8. Subscriptions to US Sanitary Commission

This document lists the names of Jacksonville, Oregon residents who pledged donations to the U.S. Sanitary Commission at a town meeting on September 20, 1862. The Sanitary Commission was a non-governmental agency organized by northern citizens in June 1861 to assist sick and wounded Union soldiers.

The existence of this document is an interesting commentary on citizen activism in Southern Oregon during the Civil War. During the war, sympathy for the Confederate cause was prevalent in Douglas, Jackson, and Josephine counties. Union supporters even referred to this region as Oregon’s “Dixie.” The pro-Confederate stance was an outgrowth of several historical developments. Unlike other regions in Western Oregon which boasted emigrants from New England, Southern Oregon was primarily settled by Americans from the borderland states of Missouri and Kentucky or from the heavily Democratic regions of southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Proponents of Jacksonian democracy, these settlers sympathized with the Confederate cause because of their strong beliefs in limited government and states rights. They were therefore suspicious of what they viewed as a Northern-initiated conflict led by abolitionists and capitalists that was designed to strengthen the central government