Looking for Lincoln in Illinois by Andreasen Bryon C.;Fraker Guy C.;

Author:Andreasen, Bryon C.;Fraker, Guy C.; [Andreasen, Bryon C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press

5. THE BATTLE OF NAUVOO

ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS SEVERAL COUNTIES AWAY attending court at Tremont when an army of anti-Mormon extremists besieged Nauvoo. Their initial commander was James W. Singleton, a Whig lawyer and aspiring politician from Brown County. Singleton’s objective had been to enforce an arrest warrant. But when he realized that the warrant was merely a pretext for attacking Nauvoo, he sought a peaceful resolution. His militiamen refused. They also refused to obey state officials sent by Governor Thomas Ford to prevent violence. Singleton resigned command rather than be party to an unauthorized attack on civilians. Two years previous to what became known as the Battle of Nauvoo, Singleton commanded state troops that accompanied Governor Ford to Nauvoo, where Ford spoke at the very moment Joseph and Hyrum Smith were murdered in Carthage, Illinois, in 1844. The following year—1845—Singleton played an important role at a regional meeting in Carthage that demanded all Latter-day Saints leave Illinois.

JAMES W. SINGLETON BEGAN HIS political career as a Lincoln ally. In the years after the “Mormon War,” however, the two men drifted apart. When the Whig Party disintegrated in the mid-1850s Singleton became a Democrat rather than follow Lincoln into the antislavery Republican Party. During the Civil War Singleton was a prominent “Copperhead”—a severe critic of Lincoln, emancipation, and the war. Lincoln told his secretary John Hay that Singleton was “a miracle of meanness.” Nevertheless, near the end of the war Lincoln permitted Singleton to engage in speculative cotton and tobacco trading across enemy lines. Singleton reported performing a peace mission for Lincoln by meeting with Confederate leaders in Richmond. He claimed that Lincoln was willing to make peace without insisting on the abolition of slavery—unfairly casting a shadow on the President’s reputation.

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