"June 20, 1853

My dearest Sidney,

Three days ago a terrible battle was waged at Mannassas Junction,
Virginia in which Federal troops under the direct command of Major
General Robert Patterson were defeated by troops under my personal
command. Their forces, in an attempt to turn the left flank of my
position, left their right flank unguarded, and while forces under
Genl Bragg held the left flank against repeated attack, the bulk of
our force, under Genl Longstreet struck into the enemy flank and rear,
triggering a precipitate flight to Washington which Longstreet's men
encouraged by means of counterattack.

Our losses were roughly equal to the enemy's. Of 18,000 men, the enemy
lost some 450 killed, 600 wounded and 800 captured: our force of
12,000 men suffered some 350 killed and about 900 wounded and missing
together. 

The battle totally disorganized our forces and left us unable to
pursue the enemy far or energetically. 

At the same time, the Valley army of some 8,000 men under Genl Lee
have inflicted a stunning defeat against Federal militia forces under
the command of Genl Banks. Banks, with some 15,000 men, was sent
scampering gracelessly across the Potomac, abandoning much equipage
and supplies which shall be of great assistance to us.

Lee has given an excellent account of an artillerist recently returned
from Cuba, currently commanding the First Virginia Infantry. Colonel
Thomas Jackson's regiment stood with perfect discipline blocking the
road against the Federal advance while Lee marched the remainder of
his army around Banks, forcing him to retreat in great haste or be cut
off from the rear. A detachment of cavalry under Captain James Stuart
captured the enemy wagon train intact, which likely means the Federals
will not be able to stop their retreat short of Hagerstown in
Maryland.

Nothing of great import has occurred in Tennessee. Our old friend
Bishop Polk has gained command of a regiment of volunteers, but Mr.
Toombs refuses to advance him beyond this point. I fear that Mr.
Toombs' prejudice towards the old Academy may do our cause serious
harm. Only the early and energetic organization of Genl Lee of the
Virginia forces have provided such well-trained leadership in our
forces here; I fear such training is desperately needed in Tennessee,
and today I am sending a letter to Mr. Toombs requesting reassignment
to that state.

As you will hear long before you receive this letter, today Genl
Sterling Price routed the force of pro-Union militia assembling on the
Missouri bank of the Mississippi near Hannibal. Among those captured
was the former Senator, Thomas Hart Benton, apparently the commander
of the pro-Union forces in Missouri. It is my hope that Price has the
good sense to treat Mr. Benton as a prisoner of war, no matter what
condition he was taken in. 

My friend, we are victorious on all fronts save diplomatically. I have
heard that President Rusk wishes to make you his successor, should the
Texan electorate so desire. I hope that you will run, and that once
elected you will repudiate this policy of neutrality Rusk, and Houston
through him, have thus far exercised in this war. Texas is, and has
always been, our sister in culture and origins, and it is only fitting
that she lend her proven might in our struggle to preserve the
institutions we commonly hold dear.

If you are unwilling to become Texas' leader, may I ask that you leave
your duties in the peaceful Texan republic and join us in our
struggle? I recall your strong leadership and integrity from our days
at West Point and in the old army, and I know that, between myself,
yourself, and Robert Lee, we can drive the Republican tyrants to their
knees.

I hope this letter finds you in good health, and wish you more of the
same until our next meeting.

Yours very sincerely, 
Jefferson Finis Davis
General commanding, Army of the Confederate States."

LONE STAR REPUBLIC

Pt. 9: Union, Confederacy and California: the Texan Election of 1853

© 2000 Kris Overstreet

August, 1853

The elections of 1852 have left none of the three mercurial parties in
control of the state legislature. The houses are almost evenly split
between the Houstonian Democrats, who held power in 1851 and 1852, and
the Whigs led by David Burnet, who were making gains throughout old
Texas. The Houstonians held sway only in southeastern Texas and the
Hispanic districts of New Mexico, southern California, and the Baja,
while the remainder of old Texas was solid Whig territory.

The balance of power lay with the Federalists, the party ruthlessly
controlled by John C. Fremont. Fremont is one of only three Senators
allied to the party, and the fifteen Representatives came from the
counties organized around San Francisco, Sacramento, and the gold
fields. Despite their small numbers, the Federalists were the swing
vote in both Houses.

The Federalists had even won one victory, although in reality that
victory had come before the official organization of the party. From
the beginning, Fremont had advocated an amendment to the constitution
of the Republic to adjust representation in the Congress. Under the
constitution of 1836, the lower house's membership was limited to 100
members, but with the proviso that each county was owed at least one
representative. With the annexation of the Mexican cessions, that
system became unworkable, as over sixty counties had existed -before-
the war, and the number looked to nearly double in the decade to come.
The Congress of 1848, with Fremont and Andreas Pico representing
California in the Senate, proposed an Amendment instituting a census
and Congressional apportionment with a fixed number of representatives
and senators- 90 and 30, respectively. The voters ratified, and the
Congress of 1849 approved, and the Census rolled along in 1850, giving
one-third of all Texas' representation to California and New Mexico.

(Fremont's second effort, a repeal of the ban against banking
companies, met greater difficulty. The plantation owners of old Texas,
and the small farmers around them, distrusted banks on principle. A
few Democrats and Whigs were beginning to lean towards the measure to
encourage the railroads, but by 1853 the majority of the Congress was
still against it.)

In any case, the census of 1850 had mandated one representative for
about every 4,150 citizens, and one Senator for ever 12,500. Of the
seven Senators allocated to California, two were for the city of San
Francisco alone, and another two for the Texan section of the gold
fields; the remaining three were given to the rancheros of the San
Joaquin Valley, the coastal missions from San Luis Obispo to San
Diego, and Baja California. With Andreas Pico's defeat for re-election
in the coastal district, the Californian Senate count came to three
Federalists, two Whigs, and two Democrats: the Federalists and Whigs
splitting the gold fields, San Diego going Federalist in a campaign
funded almost entirely by Cornelius Vanderbilt, and the Democrats
holding the almost entirely Hispanic districts of the San Joaquin and
Baja.

In the House of Representatives, it was even worse. Of California's
90,000 or so residents, over 70,000 of them were concentrated in San
Francisco, Sacramento, or the gold diggings. Of California's 22
representatives, 14 were Federalist, three were Whig, and five
Democrat. The closer one got to local politics, the more powerful the
Federalists became in northern California.

This spelled trouble in August, when a crowd of over a thousand,
including scattered Federalists from as far away as Galveston, met in
a large barn-like meeting hall in San Francisco to endorse John C.
Fremont as their Presidential candidate for a second time.

The other two parties had already chosen, without convention, their
candidates for the upcoming campaign. President Rusk had chosen Albert
Sidney Johnston in an attempt to defuse the sectional crisis he saw
arising in California. Johnston had acquired a reputation in
California for fairness, integrity and honor which Fremont had
blatantly failed to gain during the War of 1846 and the occupation
period. 

Unfortunately, Johnston declined the honor, saying bluntly that he had
no interest in politics of any sort. With Johnston's bowing out, the
Democrats drafted Sam Houston yet again. Houston was not at all happy
about the prospect of a fourth term as Texan President: his finances,
never solid, were in dire straits due to his frequent absences for
some public service or other. His many war wounds- from the War of
1812, the Revolution, and the War of 1846- had never completely
healed, and as he grew older they caused him yet more pain. Finally,
several of the issues he espoused, most notably peace with the
Indians, were unpopular, and Old Sam Jacinto could no longer rely on
his war record to bring him unconditional support from the new wave of
immigrants. Nontheless, he consented to run one more time for the sake
of national unity.

The Whigs had no pretense of national unity. Rather than work to hold
the Republic together by compromise and quiet, the Whigs were hungry
for expansion, seeing the civil war next door as an opportunity to
snatch back Deseret and maybe add the Indian Territory to Texas as
well. With the US's Pacific garrisons virtually empty, for that
matter, Texas could take the entire West Coast, reclaiming the gold
fields and rendering the Yankees into a one-coast nation! For their
candidate they chose James Pinckney Henderson, a former Secretary of
State, ambassador to England, and most recently brigadier general
under Houston during the War of 1846. 

The main issue of the campaign of 1853 had been set before any
candidates had been selected. In June, President Rusk had followed the
lead of Great Britain by recognizing the Confederacy only as a
belligerent, not as a de jure nation. Texas would trade with both the
Confederacy and the Union, but its navy would not violate Seward's
orders closing the ports of the states in rebellion. 

Although Seward's Secretary of State, Stephen Douglas, outwardly
decried this pronouncement, he had been relieved: Texan money and
manpower could have posed a nasty drain to the frontier of forces
required further east. Much more incensed were the Texas Whigs, who
had seen the Democrats and Federalists vote in bloc to prevent sending
delegates to the convention that formed the Confederate States. The
Whigs wanted, at the minimum, alliance with the Confederacy and
all-out war against the abolitionist Yankees.

The Democrat administration had, by great effort and compromise, held
Texas to a neutral course. At the meeting in August, they would lose
their allies in the struggle, for along with Fremont the Federalists
put forward the following platform items:

We demand the abolition of slavery throughout the Republic, as a moral
sin and a blight upon the Republic.

We call for a constitutional convention to establish a federation of
states within Texas, with each state having full sovreignty within its
boundaries. 

We call for the repeal of the prohibition against the formation of
corporations within the Republic.

We call for a law allowing the free homesteading of all public lands.

We call for a declaration of war against the insurrectionary force
within the boundaries of the United States which refers to itself as
the Confederate States of America, and pledge aid and military support
to the rightful government of that nation in its time of crisis...

... and so on. The platform, with one thing and another, alienated
every voter outside 'Fremontia'. Although much of the platform might
have appealed to the Hispanic voters, the homesteading plank was a
direct attack upon the remaining Hispanic landholders (1), and the war
plank was just plain -out.- As for the rest of the Republic... well,
any party advocating slavery was in deep trouble, and the Federalist
candidates running for the legislature in Old Texas disavowed that
plank whenever possible. (2)

Not that it mattered, really. After the first wave of sensationalism,
campaigning by all parties slowed to a low-level, desultory exchange
of insults in the newspapers. More important to the campaign were the
Confederate loss of most of northern Missouri in the Battle of the
North Cuivre, Seward's order to fortify Louisville which threw
Kentucky into the Confederacy, and the victories of one Brigadier
General George McClellan in western Virginia. All small affairs, the
fate of the Confederacy resting on none in the short term, but each in
turn raising the stock of one or the other party.

In such a campaign the pro-neutrality Democrats lost ground. Of the
disparate factions and cultures in the Republic, only the Hispanics as
a group wanted general peace. Most of the new European immigrants
supported the Democrats, but a large number, especially those towards
the east, had adopted the cotton culture as their own and supported
union with the Confederacy. Although from the outside north California
seemed unified, in fact large Democrat and Whig minorities threatened
to overthrow Federalist control at any point. Finally, immigrants
fleeing the war in the USA and CSA each pulled for the side they
preferred. (3)

One final factor entered into the equation: the Texas Pacific
Railroad. Vanderbilt supported the Union effort in a major way: the
rebellion had turned him permanently and implacably against slavery.
Between company-sponsored propoganda for the Federalist agenda,
holidays and bonuses for those who went through the ballot box en
route to their homes, and special newspapers crowing the Federalist
positions to any and everyone, it is estimated that Vanderbilt sunk
close to $300,000 into the Federalist campaign, in addition to any
direct donations the Federalist candidates might have received. 

As the votes were finally taken, nothing of any great importance had
been decided in the United States' conflict. Almost on the day the
polls opened, Pierre Soule and Robert Barnwell Rhett, emissaries from
the Confederacy to Europe, were siezed from a ship bearing British
colors by an American warship: although this would take the USA and
England to the brink of war, Seward would eventually smooth over the
rupture between the nations. Beyond that, it appeared that the war was
over until the spring, with all sides going into winter quarters to
prepare for a much longer war than had been anticipated a few months
before.

In the Texan elections, over 140,000 voters turned out to the polls, a
record number and record percentage of those eligible. Of the three
candidates, Houston did the worst, scoring well only in New Mexico and
the southern Californias. Of the 45,000 votes cast in Old Texas,
Houston polled less than 12,000 votes, for a total of 41,318
throughout the Republic.

Fremont, however,did not have it all his own way. Of the 140,000 votes
cast, nearly 80,000 were from California; however, not even in the
North did he hold overwhelming support, as the Whigs took his Senate
seat away from the Federalists. Adding in the tiny scattering of votes
he gained elsewhere, Fremont only had 46,212 votes.

Henderson, on the strength of the cotton East and the newest waves of
immigration from the South into California, polled 55,916 votes. With
less than 39% of the vote, Henderson was elected to the Presidency. In
his victory speech to gathered reporters at his home in Marshall,
Henderson announced his first official act upon inauguration: he would
formally recognize the Confederacy as an independent nation.

As he spoke, things were taking place in California that would give
Henderson too much to worry about to meddle in the American Civil War.
The Vanderbilt ships, which had been carrying Vanderbilt railroad
workers, gold seekers, rail iron, engines, and other materials, had
also been carrying gunpowder, rifles, cannon, and foodstuffs for long
military campaigns.

And on November 30, 1853, the Bear Flag once more flew over the plaza
at Sacramento...

Next chapter: Two Civil Wars: the Campaigns of 1854

Redneck

(1) The old Californios had required Sam Houston's intervention to
prevent wholesale disrecognition of their old Mexican deeds.

(2) It never helped.

(3) At the time, naturalization in Texas amounted to swearing an oath
before a justice of the peace; a person could move into Texas and vote
almost immediately.