After the Gold Rush - California in 1861
After the Gold Rush - California in 1861
In this month’s chapters, California commits to the Union after a Secessionist coup attempt in San Francisco led by hotheaded, slaveholding young Southern transplant Asbury Harpending.
Union rally Montgomery & Market 1861
As the rest of the country faces a long and bloody Civil War, Ted & Anna Judah seize the opportunity to push through a transcontinental railroad to unite the nation, while Black entrepreneur Mary Ellen Pleasant expands her sphere of influence. And two unforgettable characters, soon-to-be-famous, and seriously fine American authors burst onto the scene:
The disruption of the war would ultimately bring both Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce to California to make their literary fortune in San Francisco—via quite opposite paths. 25-year-old Samuel Clemens fled to the West to avoid serving in battle; 19-year-old abolitionist Ambrose Bierce enlisted on the very day war was declared, and would later write of his horrific wartime experiences in his blistering short stories, including the classic "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”
You can read After the Gold Rush from the beginning, in order, here:
Chapters 34- 43
Chapter 34 - Secessionist plots in Civil War San Francisco
Chapter 35 - San Francisco commits to the Union
Chapter 36 - What, to the Slave, is the Fourth of July? & The Picnic at Bull Run
Chapter 37 - The Civil War begins: Ambrose Bierce at Rich Mountain, 1861
Chapter 38 - Enter Mark Twain, running
Chapter 39 - Ina Coolbrith and John Rollin Ridge
Chapter 40 - Ted & Anna Judah vs. the Associates on the Transcontinental Railroad
Chapter 41 - Jessie Frémont petitions Lincoln for Emancipation
Chapter 42 - Ted & Anna Judah in Civil War Washington
Chapter 43 - Black entrepreneur Mary Ellen Pleasant in Civil War San Francisco
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