Category: California

6/21/2022 0 Comments

The Janitor, the Abolitionists, and the Phonebook

Years ago, I discovered the value of the information presented in a phonebook.[1] While working on my next novel, I rediscovered the value when I found an 1865 San Francisco directory. Of course, it didn’t include phone numbers, but it did include residents’ names and addresses. It also included the resident’s job and annotated whether the person was colored. The latter was helpful in my search for an 1865 San Francisco hotel that served African-Americans.
In the 1865 directory, I noticed the name Barney Fletcher several times associated with colored organizations in the yellow pages.[2] His name kept popping up.[3] According to the directory, Barney Fletcher was an African-American janitor at San Francisco’s Exchange Building in the 1860s. He also served as a trustee at the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, Vice-President of the California Contraband Relief Association, Secretary of (Masonic) Hannibal Lodge No. 1, Secretary of the Ladies Union Beneficial Society (Colored; aid sick members), and President of the Young Men’s Union Beneficial Society (Col’d; aid sick members).
The AME Church has long been associated with the 19th century abolitionist movement and the name “Contraband Relief Association” speaks for itself. I wondered if Barney Fletcher was a black abolitionist. I needed to look beyond the directory. Looking at the names of Barney’s fellow organization officers, I discovered that Barney ran with the San Francisco’s prominent black abolitionists, including

T.M.D. Ward, pastor, AME Church (the first African-American church in San Francisco).
J. (James) Madison Bell, renowned African-American poet that wrote about slavery.[4]

According to one report, Barney and his brother were slaves in Maryland.[5] Despite this single source, it is reasonable to assume that Barney, as well as most of the 2,100 colored males and females in San Francisco in 1865, were former slaves.[6] By 1850, Barney and his brother George were freemen in California. Maybe they were among the handful of black gold miners—that’s speculation. We know that they helped establish the first AME Church in California—in Sacramento. Barney preached to the congregation of early black settlers.[7] In 1854, Barney left Sacramento to establish an AME Church in San Francisco.[8] George remained in Sacramento where he served as the pastor of the Bethel AME Church.
Barney also served briefly as the pastor of the AME church in Oakland in 1862.[9] One report indicated that Barney was associated with the Sacramento Zouaves formed in 1863 in San Francisco; there first public event occurred on January 1, 1868 in San Francisco.[10] Barney actively sought to improve the education of black children and participated in California’s colored conventions.[11]
One could argue that Barney Fletcher was one of San Francisco’s prominent black activists during the city’s pioneer days. One can only wonder what else Barney would have accomplished if equal opportunities existed in California in the 19th century. --Mig

[1] Phonebook: a relic of the 20th century that contained names, addresses, and telephone numbers that was printed annually by telecommunication companies and distributed to their customers.
[2] Yellow pages: a section of antiquated phonebooks printed on yellow paper that listed businesses and other organizations.
[3] The San Francisco Directory 1865, pp. 179, 599, 606, 609, 611, and 613 (accessed May 22, 2022, https://archive.org/details/sanfranciscodire1865lang/page/179/mode/2up).
[4] The Poetical Works of James Madison Bell, p. 8, 1901, reaffirmed Bell’s association with Barnet Fletcher while Bell was in San Francisco between 1860 and 1865.
[5] Guy Washington, California Pioneers of African Descent, National Park Service, December 17, 2010, pp. 74-75 (accessed May 22, 2022, https://www.nps.gov/npgallery/GetAsset/a8faefce-d534-4728-9c47-0a4f291627af).
[6] The San Francisco Directory 1865, p. 12 presents an estimated “total permanent population of 110,100, of which 3,000 were Chinese and 2,100 (2%) were colored.
[7] Michael Stolp-Smith, “Saint Andrews African Methodist Episcopal Church, Sacramento, California,” March 16, 2010 (accessed 5/23/2022, https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/st-andrews-ame-church-1850).
[8] African American Citywide Historic Context Statement (draft), prepared for the City and County of San Francisco, January2016, p. 34 (accessed May 23, 2022, https://default.sfplanning.org/Preservation/african_american_HCS/AfricanAmericanHistoricContextStatement_Draft_Jan2016.pdf).
[9] Martha C. Taylor, From Labor to Reward, pp. 8 and 18, June 24, 2016 (accessed May 23, 2022, books.google.com).
[10] William Burg, “Black History in Sacramento Part 1” [video: 48:07-49:30], July 15, 2020 (accessed May 23, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaDXlvTR44s).
[11] “Call for a State Convention of the Colored Citizens of California,” The Elevator, July 14, 1865, p. 2 (accessed June 21, 2022, https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=EL18650714.2.8&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------1).

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5/10/2022 0 Comments

Don’t Piss Off the French

President Lincoln never said it, but that was what he was thinking. One objective of Lincoln’s foreign policy was to deter European countries from recognizing the confederacy as a nation. This objective undoubtedly dissuaded Lincoln from enforcing the Monroe Doctrine when the French invaded Mexico in 1861; by June of 1863 the French occupied Mexico City and the Mexican President was on the run. A natural U.S. response would have been to support our republican neighbor’s effort to repel the European invaders. Instead, Lincoln chose to leave Mexico to its own means, so as not to push France into the rebel camp.
The Mexicans pleaded for arms, if not via outright aid, then through purchases. Mexican Ambassador Matías Romero’s purpose in Washington City was to convince the U.S. government to support the elected president of Mexico, Benito Juárez, and oppose Napoleon III’s military intervention in Mexico. Romero befriended the Lincolns—both Abraham and Mary—but was unable to convince President Lincoln to change his course.[1] Romero shifted his attention to the U.S. Congress.
With Romero’s blessing, U.S. Senator James McDougall (Democrat, California) presented several resolutions condemning the French invasion and demanding U.S. aid to the Republic of Mexico. In the House, Congressmen John Kasson (Republican, Iowa) and Henry Davis (Republican, Maryland) objected to Lincoln’s cautious response to the French occupiers. Although these efforts garnered attention, in the end, they manifest neither in legislation nor military aid to Mexico.[2]
An example of the passion that some Americans held on this issue is apparent in correspondence from Surveyor-General of California and Nevada (appointed by Lincoln in 1861) E. F. Beale, e.g., “do this act [stop the exportation of arms to Mexico], go and bury your dead infant in the same grave in which you will have buried Mexican independence. . . I implore you in the name of your party, of your own hopes and your country, in the name of republican institutions in the name of the great commons of America, who will assuredly impeach you to all posterity if you betray freedom in their name, and finally in the sacred catholic name of liberty itself to give these arms to Mexico.”[3]
Similar to Romero’s campaign in Washington, was that of Plácido Vega in San Francisco. President Juárez dispatched General Vega to San Francisco to acquire weapons and funds for the Mexican Army. Vega sought to obtain arms, with mixed results, both openly and clandestinely. Vega openly declared his mission as “procuring the means necessary for repelling the usurpation of Maximilian in Mexico.”[4] On one occasion, the Commander of the U.S. Department of the Pacific, Major General Irvin McDowell, advised Vega, “the seizure after you had attempted to secretly carry off the arms, were acts done in conformity to the most explicit and peremptory order of His Excellency the President himself.”[5] Similarly, the U.S. Customs Collector in San Francisco, “informed General Vega of the existence of Executive orders forbidding the export, and stated the same would be enforced by me.”[6]
What order were they referring to? On November 20, 1862, President Lincoln signed an Executive Order “Prohibiting the Export of Arms of Munitions of War.”[7]
Executive Mansion
Washington City, November 20, 1862
Ordered, That no arms ammunition, or munitions of war be cleared or allowed to be exported from the United States until further order: that any clearances for arms, ammunition, or munitions of war issued heretofore by the Treasury Department be vacated if the articles have not passed without the United States, and the articles stopped; that the Secretary of War hold possession of the arms, etc., recently seized by his order at Rouses Point, bound for Canada.[8]
Abraham Lincoln
The purpose of this order was to sustain the fragile neutrality of the European states, especially France and England. Although sympathetic to President Juárez and the Republic of Mexico, Lincoln and the Union could not afford to compel France to enter the American Civil War on the side of the “insurgents.”
On May 3, 1865, President Johnson rescinded the 1862 executive order prohibiting the exportation of arms, as well as the 1863 extension to livestock.[9] The U.S. began providing overt and covert aid to Juárez. In 1866 and 1867, Napoleon withdrew French troops from Mexico. The Mexican “emperor” Maximilian was executed on May 19, 1867.
--Mig
P.S. This research was completed while writing my second novel (to be published in 2022)
[1] Jason H. Silverman, “A Most Unlikely Friendship: Abraham Lincoln and Matias Romero,” January 26, 2017 (accessed May 10, 2022, https://www.lincolncottage.org/a-most-unlikely-friendship-abraham-lincoln-and-matias-romero).
[2] Marvin Goldwert, “Matías Romero and Congressional Opposition to Seward's Policy toward the French Intervention in Mexico,” The Americas, July, 1965, vol. 22, no. 1, pp 22-40. Senator McDougall’s resolutions were presented on January 19, 1863; January 11, 1864; March 22, 1864; and July 2, 1864.
[3] E.F. Beale letter to Charles James, July 16, 1864, (accessed May 10, 2022: https://ehistory.osu.edu/books/official-records/106/1090).
[4] Vega letter to Major General Irvin McDowell (Commander of the U.S. Department of the Pacific), November 2, 1864, (accessed May 10, 2022: https://ehistory.osu.edu/books/official-records/106/1038).
[5] McDowell letter to Vega, November 26, 1864, (accessed May 10, 2022: https://ehistory.osu.edu/books/official-records/106/1073).
[6] Charles James, Customs Collector, letter to McDowell, December 14, 1864 (accessed May 10, 2022: https://ehistory.osu.edu/books/official-records/106/1096).
[7] The American Presidency Project, UC Santa Barbara (accessed May 10, 2022: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/202686
[8] U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, Historical Documents (accessed 5/9/2022, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1863p1/pg_659).
[9] The American Presidency Project, UC Santa Barbara (accessed May 10, 2022: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/203194).

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1/29/2022 0 Comments

Rebel “Pirates” in the Pacific

One inspiration for my second novel, California Rifles at Chattanooga, was the Confederate privateering effort in the Pacific. The rebel goal was to duplicate the success of commerce raiders in the Atlantic, notably, the Confederate States Ship (CSS) Alabama and CSS Shenandoah. In addition to just wreaking ordinary havoc on trade and business, the western theater offered a matchless prize—California gold. “The California steamers used to take about $2,000,000 in gold at every voyage in those days, sailing twice a month.”[1]
After the attack on Fort Sumpter, U.S. officials were rightfully anxious about the California gold being shipped to northeastern banks via the Panamanian isthmus. In June 1861, the U.S. Consul in Panama warned Secretary of State Seward:

“There can be no doubt of the intentions of the rebels to seize the treasure from California and it is not unlikely that they will attempt it should a favorable opportunity offer outside the harbor of Aspinwall [Colón, Panama].”

Three years later, the commander of the Union's Pacific Squadron echoed that concern:

"There is no doubt the states of Sinaloa and Sonora [Mexico] contain a number of persons hostile to our Government, ready to adopt any feasible plan for the plunder our treasure ships on the Pacific..."[2]

Rumors of Confederate privateers had warships in the Union’s small Pacific Fleet darting around the ocean chasing apparitions. However, there were two Confederate efforts that came close to being reality in 1863 and 1864; the vessels involved were respectively the schooner Chapman and the merchantman Salvador.[3]
In the case of the U.S. merchant steamer Salvador, Confederate agents, disguised as passengers, boarded the vessel in Panama. At the direction of the Secretary of the Confederate Navy, their mission was to seize the vessel and convert it into a Confederate cruiser preying on American commerce in the Pacific. [4]
U.S. authorities learned of the plan and placed armed sailors and Marines on the steamer. The seizure was easily thwarted. During the subsequent trial, the Salvador conspirators boasted that they desired to share the honors of the rebel Navy that "had swept the ocean, lit battle fires in many a sea, and illumined the darkness of night with many a burning wreck."[5] Mayhem and bounty were clearly their goals.
The earlier instance, that involving the two-mast Schooner Chapman, was the one that launched my story. On March 15, 1863, when the Chapman cast off from a pier in San Francisco, the manifest indicated the Chapman was taking machinery to the Port of Manzanillo, Mexico. In fact, the schooner was loaded with pirates and weapons and heading to the Island of Guadalupe, about 250 miles west of the Baja California peninsula, to await its prey.[6] Jefferson Davis had issued a letter of marque authorizing the Chapman to attack, capture, and seize the cargo of Federal vessels.[7]
According to Willard Farwell, the Treasury Department’s Naval Officer for the District of San Francisco, the Chapman enterprise was doomed from the outset.[8] The shipbroker hired by the Confederate conspirators provided Farwell a daily report on the Chapman’s progress. Shortly after the Chapman cast off at 3 in the morning, it was met by a Union sloop-of-war and a tugboat full of police officers and revenue agents. Twenty-three conspirators were arrested. Two 12-pound cannons, small arms, swords, bowie knives, and uniforms were seized.
Although the rebel privateering initiatives in the Pacific failed, they are further evidence of the Confederacy’s intent to sway activity on America’s west coast. Confederate leaders, southern sympathizers, secessionists, and clandestine members of organizations such as the Knights of the Golden Circle, conceived a California far different than any that we could imagine today. --Mig

[1] The San Francisco Call, 3/8/1896, p. 23 (accessed on 1/28/2022, https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SFC18960308.2.198&e).
[2] Letter dated 6/14/1861 from Consul Amos B. Corwine to Secretary of State William H. Seward (accessed on 1/28/2022, https://ehistory.osu.edu/books/official-records/115/0360). Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series L Volume 3, Operations of the Cruisers (April 1, 1864-December 30, 1865), WPO 1896, p. 212.
[3] Dyer, Brainerd. “Confederate Naval and Privateering Activities in the Pacific.” Pacific Historical Review, vol. 3, no. 4, University of California Press, 1934, pp. 433–43 (accessed on 1/28/2022, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3633146).
[4] Letter dated 9/16/1865 from the Secretary of War to the President (accessed on 1/28/2022, https://ehistory.osu.edu/books/official-records/121/0751).
[5] ibid.
[6] Letter dated 3/24/1863 from Brigadier General G. Wright, Commanding, Department of the Pacific, to that Adjutant General of the Army, Washington, D.C., (accessed 1/28/2022, https://ehistory.osu.edu/books/official-records/106/0364).
[7] Asbury Harpending, The Great Diamond Hoax and Other Stirring Incidents in the Life of Asbury Harpending, 1913, pp 47-48.
[8] The San Francisco Call, 8 March 1896, p. 23 (accessed on 1/28/2022, https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SFC18960308.2.198&e).

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YOUR CART

mIG'S BLOG & Previews
BEGINNING IN JUNE 2022, I WILL USE THIS BLOG TO POST CHAPTERS FROM MY FORTHCOMING NOVEL,
"CALIFORNIA RIFLES."
Please let me know if you find any errors
or have recommendations.
(PHOTO: BlackRock Summit, shenandoah NaT'l park)

The Janitor, the Abolitionists, and the Phonebook

Don’t Piss Off the French

Rebel “Pirates” in the Pacific

Archives

Categories

YOUR CART

mIG'S BLOG & PreviewsBEGINNING IN JUNE 2022, I WILL USE THIS BLOG TO POST CHAPTERS FROM MY FORTHCOMING NOVEL, "CALIFORNIA RIFLES."Please let me know if you find any errorsor have recommendations.​​(PHOTO: ​BlackRock Summit, shenandoah NaT'l park)

The Janitor, the Abolitionists, and the Phonebook

Don’t Piss Off the French

Rebel “Pirates” in the Pacific

Archives

Categories

mIG'S BLOG & Previews
BEGINNING IN JUNE 2022, I WILL USE THIS BLOG TO POST CHAPTERS FROM MY FORTHCOMING NOVEL,
"CALIFORNIA RIFLES."
Please let me know if you find any errors
or have recommendations.
(PHOTO: BlackRock Summit, shenandoah NaT'l park)