How A Sack Of Flour Healed A Divided Electorate Thursday, January 7, 2021
In 1864, the voters of Austin, Nevada were almost evenly divided between supporters of the Union (Republicans) and advocates for an immediate peace treaty with the Confederacy (Copperheads). Two eminent citizens bet on the outcome of the election. Ruel C. Gridley, an ardent Copperhead, lost the bet and, as agreed, carried a 50 pound sack of flour from his store down the town s main street, marching to the tune of Old John Brown . At the end of the March, he auctioned off the sack with the proceeds going to the Sanitary Commission, a private agency for the support of sick and wounded Union soldiers. Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, gives an account of what happened next: