Civil War Governor
In his first inaugural address in January 1861, Blair recommended that the state offer its entire military resources to Lincoln for maintaining the supremacy of the U.S. Constitution. Within days of the outbreak of the American Civil War in April, Blair responded by calling for ten companies of volunteers. The legislature later retroactively authorized the Governor's quick actions, authorized a war loan of $1,000,000, and passed the Soldiers' Relief Law, requiring counties to provide relief to the families of soldiers. By mid-May, the first regiment of Michigan soldiers, under the command of Colonel O. B. Willcox had left to engage in the field of combat, and was the first western force to arrive at the seat of combat. The second regiment, under the command of Colonel Israel B. Richardson, soon followed.
While the third and fourth regiments were being raised, Blair received directions from the U.S. Secretary of War, limiting the number of regiments that would be accepted from Michigan to four and asked Blair not to raise more than that number. Blair decided to disregard these instructions and continued to establish the fifth, sixth, and seventh regiments, all of which had been deployed by mid-September. Under Blair's guidance, Michigan continued to supply troops for the Union forces throughout the war. One notable unit was a colored unit, known as the 102nd United States Colored Troops, which included two sons of Sojourner Truth and Josiah Henson (the man Harriet Beecher Stowe used as the model for Uncle Tom). In 1862, he attended the Loyal War Governors' Conference in Altoona, Pennsylvania, which ultimately backed Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and the Union war effort.
At the outset of the war, Michigan had a total population of approximately 800,000 and an estimated 110,000 able-bodied men capable of bearing arms. By the end of the war, more than 90,000 Michigan men had volunteered to fight. Blair personally helped to raise about $100,000 to organize and equip the initial muster of troops. When Blair left office in 1864, he was almost destitute, having expended much of his personal wealth in support of the war effort. During this time of conflict, Governor Blair ran the state government from his hometown of Jackson, making that community a hub of Michigan's war effort.
Blair ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate, challenging the politically well-entrenched Zachariah Chandler who, although a fellow Republican, was seen by Blair as representing wealthy, Detroit interests rather than "outstate" interests.
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Famous quotes containing the words civil war, civil, war and/or governor:
“They have been waiting for us in a foetor
Of vegetable sweat since civil war days,
Since the gravel-crunching, interminable departure
Of the expropriated mycologist.”
—Derek Mahon (b. 1941)
“Colonel Shaw
and his bell-cheeked Negro infantry
on St. Gaudens shaking Civil War relief,
propped by a plank splint against the garage’s earthquake.”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)
“If I had my way, this war would never have been commenced. If I had been allowed my way this war would have been ended before this.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“Three years ago, also, when the Sims tragedy was acted, I said to myself, There is such an officer, if not such a man, as the Governor of Massachusetts,—what has he been about the last fortnight? Has he had as much as he could do to keep on the fence during this moral earthquake?... He could at least have resigned himself into fame.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)