Worth Its Weight in Gold: Californian Benevolence and Respectability during the Civil War

ECW welcomes guest author Louisa R. Brandt

Lockeford’s Soldiers’ Aid Society gathered for their monthly meeting at Temperance Hall in early February 1865. This small community in San Joaquin County, California had launched its formal benevolent efforts only a few months earlier in November 1864, but its members’ dedication to the Union had already gained attention at the headquarters of California’s United States Sanitary Commission (USSC or “Sanitary Fund”) in San Francisco. At this meeting, Dr. Dean Locke, the town’s founder and secretary of the Soldiers’ Aid Society, read a letter sent to Lockeford from O.C. Wheeler, the state’s USSC secretary. Wheeler thanked Lockeford for its worthy “list of subscribers.” He also commended Delia Hammond Locke, Dr. Locke’s wife and secretary of the ladies’ wing of the organization, “hoping that the success of your efforts may equal the patriotic impulses of your heart.” The balance of the evening concerned the important, though theoretical, issue of whether Confederate prisoners should receive medical aid from USSC officials, before turning to the wholesome activities of “singing, reading, auction sale of pinballs, refreshments and a short game” enjoyed by all ages.^[1] Delia noted this gathering raised $10.75 – equivalent to $200 today.^[2]

The financial contributions from Lockeford were a drop in the bucket of the thousands of dollars that Californians gave to the USSC during the Civil War. In total, $1.2 million – nearly one-quarter of the Sanitary Fund’s fundraising – came from the Golden State, which is astonishing considering that the newly admitted state held only one-hundredth of the nation’s population and was almost 3,000 miles distant from the horrors of the war.^[3] According to an 1866 history by the organization’s national secretary, Charles Stillé, California’s first check for the shocking sum of $100,000 was “the making and saving” of the USSC.^[4] The efforts that went into Lockeford’s meetings, however, were representative of what I call “donation culture,” which encompasses not just the amount of philanthropic giving, but the social, cultural, and political ramifications of contributing money, organizing, and participating in functions.

Donating money also combated negative Eastern perceptions of the state as the home of greedy men abandoning civic responsibility established with the Gold Rush. In 1855, essayist Henry David Thoreau charged that those who left for California “were ready to live by luck…without contributing anything to society!”[5] Civil War USSC donations could help dispel this image by displaying generosity. Also, white women’s centrality to putting on USSC events furthered the impression that California was less wild than during the male-dominated Gold Rush years. While ostensibly just nights of dance and song, festivals to raise money for the Sanitary Fund served the purposes of strengthening the distant state’s connection with the Union cause, particularly when faced with competing events from Confederate sympathizers and proving California’s maturation from a reckless western frontier into a respectable and equal member of the nation.

Both genders actively planned and partook in Unionist festivities where dancing, singing, and eating often lasted into the early hours of the morning. Advertisements, such as one on December 3, 1864 for a “Sanitary Festival and Ball” in the towns (whose names harkened back to the Gold Rush) of French Gulch, Whiskeytown, and Tower House, Shasta County, presented these dances as tasteful indoor gatherings attended by a balanced number of well-dressed men and women.^[6] These balls were also occasions to present an elaborate national flag to newly enlisted volunteer soldiers, providing a physical reminder of the men’s California roots as well as the intense patriotism and dedication of those who labored over it. When the ladies of Susanville, Lassen County “purchased a very handsome banner” for their local Honey Lake Rangers militia, 23-year-old Augusta Garcelon was “selected to make the presentation speech.” Her sister, Lydia Steward, reported to their parents in Maine that the occasion was followed by a ball which was to be “a nice affair” appropriate for unmarried Augusta.^[7] This “nice affair” contrasted with the suspiciously amoral affairs of racially and sexually loose fandangos of the 1850s and was instead emblematic of the state’s entry into polite society that fostered patriotism, not vice, amongst Californians.^[8]

As Union communities came together, openly soliciting for Confederate aid created controversy by threatening the political image and stability of the state. Even though their respectable activities like balls and fundraising closely resembled the donation efforts and purposes of their Unionist neighbors, expressions of Southern allegiance alarmed those loyal to the nation. Occasionally, Union and Confederate supporters held events concurrently. Most often this occurred in majority secessionist Visalia, Tulare County, which was such an unruly area that Federal authorities stationed Union soldiers in town to keep the population in check. For example, New Year 1863 began with two balls in town, one for the “rebels” and the other for “the military and republicans.”^[9]

More worrisome to Unionists than parties were secessionists’ attempts to send money eastwards through official channels to aid the Confederate Army. In 1864, Mary Crittenden Robinson of San Francisco and Mary Rhodes of Sacramento, both of whom had relatives fighting for the South, collected money and petitioned for a California Confederate relief aid association.^[10] First breaking in the pro-Union Marysville Daily Appeal, the paper reported that a “Jeff. Davis Missionar[y]” was canvassing the state and had collected $70,000.^[11] Rumor swirled that California’s top military commander sanctioned this behavior, and pro-secessionist newspapers rejoiced.^[12] San Francisco’s Republican Daily Alta California, however, expressed horror at the idea: “Public subscriptions in California, a loyal State, to a Rebel Sanitary Fund! Never!” ^[13]

Faced with a threat to how California’s contributions might be viewed, the Alta insisted on the deeply important meaning of military aid donations as not just a reflection of the donors’ munificence, but of the state’s political stance. Because the USSC funded medical supplies and services to wounded soldiers, the paper wrote that “a Sanitary Fund is not simply a charity; it is also a great aid to the treasury, a great encouragement to the soldiery, a great strengthening to the army. To allow the collection of a rebel sanitary fund here would be lending decided aid and comfort to the traitors.” ^[14] The claim that Sanitary Fund donations were more meaningful than “simple” benevolence shows that their impact went beyond their monetary value to reflect the loyalties of the donors. Fundraising for the Confederacy would be an admission of California’s mixed allegiances and the inability of the state to control its population, echoing the days of Gold Rush disorder. The Alta went so far as to hope that “a prison door is open[ed] for [Mrs. Robinson] the moment that she opens her lips in this State about a rebel sanitary fund.”^[15] The least California’s military and civic officials could do for the Union was to prevent tangible aid from going to the enemy. More than just frivolous diversions, donation culture could be a tense arena that tested the dedication of participants to police social order.

California’s donation culture during the Civil War served as the state’s finishing school. Whereas Californians had been regarded as irresponsible for having left the East behind, these years offered a crucial moment to publicly show their awareness and interest in being dependable citizens. Reporting and writing about these functions in-state also were ways to assert and argue over claims to community respectability. As Unionists directed their wealth and leisure hours towards expressing political awareness, they also defended the loyalty of the state. Californians’ gold sent to the Sanitary Fund and the strong degree of civic engagement expressed that this far Western state was politically and morally tethered to the Union. Indeed, USSC Secretary Stillé affirmed that because of these donations, “California took her place in the National ranks…as lustrous as the brightest in the glorious sisterhood of stars that were ever dimmed by treason.”^[16]

Louisa R. Brandt is a PhD candidate in history at the University of California, Davis studying the political and cultural ramifications of the Civil War in California. She earned her Master’s in history at the University of Oklahoma in 2020 where she was also an editorial fellow with the Western Historical Quarterly.

[1] Soldiers’ Aid Society of Lockeford minutes, February 9, 1865, 1864-1865, Box 2, Lockeford Charitable and Temperance Organizations, 1860-1895, MS 112, University of the Pacific, Stockton; O.C. Wheeler to Delia Locke, San Francisco, January 9,1865, Box 2.

[2] Diary 1862-1866, February 9, 1865, Delia Locke diary, University of the Pacific, digitized. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/dld-all/

[3] Charles J. Stillé, History of the United States Sanitary Commission Being a General Report of its Work during the War of the Rebellion (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1866), 541. The exact amount was $1,234,257.31. California also sent millions of dollars in gold bullion to Union coffers.

[4] Ibid., 197-201.

[5] Henry David Thoreau, Life Without Principle (1863, repr. London: Arthur C. Fifield, 1905), 13-4. Published posthumously -the speech is from 1855.

[6] “Sanitary Festival and Ball at Tower House,” Shasta Courier, December 3, 1864.

[7] Lydia Steward to Parents [Harris and Eliza Garcelon], Susanville, January 26, 1865, Garcelon-Steward family correspondence, 1849-1876, BANC MSS 86/180c, Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley.

[8] On Gold Rush culture, see Susan Lee Johnson, Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2000).

[9] “The Two Balls,” Equal Rights Expositor [Visalia], January 2, 1863.

[10] Robert Joseph Chandler, “The Press and Civil Liberties in California during the Civil War, 1861-1865” (PhD diss., history, UC Riverside, 1978), 275-7.

[11] “Rebel Emissaries,” Marysville Daily Appeal, March 3, 1864.

[12] “Demonized,” Sonoma Democrat, June 11, 1864.

[13] “California Subscriptions to a Rebel Sanitary Fund,” Daily Alta California [San Francisco], June 6, 1864.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Stillé, History of the United States Sanitary Commission, 211-2.