War Disrupts Manifest Destiny
Volume Two Number Five

Oregon Trail 1863

War Consumes the Union Lincoln Offers Hope

CAPITOL HILL, Oct. 3 -- In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. Pres. Abraham Lincoln

Douglass Recruits Troops

Frederick Douglass, a freed slave, has long been an advocate for black troops to serve in the Union army. From February to July Douglass has spent time recruiting black soldiers. He has traveled throughout the North recruiting. It is told that his sons, Lewis and Charles Remond, were the first to enlist. They will serve with the 54th Massachusetts Regiment.

In July, Douglass visited Pres. Lincoln to protest discrimination against black troops. It is not known yet whether this visit will change anything, but it is thought that the President takes Douglass's counsel with great seriousness. Douglass, a publisher of Douglass' Monthly, a successor to the North Star and Frederick Douglass' Paper, brings respect to his race and is a credit to American society as a whole.

His profound thoughts are reflected in the following quote. "If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet renounce controversy are people who want crops without plowing the ground." Editor, Historical Gazette

The stories above are extracts from the front page of this edition. A map of the Oregon Trail, illustration of Lincoln and one old Civil War cartoon graces the front page of this edition. Other stories include a story from a woman's diary, how the battery on the Pacific coast began and early days of Eastern Oregon.

Continue the Oregon Trail saga!

Read our Number Six of the series, Oregon Trail 1869 Roads Bring Soldiers and Emigrants

Bridget E. Smith, editor & publisher

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Historical Gazette
Published in Portland, Oregon
© 1991-