William Burton (governor) - Governor of Delaware

Governor of Delaware

Delaware experienced all the contention and bitterness of a border state in the Civil War and the events leading up to it, but because of its location and certain decisive military action, was spared much of the bloodshed of Kentucky and Missouri. Nevertheless, the divisions in communities and families, and their corresponding strong feelings were the same. A slave state with very few slaves or slaveholders, many in Delaware had an attitude they called “states rights,” which really meant, “Outsiders are not going to tell us what to do.” Given the close economic ties to Philadelphia, and the geographical separation from the Confederacy, there was little sentiment for actual secession. However, the opposition to the abolitionist and voting rights agenda of the Republican federal government were strong enough to create considerable contentiousness. These feeling were strongest in the two lower counties, which still had a majority of the population in 1860, and completely dominated the General Assembly, the real decision maker in the state.

With the approach of the Civil War, the American Party had collapsed over the issue of temperance, and the progressive elements of that party joined with other old line Whigs in a Delaware People’s Party. Most of this group would eventually join with the new Republican Party in Delaware. Burton ran for Governor a second time, in 1858, against the candidate of this party, James S. Buckmaster, a Frederica merchant, and narrowly won. He then served from January 18, 1859 until January 20, 1863.

Burton tried to steer a course down the middle of all the competing interests. Like a majority in the state, he was strongly sympathetic towards the South, and a strong opponent of abolition, but he opposed Delaware’s possible secession. A delegation led by Mississippi Judge Henry Dickinson came from the Confederacy to attempt to persuade the General Assembly to enact secession, but the suggestion was rejected, and Delaware remained firmly in the Union. Meanwhile factions of armed supporters of both sides gathered arms and trained. Burton asked the groups favoring the South to disarm, but later withdrew the request. At the same time he appointed West Point graduate and DuPont company president, Henry A. du Pont, to lead the state militia. du Pont was more decisive, and saw that when additional arms were secured from the federal government, they were directed toward loyal militia, and that the all-important powder mills of his company were properly protected. Du Pont would end up supplying over half the gunpowder used by the Union armies. When the call came for soldiers for the federal army, Burton again compromised by refusing to turn over the Delaware militia, or to pay for bounties, but did encourage enlistment. In fact, support for the Union was so strong that Delaware had a larger number of soldiers per size of population than any other state. This fact prompted U.S. President Abraham Lincoln to remark that “South of the Mason-Dixon line, noble little Delaware led off right from the first.”

It took du Pont’s well armed loyal militia, and other federal troops, to disarm the irregular units formed in Sussex and Kent County, and the militia went on to occupy the old State House and otherwise secure the state. Then as Burton’s term came to its end, federal troops, once again, were called in by Republican leaders to supervise the 1862 elections, opening up possibilities for Republican electoral victories, but assuring a generation of bitterness on the part of many Delawareans towards the party that seemed to be unjustifiably ruling at the point of a bayonet.