The California Gold Rush and the Coming of the Civil War

by Leonard L. Richards

It has always been understood that the 1848 discovery of gold in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada influenced the battle over the admission of California to the Union. But now, in this revelatory study, award-winning historian Leonard L. Richards makes clear the links between the Gold Rush and many of the regional crises in the lead-up to the Civil War.

Richards explains how Southerners envisioned California as a new market for slaves and saw themselves importing their own slaves to dig for gold, only to be frustrated by California’s passage of a state constitution that prohibited slavery. Still, they schemed to tie California to the South with a southern-routed transcontinental railroad and worked to split off the southern half as a separate slave state. We see how the Gold Rush influenced the squabbling over the Gadsden Purchase, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and various attempts to take Cuba and Nicaragua. We meet David Broderick, a renegade New York Democrat who became a force in San Francisco politics in 1849, and his archrival William Gwin, a major Mississippi slaveholder and politician who arrived in California with the intent of making it a slave state and himself one of its first senators. Richards recounts the Washington battles involving Taylor, Clay, Calhoun, Douglas, Davis, Webster, Fillmore, and others, as well as the fiery California political battles, feuds, duels, and perhaps outright murder as the state came shockingly close to being divided in two.

When war did break out efforts were made to push California to secede, but there was little general enthusiasm for secession, and many prominent Southerners went off to join the Confederate Army. And with the South out of the Union, the Pacific Railroad Act passed, insuring a comfortably northern route.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Civil War, Historical, American Civil War, Audiobook

290 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Leonard L. Richards, Ph.D. (University of California, Davis, 1968; A.B., University of California, Berkeley), is Professor Emeritus of History in the College of Humanities & Fine Arts at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, focusing on 19th century United States. He has also taught at San Francisco State College and the University of Hawaii. His The Life and Times of Congressman John Quincy Adams was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1987.

Reviews

[Walter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A history book with a strong narrative drive; and it’s demystifying in a warm cordial sense. Well worth reading if you’re interested in how the West was settled, and some of the economic reasons behind the Civil War. I say “Demystifying” as the author presents the facts in a welcoming manner. I’ve read so many history books that re-examine a period of time and there seems to be this authorial scorn present…as in: You think life was like this back then? Well, YOU’RE WRONG BUDDY! Richards isn’t like that. He’s a great writer with a keen gracious wisdom about him. Bravo.

[Antonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got this as an audiobook to list too after studying the Gold Rush with my younger kids in our homeschool. I wanted to expand on it for my own personal learning. There was a LOT of information in here that I had never heard before. It was very interesting. I have a hard time following audiobooks with this much detail so I'm sure there's a lot that I missed but I still came away with a lot of information. I had no idea California was so tightly linked with Slavery and the Civil War before. Growing up here, I learned all about the Gold Rush but none of the politics that came with it.

[Kris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Richards doesn’t actually write anything about the Civil War. The book is about bills in Congress, laws in states, political influence, California becoming a state, and the legality of slavery. He falls into the standard nonfiction trap: constantly flitting from one name to the next, with no end in site. There are no people that tie all the facts together, so it all devolves into a mass of boring trivia. At the very end, in the epilogue, he says that gold in California funded the Northern states in the war. That’s it. I’m ashamed that nothing stuck with me.

[Ed Callahan]

This book was recommended to me by a friend during a visit to Old Town, San Diego. He said, "This might be an interesting book to read after you read it first." Message given, message received.

At first glance, this might seem like just another history of the California Gold Rush. It is more than that. Richards weaves the story of the Gold Rush into an overall history of the development and significance of California for United States history in the lead up to the Civil War. What emerges is an involved, at times turbid, account of political, social and economic development which demonstrates that ultimately, all politics are local.

Some of the "Chivalry Democrat" position, more often abbreviated as "Chiv" within the text, seems oddly to mirror contemporary calls for California's secession in the wake of the 2016 election of Donald Trump. Perhaps. Or perhaps it reminds us once again that the United States is comprised of individual states which have their own self-interests in elections as well as their own constituencies to whom they must be responsible.

While Richards has enriched this account with many treasures, there were three which I found most valuable based upon my own interests. First, his account of the Gold Rush's impact upon land claims, settlement, and racial issues provides a critical component to understanding both Manifest Destiny and the extent to which the "American Dream" could be extended to those who were/are not white. Second, he highlights the geographic challenges to East-West movement, both on land and on sea, which would only be solved through the development of both the transcontinental railroads and the Panama Canal. Finally, he situates the role of California within the Civil War in a way which convincingly that it was a critical player in the war effort even if many of its own enlistees and recruits saw little engagement on the battlefields. Those Californians, on the other hand, who did make it to the Eastern battlefields, shed their blood at Shiloh, Antietam, and Gettysburg. While Richards hints at Civil War engagements in the Arizona Territory, he fails to mention the Battle of Picacho Peak, which would have served as a reminder that not all of the battles took places east of the Rio Grande and Gila Rivers. Maybe a second edition of this book will explore this battle.

[Ray · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the interest of time, and because his assessment matches mine, I've plagerized Stuart's 5/12/08 review of this book. As he wrote: "An interesting subject - how California nearly became a slave state, or was nearly severed into two states, one free and one slave. Some nice detail about the infamous Broderick-Terry duel, and some gee-whiz facts about how William Walker got his ass kicked in Nicaragua, not by the Nicaraguans, but by getting on the wrong side of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Unfortunately, for every page of interesting stuff like that, there's 25 pages of mind-numbing detail about the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and exhaustive, blow-by-blow accounts of sundry political in-fighting".

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential Reading

Should be required reading in any serious study of US history. Fabulous in exposing the true behavior and temperament of our countrymen just before and including the start of our Civil War. The idea of forcibly adding Cuba as a slave state seems preposterous if it wasn't true. The history books usually referenced in our educational system rarely depict the wretchedness of the household characters we have scrubbed squeaky clean for our history lessons. Loved reading this one from electronic cover to cover.

[Amber Ray · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are occasional bits of interesting things: Mormons were far more involved in the settling of California than I knew, panning for gold really didn't last long and there was a LOT of wheeling and dealing with California's statehood that was connected with slavery issues and with keeping free blacks out of the state--miners were heavily involved with that because they didn't want slaves or cheaper labor to be brought in so rich people could have slave-run mines.
However, this book veers very deeply into politics and I felt that at several points, California history, much less gold rush history were becoming tangential to the material of the book. It became a series of politicians--this guy did A, the next did B and entertained a lot, and the next guy did C and was accused of being corrupt. Politics in general don't interest me greatly--the exception being Tammany Hall which I wouldn't have wanted to have lived through. That at least is entertainingly corrupt but there wasn't much of that here.
Some good tidbits of history, but too much politics. Often dull.

[Pete Hsu · Rating 5 out of 5]

An eye-opening read. I was expecting stories of miners and frontiersmen, but instead was treated to an indepth look at the political machinations around California's bid for statehood. Most interesting (and troubling) was how large a part the question of whether or not CA would be a slave state or free played in the debate on its status. Highly reccomend for all Californians and also general readers with an interest in 19th century American politics.

[Ryan Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Gold Rush was the catalyst for the population boom in California, and really defined the cultural and economic character of the state. But nationally, the state’s entry into the Union had a tremendous impact on the political climate of the entire country. This book provides a really nice context for California’s role in the lead up to the Civil War.

[Phillip Ammar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a tremendous book of California history. I had no idea that California played a part in the Civil War, and I grew up here. They never taught us this in school. All history buffs should read this book.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

An engaging book with strong sources that relates many informative, interesting bits of information on this subject. Yet it seems to end quickly and without a definitive summing up of the whole matter. I enjoyed it in the middle but was a bit disappointed in the ending.

[Dennis K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Greg Goodwin would like this book. I have lived in CA all but 6 years of my life, so I liked it too. I listened to it as an audio book. It is mostly political history. The narrator is good.

[Corinne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informational and necessary but the organization felt a little disjointed

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really excellent book looking at the coming of the Civil War through the lens of California politics.

[Robert C. Pfeiler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly informative of California's development into a state and the tremendous push to make it a slave state. I recommend highly.

[dc · Rating 4 out of 5]

started strong but the second half of the book-end is drowning in a regurgitation of senator spats and policy flip flopping.

[Rhonda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good read.

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This turned out to have been quite a fun read largely because the author was able to present a non-stop account of the many interesting personalities during an interesting time period of American history’s pre-Civil War days. The book is about California’s influence upon the sectional divide between the States and also how the people and interests of the different parts of the United States shaped the politics and direction of California. Before this I never really thought much about how California’s role in the undercurrent that led to the Civil War.
The author begins with how gold was initially found that eventually sparked the Gold Rush. Again, as I said the author teaches history in a wonderful way by giving us details of the personality and quirkiness of the participants involved. We read about the attempt of a group of people trying to keep things secret—only to have it become known worldwide! Once the gold rush began, it brought people from all over America and all over the world. The book even mentioned about Peruvians and Chinese prospectors. Even people within California left their respectable occupations such as lawyers, judges and businessmen to head to the mountains to strike for Gold. Eventually however Whites wanted California to be only for White people and the question of slavery arose since some in the South thought California would be a great place for Blacks to be used in the search for gold. The other reason why those in the South wanted to bring slaves to California was because of the sectional divide between Slave and Free States and the South’s perception that an increase of Slave States would balance the amount of Free States being added into the Union. However in California where the Gold Rush has shaped the economic and social fabric that encouraged independence and freedom of mobility for free workers, the idea of slave labor competing with free workers wasn’t appealing and eventually California entered the Union as a free state. The book gives accounts of how some who tried to bring slaves over were threatened with force to leave, and slaves themselves running away. But that didn’t mean that there were former Southerners within California and those in the South that tried to pull stunts to allow slavery in California which was already a Free State.
The personalities in the book is already interesting enough ranging from shrewd opportunists, explorers and politicians but this book is a further delight with its descriptions of intriguing events. There were so many duels during that time from the beginning to the end of the book. I also learned also of how some from the South during that time had an imperialistic desire to expand the amount of slave states into the union that they even tried to get Cuba to become a Slave state in America. The attempt wasn’t just only in name, but there were actual plots of insurrections by means of backing colorful personalities to go overthrow Cuba with financial funds and Southern mercenaries. Of course the two plots described in the book failed but it was interesting to see the seriousness some in the South took up the cause and the outcome were men being killed and even a governor of one of the Southern States (I want to say Mississippi) being indicted for conspiracy.
Readers must also not miss the epilogue which I felt should have been arranged as a concluding chapter since it is equal in length to the average chapter and also brought the whole discussion of California and the role with the sectional divide to a powerful conclusion. The epilogue talked about how the state of California’s contribution towards the Civil War. While the state remained with the Union, because California had many residents from all the parts of the country, there were pro-South sympathizers who encouraged men to join the Confederate army. However most of those who joined the war joined the Union Army. Many did not see combat since it was expensive to ship men to the East in an age before connecting train lines, so they ended up manning Western outposts. Yet some paid for their own way to the East and fought in Californian units under other States larger commands. But the biggest contribution to the Union that California helped with is the vast amount of gold sent to back the war economically, a contribution that was even acknowledged by the military as a quote from a leading Union general demonstrate.
If you want to know more about early California history and its relationship to the rest of the United States I think this would be a book that should be on your shelf.

[Missty · Rating 3 out of 5]

The California Gold Rush and the Coming of the Civil War --  A historical tapestry woven loosely from a series of brief biographical sketches and colorful vignettes. Generally interesting despite the author's tendency toward meandering.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

The role of the West Coast in the course of the Civil War and its outbreak has often been forgotten, but there are at least a few historians, including the author, willing to raise a lighter and cheer on the forgotten exploits of the West in this momentous period [1]. On those grounds alone, the book is worthy of investigation, not least because it explains a part of the story of the late antebellum America that I have never understood all that well. What tangled story connected the lawless atmosphere of California with its eventual role as Unionist bastion whose gold was important to the Union war effort? This book answers questions about the history of the antebellum west coast that I had not thought to answer, and raises questions it does not answer, such as: "How is it that Lincoln's friend Senator Baker came to be a Republican leader in California and then one of the first Senators of Oregon? Haven't Oregonians always resented that kind of carpetbagging?" That is not to say that this is a great book, because it is immensely confusing and difficult to keep in track, but it certainly is a fascinating story all the same.

I listened to this book as an audiobook, so the precise chapter breaks are not as obvious as they would be otherwise, but this book was 8 cds which is a decent size for a book, not overly short but not extremely long either. The material begins in media res, or rather near the end, with a discussion of the duel between Senator Broderick and state Supreme Court Chief Justice Terry which ended up in the death of Broderick, an Irish-born, Tammany-reared free soil Democrat of remarkably populist political philosophy. The book then looks at the rush of young men into California, the fight over statehood, and the attempts of Southerners to dominate Californian politics even though the state was a free state. The story is a fascinating one, full of political corruption and a lot of ups and downs as the 1850s were a particularly tumultuous time in American politics. The book jumps back and forth in time and loses its threads, requiring a cliff notes or at least a detailed list of dramatis personae to keep track of the various politicos fighting over dominance in state politics. The short version of the story is that during the 1850s the Southern-led Chivs were able to control patronage and the congressional seats in the state, but the death of Broderick coincided with the collapse of the position of the pro-Southern wing of the Democrats, leaving them neutralized and leading many of their members to leave the state to fight on behalf of the Confederacy without having secured either the state, its people, or its gold for the cause of rebellion.

Someone with a fondness for the a history that combines the corruption and political drama of the 1850s with its nativism and its proliferation of new parties, the dueling and oversensitive honor of the antebellum South [2], and the hustle and bustle of the wild west will find a lot to enjoy about this book, which combines all of these threads. To be sure, the historian could do a better job of getting his chronology under control, but the story is a complex one and the tale is gripping even where it is a bit muddled. This book is not as awesome as it could have been in the hand of a more skilled historian who was less confused, but it is still a worthwhile tale about an area of Civil War history that is unjustly neglected. If this book shines a light on that period and encourages others to examine it and write about it, and explain how a minority of corrupt pro-Southerner legislatures could dominate politics in a free state hostile to slavery interests for so long, then this book will have done quite well for itself and for its readers.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

[2] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2013...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011...

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was at first disappointed in this book because it wasn’t more about the gold rush and less about California politics in the early years before and right after statehood. I guess I should have read the reviews first. Still it’s was enjoyable.
Richards’ discussion of the effect of the gold rush is fascinating. How so many people rushed to the gold fields that San Francisco was, for awhile, a ghost town. How ships would come into the harbor and find hundreds of other ships—from China and Peru and Australia as well as the US and Europe—deserted by their crews. How the resulting gold increased the world’s supply of gold by a significant factor. How California gold helped finance the Civil War and how stopping the ships from California to Washington, usually carrying at least a million dollar’s worth of gold, was a Confederate priority. I don’t remember reading that in my Civil War history books, but maybe I just wasn’t paying attention.
Among the people who came to California for the gold rush were many who had been politicians, even elected officials, in the States they left back East. A significant number of them were from the South. At that time, the southern wing of the Democratic Party was the strongest. The Whig party was fading, and the Republican Party (Lincoln would be its first President) was just beginning. California came into the union as a free state—and that was the basis of the political battles because a significant number of the powerful politicians in California at the time were Southerners. The fights in California—and they were fights, with duels and even murder as tactics—were between the southern wing of the Democratic party, represented primarily by William Gwin of Mississippi and David Broderick of New York, representing the northern (Stephen Douglas) wing of the party.
They battled over changing the constitution to ban slaves. Southerners argued that if ever there was appropriate work for black men it was gold mining. Northerners argued that the wealth from California gold should go to hardworking white Americans. There was talk of dividing California into two states, with Southern California entering the Union as a slave state called Colorado. There was talk of California seceding in 1861, not to join the Confederacy, but to declare a separate country—which seems scarily realistic considering how far it was from the contiguous states at that time. They battled over the route of the transcontinental railway—Southerners wanted a southern route ending in Southern California, arguing that the weather was better and there were no mountains.
The book has interested me in that 10-15 year period before the beginning of the Civil War when the US was expanding westward and Southerners, many with exhausted plantations in the East, sought to extend their way of life West, as of course did Northerners. There’s a sense in which the “battle for hearts and minds” over slavery occurred during those years primarily in the West, where there were few abolitionists.

[Lindsay Chervinsky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Being from California (and since I'm going back), I wanted to know more about one of the most famous events/trends. Although the book was more focused on the Civil War than I expected (I clearly stopping reading the title after the Gold Rush part), I really enjoyed it! It's not super long (under 300 pages of writing), has lots of great portraits and is fairly small in size, so it's a quick read. But the writing is colorful, dramatic and it is written like one long story, so it's a very pleasant experience.

I learned a great deal about the politicians that dominated the scene in California and Washington at the time, as well as their intrigues, duels, passions and failures. Seriously, these characters make politicians look like the most dull, unanimated sissies (yes, even Rep. Weiner's got nothing on these guys). I was also really surprised that California was dominated by so many pro-slavery southern men prior to the Civil War. Granted, I guess I don't really expect 4th grade history books to go deeply into the racism and less-than-pleasant path of the state. The book also talks a lot about the anti-slavery contigent in the state and how their actions and political positions were driven from a desire to preserve jobs for miners and other poor white settlers, rather than a humanitarian concern.

While corruption still exists today, it's amazing to see how rampant and public the process was in the 1840's, 1850's and 1860's. The concept of corruption was totally different and the right to hand out offices as a part of the spoils of victory was a given. As a result, men were fighting for a great deal more than just one office in the elections, producing some pretty shady maneuvers, and thus, some really interesting reading material.

While I certainly wouldn't call the book a beach-read, it was fun to read and definitely something I'd recommend.

[joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps a bit involved for most general readers but not for me! The narrative arc start with a duel that results in the last death of a US Senator via a duel - that senator was a California Senator and this book traces the events that led to the duel and leaves the reader to speculate whether the duel was a designed political assassination or not.

I got a glimpse at more issues involved in living in racist USA in the 1800's. One eye opening fact was that Stephen Douglas, the "Little Giant", famous to me for the Lincoln-Douglas debates, may have been an Illinois Senator but he managed his wife's plantation with more than 100 slaves in the south.

While reading this I kept wondering what a great chance it was that California attracted independent miner/prospectors rather than large corporations/rich plantation owners to invest in deep mines. The politics of accepting California as a free state were quite complicated and the senators that represented California voted and acted in the slave expansionist camp until the senator that died.

Another issue I dwelled on while reading was the connection between "free soil" and "white soil". The slave holders may have wanted to be able to have slave plantations but the free soil people did not want non-white settlers. If one can understand "white", one must understand how such a privileged minority can be blind to its racism. It helps one to appreciate how far the US racist culture has progressed and hope to see more progress in the future.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very random but interesting collection of stories from the gold rush to the civil war in California but lacked a solid thesis to connect them together. The book does do an excellent job of showing how California became a state via its population boom. It tracks the lives of those who impacted California from the Pathfinder, to Thomas Hart Benton and Jefferson Davis as well as the players within California many of whom would shape the transcontinental railroad. As noted by an earlier review it does provide a very interesting glimpse as to why the territories of California, Nevada and Colorado/Utah became the states that they did through the slavery question and how California was forced to remain together rather than try to solve the national slave problem from the local perspective. For those looking for more on the history of California and want to learn more about the little known stories this is a great book to start doing so but it does not tell a coherent story and remains a random collection.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this interesting story of California and the struggle inthe runup to the Civil War as North and South to determine if California would be admitted into the United States as a free or slave state. Richards profiles dozens of interesting politicians and adventurers and is not afraid into leaving his baseline story and traveling down interesting historic cul de sacs. The level of racism shown on all sides is astonishing. Many free staters were determined to keep slavery and any other blacks from migrating to California under any circumstances. Whatever the state of of poliitical debate today we don't resolve differences via duels.
The fact that a United States Senator from California was killed Ina duel by a California Supreme Court justice (who later was shot dead in another altercation over the spread of slavery and good old fashioned patronage politics is a fun fact I am glad I now know.

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really a gem in my semester reading list. The California Gold Rush was an area I just was not terribly familiar with, nor did I link it specifically with causes of the Civil War. Richard's book is a fantastic collection of biographies, stories, and political fights that seamlessly flow into a climax that was the secession of the South and the fight for the Union. Its a book of pure adventure mixing wars of words, duels, and cunning politics. Not only do the readers get a first hand look at the Gold Rush, they have a front row seat to the fights over California statehood, the Compromise of 1850, the transcontinental railroad, Manifest Destiny, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the darkening clouds of war. This book is a must read for any Civil War enthusiast.

[Marv Himmel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another good book for the American history fan. I like books that cover areas I no little about, and this was one of them. It details the political history of California, from the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill and the ensuing gold rush of 1849 through the development of local power brokers in San Francisco and Sacramento, the tensions between northern and southern California, the wranglings over boundaries and the most contentious machinations, both on a national and on a local level about the status of California, if it were to be admitted to the Union, as either a slave state or a free one. A well done and informative book.

[David R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding piece of scholarship. Richards covers entirely new ground by examining the political and economic environment of California when it served as a Deep South auxiliary in the 1850s. California, in fact, was the only "free state" that reliably supported the southern fire-eaters in Congress and which gave Lincoln less than a third of the 1860 vote. Along the journey are a bevy of fascinating characters the most important of which are faction major domos -cum-U.S. Senators William Gwin and David Broderick. And the work is eminently readable by the non-historian as well. A very fine selection.

[Jon Johnson · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is about US History from the discovery of gold in California to the beginning of the Civil War. California politics and especially the question of free state vs slave state is the central theme. The book makes one think the rough and tumble politics of today is not so unusual except for the lack of the occasional duel.

The book was a quick read if you don't chase the footnotes. It is mostly a series of events. I'm not sure the theme helped guide the narrative so it seems a little disjointed.

If you are interested in how the slavery issue influenced California history, you might want to take a look at this book.

[Peter Lindstrom · Rating 4 out of 5]

A popular history by a professional historian that mostly succeeds: the forces that created the American civil war were alive & well in California during the gold rush, even if it seemed far removed from those events, so by seeing that even in time & a place where the new setters were more interested in making money but still couldn't escape race/slavery, immigration paranoia & the same debates over power & property that were happening back East provides better insights into our time—especially when you read the accounts of the southernmost who arrived not to dig for gold but to establish water-wasting plantations for cotton & rice, a problem plaguing California to this day