Coal – David J. Kent

By German, Christopher S. - Library of Congress, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25149728 On April 10, 1861, two days before the Confederacy opened fire on Fort Sumter, Ambrose W. Thompson met with Lincoln to gain support for a coal mining project in the Chiriqui region of the Granadian Confederation (now Panama near the border with Costa Rica). Thompson headed a corporation that had been created to provide coal to the U.S. Navy. Lincoln again relied on Smithsonian Secretary Joseph Henry for scientific advice. Henry wrote to John Peter Lesley, one of the leading geologists in the United States and an expert on coal. In his confidential letter he said he was writing on behalf of President Lincoln and Secretary of State Seward to get Lesley’s opinion on the value of the coal deposit in the Chiriqui district. Interest in the coal was two-fold. It was needed for coal-fired boilers for steam ships and railroad locomotives, but it also offered itself as a possible solution to the likely emancipation of enslaved people. Lincoln and others had hoped that freed slaves (and other free blacks) could be relocated to avoid the problems of a racially mixed society. Should the Chiriqui coal be viable, it could serve as an economic basis for such a colony. Henry asked Lesley to give him “in addition to your opinion derived from general scientific principles any reliable information you may possess relative to this matter.”

In his reply, Lesley gave the worst possible news to Henry and Lincoln’s ears. The coal was tertiary coal, also known as lignite or brown coal (as opposed to bituminous black coal) consisting of only thirty to sixty percent carbon (anthracite hard coal is eighty to ninety percent carbon). Thus, Lesley noted, the Chiriqui coal was “as nearly worthless as any ‘fuel’ can be.” He further opined that “the property will always be of little or no value to its owners” and warned that the government would likely regret any plan to enter into contract for the land. “If I have any influence on the government,” Lesley wrote to Henry, “I should decidedly use it to dissuade from touching Chiriqui coal.”

Lincoln was not immediately convinced by Lesley’s report as he was still looking for a solution to the problem that would be created by the end of slavery. On August 14, 1862 (after he had already drafted but not yet released the Emancipation Proclamation), Lincoln met with a delegation of freemen and advocated for the establishment of a black colony in Central America, most likely Chiriqui. According to a report in the National Intelligencer (August 16, 1862), Lincoln stated that he found the physical differences between the two races “a great disadvantage to us both, as I think. Your race suffers very greatly, many of them, by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence.” He admitted that slavery was, in his judgment, “the greatest wrong inflicted on any people,” but did not see how even freedom from slavery would improve their lot “on a continent [where] not a single man of your race is made the equal of a single man of ours.”

While Lincoln had wanted to pursue Chiriqui further, the Central American nations of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica all made it clear they were opposed to any such colony. Eventually, Lincoln dropped the idea on Seward’s recommendation. Whether it was because the coal was of no value or the local opposition of the project is uncertain. Later Lincoln dropped the misconceived idea of colonization altogether.

[Photo credit: Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons]

Fire of Genius

Coming in February 2026: Unable to Escape This Toil

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David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Coal mining in Civil War On February 15, 1853, Abraham Lincoln wrote to John A. Rockwell to inform him he had failed to secure a coal mining charter. Coal was becoming increasingly important to the modernization of America because it was replacing wood as fuel for steamships and railroads. Rockwell and his associates had set up a corporation called the “Vermillion Coal and Manufacturing Company.” As with all companies at the time, it had to be incorporated by the Illinois state legislature.

Lincoln had served four terms – eight years – in the state legislature but had been working as a lawyer for over a decade since that time, so he had state senator Asahel Gridley introduce the bill on February 5th. It was passed by the Senate on February 9th but died in the House upon adjournment. Lincoln was, at least in part, at fault. In his letter to Rockwell, he notes:

I have failed to get your Coal Mining Charter. Being very busy in the Courts when your letter reached me, I let a few days slip before attending to it. A little more than a week before the close of the Session, I got a Bill for the Charter howsoever into the Senate, which Body it passed in about five days. It then went to the H. R. and was lost for want of time. No one was opposed to it, but every one was much more anxious about some other Bill, so it became evident a large proportion of all would be lost.

Lincoln gives some indication of the vagaries of state legislature life, which was a part-time job.

With us there is no lengthening out the Session, over a day, to get through with business. The New Constitution, adopted in 1848, limits the pay of members to two dollars per day for the first six weeks, and to one dollar per day afterwards. The practical result is they never sit a day over the six weeks.

While there was no opposition to the bill, “there was an objection to allowing you to connect by railroads with the Canal and Rock Island roads, all three.” Lincoln got around this by framing the bill to authorize Rockwell “to make only one of such connections, with the option however, as to which one.” He added, “If you continue to desire it, I will get it passed at the next Session.”

According to the bill, the company would have been able to “engage in the business of the mining of coal, iron, clays, and other minerals; and of welling for salt.”

Lincoln was intensely aware of the importance of mineral wealth, and it became a particular interest of his over the course of his legal career. Coal and other mined resources also played critical roles in the Civil War, everything from railroads, steam-powered blockade ships and ironclads, niter for gunpowder, the infamous Trent affair that almost started a war with England, and the rapid acceptance of Nevada as a state just days before the 1864 presidential election.

I take a deeper dive into all of these facets in Lincoln: The Fire of Genius, now available for pre-order.

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David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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[Photo from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/minewars/]