Isaac Ingalls Stevens

Background

Isaac was born on March 25, 1818 at Andover, Massachussets, United States, the son of Isaac and Hannah (Cummings) Stevens, and a descendant of John Stevens who was living in Andover as early as 1641. He descended from the earliest settlers of Andover in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Education

During his boyhood he helped on the farm and outstripped all his fellows in study. After a year and four months at Phillips Academy, where he excelled in mathematics, he entered the United States Military Academy, graduating first in his class in 1839.

Career

Commissioned a second lieutenant of engineers, Stevens was engaged for several years in the construction or repair of fortifications on the New England coast. During the Mexican War he was engineer adjutant on Scott's staff in Mexico, and at Contreras, Churubusco, and Chapultepec displayed a combination of judgment and cool daring for which he was brevetted captain and major.

After the war, while recovering from wounds received in the capture of the city of Mexico, he was assigned once more to engineering duties in coastal fortifications until 1849, when Alexander D. Bache appointed him executive assistant in the United States Coast Survey at Washington.

Here he demonstrated high talent for administration. He remained till 1853, meanwhile taking a deep interest in army reorganization and other questions calling for arguments before the departments, congressional committees, and the president. His clarity and breadth of thought, sound practical judgment, dignity, and power of statement made him an ideal worker for such ends.

In 1851, partly as a critique of Major Roswell S. Ripley's The War with Mexico (1849), he published Campaigns of the Rio Grande and of Mexico. He desired to see historical justice done to Generals Scott and Taylor, who at the time were the victims of partisan prejudice.

Early in Pierce's administration, upon the enactment of the law providing for Pacific Railway surveys, Stevens sought and secured appointment as director of exploration for the northern route. Just previously he had secured the governorship of Washington Territory, resigning from the army (March 16, 1853) in order to accept it.

This survey, and the later effort to get the route he recommended accepted by government and people, constituted thereafter Stevens' most engrossing interest. Secretary Davis withheld the funds required for completing the work but Stevens used his meager resources as governor to bring it gradually to perfection, and in 1858 he dictated his final report, which is considered his masterpiece.

Meanwhile, the governorship of the Territory had proved a nightmare. Faced with the problem of opening 100, 000 square miles of land to white settlement, Stevens began by making a series of Indian treaties. He was probably lacking in the requisite patience, and as usual, the negotiations caused restiveness among the tribes which eventuated in widespread and desolating Indian wars. General John E. Wool, commander of the army on the Pacific, refused to cooperate with the people of Washington and Oregon and even thwarted their military undertakings.

The correspondence between Stevens and the General was long and bitterly controversial. A stormy episode resulting from the Indian troubles was the Governor's proclamation of martial law, the subsequent arrest of a federal judge, Edward Lander, and the arrest of the Governor for contempt of court. In his great work, however, the endeavor to pacify the Indians, he succeeded partially.

Although subjected to a flood of criticism, from both within and without the Territory, Stevens was elected territorial delegate to Congress for the term beginning March 4, 1857. Here he urged the ratification of his Indian treaties, winning against the bitter opposition of Wool's friends. He was returned to his delegate's seat for the following term.

In 1860 he assumed the chairmanship of the Breckinridge and Lane national committee, Lane being a close personal friend. This action alienated the Douglas Democrats so that he failed of renomination as delegate to Congress, and when on the outbreak of the Civil War he proffered his services to the Federal government, the response was slow and grudging. He finally accepted the colonelcy of the 79th Regiment of New York Volunteers ("The Highlanders"), was promoted to brigadier-general in September, and major-general as of July 4, 1862. He was gallantly leading a charge at Chantilly when a bullet in the temple instantaneously terminated his career.

In addition to the Campaigns and the report mentioned above, he published A Circular Letter to Emigrants Desirous of Locating in Washington Territory (1858) and Address on the Northwest (1858), delivered before the American Geographical and Statistical Society.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Stevens secured a commission as a Brigadier General of Volunteers. He was killed in action in 1862 during the Battle of Chantilly.

Achievements

• Isaac Ingalls Stevens was accredited as a founding member of the Territorial University of Washington, now known as the University of Washington. He also served as a U. S. Congressman, and a Brigadier General in the Union Army during the American Civil War until his death at the Battle of Chantilly. He was appointed posthumously to the grade of Major General of volunteers. A small monument in Ox Hill Battlefield Park commemorates the death of Stevens. Stevens County, Washington, and Stevens County, Minnesota, were both named in his honor. Two U. S. Army forts were named for Stevens - Fort Stevens in the Union defenses of Washington and Fort Stevens in Oregon. The town of Stevensville, Montana, is named for him.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Campaigns of the Rio Grande and of Mexico. With notices of the recent work of Major Ripley

    (This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)

  • Address on the Northwest, before the American geographical and statistical society, delivered at New York, December 2, 1858

    (This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)

  • Message of the Governor of Washington Territory: Also, the Correspondence With the Secretary of War, Major Gen. Wool, the Officers of the Regular ... of Washington Territory (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Message of the Governor of Washington Territ...)

  • A True Copy of the Record of the Official Precedings at the Council in the Walla Walla Valley, 1855

    (A True Copy of the Record of the Official Proceedings at ...)

  • Campaigns of the Rio Grande and of Mexico: With Notices of the Recent Work of Major Ripley 1851

    (Originally published in 1851. This volume from the Cornel...)

Politics

Politically, he once called himself a "Democratic Abolitionist. " In 1852, he actively supported the candidacy of Democrat Franklin Pierce (1804-1869).

Views

Stevens was a controversial governor in his time. Historians consider him even more controversial, for his role in compelling the Native American tribes of Washington Territory by intimidation and force to sign treaties that ceded most of their lands and rights to Stevens' government.

As a result of this public perception, Stevens was popular enough to be elected the territory's delegate to the United States Congress in 1857 and 1858. The tensions between the whites and the Native Americans would be left for others to resolve - Stevens is often charged with responsibility for the later conflicts in eastern Washington and Idaho, especially the war fought by the United States against Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce, but these events were decades away when Isaac Stevens left Washington State for good in 1857.

Quotations: Stevens' proclamation of martial law in Pierce County stated:

"Whereas in the prosecution of the Indian war circumstances have existed affording such grave cause of suspicion, such that certain evil disposed persons of Pierce county have given aid and comfort to the enemy, as that they have been placed under arrest and ordered to be tried by a military commission; and whereas, efforts are now being made to withdraw, by civil process, these persons from the purview of the said commission. Therefore, as the war is now being actively prosecuted through- out nearly the whole of the said county, and great injury to the public, and the plans of the campaign be frustrated, if the alleged designs of these persons be not arrested, I, Isaac I. Stevens, Governor of the Territory of Washington, do hereby proclaim Martial Law over the said county of Pierce, and do by these presents suspend for the time being and till further notice, the functions of all civil officers in said county. "

Personality

Stevens was slight and undersized, but with a massive head, and great dignity both of bearing and speech. His small size suggests that he may have suffered from a slight form of dwarfism, but he possessed intelligence and ambition.

He was deeply serious and somewhat deficient in humor.

Connections

While stationed at Newport, Rhod Island, he met Margaret Hazard, whom he married September 8, 1841. A son and four daughters were born to them.

Father:

Isaac Stevens

Mother:

Hannah (Cummings) Stevens

Wife:

Margaret Hazard

colleague:

George B. McClellan

ancestor:

John Stevens

References

• Isaac I. Stevens: Young Man in a Hurry
• The Life of Isaac Ingalls Stevens: V. 2
• The Life of Isaac Ingalls Stevens, Volume 2
• The Life of Isaac Ingalls Stevens, Volume I