SPECIAL REPORT

SCRIPPS HOWARD SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE SPECIAL REPORT NEWS SERVICE

150 YE A R S L AT ER

CIVIL
150 YE AR S L AT ER
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About the Civil War special report

The Civil War began 150 years ago and reshaped America in ways that we are still discovering. This anniversary of the war coincides with the release of new census data that shows the precise state of America today, giving statistical proof to the evolution of our country from agrarian to industrial and from slave-holding to free. We also decided to take a new look at the census before the Civil War and the population count just after the war to see how the country changed during its separation into two parts, then during the bloodiest war in our history, and later during reunification. Most starkly, 4 million Americans in the slave-holding states were counted as property for the last time in 1860. By 1870, they were citizens able to own property and vote and hold office, although official discrimination would survive another century. By 1870, the boundaries of every current and future state in the continental United States had been drawn, and the end of the frontier was just a few decades away. The numbers show that the future of cities as diverse as Memphis, Tenn., and Kansas City, Mo., Baltimore and Detroit was largely determined by the end of the 1860s. The years from 1862 to 1870 saw the establishment of a national banking system and currency, the completion of the first transcontinental railroad, the great expansion of higher education and the Homestead Act that moved hundreds of thousands of settlers onto new lands. Within a few years, national industrial production increased 75 percent, and migration to the cities accelerated. In 1870, 15 percent of the nations 39 million people lived in urban areas; today, nearly 80 percent of our 308 million people are city dwellers. Perhaps most importantly for the health of the country, people who had once identified narrowly as being from a particular state before the Civil War increasingly came to see themselves as Americans. Today, 150 years after the first shots were fired in the Civil War, we have a demographic snapshot of how life has changed in every community served by a Scripps television station or newspaper. We have come a long way.

Sincerely, Peter Copeland

Editor & General Manager Scripps Howard News Service

SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE SPECIAL REPORT Soldiers in the trenches in 1865 near Petersburg, Va.
National Archives

CONTRIBUTORS
Reporter Lee Bowman

150 YE A R S L AT ER
Fort Sumter shots echo across U.S. Oddities, tidbits from the war Union turned census data into intelligence Civil War, African-Americans: Historys inextricable bond
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Editorial Writer Dale McFeatters Lead Editor David Nielsen Editors Peter Copeland Carol Guensburg Lisa Hoffman Bob Jones John Lindsay Photo Editor Sheila Person Multimedia Editor Jason Bartz

A database look at how communities across the U.S. were affected

Maryland: Baltimore City Kentucky: Henderson County Tennessee Michigan: Wayne County Ohio: Cincinnati Missouri: Jackson County
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ACROSS AMERICA

Florida Western Texas Oklahoma Arizona Washington: Kitsap County California

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CONTACTS
202-408-1484 or stories@shns.com. Our website www.scrippsnews.com
Scripps Howard News Service is part of the E.W. Scripps Co.

Making News Around America Editorial: War shaped what became U.S.
Cover Design by Steve Ordonez/Scripps Cover Photo Credit Norman Reid/iStockphoto.com

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The ruins of Fort Sumter, S.C., taken in 1864

Library of Congress

SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE SPECIAL REPORT

150 YE A R S L AT ER

Fort Sumter shots echo across U.S.

Census analysis shows wars effects rippled through homes, business in surprising ways
By Lee Bowman Scripps Howard News Service

LTHOUGH THE CiViL WAR started 150 years ago, echoes from the first shots on Fort Sumter continue to reverberate across America. While largely considered a fight between North and South, the impact of the Civil War extended far beyond the Mason-Dixon Line. A Scripps Howard News Service analysis of census data from 1860 and 1870 illustrates just how deeply the conflict and its aftermath touched virtually every corner of the nation, often in surprising ways. The census figures show how the bloodiest war in Americas 235-year history not only freed 4 million people held as slaves and ended the Confederate insurrection, but in many ways defined the nation that exists today. In the war years (1861-1865) and after, Congress

established national policies affecting education, financial institutions, trade and transportation as well as civil rights that shaped national development and identity. The government expanded the economy very fast with the war, but the government itself also grew and became more activist in many areas, said Heather Cox Richardson, a Civil War historian at the University of Massachusetts, Andover. In many respects, there was this release of energy across the country that had been held back by the slavery question. The 1860 census statistics underscore what schoolrooms have long taught: 23 Union states with twothirds of the population and most of the manufacturing capacity held a distinct advantage over the 11 Confederate states that were largely rural and agricultural. The South in 1860 had about 18,000 manufacturing establishments employing roughly 100,000 people; the Union had 110,000 factories with more than 1.2 million workers.
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Library of Congress

Burned rail cars and gutted buildings in the center of Richmond, Va., in April 1865. At the Civil Wars end, 90 percent of the Souths rail lines had been destroyed, along with most of its mills and warehouses. But 1870 census data show that much of the physical damage of the war had been repaired, although the expansion of rail and industry in the North and West was much greater than in the former Confederacy.

Oddities, tidbits from the war

Star-spangled jailing
Federal authorities imprisoned the mayor, police chief and a number of other Southern sympathizers, including the grandson of Francis Scott Key, in May 1861 after attacks on Union troops moving through Baltimore to Washington.

Dont mess with Texas

Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, a Texan, commanded the U.S Army Department of the Pacific in California early in 1861. Refusing to join a Southern plot to capture the state, Johnston resigned his commission as soon as he learned that Texas had left the Union. He went to Los Angeles, where he enlisted

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The Souths agricultural wealth was substantial, but more manufacturing establishments employing more still less than the Norths. Southern farmland was worth people and producing material of greater cash value than more than $2 billion out of $6 billion for the whole na- before the war, although the growth was far behind that tion. The value of people held as property was estimated seen in the North and West. at $2 billion to $3 billion. You know how Scarlett OHara goes into the sawAfter four years of fighting mostly in the South, mill or lumber business after the war in Gone with the two-thirds of the Confederacys ships and riverboats Wind? Theres a good bit of truth in that fiction, said were destroyed, along with 90 percent of the regions rail William Blair, a professor and director of the George lines and thousands of bridges, mills and shops. Out of some 4 million who enlisted, at least You know how Scarlett OHara goes 620,000 Union and Confederate soldiers and into the sawmill or lumber business after sailors died more than twice as many due to the war in Gone with the Wind? Theres sickness than in battle. Those numbers include a good bit of truth in that fiction. about 200,000 blacks most of them justfreed slaves who served in the Union Army William Blair, Pennsylvania State University and Navy. Approximately 40,000 of those men died in that service. Tens of thousands more blacks worked to support Union forces in jobs ranging and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at Pennsylvafrom laborers and cooks to surgeons and spies. nia State University. A lot of whites did try to diversify About one in five white men in the South died dur- beyond the plantation into manufacturing, mining and ing the war, changing social dynamics from marriage timber. prospects for women to management practices on farms. There were thousands more farms across the South Yet the 1870 census also shows that, in some re- after the war, mainly homesteads claimed by former spects, the devastation of the war was quickly being re- slaves from abandoned or government-seized plantaversed. In every Southern state but Virginia, there were tions. In the next decades, the number of farms would

Write what you know

as a private with the Los Angeles Mounted Rifles, a pro-Southern volunteer unit that rode across Arizona and New Mexico to link up with Confederate forces in Texas. Johnston went on to become the secondhighest-ranking Confederate officer, and was killed at the Battle of Shiloh. Union Gen. Lew Wallace, who later wrote the novel Ben-Hur, organized thousands of volunteers and militia into a defense of Cincinnati when a Confederate army threatened the city in September 1862.

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Maps ETC

Maps ETC

decline again as white owners reclaimed land and tenant farming or sharecropping became an agricultural norm that would last into the 20th century. Because of the changed status of the slaves and because the prices of the regions major cash crop of cotton were in longterm decline, the cash value of farms in Southern states was half or even a quarter of what it had been in 1860. Across the North, the 1860s saw rapid expansion

of industries, railroads and agriculture. Wartime production drove up wages and profits for many businesses, and even a brief recession at wars end didnt slow growth for industrializing cities of the Midwest like Chicago, Cleveland, Indianapolis and Cincinnati. In many cities, a few large plants employed as many people as all of the smaller businesses combined. Less than half of the national work force was farm-

Oddities, tidbits from the war

Railworkers undaunted by dangers
Despite Confederate troops and guerrillas lurking close by, workers in 1863 started building the Union Pacific railroad out of Kansas City, Mo., heading west toward Lawrence, Kan. This extended the eastern segment of a transcontinental railroad that would connect in Utah six years later.

Founder stonewalled on name

Phoenix was founded in 1865 by a former Confederate officer who had started farming there after Southern forces were chased out in 1862. He had tried to name the community Stonewall after rebel Gen. Stonewall Jackson, but was overruled by other settlers.

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Americas borders take shape

By 1870, the boundaries of every current and future state in the continental U.S. were drawn.

Maps ETC

ing in 1870. U.S. industrial production increased 75 percent within just a few years from the end of the war. More than 35,000 miles of new railroad track was laid, including the first transcontinental line, completed in Utah in 1869. Many scholars say economic expansion was pro-

pelled by Northern Republicans taking control of the federal government. They adopted pro-growth policies long thwarted by Southerners in Congress. It was one of those rare times in our history where one party could control the agenda, and they made the most of it, said Tyler Anbinder, a professor of 19th-cen-

Cherokee leader last to surrender

Cherokee leader Stand Watie, also commissioned a general in the Confederate army, was the last rebel general to surrender to Union forces, in what is now Oklahoma. He gave up near the end of June 1865, more than two months after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox.

The Confederate cow cavalry

Mounted Confederate militia units called the cow cavalry rounded up and guarded wild scrub cattle in southern Florida during the war, helping to herd them to hungry Southern armies while skirmishing with Union landing parties that were frequently put ashore from the blockade fleet.
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Library of Congress

The U.S. Capitols dome was still under construction during the 1861 inauguration of Abraham Lincoln. The political climate created by Southern secession and the Civil War put Republicans in unchallenged control. The laws Congress enacted impacted how the nation developed and grew during the next 150 years.

tury American history at George Washington University in Washington. Along with full emancipation, extending citizenship to all persons natural born and other civil-rights measures, Congress by 1870 established a national banking system and currency. Every dollar slid into a vending

machine or cash drawer has a lineage reaching to the greenbacks first printed during the war, and Congress also set up a land-grant-college program that continues to educate tens of thousands of Americans today. Federal lawmakers also passed the 1862 Homestead Act awarding 160-acre farms to anyone who would live

Oddities, tidbits from the war

Mexican War holdover
Confederate forces kept a small Union fleet from capturing Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1862 by setting up cannons in earthworks built for the U.S. Army at the beginning of the Mexican War in 1845.

Stovepipe sneakery

Confederate raider Adam Johnson got the troops guarding the federal arsenal at Newburgh, Ind., to surrender in July 1862 by threatening them with artillery fire. But his cannon was only a length of black stovepipe laid across a wagon carriage.

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on and improve a plot for five years, and they gave away millions of acres to foster railroad construction and mining. People say elections really dont settle anything. But the election in 1860 settled something, and it brought tremendous changes to the country that can still be seen, said Gavin Wright, an economic historian at Stanford University. The country emerged with a new sense of identity and destiny. Before the war, the national map showed roughly drawn territories and big gaps left to accommodate Indian tribes between the Mississippi River and the Pacific states. Early in the war, the Confederates had sent small expeditions to stake claims to the southern halves of modern-day Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma, which further encouraged the federal government to legitimize control. By 1870, the boundaries of every current or future state in the continental U.S. were drawn. The census recorded more than a half-million people living in the territories, mainly concentrated near mines or rail lines. The end of the frontier life was approaching and modern metropolises like Denver, Seattle and Kansas City, Mo., were expanding under the encouraging development policies. While 15 percent of the nations 39 million people lived in urban counties in 1870, nearly 80 percent of 308 million residents do so today. There were 163 million improved acres of farmland in 1870, divided into more than 2.6 million farms. Today, there are 920 million acres of farmland, but 2.2 million farms. The Civil War did not result in full equality for blacks and other minorities and women. That took nearly another 100 years, while some say it still hasnt been fully achieved. But Columbia Universitys Eric Foner, a leading historian of the Reconstruction era, says, The remarkable thing is not that civil rights failed then, but that it was attempted at all given the attitudes that prevailed. The University of Massachusetts Richardson added that, during the war and Reconstruction, Americans began to grapple with the question of who is an American citizen and what is the relationship between the government and its citizens. Were still trying to work out those questions even today.

A battle fought only on the water

The Battle of Memphis, Tenn., in June 1862 was entirely a naval battle fought on the Mississippi River, which residents watched from the shoreline. The Union fleet of gunboats sank or captured all but one of eight Confederate riverboats, leaving the fortified city of Vicksburg, Miss., the only rebel strongpoint left on the river.
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Engraving by W.H. Morse after drawing by Rear Admiral Walke, Library of Congress

SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE SPECIAL REPORT

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Union used census data to plot military, economic strategies

Wars aftermath reverberates through 1870 census statistics
By Lee Bowman Scripps Howard News Service

ENSUS-TAKiNG iN 1860 AND 1870

was remarkably complex in the variety of information gathered, yet decidedly low-tech and labor-intensive compared to the machine-read forms and computerized tallies of today. The census had already emerged as the governments main statistical tool, collecting basic data on age, race and gender, plus occupation, income, literacy and education. It provided economic details on farms and factories, ranging from the number of hogs to the output of iron mills and lumberyards. But until the Civil War, the volumes of statistics were mostly national inventories seldom used as instruments of national policy beyond the apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives. That quickly

changed as Southern states started leaving the Union. Officials of the Lincoln administration and Congress made extensive use of the data throughout the war to plot political, economic and military strategy. Days after the fall of Fort Sumter in South Carolina on April 13, 1861, Census Superintendent Joseph Kennedy was able to tell Lincoln that the free states could muster nearly 4 million men between the ages of 18 and 45; the emerging Confederate states, including all the slaveholding border states, could put no more than 1.5 million men in that age group under arms. Slaves were left out of the calculation. As Union armies moved into the South, they carried postal route maps edited by census clerks loaned to the War Department that laid out details for every county in their theater not only how many whites and slaves, but how many farms, what crops they grew, horses and other livestock, how many grain mills and other industries. Each served as a guidebook to enable troops to live off the land and destroy anything of military value they couldnt carry off. Gen. William Sherman made particularly effective use of the maps in his 1864 march across Georgia, writ-

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Library of Congress

A Virginia family fleeing fighting in 1864 waits outside its home with its belongings. The Civil War displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Many had not resettled by the time the 1870 census was taken.

ing to a daughter that no military expedition was ever based on sounder or surer data. As they had been since 1800, census reports in both 1860 and 1870 were collected under the supervision of U.S. marshals and several thousand assistants hired specifically to make the rounds to record data on ledgerlike forms. In most of the country, the assistants collected their numbers on foot and horseback. The official enumeration day was June 1, but the deputies had up to five months to turn in their reports.

Tally sheets for each county were sent back to Washington, where less than a couple hundred clerks (about 130 in 1860) worked under the superintendent to hand-calculate totals for each state, organized territory and the nation. The 1860 census was the last to count people on two schedules slaves listed only as a number by owner and everyone else by name, organized by household. The tally showed there were 31.4 million people living in the United States and its territories, including nearly 4 million humans living as property in 15 states (the ConSPRING 2011 13

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federacy and the border states of Comparing Americans in 1860 to today Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware) and the District of Columbia. For the purposes of congressional apportionment, Were 3 inches taller slaves counted as three-fifths of a Average man 5 feet, 7 inches vs. 5 feet, 10 inches person. (Average woman: 4 to 5 inches shorter in both eras) The 1870 census faced many difficulties in measuring a newly We have fewer children Were living longer Life expectancy 33.7 black, est. reunited nation. Many Southern 43.6 years whites were disinclined to cooperate with any federal effort, 77.8 Today 1860 73.2 while many freed blacks and whites, too, were still displaced 1860 Today Fewer or transient in search of lost Americans are working families and new livelihoods. 2% on a farm ... Northern cities were teeming 58% with millions of new immigrants. And frontier areas from western Texas to new territories ... and were working fewer hours per week like Colorado and Arizona had sparse but growing populations 62 1860 interspersed with areas still largeToday 34 Sources: U.S. Census, labor, health surveys ly contested by Indian nations. Such obstacles produced a count of 38.5 million that was widely decried as being ing new black voters aligned with their party and not too low. Recounts were made for New York and Philaawarding former Confederate states new congressional delphia and a few other cities, but there was no demand seats than they were a precise count of Southern whites to adjust an undercount in the South later estimated at or blacks. more than 1.2 million, including about a half-million Ultimately, the national count was officially former slaves. bumped up to 39.8 million, but even that gave the With the Constitutions three-fifths clause erased country a growth rate of only 26 percent for the decade. by the 13th Amendment granting full citizenship to Before 1870, Americas population had grown more former slaves, the South was already due a paper gain of than 30 percent every decade, including 36 percent 1.6 million in the apportionment count. Republican ofduring the 1850s, still the highest growth rate in the naficials in Washington were more concerned with keeptions history.

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Civil War, AfricanAmericans: Historys inextricable bond

By Lee Bowman Scripps Howard News Service

the Civil War that freedom was on the line. Federal political and military leaders first hedged in calling for abolition even in the By wars end, about 200,000 black men rebellious Southern states, arguing that the more than a fifth of all men of their race fight was to preserve the nation. Some Union under age 45 had enlisted in the Union generals refused to let escaping slaves through Army and Navy. their lines in the first year of the war. But former slave and abolitionist Fredercluded nearly 1 million blacks in loyal border states and ick Douglass insisted in 1861 that the war was over freeUnion-controlled parts of Tennessee, Virginia and Loudom and citizenship for African-Americans: Freedom isiana. Some were not freed until ratification of the 13th to the slave should now be proclaimed from the Capitol, Amendment to the Constitution in December 1865. and should be seen above the smoke and fire of every Black volunteers from Kansas were in battle in Misbattlefield, waving from every loyal flag. souri by October 1862, and widespread recruiting of Douglass and other black leaders also pressed for black troops started early in 1863, even as enlistment by blacks to be allowed to fight for the Union, service Northern whites slowed. By wars end, about 200,000 barred by a 1792 federal law. black men more than a fifth of all men of their race The proclamations of freedom came piecemeal in under age 45 had enlisted in the Union Army and 1862, with Congress first freeing slaves owned by memNavy. Approximately 40,000 died in that service, about bers of the Confederate Army, then abolishing slavery in 30,000 from disease. U.S. territories and allowing escaped slaves to be emSPRING 2011 15

FRiCAN-AMERiCANS, FREE AND enslaved, knew from the first shots of

ployed by the Union Army and Navy. Finally, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, freeing all slaves in states then in rebellion against the Union and opening the door to military service for them. Even that move still ex-

Officers of 4th U.S. Colored infantry at Fort Slocum, N.Y.

Library of Congress

Tens of thousands of former slaves also joined in the war effort by doing support work like construction, driving supply wagons and ambulances and scouting for Union armies already operating in the South. Union Gen. William Sherman wrote of being told by a black Georgian early in 1864 that though we professed to be fighting for the Union, he supposed that slavery was the cause and that our success was to be his freedom.

Prejudice kept many of the 163 African-American units out of combat, but official records show that black troops took part in 41 major battles and some 450 smaller actions in nearly every corner of the South by wars end. Twenty-one African-American soldiers and sailors received the Medal of Honor for gallantry during the war, including 14 resulting from a single bloody battle

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Soldiers from the Band of 107th U.S. Colored infantry.

at Chaffins Farm outside Richmond, Va., in September 1864. Some units were made up entirely of free blacks, like the storied 54th Massachusetts that led an ill-fated 1863 assault on Fort Wagner, S.C. (depicted in the film Glory). But most units were recently freed slaves recruited in the South. Military service brought immediate opportunities for the emancipated slaves to learn to read and do math skills denied them by law in the Old South. Many were said to drill with a bayonet in one hand, and a book in the other. But blacks also experienced unequal treatment under arms. They were led almost entirely by white officers and paid only about half what white soldiers received until Congress changed the policy in June 1864. At wars end, thousands of black veterans remained in the South and played a major role in the Recon-

struction era, working in federal and local government, teaching and starting farms and businesses. Black men voted, held elected office, served on juries and enjoyed all the rights and privileges of citizenship. Although many of those advances were lost after federal troops left the South in the late 1870s and white society imposed a new set of discriminatory black codes that would continue for nearly a century, many historians argue that the experience set a benchmark for what African-Americans would seek to reclaim in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. This was a really important precedent in the minds of African-American citizens, that theyd had these rights before and should be able to get them back. As a result, political rights became the centerpiece of a century of struggle for civil rights, said Tyler Anbinder, a professor of history at George Washington University who specializes in the Reconstruction period.
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ACROSS
AMERICA

Starting from a Scripps Howard database of the 1860 and 1870 Census reports, Lee Bowman digs into individual communities Civil War history from the people who made it to the key changes that the war wrought on the residents and their communities.
To search the database of nationwide Census data for 1860, 1870 and 2010, go to scrippsnews.com/content/map-civil-wars-impact

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Baltimore City, Maryland

ACROSS AMERICA

Baltimore was the scene of the first bloodshed during the Civil War, a clash between a pro-Confederate mob and members of a Massachusetts militia regiment on April 19, 1861.
The Northern troops had to Instead, emancipation was made ride or march between train stations part of a new state Constitution narto reach Washington and were surrowly adopted in 1864, which also rounded by Southern sympathizers explicitly restricted voting rights to who threw rocks and fired weapons white men. at the troops. The regiment eventuDespite the early violence and really returned fire, and four soldiers peated battles that prompted extenand 12 civilians died. sive fort-building around Baltimore, Less than a month later, some the war had little negative impact on of those federal troops and othagriculture or economic progress in Google Maps ers returned and occupied the city, 1870 Baltimore City 2010 the state. which was then the fourth-largest 267,354 The states population grew by Population 639,337 in the country. It was the first major nearly 100,000 during the war de125,849 297,554 Males Southern city to come under Union cade, but almost all of the increase Females 141,565 341,783 martial law during the war. was among whites, probably in part 2010 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau The mayor, police chief and a American Community Survey based upon due to immigrants coming into the interviews conducted from 2005 through 2009 city. number of other Southern sympathizers, including a grandson of Francis Scott Key, were Baltimore in 1860 was already one of the leading imprisoned in Fort McHenry. But even with a governor manufacturing and trade centers in the country, and who was a slaveholder, Maryland did not secede. Some benefited from new rail lines and shipping patterns that 25,000 men from the state served in the Confederate arose during and after the war. In Maryland, the number army, including units that made the last charge at Apof factories listed in the 1870 census grew by more than pomattox in 1865; some 60,000 enlisted for the Union. 1,800 over 1860, and the value of manufactured goods The 1860 census showed that of the states 687,000 nearly doubled to more than $76 million. residents, just over 87,000 were slaves. But there were also At the same time, the number of farms in the state nearly 84,000 free blacks, by far the most of any state, had only increased by about 1,800, and the value of North or South. Baltimore City had about 2,000 slaves. farms in the state grew only by $30 million, both probaBecause Maryland did not secede, the Emancipation bly due to a slow transition in the plantation counties beProclamation didnt apply to those slaves, who worked tween slave labor and the breakup of large farms worked mostly on plantations in southern Maryland and the by tenants, sharecroppers or other arrangements. Eastern Shore. Lee Bowman
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ACROSS AMERICA

Confederate and Union forces exchanged control of Henderson County a number of times during the Civil War.
But the most notable foray was led by Confederate Gen. Adam Rankin Stovepipe Johnson, who led a raid from Henderson into Indiana in July 1862, capturing and sacking a Union arsenal at Newburgh. He convinced the federals he had artillery with his unit, when in fact their cannon was black stovepipe laid over a wagon carriage. Aside from the trickery, the attack was the first the South had made into Northern territory. Henderson was a tobacco community and had mostly Southern loyalties at the start of the war. The county had 14,262 people in 1860, 5,767 of them slaves. There were seven tobaccomanufacturing establishments with more than 260 workers, and a total of 40 factories, employing about 440 people. All of Kentucky had about 1.1 million people in 1860, including about 236,000 slaves. By 1870, Henderson had about 18,457 residents, including just under 6,000 free blacks. In 1870, Hendersons 101,000 acres of improved farmland was worth an estimated $3.3 million. The county had 41 factories, employing 210 hands. Kentuckys total popGoogle Maps ulation had grown to 1.3 2010 million, but the black population 45,274 had declined slightly to 222,000. The state went from 83,000 21,798 farms in 1860 to more than 23,476 118,000 in 1870, a trend seen in 44,659 all former slave states as planta615 tions were broken into smaller 9,829 plots. The value of the land rose 1 to $311 million, up about $20 509 million from 1860. Total manufacturing plants 11,885 rose to 5,390, up from 3,450 in 1860, and producing $54.6 million worth of goods, about $16 10,634 million more than a decade earlier.
Lee Bowman

Henderson County, Kentucky

1870
18,457 9,529 8,928 17,769 688 1,748 1,168

Henderson Cty.
Population Males Females Native born Foreign born Number enrolled in school Number of farms

196 Males employed in manufacturing Males in labor force 2 Females employed in manufacturing Females in labor force

1 - 2007 census of agriculture 2010 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey based upon interviews conducted from 2005 through 2009

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Tennessee

ACROSS AMERICA

Tennessee found itself sharply divided during the Civil War, with its eastern counties opposed to secession and the rest staunchly supporting the Confederacy.
The state reported 1.1 million months later as part of an effort to people in the 1860 census, 275,719 of keep the Union Army from taking 1870 Knox County 2010 Chattanooga and entering Georgia. them slaves. 28,990 423,655 Population Memphis, with 22,623 people, The failed attacks against Fort 14,153 205,549 Males was the 38th-largest city in the counSaunders east of the town cost 218,106 14,837 Females try. It had 3,226 slaves. All of Shelby Longstreets army more than 800 407,718 28,165 Native born County had 48,952 people, with men, while the Union suffered fewer 15,937 825 Foreign born 16,953 slaves. The county had 93 than 15 casualties. 2,684 Number enrolled 112,688 factories, employing more than 950 Knoxville, although damaged in school people. by the fighting, stayed in Union Across the state, Knox County 1 - 2007 census of agriculture hands for the rest of the war. had 22,183 people, including 2,370 2010 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau By 1870, Memphis population was Survey based upon slaves. It reported 92 factories employing American Communityfrom 2005 through 2009 up to 40,226, and Shelby Countys to interviews conducted about 220 people. 76,378, more than half of it made up of Actual warfare in and around Memfreed blacks. Shelby reported 757 factophis was limited. The city was cut off by rail from the rest ries employing more than 3,200 people. of the state by mid-1862 and Confederate land forces abanKnoxville had a population of 8,008 in 1870, with doned their defenses soon afterward. Knox County totaling 28,990, including 4,840 blacks. The The most significant battle was a one-sided Union viccounty reported more than 200 manufacturers with more tory in June 1862 on the Mississippi River below the city, than 800 employees. when Union gunboats destroyed the Souths river defense Tennessees total population grew to 1.2 million in fleet and opened the river to the North all the way to Vicks1870, including 322,000 blacks. burg, Miss. Statewide, the total number of farms grew from 77,741 A second brief battle took place around Memphis in in 1860 to 118,141 in 1870, due largely to the breakup of 1864, when Nathaniel Bedford Forrest led a night raid plantation holdings. Because of the lost value of slave labor, seeking to free Confederate prisoners and disrupt Union the total value of that land fell from $271 million before the commanders, but with little success. war to $218 million. By contrast, Knoxville had welcomed the Union forces Overall, the number of manufacturing plants grew to under Gen. Ambrose Burnside when they occupied the city 5,317 in 1870, up from 2,572, with the total value of the in September 1863, and it was Confederate forces under products rising to $34.4 million, nearly double the amount Gen. James Longstreet that ended up besieging the city two generated in 1860. Lee Bowman
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The city contributed men, supAt least two companies were plies, railroad cars and ships to the established that year in or around Union cause throughout the war. Detroit to build freight and pasBy 1870, Detroit had swelled senger cars, including some of the to nearly 80,000 people, and its first convertible sleeping cars. 1,191 factories produced more than With just over 45,000 people $28 million worth of products and as of the 1860 census, the city employed more than 13,000 with a was the 19th-largest in the nation. payroll in excess of $5 million, acWayne County had 368 factocording to the census. Like most ries, employing just under 3,700, Northern cities in the first decades including 12 works that made after the war, the black population machinery and steam engines, 17 Google Maps was relatively small about 2,200 making wagons and carts and 33 1870 Wayne County 2010 in 1870. making boots and shoes. Population 1.98 million 119,038 Michigan overall had grown Fort Wayne, completed in 951,658 tremendously during the decade, 1851 as a result of tensions with 59,916 Males British Canada but never acti1.03 million with the population growing from 59,122 Females vated, got new fortifications and 72,453 Native born 1.82 million just under 750,000 in 1860 to more troops in the spring of 1861 due to 156,690 than 1.1 million in 1870. 46,585 Foreign born The expansion of rail lines and concerns that Confederate sympa557,397 21,489 Number enrolled continued immigration boosted timthizers or agents might attack the in school ber production, mining and farming city, which had been occupied by 1 - 2007 census of agriculture in the state. The number of farms the British during the War of 1812. 2010 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey based upon The city had been the final stop interviews conducted from 2005 through 2009 grew from 62,000 in 1860 to more than 98,000 in 1870, and the value of that before freedom in Canada for many farmland more than doubled to nearly $400 million. slaves escaping along the Underground Railroad before The total number of factories in the state rose from the Civil War. 3,448 in 1860 to 9,455 in 1870, while the value of prodMichigan units used the fort as a mustering point ucts almost quadrupled to $118 million. and convalescent post for wounded troops for the rest of the war. Military passes were required for men crossing into Canada after 1863 to thwart any who might be try Lee Bowman

Detroit in 1860 was already building cars railroad cars for new lines that were already spreading into the woods and fields ing to avoid the draft. of Michigan.

Wayne County, Michigan

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Cincinnati, Ohio

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Cincinnati in 1860 was the seventh-largest city in the nation, and the biggest place beyond the Eastern Seaboard other than New Orleans. south. The city was briefly threatened again by Gen.
John Morgans raid from Indiana As a major hub of the Unacross southern Ohio. derground Railroad for escaping Cincinnati remained a milislaves, it also had the largest poputary supply and training center for lation of free blacks in Ohio, some much of the war, making armor 3,700. plate, boilers and many gunboats Out of a total population of and transports, as well as other 161,000, some 30,000 worked in supplies. manufacturing. The total value By 1870, Hamilton County of products made was $46.4 milhad more than 260,000 residents lion, behind only New York and and more than 2,400 factories Philadelphia. And as a key rail and employing more than 37,000. river transportation hub, the city Google Maps was a significant military resource. 1870 Hamilton Cty. 2010 The value of its products had nearly doubled to more than $78 Thousands of men, including many Population 260,370 851,867 million. of the citys German and Irish im128,530 407,687 Males Although river trade demigrants, enlisted for the Union, 131,840 444,180 Females clined, rail lines, iron producalthough there were some South171,871 816,192 tion and other manufacturing Native born ern sympathizers in and around the 88,499 35,675 increased after the war. Many Foreign born city. 50,771 Number enrolled 230,457 enterprises were able to expand All that drew a Confederate in school beyond family shops during and army to within a few miles of the after the war from the profits of city in September 1862, prompt- 1 - 2007 census of agriculture 2010 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau supplying the Union. ing Union Gen. Lew Wallace to call American Community Survey based upon Across Ohio, the 1870 census for thousands of militia and volunteers interviews conducted from 2005 through 2009 showed that the number of farms to man a ring of forts and batteries in the state had increased by 22,000 between 1860 and that had been built around Covington and Newport in 1870, while the value of those farms was in excess of $1 northern Kentucky. They reached the lines mainly over a billion. The total number of factories in the state doubled pontoon bridge built over the Ohio River. during the decade to more than 22,000. Confederate Gen. Henry Heth, leading about 8,000 troops, probed the defenses between Sept. 10 and 12, before deciding they were too strong and heading back Lee Bowman
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The Civil War came close to stifling the young town of Kansas City, or the City of Kansas, as it was known then.
In 1860, it was a bustling river By 1865, town officials estown of about 4,500. All of Jacktimated there were fewer than 1870 Jackson County 2010 3,500 residents in a dilapidated son County had about 22,000 28,990 423,655 Population people, including nearly 4,000 town with few businesses. One 14,153 205,549 Males slaves. The towns commercial cenof the few positives for the town 218,106 came in 1863, when workers start14,837 Females ter was at the top of a levee over407,718 ed building the Union Pacific rail28,165 Native born looking the Missouri River, where 15,937 825 Foreign born freight agents and teamsters emroad through the area and headed 112,688 for Lawrence, Kan., and on across 2,684 Youth enrolled ployed some 3,000 wagons to unin school load nearly 16 million pounds of the country. freight, not counting coal or wood, 1 - 2007 census of agriculture The next five years trans2010 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau that year. formed Kansas City, with the popuAmerican Community Survey based upon Jackson County in 1860 claimed interviews conducted from 2005 through 2009 lation growing tenfold to more than 124 factories employing more than 32,000 by the 1870 census the 500 people, but most of them were sawmills and small 38th-largest city in the country. The growth was fueled shops. by the arrival of seven rail lines, a new bridge across the Missouri didnt secede, but it remained a battleriver, a gas works, stockyards and a packing house. ground for almost the entire Civil War, with more than The end of the war and slavery also had an explo1,000 skirmishes and battles recorded. Kansas City was sive effect on agriculture in Missouri, with the number occupied by federal troops sent from Fort Leavenworth, of farms growing from 88,000 to more than 148,000 beKan., early in the war, but Confederate troops and partween 1860 and 1870, and the value of farmland rising tisans always lurked close by. Towns as close as Indepenfrom $230 million to $393 million. dence and Westport were considered no mans land, unStatewide, the number of factories tripled in the desafe for Unionists to visit without an armed escort. cade to more than 11,000, producing $206 million worth With the river networks impeded by the war, much of goods, up from $41 million just before the war. of the shipping moved to the railroad head at St. Joseph In Kansas, the number of farms more than tripled and to the more secure Leavenworth. Indian and Conbetween the censuses, to more than 38,000, and the adfederate activity shrank trade along the Santa Fe Trail. vent of the cattle industry helped push the value of agriMajor battles in 1862 and a final assault in the fall cultural land to more than $90 million. Manufacturing of 1864 particularly threatened K.C., with fortifications remained a small part of the economy, with 1,100 shops thrown up across the town for the later battle, which fimaking about $11 million in goods in 1870. nally chased organized Southern armies out of the area.

Jackson County, Missouri

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Lee Bowman

SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE SPECIAL REPORT

ACROSS AMERICA

Florida

Florida was as much frontier as plantation in 1860. While the panhandle and upper-third of the state were decisively Old South, the rest of the state north of Key West was more of a tropical open range where settlers let livestock roam free and farmed small patches, fished and hunted game to get by.
In 1860, 140,000 people lived in the state more rived from small drying works along the coast, and beef, than 61,000 of them slaves. Yet mainly wild scrub cattle that there were just over 5,100 people were free-range and free to anyone or families that owned slaves, and who could round one up. fewer than 50 with more than Mounted militia units that 100. came to be called the cow cavHillsborough County had just alry were formed to thwart those over 2,900 residents, including Union raids and protect supply 120 owners of 564 slaves. There lines along roads and inland rivers. were two free blacks. They fought numerous small Florida was the third state skirmishes over four years, but few to leave the Union and join the of the encounters ever got a writGoogle Maps Confederacy in 1861, but aside ten mention. 1870 Hillsborough Cty 2010 from holding or taking key ports One that did gain some atPopulation 1.17 million 3,216 like Pensacola, Jacksonville and tention was an 1865 raid on Fort 574,856 Meyer by members of the Con1,661 Males Key West and running blockades 592,260 federate militia. It lasted half a 1,555 Females around a few others, the Union 998,052 day, but left the fort occupied didnt make any major efforts to re3,137 Native born take the state. 169,064 by federal troops in January 1864 79 Foreign born About 16,000 Floridians en- 1 - 2007 census of agriculture in Union hands. The engagelisted, most for the South, but at least 2010 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau ment may have been the southernAmerican Community Survey based upon 2,000 fought for the Union. Many interviews conducted from 2005 through 2009 most land skirmish of the war. units went north to fight, but many Blockade-runners also worked remained as militia and home guards. Florida officials along the coast, slipping into unguarded inlets to drop constantly worried as much about slave revolts as they high-value cargo like medicines, guns, ammunition and did Union raids by land or sea. luxury items. Florida, particularly south of the plantations, had Tampa Bay saw two small battles. The first, June 30two commodities vital to Confederate armies: salt deJuly 1, 1862, involved a Union gunboat and landing parSPRING 2011 25

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ty that besieged Tampa. Tampa was defended by a Confederate militia known as the Osceola Rangers, who refused to surrender despite naval gunfire into the town. The Union forces departed the following evening. There were no reported casualties. In October 1863, another Union landing force attacked Fort Brooke near Tampa and captured several ships on the Hillsborough River. The fort was captured by a federal landing party in May 1864, but was only held for two days before being abandoned. After the war, Florida, having suffered little war damage, was in a better position than most Southern states to prosper, although progress was initially slow. In 1870, the population grew to more than 187,000, with slightly more than half the growth occurring from an increase in the black population. Some moved into the state from elsewhere in the South to claim land to farm, others to work in new shops and factories starting to crop up in the state. Homesteading was easier in the state because there was relatively little competition for land that couldnt grow cotton. Statewide, the number of farms increased to 10,231 in 1870, nearly 4,000 more than a decade before. But the value of those lands was $9.9 million, down from more than $16 million before the war, largely because the loss of guaranteed labor to work the land had devalued it. The number of factories soared from 185 in 1860 to 659 in 1870, but they were mostly small shops that employed about 2,750. They produced $4.7 million in goods that year, less than double the value produced in 1860. Hillsborough Countys 1870 population was 3,216, of whom 546 were black.
Lee Bowman

Western Texas
Although the closest Civil War battle was at least 200 miles away, the war had a significant impact on western Texas.
Withdrawal of federal troops from forts along the frontier Fort Chadbourne in Coke County surrendered peacefully to Texas troops in March 1861 and the closure of stations along the Butterfield Overland Mail (stage) Route (St. Louis to San Francisco) at the start of the war left the handful of buffalo-hide hunters and early ranchers who occupied the areas around what would become San Angelo, Abilene and Wichita Falls almost completely unprotected from Comanche and other Indian raiders. The situation was further destabilized by the course of the war in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), where Texas troops had helped pro-Southern tribes drive out the pro-Union Seminoles who had helped act as a buffer against Comanche groups. The unsettled state of things caused pioneers like Mable Gilbert, who first came to Wichita County in 1857, to move in and out of his homestead several times between 1857 and 1867. Although Wichita, Wilbarger, Taylor, Throckmorton and Shackleford counties had all been organized on paper by the state legislature in 1858, the 1860 census showed scant or no population for them. Clay County, which had administrative responsibility for Wichita County, had a total of 109 settlers; Jack County, just to the south and the administrative center for several of the paper counties, recorded 950 white settlers and

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50 slaves. Shackleford had 35 whites and nine slaves; Throckmorton had 124 whites and no black citizens. The entire state recorded 604,000 people, including more than 182,000 slaves. The census found 983 factories across the state, producing $6.6 million worth of goods. Within a few years after the war, buffalo hunters were going after the remnants of the great herds and early ranchers were rounding up stray cattle again. Federal troops had returned to the region in strength starting in

The census report for 1870 singles out a number of western Texas counties for having lost returns, including Clay, Taylor, Throckmorton and Wichita. Its not clear if assistant federal marshals ever actually attempted to enumerate there or, if they did, who lost the numbers. However, Jack County had 604 residents, Shackleford had 455. And there were returns for several locales within the Bexar District, a proto-county jurisdiction that had been set up in 1860 and would shortly be carved into Tom Green and more than a dozen other counties. Those records show there were 913 people in and around Fort Concho, including 49 The unsettled state of things caused blacks, 34 whites at the Concho Mail Station pioneers like Mable Gilbert, who first and 41 at San Angela, the future San Angelo. came to Wichita County in 1857, to move Across the Bexar District were reported four in and out of his homestead several factories, employing a total of 10, probably retimes between 1857 and 1867. lated to processing buffalo hides. In 1870, Texas had a total of 818,809 1866 and 1867, reoccupying Fort Chadbourne in whats people, of whom 253,475 were black. now northeastern Coke County, only to abandon it in The number of farms in the state grew from 37,363 1873 for want of a steady water supply. in 1860 to 61,125 in 1870, much of this due to new The troops were consolidated to Fort Concho, startsettlement, but also from the breakup of larger plantaed at present-day San Angelo in 1867. Fort Griffin, in tions in the eastern cotton-growing counties. Like other Shackleford County, was started the same year. There Southern states facing the loss of guaranteed labor for were many battles and skirmishes throughout the 1870s fields, the value of farmland across the state fell from $88 with the Comanche and others, but by the late 1870s, million in 1860 to $60 million in 1870. most of the tribes had been subdued and moved to resThe state had 2,399 places of manufacturing makervations. ing products worth $11.5 million in 1870. By the early 1880s, railroads were coming into the Lee Bowman region and the Army closed down most of the forts.
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Oklahoma

The Indian nations of Oklahoma fought their own civil war within the Civil War, although many tried to stay neutral in the first months of the Confederacy.
Mapped variously as Indian Territory, Indian Country or Unorganized Territory, the 1860 census designated the future Sooner State as Indian Territory West of Arkansas, and recorded 65,680 Native Americans living there. Because members of the Five Nations and other tribes were not considered citizens, the census gave no more details about them, but did go into some depth about the white, free black and slave populations living what was experienced by small farmers across much of the South. Some Indians had large, cotton-growing plantations and quite a few slaves, according to the census tabulations. A Choctaw was the largest slaveholder in the report, with 257. The 384 Cherokee owners had 2,504 slaves, with 57 being the most held by one owner. Cherokee leader John Ross was a slave owner with large holdings, although he resisted taking sides in the war. But there were also Creek, Cherokee and Seminoles who were opposed to slavery. What tipped the allegiance of most What tipped the allegiance of most Inindians in the territory to the South was dians in the territory to the South was not so not so much ideology as military fact. much ideology as military fact. By the summer of 1861, Confederate troops from Texas in Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw and Semihad chased out the small number of federal soldiers that nole counties. had garrisoned forts in the territory back into Kansas. Those tallies showed the territory had 1,988 whites, Confederate agents set up new treaties with the 2,392 free blacks and 7,369 slaves. The Cherokee and tribes annexing their territory while promising protecCreek nations, whose counties covered todays Tulsa tion from Union troops and other Indians from farther and surrounding counties, had about 1,000 white resiwest. Several Indian units were mustered into the Condents and some 5,600 slaves. federate service, and a Cherokee, Stand Watie, eventuHowever, 19th-century racial and tribal designaally was made a general. tions were somewhat subjective. The assistant marshals Those troops, along with Texans, combined in doing the count were instructed to count apparent IndiNovember and December of 1861 to launch a series of ans or people of mixed race living as whites as whites, attacks northwest of Tulsa in Tulsa and Osage counwhile the village farming life followed by most members ties against a large group of pro-Union Creeks and of the older tribes that had been relocated into the reSeminoles led by Chief Opothleyahola that forced the gion in the 1820s and 30s was not much different from Unionists into exile in Kansas for most of the war. Three

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volunteer regiments called the Indian Home Guard were formed from those exiles and fought alongside federal troops in several campaigns in Missouri, Arkansas and the territory. Stand Waties Cherokee Mounted Rifles also fought for the Confederate army in Arkansas. But setbacks there in 1862 brought a return of Union troops and a Southern defeat at Honey Springs, in Muskogee County, in July 1863 that was the largest engagement fought in the territory, with an estimated 10,000 troops involved. As the Confederates lost control of Indian territory, many Cherokee and Creeks loyal to the South fled into Texas, some setting up homesteads and farming in the Red River Valley even after the war.

Raids and skirmishes continued for the rest of the war. Stand Watie became the last Confederate general to surrender, on June 25, 1865. The Creek seem to have been slow in returning. One 1867 census by Indian agents found just 264 living in the Tulsa area. The 1870 census of the territory showed the white population up slightly, to about 2,400, but both the Indian and black populations thousands lower than in 1860, with a total population of around 68,000. This gave a faint hint of what was to come in Oklahoma from then until statehood in 1907, with cattle, railroads and more white settlers rapidly taking center stage.
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Arizona

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Phoenix and Arizona might not have come to exist had it not been for the Civil War.

Congress formally split Arizona out of the New Mexafterward, the outnumbered Confederates left Tucson ico Territory in 1863 largely in response to a Confederate and spent the next six weeks marching back to Texas. claim in 1861 to its own Arizona Despite the failed campaign, Ariterritory stretching across the southzona continued to have a vote in ern half of todays states (including the Confederate Congress until the site of Phoenix). the end of the war. There wasnt much to ArizoBy the following year, the new na in 1860. The census that year Union Arizona territory was formed counted about 6,400 people living with a capital at Prescott and Union in forts and settlements across the troops and local volunteers set up western half of New Mexico, twovarious forts, mainly as bases against thirds of them Indians. the Apache and others. Confederate troops out of Somewhere about the same Google Maps Texas had defeated a federal force 1870 1 Maricopa Cty. 2010 time, Swilling, a former Conat Mesilla in August 1861, and a federate, turned from mining 2,142 Population 3.85 million small unit took over Tucson and around the town of Wickenburg 1,829 Males 1.94 million moved through the Salt River to farming, utilizing long-aban1.91 million 313 Females Valley seeking to block a large doned canals. By 1865, he and 4 Youth enrolled 1.03 million force of Union volunteers coming several other farmers had inforin school east from California via Yuma. mally established Phoenix, and 1 - Yavapai County The westernmost land fight of the 2010 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau by 1868 there was a post office with American Community Survey based upon war took place in March 1862 at interviews conducted from 2005 through 2009 Swilling as postmaster. Stanwix Station, about 80 miles Still, the 1870 census shows that east of Yuma. development didnt come fast to the area. The entire Salt A small Confederate detachment led by Lt. John River Valley district of Yavapai County had 240 people, Swilling was burning hay left along the Unions planned Wickenburg 174. route to Tucson when it was attacked by more than 200 The entire territorys population in 1870 was 41,710, troops from the California volunteers. One Union priand nearly three-quarters were Indians. It had about vate was slightly wounded. 14,000 acres in farmland, and 18 factories or shops, Two weeks later, at Picacho Peak between todays none reported in Yavapai County. Phoenix and Tucson, a Union advance guard ran into A year later, Maricopa County was formed, and a a Confederate ambush. The skirmish left about a dozen decade after that the modern city of Phoenix was char Lee Bowman dead, wounded and captured from both sides. Soon tered.

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Kitsap County, Washington

Kitsap County was at the top of a wooden empire built around Puget Sound at the onset of the Civil War.
Formed just three years earsail maker along with the most lier at the urging of the peninsulas common job of lumberman. lumber barons, who themselves Early in the war, men at Port mostly lived in San Francisco, Madison formed the 70-member the county was the largest and Port Madison Union Guards, but wealthiest (per capita) community the unit never saw service outon the Sound and in the Washside the territory. Federal officials ington Territory. viewed the lumber industry as viGoogle Maps The area had experienced its tal to the war, and lingering conKitsap Cty. 1870 2010 cerns over Confederate sea raiders last Indian raid in 1856, a fight 866 Population 238,825 ended by U.S. sailors and Marines and plots to seize the Western ter691 Males 120,266 at Port Gamble Bay. ritories may have factored in a deThe 1860 census shows that cision not to take men away from 175 Females 118,559 the county had 544 people, inthe Puget Sound region. Youth enrolled 58,467 70 in school cluding four free blacks. The whole By 1870, Washingtons terterritory had just over 11,500 resi- 2010 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau ritorial boundaries had been American Community Survey based upon dents, including 30 free blacks and compressed to match those of interviews conducted from 2005 through 2009 426 Indians (typically, only those the state today, but the territorys living among whites were counted in the census). population still more than doubled to 23,955. The county boasted four lumber mills and one iron Kitsap County had 866 people in 1870, including foundry employing 352 people, who collectively earned 14 blacks and 13 Chinese. The county listed six saw$212,000 that year. mills, employing 125 people who earned $195,000 and Mills at Port Gamble, Port Orchard and Port Madproduced more than $1 million worth of lumber. ison were all operating well before 1860, and the Port But around this time, economic downturns and the Blakely mill started operations in 1864. oversupply of lumber, coupled with less readily available The California gold rush provided the initial imnearby timber, started to shift development in the counpetus for these businesses, aided by San Franciscos tenty more toward shipyards at the ports and homesteaddency to burn down and rebuild. Wartime demand for ing and farming on cleared land. timber for ships was also high, and some shipbuilding Port Gamble was the biggest town, with 326 peowas already under way by 1860, when some residents ple, followed by Port Madison with 249 residents. Lee Bowman listed occupations of ships carpenter, spar maker and
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The Civil War drew sharp battle lines and generated endless intrigue across California for most of the four-year conflict, but the discord caused little bloodshed.
The southern part of the state in and around Los Angeles County was full of men who had emigrated from slave-holding states before and after California statehood. Three times between 1850 and 1860, they had launched movements to split California in half and set up a pro-Southern territory or state, with the last plan actually approved by the state legislature and forwarded to Congress in 1859. Two pro-Southern militia units formed in Los Angeles County, and the Los Angeles Mounted Rifles actually rode across deserts to the newly formed Confederate territory of Arizona, where they merged with Texas regiments. One member of that band was Confederate Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, who had resigned his post as commander of U.S. forces in California, and went on to lead and die at the Battle of Shiloh. There were also large numbers of secessionists in San Francisco and several other northern coastal communities. Union leaders were constantly fearful of Southern plots that would bring insurrection to some part of California. Although Southern support faded somewhat after Fort Sumter in April 1861, thousands of volunteers were recruited from the mining and timbering communities of the north and the Bay Area and sent to guard Los Angeles, San Bernardino and other southern counties. Santa Barbara County, which included todays Ventura County, was among the places with suspected Southern leanings, although it raised a troop of pro-Union volunteers that served in 1861-62. In 1860, the county had about 3,500 residents, according to the census. It was mainly a farming community, with just seven

California

1870
15,309 8,849 6,460 10,984 4,325 2,522 800

Los Angeles County

Population Males Females Native born Foreign born Youth enrolled in school Number of farms

2010

Google Maps

9.79 million 4.85 million 4.94 million 6.32 million 3.47 million 2.82 million 1,734
1

1 - 2007 census of agriculture 2010 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey based upon interviews conducted from 2005 through 2009

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manufacturing establishments, including a blacksmith and a saddlery. Within the county, the district of San Buenaventura had 529 people identified as white, and 99 Indians. Heavy flooding in 1861-62 and a severe drought in 1863 ruined many of the countys old Spanish-era estates and left them ripe for being split up after the war. Many of the California volunteer regiments (including the company from Santa Barbara County) became part of an expeditionary force sent into Arizona in 1862, fighting several skirmishes with Confederates between Fort Yuma and Tucson before the outnumbered Southerners retreated into Texas.

Santa Barbara County was among the places with suspected Southern leanings, although it raised a troop of pro-Union volunteers that served in 1861-62.
Some California companies were shipped to the eastern theater, but most stayed close to home to guard against Confederate and Indian threats. Southern plotting subsided after the volunteer units set up their camps, and the numbers of troops were gradually reduced. However, rebel plots to seize ships and outfit privateers to raid the Pacific were broken up at least twice later in the war. Santa Barbara had grown to 7,784 people in 1870, with 2,491 in San Buenaventura. The entire county reported 24 manufacturing sites. Ventura County would be established as a separate county in 1873. Californias population surged from just under 380,000 in 1860 to 560,247 by 1870. The number of farms in the state rose by more than a third, from about 14,000 to more than 23,000 in 1870. But the number of factories dipped from 8,468 in 1860 to just under 4,000 a decade later, in part because manufacturing operations were consolidating.

1870
7,784 4,519 3,265 6,538 1,246 774 450 94

Santa Barbara Cty.

Population Males Females Native born Foreign born Youth enrolled in school Number of farms Males employed in manufacturing Males in labor force

2010
402,025 202,675 199,350 312,859 89,166 128,236 1,597
1

110,675

Females employed in manufacturing Females in labor force 89,506

1 - 2007 census of agriculture 2010 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey based upon interviews conducted from 2005 through 2009

Lee Bowman

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Making news around America

THE COMMERCiAL APPEAL MEMPHIS, TENN.

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SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE SPECIAL REPORT

KSHB KANSAS CITY, MO. WEWS CLEVELAND

iNDEPENDENT MAiL ANDERSON, S.C.

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SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE SPECIAL REPORT

150 YE A R S L AT ER

War shaped what became of U.S.

The United States was born in the Revolutionary War, but the nation as we know it today was largely shaped and defined by the Civil War, whose sesquicentennial we begin observing this year. That war, fought from 1861 to 1865, remains the bloodiest in our history. Of some 4 million who enlisted on both sides, at least 620,000 died, most of them from disease rather than battle. One in five white men in the South died. Statistically, the war should not have dragged on as long as it did. The Union had 23 states with twothirds of the population, while the 11 Confederate states were largely rural and agricultural. Most tellingly, the North had the manufacturing capacity 110,000 factories with more than 1.2 million workers compared to the Souths 18,000 plants employing 100,000. But drag on it did, and in the end, the South was left devastated 90 percent of its rail lines and twothirds of its ships and riverboats were ruined. Still, according to a study of data from the 1860 and 1870 censuses by Lee Bowman of Scripps Howard News Service, the country, and even the South, not only recovered rapidly, but set the stage for a great national expansion. The war abolished the institution of slavery, freeing 4 million people and removing the single greatest impediment to national progress. With the influence of the agrarian South in Congress temporarily diminished, Northern Republicans, who had seen their industries boom during wartime, were free to adopt economic policies that encouraged even more expansion. The years from 1862 to 1870 saw the establishment of a national banking system and a uniform national currency; the completion of the first transcontinental railroad; and the great expansion of higher education with the creation of land-grant colleges and universities. The Homestead Act, which awarded a 160-acre farm to anyone who would work it for five years, created a whole new class of property owners. Within a few years, national industrial production increased 75 percent, and the great farm-to-city migration greatly accelerated. By 1870, less than half of the national work force was in farming. In 1870, 15 percent of the nations 39 million people lived in urban areas; today, nearly 80 percent of our 308 million people do. By 1870, the boundaries of every current and future state in the continental U.S. had been drawn. More importantly, people who had once thought of themselves in terms of their home states increasingly thought of themselves as Americans. The Civil War and the rest of the 1860s were indeed a defining moment.
DaLe mcFeaTTeRS Scripps Howard News Service

Editorial

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SPECIAL REPORT

NEWS SERVICE

CIVIL
150 YE AR S L AT ER

W AR