A. James Fuller,
University of Indianapolis
The towering bronze statue of Oliver P. Morton flanked by two Union soldiers stands on the steps of the Indiana Statehouse and faces east toward Monument Circle and the heart of downtown Indianapolis. The bronze plaque on the back of the monument records the way that Hoosiers remembered their Civil War governor when the erected the statue in 1907:
Oliver Perry Morton
Born in Wayne Co. Indiana August 4, 1823.
Died in Indianapolis November 1, 1877.
Aged 54 years 2 months and 25 days.
Admitted to the Bar in 1847.
Served as Governor of Indiana from January 18, 1861, to March 4, 1867.
Served as US Senator from Indiana from March 4, 1867, until his death
November 1, 1877.
In all ways and at all times the friend of the Union soldier. The friend
of the country.
The upholder of Abraham Lincoln.
The defender of the flag and the Union of the States. Patriot. Statesman.
Lover of Liberty. Heroic in heart.
Inflexible in purpose and ever to be known in history as
The Great War Governor.
Truly, Morton deserves to be remembered in Indiana and across the nation for the role he played in the leading the state during the War of the Rebellion. Although his national influence proved greater during his career in the U.S. Senate in the post-war years, that period was in many ways a continuation of the struggles in which he had engaged as governor. Morton was the perfect leader for the times, a man suited to the high-stakes and divisive politics of the Civil War era. However, his legacy as the Great War Governor stems from his indefatigable efforts as governor, not just in the political maneuvers and battles he fought, but also in the way he undertook the often-thankless, always exhausting work of a wartime executive. Throwing himself completely into the task, Morton tirelessly worked to help save the nation from rebellion. Along the way, he remade Indiana politics, overturning the tradition of strong legislatures and weak governors in favor of a powerful executive with expanded authority and the ability to set and drive the agenda.
Morton became governor of Indiana in January, 1861, with secession already underway in Southern states. Seeing rebellion as treason, the new governor realized that the federal government would have to force the rebels to return to the Union or allow the nation to be broken up. A staunch nationalist who believed that the Union was something sacred, a perpetual republic that stood for freedom and equality under the law, Morton believed it would be necessary to use government power to preserve the nation. Such power could be wielded in dangerous ways and must be entrusted only to a party dedicate to the highest principles, which he thought meant his own Republican Party, President Abraham Lincoln, and himself. To save the republic, to preserve the Union, Morton set to work.
First, he got a copy of the 1852 militia law and reassured himself that it granted the governor the authority to organize the militia. He could raise troops and get Indiana ready for war. Second, he sent inquiries to each of Indiana’s ninety-two counties asking whether the militia was organized there and, if so, whether or not there were any arms on hand to equip the troops if they were called into service. Very few weapons proved to be available and most of those were obsolete or in terrible condition. To rectify the problem, Morton sent out agents to find and purchase firearms for Indiana soldiers. They scoured the cities of the east and even went to Europe to buy guns.
Meanwhile, the governor began organizing the state militia. He started recruiting men even before the war began and, when the shots were fired at Fort Sumter in April, 1861, he was ready. President Lincoln called for volunteers to put down the rebellion; Morton immediately sent a telegram saying that Indiana had 10,000 men. This early action served as an indication of Morton’s effectiveness as a recruiter. Throughout the war, he continued to raise troops, shrewdly combining appeals to patriotism with calls to duty with the offer of cash bounties. He and administration proved so effective that Indiana eventually sent the second highest number of troops into the Union army, behind only New York—a feat that far exceeded the expectations based on population numbers. Morton’s work paid off as well in allowing his administration to delay the state draft instituted in 1862. This plan had the national government draft members of a state’s militia. Because Indiana had already surpassed its quota, the draft was delayed in the Hoosier state.
The governor worked constantly, spending long hours in his office, often sleeping there rather than walking home only to return after a short nap. In addition to recruiting men and arming them, he saw to their transportation, equipment, and training. This involved collaborating with railroad companies to procure trains to bring the soldiers to muster points and then to training camps. Such public-private relationships foreshadowed the way that future Indiana governors would approach economic development and other issues during more peaceful times.
Procurement was a major undertaking and Morton and his staff gave Herculean efforts to find the guns, uniforms, food, medicine, and countless other items the soldiers needed. One example of the governor demonstrating that he truly was The Soldiers’ Friend involved procuring overcoats for Hoosier troops posted in western Virginia in the fall of 1861. Worried about the men shivering in the cold as winter approached, Morton went outside the official channels of the federal bureaucracy and, ignoring the rules of the War Department, purchased 29,000 coats himself, paying more than the going rate. This drew the wrath of U.S. Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs and spurred some of the governor’s critics to charge that he had paid too much in order to line his own pockets. Morton vigorously defended his actions and pointed out that he paid more because the coats he bought were of better quality. By seizing the moment and energetically pursuing his own course outside the usual channels, he overcame the glacial pace of the bureaucratic process and got things done. Such decisions made him many enemies, but won him the hearts of many soldiers who appreciated their governor providing them with what they needed.
In early 1862, Morton again took the initiative and used his authority to help the soldiers in the aftermath of large battles. He often visited the men in camp and, when he could not go himself, sent agents to gather information about their situation. Worried about the conditions at the front for the wounded men after the conflict at Fort Donelson in February, the governor arranged for Hoosier soldiers who had suffered wounds to be brought from Tennessee back to Indiana for care in new military hospitals established at Evansville, Jeffersonville, and Indianapolis. In April, he used his personal credit to hire steamboats to send sixty doctors, three hundred nurses, and loads of medical supplies to the scene following the Battle of Shiloh. The boats then shuttled wounded Hoosier men back to the hospitals in Indiana. When one of the steamers was loaded and about to pull away from the landing for the return voyage, a Kentucky
officer approached the captain of the boat and asked that twenty of his own wounded men be taken aboard. The steamboat captain replied that he was supposed to take only Indiana troops. The frustrated army officer who had heard about Morton’s work to keep Kentucky in the Union, snapped back, “But, damn it, sir, isn’t Morton Governor of Kentucky? If he can care for our state he certainly will protect you in caring for our soldiers.” The ship’s captain brought the wounded men aboard.
The reason the Kentucky officer thought of Morton as his governor was that the Hoosier leader worried constantly about the situation in the Bluegrass State and went to great lengths to help the Unionists there. He sent arms and supplies and carefully monitored what was happening in Kentucky out of fear that the slave state immediately across the river might join the rebels or that the Confederates would successfully take the territory and threaten Indiana. When raiders cross the Ohio River and stole horses in southern Indiana in the summer of 1862, it only served to confirm Morton’s worries about Kentucky.
The summer of 1862 also saw a larger threat coming from the South and, in response,, Morton again acted on his own authority and outside the usual channels, expanding the power of his office while helping the soldiers. The Confederates planned an offensive into Kentucky in coordination in advances in Missouri and Virginia and, if successful, they might well threaten Louisville, Lexington, and Cincinnati or even cross the river into Indiana or Ohio. Morton responded to calls from military commanders for more troops by redoubling his recruitment efforts. Like other governors, he offered the cash bounties authorized by the federal government to entice men to enlist. However, he soon discovered that there was no money to pay the bounties and recognized that this would hamper his ability to raise the needed men. Unless he could pay the troops those cash bonuses, he could not hope to send forward the soldiers so desperately needed to defend the Union against the invading army led by Confederate General Braxton Bragg. Morton knew from experience that it would take a long time for the War Department to provide the needed funds. And there was no allocation for such money in the state budget. Once again, the Hoosier leader faced a crisis and the inefficiency of a slow and cumbersome bureaucratic system.
Characteristically, Morton immediately acted on his own authority. Using his personal credit, he borrowed a total of $500,000 from banks in Indianapolis and Cincinnati to pay the bounties. One Indianapolis banker answered the governor’s request by filling wth rolls of greenbacks amounting to $30,000. Having acted, Morton then telegraphed the secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton, saying that he had sent nine regiments to Kentucky on borrowed money. The governor asked for repayment from the War Department, hoping that his personal credit would not be hurt by the situation. Stanton responded, “The most peremptory orders have been given to supply you funds. If it is not done I will dismiss the officer whose neglect occasions the delay, no matter what his rank.” The money was sent, and when he repaid the loans, Morton discovered that he had inspired others to patriotism, as the bankers who made the loans to him refused to charge or accept any interest. This incident showed how the governor exercised his executive powers in new ways and expanded his authority to get things done. And he put his own credit on the line, making a personal sacrifice in order to save the Union.
In addition to becoming the Soldiers’ Friend, Morton sued his appointment powers to extend his own influence as governor. At the outset of the war, he redefined patriotism by declaring that only those who were loyal to the Union should hold positions and offices in the government and military. Morton, like other Northern leaders, claimed that he was setting aside the old partisan divisions, arguing that there was only one party, the Union Party, and that he would work with any loyal man who joined him in putting down the rebellion. This influenced his appointments, as he wanted to reward his fellow Republicans, but also needed to reach out to the loyal opposition or War Democrats in order to secure their support and limit political opposition amid the chaos and crisis caused by the war. Beyond the politics of appointments was the question of competence. Just because a man was loyal did not mean that he could do the job required of him in a new office. In the early days of his administration, Morton lived up to his promise to set aside partisanship and appointed a number of War Democrats to office and gave such men military commissions as well. These included, most famously, Lew Wallace, a Democrat who became adjutant general for a few weeks in 1861 before taking command of the 11th Indiana Infantry regiment. John Love, a long-time Democrat, became one of Morton’s military aides, while West Point graduate Joseph J. Reynolds was a Democrat given command of the 10th Indiana regiment. The governor’s appointments of Democrats led some Republicans to grouse and complain that he was neglecting them, as in the case of Solomon Meredith, a long-time Morton supporter who eventually got the military command he coveted. Meanwhile, the Democrats accused the governor of using his appointment power to sway some of their party members to switch sides politically. To be sure, some did, such as Lew Wallace and Alvin P. Hovey, both of whom eventually became Republicans.
His Democratic foes also accused Morton of nepotism and he did often appoint his friends, sometimes with disastrous results. For example, he appointed his good friend and old college roommate Isaiah Mansur to be commissary general. Mansur, a meatpacker and a good Republican, seemed to have some credentials, but the decision resulted from political and personal considerations rather than competence. Morton knew Mansur well and thought he could trust him. The critics soon began to complain about the commissary general’s activities and charged him with overcharging for poor quality food. To be sure, in the bewildering rush of war preparation, it proved difficult enough to supply the many thousands of volunteers descending on Indianapolis. The demand for supplies was huge and immediate, and Mansur bought food without any kind of system for establishing prices or ensuring quality. Contracts were given without competition and high prices were paid, mostly to well-placed friends and political connections. Within weeks the flood of complaints began to pour in: the meat was too salty and of poor quality; the dried apples were wormy and the coffee was too weak—some soldiers thought the watery brew was an insult to their manhood and called it “effeminate.” The men mustering and training at Camp Morton raised a bitter cry of protest, and during the special session of 1861, there were legislative demands to investigate Mansur for corruption.
Morton’s appointment of Democrats came into focus early in 1862, when the U.S. Senate removed Indiana Senator Jesse Bright on charges of disloyalty. Bright was the long-time leader of the Indiana Democratic Party and he had pushed out members like Morton in the early 1850s when he tried to make support for the territorial expansion of slavery a litmus test for Democrats. Although the state party remained divided into factions, Bright’s power was such that he dominated the organization throughout the rest of the decade. He owned slaves himself in Kentucky and was seen as a “doughface” politician (a Northerner who supported the slaveholders of the South). He was an old friend of Mississippi Democratic Senator Jefferson Davis, who became the Confederate president in 1861. During the secession winter, the time between secession and the beginning of the war, Bright was asked to provide a letter of introduction to Davis for a businessman friend who planned to sell guns to the South. Bright wrote the letter and addressed it to, “His Excellency, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederation of States.”
The letter was discovered by a detective and delivered to the US Senate in August 1861. It had been written before the war began, but Bright’s enemies used it as evidence of treason. The senator and his supporters held that the letter was written before the war and that it was not treasonous. He knew Jefferson Davis from their years of serving together in Washington, and Bright had used the title because that it is what his old friend was currently calling himself. It was a courtesy, not an indication of loyalty. Even the leading Republican newspaper in Indiana, the Indianapolis Journal, agreed that the letter was not enough evidence to convict the senator. But the doughface politician could not escape his enemies, and they pushed hard for his removal. Finally, on February 5, 1862, the US Senate voted to expel Bright and vacated his seat. It fell to Governor Morton to choose a successor, and he received many letters recommending many different capable men for the office. There were numerous Republicans with a claim to such a seat, but Morton went in a different direction. He took his revenge on the expelled senator by appointing none other than Bright’s longtime foe, Joseph A. Wright, the former governor who had led the faction of the Democratic Party that opposed Bright. This kept up the appearance of Union Party cooperation, as Wright had recently declared himself a War Democrat. And it added insult to Bright’s injury, replacing him with his inter-party rival while also paying him back for forcing Morton out of the Democratic Party years earlier.
After 1862, however, Morton’s political battles with the Democrats meant that there were fewer members of that party willing to join him and he was more reluctant to appoint them. This meant that he turned more often to his fellow Republicans when it came to fill positions. The party’s victory in 1860 included sweeping the statewide offices, including Treasurer, Secretary of State, Attorney General, Auditor, and Superintendent of Public Instruction as well as Governor and Lieutenant Governor. When some of these offices came open, Morton had the authority to fill them and he opened himself to charges of corruption and nepotism by appointing his friends. When President Lincoln appointed state attorney general John P. Usher to serve in his cabinet as Secretary of the Interior, Morton made his good friend and law partner Jonathan F. Kibbey the state’s chief legal official. When the position overseeing education became vacant, he appointed his old teacher and friend, Samuel K. Hoshour of Centerville as Superintendent of Public Instruction.
But Kibbey and Hoshour were soon out of office, as the Democrats swept the elections of 1862. The results of the election were not surprising, as the war had not been going well for the Union. Although the Confederate offensive had been turned back that summer, the numbers of casualties were mounting and there seemed to be no end to the war in sight. This hurt the Republicans and gave strength to the Democrats. To be sure, some Hoosier Democrats believed that secession was a right and that the South should be allowed to leave the Union. Such views made them opponents of the war in its entirety. But most in Indiana supported the preservation of the Union and now thought that the government was mishandling the war against rebellion. Furthermore, to pay for the conflict, the national government had levied the first income tax in American history, the War Tax. This proved extremely unpopular among voters who despised taxes and saw an income tax as especially odious. When recruitment efforts across the country came up short, the government turned to conscription, beginning with the so-called “state draft” in which the U.S. Army drafted state militia members. This would be followed later by direct conscription, with the federal government drafting civilians into service. But even the state draft proved unpopular, raising uncomfortable questions about the intrusive power of government and whether or not the government could force a man to fight for freedom. Further undermining the Republicans at the polls were issues like freedom of speech and of the press. When Democratic editors criticized the Lincoln administration, some of them were arrested and had their newspapers closed down. Meanwhile, charges of disloyalty brought arrests and, when the president suspended habeas corpus, it meant that many citizens were being held without trial. For Jacksonian Democrats committed to libertarian principles of limited government and individual liberty, it seemed that Abraham Lincoln was a tyrant bent on trampling the Constitution and destroying the republic dedicated to freedom.
Then, in the fall of 1862, came Lincoln’s Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Taken as a war measure that would both hurt the rebel cause and help keep the European powers out of the war, emancipation raised a storm of controversy among many Northerners as the war to preserve the Union became a war to end slavery. Many Hoosiers held racist views of African Americans and did not want to fight a war to free black people. Others held anti-slavery views, but did not think that the government had the right to interfere with the institution where it already existed. Still others believed that emancipation required a constitutional amendment and disliked Lincoln’s carrying it forward with an executive order—even though his proclamation was carefully worded to apply only in territory still in rebellion where he might exercise presidential authority to restore the Union. In Indiana, emancipation was an unpopular measure and added to the groundswell of anti-Republican sentiment heading into the fall elections.
Therefore, it was not surprising that the Democrats swept the statewide offices up for election. They also won most of the congressional seats and a majority in both houses of the legislature. Governor Morton was not up for reelection until 1864, but he now faced a political fight. In his first two years in office, he had enjoyed a Republican majority in the legislature and in the other state level offices around him. Now, his political opponents had the upper hand. The Democrats were divided into factions, with the War Democrats who supported the conflict having mostly joined Morton and the Republicans. This meant that the Peace Democrats who wanted to end the war quickly (although they disagreed on exactly how, they were open to Southern independence) now dominated the state party. But there were still enough War Democrats to make the party leadership couch their agenda in more moderate ways and aim their criticism at the conduct of the war rather than the cause of the conflict itself.
When the legislative session began in January of 1863, the stage was set for a grand battle between the governor and the legislature. The Democrats started the political melee immediately by refusing to receive Morton’s annual message. They voted instead to receive the anti-war message of newly-elected New York Governor Horatio Seymour, a fellow Democrat. Of course, this was a political slap in the face of Morton. Next, the new legislative majority elected two Democrats, David Turpie and Thomas Hendricks, to the U.S. Senate (one—Turpie—was to replace Wright for a month to serve out the rest of Jesse Bright’s term and the other—Hendricks—was to fill the seat for a new, full term). Even though Morton had appointed Wright, the War Democrat, it was not enough for his foes now spoiling for a fight. Having insulted the governor and rejected his bipartisanship, they next decided to prove that he was corrupt, establishing an investigative committee and demanding an accounting of all government expenditures carried out in the name of the war effort. Morton set them back on their heels by responding immediately, opening the books and giving them a full accounting, proving that there was no fraud in his administration’s use of funds. Thwarted on that front, the Democratic legislators began to investigate the government’s violations of habeas corpus and freedom of the press and speech. Although the arrests of dissenters and the suspension of habeas corpus had been carried out by the Lincoln administration at the national level, they insisted that Morton should have resisted such measures. On these issues, the government remained silent as a legislative committee investigated, letting his fellow Republicans respond to the charges by arguing that anyone who opposed the measures was aiding and abetting the rebels and that the Democrats should give up such attacks in the name of patriotism. To be sure this was a political dead-end, since the governor could not be blamed for something done by the president.
Determined to defeat Morton, the Democrats now set out to curb the governor’s power. They proposed a new military bill that would allow them to take control of Indiana’s military efforts. The bill would establish a military board made up for the state treasurer, the secretary of state, the state auditor, and the state attorney general. This board—all of whom would be Democrats—would take over the governor’s administrative authority over the appointment of officers, command of the militia, and the procurement and distribution of arms and other military supplies. Of course, Morton disagree with this plan, since it would effectively give his opponents complete control over “the whole military power of the state.” He argued that, the command of the militia belonged to the Governor, as it does in every state, necessarily and properly, as part of the executive power.”
To stop the military bill, Morton worked with his fellow Republicans. The party’s legislators were in the minority, but they turned to a familiar tactic in Indiana politics: the legislative bolt. This method, used before and after the Civil War with varying degrees of success, called for the legislative minority to bolt the session, denying the majority the quorum they needed, thus preventing the passage of certain pieces of legislation. In this case, the Republicans bolted and stopped the military bill. The legislative session came to and end and the Democrats had failed to pass their bill. But the legislature had also failed to pass an appropriations bill, meaning that there was no budget on which the state government could operate. The Democrats gleefully anticipated Morton having to call a special session in order to pass budget and they predicted that they would pass their military bill then. At last, they would defeat the war governor.
But Morton outwitted them again. Instead of calling a special session, he refused to call the legislature into session for the next twenty-two months. The result was a period of one-man rule, as the governor ran the state himself and came to be called the “state dictator.” To fund the government, Morton borrowed money from county governments, from banks, and from the War Department. He also took money from the state arsenal that he had established in Indianapolis to make ammunition for the soldiers. Despite the unconstitutionality of his action, he argued that since he had created the arsenal, he could take funds from its profits to operate the government. He traveled to Washington, D.C., to ask the president for help and Lincoln told him that, “I know of no law under which I can give you the money,” but referred him to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. The secretary listened to Morton’s request for financial help and what the president had said about there being no law allowing the War Department to give the state government money. He then replied, “By God, I will find a law!” And he did, using a clause in a law authorizing funds to the president for the organizing and arming of troops in states threatened by the rebellion to loan Morton $250,000.
Having secured from various sources the money he needed, Morton proceeded to run the state from his office. He continued his herculean efforts to support the troops and to help save the Union. He often badgered President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton with a constant stream of letters and telegrams complaining about their neglect of Indiana, Kentucky, and the Midwest in general; or offering unsolicited military advice including plans for winning the war by making Morton a general and giving him an army to command. His complaints about various military commanders sometimes caused the Lincoln administration to change leaders, as when Morton worked to remove Don Carlos Buell from his command. Despite his complaints and sometimes rather outlandish suggestions for winning the war, the Indiana governor enjoyed the support of the Republican leaders in the national government. They knew they could count on him and often did, as he kept on raising troops and sending them forward to help the cause.
The threat of treasonous Copperheads working within the state also worried Morton. And for good reason. In the summer of 1863, an unknown assailant attempted to assassinate the governor as he was leaving his office in the capitol late at night. The attacker fired a pistol and his shot narrowly missed Morton’s head. The governor ran to the nearby quarters of a trusted military commander and that officer accompanied him home. As they approached Morton’s house, another shot rang out, but again missed its target. When he received reports of traitors at work in the state, the governor had good reason to worry. After all, the memory of a bullet whipping past his head was evidence enough of a real threat. The governor worked closely with the military commanders in Indiana, including Henry Carrington and Milo Hascall to investigate the Copperheads. Early in the war, Morton gathered information about traitors in reports sent to him from citizens around the state. He soon began cooperating with the army, forwarding whatever information he had to them and receiving whatever reports they shared with him. Increasingly, he was a consumer of intelligence reports, relying on the military to keep him informed of what was going on.
The army sent detectives and spies to investigate and infiltrate the Copperheads. Morton urged them to use the information they received to move against the traitors, but the War Department refused to act. In part, this was due to Lincoln’s refusal to believe that there were large numbers of traitors in places like Indiana and Illinois. Morton continued to push the army to act and even leaked military reports to the newspapers to increase the pressure. Finally, in the late summer of 1864, with the Copperheads having received a shipment of at least four hundred revolvers for a planned uprising, the army arrested the leaders of the Sons of Liberty. One of them, an Indianapolis printer named Harrison Dodd, learned of the impending arrests and fled to Canada. This became proof of his guilt when the story broke in the papers. Some of the other Copperheads quickly turned state’s evidence and testified against their fellow conspirators in the resulting Indianapolis Treason Trials. Although some of the army officials wanted to try the conspirators in civilian court, Morton feared that a sympathetic jury might acquit them and he successfully argued for a military tribunal to hear the case. In the end, Dodd was tried in absentia, found guilty, and given a death sentence. Three others, including Huntington lawyer Lambdin P. Milligan, were also convicted and sentenced to death. Sent to prison to await execution, the men were still being held when the war ended. Milligan appealed his conviction, arguing t that he should have been tried in a civilian court because Indiana was not in rebellion and its courts were still open. Thus, the military tribunal violated his constitutional rights as an American citizen to a trial by a jury of his peers. His case was eventually decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1866 case, Ex Parte Milligan, which agreed with him and the men were released and their sentences commuted.
By that time, however, the war was over and the Copperheads were no longer a threat to Union military efforts. The Treason Trials helped rally support for the Republicans, just in time for the 1864 elections. Morton’s party swept to victory and returned to the majority in the legislature. The voters showed their support by reelecting the governor and also giving President Lincoln a wide margin of victory in the state. When the new legislative session opened in January 1865, the Republican majority authorized the governor to do what he had already done over the past two years. Later investigations by the Democrats showed that Morton and his aides had kept meticulous accounting records and, despite Democratic accusations about fraud and stolen money, the books showed that the dictator of Indiana had been carefully honest about his use of the money he begged and borrowed to fund the government.
With the war’s end, Morton looked forward to completing his term as governor and helping to restore the peace. He also began eyeing national office, thinking he might pursue a seat in the U.S. Senate. But he had worked himself to exhaustion and the war had taken its toll. In October of 1865, he suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life. He recovered and returned to politics in 1866, becoming a prominent Radical Republican and spending a decade as a national leader in the U.S. Senate. Throughout the Reconstruction period, he would continue to see the politics of the day as a continuation of the War of the Rebellion. Although the armed conflict had officially come to an end, Indiana’s great war governor kept on fighting the political battles, standing for ordered liberty under the law, for racial equality, and for the Union that preserved the sacred principles he held so dear.
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