Researchers say popular tale of Nevada statehood a myth

Scott Sonner

Thursday, Aug. 3, 2000 | 9:14 a.m.

PHILADELPHIA - Contrary to the myth still taught in most Nevada classrooms, the real story about the Silver State's entry into the Union has its roots in the Republican Party's inaugural convention here in 1856.

The textbook version - perpetuated in an episode of the TV Western "Bonanza" nearly 30 years ago - has President Abraham Lincoln rushing Nevada into statehood in 1864 to capture the wealth of the Comstock Lode.

The idea, as any saloon keeper will tell you to this day in Virginia City, Nev., was to ensure the biggest gold and silver strike in the West would go to the United States to help the North win the Civil War.

With the motto "Battle Born," the state flag bares witness to the folklore.

But some little-known research by history professors at the University of Nevada, Reno, and a state archivist with a reputation for busting popular Western myths suggests the real driving force behind Nevada's statehood was as old as government itself.

"It had to do with politics," said Phillip Earl, recently retired curator emeritus of the Nevada Historical Society.

The political journey begins with Gen. John C. Fremont, the Western explorer the GOP nominated as its first presidential nominee at that initial convention in Philadelphia 144 years ago.

Fremont, a Civil War general whose claims to fame include the discovery of Lake Tahoe with Kit Carson in 1844, lost the general election to Democrat James Buchanan in 1856

But the California senator who later became governor of Arizona announced he would run again in 1864 as a Radical Republican against Lincoln - a fight that had the revenge-minded Fremont accusing Lincoln of going soft on the Confederacy with his plans for Reconstruction.

Fremont abandoned the challenge, but not before he scared Lincoln into formulating a plan to bring new territories into statehood that the president viewed as friendly to his administration.

In addition to Nevada, he had his eye on Nebraska and Colorado.

"Lincoln was looking for popular votes," said Guy Rocha, Nevada's state archivist who includes the tale among more than 40 popular Nevada myths he has debunked over the years.

Lincoln feared a three-way race with Fremont and Democratic Gen. George B. McClellan could throw the election into the House of Representatives, where a new Congress member from Nevada could prove critical, he said.

A secondary interest was marshaling additional votes to pass the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery in the South.

"The statehood forces were completely political, not economic," Rocha said.

"Politics is politics whether it's the 20th century or the 18th century."

Contrary to the claim that statehood would protect the riches of the Comstock, Rocha said the gold and silver already were Union-bound because Nevada was a U.S. territory.

It's true that Nevada was eager to join the Union effort, Rocha said. The Virginia City mines were known for being unusually integrated for the times.

"But somehow we've come up with this mythic, heroic past where Nevada looms larger than life and claims to have been the driving force in winning the Civil War," he said.

Rocha said the most accurate account first was published by UNR history professor Jerome Edwards in an article, "Union Made," in Nevada Magazine in 1989.

But he said most Nevada school teachers continue to brush over the details, relying more on the tale of the mines.

"There were a number of people in the history department at the university who identified this as a myth that is taught in school," Rocha said.

"But they were resigned to the fact they couldn't do anything about it because the bell had been rung so many times," he said.

"People say, 'My teacher taught me this so it must be true."'

Steve Mulvenon, Washoe County District Schools spokesman, said he didn't have immediate information available on the specific texts used. But he said he checked with a middle school teacher who said he discusses all three factors in statehood - the mines, the 13th Amendment and Lincoln's presidency.

Earl said school textbooks are "much more simplified.

"Unfortunately they rely on some teachers who don't know the difference and sometimes the truth doesn't get out," he said.

Joe Curtis, owner of Mark Twain Bookstore in Virginia City, said he'd defer to Rocha's expertise.

"There is a lot of myth mixed with the facts about statehood," he said.

It's confusing even for a Nevada delegate to the national convention who originally is from Fremont, Neb., a town near Omaha named after the explorer.

"There's a lot of conflicting stories," said Robert McCune of Henderson.

Rocha said the worst blow to the truth may have come in an episode of "Bonanza," entitled, "The War Comes to Washoe," which first aired Nov. 4, 1962.

It wrongly portrayed a constitutional convention being held in Carson City in 1864 to determine whether Nevada would leave the Union and join the Confederacy.

The story line had the father Ben Cartwright as a delegate to the convention, and his son, Little Joe, being wooed by the daughter of a Confederate who intended to exploit her appeal to swing the Cartwrights in favor of the South.

Of course, Little Joe did the "right thing," and besides, the convention that July really was about whether Nevada should become a state or remain a territory, not whether it would leave the Union, Rocha said.

"The episode has shaped the thinking of many Americans and helped confuse an already confusing story."

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