My wife Michele and I were out in Portland, Oregon exploring the Colombia River Gorge. She was doing some research and found out that there are two Civil War artillery pieces at the base of a monument to local residents who serves—in the Spanish-American War. When she told me about the location, I told her that the informant must have mixed up the armaments. The two guns must be from the 1898 war, not from 1861.
We went over to Lownsdale Square where the monument is located. From a distance we could not see the artillery. However, when we approached the monument we saw that there they were!
The monument was designed by Douglas Tilden, a Californian who became deaf at the age of four. He went to the California School for the Deaf. After he finished his secondary education he was accepted into what is now the University of California at Berkely. While there he was given a scholarship to attend the Academy of Design in New York. He then went to Paris to study with another deaf sculptor. He returned to the United States and he was an in-demand artist with most on his works being displayed in Berkley, San Francisco and Portland. After his divorce his turned to creating movie set pieces.
The park where the howitzers are housed is nicely kept, but decorative grasses now partially obscure the artillery.
The piece appears to be either a mountain howitzer or a seacoast howitzer. These guns could have been part of the Confederate defenses of the fort, although it appears unlikely they were used by Union forces in 1861.
The monument itself is in good condition with little discolorization or chipping.
The two howitzers were discovered by Henry Ernst Dosch. He was born in Mainz-Kastel, Germany in 1841. During the 1848 Revolution in Germany, his father organized a military unit trying to resist the Prussian attempt to squash the revolt.
He lived in Bellville near St. Louis, Missouri after he immigrated in 1860. Many of the German settlers in Bellville had also participated in the failed Revolution. When the Civil War broke out he was nineteen years old and he enlisted in the Union Army in May of 1861. The German immigrant was assigned to help guard General Fremont.
Dosch said that more than 10,000 German turners from St. Louis and Bellville enlisted in the Union Army and “the kept “Missouri in the Union.” [P. 53] Turners were members of a German athletic club that was tied to the political left. There were many turner clubs in Germany and by 1860 they were starting to spring up here. In January of 1861 the Turners began training for the coming war.
Dosch saw quite a bit of politicking in the Union Army out west. He knew Fremont was under attack from other officers. Dosch was wounded during operations in Missouri. He returned to service with the 5th Missouri Cavalry. He was discharged in 1863 and he headed west to seek his fortune. He went west overland stopping in Utah where the violence-prone Mormons frightened him. He continued on to California and then to Oregon. By 1870, Portland had a population of 8,293.
The city was rapidly filling up with immigrants from Germany and Ireland, as well as Jewish immigrants. Dosch met a French immigrant woman and he was married by an Irish priest at a Catholic Church.
After the war he became a successful businessman and horticulturalist. When he moved to Portland, he became a prominent promoter of the community and helped organize the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exhibition in 1905.
Fred Lockley of the Oregon Historical Society said that Dosch was “one of Oregon’s most useful citizens….he is not only an authority on horticulture, but he has a profound knowledge of history, literature and of the traditions of the old west.”
The artillery pieces were found by Dosch when he visited Charleston, South Carolina in 1902. He received permission from the War Department to take them back to Portland. He claimed that the cannons had been used by both the Union and Confederate forces and that they were used from 1861 onward.
In 1919, Dosch told the Oregonian, the largest newspaper, that: “The two howitzers belonged to the 2nd battery of Fort Sumpter, Charleston, when fired upon from Battery Wagner, April 12, 1861, which was the beginning of the war. After General Anderson surrendered, the confederation placed them on barges to defend the harbor against Commodore Farragut, who retook the fort, and these howitzers were again placed on Fort Sumpter. When it was decided to rebuild the fort they were discarded and permission was obtained from the government to bring them to Portland for the soldiers’ monument erected in 1901.” [Thanks to lupaglupa for supplying the quote.]
Dosch insisted that one howitzer face north, and the other south.
The brass plate at the bottom of one howitzer says “Howitzers fired in the defense of Fort Sumpter 1861.” Every book that discusses this monument notes that Fort Sumter is misspelled on the plate.
The statue is a soldier of the 2nd Oregon Infantry, which was the first American unit sent to the Philippines during the Spanish American War.
The monument was erected by the “Citizens of Oregon” to honor men from their state that served in the Spanish American War. The soldier is wearing the uniform of the Second Oregon Infantry Regiment. This regiment was the first infantry company to invade the Philippines in 1899. Spanish forces were holed up in Manila which was already under siege by Filipino nationalists. After a token resistance, the Spanish troops surrendered to the Americans and the Second Oregon occupied the city.
Sound good, Right?
Well, the Second Oregon was not in the Philippines to liberate the native population, they were their to gain an overseas colony for the United States. Fighting began between the United States troops and the nationalist. The Oregon men described those they were fighting against as “Blacks” or “Indians” and saw this conflict as being similar to the wars against Native Americans in the U.S. Both sides engaged in brutality during the fighting.
The monument also notes that the Second Oregon was “First in Guam” which still continues under United States rule today.
Here is another excerpt from the Oregonian newspaper:
The Oregonian, 9 April 1919, page 10 supplied by lupaglupa.
Farragut did not capture the fort.
Note: All color photos in this post were taken by Patrick Young except as noted.
Source:
The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, Volume 25 by Oregon Historical Society Reminisces of Colonel Henry Ernst Dosch March 1924
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