Exeter History Talk #17
By Dwight K Miller
That old bit of advice has been passed down through generations as a way to avoid conflict in social situations. Yet the September 10th assassination of Charlie Kirk—and the reactions that followed—brought both topics squarely to the forefront of national conversation in recent months. The divisive nature of today’s political discourse led me to wonder: Has it always been this way?
Looking back through history, the answer appears to be yes. Every decade offers examples of bitter division: Jefferson and Adams’ rivalry, the deadly duel between Hamilton and Burr, and the brutal 1856 assault on Senator Charles Sumner by Representative Preston Brooks during the antislavery debates—all reminders that political passion has long run hot in America.
The Civil War era, of course, marked the most violent expression of these divisions. Even here in Tulare County, the conflict found its way into daily life. In 1860, Visalia was a small town of about 500 people, and Confederate sympathizers—known locally as the “Secesh”—were particularly vocal.
That November, John Shannon, publisher of the Visalia Delta, an ardent Secesh, engaged in a heated editorial feud with W.G. Morris of the Visalia Sun. The feud escalated into a fistfight, during which Shannon knocked Morris unconscious. When Morris regained consciousness, he grabbed a gun, found Shannon in the street, and shot him dead. Despite the public nature of the killing, he was never prosecuted.
Newspapers served as the primary outlet for political expression at the time. In August 1862, the Visalia Equal Rights Expositor published its first issue, edited by L.P. Hall, a 48-year-old Mississippi native who had spent the 1850s in California and Oregon advocating for the expansion of slavery. He partnered with S.J. Garrison, a young transplant from Alabama, to produce the fiercely pro-Confederate paper. Their writings were caustic in tone and scathing in their criticism of President Lincoln and the North.
An example of their writing:
Nov 8, 1862
We write, and put up without writing, our editorials to suit our sovereign selves, L.P. Hall and S.J. Garrison, and if the manner in which we conduct our paper meets the approbation of the “Secession” element, as it is called, and we have the most indubitable proof that it does, we are pleased. WE both sprang from the gallant, generous, the magnanimous South, the land of repudiation and Bowie knives, both of which, with the addition, sometime, of the bullet, the rope, and tar and feathers, have been brought into requisition to free the country of psalm singing, thieving, poisoning, incendiary Yankee Abolitionists, who have plied their vocation until they have disrupted the Government and plunged it into revolution.
Terry Ommen, Visalia historian, recently wrote a great article about Camp Babbitt, the federal fort that was established in order to keep the Secesh in check.
Another scholar, Tristan Shamp, wrote an excellent paper for his Master’s thesis on the troubles in Visalia.
https://scholarworks.calstate.edu/downloads/k35699201
On March 5, 1863, federal troops and local Union sympathizers marched to the Expositor office and destroyed all of its equipment, bringing the paper’s run in Visalia to an abrupt end. After the war, the publishers sued the state government seeking compensation for their losses, but the governor vetoed their claim, stating it was a “federal matter—take it up with them.”
L.P. Hall later found work writing for another newspaper in the Merced area, but his Confederate sympathies eventually led to his arrest. He was imprisoned at Alcatraz, where he remained for the rest of the war before being released in September 1865.
In today’s political climate, we hear frequent—and welcome—calls for civility in public discourse. Let’s hope those calls are answered.