John A. Logan grew up in a well-to-do household in Murphysboro, Illinois, in the years before the Civil War. He had political ambitions early, maybe even from the moment he took his first breath, but the trajectory of his career took some remarkable turns. In this episode, I talk with Betsy Brown and Laura Varner from the General John A. Logan Museum in Murphysboro about his remarkable life and what lessons we might take from it. We talk about the early years of his political career, when, as a Democrat, he helped author laws that prevented Blacks, even free Blacks, from moving into Illinois. We discuss why he and most of his fellow southern Illinoisans opted to support the Union when civil war broke out and how Logan proved to be an exceptional military leader. We cover how his experiences during the Civil War had a profound impact on his view of slavery and African Americans, and how that led him to change political parties after the war and become a champion of equal rights for African Americans. After the war, Logan played a major role with a veterans group known as the Grand Army of the Republic, a group that helped establish the holiday that we now know as Memorial Day. Logan’s wife Mary was every bit as impressive as him, and we spend some time talking about her life, as well, and her accomplishments after John passed away. The story of Logan’s life is a big one, yet I think it’s largely been lost to the pages of history. I think you’ll quickly see how the story of his life offers lessons for us now and for the future.
Show Notes
General John A Logan Facebook Page
Biography of John Logan: Black Jack Logan by Gary Ecelbarger (Disclosure: This website may be compensated for linking to other sites or for sales of products we link to.)
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Transcript
46. General John A Logan
Sun, Jul 28, 2024 6:13PM • 1:06:04
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
logan, museum, civil war, john logan, slavery, southern illinois, politics, men, wrote, war, union, mary, murphysboro, gar, ended, building, little bit, south, lived, home
SPEAKERS
Dean Klinkenberg, Betsy Brown, Laura Varner
Laura Varner 00:00
He was a very changed man. Frederick Douglass said, “If John Logan can make changes like these, there’s hope for everyone.” And I think that is what we need to remember still yet today, change is possible.
Dean Klinkenberg 00:44
Welcome to the Mississippi Valley Traveler Podcast. I’m Dean Klinkenberg, and I’ve been exploring the deep history and rich culture of the people and places along America’s greatest river, the Mississippi, since 2007. Join me as I go deep into the characters and places along the river, and occasionally wander into other stories from the Midwest and other rivers. Read the episode show notes and get more information on the Mississippi at MississippiValleyTraveler.com. Let’s get going.
Dean Klinkenberg 01:16
Welcome to Episode 46 of the Mississippi Valley Traveler Podcast. One of the great joys of my work as I’m traveling around, I sometimes stumble across really big stories that I knew absolutely nothing about. This happened this past spring when I was driving around Southern Illinois while I was researching an update for one of my guidebooks, and I stopped in Murphysboro to visit a museum I had heard about but had never actually had a chance to visit. The General John Logan Museum. And I have to admit, I was completely blown away by what I learned during this this visit, I probably was at the museum for a good hour taking taking time to read all the panels and soak in all the information I could about Logan and his life. It’s a big story and one that I wanted to bring to you. So in this podcast today, I have the honor of talking with Betsy Brown, who is the president of the board for the museum, and with Laura Varner, who is the curator and director of the museum. During this wide ranging interview, we cover a lot of the background of Logan’s life, how he entered politics at a really young age. He was political he was ambitious from the start, and early in his career, he was a fairly typical Democrat of the era, in that he did not oppose slavery, did not want to see it expand, either, but felt it was his responsibility to defend the law of the land, which, at the time, allowed slavery. So early in his career, he had a hand in writing some legislation that I believe he came to regret quite a bit later in his life. When the Civil War broke out, he entered the Union army. There was a lot of concern at the time about what would happen with Southern Illinois, given that the allegiances of many of the families were more toward the southern states. So we talk about what happened at that point in time when civil war broke out. We talk about his experiences as a leader during the Civil War, he was a political appointee, and that often did not work out for officers who were appointed primarily for political reasons. So we get into what happened with with his service, and I’ll give you a quick little spoiler. He turned out to be a very good leader. And then we cover what happened in his life after the war ended. And he went, you know, the incredible transformation that happened to him during the Civil War itself, where he got to see the conditions that enslaved people lived under, completely transformed his views about the institution of slavery and African Americans in this country. And he became one of the band of what were called Radical Republicans at the time. So we talked about that and what that meant, and what kind of legislation he ended up supporting and pushing in his post war career. I think it’s a great story, because, you know, so many times we we see courage as somebody sticking by their beliefs, you know, regardless of things, I think another way to show courage is to to change some of these deeply held views in the in the face of evidence that maybe those views don’t really hold up. And he was a person who went through this remarkable transformation as I as I mentioned, so we talk a lot about that as well. He also had a remarkable wife, and we touched base on some of her accomplishments and her role in all this as well. So I think it’s a very interesting interview. It’s a great topic. I don’t think the story of Logan is nearly as well known as it should be. So hopefully this brings a story that you haven’t really heard much about before.
Dean Klinkenberg 05:03
As always, thanks to those of you who show me some love through Patreon. Your support makes me feel good, and it keeps this podcast going. You can join the Patreon community for as little as $1 a month, and when you do so, one of the benefits is you get early access to all the podcasts don’t like Patreon, well, you can buy me a coffee. I drink plenty of coffee, and I appreciate every little bit that goes towards supporting that habit. So if you want to find out how to join Patreon or how to buy me a coffee, go to MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast, you’ll find the instructions there and at that same place, at MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast, you’ll find the show notes and a list of all previous episodes, all available for you to listen to at your leisure or leisure, depending on how you like to pronounce the word. So with that, let’s get on with the interview. Here is Betsy Brown, the president of the board of the John A Logan Museum, and Laura Varner, the curator and director of the museum.
Dean Klinkenberg 06:20
Let’s kind of get right into a little bit about General Logan’s life. I’m just, let’s start at the very beginning. Tell us a little bit about his parents, what they did and where John Logan was born.
Laura Varner 06:35
Well, Logan was born very near the museum. Although he would never lived in this building. About 150 feet outside the front door was the home of his father, Dr John Logan, and he was born there in 1826, before Murphysboro existed. The county seat at that time was Brownsville, which the courthouse burned in 1843 and at that time, Dr Logan donated land to become Murphysboro. So Dr Logan had moved here from Missouri, had been a former slave owner. Moved to Illinois. He was involved in politics. He was a he was a doctor, medical doctor, taught by another doctor, no formal schooling. So he was a man of means. He enjoyed horse races. He raised horses, sold horses, and was very involved with his oldest son. He encouraged his oldest son to become a doctor, of which John had no interest. But he did follow in his footsteps, both in politics, in the military, so he did look up to his dad in those ways. His mom was born in North Carolina, very much the ideal Southern woman. She began the First Southern Methodist Church here in Murphysboro. She was, she was really upset with her son, whenever he decided to join the Union Army, didn’t speak to him for for some time. But John came from a strong a strong family, a Methodist family that believed in the importance of family, no matter what your social standing or color, and so that stayed with John throughout his life.
Dean Klinkenberg 09:01
Did you know what attracted them to move to Southern Illinois in the first place?
Betsy Brown 09:08
I know he moved when he he sold off his 30 slaves before moving to Illinois, but except for two, a mother and a son, because he believed that family should not be broken up, even though enslaved or otherwise.
Dean Klinkenberg 09:24
So he had moved from Missouri then, right, you know, whereabouts?
Laura Varner 09:30
Yeah, Cape Girardeau area.
Dean Klinkenberg 09:32
Alright. So he really just kind of jumped across the river, and maybe there was an opportunity to buy some land, or, you know, to do something a little different, or.
Betsy Brown 09:40
Well, especially being inland so much more this was really wide open space, and there was very little here, you know, at the time. So Cape Girardeau was a booming river town. So that’s a very different area.
Dean Klinkenberg 09:54
Right. Maybe it got too crowded for him.
Laura Varner 10:00
Roughly 250 acres of land whenever he moved here.
Betsy Brown 10:05
Yeah, yeah, probably inexpensive.
Laura Varner 10:09
And that would have been about 1824. Logan was born in ’26 so the doctor moved here, built a home.
Dean Klinkenberg 10:19
So, so John was born when, after they moved to Illinois. And you said that his father wanted him to be a doctor. What do you think John’s expectations for himself were? Do you have any idea, like, what kind of career he aspired to himself?
Laura Varner 10:35
Oh, he wanted to be a politician. From the time he was a young boy, he wanted to be a politician, and he had the gift of gab, yeah, yeah. He in school. He became an even better orator. I think he was just a very convincing personality no matter what the topic.
Dean Klinkenberg 10:59
So did. It seems like maybe he was elected to the Illinois legislature as a member of the House first?
Laura Varner 11:07
Yes, yes.
Dean Klinkenberg 11:09
And so when he, when he ran for political office in Illinois, then what were the options politically? What political party did he join? And what, what attracted him, or why would, why did he gravitate toward one particular party?
Laura Varner 11:26
Well, he was first a Democrat, and honestly, he, he helped create and set in place the Black Codes that prevented African Americans from settling into settling in Illinois was very much behind that movement,
Dean Klinkenberg 11:58
Yeah, and I Think that’s part of the story that’s really interesting.
Betsy Brown 12:03
You can’t stop with that comment. You need to move on, because hear the rest of the story as they say.
Dean Klinkenberg 12:08
Yeah, exactly. So and he was I, as I understand it, he kind of would have been a fairly typical Democrat at that time.
Laura Varner 12:17
Oh, definitely. yeah, definitely.
Betsy Brown 12:19
Totally switched from what it is as today.
Dean Klinkenberg 12:24
So and he earned a particular nickname. Can you tell me a little about the story, like what the nickname is and how that became attached to him?
Laura Varner 12:32
“Blackjack Logan”, yeah, well, he was a man with very prominent dark hair. A lot of people thought that it was Native American, but I think it was more a Celtic background, because his dad was from Ireland. So yeah, he became very well known as Blackjack. Battle of Atlanta, all of his men were following him, chanting, “Blackjack, Blackjack.”
Dean Klinkenberg 13:09
Right.
Laura Varner 13:10
Yeah. He was very well known as that.
Dean Klinkenberg 13:13
I guess I was thinking of another one that a Chicago paper I think might have attached to him because of a speech he made when he was in the Illinois legislature that he he said Democrats are something along the lines of Democrats were willing to do the dirty work.
Laura Varner 13:29
“Dirty Work Logan”, yeah.
Dean Klinkenberg 13:30
Forcing the Fugitive Slave Act.
Betsy Brown 13:32
Yeah, that’s the other nickname.
Laura Varner 13:34
Matter of fact, whenever he became the colonel or the 31st they called them the “Dirty First.”
Dean Klinkenberg 13:42
Wow. Do you? How do you think he felt about that nickname? Is there anything? Do you have any documents or anything about what his reaction was to that nickname?
Betsy Brown 13:53
Well, he didn’t like it because he wrote to Mary his decision to join the Union Army and go fight was he wanted his daughter to be able to grow up and be proud of the Logan name and proud of her father, because he needed to put the past behind him, because he realized at that time, you know, and being called dirty work, and what kind of dirty work was he known for, and it was All of, you know, support of the Black Codes, that sort of thing.
Laura Varner 14:23
And that was his point. Then, that was the law. It was in his job to enforce the law, and that was the law, and so he enforced it. He didn’t. His thoughts on that obviously changed, but at that time, and that was, he’s a very good representative of this area.
Betsy Brown 14:48
Yeah, his constituency, yeah. You know, after that,
Dean Klinkenberg 14:52
He certainly, he represented the views of probably the majority of voters in his district at that time, essentially, right? Yes. Yes, so that’s, I think, part of what makes the next phase of his life interesting too. Is so Southern Illinois, I guess, describe kind of what the attitude would have been at the time, toward slavery, toward national politics and, you know, and the brewing set, you know, secession that was coming. Kind of set the stage for what was going on in Southern Illinois just before the Civil War.
Laura Varner 15:30
Okay, yeah. Well, Southern Illinois was just that – Southern. Many of the families that lived in this area had migrated from southern states. I’m sure that some of them still had family there. So the idea of going to war with the South was appalling to some people. Logan tried to find compromise because he didn’t want to go to war either. The rest of the state, the nation, I think, looked at this area as as going south, and they even sent troops down here to make sure that didn’t happen. But what ended up happening was exactly the opposite of that. These men were grandsons of Revolutionary War soldiers and the idea of secession, they just couldn’t tolerate that. Now, as far as slavery, most of the people looked at it as that. That’s just the way it is. There’s free people, and there are people that are slaves, and they didn’t feel the need to go to war over that. But when it came to secession, came to destroying the Union. They were completely Union sided. They joined the Union army to stop secession, not necessarily to stop slavery. Now that changed, but that’s how it began.
Dean Klinkenberg 17:08
Absolutely, so yeah, and I think that’s a really important nuance in all this to understand, too, is that there were a number of people before the Civil War, maybe even majority of people who wanted to see the country stay together. It wasn’t so much that they had a kind of moral issue with slavery, or they wanted to end slavery, but they believed the country should stay together as one, and that was the priority.
Betsy Brown 17:31
You think about Logan’s exposure to slavery was very minimal until he went to war, and that’s I think about all these people who lived far up in the north and they had no idea what slavery was really what it meant, and he didn’t either. His only connection was the son of the woman that his father kept when he moved to Illinois, actually became an indentured servant, and they were friends. He was three years older than John, and they palled around. So to him, it wasn’t so bad. But when he saw, when he went south and saw what it really was then that affected him greatly. And think about it, when President Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, he said to her, “So you’re the little lady that started this great war,” and because she wrote a book about it and that people read who had no idea that’s about slavery,
Dean Klinkenberg 18:37
Right. And Lincoln himself had some firsthand knowledge too. He took at least two raft, flat boat trips down the Mississippi from Illinois when he was in his 20s, early 20s, probably even delivering products down to New Orleans. And during those trips, he he was exposed to slavery directly. We don’t, I don’t think he wrote anything much about that experience at all and how it shaped him, but it’s hard to imagine that it didn’t affect him in some way, just like it did with Logan, that when you see it in person. So did he write much about what he saw or what his reaction was to seeing slavery once he got into the south?
Laura Varner 19:18
You know, one thing I know specifically is he met a young woman who was with the 31st as contraband, you know, making her way north, and her former owner somehow got a letter to her, a message to her, saying that he was dying and he just wanted to see her one last time, and unfortunately, she she went, and when she did, he sold her further south and into slavery again. And so I know that Logan was was affected by that. So that that’s one, it’s. It that was documented by him.
Dean Klinkenberg 20:03
So you kind of hinted at this little bit already too. So his decision to join the Union Army, even though the majority of folks in Southern Illinois followed suit, it did not really go over so well in his family. Tell us a little bit about how his family reacted and the problems it created there.
Laura Varner 20:24
Yeah, yeah, we already said that his mother said she wasn’t going to speak to him again, but whenever he and the 31st were were getting ready to go to Cairo, I believe, she’s she yelled out. His sister, Annie, yelled out a window, “Damn you. I hope you get killed before you make it to Cairo.”
Betsy Brown 20:45
And then his wife was right there, you know, Mary was right there. And so she took, and they had a, you know, scratching hair, pulling fight and and it ended when Mary took a chair and broke it over Annie’s head. So there you go. Yeah, Mary was not shy. She, she was a woman if she, she acted upon, she took action.
Laura Varner 21:14
Very powerful. Four foot ten lady.
Betsy Brown 21:17
Yeah, yeah.
Dean Klinkenberg 21:18
Four foot ten. Wow, small, but powerful, right?
Laura Varner 21:21
That’s right, yeah.
Betsy Brown 21:23
She’s got a t shirt on that says, though she though she be, but little, she is fierce.
Dean Klinkenberg 21:30
All right. Do you sell those at the museum, by the way? Like I have to get one next time.
Betsy Brown 21:34
Yes, yes.
Dean Klinkenberg 21:35
All right. All right. And I do want to come back to Mary a little bit later too. I want to hear a little bit about her, because it sounds like she was she had an interesting life in her own and she had her own set of accomplishments, which would have been a little unusual for a woman of that era. So we’ll come back to her, all right. So so his family was not very thrilled about this, but that was his mother and his sister. Do we know anything about what his father thought about him joining the Union?
Laura Varner 22:01
His father had passed away. So his father was already gone by this point.
Betsy Brown 22:08
Yeah, his brother in law, his brother in law was entering the Confederate Army.
Laura Varner 22:16
Hibert Cunningham, that’s Mary’s brother, and he joined the Confederate Army truly believing his brother in law was going to join as well. So he ended up coming back home. He left the Confederate Army, and I think he was, it was after he realized that his brother in law was not going with him.
Dean Klinkenberg 22:40
So he wasn’t there very long after all, I guess.
Laura Varner 22:44
No, I don’t think so. I don’t know exactly how long, but it he didn’t stay with them. And then his own brother, John’s own brother, Tom Logan, he got him a position as an officer in the in the Union Army, until he got drunk one night and ran through camp on his horse yelling “Hurrah for Jeff Davis.” His brother John then very strongly suggested to his brother that he retire from the military.
Dean Klinkenberg 23:14
So yeah, that’s not exactly the example you want your officers to be setting.
Laura Varner 23:21
No, not at all.
Dean Klinkenberg 23:23
So take us through his Civil War career a little bit too. Is I have, I don’t know that part as well. The story I saw, I was doing a little bit of reading yesterday, and it looked like he had a very, actually consequential military career as well. When he entered the Union Army, where did he start? What was his what was his position when he entered the army?
Laura Varner 23:44
He entered as a colonel.
Dean Klinkenberg 23:46
As a colonel.
Laura Varner 23:47
Yeah, he he formed the 31st regiment. He led them, he ended up becoming, after Donelson, I think is whe he ended up becoming a major general.
Dean Klinkenberg 24:06
All right, and and so he, he signed up pretty much right away, like, we’re talking like 1861ish, around the beginning of the war?
Laura Varner 24:17
He was, he was in politics at the time, at the beginning of the war, and he had asked Lincoln if he could leave his position and form regiment earlier than he actually did, because Lincoln asked him to stay in politics for a little bit longer. And it was during that time that he joined a battle in civilian clothing.
Betsy Brown 24:49
Yeah, first Battle of Bull Run.
Dean Klinkenberg 24:52
Oh, he was at Bull Run.
Laura Varner 24:54
At the time they would, yeah, politicians would go with picnic baskets and sit on hilltops and watch battles. And Logan went to one of these, and he had even written his wife back at home, saying, “Don’t worry, I’m going to stay a safe distance away.” And before, before it was all said and done, he had picked up a gun, and he was helping, helping fight, and he was bringing wounded men off the battlefield. And, yeah, so that would have been his first involvement in the Civil War.
Dean Klinkenberg 25:29
Right. I wonder if he wrote a letter after that, telling his wife, “oops, sorry, I did get a little involved after all.”
Betsy Brown 25:37
Yeah, I think yeah, it was after, yeah, he was criticized for not taking a stance prior, you know, he had to, are you going to be for the Union or you’re going to be for the South? And that’s that was pivotal.
Dean Klinkenberg 25:52
Right. So when he so the command that he had were the the the battalions, or the the folks that he commanded, were they mostly from his area, mostly from Southern Illinois, or was he…?
Laura Varner 26:09
Yes, yes,
Dean Klinkenberg 26:12
And he helped organize those early, yeah. So take us a little bit through some of the because he ended up staying, surviving and fighting for the Union through the entire Civil War, right? He served the whole, pretty much the whole war.
Laura Varner 26:29
Yes.
Dean Klinkenberg 26:29
And there’s just a little bit that I read. It looked like he was present at some very consequential events, too. So can you take us kind of quickly through some of the milestone battles or events during his civil war service?
Laura Varner 26:45
Well, I mentioned Fort Donelson. That was February ’62 and he was very badly wounded at that time. And matter of fact, it ended up being in the newspapers that he had been killed.
Betsy Brown 26:58
And that’s how Mary found out about it. She’s reading the newspaper and read her husband had been killed.
Dean Klinkenberg 27:02
Oh, my.
Laura Varner 27:03
Yeah, yeah. And I think she was 26 at the time.
Betsy Brown 27:07
That’s really young, but as evidenced by hitting Annie over the head with a chair, you know, she she then decided she was going to go collect his body, yeah, and bring him home. And she went to Cairo and said she wants to get on a ship. They said, “No, no, ma’am, you can’t go because we’re in the middle of a war.” Well, think twice. And so so she tried, and she ended up bribing, bribing someone who was, I don’t know who was bribing, and this guy who said, “Get on the ship and hide.” And smuggled her onto the ship. And then she then, when she got there, she found out that, indeed, he was still alive.
Laura Varner 27:53
Very badly wounded. So she nursed him there and and I’m sure several other men, until he was willing to travel and brought him back home. They were living in Carbondale at the time, and he was very, very anxious to get back to it. He knew about the Battle of Shiloh beginning, and he rushed back, probably well before he should have, and still missed the Battle of Shiloh, but was right back at it at that point, that’s April ’62. He and his men were were involved in so many battles, but some of the bigger ones were at Vicksburg. They were there to.
Dean Klinkenberg 28:43
That’s what I was thinking of, right? So he was commanding some of the troops that were part of the blockade or of.
Betsy Brown 28:52
Tunnel. They were most of his, most of his troops were miners, yeah, and they’re really good at digging. So dug, they dug a tunnel under the the hill, the mountain there, and put explosives in it. Yeah, yeah. Except they were a little bit over enthusiastic. They’re a little bit over enthusiastic. And they blew the whole thing.
Laura Varner 29:14
There’s a story about an African American man that was being forced, of course, to assist the Confederate troops. And when they set off one of these explosions, it actually blew him into the Union lines. Yeah, that’s a rough way to get to freedom.
Dean Klinkenberg 29:40
It is.
Betsy Brown 29:41
You know, if you think about the way Logan was wounded at Donelson, it was, let’s see the I think the order was, first he was hit in the shoulder, then he was hit in the side. And actually it jammed his his pistol into his ribs, and he still, so he said, two wounds, and he’s still fighting. And then he was shot in the thigh, and that was it. He had felt, you know, we couldn’t continue anymore. So he was lost. Yeah, he was pretty, you know, hell bent on getting the job done.
Laura Varner 30:19
He was, he was, and, you know, he caught a lot of criticism from a lot of the other officers, because a lot of them were West Point men, and he was not. He was a political general, and that’s the way the other officers looked at him. Because, you know, you just got here, because you’re a big wig in politics and you don’t know what you’re doing. And he, above and beyond, proved that he did.
Dean Klinkenberg 30:45
Yeah, I think that’s what’s interesting with his story too. Is I saw many of those political officers, let’s just say most of them were not especially competent, as it turned out in the field. But that was certainly not the case with Logan.
Laura Varner 30:57
No, no, not at all.
Dean Klinkenberg 31:00
Is this something that he just have a natural talent for this do you think, or did he learn quickly? Like, what do you think helped explain how he became so much of an impact?
Laura Varner 31:09
I think he did have a natural talent for it, just, just like with politics, he was a born leader.
Betsy Brown 31:16
Good horseman. He and Daniel Brush would have horse races on their they had like a track here in Murphysboro, around the on their property. And he they would, yeah, even as a boy. And you can imagine, if you can and everybody could shoot, because if you could shoot and ride a horse all at the same time, yeah, that was good.
Dean Klinkenberg 31:35
Mm, hmm, right. And you said his family, his father, had raised horses too, or.
Laura Varner 31:39
Yes. Yeah. So he’d been on the back of a horse since he was small boy.
Dean Klinkenberg 31:43
Right. Interesting. So there. So a part of the evolution then is like eventually the Civil War really did become more about emancipation. And there was a moment during Logan’s service where there was, I don’t know if desertion is the right word, but after the Emancipation Proclamation, a number of the troops under his command decided to go home after that. Can you just tell me a little bit about that story and what happened?
Laura Varner 32:11
There were several desertions after that, and I’ve got to back up and say this is all part of Logan’s change at the beginning of the war, whenever he was, you know, gathering up these men to form the 31st he told them. He said, “We’re going to save the Union. If Lincoln frees the slaves, we’ll come back home. We are not fighting an abolitionist war.” However, that was at the beginning, so, beginning of 1863 and Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation, and yes, men started deserting, but Logan fought against that. Tried to make sure he kept all of his men there, because by that point, that transition had begun. And although they thought abolitionists were upstarts and troublemakers, they started to see slavery for what it really was. And so despite what he had said in the beginning, he stayed, and many other men stayed too.
Betsy Brown 33:20
Yeah, there’s a story of Lindorf Osborn, who was a family member and cousin married and married into the family. And yeah, married his cousin. So cousin by marriage, and Lindorf Osborn had been accused of he had heard Logan had heard that Osborne had made several disparaging remarks about African Americans and and he called them into his office and, and Logan says, Is this true? And Lindorf Osborn said, Yeah, it’s true. And He repeated it. And and then so Logan told him to get out, and he left. Had to leave to resign, and he did.
Dean Klinkenberg 34:06
Wow. That is a remarkable evolution to get to that point. I think so. So let’s kind of continue that thread then and get on to after the war was over. He went right back into politics, correct? And he, I think, was it at that point then he ran for the Federal House of Representatives? Was that his first office after the Civil War?
Betsy Brown 34:33
Yeah, he was gonna, he was gonna run for the Senate afterwards,
Dean Klinkenberg 34:40
But he changed parties after the Civil War, and he didn’t just change parties like he became part of the faction that you know, were known as the Radical Republicans. So can you tell me a little bit about what that meant for him? What was he advocating for after the Civil War?
Laura Varner 34:58
Oh, he was definitely fighting for equal rights for African Americans, equal rights, education. He was a very changed man. Frederick Douglass said, “If John Logan can make changes like these, there’s hope for everyone.” Yeah, and I think that is what we need to remember still yet today, change is possible.
Dean Klinkenberg 35:32
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Dean Klinkenberg 36:12
People can evolve. They can change their views, and people can support, you know, how do I want to say this? We can come together over certain common things, even if we disagree over others. So like in this case, there was before the war, folks wanted to keep the country together, and they were willing to fight to preserve the country, even if they didn’t necessarily want to end slavery, but they found a way to come together to preserve the Union. And in this case, Logan’s story, he not only gave speeches where he explained how Democrats were going to do the dirty work of enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act, but he had a hand in legislation that banned blacks from moving into the state of Illinois at all. He evolved to the point where he was a vocal advocate of ending slavery, of constitutional amendments, ending slavery, and then for equal rights and voting rights, I believe, as well.
Betsy Brown 37:10
Yes.
Dean Klinkenberg 37:13
So I don’t know quite how to ask this, but we’ve kind of talked covered this some, but it seems like his experiences during the Civil War were really fundamental in changing it that that first hand experience of seeing what the lives were like for people who were enslaved just really profoundly changed him.
Laura Varner 37:34
Definitely did.
Dean Klinkenberg 37:35
Yeah. How’d that go over back home? Was he talking to his mother again, yet when he came back after the Civil War?His sister?
Laura Varner 37:46
I don’t know exactly when that mended itself, and I joke all the time that grandchildren probably had a hand in that, but I think she held on to some of her views, her southern views. But again, they got along, even though they didn’t agree upon everything.
Betsy Brown 38:09
And I think that probably when he was so badly wounded, one takes a another look at your thoughts when you are faced with because if Mary knew that he would read that he was dead, then surely his mother did as well.
Dean Klinkenberg 38:22
Right.
Betsy Brown 38:23
Oh, and that way, like, oh, let’s, let’s think about what’s really important.
Dean Klinkenberg 38:27
Right, absolutely. So what was the arc of his political career like then after the Civil War? He kind of ascended fairly high politically.
Laura Varner 38:40
He did. He ran for vice president in 1886, 1884 sorry. He had plans to run for the presidency in ’88 however, he passed in ’86 but he was a very well known figure. And I believe, had he been able to run for president, I believe he would have succeeded. Yeah, he was a national character too, nationally known.
Betsy Brown 38:59
Which is why it’s unfortunate that so many people don’t know who he is.
Dean Klinkenberg 39:18
Yeah.
Betsy Brown 39:22
It’s like he ran for vice president, and it wasn’t for the fact that he had such a lousy running mate, bad running mate and running mate that was so bad his own party lobbied against the enough for the other for his opponent.
Dean Klinkenberg 39:35
Who did he run with?
Laura Varner 39:37
James Blaine?
Betsy Brown 39:39
Yeah. Like, who?
Dean Klinkenberg 39:41
Another name lost to history, right?
Betsy Brown 39:43
Yeah, but he was very corrupt, yeah, all right, so corrupt that his own party did support the other side, yeah?
Dean Klinkenberg 39:53
Wow. The thing that, one of the things that jumped out at me again reading more about his history is the number of places or monuments that were built to him. I used to travel to DC a lot for work, and I spent a fair amount of time around Logan Circle, and it never dawned you, until recently, I never made that connection. I had no idea who that was named for. And there are monuments to him in other places as well.
Betsy Brown 40:23
And lots of Logans, Logan everywhere. Logan counties, Logan in all the states.
Dean Klinkenberg 40:30
And I, I know we still have more of a story to tell, but I was just doing the math on this. So he was fairly young, yet when he died, if he died in 1880s in his 60s, early 60s.
Betsy Brown 40:39
60. His wife did not die until 1923. He died in 1886 and she didn’t die till 1923.
Laura Varner 40:47
She remained a widow that entire time. Yeah.
Dean Klinkenberg 40:53
So the other major accomplishment in his life, though, is after the Civil War, he was also very active with the GAR the Grand Army of the Republic. So tell us a little bit about that organization. What exactly were they?
Laura Varner 41:09
Well, whenever people come into the museum. I if they they aren’t familiar with it, I asked them if they’re familiar with the American Legion. And most people are. And so I start there. It was a veterans organization, but this was specifically for those Civil War soldiers. So the American Legion, you could become the son of a legionnaire. It didn’t work that way with the GAR. These men felt that no one could understand what they had been through, and they were right.
Betsy Brown 41:39
Union, only Union, yeah. Only Union, only Union.
Laura Varner 41:45
So they, they formed, I think, in the beginning, for that understanding, so that they could have someone to talk to and and and to help the widows and the orphans to help those veterans get the pensions that they deserved. And they it ended up being a very strong organization.
Betsy Brown 42:14
Very political. They had political power.
Laura Varner 42:17
They did. They’re nonpartisan, but, well.
Dean Klinkenberg 42:26
Right, right.
Laura Varner 42:28
But they they accomplished a lot. They did. They did help those veterans get those pensions. They did get pensions for widows and orphans.
Dean Klinkenberg 42:41
Interesting. I wonder about that now too. I have, I do a lot of genealogy. My family history is one of my passions. And I do have a few ancestors that served in the Civil War and received pensions afterwards. I think there was one. My great, great grandmother’s got a widow’s pension. I wonder how much the somebody from the GAR might have actually helped help them get those pensions.
Laura Varner 43:12
Countless people.
Dean Klinkenberg 43:14
So it wasn’t just sort of like a place to get together and rehash, you know, your war experiences and yet, sometimes Legion clubs are just about hanging out and and some fellowship and some drinking and all that. But the GAR had a mission beyond just that.
Laura Varner 43:30
Yes.
Dean Klinkenberg 43:32
And they, they created a holiday, kind of, they’re kind of credited with creating the forerunner of a very well known holiday we still celebrate, as I recall.
Laura Varner 43:44
And Logan was very much behind that. General Order Number 11 (editor note: Order of the GAR) was put together by Logan, and.
Betsy Brown 43:53
It was during his first term as Commander in Chief of the GAR which was in 1868.
Dean Klinkenberg 44:01
And what did that order specify then?
Laura Varner 44:04
That the United States that would come together as a nation on one particular day and decorate the graves of those fallen Civil War soldiers. At that time, it was specifically for the Civil War soldiers. So that’s why it started out being called Decoration Day, because they’re decorating those graves. Now eventually it expanded out to what we know now that you know men and women of all wars, but that was its beginnings, to remember those fallen soldiers, because Logan was very much a leader. Whenever he was an officer, he was an officer that led his men. He did not send his men into battle. He led them. He was always trying to make sure that they had enough food, enough ammunition. He took care of his troops, took care of those men and to see man after man after man fall and die and grow ill and die, Logan wanted to make sure that this country did not forget the sacrifice those men made. And so it was something that was very near and dear to him and his wife.
Betsy Brown 45:19
Right. Yeah, because she was, she had been on a trip down South and had seen Southern women decorating the graves of their fallen confederates. And they were actually the first to do that. The Southerners were well, but it makes sense, because most of the battles were in the South. You know, that’s where the they died in the South. That’s so the graves were there. And then she came back and talked to her husband about it, you know. So she had some input there.
Dean Klinkenberg 45:50
Mm, hmm. So was that Decoration Day? When they chose that? Did they, was that the last or no, the first Monday. No, I’m completely screwing up here.
Betsy Brown 46:00
Mondays came later. No, it was a specific, it was the 31st or 30th, the last day of May.
Laura Varner 46:11
Well, 31st.
Betsy Brown 46:11
Yeah, 31st, and the reason they chose that because initially in the South, well, they had their Memorial Day is in April, because their flowers come sooner. And that’s when it was not federally, you know, determined. And so then it was decided, well, the flowers up north will be in better shape at the end of May, which is why it’s at the end of May.
Dean Klinkenberg 46:35
Right.
Betsy Brown 46:35
It’s very true, the end of May flowers are here.
Dean Klinkenberg 46:38
Right.
Laura Varner 46:40
Yeah, yeah.
Dean Klinkenberg 46:43
So do you know at what point that merged and or became more of a national holiday, celebrating all veterans in all wars, or all the war dead?
Laura Varner 46:54
I think that…
Betsy Brown 46:57
I think what had been in the ’70s, I it was really, it took a long time for.
Laura Varner 47:02
It did. Yeah, really long time. You’re right, I think it was in the ’70s, yeah, it became a national holiday,
Betsy Brown 47:09
And we did the Monday thing and all that sort of thing, you know,
Dean Klinkenberg 47:14
So in your experience, like now today, like, we’ve kind of hinted at this little bit too. How well known do you think John Logan’s story is now?
Betsy Brown 47:26
Well, we’re trying. We’re trying.
Dean Klinkenberg 47:31
How well known is it locally? Do people in Murphysboro still celebrate Logan?
Betsy Brown 47:36
Well, we are going to in 2026 when it is his 200th birthday. We are planning a community wide celebration, and we’re tying that into the expansion of our museum. We’re adding 2800 square feet addition, because with the acquisition of GAR here and our building now, we don’t have space, and we need more space. We need space for temporary exhibits to have special events. All of our events now have to be, have to be held outside, unless they’re really tiny. And so we’re having, you know, an issue with that, and so we need to add on. And so we hope to be breaking ground by 2026 and doing that so kind of a big celebration.
Laura Varner 48:24
Yes. Very big community wide. And to go back to your question how well he’s known locally, I’d say that he is, he is becoming, he has become more familiar to people here because of the museum. We’ve been here for 35 years, and every year we have groups of fourth, fifth and sixth graders come through, and that’s not counting the field the field trips from other classes and other grades. And so Logan’s name is much more familiar than it used to be. I think that we’re, we’re making headway with that.
Betsy Brown 49:08
Oh yeah. And groups, local groups, you know, because we have a speaker’s bureau, we’ll be glad to go out and, you know, speak to any group who asks, wants, yeah. And, you know, there’s a Williamson County homemakers club or whatever the and our local DAR often meets here. And so, yeah, we have are making inroads and I and yes, certainly over the last 35 years. But before then, I would say it was, you know, yeah.
Laura Varner 49:39
No one knew, yeah.
Dean Klinkenberg 49:42
Right. So how did the museum get started that I didn’t realize that you’ve been around for 35 years, and that’s congratulations on that. But how did the, how did the museum get started?
Laura Varner 49:53
A t-shirt.
Dean Klinkenberg 49:56
The one you’re wearing?
Laura Varner 49:57
No, no. Mike Jones, the director for all of those years, up until October of last year, met a person wearing a t-shirt from Atlanta that had something to do with Logan, and he said, “You know what? I live in Murphysboro, Illinois, where Logan was born, and we don’t have anything for him other than than a statue.” And so that spurred him on to to start talking to people, and they formed a committee through the Jackson County Historical Society, and that committee started working towards creating the museum. So this was probably about 1985. So ’89 they opened the doors to what is now the museum. What had been a burned out apartment building, but that apartment building had its own history. This building has its own history that is connected to the Logans because it’s on Dr Logan’s original property, and as I mentioned, it’s about 150 feet from where his home had stood before it burned in 1868. This building actually was built by John’s brother Tom as a it was a single story house, sort of like a spec house, and was sold to a man named Christopher Bullar, who added on to the house, brought it up and out a bit, and raised his 15 children here.
Dean Klinkenberg 51:40
Wow, 15.
Laura Varner 51:43
Lot of kids, and so it stayed in that family for some time. And then I think it ended up sold a few times, and being divided up into apartments and kind of run down. And there was a fire, and so this committee purchased the building, gutted it, and created a museum, opened the doors in May I think of 1989.
Betsy Brown 52:02
And I think wasn’t there a Bullar relative in here through the 1970s or something.
Laura Varner 52:09
Yes, yeah.
Betsy Brown 52:10
There was a Bullar who lived here for like, so they had the house for almost 100 years.
Laura Varner 52:15
Yeah, I’m remember meeting her, little bitty, tiny, elderly lady who told me about sliding down the stair the stair rail as a little girl.
Dean Klinkenberg 52:27
Wow. You know, one of the things that really impressed me about the museum too, is I visit a lot of small town museums, and I absolutely love small town museums. Most of them, many times they feel like you’re kind of walking through somebody’s attic, and sometimes the displays are kind of handwritten, or they’re sort of thrown together fairly quickly. Your displays are all of the highest, like professional quality. Everything is really well presented. You’ve done a great job, sort of on the visual side of presenting the story of John Logan and then having artifacts that really tell those stories well too. So I just wanted to mention that I think that it’s a great, great visit.
Dean Klinkenberg 53:11
Before we wrapped up, I want, I did want to have a chance to talk a little bit about his wife, about Mary. She lived another, as you said, 30 some years after he passed away.
Betsy Brown 53:24
37 years.
Dean Klinkenberg 53:27
Oh, goodness. She had a whole lot a lifetime of her own, basically, after he passed.
Betsy Brown 53:31
She was 12 years younger than he.
Dean Klinkenberg 53:33
All right. So tell us about some of the things that she did, because you have a whole display just on some of her accomplishments. Tell us a little bit about Mary, besides the fact that she was a dynamo in a small package.
Laura Varner 53:51
Well, she was the oldest child of I forget now how many several children. Her mother was in poor help, and so she helped raise her siblings, basically. And her father recognized in her, I think, a certain sort of intelligence that he didn’t want to go to waste. And he so he made sure she had a a good education. She worked in his office whenever he was a clerk. I believe in Williamson County, because it’s where she was from, was Williamson County. And she married Logan when she was 16.
Dean Klinkenberg 54:39
Wow.
Laura Varner 54:41
And from then on, was his biggest fan, his biggest supporter, whether it was politics, military life, no matter what she she was behind him 300%.
Betsy Brown 54:56
Yeah. Yeah. She was an accomplished author. She wrote magazine articles, wrote books, sure one of her best friends was Clara Barton. So they did, they did they she was also in charge of the the Red Cross. She worked for the Red Cross as well.
Dean Klinkenberg 55:21
So what did she write about? What were her books and articles about?
Laura Varner 55:26
Well, she wrote about women in history. She wrote about being John Logan’s wife.
Betsy Brown 55:33
Her autobiography is about, yay big, yeah. She’s wordy. Yeah. She was very wordy.
Dean Klinkenberg 55:40
Yeah, typical for the time, yeah.
Laura Varner 55:44
It was, yeah.
Dean Klinkenberg 55:46
So she wrote the story of his life then, I guess, essentially.
Laura Varner 55:50
From her point of view, I suppose.
Betsy Brown 55:53
Yeah, yeah, yeah. She wrote about how he was going to recruit soldiers in Marion. And she was, they were living in Benton at the time, right? And so she was afraid for him. And that, you know, because Marion is still today, Marion was seeing there were soldiers who were recruited from Marion, from the Williamson County, who went to the Confederacy. And so he was recruiting for the Union, obviously, and she was worried about his physical safety. And he said, “No,” like always, “no problem. You just stay home.”
Laura Varner 56:32
Like waving a red flag. And so she got in a, you know, got in a carriage, and from Benton to Marion back in those days, that was, that’s a hike, you know, you know, by car, that’s, that’s what, 20 minutes.
Betsy Brown 56:47
Yeah, maybe a little more.
Laura Varner 56:50
20 minutes by car, you know, speeding along. And so she gets in a in a wagon, and she is she hides out just in case. So she would have someplace she could, she could whisk him away if something went if something went south, so to speak, literally.
Dean Klinkenberg 57:05
Right?
Laura Varner 57:08
Yeah. So she was, she was something, you know, yeah.
Dean Klinkenberg 57:12
Did she, where did she live after he passed away then?
Laura Varner 57:16
Washington.
Dean Klinkenberg 57:17
And he kind of after the war is, it was that basically his home was in Washington because he was in Congress.
Laura Varner 57:22
Yeah, they, well, they were, they were in Chicago for a time, but from Chicago to Washington, and then that’s where she remained after his death. And she, she not only wrote books, but she wrote many, many articles. She became nationally known herself. She was not directly involved in politics, but she had her opinions about it, and very, very social person. She was involved with the the Pullmans. She even took two, two daughters to Europe.
Betsy Brown 58:06
Oh, that’s right, she did.
Dean Klinkenberg 58:09
Well, well, it is a, it’s a great story. I think folks ought to visit the museum in person and see the exhibits for themselves. Do you have, are there any good books about Logan’s life you would recommend, like, is, is Mary’s version of that’s still available in print somewhere?
Laura Varner 58:27
Yeah, you know, I think you have to get look online to find a copy of it, but Gary Ecelbarger’s “Blackjack”, yeah, is probably the best book I’ve ever read about Logan.
Betsy Brown 58:42
Yeah. And that is a good one. That is the best one.
Dean Klinkenberg 58:47
All right, I’ll have to look. I’ll post a link to that in the show notes so people can at least see the name of the book and then look it up. So tell us a little bit about the museum itself again. So when are you open? You’re in Murphysboro. Is there an admission fee? Tell us just a little of the nuts and bolts about visiting.
Betsy Brown 59:06
We’re open Tuesday through Saturday, 10am to 4pm we accept donations.
Laura Varner 59:14
Yes.
Laura Varner 59:15
So you come to visit us, there’s not a specific charge, but we very much welcome any donation you’d like to give us.
Dean Klinkenberg 59:25
And are you open those to the Tuesday through Tuesday through Saturday, year round?
Laura Varner 59:34
Yes, year round?
Betsy Brown 59:35
And last year, this year, we were open on Memorial Day. Had had a lot of people you know, because normally, you know, Poor Laura, you know, she got to have a day you know, we needed to give Laura a day off. We thought, you know, let’s open up. We’re a civil war museum. We need to be open on Memorial Day since the guy founded it. And sure enough, we had a ton of people come through. So we’re going to continue to do that. In we have activities coming up. We have we’re having a very interesting event on August 17. We’re having a brunch with Mary, and we’re going to make this an annual event, and where we celebrate Mary Logan’s birthday, and hers is the 15th of August, 17th is Saturday. And we’re going to have different themes. And this year’s theme is women in politics, and we’re having Senator Terri Bryant and our former Lieutenant Governor Sheila Simon, speak about politics. We have a Republican and a Democrat, and it’s not to be about policy, but about what it’s like to be and be female in politics. And it should be really enlightening, and it’s a brunch. Tickets for $20.
Dean Klinkenberg 1:00:46
Will that be at the museum or someplace else?
Betsy Brown 1:00:49
At the museum grounds.
Betsy Brown 1:00:50
On the grounds, yes. the weather, we’ll have, we’ll have tents and what have you, but we have a beautiful, shady area that makes it much, much cooler, and sitting down and enjoying the the atmosphere, because we have such a lovely it’s a different feel when you’re here with the brick streets and the old buildings. It really kind of transported back in time.
Dean Klinkenberg 1:01:13
Absolutely, you almost have to have an ice cream social with something like that, right?
Betsy Brown 1:01:17
Yeah, yeah. I think we can do that next Memorial Day.
Dean Klinkenberg 1:01:25
And they can, people can find out how to get tickets for that through your website then, or calling the museum or just showing up?
Laura Varner 1:01:31
Working on the website, the website’s in the process of being updated, I should be getting something yeah from them next week.
Betsy Brown 1:01:31
Call the museum.
Betsy Brown 1:01:40
Or you can text me at 618-967-0443 if you want tickets, we’ll have to limit it. Obviously, we’re thinking about 60 people would be the most we could possibly handle, and we’re really looking forward to having Senator Bryant and Sheila Simon with us.
Dean Klinkenberg 1:02:00
Yeah, that’s awesome.
Betsy Brown 1:02:01
It is, it is, really should be a tremendous event. And then we’re having a fundraising event, September 28. We’re having a Buffalo Tro here on the grounds as well. And then we’re having a trivia night, which is basically history. We’re really, obviously big on history here, so, and we’re doing that in November, November at the Elk’s Club here in Murphysboro.
Betsy Brown 1:02:11
All right, a lot going on.
Laura Varner 1:02:28
Yep.
Dean Klinkenberg 1:02:29
So you mentioned the website. So just give us, quickly, some ways that folks can find out what’s going on with the museum, like you mentioned your website, and then if you have a presence on social media, where they can find.
Laura Varner 1:02:41
We have a Facebook page, yeah.
Dean Klinkenberg 1:02:44
And what’s the website address?
Betsy Brown 1:02:47
It’s LoganMuseum.org.
Betsy Brown 1:02:53
Yeah, that’s great. We don’t we don’t usually go on and looking at our website, but there you go. But it is Logan Museum, LoganMuseum.org, that’s for sure. That’s what it is.
Dean Klinkenberg 1:03:06
Alright. I will post a link to that in the show notes as well, so people can get to that, and then a link to your Facebook page.
Betsy Brown 1:03:14
That’s where we get the the more up to date until we get this website.
Dean Klinkenberg 1:03:19
Yeah, right. Probably that’s more, more of the events and things you know, more concurrent things are posted.
Betsy Brown 1:03:24
What’s happening, right?
Dean Klinkenberg 1:03:25
Yeah, yeah. Anything else you want folks to know about John Logan or the museum?
Laura Varner 1:03:33
Well, we have, we’re more than just a building. We have a native wildflower prairie. We have the Dalton house, which is the original building from about 1880 in the 1880s. We have a labyrinth, which is a memorial to the soldiers who died in the SS Lion when it was when it sunk in April of 1865, end of March 1865, and we have an archeological site where the the foundation of Dr Logan’s home has been unearthed, and it’s a covered it’s covered because the building that stands there now actually sits on the corner of that foundation. And so that was uncovered, and addition was built onto this house with large plexi windows so you can see down into the dig site. We have it marked off where the foundation was, so you can get a good idea of where that where Dr Logan’s home stood, where John Logan was born.
Dean Klinkenberg 1:04:46
Absolutely fantastic. Well, Betsy and Laura, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate you, know, taking time out of your busy day to chat with me about the museum and the this fascinating character.
Laura Varner 1:04:58
Yeah, yeah. Thank you for helping get the word out.
Betsy Brown 1:05:00
Yes, appreciate it.
Dean Klinkenberg 1:05:04
Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the series on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss out on future episodes. I offer the podcast for free, but when you support the show with a few bucks through Patreon to help keep the program going, just go to patreon.com/deanklinkenberg, if you want to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler guidebooks for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also write the Frank Dodge mystery series that’s set in places along the river. Find them wherever books are sold. The Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast is written and produced by me, Dean Klinkenberg. Original Music by Noah Fence. See you next time you.
