9781422286081

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Eastern Great Lakes: Indiana, Michigan, Ohio

of 1830 allowed the Indiana govern- ment to force the remaining tribes out of the state. The Indiana militia marched 859 Potawatomie to Kansas. So many Native Americans died on the journey that it became known as the Trail of Death. Yet other minorities found hope in Indiana. The farming community of Newport (now Fountain City) was “Grand Central Station” of the Underground Railroad. Quakers Levi and Catharine Coffin housed, fed, and hid more than 2,000 slaves in their brick home in Newport. Indiana had close ties to the South, including many Southern residents. However, antislavery feelings were widespread by the Civil War. Republicans, the antislavery party, gained power in the state government in 1854. During the Civil War, Governor Oliver Morton firmly supported President Lincoln. When Democrats gained power of the state legislature in the election of 1862, Morton and the remaining Republican lawmakers refused to hold sessions. This prevent-

Oliver P. Morton was the governor of Indiana dur- ing the Civil War, serv- ing from 1861 to 1867. He later represented the state in the U.S. Senate for ten years, from 1867

until his death in November 1877.

ed the Democrats—critics of Lincoln’s tactics and opponents to both strong federal government and black rights— from harming Morton and Lincoln’s vision of the Union war effort. Governor Morton accused the Democrats and their followers of sym- pathizing, and even supporting, the Rebels. But when Confederate cavalry invaded Democratic areas in south Indiana, the people’s hostility toward the Rebels proved that Indianans were squarely on the Union’s side. The bitter division between Republicans and Democrats seen dur- ing the Civil War lasted for many years. Indiana elections were often tightly contested between the two par- ties until the 1940s.