"Bright lovely morning. Town full of people. All excitement. Lincoln elected. Republicans in extacies. Oh how sad I feel. Went up Town hoping to hear some good news, but alas, there is none for us." - from the diary of Sarah Withers, November 7, 1860

Allen Withers  (1807-1864)

  • Born in Kentucky in 1807 and moved to Bloomington first in 1834.
  • When the Withers finally settled in Bloomington, they brought their slave, Henry Clay Dean. Dean was technically free in Illinois, but he stayed with the Withers until his death.
  • Successful dry goods store manager and farmer
  • Was once a Whig but did not agree with the party's developing views on slavery
  • Despite his political beliefs, Withers kept up appearances by supporting Union troops during the Civil War

Sarah Withers (1815-1897)

  • Kept a diary that expresses her activities and occasionally, her political beliefs
  • James Rice, Sarah’s brother, was a successful Bloomington dry goods merchant
  • Rice offered 2,000 bushels of McLean County corn to Louisiana at 39 cents per bushel and explained that the cost of the corn could be repaid when convenient for the state government or not at all, depending on the finances of Louisiana.
  • The Bloomington paper attacked Rice fiercely for his “abetting and feeding the enemies of this country.”

Copperheads: Lincoln's Opposition in the North

"This day our nation is to be disgraced by the inauguration of Abe Lincoln as President. How humiliating." - From the diary of Sarah Withers, March 4, 1861
Related Documents and Resources:

Sarah's Brother - Effigy in Bloomington

“Rainy, muddy, mirky Sabbath…My Brothers Effigy is hanging in the streets of this city.  For what.  Giving corn to his friends.  Oh ye righteous blackhearted Abolitionists. How cowardly.” - Sara Rice Withers, February 10, 1861
Sarah Wither's brother, James Rice, and sister-in-law, Martha, came to Bloomington following their relatives. James became a successful farmer but when the Civil War seemed an "irrepressible conflict" and eventually broke out in 1861, his sympathies remained with the South, from where he originated. He sold McLean County corn economically to Louisiana (after the state had seceded in late January 1861). News of the sale made it back to Bloomington where it was seen as an outrage. 
“How do you like the picture, citizens of Old McLean? Here is one of your neighbors, as he claims to be, who has availed himself of the benefit of your liberal institutions, now most magnanimously offers to divide his crop with the armed mob of rebels who have planted cannon on the banks of the Mississippi, and have closed the free navigation of the waters that flow from your own fields to the Gulf of Mexico?
Picture
Daily Pantagraph, January 31, 1861
...How do you like the picture friends? Would not those same Louisiana braves make a splendid show, their stomachs filled with gratuitous Illinois corn (solid and liquid) and marching under a rattlesnake banner to strike down the Flag of our Union..." - “Another Liberal Offer to Governor Moore,” Daily Pantagraph, Jan 31,1861

Isaac Funk's Copperhead Speech

Related Article:
  • The founder of Funk's Grove outside of Bloomington, Hon. Isaac Funk, gave a fiery speech to the Illinois Legislature denouncing the Copperheads of Illinois.
“I denounce these men and their aiders and abettors as rank traitors and secessionists,” declared Isaac Funk on the floor of the Illinois Senate. “Hell itself could not spew out a more traitorous crew than some of the men who disgrace this legislature, this state and this country … I will denounce them as long as God gives me breath, and I am ready to meet the traitors themselves here or anywhere, and fight them to the death.” - Isaac Funk, February 1863