Note: This multi-part article originally appeared in the August 2004 and October 2004 issues of IGS Newsletter.
There is a myth surrounding the Civil War, long perpetuated by the popular media, that the war was fought in this country along a North-South dividing line. Instead, the Civil War and the events leading to it created incredible turmoil in this country, nowhere more so than in Indiana. And your Hoosier ancestors, whether they served in a military unit or not, found their lives affected by the war. Yes, brother fought brother and father fought son in this conflict, due in part to their political ideologies. Whigs, Democrats, Know-Nothings, Free-Soilers--and later Republicans, War Democrats and Peace Democrats--all contributed to Indiana's complex and fascinating political fabric.
But first, a little background. Under the 1851 Indiana Constitution, Indiana’s governor was elected in the same year as the United States President. Other state officials were elected every two years, with some local elections being held in intervening years. The new state constitution also gave the right to vote to white male citizens over the age of 21 who had resided in the state for six months. Foreign-born white males were allowed to vote if they had been in the country for one year, in Indiana for six months and had declared an intention of becoming a US citizen. Laws at the time required a voter to vote in the township in which he resided but made no provision for voter registration or bipartisan election boards. The state provided locked ballot boxes but the paper ballots were furnished by the candidates themselves or their political party. The potential for fraud under such a system was enormous and elections were generally fraught with accusations of importing voters, buying votes and stuffing ballot boxes. Frequently the accusations were true!
By 1860 the Indiana political scene had evolved into two major parties, Democrats and Republicans. Both parties contained widely diverse elements and viewpoints but tried to offer a conservative party platform at both state conventions in an attempt to present a united front to the voters. The Democratic platform tended to support limited state or federal governmental intervention, a strict interpretation of the U.S. Constitution without amendment, low tariffs andstrong opposition to a state or federal banking system. The Democrats' stand on the question of slavery invoked the concept of popular sovereignty--the right of the people in each new territory to decide for themselves, without federal intervention, whether they would enter the Union as a free state or slave state.
Prior to the war, the Democratic Party had long been the dominant political party in Indiana. However, in 1854 the new Republican Party made impressive gains, winning nine of Indiana's eleven congressional seats and taking control of the state's House chamber. The Republican Party--a mixture of various political affiliations such as Whigs and Free-Soilers--favored a strong central government, organized banking, a prohibition against the sale and use of liquor and a comprehensive plan of internal improvements such as canals and railroads. The Republican platform sought to restrict slavery to those areas where it already existed and opposed the extension of slavery into new territories.
Indiana had one of the most pro-active war governors of the Union. However, Oliver Perry Morton was not elected governor. Rather, as the result of a compromise worked within the party, Morton ran as Lieutenant Governor on the 1860 Republican ticket with Henry Lane as his running mate. As planned, the Republicans gained control of the legislature and elected Lane to the U.S. Senate. Morton then succeeded to the governorship of Indiana. O.P. Morton was vocal in his opinion that force would be necessary to resolve the differences the country was facing. In a speech he made in November 1860, Morton asked, "Shall we now surrender the nation without a struggle and let the Union go with merely a few hard words?...If it was worth a bloody struggle to establish this nation, it is worth one to preserve it."
When war began in April 1861 President Lincoln issued a call for volunteers to subdue the rebellion. Initial enlistments were for a term of three months and Indiana's quota of six regiments was met immediately. The regiments were numbered the 6th through the 11th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, out of deference to the memory of the five regiments organized in the state during the Mexican War. At the end of their three-month enlistment these regiments were reorganized into three-year units. During the course of the war Indiana formed a total of 173 regiments, composed of infantry, artillery and cavalry units. Approximately 196,000 men from Indiana fought for the Union, of which over 7,000 were killed or mortally wounded and over 17,000 died from disease or accident. Indiana regiments served in every major engagement of the war--Shiloh, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Antietam--and there are countless tombstones in Indiana cemeteries to prove that point.
Governor Morton threw himself into organizing and caring for the troops converging on Indianapolis. The federal government lagged behind in efforts to equip the regiments, so Morton undertook to purchase arms and equipment on the open market, even establishing a state arsenal to manufacture ammunition. Throughout the war a steady stream of letters and telegraph messages flowed between the governor's office and federal civil and military authorities. Morton frequently clashed with authorities over the disposition and treatment of Indiana troops--everything from the requisitioning of supplies and the quality of medical treatment available in the field to the number of Hoosiers promoted in rank. Morton was considered the "soldier's friend" and worked tirelessly on their behalf.
Meanwhile, the state government continued to debate the issues surrounding the war. Governor Morton called for an end to partisan politics for the course of the war and a dedication to saving the Union but partisanship increased dramatically. Democrats blamed secession and abolitionism for causing the conflict and Republicans accused the Democrats of disloyalty to the Union for their criticisms of both state and federal policies. Initially both parties shied away from the issue of slavery despite prominent voices in the state such as George Washington Julian of Centerville, who insisted from the beginning that slavery was the cause of the war and no permanent peace could be achieved without its extermination.
The Democrats won control of both houses of the Indiana General Assembly in 1862 in part due to recent Union military reversals and an increasing dissatisfaction with the Lincoln administration's policies. In an effort to prevent votes being taken on numerous Democratic bills, the Republicans bolted from the 1863 General Assembly and the session ended without enactment of an appropriations bill to fund the state's expenses. The Democratic state treasurer refused to allow the withdrawal of funds from the state treasury without approval of the legislature and Democrats expected Morton to call a special session to arrange the passage of such measures. Instead, O.P. Morton chose to act on his own. By soliciting donations from wealthy businessmen in the state, arranging a $250,000 advance from the Secretary of War from a fund established to aid state governments threatened with rebellion, and contracting with the New York banking firm of Winslow, Lanier & Co. for $600,000 worth of loans, Governor Morton raised the money necessary to operate the state of Indiana.
Certain that he would be unable to extract the funds from the state treasury without legislative approval, the governor organized a bureau of finance under the direction of his military secretary, W.H.H. Terrell. The money was literally kept in a safe in the governor's office and dispersed solely under his authority for the remainder of the war. Democrats loudly protested, accusing Morton of holding a dictatorship over the state. He retaliated by labeling them rebel sympathizers and calling into question their loyalty to the Union.
It is still debated today the extent of southern sympathy present in the state during the war. There is no doubt that tensions ran high--violence erupted at political rallies throughout the state and whispers of secret political societies such as the Knights of the Golden Circle and the Sons of Liberty abounded. Copperheads (Peace Democrats who supported an early end to the war through compromise and negotiation with the Confederate government) were reported to be numerous in most every county. Arbitrary arrests of civilians by military authorities occurred with alarming regularity and efforts were made to suppress Democratic newspapers throughout the state. In September 1864 Gen. Alvin Hovey, chief military officer in Indianapolis, arrested Indianapolis printer Harrison H. Dodd and several others on the charge of treason.
The men, reportedly members of the Sons of Liberty, had planned to seize the government arsenal in Indianapolis and release the Confederate prisoners of war being held in Camp Morton. Dodd was quickly brought to trial before a military court but managed to escape to Canada before being found guilty of treason and sentenced to hang. His accomplices were sentenced to life imprisonment but were released upon appeal in 1866 after the US Supreme Court ruled that the trial of civilians by a military court was unconstitutional since it occurred in an area where the civil courts were still functioning.
Certainly Morton used all of these controversies to consolidate Republicans behind the Lincoln administration and help secure that party's dominance of the 1864 elections. It didn't hurt, either, that he expended considerable effort in obtaining furloughs for Indiana soldiers, allowing them to return home to cast their votes for the Republican ticket.
Approximately one hundred military camps, hospitals and agencies were established in Indiana during the Civil War. Some, like Camp Scott in Vanderburgh County, existed only long enough to gather new recruits and were closed when the men departed. Others, like Camp Dick Thompson in Vigo County, Camp Hughes in Owen County and Camp Jeremiah Sullivan in Indianapolis (located on the present day site of Military Park), served as training and organizational camps.
Camp Morton is perhaps the best known of these installations in Indiana. Located in the vicinity of today's Children's Museum, the area known as Henderson's Grove had been purchased by the state for use as a fairgrounds before the war. The large horse barns on the grounds were rapidly converted to barracks for the soldiers and Camp Morton opened in April 1861. Initially it served as a mustering camp and rendezvous point for troops leaving the state.
With the fall of Ft. Henry and the capture of Ft. Donelson in Tennessee, the federal government suddenly had thousands of Confederate prisoners of war to secure and provision. Four Union military camps were redesignated as prison camps: Camp Morton; Camp Douglas in Chicago; Camp Butler in Springfield, Illinois; and Camp Chase in Columbus, Ohio. Camp Morton became the third largest P.O.W. camp in the Union, having received more than 15,000 rebel prisoners by war's end.
Colonel Richard Owen, son of Robert Dale Owen of New Harmony, was named the first commandant of the prison camp. As a testament to his fair and humane administration of the camp, there is a bronze bust of Col. Owen in the State House rotunda commissioned several years after the war by some of the Confederate soldiers who had passed through Camp Morton during his tenure.
In early 1863 the camp came under the control of the Federal Commissary General of Prisoners. Prior to that time the burden of providing food and supplies for the encamped troops and later the prisoners fell on the state government and local citizens. The July 3, 1861 issue of the Indianapolis Daily Sentinel included a reminder that a celebration commemorating the Fourth of July holiday was planned for the next day and asked the ladies of the city to assist in feeding the troops encamped around Indianapolis by providing baskets of provisions with items such as bread and butter, tongue, ham, cake, pickles, preserves, pies, cheese, fruit, lemons, sugar and ice.
Administration of the camp changed hands several times during the course of the war and there were numerous problems with sanitation, adequate shelter, food, clothing and medical care. At one time as many as 5,000 Confederate prisoners were confined to Camp Morton. A small camp hospital located on the grounds was poorly equipped and grossly overcrowded. One wing of the city hospital was used for a time to house the sick and wounded prisoners and the citizens of Indianapolis frequently assisted in caring for the patients.
The rebel soldiers were ill-prepared to withstand the cold and damp of an Indiana winter and many succumbed to exposure and illness. The death rate in the camp climbed to over 100 deaths per month during the coldest part of the winter. The February 9, 1864 issue of the Indianapolis Daily Sentinel reported that "The deaths of rebel prisoners at Camp Morton are at a rate of more than one hundred a month--98 last December, 114 during the succeeding January and over 30 thus far in the present February. This is a heavy mortality out of only about 2,800 human beings. The poor fellows are escaping fast."
The Confederate dead were taken to a section of the old City Cemetery, located in the vicinity of the present-day Victory Field stadium, for burial. Several years after the war they were removed to Crown Hill Cemetery.
Camp Morton closed in June 1865 after the last of the rebel prisoners were sent south. It is interesting to note that what was once a place of suffering and despair is now home to the laughter and joy of the children who visit the museum.