"Gold Fever " (1 Viewer)

[PolarBear]

After the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill along California's American River in 1848 there was a mad rush of easterners to the West seeking their fortunes. Among those was Joseph Ives and his brothers Frank and Nathaniel who sold their general store in Poestenkill, NY and used the money to head West in the 1850s and join in the frenzy. Joseph is keeping an eye on their camp along the banks of the American River while his brothers fish downstream for their supper.

Figures by Wm. Hocker
Scenics by Wm. Britain

 

[jazzeum]

Slightly off the beaten path but I'm reading Adam Goodheart's 1861: The Great Awakening and there is a chapter about California's possibly becoming a separate republic following the outbreak of the Civil War.

 

[PolarBear]

Slightly off the beaten path but I'm reading Adam Goodheart's 1861: The Great Awakening and there is a chapter about California's possibly becoming a separate republic following the outbreak of the Civil War.

Actually California gold was part of the Civil War

The California Military Museum
Preserving California's Military Heritage
California and the Civil War
Who's Got the Gold?
By Major Norman S. Marshall
California Center for Military History

This article was published under the title: Protecting the Gold in the winter 1998 issue of the Los Angeles Westerners Corral, pp. 13-15.
In the first three and one-half years of the Civil War there had passed through the Port of San Francisco $173,083,098 from the California mines and the Comstock Lode of Nevada. This immense treasure fed the coffers of the Union in its trials with the Confederacy and marked California as a prime target for Southern sympathizers. In contrast, the Confederacy was starved for cash and credit throughout the entire war. At war's outbreak, there was in the seven Confederate states only $27,000,000 in specie, beyond that lay nothing save the dubious expedients of credit and confidence. To seize gold shipments was the subject of at least two plots.

The Confederate States of America (CSA) lacked the capacity to produce men-of-war and had to rely on European shipyards to produce ships needed to run the blockade of the Southern ports so as to export cotton which was sold to provide funds for ships and other armaments.

The two most famous raiders, both built by British shipyards, were the FLORIDA, captained by John Newland Maffit, and the ALABAMA, under Captain Raphael Semmes.

The FLORIDA, originally named ORETO, was armed in the Bahamas by British suppliers and was rammed and sunk at Bahia, Brazil by a U.S. warship in October 1864 in flagrant violation of International Law, but an action was dictated by wartime necessity.

The ALABAMA, in the winter of 1862-1863 sank 70 United States ships after steaming from Birkenhead, England, over strong American protests, and armed herself in the neutral Azores to begin her career as a commerce raider. The ALABAMA was sunk in a three-hour battle off Cherbourg by the USS KEARSARGE, skippered by Semmes' classmate Thomas Winslow. Ultimately, in 1885, an international tribunal awarded the United States $16,145,830 paid by Great Britain as claims made against the depredations of ALABAMA and FLORIDA.

In California, southern sympathizers named the mining district near Independence the Alabama Hills, which later became the site of numerous western and adventure movies. Northern sympathizers similarly celebrated the defeat of ALABAMA by naming the Sierra Nevada pass Kearsage.

To protect the area, some 17,000 Californians were brought into military service. Practically all enlistees in the army except for 500 sent to Massachusetts as cavalry, served on the western front to thwart Southern incursions and keep peace among the Indians, but as was obvious from the Alabama hills, there was strong pro-southern persuasions which demanded military force to counter. Secessionist "hot heads" were located in Los Angeles, San Bernardino and El Monte which led to counter-steps of stifling the free press and suspension of the Writ of Habeus Corpus which were tolerated by the general populace.

Those "hot heads" were not slumbering malcontents. A real plot to seize the California gold shipments was discovered and thwarted with the seizure of the ship, J.M. CHAPMAN, in San Francisco Bay by the USS CYANE, revenue officers and San Francisco police. A like effort was thwarted by seizure of the SS SAN SALVADOR.

At the outbreak of the war, the United States Pacific Squadron consisted of only six ships. Their tonnage was under 7,000 and there were only 100 guns among them with scarcely 1,000 sailors manning the ships. Their job was to cruise the Pacific Coast protecting commerce from California to Panama and guarding the whaling fleet from Alaska to Hawaii. Their story is told in Aurora Hunt's book, The Army of the Pacific; Its operations in California, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, plains region, Mexico, etc. 1860-1866, under the chapter The Pacific Squadron of 1861-1866, which follows this article.

Though supplemented during the war to an eventual squadron of 15 ships with crews recruited from San Francisco, their vigilance was very important. The arrival of the monitor, CAMANCHE, in 1863 offered protection to the Port of San Francisco, but only after she was raised from the harbor bottom from her sunken carrier AQUILA. There was even a movement to install a giant chain barrier across the Golden Gate similar to the West Point model during the Revolutionary War.

The efforts proved successful and California's wealth was saved to help the Union. California did recognize the services of its volunteers by providing pensions for soldiers, sailors and marines, a retirement for veterans, benefits for widows and orphans and burial allowances. This short footnote in our State's history is worth remembering.

 

[PolarBear]

Brad

Do you know this book?


From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Richards, a leading historian of 19th-century America (The Life and Times of Congressman John Quincy Adams), superbly illuminates gold rush California as a land in contention between national pro- and anti-slavery lobbies in the decade leading up to the Civil War. For Southerners the labor-intensive gold riches to be found in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains seemed custom-made for exploitation by slave labor working for the aggrandizement of whites. Southern men of means also saw California—up until its entrance to the Union as a free state in 1850—as a potentially large new market for slaves. Northern industrialists, on the other hand, sought California as a market for manufactured goods and as a gateway for shipping those goods to the Orient. Richards hones in most productively on the internal and external politics related to the pre-1850 California territory, revealing the intense maneuvering and impassioned rhetoric as the statehood debate proceeded. And he demonstrates how close California came to being cut in two, once Southern senators realized admittance of the territory in its entirety as a slave state was a nonstarter and proposed to "settle" for the fertile valleys to the south, there to start a new slave-holding culture in the West.

From Booklist
After the victory in the Mexican War, both northerners and southerners viewed California as the prize acquisition. With its lush, fertile soil, southerners saw the great agricultural potential, especially if California was open to slavery. Northern merchants envisioned the building of numerous ports and the chance to dominate the China trade. Of course, the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in January 1848 dramatically magnified the hopes and dreams of Americans devoted to "Manifest Destiny." The gold rush launched a sort of national madness that populated the West, turned some into instant millionaires, and others into frozen corpses. As Richards illustrates, it also intensified the hostility between the North and South; at a minimum, it was a contributing factor in causing the Civil War. Richards offers a broad panorama that moves seamlessly from the goldfields to the halls of Congress. This is an excellent work of popular history that will add to the appreciation of a critical epoch in our national development. Jay Freeman

 

[The Lt.]

Slightly off the beaten path but I'm reading Adam Goodheart's 1861: The Great Awakening and there is a chapter about California's possibly becoming a separate republic following the outbreak of the Civil War.

I'm sure glad you were slighty off the beaten path Brad otherwise our wise historian liberian would not have provided us with his tale. Thanks Randy not only for another one of your outstanding photo displays and history provided with it.......Joe{bravo}}{bravo}}{bravo}}{bravo}}

 

[jazzeum]

Indeed Joe.

Randy, I had not heard of the book until recently when I read the chapter in the Goodheart book. It is one of the book he cites in his notes and bibliography and looks to be well worth checking out. I've added it to my Amazon wish list, which continues to grow day by day