Indiana in the American Civil War

Indiana residents, also known as Hoosiers, supplied the Union with manpower for the war effort, a railroad network and access to the Ohio River and the Great Lakes, and agricultural products such as grain and livestock.

Indiana experienced significant political strife during the war, especially after Governor Oliver P. Morton suppressed the Democratic-controlled state legislature, which had an anti-war (Copperhead) element.

On April 15, Indiana's governor, Oliver P. Morton, issued a call for volunteer soldiers to meet the state's quota set by President Abraham Lincoln.

[2] Indiana's geographical location in the Midwest, its large population, and its agricultural production made the state's wartime support critical to the Union's success.

[5][6] On the first day, five hundred men were encamped in the city; within a week more than 12,000 Hoosier volunteers had signed up to fight for the Union, nearly three times as many needed to meet the state's initial quota.

It was especially unpopular among Democrats, who viewed it as a threat to individual freedom and opposed legislation that allowed a man to purchase an exemption for $300 or pay another person to serve as his substitute.

[29] These men included Don Carlos Buell, Ambrose Burnside, Lew Wallace, Robert H. Milroy, and Joseph J. Reynolds, and Jefferson C. Davis, among others.

[32] Other camps for Union soldiers were established elsewhere in the state, including Fort Wayne, Gosport, Jeffersonville, Kendallville, Lafayette, Richmond, South Bend, Terre Haute, Wabash, and in LaPorte County.

[34] Indiana's state government financed a large portion of the costs involved in preparing its regiments for war, including housing, feeding, and equipping them, before their assignment to the standing Union armies.

[35] To provide ammunition, Morton established a state-owned arsenal at Indianapolis served the Indiana militia, home guard, and as a backup supply depot for the Union army.

[32][36] The Indiana Sanitary Commission, created in 1862, and soldiers' aid societies throughout the state raised funds and gathered supplies for troops in the field.

[40] It is not known how many women from Indiana became wartime nurses, but several died during their service, including Eliza George of Fort Wayne and Hannah Powell and Asinae Martin of Goshen.

[48] On June 17, 1863, in preparation for a planned cavalry offensive by Confederate troops under the command of John Hunt Morgan, one of his officers, Captain Thomas Hines and approximately 80 men crossed the Ohio River to search for horses and support from Hoosiers in southern Indiana.

During the minor incursion, which became known as Hines' Raid, local citizens and members of Indiana's home guard pursued the Confederates and succeeded in capturing most of them without a fight.

Their arrival was initially contested by a small party from the Indiana Legion, who withdrew after Morgan's men began firing artillery from the river's southern shore.

[70][71] Due to their location across the Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky, the Indiana cities of Jeffersonville, New Albany, and Port Fulton saw increased trade and military activity.

Military bases in southern Indiana were needed to support Union operations against Confederates in Kentucky, and it was safer to store war supplies in towns on the north side of the river.

Morton also urged Indiana's legislators to set aside party considerations for the duration of the war and unite in defense of the Union, but the Republicans and Democrats did not cooperate for long.

[81] After the elections in the fall of 1862, Governor Morton feared that the legislature's Democratic majority would attempt to hinder the war effort, reduce his authority, and vote to secede from the Union.

The group proved enough of a threat that General Lew Wallace, commander of Union forces in the region, spent considerable time countering their activities.

Many Golden Circle members were arrested without formal charges, the pro-Confederate press was prevented from printing anti-war material, and the writ of habeas corpus was denied to anyone suspected of disloyalty.

[89] Although raids into Indiana were infrequent, smuggling goods into Confederate territory was common, especially in the early days of the war when the Union army had not yet pushed the front lines far to the south of the Ohio River.

A fraudulent steamboat company was established to ply the Ohio River between Madison, Indiana, and Louisville; its boat, the Masonic Gem, made regular trips to Confederate ports.

Former U.S. Army officer Francis A. Shoup, who briefly led the Indianapolis Zouave militia unit, left for Florida prior to the war, and ultimately become a Confederate brigadier general.

[32][91][92] After the elections in 1864 the state's Republican legislative majority arrived at a critical turning point, as the North was slowly tightening its blockade of the South.

Farmers received higher prices for their agricultural products, railroads and commercial businesses thrived in the state's cities and towns, and manpower shortages gave laborers more bargaining power.

The state's population shifted to central and northern Indiana as new industries and cities began to develop around the Great Lakes and the railroad depots erected during the war.

His rise to the governor's office initiated a period of Democratic control in the state that reversed many of the political gains made by the Republican Party during the war.

[103] When the South returned to firm Democratic control at the end of the 1870s, Indiana, which was closely split between the two parties, was one of a few key swing state that often decided the balance of power in Congress and the presidency.

In 1888, at the height of the state's post-war political influence, former Civil War general Benjamin Harrison was elected president, and served in that capacity from 1889 to 1893.