By Ross Eric Gibson

Monday, Evergreen Cemetery is offering Memorial Day tours at 10 a.m. and at 1 p.m. to honor the veterans buried here. The very first Memorial Day was started spontaneously by freed slaves and several Black regiments occupying Charleston. Back in 1860, the ideas that had emboldened the war were debated in Santa Cruz, through fiery editorials in local and San Francisco newspapers, Abolitionist journals and lectures and rallies throughout the county.

In the 1860 presidential campaign, the Democrats met in Charleston, South Carolina, a city riven with Secessionist passions. President James Buchanan’s vice president, John Breckinridge, would normally have been the party’s choice, but they chose Stephen Douglas on the “State’s Rights” platform that slavery should be decided by each state (as in Bloody Kansas). Breckinridge carved off pro-slavery allies into a “Southern Democrats Party,” promoting the expansion of slavery into the West. Know-Nothings and Whigs formed the “Constitutional Union Party,” whose candidate John Bell sought to preserve the status quo of both slavery and the Union. The Republicans had brilliant and articulate men, but each alienated various factions, so the party settled on a lesser-known moderate, Abraham Lincoln, on a platform to prevent slavery’s expansion.Everything seemed split North and South, and when Santa Cruzans got together for a political rally at Rice’s Hall downtown, people spoke to their issues. For Northerners, the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law forced Free States to participate in the slave system against their will, a law punishing those who refused to arrest Black people and return them to their enslavers. Mercenary slave catchers had brought enforcement of slavery to every state and territory in the nation. On the other hand, Southerners feared an end of slavery, which would reduce their profits in the international cotton trade, turn their large enslaved population into rival voters, supposedly unwilling to be governed, and full of vengeance. This was especially frightening in South Carolina and Mississippi, where there were more Black people than white people.

Things reached this sorry pass through a quartet of deadly beliefs. 1. That “all men are created equal,” except the Black Race. 2. That there could be a “Benevolent Slavery” that outlawed marriage, family, literacy, the Bible, citizenship, education, and dignity. 3. That states could selectively “Nullify” national laws for themselves, while forcing Federal laws on Free States. 4. That “Secession” was not treason.

Origins of war

Back in 1798 John Adams created four laws called “The Alien and Sedition Acts,” authorizing the president to arrest and deport aliens (mostly French), make 5-to-14 years’ residency a requirement for citizenship and outlaw criticism of the government. At first, South Carolina thought they needed a “Nullification Law” to stop an unconstitutional ruling at the state level. However, the 1788 “Supremacy Clause” already ruled that federal law always overrules any state law to the contrary. The Alien and Sedition Acts were watered down, and South Carolina felt their hollow nullification threat had been the key.

In 1828, President John Quincy Adams sought to protect the prices of domestic American goods, so he enacted the highest American tariff for a century, up to a 50% tax on imported goods. Yet instead of helping manufactured goods and farm products, it resulted in foreign retaliatory tariffs on American exports, requiring higher prices at home to compensate for the reduction in American exports. The South had just come out of an agricultural depression, and its cotton industry relied heavily on supplying British textile mills, but the tariffs reduced British export profits, so the mills bought less cotton. As a result, the South termed Adams’ bill “the Tariff of Abominations” and Adams was voted out of office in favor of South Carolinian Andrew Jackson. But Jackson kept the tariff to pay off the national debt.

Vice President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina revived the theory of nullification, and in 1833, South Carolina held a conference to create a Nullification Ordinance, saying they would defend it with armed resistance. Jackson made clear that “disunion by armed force is treason,” meaning not just nullification but secession. It was clear the Constitution defined the nation as “We the People,” meaning removal of even a single town into foreign hands is a matter for all the citizens of this democracy to decide, not just a provincial few. Jackson proposed the “Force Bill” to show his intent to use the military to stop nullification and secession, while Henry Clay diffused the crisis with the Compromise Tariff of 1833, to reduce import taxes and sunset the tariff in nine years.

Thus, 1833 had been the first real threat South Carolina might secede from the union. In 1852, they again hoped to masquerade “treason” (as Andrew Jackson called it) as secession. Their reason was northern non-compliance with the Fugitive Slave Ordinance, stealing the South’s chattel. In 1860, Charleston published their “Declaration of the … Causes Which … Justify the Secession of South Carolina.”

Local cavalry and infantry

On April 12, 1861, Confederates fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina’s Charleston Harbor, galvanizing Santa Cruz, as Republicans and most local Democrats — no matter their view on slavery — supported the preservation of the Union. California was soon to experience a loss of manpower seeking to defend the nation on the battlefields back east So a call went out to form local militias to defend the state from Confederate invasion. Capt. Albert Brown recruited a Santa Cruz cavalry unit in September 1861 (Company L, Second California Cavalry), which camped between the San Lorenzo River and Branciforte Creek. They soon left for Camp Alert in San Francisco, laid out on the old Pioneer Race Track. Meanwhile, Capt. Thomas Tidball organized the Santa Cruz infantry company (Company K, fifth California Infantry), sent to Camp Union near Sacramento. (“Santa Cruz Cavalry Co. & the Butler Guard,” by Sidney Freshour).

But these were not ordinary times, as the skies opened up a deluge of biblical proportions, it turned the Central Valley into a lake 20-miles wide and 300-miles long. Gov. Leland Stanford moved the state government to San Francisco, while many coastal towns like Santa Cruz, Soquel and Watsonville experienced some level of flooding. Soldiers of the Infantry and Cavalry assisted with flood prevention, relief and clean-up, then a freak snowstorm occurred Jan. 27, 1862. Respiratory illness claimed Santa Cruz Cavalrymen Asa Anthony (19) and Alexander Brown (20) at Camp Alert, and Santa Cruz Infantryman Eugene Van Asche also died that same winter. Cavalryman Donald McCloud had a nervous breakdown at Camp Alert. The winter left Santa Cruz’s Ruel W. Kittredge with a cold that only got worse due to camp life, so he was given a medical discharge in July 1862 and died at home seven months later, at age 23. Cavalryman James Hecox caught Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and was sent home on medical furlough, where he died in 12 days at age 28. (Remembering Our Own,” Robert L. Nelson). Yet dying in bed instead of battle did not diminish their contributions or sacrifice.

John T. Sullivan was an 18-year-old Massachusetts boy who came to South Carolina to load cotton when the war broke out. He returned to join a Massachusetts company who needed his knowledge of South Carolina. He was in battles at Pocotaligo railroad hub, Morris Island in Charleston Harbor, Second Battle of Bull Run, Poolsville, Frederick City and wounded at Antietam. He was twice captured and twice escaped.

Last stand

As the war came to an end, Charleston Harbor became the last stronghold for blockade runners, with almost impenetrable defenses. Confederate President Jefferson Davis said it was better Charleston be reduced to ruins than surrender. Wm. Tecumseh Sherman followed a similar plan, blazing a path of destruction from Atlanta to the sea and through Georgia and the Carolinas. Cut off from the interior, Confederate Gen. Beauregard ordered the evacuation from Charleston of remaining Confederate forces on Feb. 15, 1865, and two days later South Carolina’s capital of Columbia was destroyed by Sherman, with Charleston’s mayor surrendering his city to the Union army. With Confederates gone, the streets filled with Blacks freed by this victory, who burst into cheers to see the first soldiers to enter the city were members of the 21st U.S. Infantry Regiment Colored Regiment and the 55th Massachusetts Colored Regiment.

The Charleston Black population wanted to help, so they began exhuming a mass grave at the old race track, where 260 Union prisoners had died of disease and exposure in a Confederate prison camp. They reburied them in a new cemetery, with a tall whitewashed fence that read “Martyrs of the Race Course.” Lee’s surrender April 9, 1865 ended the war, and Lincoln’s assassination April 14 left a nation in mourning for the loss of 620,000 lives.

On May 1, 1865, grateful liberated Charleston Black people decorated the graves of those who died to end slavery. Then a crowd of 10,000 mostly freed slaves, staged a parade featuring 3,000 Black school children with bouquets, plus members of the 54th Massachusetts and other Black Union regiments marching, while Black ministers made biblical observations on the significance of this event. It was the first Decoration Day, or Memorial Day, held in the city that had instigated the War to Protect Slavery.

In Santa Cruz, a special G.A.R. (Grand Army of the Republic) section of Evergreen Cemetery was dedicated in 1868. It became the focus of floral decorating and memorial ceremonies by those parading to the cemetery in 1869 and 1870. John T. Sullivan settled in Santa Cruz in 1885, best known as the manager of the first-class Sea Beach Hotel. Lucas F. Smith was with Gen. Sherman’s March through Georgia and the Carolinas, settling in Santa Cruz in 1888.

Tours

Monday, May 26: Memorial Day Guided Tours at Evergreen Cemetery, led by historians Traci Bliss and Ross Gibson. Free commemorative American flags to take home. Limit 22 people per tour, $20 general, $15 for Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History members. Sign up at santacruzmah.org/events/memorial-day-tours-2025/2025/05/26.

Further reading

This month, MAH has 20% off on the book “Remembering Our Own, the Santa Cruz County Military Roll of Honor, 1861-2010,” by Robert L. Nelson.

Read “Evergreen Cemetery of Santa Cruz,” by Traci Bliss, with Randall Brown.