The Department of the Pacific During the Civil War
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Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports 2006 Left arm of the Republic: The Department of the Pacific during the Civil War James Robbins Jewell West Virginia University Follow this and additional works at: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd Recommended Citation Jewell, James Robbins, "Left arm of the Republic: The Department of the Pacific during the Civil arW " (2006). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 2505. https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/2505 This Dissertation is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by the The Research Repository @ WVU with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Dissertation in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you must obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/ or on the work itself. This Dissertation has been accepted for inclusion in WVU Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports collection by an authorized administrator of The Research Repository @ WVU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LEFT ARM OF THE REPUBLIC: THE DEPARTMENT OF THE PACIFIC DURING THE CIVIL WAR JAMES ROBBINS JEWELL A dissertation submitted to the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Department of History Morgantown, West Virginia 2006 Ken Fones-Wolf, Ph.D., Chair Robert Carriker, Ph.D. Jack Hammersmith, Ph.D. John Super, Ph.D. Steve Zdatny, Ph.D. Key words: Civil War, West, California, Oregon, Native Americans, George Wright Copyright James Robbins Jewell ABSTRACT LEFT ARM OF THE REPUBLIC: THE DEPARTMENT OF THE PACIFIC DURING THE CIVIL WAR JAMES ROBBINS JEWELL Although the Civil War was fought largely in the East it was a transcontinental war. Securing the Far West for the Union played an important, though secondary role in the northern war effort. When most of the Regular Army units were called east, holding the region and confronting the multiple threats to its security fell to the western volunteers. Through their efforts, they maintained a general stability in a vast region where both potential and actualized threats could easily have hampered Union efforts in the main theatres of war. Therefore, by quelling secessionist schemes and activities and attempting to maintain peaceful relations between the various tribes and the flood of whites that continued to flow into the region, the less than 20,000 volunteers protected the Far West from internal dangers. Internal responsibilities were only part of the potential hazards lurking along and within the department’s vast territory. As had been demonstrated during the 1859 Pig War crisis, relations with the British in far western Canada could easily turn dangerous. Likewise, once the French imperial designs for Mexico were put into action, department commanders had to ensure that the United States did not become entangled in that quagmire, despite the sympathies of most Americans for the Mexican cause. Thus, despite having been ignored and misunderstood, the Department of the Pacific played an important role in the larger national scene. Had not the department carried out its responsibilities successfully, the nature of the Civil War or the development of the Far West (or both) could have gone differently. To better understand the contributions made to Union war effort, his study is an examination of the responsibilities faced by the Union’s most remote military command during the Civil War and how it met those responsibilities, and in turn how doing so aided the Union cause by protecting the Far West from the nation’s enemies. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT On more than one occasion, when thinking about the acknowledgement section of this dissertation I have promised to begin with this statement: “I wish to thank the person who has done the most to make this dissertation possible, the one who has put in the most hours, suffered the longest, gone without sleep too often to recall, given the most sweat – that would be ME!” Of course, as anyone who has undertaken a scholarly study knows, dissertations, theses, and books are collaborative efforts, where each part makes the whole possible. Therefore, it is with great pleasure that I take a few paragraphs to acknowledge most, but probably not all, the persons who helped me as I worked on not only my dissertation, but my doctorate as well. First and foremost, I would like to thank my committee for their comments and suggestions during the interrogation experience, known as the dissertation defense. Naturally, the chair, Dr. Ken Fones-Wolf, was by far the most integral part of the committee, and for that alone I owe him my thanks. However, I am indebted to him for far more than his service as chair. Having more or less inherited me, a fate for which I am eternally grateful, he did an excellent job of keeping me focused while at the same time making sure the process remained manageable. Knowing my own strengths and weaknesses, I fully understand how challenging it must have been at times working with someone more or less temperamentally his opposite. There is no doubt that I benefited a great deal from his calm, easy going demeanor, which did much to keep my Type A, sometimes over the top tendencies in check. The next round is on me. iii If the dissertation committee tends to get most of the recognition for shepparding a candidate through the dissertation process, it is at the expense of an equally important group of people. To say that this dissertation would not have been completed without the tremendous assistance of the inter library loan departments at West Virginia University and Bloomsburg University is an understatement. When writing about the West Coast while living on the East Coast, one is wholly reliant upon the astounding abilities routinely displayed by the ILL staff. On behalf of all the librarians and their staffs that helped me during the seemingly endless research that was conducted, I would like to single out and offer my deepest gratitude to Judy McCracken (WVU) and Ann Diseroad (BU). You and your staffs were awe-inspiring, and should give lessons to other libraries about how ILL should work. With research pouring in it soon came time to write the thing. As someone who takes pleasure from both research and writing, I was fortunate that I thoroughly enjoyed living with this topic for these past years. None the less, there were many days I felt I could not see the final page ever being on the horizon. When those days came, I was fortunate to have other academics to encourage, cajole, and badger me to stick with it. For constantly repeating a mantra which I cannot print here, I would like to thank my friend Dr. Charlie Mutschler (University Archivist, Eastern Washington University), and my mentor and friend Dr. Dick Donley (Professor Emeritus, EWU). The many telephone calls to each of them over these years were as good for the spirit as they were insightful about the process. For all of his assistance impersonating me to keep me registered at WVU and for the leg work he did in Morgantown on my behalf, I would be remiss if I iv did not thank Jim DePalma, who is currently keeping my old office warm at WVU. May the Serbs be as good to you as the Department of the Pacific was to me. In my two years as a visiting instructor at Bloomsburg University, I received valuable assistance from two unlikely sources. I am deeply indebted to Dr. Rick Sauers for opening his unpublished index to the National Tribune which led to a number of primary sources that I would otherwise not have found. In the larger sense, I greatly appreciate the generosity he showed me during my stay in his state. I hope I will be in a similar position to return the favor to some young scholar in the future. I also need to thank another Pennsylvania; Karla Procopio’s sharp editorial eye and insightful, often sarcastic, comments improved those early chapters, and for that I thank her. By far the greatest professional assistance I received during the entire writing process came from my best friend Dr. Eugene Van Sickle. Not only did he conduct some of the research for me, making copies of articles from the San Francisco Daily Alta California, he also read portions of this dissertation when it was in its rawest state, and, like Jim DePalma, he did some of the administrative leg-work for me after I moved to Idaho. For all of that I remain grateful. However, I owe him far more than that; for helping me drive my family’s entire possessions back across country, encouraging me along the writing trail, not taunting me when he lapped me and finished his own doctorate, and most of all, for his brotherhood, I thank and respect him. I went to West Virginia to earn a doctorate, which I now have done, and I gained a brother in the process. While my academic colleagues and friends helped me survive the actual doing of the dissertation, it was, and is, my family that has kept me afloat throughout these long v years spent in pursuit of a Ph.D. It is difficult to know how to thank one’s family because being there and being supportive is what families do, at least mine, which includes my parents as well as my wife Elizabeth’s family.