The Pacific Coast and Atmospheric Rivers

As an Oklahoman, I have a profound interest in the weather, an enthusiasm shared by approximately 99.9% of Oklahomans. I have yet to meet an Oklahoman who could not talk at length about weather issues. It is not surprising, then, that my attention was drawn to an article in the January 2013 issue of Scientific American titled “The Coming Megafloods.” What surprised me is that it had a Civil War connection.

Authors Michael Dettinger and B. Lynn Ingram wrote “The intense rainstorms sweeping in from the Pacific Ocean began to pound central California on Christmas Eve in 1861 and continued virtually unabated for 43 days… The rivers and rains poured into the state’s vast Central Valley, turning it into an inland sea 300 miles long and 20 miles wide. Thousands of people died, and one quarter of the state’s estimated 800,000 cattle drowned. Downtown Sacramento was submerged under 10 feet of brown water filled with debris from countless mudslides on the region’s steep slopes. California’s legislature, unable to function, moved to San Francisco until Sacramento dried out—six months later. By then, the state was bankrupt” (p. 66). The authors explain that the intense rains were caused by phenomena known as atmospheric rivers (“pineapple expresses” are one type of these). Sometimes these atmospheric rivers become megafloods, and these megafloods occur approximately every two hundred years along the Pacific Coast…

California soldiers were marching to Fort Yuma in Arizona during part of this time period. Here is Andrew E. Masich’s description of the ordeal from his book, The Civil War in Arizona:

“Roads became mud bogs, making the movement of men and supplies virtually impossible. Soon after [Lieutenant Colonel Joseph] West’s command reached the Colorado, the river overflowed its banks. Torrents of muddy water carved a channel around Fort Yuma, making it an island, and swept away tons of stockpiled supplies. Despite these conditions, by February 1862, ocean-going vessels and river steamers had delivered all of the expedition’s supplies, now safely stored on high ground at Fort Yuma” (p. 28). In training at Camp Wright in southern California, George Hand wrote entries such as “heavy rain,” “Very stormy,” “Very rainy,” “Rained all day and night very hard,” “Rained, snowed and the wind blew heavy” in his diary through the period.

Citation for George Hand diary: Carmony, Neil B., ed. The Civil War in Apacheland: Sergeant George Hand’s Diary: California, Arizona, West Texas, New Mexico, 1861-1864. Silver City, NM: High-Lonesome Books, 1996.

Union Soldiers and the Christmas Season

Have you ever wondered what the Christmas season was like for Civil War soldiers? I perused my bookshelves and located some quotes about the day from the perspective of Union soldiers posted in various parts of the trans-Mississippi.

August Scherneckau, near Van Buren, Missouri:
“Wednesday, December 24 [1862]—….Christmas Eve, surrounded by the loveliest evergreen trees, provided many opportunities to obtain a Christmas tree, but for whom? And with whom? I felt lonesome in the middle of thousands of comrades, almost had some sort of homesickness. It was, of course, the first Christmas Eve I had to spend without having some friends or relatives around who like myself—and we North Germans in general—were accustomed to observing this evening. The pine branches that we brought into camp tonight reminded me very vividly of our homeland….

Thursday, December 25—Christmas Day. The most miserable I have ever spent….We had to clean the whole camp, each company its tent alley and also around the tents of its officers. All bushes had to be cut down, the leaves swept away and burned. The rocks, with which the ground is covered, had to be thrown onto piles, etc. I was busy with this work when I was ordered to report to the quartermaster. There I received the assignment, with about twenty more men, to chop wood for burning charcoal….This pleasant work kept us going until evening….”

From James E. Potter and Edith Robbins, eds., Marching With The First Nebraska: A Civil War Diary (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007), 50-51.

Robert T. McMahan, Rhea’s Mills, Arkansas:
“December 25 1862:
Nothing unusual in camp today save the extra chicken fixens etc. for Christmas. Heard that our Reg. camped in Leavenworth the evening of the 6^th on their way to Ohio. Arrived in Leavenworth from Ft. Scott in mule wagons and on foot. Horses played out and turned over at Ft. Scott.”

From Michael E. Banasik, ed., Reluctant Cannoneer: The Diary of Robert T. McMahan of the Twenty-fifth Independent Ohio Light Artillery (Iowa City: Camp Pope Bookshop, 2000), 94.

Henry O. Gusley, Galveston, Texas:
“December 26, 1862
Christmas is over—gone—past; nor was it in any respect dissimilar to other days. Even the quiet of Sunday was not ours; and the same ration which a common day would have brought, we thankfully received. Well, its novelty may after all be of some benefit; and at some future Christmas, if we are spared to spend another in civil life, the remembrance of this and the last one may add a greater zest to the roast fowl, pies, puddings and bonbons in which we may then be indulging. We hope so….”

From Edward T. Cotham, Jr., ed., The Southern Journey of a Civil War Marine: The Illustrated Note-Book of Henry O. Gusley (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006), 126.

Sergeant George Hand, Fort McRae, New Mexico:
“Dec. 25. [1863] Christmas passed off very dull, but towards night whiskey was found where soldiers always find it, and Co. ‘G’ was nearly all drunk and noisy until morning, when a cold snowstorm dr0ve them all to bed.”

From Neil B. Carmony, ed., The Civil War in Apacheland: Sergeant George Hand’s Diary: California, Arizona, West Texas, New Mexico, 1861-1864 (Silver City, NM: High-Lonesome Books, 1996), 151.