Standing Firmly by the Flag: Nebraska Territory and the Civil War, 1861–1867 by James E. Potter

Abstract

Reviewed by: Standing Firmly by the Flag: Nebraska Territory and the Civil War, 1861–1867 by James E. Potter Ronald C. Naugle and John J. Montag James E. Potter, Standing Firmly by the Flag: Nebraska Territory and the Civil War, 1861–1867. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2012. 375pp. $29.95. The adage that war is long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror is borne out by the experience of the First Nebraska regiment of volunteers from 1861 to 1866 as related by James E. Potter in Standing Firmly by the Flag: Nebraska Territory and the Civil War, 1861–1867. In researching the story of the regiment and the 1,300 or so men who served in it, Potter realized the importance of the larger and more complex story of Nebraska Territory itself in the half dozen years before statehood in 1867 and that realization led to the structure of the book. Drawing primarily on the official records, newspaper accounts, letters, diaries, memoirs, and public papers he interweaves political and military events chronologically in an introduction, six chapters (each titled for individual years of the war), and an epilogue that chronicles the war and the events that followed. He seeks to overcome the limitations of earlier works–the uneven coverage of the military in general histories of the territory and the lack of broader context in specialized studies of military or economic activities such as freighting. In doing so Potters argues against “the notion that statehood in 1867 is really the genesis event from which Nebraska history has unfolded” (xvi–xvii). Kansas and Nebraska territories were created as part of the same congressional act in 1854, but the two territories were vastly different. Kansas remained close to its present size but Nebraska by comparison was initially geographically huge, being five times its present size. It incorporated everything between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains from Kansas to [End Page 101] the Canadian border and incorporated by what would become those parts of North and South Dakota lying west of the Missouri River, large sections of what would become Idaho, Montana and Wyoming and the northeastern portion of Colorado. Most of those areas had been carved away by 1861. The Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which had disallowed slavery in those areas west of Missouri and north of Missouri’s southern border in the Louisiana Purchase and replaced it with “popular sovereignty” allowing the people to decide the fate of slavery at the time the territory became a state. It meant technically slavery could exist in both Kansas and Nebraska territories until statehood. The two territories had different experiences with slavery. Kansas was besieged by political turmoil over the issue of slavery and the division between pro-slavery Missourians and Free Soilers fighting for control of the territory briefly led to the creation of two capitals, one anti-slavery at Lawrence and the other pro-slavery at Lecompton. The story was very different in Nebraska, at least in the territorial days. Few expected Nebraska to embrace slavery but some new residents brought slaves with them into Nebraska. The federal census in 1860 listed only fifteen slaves in Nebraska. Instead Nebraska’s divisive issue was the location of the territorial capital which dominated the political scene all the way into statehood. Indians made up most of Nebraska’s population in 1860, with white settlement concentrated near the Missouri River and a scattering of “soldiers, miners, and trail side entrepreneurs” to the west. Three quarters of the territories 28,841 non-Indian population were native-born, about 80% coming from the free states. Most of the immigrants came from German provinces, England or Ireland. With so much diversity it comes as no surprise that whatever might be inferred initially from the title, Standing Firmly by the Flag, the reader soon learns that Nebraskans in the Civil War era differed widely in their political views, ranging from secessionists or “secesh” as they were commonly called, to Unionists and from pro- to anti-emancipation. In just one example Potter relates the story of Robert D. Thompson, twenty-three-year-old son of First Nebraska company commander J...