Copperheads and Simpletons: How a Press in California Participated in the Civil War
By Mark Barbour 
Recently Huell Howser of California’s Gold on PBS featured the International Printing Museum. For the past 22 years, his show has featured great and unusual treasures throughout California. Visitors to the Printing Museum have suggested, for 15 years now, that we get Huell to visit our museum. Surely the Printing Museum is part of California’s Gold. We did everything humanly possible to reach Huell Howser over these years, to point of talking to his right-hand man Harry. Harry informed us that they have a file of letters on the Printing Museum, and that he has been moving our Museum video around Huell’s desk to catch his attention. We even connected with a PBS board member, but to no affect.
Finally, Phil Soinski who portrays Ben Franklin at the Printing Museum, sent an email to Huell inviting him to his 300th birthday celebration in January. And then Huell called! It must have been the free cake and colonial lemonade! The show aired twice in March and will now be on the rerun circuit of California’s Gold. The show was very well received and even Huell felt it was one of his better shows. His own words were that “this is not only one of the finest small museum’s in California but probably in all of the country, truly part of California’s Gold!” (If you would like a copy of the DVD, send a check to the Museum for $25 and we’ll send one off to you).
One of the presses in the Printing Museum’s collection is an excellent example of California’s Gold and tells a colorful tale of California’s connection to the Civil War. Built in 1855, the press is called the Ruggles Press, one of only three such presses to have survived. The design of this press led to the invention of the standard platen press (remember the C & P, if you are old enough) in use for the last 135 years. Donated by Dan Barnett in 1995, the Ruggles Press remained with the same newspaper, the Amador Dispatch (located outside of Sacramento in California’s Motherlode country), since it was first purchased until the time of its donation to the Printing Museum. The Amador Dispatch remains California’s oldest continuously published newspaper.
Not only is this press rare and has the distinction of being with the same company its entire life, the history behind its years of service is a captivating story of American history.
The Dispatch was born in October of 1859, published first in a community called Lancha Plana and then later moved in 1860 by its publisher William McMullen to Jackson, the county seat. McMullen was a Union Democrat who actively backed Douglas over Lincoln in his paper. After the election of Lincoln that year, the calls for secession became stronger and more vocal around the country, including in California’s Motherlode.
In July of 1861, after the outbreak of the Civil War, McMullen, a firm believer in the Union, was appointed to lead a volunteer military company. Known as the Amador Mountaineers, McMullen’s unit marched off to San Francisco to join “C Company, first infantry regiment, California volunteers.” From San Francisco, Captain McMullen then marched his unit on to New Mexico where they saw active duty.
While publisher McMullen was off playing captain in the army, his paper continued to be published back in Jackson, but under whose direction? William Penry’s and George Payne, McMullen’s employees, both of whom had Southern roots and leanings. And young Penry’s editorials began to hint of their secessionist feelings even while the Unionist publisher’s was off fighting the Southern rebels.
Then, fire struck the town of Jackson on Saturday, August 23rd, 1862. By evening, the entire town lay in cinders, including the two papers, The Dispatch and The Ledger. Word was sent via telegraph to McMullen, then soldiering along the Rio Grande in the New Mexico territory. McMullen had just been promoted to major of the regiment and had no interest in continuing the paper.
On October 11th, The Dispatch appeared again, with claims to be a “democratic paper, going for the ‘Constitution as it is, and the Union as it was!” This was the language of Southern sympathizers, whom Penry and Payne felt needed a more distinct voice in the Motherlode. Penry himself was practical printer from Mississippi and by this time already had a brother killed in the war at Shiloh. Payne was from Virginia. Their paper would “champion the rights of states, of slavery’s extension, and be a fiery opponent to Abraham Lincoln and the abolitionists.”
Their rival paper across the street lost no time in firing off the first round in a long editorial battle during the war. “We have a copperhead newspaper published in our town,” wrote Ledger publisher Tom Springer. “Captain McMullen left his paper in charge of, as he no doubt supposed, Union men.... no sooner was the required number of miles placed between him and Amador county, then his establishment was turned over to the copperheads!”
Penry responded with equal strength in The Dispatch to the “filthcart Ledger’s allegations.” He related that after the fire, when McMullen did not intend to revive the paper, “there being no Democratic paper (i.e. Southern) in the county, we went to San Francisco and purchased the material upon which The Dispatch is now printed.”
In San Francisco, Penry acquired the new presses and type for The Dispatch from an agent for Stephen Ruggles who could supply all that was needed for your shop. It was then that the Ruggles Press, now donated to the Printing Museum, was first acquired for the job work in the shop along with a larger press for printing the paper, probably a Washington Hand Press.
We read in The Dispatch’s own advertising in 1863 about the newly equipped shop: “We respectfully inform the citizens of Amador county, and the rest of mankind, that we have recently added to our office a large quantity of job type, also one of Ruggles’ patent rotary Job Presses...we are now ready and willing to execute plain or fancy Job Work of all kinds on the cheapest terms, and at the shortest notice.” (Printers are still doing their work for the “cheapest terms and at the shortest notice”!)
The written assaults between the editors of The Ledger and The Dispatch continued throughout the war. In one salvo, the Ledger railed that The Dispatch editor “palms off his copperhead balderdash as the productions of simpletons,” only to have The Dispatch reply that the “balderdash in The Ledger is not only ‘palmed off’ on a simpleton but is actually written by one!” It is amazing they never shot each other.
Penry did not limit his fiery discourse against only abolitionists and Unionist in general; his comments became very focused on their leader. “To Abraham Laudamus,” one poem began on November 7, 1863. “We praise thee, Oh Abe! We acknowledge thee to be sound on the goose. All Yankee-land doth worship the everlasting joker....”
After the assassination of Lincoln in 1865, Penry lost no time to pour salt into the wounds of his enemies with this April 29th headline: “Assassination the Legitimate Offspring of Abolitionism.” His editorial stated that his assassination was the result of Republican and abolitionist policies. In short, he had it coming!
For a country already bitter from the war and in shock over the murder of Lincoln, Penry’s word’s found little sympathy. Under General Order 27, the military authorities in California gave orders on May 5th for the arrest of Penry and his associate Hall as well as to padlock the doors of The Amador Dispatch. From their camp, the Union Calvary Company D travelled 13 miles at night, arriving quietly in Jackson by 5 am in the morning.
At sunrise on May 8th, bachelors Penry and Hall awoke to the sound of the calvary soldiers rapping on their door. Penry and Hall were placed in shackles and chains and made to walk in humiliation through the town. After padlocking The Dispatch print shop next door, the prisoners were escorted by the calvary back to the camp, trudging thirteen miles in 100-degree heat on foot. From the military Camp Jackson, Penry and Hall were hauled off by stagecoach on May 13th to San Francisco to enjoy a federal vacation at Fort Alcatraz, along with 22 other men arrested under the same General Order 27 for disloyal practices.
At Alcatraz, Penry’s leg was chained to an 18 lb. ball while he packed sand and rolled stones on the beach from 6 am. to 6 pm., sleeping on barley straw at night. Penry and the others were released sometime in mid-June after swearing an oath of allegiance to the United States and the Constitution. A bitter Penry finally made it back to Jackson by the end of the month, though the publication of the Dispatch did not resume until September. A second devastating fire had ripped through Jackson on July 3rd, giving reason for the delay.
Penry and his descendents continued to be associated with The Amador Dispatch until 1927. The paper is now in its 135 year of publication, making it the oldest existing newspaper in California. The rivalry of the simpleton Ledger editors with the copperhead Dispatch editors is long over, the papers being merged together as The Amador Ledger Dispatch.
Thank you to Larry Cenotto of the Amador County Archives for much of the information on the history of The Amador Dispatch.