Great Plains and the Balance Between North and South
"The Great Plains presented a barrier which arrested for a time the whole westward movement, but the barrier was greater for the South than for the North. The Northern system,…
The Wilmot Amendment
"This narrative has remarked that a decisive tum was rounded at some time between August and December, 1846. On August 10, the First Session of the Twenty-ninth Congress adjourned while…
California Gold and the Civil War
"It is a question whether the United States could have stood the shock of the great rebellion of 1861 had the California gold discovery not been made. Bankers and business men of…
The Union League
"Shortly Before Our Arrival in Omaha [in 1863] I had met and been introduced to a man who was a national organizer of the Union League. It was called the 'National Loyal Union…
Sound on the Goose
"In those early days there was no law in the city, not even a Vigilance Committee, and the sporting fraternity, holding all together, and being well armed, ruled without question. They were all…
Border Ruffians
"So I journeyed on, getting over about thirty-five miles a day on an average, and nothing worth recording occurred till Independence, an important town and Indian trading-post on the frontier of Missouri, was reached.…
Raids on Butterfield Stations in Texas
"Texas's secession vote in February 1861 prompted Congress a few weeks later to move the overland mail service from the southern route to a central route through the country's midsection,…