by Paul R. Spitzzeri
It was a pleasure to return again to talk this evening to a class taught by Homestead volunteer Christopher Empett at Rio Hondo College, just a short distance from the Museum. The topic was on some history of Civil War-era Los Angeles, a topic that has several areas of relevance for our history as well as general interest.
The presentation began by looking back fifteen years to the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848 as a reminder that the seizure of California by the United States reflected so-called “Manifest Destiny,” the view among many Americans that the nation was fated to spread from “sea to shining sea” including the taking of land from indigenous persons, as well as México.
When it came time to incorporating California into the Union, however, a significant complication arose as the formula developed with the Missouri Compromise of 1820 for alternately admitting free and slave states by geographical location was upset by the new territory’s especially vertical position. The shock of the Gold Rush added to the urgency to come up with a solution especially after residents, many of them new arrivals, created a constitution in 1849 and began implemented a government the following spring.
The Compromise of 1850 allowed for California to become the 31st state, but the trauma of the war and the mass of mostly white migrants lured by the precious metal, among other conditions, led to some very troubled times for greater Los Angeles in the Fifties. Whether Bill Deverell’s suggestion in his excellent Whitewashed Adobe that the Mexican-American War didn’t end, but essentially carried over, is the case or not, what can’t be disputed is that sometimes spasms of violence, occasionally broad and widespread, were often reflective of tensions between Anglos and Latinos.
For the Workman and Temple family, the first of whom, Jonathan Temple, settled in Los Angeles in 1828, and who were integrated into Californio society to a significant extent, the shift was of great benefit to them, whether it was in business or agriculture, while political office was held by some of them, as well.
The palmy days of the Gold Rush beef trade enriched them and their adobe houses and environs on ranches in what are now Long Beach, the Whittier Narrows and at the Homestead reflected their wealth. Even after the rush ended after the mid-Fifties, Jonathan became a leading builder of new brick commercial structures, including the first unit of the Temple Block (1857) and the Market House (1859), though the latter ended up failing in its purpose and was leased to the city and county, being long known as the Courthouse.
It is notable, though, that some of the wealthier Californio rancheros aligned with the powerful Democratic Chivalry class, mainly comprised of Southern whites, while the former were also carefully distinguished from Mexicans, often labeled as Sonorans. This demonstrates that class, as well as ethnicity, was a signal marker of economic, political and social power, even as there was a demonstrable shift in all three from Latinos to Anglos.
One of the Californio elite, Andrés Pico, hero of the defense against the American invasion in 1846-1847, proved to be a hero to many local whites by capturing and lynching Latino bandits after the killing of Sheriff James Barton a decade later. His election to the state Assembly may have been a reflection of that esteem and he sponsored a bill to divide California into two states, with the southern, slave-holding one to be called Colorado. It was approved here and forwarded to Congress, but the approaching war led to the proposal being shelved.
increasing sectional conflicts during the following decade drove America closer to disunion and civil war and this finally came to pass with the presidential election of 1860—the results of which were quickly received in Los Angeles thanks to its recent connection to a telegraph line from San Francisco, a project in which Jonathan Temple was an investor. Deeply divided Democrats, splintered into factions, allowed for Republican Abraham Lincoln to pull out a victory that quickly led to southern states to secede.
Notably, Lincoln finished a distant third in Los Angeles County, garnering 356 votes to those of the Democrats, including 494 by Stephen Douglas and 686 by John Breckinridge. In the Assembly race, four Democrats polled some 2,700 votes to just 600 for Republicans and they dominated in the county supervisor contest (Temple finished seventh for five seats as the highest polling Republican). The sole Latino in the latter was Julian Chávez.
The firing on Fort Sumter in South Carolina was the opening salvo for the national nightmare that lasted for four years, from 1861 to 1865. While the fighting was obviously far from California, the Confederate States of America had designs on extending its reach to the Pacific and forces got as far as portions of Arizona Territory before being repelled by Union troops and forced to retreat back to Texas.
The battling in greater Los Angeles was essentially a war of words, including among the two weekly newspapers, the Union-supporting News and the pro-Confederate Star. When the conflict broke out, the News commented, in its edition of 26 April 1861,
Two flagrant acts of rebellion [Fort Sumter and the attack of a ship] have been committed by this so-called Confederacy . . . The time has come—and it is the first time in the annals of our country that so dark and portentous a cloud has hung over us—when the Government must determine whether it has the power to preserve itself intact. When it must show to the world that it has both the power and the will to crush rebellion at home . . . We love our country, our whole country, and our earnest hope is that reason may once more resume her sway over the minds of those men who have banded themselves against their lawful and legitimate Government.
The 5 May issue of the Star commented that,
The tocsin of war has rung out over the land. The battle cry is heard from State to State . . . This is a state of affairs so painful, so unnatural, as to cause deep agony to every lover of his country. The contemplation of this strife suggests horrors so appalling . . . Fraternal blood flowing in living streams; cities sacked; homes laid waste; fields covered with the dying and the dead . . . to this deplorable condition has our glorious country has been reduced. And why? Because the North would not cease to interfere in the affairs of a people with which they had no rightful concern. The right of self-preservation has compelled the South to take the stand she has . . . In the event of a total disruption . . . there will be time enough for us to consider what California has to do for herself. In the meantime, our policy is, most decidedly, peace. Let us avoid adding fuel to the flame of war . . . and hope for a time when by friendly offices, a reconciliation can be effected.
In time, though, both papers became more strident and bitter toward each other and their respective sides in the conflict. Henry Hamilton of the Star, born in Ireland and long a resident in the South, was particularly virulent in his commentary and, in October 1862, was arrested by Union forces on grounds of treason and was sent to Alcatraz Island (now being discussed as being reopened as a federal prison and formerly owned by William Workman and F.P.F. Temple,) though, after swearing a loyalty oath, he was released.
Still, Hamilton editorialized, republished other pieces and generally continued his unflinching support of the Confederates, while Charles R. Conway and Alonzo Waite of the News maintained steadfast support for the Union. The former, however, had no qualms about attacking President Lincoln as a dictator, king and tyrant, while also issuing racist verses about Black Americans and the support Lincoln and Republicans devoted toward abolishing slavery and defeating the South. As supportive as the News was of the Union, its invective did not get nearly so heated.
Locally, times got tough on several other fronts. From Christmas Eve 1861 to nearly the end of January 1862, incessant storms pounded the area (and California, as a whole) with such intense rainfall that the period was known as Noah’s Flood. Whatever devastation ensued for the already trouble cattle industry, long the financial backbone of greater Los Angeles, the situation worsened considerably as drought hit for the next two years, further laying waste to an already prostrate economy.
On top of this, grasshopper invasions, dust storms and the scourge of smallpox also ravaged the region. The News of 21 November 1862 reported that two deaths were attributed to the disease to date but that “it seems to be confined mainly to the Mexican and native Californian population.” Reference, notably, was made to the fact that “a great rush has been made on the doctors to procure vaccination” along with quarantine in the rudimentary hospital in town.
In its 5 December issue, the paper observed that “the smallpox continues to spread rapidly among the Indian population, and with fatal affect,” though only one white person succumbed to the disease to date. Officials were praised for their actions, including the creation of a “pest house” at the city’s edge and the use of a wagon for transporting sick patients, though it was added that “every precaution should be taken to prevent the disease spreading among the white population.”
The Star of 31 January 1863 reported that an ordinance was passed by the Common (City) Council forming a Board of Health with five districts and commissioners empowered “to inspect each house, and every person therein,” with houses containing smallpox sufferers to be conspicuously flagged. Without full reports yet being available, the paper remarked that “it is supposed that there are at least 200 cases . . . and that fully 100 persons have died of the disease,” though what their ethnic makeup was went unstated.
The 11 February edition of the News stated that “this terrible scourge . . . is on the decrease” and the Board of Health was praised as having “rendered material service in alleviating the great suffering found to exist amongst the poorer classes of the native population, by a proper system of vaccination,” a statement that is striking given current conditions. The piece concluded with the observation that “this malady is at a stand-still, if not decreasing.”
Amid all of this tumult and turmoil, the Union Army established a significant presence in greater Los Angeles, amid concerns that the Confederates would try to break through the Southwest and get to the Pacific. Camp Latham was established early in fall 1861 in what is now the Culver City area and recruits were sought for the Los Angeles Company of Volunteers, to be given pay and rations upon reporting to the camp, with information available at the United States Hotel.
By early February 1862, Camp Drum was founded at New San Pedro, soon to be renamed Wilmington, near the rudimentary port. Phineas Banning, a Union supporter, leveraged his considerable and growing influence to secure the outpost, as well as contracts to provide materials for it and even managed to get Union troops to engage in work that benefited him as well as the camp, soon rechristened Drum Barracks.
Several hundred troops were stationed there during the war, generally watching for troublemaking “secesh” activity and one of the lesser-known aspects of this was the creation of the 1st Battalion of Native Cavalry of the California Volunteers, these being Californios, whose Company D was stationed at Drum. Notably, however, many of the troops were natives of México, mainly from the northern border state of Sonora.
One of the duties of the Native Cavalry company was to ride in circuits near Confederate-supporting strongholds, such as El Monte, just several miles west of the Homestead, to make sure that no trouble was created during the 1864 presidential election. With the Union badly underperforming and the Confederates holding their own for the first three years of the war, Lincoln’s reelection chances looked dim and his Democratic opponent, General George McClellan was the Union Army commander fired by the president for not pursuing campaigns with sufficient vigor.
Fortunately, for the incumbent, General Ulysses S. Grant, aided by the likes of General William Tecumseh Sherman and others, made significant inroads as the election neared, reviving Lincoln’s chances at securing a second term. While the Star of 6 August 1864 lambasted the chief executive’s order of a national day of fasting and prayer as one that only served “to bring humiliation, and shame, too, to every American,” it also asserted in its issue of 17 September that,
After four years of madness, the most frantic and apparently hopeless, that ever afflicted a nation, the people of the United States—the “loyal ” States, as the servile worshipers of corruption and tyranny denominate the adhering States—are beginning to show some signs of returning reason . . . people now not only boldly denounce the usurpations of the “Government.” but bid defiance to his tools, and kick them out of office.
Despite the Star holding out hope that voters would remove “Abraham the First” from power, the returns of the November election in Los Angeles County showed that, while McClellan had solid majorities in such townships as Los Angeles, Azusa, El Monte, Los Nietos (along the San Gabriel where Whittier, Downey and other cities are now) and San Jose (the Pomona area), 60% of Lincoln’s votes were from Wilmington, which polled 312-2 for the incumbent, and it seems clear that the presence of Union soldiers provided the decided difference.
The News of 12 November was elated by the result and excitedly informed readers of a victory celebration to be held four days later, adding that “now is the time to glorify the acts of the good and brave” as supporters were exhorted to “turn out one and all, and hear one of ‘Father Abraham’s’ 12-pound ‘talking parrots’ [cannons] speak.” With the tide of war actually turning decidedly for the Union, supporters were more open, vocal and empowered in their expressions. Notably, William Workman was a vice-president for a McClellan rally prior to the election, while his son-in-law, F.P.F. Temple, was a Union adherent.
The Star was shuttered just prior to the election, perhaps a combination of the economic downturn and Henry Hamilton’s service in the Assembly, so the Wilmington Journal, owned by Banning, used the paper’s press and equipment for Union support, and the News was also delirious with joy in its 11 April 1865 edition as the news of the rebel surrender at Appomattox Court House, an event also recorded in the diary of Charles M. Jenkins, the sole Union Army soldier from Los Angeles, reached town. The paper proclaimed,
Let patriots rejoice to the full—the rebellion is crushed. The surrender of Lee virtually closes the war. Peace, a lasting peace, now dawns upon our land. Rejoice, with exceeding great joy—the most wicked rebellion ever inaugurated is at an end.
Then came the devastating news just days later of the assassination of President Lincoln (it was said that the Southern-born and raised Black barber Peter Biggs openly celebrated it, showing that not all African-Americans were supporters, though he was certainly in a very small minority, perhaps of one, on at least this matter) and heavy black borders marked the editions of the News and the Journal, with the latter lamenting,
It is with feelings of sadness that we record the death of this great and good man. It is impossible to realize the fact that he is no more. On him seemed to depend the Nation’s prosperity, and to him the American people looked as the one appointed by the Most High to conduct them in safety through their troubles . . . The manifestation of grief everywhere seen is no mere idle ceremony, but is the sincere expression of the love and respect entertained by all classes for the Chief Magistrate.
With America 250 coming next year in commemoration of the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, whatever turn it takes with current conditions, one avenue the Homestead is looking to explore concerns the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution as tied to the Declaration, with the latter, extending the vote to Black men, having notable local ramifications, as covered here in a prior post.
Looking at Civil War-era Los Angeles, limited as this post is with just some aspects of the period, is a good precursor to what may come in 2026, so stay tuned for more developments on that front in coming months.
Without much knowledge or a comprehensive understanding, I intuitively feel that the Civil War was remarkably unique in many respects. It was not a war between two sides with a long history of ethnic, cultural, linguistic, religious, or class-based conflict. In fact, both Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee had previously served the Union with distinction.
Although the war broke out rather suddenly, an intense and widespread sense of hatred seemed to quickly take a strong hold on both sides – strong enough to drive soldiers to kill their fellow countrymen as if avenging the murder of their own brothers or sisters. I wonder how such deep animosity was stirred up and solidified, and how public sentiment was managed or controlled during the war. Were there agencies like the KGB or Gestapo?
Equally surprising is how quickly that hostility seemed to fade after the war ended. Unlike many civil wars elsewhere, where resentment lingers beneath the surface like an underwater volcano for generations, the animosity in the U.S. largely disappeared as suddenly as fog lifting.
Hi Larry, thanks for the comment. No one at the Homestead is an expert on the subject either, but a few points (and there could be many others) to add include the fact that the move towards a civil war was years in the making as anti-slavery efforts ramped up in the North, disputes continued over the spread of slavery in territories and new states, the Dred Scott decision in 1857 was handed down by the Supreme Court and many other factors were involved. There were certainly cultural differences between the two sections, as well. Propaganda was widely utilized through the press, books, flyers, public speeches and the like, but official agencies like you mentioned were not involved, though there were, for instance, secret societies in operation. Americans generally were exhausted by the sheer devastation of the war, but resentment was very much present, especially among many Southerners, for decades afterward and echoes linger now. Reconstruction was a particularly difficult and divisive period until it was ended in 1877. Efforts to portray the war in certain lights were common in histories and popular culture, including a half-century later, the controversial, though popular film, The Birth of a Nation (called The Clansman, after the book, when first released.) Lastly, despite the attempts, through Reconstruction and through the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution, to improve the situation for Black Americans, the South’s systematic imposition of Jim Crow laws and other iron-clad controls, along with such Supreme Court decisions as Plessy vs. Ferguson in 1896, and more, constitute a long, dark postwar legacy. As we move into next year with America 250 and the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the War should be a significant part of the commemoration, including at the Homestead.
Thank you, Paul, for helping me examine these questions more deeply. I also hope to read or hear more about the pre- and post-war periods, as I believe that understanding will help me better distinguish between what ought to be forgiven and what must be remembered.
You’re right that racial issues have lingered and, in many ways, have reemerged in recent times. That’s actually one of the topics I’d like to explore further. I believe that how people – both in the North and South – viewed African Americans during the Civil War era was quite different from how they are seen today. Emancipation was not the central issue at the beginning of the war, and when the North later raised it as a banner, it felt – at least to me -somewhat like invoking “Manifest Destiny” to justify expansion.
I still remember witnessing the removal of Robert E. Lee’s statue at Lee Circle in New Orleans in 2017. In that moment, I couldn’t help but wonder: Is it appropriate or too simple for today’s racial struggles to be symbolized by the dismantling of Confederate monuments?
Hi Larry, the question of Confederate monuments is a notable one, for sure, and here’s an editorial from “Friend of the Homestead,” Kevin Waite, on the subject from a local perspective nearly a decade ago: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-waite-socal-confederates-20170804-story.html.