Reconstructing the West: Lincoln & the Legacy of the Civil War in Bozeman, Montana

Reconstructing the West: Lincoln & the Legacy of the Civil War in Bozeman, Montana

I Don’t Want No Pardon (I’m a Good Old Rebel)

Chorus:O, I’m a good old RebelNow that’s just what I amAnd I don’t want no pardonFor anything I done.

I hates the ConstitutionThis Great Republic too, I hate the Freedman’s

BureauIn uniforms of blue;I hate the nasty eagle,With all its brag and fuss,The lyin’, thievin’ Yankees,I hate them worse and

worse.

Chorus:

Three hundred thousand YankeesIs stiff in Southern dust; We got three hundred thousandBefore they conquered us;They died of Southern Feverand Southern steel and shot I wish they was three millionInstead of what we got.

Chorus:

I can’t take up my musket And fight them now no more,But I ain’t gonna love them, Now that is certain sure;And I don’t want no pardonFor what I was and am,I won’t be reconstructedAnd I don’t care a damn.

Questions for Consideration:

To what extent was late nineteenth-century Bozeman a

reflection of these Reconstruction attitudes?

Which vision for America was more pronounced in Bozeman

between 1864 and 1889?

Lincoln, the Civil War, and Reconstruction profoundly impacted Montana and a fledgling community

called Bozeman

The Long Term Impacts:Lincoln’s Trilogy--The Homestead Act,

The Northern Pacific Charter, and the Morrill Act

The Short Term:Thousands flocked to Montana during the uncertain 1860s for good reason.

The violence and turmoil caused by the deadliest war in American history provided ample incentive for people to move West.

If the Civil War pushed people out of the East, gold simultaneously pulled

thousands to Montana

• Bannack--1862• Virginia City--

1863• Helena--1864

Some followed the Missouri River Pipeline to the Big Sky Country via

steamboat.

Others traveled overland on the “Bloody” Bozeman Trail

Rapid growth and mineral wealth convinced President Lincoln to sign into law the bill creating Montana

Territory on May 26, 1864.

The issue of Black suffrage nearly defeated the measure in

Congress

In such a politically charged atmosphere, westward migrants

usually brought their political sympathies with them.

Lester Willson and the Union League

Union League leaders warned their members of “unpatriotic and designing men, nestling like venomous reptiles in all parts of our country,” who “strive without shame or scruple (no matter what means are resorted to) the ascendancy of civil power since their overwhelming defeat in the conflict of arms.”

Lester Willson

“It is amusing how this little place is divided up into factions, that havenothing at all to do with each other. We run one end of the town, and Lamme and Black the other, while each store has its adherents. We have been having the best of the rivalry so far and we intend to keep it. I believe the other party has the most money, but we have the best generals, and the Missouri clique, of which the other party has been the leaders, is getting weaker every day, while we have all the intelligence and education on our side. The other stores are too weak to take an equalshare in the fight, although one or two of them are doing their best; but we are distancing them all.” --Sept 28, 1872

Peter Koch

Even after the gold camps went bust, the free land--promised by Lincoln’s

passage of the Homestead Act--continued to bring settlers west.

In time, more homesteads would be filed in Montana than any other state

in the Union.

As the Civil War experienced its violent death throes in the East .

. .

. . . the Montana Post observed that the fertile Gallatin Valley was “fast being settled up with farmers, many of whom came to Montana as a better class of miners and, after quitting their original pursuits, secure 160 acres of land . . . and go to work in true farmer fashion.”

In the newly platted town of Bozeman, the Homestead Act was a godsend . . .

But without railroads, the Homestead Act would have been little more than an empty promise.

Thanks to the Homestead Act and the Northern Pacific,the number of farms in Gallatin County expanded from 175 in

1880 to 950 in 1900.

Reconstruction Complete:

The Morrill Act (1862)and

Statehood (1889)

To what extent was late nineteenth-century Bozeman a reflection of Reconstruction attitudes?

Which vision for America was most pronounced in Bozeman between 1864 and 1889?