Chapter Nine Sherman’s decision to become a banker, the profession he pursued for half a decade during the 1850s, is imbued with irony. Both before and after those adventurous, tumultuous California years, he penned sweeping and virile denunciations of bankers and banking. Typically, he declared to brother John in the 1840s that all bankers were “selfish scoundrels,” while he viewed banking and gambling, he told John in the late 1850s, as “synonymous terms.” “No wonder,” he once wrote Ellen, that bankers are “debarred all chances of heaven.”1
Why then, after the long, agonizing decision to leave the army, did Sherman choose to try his hand at banking? Ellen’s view, according to Sherman, was that Henry Turner had “roped” him into the decision. Her explanation was oversimplified, probably stemming from a pronounced bias against living in California, as well as homesickness for life in Ohio. Sherman eventually concluded, as he wrote Ellen’s brother, that she was incapable of “appreciating the advantages that I have here.” He told Turner, “Mrs. Sherman has a very poor opinion of California generally.” Ellen, in fact, had written her mother about California in December 1853: “I fear nothing will ever reconcile me to this place.” She was right: nothing ever did.2
This is not to deny that Turner’s influence played a part in Sherman’s decision to take up banking, but other factors were involved. The influence and backing of James Lucas, one of the most financially successful men in St. Louis, clearly became significant in Sherman’s thinking. Perhaps of even greater importance, Lucas, Turner and Sherman were all three possessed by “California fever,” a malaise afflicting a great many people. San Francisco, they believed, presented an unprecedented opportunity for accumulating big-time wealth. Yet another consideration might have crossed Sherman’s mind. Unless men of integrity and character, like Sherman, became bankers, then the business for sure would be dominated by the “scoundrels” he so rightly despised.
Thomas Ewing’s impressive financial achievements, together with Ellen’s manifest respect and love for her father (she would keep his picture centered over her mantel in California), inevitably constituted a high standard of comparison, which Sherman found impossible to ignore. If he could succeed as the manager of a major West Coast bank, he would prove to his own satisfaction that he was truly worthy of association with the Ewing family. Plus he would have escaped living in Ohio, the very thought of which he detested. Finally, banking took him back to California, a place for which he had developed a genuine fondness.
Whatever the complexities explaining Sherman’s choice of banking, he pursued the new career with characteristic assurance and determination, despite deteriorating health from frequent and sometimes severe asthma attacks. Fortunately, Sherman had an enormous capacity for work, even when plagued by poor health, because his banking years became, as Dwight L. Clarke, a California banker who wrote a valuable account of Sherman’s tenure in the profession, concluded, “the most hectic and crisis-laden of his life up to 1861.”3
Banking in California presented a distinct challenge. Not only did Sherman have no banking experience whatsoever, California banking was unlike banking anywhere else in the nation. Throughout the United States, paper bank notes circulated in great quantity, while gold and silver were in comparative short supply. In California, however, gold circulated in abundance. Saloons and general stores had a set of scales for weighing gold dust, which became the most prevalent circulating medium, at a price of $16 an ounce. In fact, many a business, whatever its nature, possessed a set of scales, since gold dust seemed to be ubiquitous. When California became a state in 1850, for example, the production of gold in that year was valued at $80 million, approximately double the U.S. government’s total budget.4
As Sherman analyzed the California banking scene, he proved to be, as goes the popular expression, “a quick study.” He mastered the realities—the strengths, weaknesses and peculiarities—of banking in San Francisco. Banking then was a laissez-faire activity, totally unrestricted and unregulated, except for one major provision: an absolute ban on paper money. Many California pioneers, having come from the east, retained an elephantine memory of the Panic of 1837, which had been triggered in great part by state banks issuing huge amounts of paper money that became worthless if the issuing bank succumbed to a financial crisis.5
When the California constitutional convention had met in the fall of 1849 (as Sherman well knew, because he was in attendance), impassioned speakers denounced banks as institutions of inherent evil. The delegates then incorporated in the California state constitution a provision that stated: “The legislature of this state shall prohibit by law any person or persons, association, company or corporation from . . . creating paper to circulate as money.” With paper money banned, some bartering continued, just as before the discovery of gold; obviously land, in the form of ranches, farms and speculative investment, was of value, as were improvements to the land, such as houses, barns, etc. Real estate was taxed, however, and worse, titles to land were often in dispute. The upshot was that everything possessed limited value when compared with gold.6
Significantly, the constitutional convention also prohibited the state of California from chartering any bank. It was as if the delegates thought they had only to fear paper money and state-chartered banks. Consequently, any individual or association could open an office, provide a safe and encourage the public to entrust that establishment with its financial business. “Bankers,” many of them with little or no previous experience in the profession, quickly appeared in considerable numbers, and plunged into an unregulated, wide-open arena. The result, as Dwight Clarke concludes, was that “for nearly three decades, banking in California was to offer a perfect example of unrestricted laissez-faire.”7
Sherman’s approach to banking was basically conservative. Despite a great demand for credit and a going interest rate of 3 percent per month, he took care not to overextend the funds he let out at interest. Also, once Henry Turner went back to St. Louis, in November 1853, he managed the affairs of Lucas, Turner & Company very closely, much as he supervised commissary responsibilities when he was in the army, where all financial disbursements were handled directly by him. Recalling his time as a banker, Sherman wrote, “I signed all bills of exchange, and insisted on [chief clerk Benjamin] Nisbet consulting me on all loans and discounts.” Sherman was keenly aware of the turbulent California economy in which he operated. He was equally aware of his responsibilities to Lucas and Turner, as well as the people who entrusted to him the safekeeping and investment of their funds. He put in long days at the bank, often when he really was not well. “There must be but one head,” he declared, “and that head must know everything.”8
Indeed Sherman strove diligently to master everything required for a successful banking operation, including getting to know well the city’s political and business leaders, especially the merchants and the shipping interests. He also made it a point to keep fully abreast of his banking competition. By early 1854, Lucas, Turner & Company was clearly in good condition. The bank showed increasing deposits, and enjoyed a lively business in making loans and selling bills of exchange. That March 15, the bank’s total deposits were over $250,000, with cash on hand of more than $550,000—very respectable amounts for that time and place.
Sherman believed that in another year the firm’s numbers would exceed $1 million. San Francisco, he wrote Turner, “is beyond question the great seaport of Western America,” and potentially the great commercial center of “the Northwest coast as well as that of Mexico, the Sandwich Islands, etc.” The financial opportunities, he thought, were virtually unlimited. “Neither Mr. Lucas nor yourself,” he told Turner, “desire to be small bankers and I assure you that I am ambitious of making our name famous among the nations of the earth.”9
A particular point of satisfaction for Sherman was the fact that army officers had been investing with Lucas, Turner & Company. The great bulk of his trust accounts came from these men. In mid-April, he wrote Turner that the firm was then carrying all the deposits of army officers stationed in California. Many of those officers knew Sherman personally. Others soon learned about the former soldier turned banker, and felt comfortable entrusting their funds with him. Newly arriving officers were often directed to Sherman by those already using his firm. This was remarkable testimony to the high regard in which his army peers continued to hold him. Disassociating himself from a military career, particularly his army “family,” was proving difficult for Sherman.10
Among her husband’s army friends, Ellen clearly welcomed the frequent presence of one particular officer. The commander of the Department of California, Brigadier General Ethan Hitchcock, liked to play the flute. Ellen enjoyed playing piano and soon after she arrived in San Francisco, Sherman surprised her with the gift of a fine instrument. “General Hitchcock,” Ellen wrote her mother, “visits us often, and he has brought me some accompaniments to the flute . . . he being a good performer on that instrument and very fond of music.”
While Sherman complained that the pieces were all “so disguised by variations that you can only catch the air occasionally,” Ellen declared, “I quite fancy them and though I have very little hopes that the General and I will ever be sufficiently practiced to delight the public, yet I am glad to have something to do that will improve my music and make my fingers more nimble.” Often in the evenings, when Sherman and Ellen did not have any company, Ellen told her mother that she would play both “before and after dinner . . . all the spirited pieces I ever knew for the amusement of Cump and Lizzie, who generally dance and romp during the whole of my performance.” Playing the piano, which Ellen described as “a pretty boudoir,” lifted her spirit and eased the stress, for a while, that she experienced in adjusting to her new life.11
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THROUGHOUT THE FIRST HALF of 1854, part of Sherman’s time was spent in keeping a watchful eye on the construction of his new bank. For $32,000 he had purchased a lot facing Montgomery Street, “the Wall Street of San Francisco,” he said. The site lay at the corner of Montgomery and Jackson Streets, and Sherman considered it an excellent location. “Jackson Street is now a great thoroughfare to the Clipper wharves lying north of Pacific,” he wrote Turner. The bank would be near all “the heavy business of the country.” Every one of the bank’s competitors was situated farther away from the wharves where the clipper ships docked.12
“I then thought that all the heavy business would remain toward the foot of Broadway and Jackson Street,” Sherman later wrote in his Memoirs, “because there were the deepest water and the best wharves, but in this I made a mistake.” The city’s business concentration drifted in the opposite direction; proving only, as many an investor has learned to his grief, that even a man of high intelligence and perception often is unable to fathom the enigmatic paths of urban development. Sherman really did not make a “mistake.” The choice was a fine location for his day, and then appeared to be a good site for the future as well.13
The three-story brick building, with a full basement, cost approximately $50,000. The bank’s business would be conducted on the first floor, while the second and third floors provided attractive offices for rent to lawyers, insurance agencies, shipping concerns and other enterprises. The structure was strongly built, with ninety-six piles being sunk, at a price of twenty-eight dollars each. Sherman commented in his Memoirs that he had seen the building recently, and several earthquakes “had made no impression on it.” He would have been pleased to know that it also survived the great earthquake of 1906. Because of his demanding duties in supervising banking operations, he could not be as vigilant in overseeing construction of the new building as he would have liked. So he paid a man just to keep a close eye on the project. He did not intend for his banking house to collapse, either figuratively or literally.14
On July 14, 1854, Sherman proudly informed Turner that Lucas, Turner & Company now occupied the new building. The structure, he wrote, was “all we could expect, plenty of light, easy of access, large, roomy and beautiful.” He considered it “the handsomest building in this town,” and declared, “I enjoy it as much as an artist does a fine picture.” Some rooms on the second and third floors were already rented when the building opened, and numerous prospects sought the others. The building was a boost for business. “During the whole of 1854,” recalled Sherman, “our business steadily grew, our average deposits going up to half a million, and our sales of exchange and consequent shipment of bullion averaging two hundred thousand dollars per steamer.” More trust accounts were opened, not only by army officers but some by customers of Lucas & Simonds in St. Louis, and others by San Francisco friends and customers.15
While the banking business grew and prospered, Sherman was simultaneously experiencing the worst asthma attacks, and related bronchial and chest problems, of his life. In midsummer of 1854, soon after the opening of the new bank building, and following an all-night bout with asthma, Sherman confided to Turner: “I have little or no faith in my prolonged existence.” The asthma, he wrote, “is so fixed on me and is so serious at times that I care but little how soon it terminates fatally.” Turner responded by “pitching into me like a thousand bricks,” as Sherman described his friend’s reply.
“Why the Devil can’t you let an old soldier growl a little?” Sherman, who was thirty-four at the time, queried in a letter to “My Dear Turner.” He and Turner always conversed in a straightforward manner. Turner should, Sherman advised, “let my asthma bear its full share of blame.” He stated that he had been forced “for nights, weeks and months of nights,” to sit up more or less all night “breathing like a broken winded horse, thankful for a couple of hours repose,” which he supposed, left one’s “nerves and temper somewhat unsettled.” Sherman added that while “breathing the smoke of nitre paper” through the night, as he sought to gain a measure of relief, he reflected “that this climate will sooner or later kill me dead as a herring.” Nevertheless, he assured Turner “I have never for an instant diverted my thoughts or determination from the business that has been entrusted to me.”16
Many of Ellen’s letters to her mother confirm that Sherman was not exaggerating when he spoke of his health problems, which nearly always related to asthma. Only a few weeks after she arrived in San Francisco, Ellen wrote Maria Ewing that Cump was up nearly every night, and sometimes all night. She said that he took medicine constantly to help him sleep, which she feared would injure him, and declared that he himself did not think that he would live very long. She worried that his miserable health foretold the onset of consumption. A few days later Ellen wrote that he was running a fever, having “no appetite and a continued hard cough. If he does not get better when spring comes I shall despair of his ever being well here, and I see no prospect of getting him away before his six years are passed, should he live so long. . . . Cump himself thinks that he will never be better.”17
As for Ellen, Sherman’s health problems constituted only one of the reasons for her dislike of California. From the time that she stepped off the steamer in October 1853, Ellen seldom had anything positive to say about life in San Francisco or the Golden State. She soon penned a long letter to her mother summarizing many details of her generally unpleasant voyage from New York to California. For several days after leaving New York she had been seasick. After recovering, she found the ship’s accommodations (all of the quarters, not just hers) cramped and poorly furnished. Other concerns presented themselves, such as distasteful food and lack of freshwater. Above all, she was deeply saddened by the death of several people during the trip, who were buried at sea. A year later, in a letter to Maria, she said that those deaths had alarmed her “more than anything else in the world.”18
Arriving in San Francisco, Ellen commented upon the “narrow and crowded” streets, the houses without yards, “front or rear” and the awful mud with which one had to contend. Nearly everything was more expensive than in Ohio or Washington, D.C. She found it difficult to employ a good cook, with four girls proving unsatisfactory within a span of only a few weeks. She thought that anybody coming to California would regret it. “There are hundreds here who would go home had they the money to take them.” As for the moral climate, she wrote her mother that San Francisco was “thoroughly wicked.” She had been told that more than half the women were prostitutes. In another letter, she wrote of “the horrible wickedness that prevails . . . in this most forlorn place.” San Francisco, she asserted, was going the way of the Biblical Sodom. In this connection, Sherman reported to Turner in mid-April 1854 that the city council recently “abolished . . . bawdy houses, . . . and you do not now see troops of girls displaying themselves on horseback and carriages. . . . Such women,” he declared, “can not be changed or reformed,” but at least, he concluded, “their practices are hidden away.”19
Ellen spent a lot of time composing letters to her mother, as she frequently had done ever since she married. She eagerly looked forward to all communications that came from home—and “home” is how she continued to think of her mother and father in Lancaster, all the more so with her firstborn in their care.20 The letters from Maria Ewing typically provided news about Ohio or Washington events. Sometimes they were amusing, but with few exceptions, her letters carried news and comments of a religious nature, always extolling the virtues of Catholicism. For instance, Maria wrote Ellen about a Mrs. Peter, “a charming woman . . . full of faith and zeal,” who spoke continually of the wonders of the Catholic religion in Italy and France, where, according to her, “it is a common thing . . . for a miracle to be performed.” Mrs. Peter herself “witnessed two whilst in France.” If Mother Ewing filled her whole sheet of paper, it would not be possible to tell of “half the relics that [Mrs. Peter] has in her cabinet.” For her part, Ellen’s letters kept her mother informed about Catholicism and its leaders in California. One of Ellen’s greatest concerns, about which she wrote Maria periodically, was Minnie’s religious development. Minnie’s aunts and cousins should all know, emphatically, Ellen instructed, that Minnie was to be raised with “no tinge towards protestantism.” Maria must never allow the girl to go to Mansfield alone. She was to go only if Maria accompanied her, for fear that she might come under the influence of Sherman’s Protestant relatives there. Minnie was to visit them only if “under my restraining influence or yours.”21
Ellen was very upset by the rise of the anti-Catholic Know-Nothing Party. An enormous influx of Irish and Germans in the 1840s and 1850s, many of whom were Roman Catholic, had enabled that church, by the early 1850s, to emerge from decades as a negligible minority and become the single most numerous religious group in the nation. Longtime Protestant fears of the Church of Rome and “Popish” practices increased markedly, combining with a growing and general antiforeign bias. The result was the formation, in New York, of an American “nativist” party.
Known as the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner (some liked to say the “Supreme” Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, while also giddily styling themselves as “Sons of the Sires of Seventy-Six”), the American Party was secretive, from which came the moniker “Know-Nothings.” Membership required a person to be descended from at least two generations of native-born Americans who had never been members of the Catholic Church. The Know-Nothings freely and irresponsibly exploited patriotic emotions, racial bigotry, religious intolerance and sexual fantasies, the last sometimes involving supposed “Popish brothels” (convents). As the group developed into a formidable third party, striving zealously, and for a time seemingly on the brink of achieving major-party status, violent actions sometimes followed in the wake of their deplorable, misguided efforts.22
In the fall of 1854, Ellen wrote her mother about the threat from the Know-Nothings. She said there were serious concerns that her own parish church would be destroyed about the time of that November’s election. Fortunately it was spared. She declared that most of the prejudice in California was directed against the Irish Catholics. “The stronger their prejudice,” she declared, “the more I boast of my descent and thank God for the faith which the Irish have kept inviolate through so many years of suffering and privation.” Sherman, of course, attempted to keep abreast of both national and local politics. Henry Turner wrote him about the defeat of Thomas Hart Benton, long a formidable presence in the U.S. Senate. Sherman considered Benton’s downfall “highly gratifying and I sincerely rejoice.” Although not a Catholic, Sherman had no love for the Know-Nothings. He sarcastically revealed both their ignorance and underhanded actions in a letter he wrote Turner describing their success in electing a new mayor.23
But when the politics of 1854 are objectively analyzed, in terms of immediate results and long-term consequences weighed in the historical balances, the year’s most important development without a doubt was the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Engineered by Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, the “Little Giant,” Kansas-Nebraska reopened the strife over slavery—strife that “the fearful struggle of 1850,”24 as Douglas himself characterized the midcentury compromise, had supposedly laid to rest. Kansas-Nebraska thus cast a long, dark shadow, one of immensely greater national significance than the fortunes of the nativist American Party. In rekindling the issue of the expansion of slavery, it set the nation on the road to the Civil War.
Of course Senator Douglas, a dedicated Unionist, never intended any such outcome. Ironically, he had devised the strategy and spearheaded the effort that finally achieved the passage of the Compromise of 1850. Equally ironic, his basic motivations in 1854 had nothing to do with slavery. A fervent expansionist, Douglas intended to organize the territory west of Missouri and Iowa for settlement, hoping to promote the construction of a transcontinental railroad along a northern route, and connect Chicago with the Pacific Ocean. He intended to remove “the barbarian wall” of Indians blocking American westward advance, and “authorize and encourage a continuous line of settlements to the Pacific.” The Iron Horse, steaming west from Chicago, would serve as the advance agent of manifest destiny.25
It was not to be that simple. Between January, when Senator Douglas introduced the “Nebraska” bill, and late May when “Kansas-Nebraska” passed by a 37–14 vote in the Senate and 113–100 in the House, Douglas’s proposal underwent a remarkable transformation. Instead of a railroad bill, amazingly it emerged as a proslavery bill. Nebraska Territory had been divided into two parts: Kansas and Nebraska. The Missouri Compromise ban on slavery north of 36°30′, which had stood for thirty-four years and was almost sacred to the opponents of slavery’s expansion, would be repealed.26
The issue of slavery in the new territories was to be determined by popular sovereignty. Nebraska, lying west of free-state Iowa, would presumably become a free state, but Kansas, located west of slave-state Missouri, well might choose to enter the Union as a slave state—particularly if zealous slavery advocates seized the opportunity to gain another slave state, which they soon set about to do. Senator Douglas, although acknowledging to a friend that repealing the Missouri Compromise ban “will raise a hell of a storm,” woefully underestimated the destructive power that his bill unleashed. More than once, Douglas had declared that he cared not whether slavery was voted up or down. The senator’s relative indifference perhaps explains his failure to understand the intensity of feelings, pro and con, about the institution. Besides, if Kansas-Nebraska were going to pass, Douglas needed Southern support, along with some Northern Democratic backing. The Southern votes were ready—but only if Douglas catered to Southern demands that the Missouri Compromise line be repealed. And so he did. Also, if the senator were going to gain the Democratic nomination for president in 1856, an ambition never far removed from his thoughts, Southern support clearly would be imperative.27
The deed was done. Results were instant, sweeping and ominous. With an unfailing vision, at least on this issue, Senator Charles Sumner, a Massachusetts abolitionist, foresaw the dire consequences, which he expressed in the pronouncement that Kansas-Nebraska was “at once the worst and the best which Congress ever enacted.” It was “the worst bill, inasmuch as it is a present victory for Slavery. . . . It is the best bill . . . for it . . . annuls all past compromises with Slavery, and makes all future compromises impossible. Thus it puts Freedom and Slavery face to face, and bids them grapple. Who can doubt the result?”28
Grapple they did. Massive political restructuring erupted all across the Northern states, and to a lesser degree in the Southern. The already weakened Whig Party was destroyed, as large numbers of Northern Whigs turned to the rapidly organizing Republican Party—a new political institution dedicated, above all, to arresting the spread of slavery. Many Southern Whigs defected to the Democratic Party, whose strength shifted steadily to the slave states. Still other Whigs, north and south, moved into the Know-Nothing camp. Kansas-Nebraska divided the Northern Democrats, many of whom were shocked by the audacious repeal of the Missouri Compromise line, and became, very quickly, candidates for a fresh political allegiance.
The most enduring political legacy of Kansas-Nebraska was the creation of the Republican Party. Totally Northern in composition, the Republicans united former Whigs, Democrats, Free Soilers, Know-Nothings—all of whom opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act and demanded, for whatever reason, that the expansion of slavery must cease. Friendly to business interests, but pledged first and foremost to oppose the spread of slavery, the purely sectional Republicans virtually exploded on the political scene.
And of course Kansas-Nebraska soon produced an awful situation in Kansas Territory. Because popular sovereignty would determine the slavery question, various Northern and Southern associations quickly developed for the purpose of encouraging their partisans to settle in Kansas. Most famous was the New England Emigrant Aid Society. Other Northern groups followed its lead, while Southern efforts centered in Missouri. Within weeks free-state and slave-state advocates vied for power. Incendiary rhetoric poisoned the air while election fraud became widespread. Missouri border ruffians rode over the line and voted in the Kansas elections, attempting to offset the greater number of free-state advocates moving into the territory. Tension increased and violence mounted. Territorial governors appointed by President Franklin Pierce could not control the situation. Civil war was coming early to the plains of Kansas.29
Sherman was following the momentous national developments as best he could from the West Coast, where news always arrived long after events in the east had occurred. In the fall of 1854, John Sherman was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio’s Thirteenth District. Obviously Cump’s periodic, strongly expressed pleas for his younger brother to stay away from politics had failed to take effect.
Probably feeling that he should, at the least, offer some small measure of congratulations, Sherman wrote to John on November 30. “I have seen by the papers that you are elected to Congress. I suppose you feel entitled to the congratulations of all the family, and I should not have been so late in giving you mine, only I expected that you would announce by letter the fact of your plans.” He then declared that being elected “is of course a higher honor than to occupy a seat in the House of Representatives.” The House, in his opinion, was merely a training ground “for higher honors,” by which he meant the Senate. Should John aspire to a seat there, he would “be proud to learn of your success.” Having given his congratulations, while simultaneously revealing that he was not particularly impressed, the older brother, predictably, next offered advice on how to proceed. “As a young member, I hope you will not be too forward, especially on the question of slavery, which it seems is rising more and more . . . into a question of real danger.”
Sherman obviously was right about the danger. Reminding John that he had lived for several years in the South, he asserted that, from a practical standpoint, “I think I know . . . more of slavery than you do. . . . There are certain lands in the South that can not be inhabited in the summer by the whites, and yet the negro thrives in it—this I know.” Contending that “forced negro labor” was essential for the production of “rice, sugar and certain kinds of cotton,” Sherman declared slavery, regardless of what anyone thought, could not be abolished “except by force and the consequent breaking up of our present government.” As to the Kansas-Nebraska bill, he stated it “was a mistake on the part of the South, a vital mistake that will do them more harm than all the violent abolitionists in the country.” He also believed that Missouri should never have been admitted to the Union as a slave state, but after the passage of three decades, he saw no remedy except in Missouri itself, where he declared that economic self-interest would at some future date dictate its abolishment. “Let slavery extend along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, but not in the high salubrious prairies of the West.”30
Sherman continued to offer his brother advice from time to time. The letters to John are valuable in revealing his thinking about vital issues of the era, particularly leading up to the Civil War. Meanwhile, the Sherman family continued to grow. He wrote Turner that the increase was coming “at an awful rate.” William Ewing Sherman, “a boy of the reddest kind,” who became known as Willie, was born on June 8, 1854. Sherman was pleased to have a son, and Willie seemingly became his favorite child, but the financial responsibilities worried him. If raising the boy “takes as much money in proportion as his birth, with doctors, nurses and church fees,” he confided to Turner, “I might as well forego the dream I often conjure up of living in St. Louis with a small and certain income.” A fourth child, who would be christened Thomas Ewing Sherman, was also born while he and Ellen resided in California.31
The couple was spending considerably more money than Sherman was making, which predictably became a source of tension between husband and wife. According to Ellen, in a letter to her mother on November 24, 1854, “our expenses this year have been one third more than double [Cump’s] salary. . . . Were we to live any more economically than we do, we would be considered mean. But I drop the subject in deep disgust.” Compared with most people, Sherman and Ellen actually were living well, but undoubtedly not within their income.32
Ellen expressed part of the reason they were overextended: “We must keep up a certain degree of respectability (I hate that word) and be prepared to entertain company, at least in a social way.” Sherman would have agreed that a successful banker should appear comfortable financially, as well as stable and conservative. He believed though that the economic problems were compounded because, as he wrote Turner, “Mrs. Sherman [he always referred to Ellen as Mrs. Sherman when writing Turner] is utterly deaf to all ideas of economy, not extravagant, but not caring for money where the children are concerned. You can see the difference.” Insufficient funds would plague the couple through all their California days.33
Ellen’s desire to return to Ohio for a visit with her parents and Minnie also became a sore point, impacting their financial troubles. She wanted to take the children with her when she made the journey. However, Ellen said that Cump insisted upon Lizzie and Willie’s remaining in California. His point of view was that the young children should not be subjected to such a hard and dangerous trip. Willie was not even a year old. Sherman said that Ellen could go to her parents for a long visit, but not with the children—unless she agreed to stay in Ohio with them indefinitely, while he tried to improve the family’s financial position. Possibly he hoped to persuade Ellen to remain in California by denying permission for the children to make the trip.
In mid-December 1854, Sherman wrote Ellen’s brother, Hugh Boyle Ewing, with whom he enjoyed a close relationship and could speak freely. “Ellen still proposes to go home in April,” he told Hugh, “but I think with you that it is positive cruelty to take the children back and forth on so long a voyage and journey.” He then claimed that Ellen would be willing to leave them with him in San Francisco while she made the trip, except for the interference of her parents. “Every letter she has from her mother, and your father too,” he told Hugh, “advises her to bring them along. I can not yet tell what will be done, but,” he cynically declared, “I can have the satisfaction of knowing that in any alternative the blame falls on me.”34
Two days before Christmas, Sherman penned a very revealing letter to Turner. After summarizing banking business, he turned to personal matters. “I can not confide to Mrs. Sherman the fact that I am not saving money,” he wrote. Clearly Mrs. Sherman, judging from that November letter to her mother, knew more about their finances than her husband thought—or was willing to tell Turner. Even with his recent dividend, Sherman said he owed as much money as his house and furniture were worth. Then he stated that he wanted Ellen to take the children to Ohio, and stay there, while he saved some money; “but I can not say a word about economy,” he wrote, without Ellen declaring that she would rather see him living on a farm in the east, “barely subsisting my family than [to be in California].”
As for Ellen’s trip to Ohio, he told Turner that she planned to go in April, leaving the children with him, and “thus imposing on me the double charges of maintaining a family here, and paying her expenses to and from Ohio.” What the result would be, Sherman acknowledged that he could not predict, but asserted “that ladies, when their children or parents are concerned, are as blind to reason as mad bulls.” He did admit, in another letter to Turner, that the wreck of the Yankee Blade off Santa Barbara in the fall of 1854 had a powerful impact on Ellen, greatly increasing her fear of the sea. More than thirty passengers drowned when the ship crashed on a reef, including some ladies whom Ellen knew. “She now talks of leaving the children with me,” wrote Sherman, “so as only to risk her own life.”35
BY LATE 1854, simultaneous with Sherman’s growing personal financial problems and family issues, “the Wall Street of San Francisco” showed disconcerting signs that the bears were massing to challenge the bulls. Several stock companies failed, merchants recorded declining sales and Sherman detected a “steady depreciation of real estate.” How soon he realized that he was facing a full-scale recession is impossible to determine. At least by mid-January of 1855 he must have seen the situation rather clearly. He wrote Turner, listing a number of businesses that had failed, some of which owed the bank money. He proclaimed that all the men “who swore . . . that California land produces ten times as much as any other land” had ended up broke. Nothing in California, in Sherman’s judgment, was substantial except the gold mines.36
Sherman’s consistently good instincts, and perceptions of human character, did result in significantly limiting the bank’s losses in a sensational scandal, entitled by Sherman “the great Meiggs failure, swindle, forgery and flight.” Henry A. (Honest Harry) Meiggs was a lumber merchant and sawmill operator, participating in various speculative undertakings, for which he often borrowed large amounts of money. Benjamin Nisbet, Sherman’s chief clerk, had full confidence in the man—according to Sherman. It should be noted that six months later, in a “Confidential” letter replying to a query from Turner, Sherman said that Nisbet had no respect for years, superior education, or anything except money, and was friendly with only prosperous people. Nisbet easily fell under the spell of Meiggs. As for Sherman, “for some reason,” which he apparently found vague and difficult to analyze, “I feared or mistrusted [Meiggs] and . . . cautioned Nisbet not to extend his credit.” As Sherman reflected upon the fact that Meiggs owed his firm about $80,000, maintained bank accounts in other institutions and was “generally a borrower,” he determined to restrict his total loan amount to $25,000.37
Shortly after Sherman decided to contract his credit, Meiggs appeared in quest of another $20,000, reportedly for a business of his in Mendocino, which was, Sherman sarcastically noted, “based upon calculations that could not fail.” Sherman listened to the man’s arguments but renewed his decision to limit Meiggs’s credit. How fortunate that he did, successfully demanding that Meiggs make arrangements at once to pay the remainder that he owed. Soon afterward, Meiggs and his family stole away, sailing for South America and leaving debts of well over $800,000. Compared with others, Sherman’s loss was minimal. He took possession of Meiggs’s house and some other property for which the bank held a mortgage, and reported to Turner that he did not hold any forged paper, of which Meiggs was responsible for nearly half a million. Sherman had come out better than any other banker doing business with “Honest Harry.” James Reilly, one of Sherman’s tellers, was among the many duped by the swindler, and “lost his all,” said Sherman—a sum of about $1,500. Sherman considered the episode a disaster for the city, which began “a series of failures in San Francisco, that extended through the next two years.”38
As the new year of 1855 came in, despite the deteriorating local economy, Sherman decided to build a new house. He knew that Ellen did not care for the place they had bought soon after their arrival. Probably he thought a new and larger home, in a more desirable section of the city, might help his wife be content in California; and in any case would be a better investment of their money. The cost, for lot and house, came to $10,000. In mid-February, Ellen wrote her mother about the project, conveying a generally positive attitude: “Cump has bought a large lot in a retired, pleasant (comparatively) part of the city, where he is having a large house built.” She said they would have a well, a stable and a carriage house; keep a cow, a horse and chickens. There would be flower beds, and a more secure yard in which the children could play. She believed the family would be “more comfortable and have more room indoors and out.”39
Two days after Ellen penned that letter to Maria Ewing, Sherman’s bank faced a major crisis. The financial storm was not totally without warning, although the timing came as a surprise. Years later, Sherman wrote that during the winter of 1854–1855, he received “frequent intimations” in letters from the partners in Missouri “that the [St. Louis] bank of Page, Bacon & Company was in trouble.” The difficulties grew out of the bank’s relationship to the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad. Having advanced large sums of money to the line’s contractors, the bank became seriously overextended. Still, in California, Page, Bacon remained the most prominent banking house in the state, and nobody on the West Coast, remembered Sherman, “doubted their wealth and stability.” Then came the shocking news from the east.40
On Saturday, February 17, the mail steamer Oregon was approaching the San Francisco wharves, when a man on board yelled out to an acquaintance ashore, saying that Page, Bacon & Company of St. Louis had failed! The word spread like wildfire, inaugurating a steady run on the San Francisco branch of the company, which forced it under by the latter part of the following week. One of the Page, Bacon partners, a man named Henry Haight, took to drinking heavily during the crisis, according to Sherman, and proclaimed in the presence of several bankers and investors, including Sherman, that “all the banks [in San Francisco] would break.”41
Haight’s prophecy of doom was bruited about, supplying yet more fuel to the financial fires. Every bank in the city faced high withdrawals. The climax came on February 23, long to be remembered in San Francisco as “Black Friday.” The condition of Lucas, Turner & Company was strong, thanks to Sherman’s careful, conservative practices. His deposit account was approximately $600,000, “and we had in our vault about five hundred thousand dollars in coin and bullion, besides an equal amount of good bills receivable.” According to his calculations, he could meet nearly all of the bank’s obligations, and also raise additional money from friends and supporters if worse came to worst—and indeed, as Wellington famously remarked of Waterloo, the crisis did become “a damn near run thing.”42
When Sherman reached the bank early that Friday morning, he was “thunderstruck to see the crowd and tumult.” Bad news reigned. Adams & Company did not open; nor did Wells, Fargo & Company. Robinson & Wright Savings closed soon after opening. Rumors ran rife that every bank in the city would fail. Many of Sherman’s depositors were bent on withdrawing their money. He confidently told them that “what others are doing, we know not,” but Lucas, Turner & Company would not break, and any customer feeling nervous about his money was welcome to withdraw it. By noon the bank had paid out $337,000 in cash.43
The run continued through the afternoon. Sherman worked to reassure customers that the bank was sound, and he was grateful that “several gentlemen of my personal acquaintance merely asked my word of honor that their money was safe, and went away.” Others, who had large accounts, were willing to accept gold bars rather than coin, which proved very helpful. Still other customers made modest deposits, and “rather ostentatiously,” reported Sherman, actions calculated to engender confidence. Yet he afterward admitted that things looked bad in late afternoon, shortly before closing—thankfully having persevered until the usual closing time.44
When Sherman left the bank that evening, he “resolved not to sleep until I had collected from those owing the bank a part of their debts.” A few men were immediately able to assist, while others promised to make partial payment on their debt the next morning. The greatest single boost came from Richard P. Hammond, a West Point contemporary of Sherman who had served with distinction in the Mexican War, afterward resigning from the army with the brevet rank of major. Hammond made $40,000 available for the emergency if necessary—far more than Sherman had suggested—with the understanding that Hammond would get the money back no later than March 1. Some other army customers also helped out. The loyalty of army friends in the crisis left a deep impression on Sherman, all the more confirming his faith in the superiority and camaraderie of men who had experienced a West Point education.45
When Lucas, Turner & Company opened for business on Saturday morning, February 24, Sherman’s apprehensions of a continuing run on the bank thankfully did not materialize. On the contrary, money began to come back on deposit, and by closing time he had seen a considerable increase. Instead of an exciting day, it had been one of absolute calm. At last Sherman could relax. He recalled that for an entire week he had hardly slept, not because of asthma, as he wrote Turner, but from “a rigid distraction of nerve, mind and body.”46
Sherman had survived a major financial challenge, in which seven of San Francisco’s nineteen banks failed. The reputation of Lucas, Turner & Company rose dramatically; it was now considered by many citizens to be the strongest bank in the city. Sherman justifiably took satisfaction in the triumph. Once again, as when he faced hostile Indians in Florida, disaster at sea or deserting troops in California, he remained calm, thought clearly and acted decisively. He also came away from the crisis with little or no respect for some of the city’s leading bankers and businessmen. Page, Bacon & Company’s Haight had lost his nerve. Sherman already thought Dr. Stephen A. Wright of Robinson & Wright, “an ass to have spent $147,000 for a [banking] house in these days [late 1854].” He said, too, that he would not forget the selfishness of Wells, Fargo & Company, “in leaving us to bear the brunt of a panic in part created by them.”47
Ellen proudly penned a letter to her father, informing him of the banking crisis and detailing how Sherman’s firm withstood the pressure. The popularity of Lucas, Turner & Company “cannot henceforth be questioned,” she announced. Writing to her mother, she said Cump was “very much delighted to have so triumphed over many who really wished to see [the business] come down with themselves.” The entire community had witnessed the strength of Sherman’s bank on a day possessing “all the bustle and excitement of a battle.” Sherman himself sometimes spoke of “the Battle of the 23rd of February.”48
Although Ellen admired her husband’s achievement in successfully facing the financial crisis, she actually did confess to him that she would have liked to see the bank fail. Ellen believed if that had happened, he “would have gone home”—obviously meaning Ohio, or at least somewhere back east. To say that Sherman was not pleased by Ellen’s attitude is an understatement—all the more as her feelings were revealed while he was still celebrating his hard-won victory.49
In early March Sherman hosted a dinner party for all the bank employees, in recognition and appreciation of their extra and demanding work during the crisis. Shortly after, he fell ill. For several days he remained at home “suffering greatly,” in Ellen’s words, “from a severe attack of his disease [undoubtedly meaning asthma], aggravated by cold and inflamation of the lungs.” The doctor applied “a great many remedies,” wrote Ellen, “but nothing gave him so much relief as copious cupping on the back.” In this procedure the administrator forms the fingers of each hand like a cup and, rapidly alternating, beats on the patient’s back to help loosen the buildup of mucus.50
Meanwhile, arrangements had been made for friends, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel M. Bowman, to move in with Sherman and the children while Ellen made the long trip to Ohio. In early April the new house was finished, the Shermans occupied it at once, soon joined by the Bowmans, and on April 17, Ellen sailed for New York aboard the steamer Golden Age. Shortly before leaving, she had told Maria that the children “will have the care of a mother and Cump will have a comfortable house and so I can remain with you quite a long time if they keep well.”51
Ellen soon had more reason than ever to fear the sea. Drawing within a day’s distance of Panama on a moonlit night and running at full speed, the Golden Age struck a sunken reef, ripping out a piece of the hull. At once the ship began to fill with water. Fortunately Commodore J. T. Watkins was on deck and immediately turned the bow of his vessel straight for a nearby island. “The water rose rapidly in the hold,” as Sherman described the scene, based upon Ellen’s recollections. “The passengers were all assembled, fearful of going down; the fires [were soon smothered] out, . . . and when her bow touched gently on the beach, . . . the vessel’s stern [quickly slipped below the water].” If the Golden Age had sunk in midchannel, most of the thousand passengers aboard probably would have drowned. Having averted disaster, Ellen continued her journey aboard the John L. Stevens, reaching New York without further incident.52
When Sherman learned of the Golden Age wreck, he was greatly relieved by the news that no loss of life had occurred. He and Ellen had some serious issues between them, but each genuinely cared for the other, and during the seven months while they were separated, they wrote frequently. While she was away, Sherman immersed himself in managing the bank, as well as other concerns. Improving transportation in California was becoming a priority, and with Turner’s approval Sherman subscribed on behalf of Lucas, Turner & Company to the construction of the Sacramento Valley Railroad. This was a line laying track eastward from Sacramento. It was the first railroad built in California. Sherman became vice president of the company and was offered the presidency, but declined. Twenty-two miles of track were laid, which eventually became part of the Central Pacific Railroad, the first transcontinental line.53
Sherman also chaired a committee advocating that Congress should authorize the construction of an overland wagon road to link California with the east. He thought that the time for “the Great National Rail Road has not yet come,” but a “good wagon road is very timely.” Its cost would be relatively small compared with the benefits. Instructing his congressman brother John, Sherman wrote: “Advocate the Wagon Road with all the force you possess, and you will do a good thing.” He declared that California, “independent of gold,” was of immense value to the Union because it afforded “so good a harbor and point of commerce from which we can trade with the Pacific Islands, with Mexico and the Asiatic Continent.”54
In the meantime San Francisco’s dull economy continued its decline. Sherman was definitely bearish when he wrote to Hugh Boyle Ewing in late June 1855. San Francisco had “grown too fast. Men got rich too fast, and now are tumbling back into their proper ranks quite as fast.” Times were not likely to be “as profitable as before.” Sherman gave his foster brother the power of attorney to manage his St. Louis property, which he was instructed to lease, either for a term of years, or from month to month. The only limit, Sherman stated, was a period of six years, for then “if I live, I may want to enter in possession myself.” He was not expecting “much revenue” from the property, “but still everything helps,” he wrote, because “my expenses here are necessarily so heavy that my idea of fortune dwindles each year . . . [in] this uncertain country.”55
As for the children, Sherman told Hugh Ewing that “Lizzie & Willie are pictures of health, & good specimens of young America.” Later he wrote that “Willy [spelling change by Sherman] & Lizzie are developing fast and will [bring] no discredit on the family either in appearance or intellect.” Even if working hard, and often through the night before the departure of a steamer carrying mail east for his parent firm, Sherman was also spending a lot of time with the children. Perhaps he was more motivated to enjoy their company when he thought of Minnie, growing up in Ohio “an utter stranger to me,” as he had told Hugh some months earlier.56
When Ellen returned to San Francisco late in 1855, although without Minnie of course, Sherman was pleased to see her. He hoped that the long visit in Ohio might engender a more favorable attitude toward remaining in California. That hope was forlorn, and probably predictable. In the weeks following her return from the east, Ellen seemed to become ever more discontent in San Francisco. She “is hostile beyond measure to California and my remaining here,” he told Turner. He wrote Ellen’s brother that her “persistent hostility to California” forced him to turn his thoughts to the east, “but always with the determination to stay here at the least four years yet.” His wife’s negativity toward the Golden State, added to the demands of his work at the bank, made Sherman’s life unpleasant, and he also thought, affected his health.57
Fundamentally, Sherman and Ellen each desired the other to be something that they either did not wish to be, or were simply incapable of being. That impasse always haunted their marriage, but never more persistently than during the California years. As fate would have it, 1856 became the last full year the couple lived in San Francisco, although neither expected it at the beginning. Sherman remained resolved, as the new year came in, to fulfill his “enlistment,” as he frequently referenced his banking commitment.
ABOVE ALL 1856 would be remembered in San Francisco, as the year of the Vigilantes. Five years earlier, vigilantes had made their appearance as frightened citizens briefly took the law into their own hands. In the spring of 1856 they came back with a vengeance. San Francisco, without question, was a corrupt, volatile, and dangerous city, in which many men spoke and wrote in fiery, intemperate language. Verbal personal attacks, hair-trigger tempers, bullying tactics and exaggerated notions of honor were all too common. A potentially explosive milieu had been created, and it suddenly erupted in frightening, violent lawlessness.
Two sensational killings in May aroused public emotions to a fever pitch. A man by the name of Charles Cora, considered by Sherman a “scoundrel,” killed William H. Richardson, a United States marshal. Sherman said in a letter to John that a lot of people believed Cora was “compelled to kill Richardson, or be killed himself.” Even more alarming was the shooting of a man with the memorable name of James King of William, a popular editorial writer for San Francisco’s Daily Evening Bulletin. A fearless enemy of corrupt politicians and criminals, he was shot on the street with a revolver, at close range, by James P. Casey, editor of the city’s Sunday Times. King and Casey had been at odds for months. This time Casey became enraged upon reading King’s documented assertion that Casey had once served time in New York’s Sing Sing Prison. Casey shot King on the same day that the offending piece was published.58
Sherman knew both men. He strongly disliked Casey, saying he had “recklessly attacked all the bankers and decent people of this city” at the time of the Black Friday crisis. For a while Casey’s printing office had been located in Sherman’s bank building. If the editor had not moved, Sherman claimed that he had been ready to chuck him and his press out of the window. Casey’s victim did not die immediately, lingering for the better part of a week, while public excitement escalated. The old Vigilance Committee was revived, with followers soon numbering several thousand. Casey had joined Charles Cora in the city jail, where the sheriff and his relatively small posse feared that the Vigilantes would surely storm the place if King died. Sherman did not want to become involved, but everyone knew about his army background, and the governor of California, J. Neely Johnson, had recently persuaded him to accept a commission as major general of the Second Division of Militia, embracing San Francisco—a decision that Sherman made with considerable reluctance and regretted almost immediately.59
The San Francisco sheriff and his deputies sought Sherman’s advice about defending the jail. He concluded that the jail itself was “utterly indefensible.” Only by occupying specific buildings around the jail might one possibly conduct a successful defense. However, it was too late for this move because the Vigilantes had taken control of those sites. The sheriff faced a hopeless situation if the Vigilantes came for the prisoners. And soon they did, not waiting to see whether or not King would recover. Masses of people, Sherman thought “at least ten thousand,” moved toward the jail as he and a few other men watched from the roof of a nearby structure. The governor’s recent declaration that California had matured beyond resorting to mobs and vigilance committees might as well have never been uttered. Rather than sacrifice himself and his handful of supporters, the sheriff surrendered his prisoners under protest.60
Sherman fittingly alluded to the French Revolution as he wrote Turner, declaring that “all the elements of the Paris Committee of [Public] Safety are here and once put in motion, they can not be stopped.” The Vigilance Committee’s deliberations were in secret and nobody knew what they might do. On May 20, King worsened and breathed his last breath. The committee, claiming to have fairly tried Casey and Cora, then hanged both men. Soon it was obvious that the committee had no intention of surrendering power. Sherman proposed, Ellen informed her mother, that she should go back to Ohio.”61
Maria and Thomas Ewing fully agreed. Sherman had written a long letter to Mr. Ewing, fully detailing the lawless situation. “It was most shocking,” Maria told her daughter, but she “rejoiced in the prospect of your return to your home.” She believed that surely, “if such a terrible state of things are to continue to exist, if the city is to be governed by Mob law and Lynching, Mr. Sherman will be willing to give up the Country and return to his home.” Maria added that “if your Pa gets home this evening he will write you a long letter in which, he said (before he left for Cincinnati), he will urge you to return home as soon as possible.”62
But for once Ellen was not interested in returning to Ohio. She felt a strong sense of loyalty to her husband in such a difficult time, and she was incensed by the wanton violence of the Vigilantes. Aware that both Casey and Cora were Catholic, Ellen viewed the Vigilantes, initially at least, as a political movement, motivated “by the Know-Nothing spirit.” She had little sympathy for King, claiming that he had dealt in “false and gross personal abuse” of a Catholic priest, and “goaded this poor Casey on to madness and he shot him.” Ellen openly condemned Vigilante actions, considered them guilty of treason and was convinced, like Sherman, that their blatant takeover of San Francisco was destroying the prosperity of the city.63
The Vigilantes did possess their fair share of Know-Nothings, but they drew heavily from the entire political spectrum. Also, while counting a host of rowdies among their followers, the Vigilantes acquired, deplorably, many of “the best people” in San Francisco. In fact, a substantial number of the prosperous, and allegedly responsible people of the city were among the leaders of the movement. Ellen was appalled, as well she might be, and declared it “disgraceful” that most of the city’s preachers supported the Vigilantes. She did note “a few honorable exceptions,” particularly mentioning the minister of the largest Presbyterian church in the city, who stood in defiance of “prominent” Vigilantes who were members of his congregation.64
Sherman grew more apprehensive by the day, worried about how the bank was being affected. When in early June the governor declared that San Francisco was in a state of insurrection and called upon Sherman to assemble the militia the response was minimal, and the pro-Vigilante press mocked Sherman. When he next learned that Brigadier General John Wool, whom Sherman believed had promised arms and ammunition for the militia, was not sending them—claiming that he never made such a commitment—Sherman resigned his militia commission. Only with reluctance had he accepted it in the first place, and now the mission appeared hopeless. Sherman continued to suffer criticism at the hands of the press, but at least he could once again devote his energy totally to business.65
Throughout June and into July Vigilante rule continued unabated. On July 7, Sherman wrote John, “The Vigilance Committee is in full blast . . . has Judge Terry in their power, and had the man Hopkins died, they would have hung him. . . . Where the matter is to end I cannot imagine.” He referred to Judge David S. Terry, a native of Kentucky, former Texas Ranger and lawyer who had been elected to the California Supreme Court. Terry became involved in a brawl with Sterling A. Hopkins, a Know-Nothing member of the Vigilance Committee, who had served as the executioner of Casey and Cora. Terry stabbed Hopkins with a knife, and faced some danger of being immediately hanged. He spent about two months in prison, probably surviving, as Sherman noted, only because Hopkins recovered from his wound. (Terry later participated in California’s most famous duel, in which he killed U.S. Senator David C. Broderick, in 1859.)66
Sherman told his brother that since resigning his militia commission he had “kept purposely aloof from all parties.” Being in a business “where large interests are at stake,” he felt that he must act with prudence and discretion. Writing to John again in early August, he indicated that the Vigilantes were still in full control. “For three months we have been governed by a self-constituted committee,” he declared, “who have hung four men, banished some twenty others, arrested, imprisoned and ironed many men, and who [still] hold a judge of the Supreme Court in their power.” He admitted that the city had previously suffered from “a bad administration of law, and more than a fair share of rowdies,” but he thought the Vigilance Committee was no better, “and if we are to be governed by the mere opinion of the Committee and not by officers of our own choice, I would prefer at once to have a dictator.”67
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MORE THAN two thousand miles away to the east, the nation experienced another sensational, violent episode, which coincided with the hanging of Casey and Cora. This occurred in Washington, D.C., in the chamber of the United States Senate, the startling and unsettling event garnered far greater national publicity than the actions of the California Vigilantes. On May 20, Senator Charles Sumner, in a virile, abusive, impassioned presentation on the floor of the Senate, inveighed at length against the South, slavery and lawlessness in Kansas, which he scathingly blamed upon those who promoted the expansion of the “peculiar institution.” The speech became famously, and many thought infamously, known as “the Crime Against Kansas.” Senators generally, Northern as well as Southern, considered the vituperative oration, in the words of historian David Potter, as “almost uniquely offensive.”
Its effect upon Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina proved maddening. Brooks was angered by Sumner’s sneering censure of his aged uncle, Senator Andrew Pickens Butler, also from South Carolina. Sumner, in incredibly bad taste, mocked Butler’s “loose expectoration” of speech, while likening the elderly man to Don Quixote and his fixation upon Dulcinea in choosing a “mistress,” polluted in the world’s eyes, “but chaste in his sight—I mean the harlot Slavery.” Brooks determined that he must “avenge” his kinsman. Knowing that Sumner would not accept a challenge to a duel, he attacked Sumner while he worked at his Senate desk, beating the abolitionist over the head with a cane until he lost consciousness. Many who initially disapproved of Sumner’s speech tended to be sympathetic after Brooks attacked him. The state of Massachusetts chose not to replace Sumner, but waited for him to recover sufficiently to resume work, thus leaving his Senate seat vacant for the next three years—a constant reminder in the nation’s Capitol of a Southern congressman’s hotheaded violence and the emotional explosiveness that had become inextricably associated with the issue of slavery.
Two days after the shock of the Sumner-Brooks affair, John Brown, fancying himself an avenging angel of Jehovah with a divine mission to strike a blow against slavery on the plains of Kansas, led an attack upon proslavery settlers at a site called Pottawatomie. Allegedly in revenge for the recent attack on the free-state town of Lawrence, Brown and his followers dragged five men from their houses, killed them and with broadswords mutilated the bodies of their victims—who in fact had nothing to do with the raid on Lawrence. Violence in “Bleeding Kansas” continued to escalate. Free-state advocates soon retaliated. In a small-scale pitched battle, several people died on each side, including one of Brown’s sons. By the end of 1856, Kansas had seen about 200 people killed and $2 million in property destroyed.68
Sherman read of these momentous events in the newspapers arriving from the east, as well as in letters from Turner and his brother John. (John Sherman was in Westport, Missouri, along with two other congressmen, conducting a fact-finding investigation of conditions in Kansas, at the time of the Pottawatomie massacre.) Writing to John on August 19, 1856, Sherman was strikingly prophetic: “I am sorry the South did not avail herself of the chance to show her independence of the nigger question by voting for the expulsion of Brooks,” he declared, “but it seems now that every question is determined not on its merits, but on the nigger question. Unless people both North and South learn more moderation, we will see sights in the way of Civil War.” He concluded by observing: “Of course the North have the strength and must prevail, though the . . . South could and would be desperate enough.”69