more. The good times seemed like they would never end. The industrial revolution was made for farmers to make more money.

All’s well that is well did not end well. Farmers began to make too much. Farm prices for crops, meat, and other products began to drop. When the stock market crashed in 1929, farmers were already reeling. Loans to pay for tractors, combines, and other machinery could not be paid back. Farms began to be foreclosed. The drought of the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma and Kansas began to spread east. Illinois farming was going under. Herbert Hoover, the Republican President, did little to help the sinking agricultural industry. Hoover was a believer that Civil Society, churches and charities, were responsible for helping the needy. Republican farmers in Illinois agreed. The rest of the nation did not. In 1932, the United States elected Franklin Roosevelt to be the next president in the United States.

In Roosevelt’s first 100 days, Congress passed a lot of new legislation called the New Deal. The first parts of the New Deal were aimed at recovery and relief. One of those programs was the Agricultural Adjustment Act. The Act was passed after farmers across the nation had already planted crops for the year. The act’s goals were to raise farm prices and delete surpluses. In order to do that, new models of farming had to be implemented. The models called for plowing under millions of acres of crops and slaughtering livestock to drive up the prices. Americans could not understand the concept while millions went to bed hungry every night during the Great Depression.

Many farmers in Illinois did not like the new policies of the AAA. The dislike was more than just being a Republican not liking a Democratic President’s new policy. This was about work. Many farmers were proud and had developed a strong work ethic. They wanted to work for their money. They wanted to farm. The AAA did not want them too. The AAA began setting acreage allotments, corn quotas, and subsidies to farmer who left land fallow.  Many farmers did not take kindly to the change. Some did. Some farmers thought the quotas would help conserve the soil and drive prices up.

In 1936, the AAA was declared unconstitutional. A new AAA would arrive in 1938. In response to the AAA, a select group of farmers, active and retired, in McDonough County in Western Illinois began an organization called the Corn Belt Liberty League to fight the AAA and the policies the AAA imposed. For the next few years, the two sides duked it out in the press, at meetings, in court, and wherever they could, they would. It did not stop with the men either. Macomb newspapers were known for women slinging mud just as much as their husbands.

From 1938 to 1940, the Corn Belt Liberty League grew from 400 McDonough County farmers to over 16,000 members in the state. It held meetings, published a newsletter, all for a $2.00 membership fee. Its arch-enemy was the Illinois Farm Bureau. The Farm Bureau supported subsidies and quotas as a way to increase prices. The heart of the issue for the AAA was that farming was farmer’s business, not the governments. To the Corn Belt Liberty League, the AAA, quotas, crop allotments, and subsidies smelled of socialism, and more so, communism.

The League, in and of itself, was a grassroots organization that stood up to government control of the economy. However, the Corn Belt Liberty League was also resistant to change. Today’s farming techniques shadow those recommended by the AAA. Just because a farmer has all that land does not mean that the farmer should farm it. However, it doesn’t mean he shouldn’t. The crux of the issue between the AAA and the Corn Belt Liberty League was one of modernity.  New machines created a farming revolution which allowed farmers to grow more which they thought would allow them to make more money. Unfortunately, overproduction of crops became the byproduct of the new farmer. As prices began to fall, farmers could not understand the paradox.

As a league, the Corn Belt Liberty League became too big for its own britches. The meetings began to take up more time. The members became well informed and yearned for the meetings often neglecting the work that needed to be done on the farm. The league had no plan to replace the AAA, the league just knew the AAA had to go and the market would take care of itself – just as most Republicans believed. Unfortunately, war would return farming to normalcy. Beginning in 1940, the farming industry began to rebound. As Europe needed food for a war, America too would soon join the fray. By 1942, the Corn Belt Liberty League had stopped functioning. In 1944, it ceased to exist.

Today, the policies put forth by the AAA are commonplace. In the 1930s, those same policies were radical.  The concepts of fallow land, stored grain, price supports, soil conservation, and government loans and subsidies are commonplace. In the 1930s, the concepts caused outrage and fear. Luckily, the Corn Belt Liberty League was able to voice itself and those voices of its members. F.G. Vining of Kankakee summed up the Corn Belt Liberty League best:

What a real farmer wants is to be let alone to raise what he pleases, where he pleases, and to sell what he raises where he pleases, and when he pleases; and not to be taxed to death to pay for a lot of bunk legislation.

While that may true, freedom to grow whatever , whenever, and wherever doesn’t make sound business practice. Farmers in the 1930s still wanted the freedom they had before the machines. In reality, the AAA was trying to re-educate farmers on how to farm in this new Industrial Age. Neither side listened to the other very well. My grandfather, in next door Henderson County, took money from the AAA. He had six daughters and a son to feed first before he could think of feeding others. My Aunt Bert, who was 20+ years older than my mom (born in 1938), wrote many letters to my mother about life in the Depression. She writes:

Mother said when they butchered the winter supply of hogs by the time they were through you could skate on her kitchen floor. She’d get awfully tired of the greasy mess before they got done. So when lockers came and they came and butchered for you, it was a great day and no one appreciated it more than farm women. To have fresh frozen meat, fruit and vegetables all year round was a treat and it all came in when the farms were electrified. In Mt. Pleasant it was electrified in 1940. Everyone immediately bought a refrigerator, a fan, a clock and an iron. It was a wonderful thing for it made water systems possible and bathrooms workable. Civilization improved a lot.

And that is the heart of the matter for the Corn Belt Liberty League – they resisted change in the AAA, but mostly because they wanted things to be the way they always had been. Those days of farming were gone.

This view greeted me when I opened the garage door. Somewhere in that drift was my step-daughter’s car.

After digging my way out of the garage, I found her car encased in six feet of snow drift. At this point I thought I was in “The Empire Strikes Back”.

The door to the house was not much better. By the end of the day, I was pooped.

All it took was 8 hours to shovel everything. I would shovel for 20 minutes followed by 45-60 minutes of rest.

But the driveway, doggie area, and sidewalk were all cleared.

Luckily the wind kept the snow off the roof. My biggest fear was 2 feet of snow on the roof falling through.

In terms of wind, this was the most sustained winds in a snowstorm I can recall. The blizzard of 2011 is supposedly the third highest recorded snowfall in the last 125 years in northern Illinois. I don’t think it has anything on Hoth.

This is what my backyard looks like.

The Canal in 2010

turned the prairie from a place where the buffalo roamed and the deer played into the agricultural and commercial giant of the 1800s. A town that was incorporated in 1837 would have 1 million citizens in its limits less than 50 years later. The main reason for this growth was there was money to be made in Illinois. Beginning with the Black Hawk War in 1832, the invention of the self-cleaning plow in 1837, the coming of the railroad, but most importantly, a canal linking the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico would turn the prairie skyline dotted with trees into a skyline dotted with grain elevators and skyscrapers. The idea of canal linking the Great Lakes and the Illinois was envisioned by Marquette and Joliet during portage to the Illinois in the 1600s. It would be another 150 years before it became a reality. And so, the Irish came to build a canal…

Historian Anne Keating states:

The Irish who came to Chicago were in large measure very poor. They had few skills, little that would have allowed them to negotiate an urban setting easily. And they were pulled out to Chicago to do the dirtiest, hardest work that was imaginable. And they were despised for it.

Newspapers at the time called the Irish workers, “not merely ignorant and poor…but… drunken, dirty, indolent, and riotous so as to be the object of dislike and fear to all.” The press did not deter the task at hand. For ten years and almost 100 miles, the Irish built the Illinois and Michigan Canal (I&M Canal). Building the canal through a forest filled with mosquitoes, insects, malaria, and other dangers was not an easy task. It is estimated that 1000 Irish died the first year of building the canal in 1838.

The project continually ran low on money. In return for work, the Irish were given land up and down the canal, from LaSalle to Bridgeport, the canal would transform the surrounding communities. The Canal would for five years, transport grain and other products out of the prairie and to the world. And in return, other products would flow upstream to the prairie. The canal itself would only be six feet deep. Its 60 feet width would allow for two tow barges to pass along side of ea

Curly, a mule, shows how it is done.

ch other. Along the side of the canal would be the tow path where mules would provide the energy needed to move the barges. The opening the I&M had a lot of effects. The cost for shipping goods dropped dramatically. Grain, lumber, and merchandise of

the prairies passed barges filled with sugar, salt, molasses, tobacco, and oranges from the south.

Along the path of the canal, towns grew up. And in those towns grain elevators were built to store grain to transport.  A young congressmen from New Salem, Illinois said of the canal,

“Nothing is so local as not to be of some general benefit, the benefits of an improvement are by no means confined to the particular locality of the improvement itself.”

But the canal spurred investment in the prairie, particularly in Chicago.  However, the railroad would soon come. William Butler Ogden, a financier, used the concert of the two to get people to invest in the railroad. In 1848, Ogden’s railroad began. Add in the McCormick Reaper, and all of sudden, the prairie was now filled with wheat and corn being grown, harvested, and shipped all over the world.

Today, the canal is a national historical site. Parts of the canal are gone. Some do remain and are filled with bike paths, walking paths, state parks, and places to revisit the past that made Illinois the center of the nation’s economy in the 1800s.

Today, there is a boat in LaSalle that gives a 1 mile tour of the canal pulled by a mule.

All pictures were taken by the author on a field trip in October of 2010.

In 1830, Illinois was 12 years old as a state. Vandalia just became the capital. Illinois sat on the northwest edge of the United States. To its west lay Missouri and the Louisiana Territory. The population was located in the southern and central part of the state. The west was reserved for veterans of the War of 1812 and northern Illinois still contained Indians. The 1830s would change Illinois drastically.

The Black Hawk War first changed Illinois by maintaining the northern part of the state for settlement. The railroad would be soon be built across the central parts of the state rather than the populated south. A canal would be built linking the Illinois River and Lake Michigan. But John Deere’s Plow would turn the prairie dirt into the breadbasket of the young nation within a few years.

All the while, where there would be money, there would be criminals.The Bandits, as a whole, were not in communication with each other throughout the northern part of the state. However, the bandits shared many common crimes:
1. Robbing Houses
2. Cattle Thievery
3. Horse Thievery
4. Stage Coach Robberies
5. Highway Robberies

Life on the northern prairie was hard enough with thieves bandying about in the dark of night. With new lead mines opening up in Galena, more and more people began to flood to the northern part of the state. The bandits had long-held reign over the travelers. In addition, many of the local law enforcement were actually former members of the banditti. By 1840, the denizens of northern Illinois had enough. If the government was not going to stop this lawlessness then the citizens would.

In Lee and Ogle County, vigilante groups calling themselves Regulators began to organize. Some in the press questioned this version of Vigilante justice.

“… If two or three hundred citizens are to assume the administration of lynch law … we shall soon have a fearful state of things, and where, we ask, will it end…? …[I]t will be argued … that we have in this new country no means or proper places for securing offenders … to which we answer, then build them.”

The most famous incident involving the Regulators and the bandits occurred in 1840-41. The John Driscoll family of Killbuck Creek in northeastern Ogle County and his son David of South Grove in nearby DeKalb County garnered the ire of the Regulators. Historian Herbert Channick detailed the account of the Driscolls:

Their leader was a tall, sturdy, old migrant from Ohio named John Driscoll who had come to Ogle in 1835 and settled on Killbuck Creek in the northeastern part of the county. He had four grown sons: William, David, Pierce, and Taylor. Both John and Taylor had been convicted of arson in Ohio, and the other three sons were equally dubious citizens. William, who was about forty-five years old and who lived at South Grove in DeKalb County, was regarded as the worst of a thoroughly bad lot.

Shortly after the Regulators carried out their first two whippings, a grist mill owned by W.S. Wellington, the first Captain of the Regulators, was destroyed by fire. Wellington’s horse, too, was killed in a particularly cruel manner: its front legs were broken and the creature was left to perish in agony.

Fearing for himself and his family, Wellington resigned and John Campbell, like the elder Driscoll a resident of White Rock Township, was elected to replace him.

William Driscoll greeted Campbell’s accession to office with a letter offering to kill him.

In response, Campbell assembled a band of nearly 200 Regulators and marched on William’s place where a much smaller band of outlaws had gathered. Seeing they were seriously outnumbered, the outlaws fled only to return several hours later with the Sheriff of DeKalb County and several other local figures of consequence in tow presumably to protest the extra-legal nature of the vigilante band. But when the Sheriff and his companions heard a detailed account of the misdeeds of the Driscolls and their associates, they agreed that the Regulators’ demands were entirely justified. The Driscolls promised that they would be gone in twenty days.

They didn’t mean it. Instead, meeting at the farm of William Bridge in Washington Grove, the gang members concluded that Campbell and Phineas Chaney, another prominent Regulator, had to go. On June 25th, there was a failed attempt on Chaney’s life. Two days later, on Sunday, June 27, at about sundown, David and Taylor Driscoll ambushed Campbell at his farm and David killed him with a single shot. While Campbell’s wife ran to her dying husband, their thirteen-year-old son, Martin, fired at the Driscolls with a double-barreled shotgun but the weapon failed to go off.

The local communities fought back against the bandits. A group of 500 men showed up and encircled the Driscolls. When a trial broke out, 111 men served on the jury. The Driscolls that were found guilty (not all were) were shot by a firing squad of 56! Later, the jury was tried for the murder of the Driscolls. Not a one was found guilty. In fact, the jury never left the jury box to discuss the verdict.

The resulting actions of the Regulators did not end the banditti. The activity of the bandits moved out of Ogle County to other areas. Throughout the 1840s, the thievery continued. Piracy on the rivers grew as commerce increased in the region.

To reel this all in, the Driscoll affair was a sordid tale that shows several things. First, long before the west was wild, Illinois certainly was. The 1840s saw Illinois go from the edge of the frontier to becoming one of the leading economic powerhouses in the country. That wealth was too good to pass up. As some criminals came to Illinois for a fresh start, others came to start anew.

Second, democracy is not pretty. While lynching the Driscolls was not an example of democracy, it was something out of John Locke. If government is broke, it is the people’s job to fix it. However, I doubt if Jefferson or Locke envisioned the rule of the mob. The mob was what the Kings and Queens of Europe along with others in the ruling class feared. For to be a mob, is to tread on the rights of the individual. In the case of the Prairie Bandits, the distinctions between good and evil are blurred on both sides. At times, it more like two shades of the same color.

As a result of the mob actions in Ogle County, and later with the Mormons in Western Illinois, Illinois would hold a constitutional Convention in 1847 to give those in power more authority to deal with not only the criminal element in the state, but also the mobs. For a time, Illinois was the Wild West.

As Abraham Lincoln once said – There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law

Sources:
Three Days of Violence, the Regulators of the Rock River Valley
Robert Huhn Jones
Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (1908-1984)
Vol. 59, No. 2 (Summer, 1966), pp. 131-142

and

The Regulators and the Prairie Bandits:
Vigilante Justice in the Rock River Valley
Herbert S. Channick

America at the time…
When the founding fathers thought of freedom of religion, the intent of this freedom was two-fold. First, no government approved religion would ever exist in the United States. Second, Jefferson and Madison saw religion like a business. They saw religions competing in a marketplace of sin, salvation, theology, and social contracts. For the first two hundred years of life in North America, religions started in Europe and spread here through immigration. In the early 1800s, the US was a very religious place with a variety of philosophies expounding courses to salvation. Upstate New York was no different. Some religions were local, some national. Some came and went like the breeze. Some, were sent out of town, tarred and feathered. And some ended up in the fire or in jail. For every pious man, there was a swindler. Out of this religious fervor comes Joseph Smith.

The New York Era…
In 1820, Joseph Smith began his path to martyr. God was said to have visited Joseph and told Joseph that all religions were false and that Joseph was to create a new, true church. In 1823, Joseph Smith claimed to have been visited by the Angel Moroni and been given the location of gold plates and the tools (seer stones) with which to read the plates. It took Smith another four years to find the plates and three years to decode them. The plates, when translated, became the book of Mormon – the foundation of the church. What made Mormons different than every other church in the US was the Book of Mormon. It was not a fly-by-night pamphlet to get salvation in one night. The book, first published in 1830, made its way overseas. In fact, throughout the 1830s and 1840s, there were always more Mormons in England than there were in the United States.

The Movement Moves…
Smith, like most religions of the time period, moved – by choice, by God, and by fear for his life. Beginning in 1831, Smith and church moved to Kirtland, Ohio. For seven years, Smith tried to make a go of building a church, a temple, and to stay our of jail. He would be tarred and feathered, ran out of town, and out of money. In Missouri, the Mormons faced persecution on a larger scale. An actual war against the Mormons. Smith would end up in jail and the Governor of Missouri issued an extermination order against the Mormons. Somehow, Illinois would take them in.

In Illinois…
Settling in Hancock County in Illinois in 1839, the Mormons began to build a community they could not build in Missouri, New York, or Ohio. For five years, the town of Nauvoo (Hebrew for beautiful) became a shining beacon along the Mississippi. It became a center for commerce, trade, and agriculture. It quickly grew to be one of the largest cities in Illinois. Its power grew out of Joseph Smith.

Smith’s power was almost omnipresent. He was the leader of the church, the mayor, and the head of the local militia. For every convert, Smith had made an equal number of enemies. In 1843-44, Smith could not hide from the enemies anymore. Some were spurned former members of the church, some were his friends, and some were neighboring towns wary of the power and the increasing size of Nauvoo.

For former Church President, William Law, Smith’s actions were more than he could take. On June 7, 1844, Law published a 4 page newspaper called the Expositor. On these four pages, Law and his editors spilled the beans on plural marriage within the church. Smith had the printing press of the Expositor destroyed.
The proclamation reads,

To the Marshal of said City [Nauvoo], greeting.

You are hereby commanded to destroy the printing press from whence issues the Nauvoo Expositor, and pi the type of said printing establishment in the street, and burn all the Expositors and libelous handbills found in said establishment; and if resistance be offered to your execution of this order by the owner or others, demolish the house: and if anyone threatens you or the Mayor or the officers of the city, arrest those who threaten you, and fail not to execute this order without delay, and make due return thereon.
By order of the City Council,
JOSEPH SMITH, MAYOR

The nearby communities were outraged at not only the destruction of the printing press but also rumors about plural marriage and baptism for the dead. What had seemed like five years in heaven for the Mormons would quickly convert to hell. Smith became a wanted a man by the state. A series of letter that summer between Smith and the Governor of Illinois, Thomas Ford, arranged for not only Smith’s arrest but also for Smith’s protection.

In a letter to Smith, Governor Ford Writes in the introduction

HEADQUARTERS CARTHAGE, June 22nd, 1844.
To the Mayor and Council of the City of Nauvoo:
GENTLEMEN.-After examining carefully all the allegations on the part of the citizens of the country in Hancock county, and the defensive mat­ters submitted to me by the committee of your citizens concerning the ex­isting disturbances, I find that there appears to be but little contradiction as to important facts, so that it may be safely assumed that the immedi­ate cause of the existing excitement is the destruction of the press and Nauvoo Expositor, and the subsequent refusal of the individuals accused to be accountable therefore according to the general laws of this state, and the insisting on your parts to be accountable only before your own municipal court, and according to the ordinances of your city.

The letter continued to place the events beyond the legal confines of the city of Nauvoo. Smith who could control any events in Nauvoo would be taken out Nauvoo.

Smith’s Arrest Warrant

Writ of Arrest on the Charge of Treason – Joseph Smith.
STATE OF ILLINOIS
CITY OF NAUVOO

The people of the State of Illinois, to all sheriffs, coroners and constables of said state greeting:

Whereas complaint has been made before me, one of the justices of the peace in and for said county aforesaid, upon the oath of Augustine Spencer, that Joseph Smith, late of the county aforesaid, did, on or about the nineteenth day of June. A. D. 1844, at the county and state aforesaid, commit the crime of treason against the government and people of the State of Illinois aforesaid.
These are therefore to command you to take the said Joseph Smith if he be found in your county, or if he shall have fled, that you pursue after the said Smith into another county within this state, and take and safely keep the said Joseph Smith, so that you have his body forthwith before me to answer the said complaint and be further dealt with accord­ing to law.
[Seal]
Given under my hand and sea1 this 24th day of June, A,D. 1844.
R. F. SMITH, J. P.

The trial would be held in nearby Carthage. Smith, along with his brother Hyrum were taken to the jail in Carthage. Their stay was not long.
A mob, dressed in black face, came for Joseph and Hyrum and killed them. A witness recounts,

When President Smith had been set against the curb, and began to recover, from the effects of the fall, Col. Williams ordered four men to shoot him. Accordingly, four men …made ready to execute the order. While they were making preparations, and the muskets were raised to their faces, President Smith’s eyes rested upon them with a calm and quiet resignation. He betrayed no agitated feelings and the expression upon his countenance seemed to betoken his only prayer to be: “O, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.“

The ruffian…now secured a bowie knife for the purpose of severing his head from his body. He raised the knife and was in the attitude of striking, when a light, so sudden and powerful, burst from the heavens upon the bloody scene, (passing its vivid chain between Joseph and his murderers,) that they were struck with terrified awe and filled with consternation. This light, in its appearance and potency, baffles all powers of description. The arm of the ruffian, that held the knife, fell powerless; the muskets of the four, who fired, fell to the ground, and they all stood like marble statues, not having power to move a single limb of their bodies.

On June 27, 1844, the Smith brothers were dead. The Mormons in Illinois were dead. But the church was not. In the coming years, 2 trials would be held and no one convicted for the murders. Brigham Young would take charge of a divided church and lead them west in the winter of 1846 on a trip to a place the Mormons would want to be a new state called Deseret.

Why the Mormons in Illinois Matter…
The resulting exodus and trek west for the Mormons changed Illinois. For the rest of the 1800s, the Mormons struggled to live within the confines of the United States. Utah would not become a state until 1896. Illinois, on the other hand, continued to find its place in the expansion of the U.S. A new city in northeastern Illinois, only two years older than Nauvoo, would supplant itself as the economic center of the Midwest. Nauvoo never recovered. Today it is still a small, rural town.

Another key way Illinois changed as a result was how Illinois was structured. At a time when lawlessness and vigilantes ruled, it was not uncommon for over a 100 men to sit on a jury in Illinois at the time. Such was the case for Ford – he was powerless to stop the mobs who wanted justice. The conflict in Nauvoo resulted in a constitutional convention giving the Governor more power to deal with such matters. Illinois continued to grow and move northward, away from the Mississippi and more towards the Lake.

The Mormons would set up Utah, and Brigham Young would be the man who made the church what it is today. By the time of his death in the 1870s, the church reached over most of the western U.S. with over 100,000 members. Their trek to what was perceived a wasteland, would pave the way for thousands of Americans on what became known as “The Mormon Trail”.

PBS Video on the Mormons
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/v/?id=frol02s761q114&w=514&h=366

For further reading
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/carthage/carthagehome.html

Arch Ward had an idea. As the sports editor of the Chicago Tribune, he wanted an event to go along with Chicago’s Century of Progress Exposition. He somehow managed to convince Judge Landis, the commissioner, to approve of the idea. The fans and the managers originally selected the players for the summer classic. Babe Ruth actually campaigned to be a part of the game. Some people complained about Arch Ward and the game taking place in the midst of the Great Depression. If there was one thing America needed during the depression, it was a diversion. MLB attendance waned a little but did not falter. Along with the movies, Baseball provided a necessary diversion and the All-Star Game was the biggest diversion.

On July 6, 1933, over 49,000 filled Old Comiskey Park (You can tell I live near Chicago if I call it “Old Comiskey”) to see the greatest stars in the game. Baseball was a different game to America back then. The biggest difference was radio. The game on radio captured the imagination of the public. They did not get to see their stars on TV like today’s youth. Stars were bigger than life only limited to a person’s imagination.

In 1933, the league was different too. Only two teams were west of the Mississippi River – The Cardinals and Browns were both in St. Louis. St. Louis also happened to be the farthest south as well. And the league was without color as African-Americans played in a league of their own.

As for the game itself, it actually lived up to the hype as the “Game of the Century.” Babe Ruth cracked a homer in leading the AL to a 4-2 victory over the NL. Despite Jimmie Foxx being the star of the league that year, it was Babe who captured everyone’s attention. Within two years, Babe would retire.

“We wanted to see the Babe. Sure, he was old and had a big waistline, but that didn’t make any difference. We were on the same field as Babe Ruth.” – Wild Bill Hallahan – the pitcher who served up Babe’s Homer

AL Roster

Earl Averill
Ben Chapman
Joe Cronin
General Crowder
Bill Dickey
Jimmy Dykes
Rick Ferrell
Wes Ferrell
Jimmie Foxx
Lou Gehrig
Lefty Gomez
Lefty Grove
Oral Hildebrand
Tony Lazzeri
Babe Ruth
Al Simmons
Sam West
Manager – Connie Mack

NL Roster

Dick Bartell
Wally Berger
Tony Cuccinello
Woody English
Frankie Frisch
Chick Hafey
Bill Hallahan
Gabby Hartnett
Carl Hubbell
Chuck Klein
Pepper Martin
Lefty O’Doul
Hal Schumacher
Bill Terry
Pie Traynor
Paul Waner
Lon Warneke
Jimmie Wilson
Manager John McGraw

The game has been held every year since except 1945. In the late 50s and early 60s, there were two games a year. Major League Baseball could learn about how to put on the game from the first game.
1. Keep it simple
2. Don’t invite everyone on every team
3. Let the stars decide the game

In 1934, Arch Ward created the College All-Star Game.  This game saw college football stars from the previous season taking on the NFL championship team. This game lasted through to the 1970s.

In the end, the MLB ALl-Star game has survived for almost 80 years and it was never intended to be more than a one time thing. The fact the game has withstood  80 years and two ties is amazing and a testament to the allure of America’s past time.

Ed. Note – Quote from baseballalmanac.com

Wilco, a band that makes it living on stage, started after the breakup of Uncle Tupelo – an alternative country band from Belleville, Illinois. The band’s first release, “A.M.“, on Reprise received air play, video play, and the band played over 200 shows to support the record in 1994 and 1995. The single, Box Full of Letters, and the record did not make the band happy. In fact, they were convinced they could do better. After some personnel changes, the band came back with a fierce surreal and rocking record called “Being There“. It contains the live staple - Misunderstood which has come to define a turning point in the band’s sound.

The double album was critically applauded and sold well for Wilco (I consider it a classic). The band began to work on two new projects simultaneously. Their own “Summerteeth” and Woody Guthrie’s “Mermaid Avenue Volumes I and II“. Mermaid Avenue was supposed to be a collaboration with Billy Bragg on writing music set to Woody Guthrie lyrics. It turned into a tussle between Bragg and Wilco and there really wasn’t any collaboration on the music. However, Wilco did produce the classic song California Stars.

Spending most of 1997 through 2000 on these three records. After the release of the second Mermaid record, Wilco took a break for most of 2000. Jeff Tweedy worked with drummer Glenn Kotche and Jim O’Rourke on a side project called Loose Fur and recorded six songs. When it came time for Wilco to regroup,they had the songs but not the feel Tweedy was looking for. So, Tweedy fired drummer Ken Coomer. He brought in Glenn Kotche and the music started to change. Filmmaker Sam Jones came aboard at this point and began to document the proceedings of what would become “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot“, but then it was known as “Here Comes Everybody.”

Throughout 2001, the band went through a series of implosions. Conflict arose between Tweedy and band member/engineer Jay Bennett constantly over sound issues. Where Tweedy focused on the big picture of the album, Bennett focused on the smallest sonic detail. While brilliant, Bennett comes across in the documentary as obsessive-compulsive or anal about what Tweedy wants that it drives a wedge between the two. Bennett would be dismissed from the band after the record was finished.

When the record was turned in, the label was not happy. Reprise records along with its parent company, Warner, had undergone a major restructuring and were looking to make money and not to nurture bands. After refusing to make changes Wilco was dropped from the label. They took Yankee Hotel Foxtrot with them for $50,000.
On being dropped, Tweedy said of the label:

They weren’t going to put out Yankee Hotel Foxtrot the way we’d created it. They wanted changes; we weren’t willing to do that, so they rushed a contract through their legal department to let us go. It was the fastest I’d ever seen a record company work. Once they let us go, we were free to do with the album what we chose.

Over the summer of 2001, Tweedy and the band’s management searched for a new label. In the meantime, word of mouth about the album began to grow. In response, Wilco streamed the album on their website for free! For Tweedy, Wilco was a live act. They did not need to make records. It was a luxury as they made their living on the road. Tweedy said of the online release:

We’d been noticing how much more important the internet had become — once information is out there in the world now, anyone can get it. Since that was beginning to happen with the record anyway, we figured, OK, let’s just stream it for free ourselves.

Record companies came calling. Ironically, Wilco signed with Warner subsidiary, Nonesuch Records. In April of 2002, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was released to critical acclaim and sold over 500,000 records, their best sales effort ever.

Some would say streaming their music was a risk. Tweedy disagrees. He states:

Internet is radio for a lot of people. It’s a place to get music and hear music, and no amount of clamping down will change that. And anybody who’d expend energy preventing people from hearing music seems not to understand the basic principle of making music in the first place. It’s so antithetical to being a musician.

With its cacophony of sounds and surreal lyric, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” is the best album of the 2000s. It is a record that is a collection of songs that is meant to be heard as a whole rather than as individual songs. The resulting decade saw many bands stream music on their own websites and subsidiary social networking sites. It is now seen, thanks to Wilco, as a way to break your music.

For more reading in detail, buy or read Chicago Tribune music writer Greg Kot’s Learning How to Die

Sam Jones’ “I am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco”

In 1961, Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita were respectively 22 and 20 years old. Not quite in their prime, the two youngsters were second and third on the team in scoring. The veterans, Pierre Pilote, Ken Wharram and Eric Nesterenko, all were in their prime. Goaltender Glen Hall was described by the Chicago Tribune as the “quiet, calm, nerveless knight of the nets”.

From the outset of the season, it was clear this was defenseman Pierre Pilote’s team. He controlled the puck, the pace, and flow of most games. Center Bill Hay led the team with 59 points and Bobby “The Golden Jet” Hull led the team with 31 goals. The Hawks were 29-24-17 in the regular season. In the six team league they finished third with 75 points. This put them in the playoffs against the mighty first place Montreal Canadiens.

The Blackhawks stunned the Canadiens four games to two. Goaltender Glen Hall shut out the “Habs” 3-0 in back to back games to clinch the series. During the regular season, the Canadiens had swept the Blackhawks four games to zero. Bobby Hull said:

”After that we didn’t care who was waiting for us. We knew we had won the Stanley Cup by beating the mighty Montreal Canadiens in the semifinals.”

Going into the Stanley Cup finals, the semifinal win had given the mix of veterans and youngsters enough confidence to defeat the Red Wings, which they did 4-2.

In comparing that team to the present, Bobby Hull said:

”The fact that Jonathan Toews is the leader of this team at 22 and Patrick Kane being one of the goal scorers they depend on, it was very much the same kind of deal in ’61 when we won the Cup. Mikita was young and a future Hall of Famer at that age. I was 22 and I could skate all night. They had to rope me down to stop me.”

The Blackhawks were a mix of veterans and youth and many thought 1961 would only be the beginning.In fact, it was the only one in Hull’s and Mikita’s tenure with the club.

‘I figured that [the 1961 Cup] was just going to be one of many that we were going to win during our span in the National Hockey League. I was too young to really appreciate how important it was to win that Cup. That’s what I’m trying to get across to the kids today — you are so close that if you don’t take advantage of this, you may regret it for years to come.”

“How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong like right.” ~ Black Hawk in his autobiography

Illinois in 1830  was a far different place than what most people think it was. Illinois was settled from the South to the North. By 1830, the capital had moved from Kaskaskia to Vandalia. The western part of the state was to be reserved for veterans of the war of 1812 and was known as the military tract. The central part of the state had just started to be settled. Springfield, the future capital, was known as Calhoun. Chicago was not even a city yet and the largest town was a settlement known as Saukenuk.

Our village was situated on the north side of Rock river, at the foot of its rapids, and on the point of land between Rock river and the Mississippi. . . . The land around our village, uncultivated, was covered with blue-grass, which made excellent pasture for our horses. Several fine springs broke out of the bluff, near by, from which we were supplied with good water. The rapids of Rock river furnished us with an abundance of excellent fish, and the land, being good, never failed to produce good crops of corn, beans, pumpkins, and squashes. We always had plenty – our children never cried with hunger, nor our people were never in want.

In 1832, Black Hawk and some 1500 men and women crossed the Mississippi back into the land of the Rock River. The Sauk and Fox had been banished into Iowa earlier after treaties and the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

An Act to provide for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, and for their removal west of the river Mississippi.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That it shall and may be lawful for the President of the United States to cause so much of any territory belonging to the United States, west of the river Mississippi, not included in any state or organized territory, and to which the Indian title has been extinguished, as he may judge necessary, to be divided into a suitable number of districts, for the reception of such tribes or nations of Indians as may choose to exchange the lands where they now reside, and remove there; and to cause each of said districts to be so described by natural or artificial marks, as to be easily distinguished from every other.

Black Hawk and his band of 1500 did not recognize this act or any treaty. US and state militias were organized to pursue them. By April, Black Hawk’s band had reached the Winnebago prophet’s village. On April 26, Napope and Black Hawk along with other leaders of the band met two Sauk chiefs. These two chiefs informed Black Hawk that General Atkinson and US forces would not permit the band to remain east of the Mississippi. Black Hawk and Napope initially had no hostile intentions. They would continue living with the Winnebago and fly a British flag over the camp.

Aware of the forces at play, Black Hawk began to make preparations for Battle. Black Hawk soon discovered he had no allies. Initially, Black Hawk thought other tribes would come to his defense be they from Wisconsin or what it now Iowa. He also thought the British would lend support – at least of all weapons and horses if not me.

By May, Black Hawk’s band left the Winnebago continued up the Rock. At the Kishwaukee River (near modern Rockford, Illinois), Black Hawk held a council with some Potawatomi chiefs. They too would not aid in him in his quest. Black Hawk decided in mid-May to return to Iowa. With no supplies or allies on the horizon, Black Hawk knew it was fight he could not win.

However, on the morning of May 14, Black Hawk found out that two or three hundred Calvary soldiers were less than ten miles away. Black Hawk sent three warriors under a flag of truce. His men were set up a meeting to arrange for safe passage back down the Rock.

Unfortunately, not a single one of the soldiers spoke Sauk. Major Stillman’s Illinois militia captured the messengers, took their horses, and pursued after the Black Hawk’s scouts. Some scouts

Stillman

returned to camp and reported the day’s events. Black Hawk sent more warriors to set up a defensive perimeter in case Stillman’s men followed. They did. When Black Hawk’s men returned fire and attacked, Stillman’s men fled in what has become known as the Battle of Stillman’s run.

Any chance for peace was now gone. Black Hawk and his band were then hunted for the rest of the summer of 1832 ending at the Battle of Bad Axe in Southern Wisconsin. Other Indians disavowed helping Black Hawk. Over the course of that year, most of Black Hawk’s band was destroyed either through conflict or starvation. By 1838, Black Hawk would be dead.

Many of America’s future leaders would participate in the Black Hawk War – even a young Abraham Lincoln from New Salem. Lincoln, however, saw no action, as his militia was always a day behind. When it was all said and done, Illinois had been changed. The newly acquired northern part of the state was now safe for settlement. With tin and lead mines in Galena churning out minerals, settlers moved north. Within ten years, Northern Illinois exploded. Along with John Deere’s plow, the I&M Canal, the coming of the railroad, and the incorporation of Chicago along the lake, the Black Hawk War would change the northern part of the state forever.

Memorial of Stillman's Run in Stillman Valley, Illinois

For more information:
Go to Northern Illinois University’s Digitization Project

Some might find it ironic that Charles Deere was born the same year that his father invented the first self-cleaning steel plow. In fact, John had no expectation of Charles one day taking over the business. That job fell to his oldest son, Francis Albert. John’s plow would soon change the course of history. The thick, black, and rich prairie soil of Illinois, Iowa, and Indiana would soon be torn asunder by the plow of John Deere. Other events in the 1830s would also help to spur the growth of farming in the Midwest including the railroad, a new city on the shores of Lake Michigan, a canal linking the Illinois River to Lake Michigan, and the removal of the Indians from the upper Midwest. The population of the state boomed in the north. The Illinois Country would never be the same.

The Deere family continued to live in tiny Ogle County until 1847 and 1848 when John Deere packed up his family and business and moved to Moline to take advantage of the Mississippi River for its trade and travel opportunities. Charles was only 11. That same year, Francis Albert Deere died suddenly in the Ogle County Flu Epidemic and Charles’ life forever changed. He was now expected to go into the family business. But Charles was different from his father. While John liked to tinker with steel and machines, Charles did not.

In 1853, Charles, at the age of 16, graduated from Bell’s Commercial School in Chicago. He joined the company business as a bookkeeper. He quickly advanced up the company ladder to become head of sales. The “Panic of 1857″ almost doomed the company. The raw materials and natural resources needed to build the plows was far outstripping their sales. In other words, they had a serious financial problem. While John Deere remained President of the company, he turned the day-to-day running of the business side over to Charles. At the age of 21, Charles Deere was now the one on whom John Deere entrusted his legacy.

Over the next forty-six years, Charles would do more than run a company, he would transform and innovate business in America and the Midwest. His major accomplishment was the branch house.

From selling directly to the dealer, a system of branch stores-which later became branch houses-grew under his direction, till at the time of his death any one of the fifteen or more at Omaha, St. Louis, Minneapolis. Kansas City, Winnipeg, San Francisco and other centers represented a volume of business worthy of the undivided attention of a business genius…His great structure comprehended the entire field of agriculture.1

What Charles Deere had done was to cut out the independent dealer and sell straight to the farmer. What the farmer had done was go to the dealer and tell him what else Deere could make for him. This diversification of industry would soon make Deere, Incorporated (1868) into the world’s leading supplier of farm implements and not just plows. Deere was the forerunner of the corporate franchise of the twentieth century. Charles did not think of this all by himself; he had stolen the idea from Isaac Singer who was selling his sewing machines all over the country.

Charles Deere is still well thought of in Moline. His charitable work and investment in the town and other industries in the town are well known there. Not everything he touched turned to gold though. He once partnered up for an ill fated venture into the automobile industry.

In the end, when you talk about John Deere and Charles Deere, you really can’t talk about the one without the other. Without John Deere inventing the plow, there would be no Charles Deere. However, without the Charles’s business sense, the name of the John Deere has been ensured.

Notes
1 – Biographical History of Rock Island County’s Early Settlers and Leading Business Men.

Book to Read
The John Deere Story: A Biography of Plowmakers John & Charles Deere by Neil Dahlstrom and Jeremy Dahlstrom