Troubled State Civil War Journals of Franklin Archibald Dick

Troubled State Civil War Journals of Franklin Archibald Dick

Author: Gari Carter
Overview: Troubled State is the recently discovered Civil War journals of Franklin Archibald Dick, a prominent St. Louis attorney, who acted as an advisor for Lincoln, Grant, Lyon, Blair, and other important political figures at that time. From an insider’s point of view, he described the Civil War as a loyal Unionist in the politically torn city of St. Louis.

More importantly, Franklin Dick’s journals uncover first hand accounts of historically pivotal moments during the war, such as the Camp Jackson incident, where he acted as Captain Nathaniel Lyon’s Assistant Adjutant General. Franklin Dick’s observations also add great details to the known literature on the Civil War in Missouri, a barely pro-Union border state during those turbulent years.

Brother-in-law to Frank Blair, Franklin Dick served as Missouri Provost Marshal General under Major General Samuel Curtis in 1862. After the war, he practiced law in Washington with Montgomery Blair, Lincoln’s Postmaster General.

On the cover of Troubled State is a hand colored lithograph of Camp Jackson, MO, by Ch. Robyn and Co. after George G. Friedlein, 1st Lt. Topographical Engineers, 1861, owned by the Missouri Historical Society. Part of the lithograph is reproduced in the banner of my website. Camp Jackson is where the Civil War began in Missouri, and in the life of Franklin Dick.

Franklin Dick’s eyewitness account of the events leading up to the famous Camp Jackson incident is just the first of many new insights into the true landscape of Civil War St. Louis. Dick’s detailed descriptions of such important moments as the secret Unionist meetings held in his office, and his role on the Assessment Committee formed to punish Southern sympathizers, make this book historically priceless. His frank account of his own emotional journey over the course of the war also makes Troubled State an extremely engaging read.

Much like the Pulitzer Prize-winning Mary Chestnut’s Civil War, Franklin Dick’s journals offer events of the Civil War from a truly unique point of view. Dick is an ardent supporter of the Union, but is frequently troubled by the slow progress and terrible cost of the war. For him, the divided city of St. Louis presents a heartbreaking test of personal strength.

These journals contain my great-great-grandfather’s outspoken views on the Civil War, the country, the state of Missouri, leaders he knew, politics, daily life, concerns about morality, inner thoughts, and private worries. His entries changed from early optimism to later doubts about his future due to pressures from his loyalty to the Union and war issues.

He felt he was “a tree in a moveable vessel,” and feared returning to the turmoil in St. Louis, as he mourned the loss of his twenty years of effort in Missouri. Franklin Dick’s unique record of American life during the Civil War reminds us that we are what we were, and gives us an irreplaceable new perspective on the impact of history in our lives.