Transcript Reconstruction and Bozeman, MT - Montana Council for History and

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 Rebel
Now that’s just what I am
And I don’t want no pardon
For anything I done.
I hates the Constitution
This Great Republic too,
I hate the Freedman’s Bureau
In 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 Yankees
Is stiff in Southern dust;
We got three hundred thousand
Before they conquered us;
They died of Southern Fever
and Southern steel and shot
I wish they was three million
Instead 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 pardon
For what I was and am,
I won’t be reconstructed
And I don’t care a damn.
Questions for Consideration:
To what extent was late nineteenthcentury 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 have
nothing 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 equal
share 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
nineteenthcentury
Bozeman a
reflection of
Reconstruction
attitudes?
Which
vision for
America
was most
pronounced
in Bozeman
between
1864 and
1889?