St. Croix Riverway Time and the River: A History of the Saint Croix

CHAPTER 3:
"The New Land": Settlement and the Development of Agriculture in the St. Croix Valley (continued)

The Civil War Years in the St. Croix Valley

Before the St. Croix Valley could enjoy the peace and prosperity of the wheat boom or consider its future consequences, sectional issues between North and South brought on the Civil War. Tensions between the Democratic and Republican parties pivoted around the issue of slavery. But many other issues, seemingly on the surface unrelated to slavery, were tied to sectional party concerns and affected this remote frontier. Southern Democrats feared that if slaves were not allowed in the territories and newly formed states in the West, slaves states would be outnumbered in Congress. Northern and western free states then would eventually outlaw the South's "peculiar institution." Wisconsin and the St. Croix Valley had undergone a political metamorphosis in the decade leading up to the Civil War. Many people who first settled in the state and in the valley were independent and self-reliant pioneers, who espoused the Democratic principles of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson of close, local government, and economic and cultural laissez-faire. The Democratic Party dominated the state when Wisconsin joined the Union in 1848. The Whigs, however, played an influential roll in the state. They generally represented New England transplants with connections to eastern capitalists interested in investments and internal improvements to develop the state's resources. In the presidential elections of 1848 and 1852, the Democrats carried the state with fifty-nine percent of the vote with sixty percent of St. Croix County voters supporting Democratic candidates. However, underneath the apparent strong support for the Democratic Party the political tides of the country, the state, and St. Croix County were shifting. The slavery issue gradually eroded Democrat support in the North as the party became identified with southern slaveholders.

The Whigs, too, faced competition from other political factions. It carried the stigma of being the party of the rich and it offended many immigrants and Catholics by its identifying Americanism with Anglo-Protestantism and by their temperance crusades. Both the Democrats and Whigs, however, lost supporters to the anti-slavery Liberty Party that aimed to keep slavery out of the western states and territories under the banner of "Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men." As a minority party the Whigs moved to form a coalition with the Free Soil party. In 1854, Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois introduced in Congress a bill that would repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 that prohibited slavery in the old Louisiana Territory by allowing settlers there to determine whether slaves would be permitted or not. Douglas's objective was to win southern support for a railroad bill to go through Illinois westward. He assumed the environment would not be conducive to a slave-driven agriculture anyway so the bill should not threaten northerners. He was, however, wrong.

In response to this new political situation, Wisconsinites of all political stripes, who at one time simply dismissed slavery as a regional issue, met in Ripon, Wisconsin and formed the Republican Party. Although former Whigs dominated the party, they minimized their former anti-immigrant and temperance crusades. Enough disaffected Democrats and Free Soilers felt they found a viable alternative to the "conspiratorial slave-power" Democrats and joined the new party. As other sectional issues continued to threaten national politics, more and more Wisconsinites and residents of St. Croix County moved into the Republican camp. By the 1856 presidential election, most Wisconsin counties voted Republican, including Pierce, St. Croix, and Polk Counties. The only holdouts for the Democrats were Irish and German Catholics, and other non-English-speaking immigrants with the exception of Scandinavians. While Democratic James Buchanan won the presidency, the Republicans had assumed dominance in state politics. [131]

It was against this political backdrop that the Whig/Republican Stillwater Messenger and the Democratic St. Croix Union of Stillwater fought their respective local battles. These national issues also crystallized the values of St. Croix Valley residents. Since most had been originally Democrats, abolitionism was not a pressing issue. But when the free labor principles of the old Northwest Ordinance seemed to be in jeopardy from the Democratic Party, these rugged pioneers switched to the political party that promised to safeguard their homesteads and independent labor–the Republican Party. When war broke out between the North and the South in April 1861, however, there was not an enthusiastic response to the first call to arms in Wisconsin. Anglo-American Protestants were the first to heed the call. Foreign-born immigrants were reluctant to commit themselves to the cause of the North. German and Irish Catholics had trouble forgetting the nativist sentiment among many Republicans and would not put their lives on the line for a country whose host population disdained them. While many ethnic groups did not want to see slavery spread, few cared about the abolitionist cause. Given its high immigrant population, Wisconsin did not contribute as many men to the Union in proportion to its population as Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota, and Iowa. [132]

While statistics for the Wisconsin side of the St. Croix are not readily available, Washington County in Minnesota took great pride in its wartime contribution. "Every citizen of Washington county should feel proud of her war record," wrote the Republican Messenger. "Compared with other counties, she is not behind any in patriotism: while she distances nearly every other, in proportion to population, in the number of troops furnished for suppressing the rebellion." Of its total population of 6770, there were 980 men who fought for the Union. The Messenger pointed out that this figure did not include the number of men who were enticed into Wisconsin regiments where they could receive generous bounties. These bounties were attractive to pioneers as a means to get out of debt or purchase a farm. [133]

On the home front the war brought prosperity to the North. By 1863, Wisconsin farmers enjoyed a boom like they never had before. Wheat and other agricultural products were in great demand, and Wisconsin and Minnesota's rich, virgin soil allowed their farmers to cash in. Wartime profits and the shortage of men stimulated the mechanization of farming. A mechanical reaper could replace four to six men in the field. While reapers were fairly common throughout most of Wisconsin before the war, St. Croix pioneers could now afford them. Threshing machines had been rare in the state before 1860, but increasingly more and more farmers began using them. [134]

These labor saving devices, however, also had the effect of spreading the wheat growing mania. Since wheat was already easy to cultivate, labor saving machinery made it possible for one farmer to bring even more land under wheat cultivation, and labor scarcity diminished the possibility of turning to more labor-intensive crops that required more vigilant hoeing and tending. Proximity to the St. Croix River also kept farmers in the valley tilling wheat since this gave them access to national markets. While most farmers throughout the state were reluctant to give up on wheat, the 1860s witnessed the shift to cultivation of other crops and stock raising in some farming communities in Wisconsin because of problems of delivering the goods to market. [135]

As early as August 1861 the Messenger was able to remark about the countryside, "four years ago, but one farm had been opened. . .Now scores of them, in a high state of cultivation, are to be seen, where then was either unbroken prairie or forest." The rattle and clatter of reapers made "merry music" as they harvested the "golden sheaves" of wheat. "The farmers of Minnesota have abundant reasons to rejoice," exclaimed the Stillwater newspaper. "Far removed from the desolating track of war, and with the granaries filled to overflowing, they have great cause for the most profound gratitude." [136] The wheat bonanza was added proof that farming in Minnesota was not only possible but also profitable. In 1861, wheat sold for about fifty cents a bushel. By 1866, it fetched more than $1.50. The Messenger published an example of wheat fields turning into gold. "In 1863, J.W. Treager purchased thirteen hundred acres of unimproved land in Washington County, Minn., for which he paid $10,000," the paper wrote. "In the summer of 1863 he broke seventy-acres, upon which he raised a crop in 1864. That crop was sold for sufficient to pay for the land upon which it was raised, for breaking and fencing it, and all the expense of raising, harvesting and marketing the crop, and $1,100 besides." [137] Farmers in Washington County who reported wheat yields of twenty-four bushels per acre abundantly demonstrated the richness of the soil in the St. Croix Valley for growing wheat. [138] The war itself, of course, stimulated this demand for wheat. American farmers also benefited from the misfortunes of Europe stemming from the Crimean War. However, war also brought about inflation and farmers' expenses for new machinery and other goods also rose. Many farmers took on heavy debts to expand their operations. Thus their dependence upon wheat continued at the expense of diversification. [139]

Figure 28. Map showing the construction of railroads in Wisconsin by decades, 1850-1898. From Thompson, Wheat Growing in Wisconsin.