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Title: Dixie After the War
An Exposition of Social Conditions Existing in the South, During the Twelve Years Succeeding the Fall of Richmond
Author: Myrta Lockett Avary
Release Date: December 29, 2012 [eBook #41730]
Language: English
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DIXIE AFTER THE WAR
[Illustration: JEFFERSON DAVIS
After his prison life
Copyright 1867, by Anderson]
DIXIE AFTER THE WAR
An Exposition of Social Conditions Existing
in the South, During the Twelve Years
Succeeding the Fall of Richmond.
by
MYRTA LOCKETT AVARY
Author of "A Virginia Girl in the Civil War"
With an Introduction by General Clement A. Evans
Illustrated from old paintings, daguerreotypes and rare photographs
New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1906
Copyright, 1906, by Doubleday, Page & Company
Published September, 1906
All rights reserved,
including that of translation into foreign languages,
including the Scandinavian
To
THE MEMORY OF MY BROTHER,
PHILIP LOCKETT,
(_First Lieutenant, Company G, 14th Virginia Infantry,
Armistead's Brigade, Pickett's Division, C. S. A._)
_Entering the Confederate Army, when hardly more
than a lad, he followed General Robert E.
Lee for four years, surrendering at Appomattox.
He was in Pickett's immortal
charge at Gettysburg, and with
Armistead when Armistead
fell on Cemetery Hill._
The faces I see before me are those of young men. Had you not been this I
would not have appeared alone as the defender of my southland, but for
love of her I break my silence and speak to you. Before you lies the
future--a future full of golden promise, full of recompense for noble
endeavor, full of national glory before which the world will stand amazed.
Let me beseech you to lay aside all rancor, and all bitter sectional
feeling, and take your place in the rank of those who will bring about a
conciliation out of which will issue a reunited country.--_From an address
by Jefferson Davis in his last years, to the young men of the South_
INTRODUCTION
This book may be called a revelation. It seems to me a body of discoveries
that should not be kept from the public--discoveries which have origin in
many sources but are here brought together in one book for the first time.
No book hitherto published portrays so fully and graphically the social
conditions existing in the South for the twelve years following the fall
of Richmond, none so vividly presents race problems. It is the kind of
history a witness gives. The author received from observers and
participants the larger part of the incidents and anecdotes which she
employs. Those who lived during reconstruction are passing away so rapidly
that data, unless gathered now, can never be had thus at first hand; every
year increases the difficulty. Mrs. Avary's experience as author, editor
and journalist, her command of shorthand and her social connections have
opened up opportunities not usually accessible to one person; added to
this is the balance of sympathy which she is able to strike as a Southern
woman who has sojourned much at the North. In these pages she renders a
public service. She aids the American to better understanding of his
country's past and clearer concept of its present.
In connection with the book's genesis, it may be said that the author grew
up after the war on a large Virginia plantation where her parents kept
open house in the true Southern fashion. Two public roads which united at
their gates, were thoroughfares linking county-towns in Virginia and North
Carolina, and were much traveled by jurists, lawyers and politicians on
their way to and from various court sittings; these gentlemen often found
it both convenient and pleasant to stop for supper and over night at
Lombardy Grove, particularly as a son of the house was of their guild.
Perhaps few of the company thus gathered realised what an earnest listener
they had in the little girl, Myrta, who sat intent at her father's or
brother's knee, drinking in eagerly the discussions and stories. To
impressions and information so acquired much was added through family
correspondence with relatives and friends in Petersburg, Richmond,
Atlanta, the Carolinas; also, in experiences related by these friends and
relatives when hospitalities were exchanged; interesting and eventful
diaries, too, were at the author's disposal. Such was her unconscious
preparation for the writing of this book. Her conscious preparation was a
tour of several Southern States recently undertaken for the purpose of
collecting fresh data and substantiating information already possessed.
While engaged, for a season, in journalism in New York, she put out her
first Southern book, "A Virginia Girl in the Civil War" (1903). This met
with such warm welcome that she was promptly called upon for a second
dealing with post-bellum life from a woman's viewpoint. The result was the
Southern journey mentioned, the accidental discovery and presentment
(1905) of the war journal of Mrs. James Chestnut ("A Diary From Dixie"),
and the writing of the present volume which, I think, exceeds her
commission, inasmuch as it is not only what is known as a "woman's book"
but is a "man's book" also, exhibiting a masculine grasp, explained by its
origin, of political situations, and an intimate personal tone in dealing
with the lighter social side of things, possible only to a woman's pen. It
is a very unusual book. All readers may not accept the author's
conclusions, but I think that all must be interested in what she says and
impressed with her spirit of fairness and her painstaking effort to
present a truthful picture of an extraordinary social and political period
in our national life. Her work stimulates interest in Southern history. A
safe prophecy is that this book will be the precursor of as many
post-bellum memoirs of feminine authorship as was "A Virginia Girl" of
memoirs of war-time.
No successor can be more comprehensive, as a glance at the table of
contents will show. The tragedy, pathos, corruption, humour, and
absurdities of the military dictatorship and of reconstruction, the
topsy-turvy conditions generally, domestic upheaval, negroes voting, Black
and Tan Conventions and Legislatures, disorder on plantations, Loyal
Leagues and Freedmen's Bureaus, Ku Klux and Red Shirts, are presented with
a vividness akin to the camera's. A wide interest is appealed to in the
earlier chapters narrating incidents connected with Mr. Lincoln's visit to
Richmond, Mr. Davis' journeyings, capture and imprisonment, the arrest of
Vice-President Stephens and the effort to capture General Toombs. Those
which deal with the Federal occupation of Columbia and Richmond at once
rivet attention. The most full and graphic description of the situation in
the latter city just after the war, that has yet been produced, is given,
and I think the interpretation of Mr. Davis' course in leaving Richmond
instead of remaining and trying to enter into peace negotiations, is a
point not hitherto so clearly taken.
As a bird's-eye view of the South after the war, the book is expositive of
its title, every salient feature of the time and territory being brought
under observation. The States upon which attention is chiefly focussed,
however, are Virginia and South Carolina, two showing reconstruction at
its best and worst. The reader does not need assurance that this volume
cost the author years of well-directed labour; hasty effort could not have
produced a work of such depth, breadth and variety. It will meet with
prompt welcome, I am sure, and its value will not diminish with years.
CLEMENT A. EVANS.
_Atlanta, Ga._
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I. THE FALLING CROSS 3
CHAPTER II. "WHEN THIS CRUEL WAR IS OVER" 9
CHAPTER III. THE ARMY OF THE UNION: THE CHILDREN AND THE FLAG 15
CHAPTER IV. THE COMING OF LINCOLN 29
CHAPTER V. THE LAST CAPITAL OF THE CONFEDERACY 47
CHAPTER VI. THE COUNSEL OF LEE 67
CHAPTER VII. "THE SADDEST GOOD FRIDAY" 77
CHAPTER VIII. THE WRATH OF THE NORTH 89
CHAPTER IX. THE CHAINING OF JEFFERSON DAVIS 101
CHAPTER X. OUR FRIENDS, THE ENEMY 107
CHAPTER XI. BUTTONS, LOVERS, OATHS, WAR LORDS, AND PRAYERS FOR
PRESIDENTS 123
CHAPTER XII. CLUBBED TO HIS KNEES 139
CHAPTER XIII. NEW FASHIONS: A LITTLE BONNET AND AN ALPACA SKIRT 147
CHAPTER XIV. THE GENERAL IN THE CORNFIELD 155
CHAPTER XV. TOURNAMENTS AND STARVATION PARTIES 167
CHAPTER XVI. THE BONDAGE OF THE FREE 179
CHAPTER XVII. BACK TO VOODOOISM 201
CHAPTER XVIII. THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU 209
CHAPTER XIX. THE PRISONER OF FORTRESS MONROE 219
CHAPTER XX. RECONSTRUCTION ORATORY 229
CHAPTER XXI. THE PRISONER FREE 237
CHAPTER XXII. A LITTLE PLAIN HISTORY 247
CHAPTER XXIII. THE BLACK AND TAN CONVENTION: THE "MIDNIGHT
CONSTITUTION" 253
CHAPTER XXIV. SECRET SOCIETIES: LOYAL LEAGUE, WHITE CAMELIAS,
WHITE BROTHERHOOD, PALE FACES, KU KLUX 263
CHAPTER XXV. THE SOUTHERN BALLOT-BOX 281
CHAPTER XXVI. THE WHITE CHILD 297
CHAPTER XXVII. SCHOOLMARMS AND OTHER NEWCOMERS 311
CHAPTER XXVIII. THE CARPET-BAGGER 325
CHAPTER XXIX. THE DEVIL ON THE SANTEE (A RICE-PLANTER'S STORY) 341
CHAPTER XXX. BATTLE FOR THE STATE-HOUSE 353
CHAPTER XXXI. CRIME AGAINST WOMANHOOD 377
CHAPTER XXXII. RACE PREJUDICE 391
CHAPTER XXXIII. MEMORIAL DAY AND DECORATION DAY. CONFEDERATE
SOCIETIES 405
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
JEFFERSON DAVIS _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
THE RUINS OF MILLWOOD 6
MRS. JEFFERSON DAVIS 10
THE WHITE HOUSE 32
THE GOVERNOR'S MANSION, Richmond 36
ST. PAUL'S CHURCH 48
THE LAST CAPITOL OF THE CONFEDERACY 52
THE OLD BANK, Washington, Ga. 56
GENERAL AND MRS. JOHN H. MORGAN 62
THE LEE RESIDENCE, Richmond 68
MRS. ROBERT E. LEE 72
MRS. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON 80
LIBBY PRISON 92
MRS. DAVID L. YULEE 110
MISS MARY MEADE 120
MRS. HENRY L. POPE 128
MRS. WILLIAM HOWELL 134
MRS. ANDREW GRAY 134
MISS ADDIE PRESCOTT 168
MRS. DAVID URQUHART 174
MRS. LEONIDAS POLK 180
MRS. ANDREW PICKENS CALHOUN 196
FORTRESS MONROE 222
HISTORICAL PETIT JURY 238
MRS. AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON 248
MME. OCTAVIA WALTON LE VERT 248
MRS. DAVID R. WILLIAMS 268
MISS EMILY V. MASON 304
MRS. WADE HAMPTON 346
RADICAL MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATURE OF SOUTH CAROLINA 354
THE SOUTHERN CROSS 364
MRS. REBECCA CALHOUN PICKENS BACON 406
MRS. ROGER A. PRYOR 412
WINNIE DAVIS, the Daughter of the Confederacy 416
THE FALLING CROSS
CHAPTER I
THE FALLING CROSS
"The Southern Cross" and a cross that fell during the burning of Columbia
occur to my mind in unison.
With the Confederate Army gone and Richmond open to the Federal Army, her
people remembered New Orleans, Atlanta, Columbia. New Orleans, where
"Beast Butler" issued orders giving his soldiers license to treat ladies
offending them as "women of the town." Atlanta, whose citizens were
ordered to leave; General Hood had protested and Mayor Calhoun had plead
the cause of the old and feeble, of women that were with child; and of
them that turned out of their houses had nowhere to go, and without money,
food, or shelter, must perish in woods and waysides. General Sherman had
replied: "I give full credit to your statements of the distress that will
be occasioned, yet shall not revoke my orders, because they were not
designed to meet the humanities of the case. You cannot qualify war in
harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it." "The
order to depopulate Atlanta was obeyed amid agonies and sorrows
indescribable," Colonel J. H. Keatley, U. S. A., has affirmed.
There are some who hold with General Sherman that the most merciful way to
conduct war is to make it as merciless and horrible as possible, and so
end it the quicker. One objection to this is that it creates in a
subjugated people such hatred and distrust of the conquering army and
government that a generation or two must die out before this passes away;
and therefore, in a very real sense, the method does not make quick end of
conflict.
Richmond remembered how Mayor Goodwin went to meet General Sherman and
surrendered Columbia, praying for it his pity and protection. General
Sherman had said: "Go home and sleep in peace, Mr. Mayor. Your city shall
be safe." Mayor Goodwin returned, praising General Sherman. By next
morning, the City of Gardens was almost swept from the face of the earth.
The rabble ("my bummers," General Sherman laughingly called his men set
apart for such work), pouring into the town, had invaded and sacked homes,
driving inmates--among these mothers with new-born babes--into the
streets; they had demolished furniture, fired dwellings.
Houses of worship were not spared. The Methodist Church, at whose altar
the Sabbath before Rev. William Martin had administered the Sacrament to
over four hundred negroes, was burned. So was the Ursuline Convent. This
institution was a branch of the order in Ohio; it sheltered nuns and
students of both sections; Protestant and Catholic alike were there in
sanctuary. One Northern Sister had lost two brothers in the Federal Army.
Another was joyously hoping to find in Sherman's ranks one or more of her
five Yankee brothers. The shock of that night killed her. A Western girl
was "hoping yet fearing" to see her kinsmen. Guards, appointed for
protection, aided in destruction. Rooms were invaded, trunks rifled.
Drunken soldiers blew smoke in nuns' faces, saying:
"Holy! holy! O yes, we are holy as you!" And: "What do you think of God
now? Is not Sherman greater?" Because of the sacred character of the
establishment, because General Sherman was a Catholic, and because he had
sent assurances of protection to the Mother Superior, they had felt safe.
But they had to go.
"I marched in the procession through the blazing streets," wrote the
Western girl, "venerable Father O'Connell at the head holding high the
crucifix, the black-robed Mother Superior and the _religieuses_ following
with their charges, the white-faced, frightened girls and children, all in
line and in perfect order. They sought the Catholic church for safety, and
the Sisters put the little ones to sleep on the cushioned pews; then the
children, driven out by roystering soldiers, ran stumbling and
terror-stricken into the graveyard and crouched behind gravestones."
One soldier said he was sorry for the women and children of South
Carolina, but the hotbed of secession must be destroyed. "But I am not a
South Carolinian," retorted the Western girl, "I am from Ohio. Our Mother
Superior was in the same Convent in Ohio with General Sherman's sister and
daughter." "The General ought to know that," he responded quickly. "If you
are from Ohio--that's my state--I'll help you." For answer, she pointed to
the Convent; the cross above it was falling.
They recur to my mind in unison--that cross, sacred alike to North and
South, falling above a burning city, and the falling Southern Cross,
Dixie's beautiful battle-flag.
Two nuns, conferring apart if it would not be well to take the children
into the woods, heard a deep, sad voice saying: "Your position distresses
me greatly!" Startled, they turned to perceive a Federal officer beside a
tombstone just behind them. "Are you a Catholic," they asked, "that you
pity us?" "No; simply a man and a soldier." Dawn came, and with it some
Irish soldiers to early Mass. Appalled, they cried: "O, this will never
do! Send for the General! The General would never permit it!"
At reveille all arson, looting and violence had ceased as by magic, even
as conflagration had started as by magic in the early hours of the night
when four signal rockets went up from as many corners of the town. But the
look of the desolated city in the glare of daylight was indescribable.
Around the church were broken and empty trunks and boxes; in the entrance
stood a harp with broken strings.
General Sherman came riding by; the Mother Superior summoned him; calmly
facing the Attila of his day, she said in her clear, sweet voice:
"General, this is how you keep your promise to me, a cloistered nun, and
these my sacred charges." General Sherman answered: "Madame, it is all the
fault of your negroes, who gave my soldiers liquor to drink."
General Sherman, in official report, charged the burning of Columbia to
General Hampton, and in his "Memoirs" gives his reason: "I confess that I
did so to shake the faith of his people in him"; and asserts that his
"right wing," "having utterly ruined Columbia," passed on to Winnsboro.
Living witnesses tell how that firing was done. A party of soldiers would
enter a dwelling, search and rifle; and in departing throw wads of burning
paper into closets, corners, under beds, into cellars. Another party would
repeat the process. Family and servants would follow after, removing wads
and extinguishing flames until ready to drop. Devastation for secession,
that was what was made plain in South Carolina; if the hotbed of "heresy"
had to be destroyed for her sins, what of the Confederate Capital,
Richmond, the long-desired, the "heart of the Rebellion"?
[Illustration: THE RUINS OF MILLWOOD
Millwood was the ancestral home of General Hampton, and was burned by
Sherman's orders. The property is now owned by General Hampton's sisters.]
"WHEN THIS CRUEL WAR IS OVER"
CHAPTER II
"WHEN THIS CRUEL WAR IS OVER"
"When this cruel war is over" was the name of one of our war songs. So
many things we planned to do when the war should be over. With the fall of
the Southern Capital the war was over, though we did not know it at once.
Again and again has the story been told of Sunday, April 2, in Richmond.
The message brought into St. Paul's Church from Lee to Davis, saying
Richmond could no longer be defended; the quiet departure of the
President; the noble bearing of the beloved rector, Rev. Dr. Minnegerode;
the self-control of the troubled people remaining; the solemn Communion
Service; these are all a part now of American history of that sad time
when brother strove with brother; a time whose memories should never be
revived for the purpose of keeping rancor alive, but that should be
unfalteringly remembered, and every phase of it diligently studied, that
our common country may in no wise lose the lesson for which we of the
North and South paid so tremendous a price.
Into Dr. Hoge's church a hurried messenger came. The pastor read the note
handed up to him, bowed his head in silent prayer, and then said:
"Brethren, trying scenes are before us; General Lee has suffered reverses.
But remember that God is with us in the storm as well as in the calm. Go
quietly to your homes, and whatever may be in store for us, let us not
forget that we are Christian men and women. The blessing of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost be with us all. Amen." So other pastors
commended their people.
None who lived through that Sabbath could forget it. Our Government, our
soldiers, hurrying off; women saying goodbye to husband, lover, brother,
or friend, and urging haste; everybody who could go, going, when means of
transportation were insufficient for Government uses, and "a kingdom for a
horse" could not buy one--horses brought that day $1,000 apiece in gold;
handsome houses full of beautiful furniture left open and deserted; people
of all sexes, colors and classes running hither and yon; boxes and barrels
dragged about the streets from open commissary stores; explosions as of
earthquakes; houses aflame; the sick and dying brought out; streets
running liquid fire where liquor had been emptied into gutters, that it
might not be available for invading troops; bibulous wretches in the midst
of the terror, brooding over such waste; drunken roughs and looters, white
and black, abroad; the penitentiary disgorging striped hordes; the ribald
songs, the anguish, the fears, the tumult; the noble calm of brave souls,
the patient endurance of sweet women and gentle children--these are all a
part of American history, making thereon a page blistered with tears for
some; and for others, illumined with symbols of triumph and glory.
And yet, we are of one blood, and the triumph and glory of one is the
triumph and glory of the other; the anguish and tears of one the anguish
and tears of the other; and the shame of one is the shame of both.
The fire was largely due to accident. In obedience to law, Confederate
forces, in evacuating the city, fired tobacco warehouses, ordnance and
other Government stores, gunboats in the James and bridges spanning the
river. A wind, it is said, carried sparks towards the town, igniting first
one building and then another; incendiarism lent aid that pilfering
might go on in greater security through public disorder and distress.
[Illustration: MRS. JEFFERSON DAVIS]
During the night detonations of exploding gunboats could be heard for
miles, the noise and shock and lurid lights adding to the wretchedness of
those within the city, and the anxieties of those who beheld its burnings
from afar; among these, the advancing enemy, who was not without uneasy
speculations lest he find Richmond, as Napoleon found Moscow, in ashes.
General Shepley, U. S. A., has described the scene witnessed from his
position near Petersburg, as a most beautiful and awful display of
fireworks, the heavens at three o'clock being suddenly filled with
bursting shells, red lights, Roman candles, fiery serpents, golden
fountains, falling stars.
Nearly all the young men were gone; the fire department, without a full
force of operatives, without horses, without hose, was unable to cope with
the situation. Old men, women and children, and negro servants fought the
flames as well as they could.
Friends and relatives who were living in Richmond then have told me about
their experiences until I seem to have shared them. One who appears in
these pages as Matoaca, gives me this little word-picture of the morning
after the evacuation:
"I went early to the War Department, where I had been employed, to get
letters out of my desk. The desk was open. Everything was open. Our
President, our Government, our soldiers were gone. The papers were found
and I started homeward. We saw rolls of smoke ahead, and trod carefully
the fiery streets. Suddenly my companion caught my arm, crying: 'Is not
that the sound of cavalry?' We hurried, almost running. Soon after we
entered the house, some one exclaimed:
"'God help us! The United States flag is flying over our Capitol!'
"I laid my head on Uncle Randolph's knee and shivered. He placed his hand
lightly on my head and said: 'Trust in God, my child. They can not be
cruel to us. We are defenseless.' He had fought for that flag in Mexico.
He had stood by Virginia, but he had always been a Unionist. I thought of
New Orleans, Atlanta, Columbia."
An impression obtained that to negro troops was assigned the honor of
first entering Richmond, hauling down the Southern Cross and hoisting in
its place the Stars and Stripes. "Harper's Weekly" said: "It was fitting
that the old flag should be restored by soldiers of the race to secure
whose eternal degradation that flag had been pulled down." Whether the
assignment was made or not, I am unable to say; if it was, it was not very
graceful or wise on the part of our conquerors, and had it been carried
out, would have been prophetic of what came after--the subversion.
White troops first entered Richmond, and a white man ran up the flag of
the Union over our Capitol. General Shepley says that to his aide,
Lieutenant de Peyster, he accorded the privilege as a reward for caring
for his old flag that had floated over City Hall in New Orleans. On the
other hand, it is asserted that Major Stevens performed the historic
office, running up the two small guidons of the Fourth Massachusetts
Cavalry, which were presently displaced by the large flag Lieutenant de
Peyster had been carrying in the holster at his saddle-bow for many a day,
that it might be in readiness for the use to which he now put it.
THE ARMY OF THE UNION
CHAPTER III
THE ARMY OF THE UNION: THE CHILDREN AND THE FLAG
The Army of the Union entered Richmond with almost the solemnity of a
processional entering church. It was occasion for solemn procession, that
entrance into our burning city where a stricken people, flesh of their
flesh and bone of their bone, watched in terror for their coming.
Our broken-hearted people closed their windows and doors and shut out as
far as they could all sights and sounds. Yet through closed lattice there
came that night to those living near Military Headquarters echoes of
rejoicings.
Early that fateful morning, Mayor Mayo, Judge Meredith and Judge Lyons
went out to meet the incoming foe and deliver up the keys of the city.
Their coach of state was a dilapidated equipage, the horses being but
raw-boned shadows of better days when there were corn and oats in the
land. They carried a piece of wallpaper, on the unflowered side of which
articles of surrender were inscribed in dignified terms setting forth that
"it is proper to formally surrender the City of Richmond, hitherto Capital
of the Confederate States of America." Had the words been engraved on
satin in letters of gold, Judge Lyons (who had once represented the United
States at the Court of St. James) could not have performed the honours of
introduction between the municipal party and the Federal officers with
statelier grace, nor could the latter have received the instrument of
submission with profounder courtesy. "We went out not knowing what we
would encounter," Mayor Mayo reported, "and we met a group of
Chesterfields." Major Atherton H. Stevens, of General Weitzel's staff, was
the immediate recipient of the wallpaper document.
General Weitzel and his associates were merciful to the stricken city;
they aided her people in extinguishing the flames; restored order and gave
protection. Guards were posted wherever needed, with instructions to
repress lawlessness, and they did it. To this day, Richmond people rise up
in the gates and praise that Army of the Occupation as Columbia's people
can never praise General Sherman's. Good effect on popular sentiment was
immediate.
Among many similar incidents of the times is this, as related by a
prominent physician:
"When I returned from my rounds at Chimborazo I found a Yankee soldier
sitting on my stoop with my little boy, Walter, playing with the tassels
and buttons on his uniform. He arose and saluted courteously, and told me
he was there to guard my property. 'I am under orders,' he said, 'to
comply with any wish you may express.'"
Dr. Gildersleeve, in an address (June, 1904) before the Association of
Medical Officers of the Army and Navy, C. S. A., referred to Chimborazo
Hospital as "the most noted and largest military hospital in the annals of
history, ancient or modern." With its many white buildings and tents on
Chimborazo Hill, it looked like a town and a military post, which latter
it was, with Dr. James B. McCaw for Commandant. General Weitzel and his
staff visited the hospital promptly. Dr. McCaw and his corps in full
uniform received them. Dr. Mott, General Weitzel's Chief Medical
Director, exclaimed: "Ain't that old Jim McCaw?" "Yes," said "Jim McCaw,"
"and don't you want a drink?" "Invite the General, too," answered Dr.
Mott. General Weitzel issued passes to Dr. McCaw and his corps, and gave
verbal orders that Chimborazo Confederates should be taken care of under
all circumstances. He proposed to take Dr. McCaw and his corps into the
Federal service, thus arming him with power to make requisition for
supplies, medicines, etc., which offer the doctor, as a loyal Confederate,
was unable to accept.
Others of our physicians and surgeons found friends in Federal ranks. To
how many poor Boys in Blue, longing for home and kindred, had not they and
our women ministered! The orders of the Confederate Government were that
the sick and wounded of both armies should be treated alike. True, nobody
had the best of fare, for we had it not to give. We were without
medicines; it was almost impossible to get morphia, quinine, and other
remedies. Quinine was $400 an ounce, when it could be bought at all, even
in the earlier years of the war. Our women became experts in manufacturing
substitutes out of native herbs and roots. We ran wofully short of
dressings and bandages, and bundles of old rags became treasures
priceless. But the most cruel shortage was in food. Bitter words in
Northern papers and by Northern speakers--after our defeat intensified,
multiplied, and illustrated--about our treatment of prisoners exasperated
us. "Will they never learn," we asked, "that on such rations as we gave
our prisoners, our men were fighting in the field? We had not food for
ourselves; the North blockaded us so we could not bring food from outside,
and refused to exchange prisoners with us. What could we do?"
I wonder how many men now living remember certain loaves of wheaten bread
which the women of Richmond collected with difficulty in the last days of
the war and sent to Miss Emily V. Mason, our "Florence Nightingale," for
our own boys. "Boys," Miss Emily announced--sick soldiers, if graybeards,
were "boys" to "Cap'n," as they all called Miss Emily--"I have some
flour-bread which the ladies of Richmond have sent you." Cheers, and other
expressions of thankfulness. "The poor, sick Yankees," Miss Emily went on
falteringly--uneasy countenances in the ward--"_can't_ eat corn-bread--"
"Give the flour-bread to the poor, sick Yankees, Cap'n!" came in cheerful,
if quavering chorus from the cots. "_We_ can eat corn-bread. Gruel is good
for us. We _like_ mush. Oughtn't to have flour-bread nohow." "Poor
fellows!" "Cap'n" said proudly of their self-denial, "they were tired to
death of corn-bread in all forms, and it was not good for them, for nearly
all had intestinal disorders."
Along with this corn-bread story, I recall how Dr. Minnegerode,
Protestant, and Bishop Magill, Catholic, used to meet each other on the
street, and the one would say: "Doctor, lend me a dollar for a sick
Yankee." And the other: "Bishop, I was about to ask _you_ for a dollar for
a sick Yankee." And how Annie E. Johns, of North Carolina, said she had
seen Confederate soldiers take provisions from their own haversacks and
give them to Federal prisoners _en route_ to Salisbury. As matron, she
served in hospitals for the sick and wounded of both armies. She said:
"When I was in a hospital for Federals, I felt as if these men would
defend me as promptly as our own."
In spite of the pillage, vandalism and violence they suffered, Southern
women were not so biassed as to think that the gentle and brave could be
found only among the wearers of the gray. Even in Sherman's Army were the
gentle and brave upon whom fell obloquy due the "bummers" only. I have
heard many stories like that of the boyish guard who, tramping on his beat
around a house he was detailed to protect, asked of a young mother: "Why
does your baby cry so?" She lifted her pale face, saying: "My baby is
hungry. I have had no food--and so--I have no nourishment for him." Tears
sprang into his eyes, and he said: "I will be relieved soon; I will draw
my rations and bring them to you." He brought her his hands full of all
good things he could find--sugar, tea, and coffee. And like that of two
young Philadelphians who left grateful hearts behind them along the line
of Sherman's march because they made a business of seeing how many women
and children they could relieve and protect. In Columbia, during the
burning, men in blue sought to stay ravages wrought by other men in blue.
I hate to say hard things of men in blue, and I must say all the good
things I can; because many were unworthy to wear the blue, many who were
worthy have carried reproach.
On that morning of the occupation, our women sat behind closed windows,
unable to consider the new path stretching before them. The way seemed to
end at a wall. Could they have looked over and seen what lay ahead, they
would have lost what little heart of hope they had; could vision have
extended far enough, they might have won it back; they would have beheld
some things unbelievable. For instance, they would have seen the little
boy who played with the buttons and tassels, grown to manhood and wearing
the uniform of an officer of the United States; they would have seen
Southern men walking the streets of Richmond and other Southern cities
with "U. S. A." on their haversacks; and Southern men and Northern men
fighting side by side in Cuba and the Philippines, and answering alike to
the name, "Yankees."
On the day of the occupation, Miss Mason and Mrs. Rhett went out to meet
General Weitzel and stated that Mrs. Lee was an invalid, unable to walk,
and that her house, like that of General Chilton and others, was in danger
of fire. "What!" he exclaimed, "Mrs. Lee in danger? General Fitz Lee's
mother, who nursed me so tenderly when I was sick at West Point! What can
I do for her? Command me!" "We mean Mrs. Robert E. Lee," they said. "We
want ambulances to move Mrs. Lee and other invalids and children to places
of safety." Using his knee as a writing-table, he wrote an order for five
ambulances; and the ladies rode off. Miss Emily's driver became suddenly
and mysteriously tipsy and she had to put an arm around him and back up
the vehicle herself to General Chilton's door, where his children, her
nieces, were waiting, their dollies close clasped.
"Come along, Virginia aristocracy!" hiccoughed the befuddled Jehu. "I
won't bite you! Come along, Virginia aristocracy!"
A passing officer came to the rescue, and the party were soon safely
housed in the beautiful Rutherford home.
The Federals filled Libby Prison with Confederates, many of whom were
paroled prisoners found in the city. Distressed women surrounded the
prison, begging to know if loved ones were there; others plead to take
food inside. Some called, while watching windows: "Let down your tin cup
and I will put something in it." Others cried: "Is my husband in there? O,
William, answer me if you are!" "Is my son, Johnny, here?" "O, please
somebody tell me if my boy is in the prison!" Miss Emily passed quietly
through the crowd, her hospital reputation securing admission to the
prison; she was able to render much relief to those within, and to subdue
the anxiety of those without.
"Heigho, Johnny Reb! in there now where we used to be!" yelled one Yankee
complacently. "Been in there myself. D----d sorry for you, Johnnies!" called
up another.
A serio-comic incident of the grim period reveals the small boy in an
attitude different from that of him who was dandled on the Federal knee.
Some tiny lads mounted guard on the steps of a house opposite Military
Headquarters, and, being intensely "rebel" and having no other means of
expressing defiance to invaders, made faces at the distinguished occupants
of the establishment across the way. General Patrick, Provost-Marshal
General, sent a courteously worded note to their father, calling his
attention to these juvenile demonstrations. He explained that while he was
not personally disturbed by the exhibition, members of his staff were, and
that the children might get into trouble. The proper guardians of the wee
insurgents, acting upon this information, their first of the battery
unlimbered on their door-step, saw that the artillery was retired in good
order, and peace and normal countenances reigned over the scene of the
late engagements.
I open a desultory diary Matoaca kept, and read:
"If the United States flag were my flag--if I loved it--I would not try to
make people pass under it who do not want to. I would not let them. It is
natural that we should go out of our way to avoid walking under it, a
banner that has brought us so much pain and woe and want--that has
desolated our whole land.
"Some Yankees stretched a flag on a cord from tree to tree across the way
our children had to come into Richmond. The children saw it and cried
out; and the driver was instructed to go another way. A Federal soldier
standing near--a guard, sentinel or picket--ordered the driver to turn
back and drive under that flag. He obeyed, and the children were weeping
and wailing as the carriage rolled under it."
In Raymond, Mississippi, negro troops strung a flag across the street and
drove the white children under it. In Atlanta, two society belles were
arrested because they made a detour rather than walk under the flag. Such
desecration of the symbol of liberty and union was committed in many
places by those in power.
The Union flag is my flag and I love it, and, therefore, I trust that no
one may ever again pass under it weeping. Those little children were not
traitors. They were simply human. If in the sixties situations had been
reversed, and the people of New York, Boston and Chicago had seen the
Union flag flying over guns that shelled these cities, their children
would have passed under it weeping and wailing. Perhaps, too, some would
have sat on doorsteps and "unbeknownst" to their elders have made faces at
commanding generals across the way; while others climbing upon the enemy's
knees would have played with gold tassels and brass buttons.
Our newspapers, with the exception of the "Whig" and the "Sentinel,"
shared in the general wreckage. A Northern gentleman brought out a tiny
edition of the former in which appeared two military orders promulgating
the policy General Weitzel intended to pursue. One paragraph read: "The
people of Richmond are assured that we come to restore to them the
blessings of peace and prosperity under the flag of the Union."
General Shepley, Military Governor by Weitzel's appointment, repeated this
in substance, adding: "The soldiers of the command will abstain from any
offensive or insulting words or gestures towards the citizens." With less
tact and generosity, he proceeded: "The Armies of the Rebellion having
abandoned their efforts to enslave the people of Virginia, have
endeavoured to destroy by fire their Capital.... The first duty of the
Army of the Union will be to save the city doomed to destruction by the
Armies of the Rebellion." That fling at our devoted army would have served
as a clarion call to us--had any been needed--to remember the absent.
"It will be a blunder in us not to overlook that blunder of General
Shepley's," urged Uncle Randolph.[1] "The important point is that the
policy of conciliation is to be pursued." With the "Whig" in his hand,
Uncle Randolph told Matoaca that the Thursday before Virginia seceded a
procession of prominent Virginians marched up Franklin Street, carrying
the flag of the Union and singing "Columbia," and that he was with them.
The family questioned if his mind were wandering, when he went on: "The
breach can be healed--in spite of the bloodshed--if only the Government
will pursue the right course now. Both sides are tired of hating and being
hated, killing and being killed--this war between brothers--if Weitzel's
orders reflect the mind of Lincoln and Grant--and they must--all may be
well--before so very long."
These were the men of the Union Army who saved Richmond: The First
Brigade, Third Division (Deven's Division), Twenty-fourth Army Corps, Army
of the James, Brevet-Brigadier-General Edward H. Ripley commanding. This
brigade was composed of the Eleventh Connecticut, Thirteenth New
Hampshire, Nineteenth Wisconsin, Eighty-first New York, Ninety-eighth New
York, One Hundredth and Thirty-ninth New York, Convalescent detachment
from the second and third divisions of Sheridan's reinforcements.
"This Brigade led the column in the formal entry, and at the City Hall
halted while I reported to Major-General Weitzel," says General Ripley.
"General Weitzel had taken up his position on the platform of the high
steps at the east front of the Confederate Capitol, and there, looking
down into a gigantic crater of fire, suffocated and blinded with the vast
volumes of smoke and cinders which rolled up over and enveloped us, he
assigned me and my brigade to the apparently hopeless task of stopping the
conflagration, and suppressing the mob of stragglers, released criminals,
and negroes, who had far advanced in pillaging the city. He had no
suggestions to make, no orders to give, except to strain every nerve to
save the city, crowded as it was with women and children, and the sick and
wounded of the Army of Northern Virginia.
"After requesting Major-General Weitzel to have all the other troops
marched out of the city, I took the Hon. Joseph Mayo, then Mayor of
Richmond, with me to the City Hall, where I established my headquarters.
With the help of the city officials, I distributed my regiment quickly in
different sections. The danger to the troops engaged in this terrific
fire-fighting was infinitely enhanced by the vast quantities of powder and
shells stored in the section burning. Into this sea of fire, with no less
courage and self-devotion than as though fighting for their own firesides
and families, stripped and plunged the brave men of the First Brigade.
"Meanwhile, detachments scoured the city, warning every one from the
streets to their houses.... Every one carrying plunder was arrested....
The ladies of Richmond thronged my headquarters, imploring protection.
They were sent to their homes under the escort of guards, who were
afterwards posted in the center house of each block, and made responsible
for the safety of the neighborhood.... Many painful cases of destitution
were brought to light by the presence of these safeguards in private
houses, and the soldiers divided rations with their temporary wards, in
many cases, until a general system of relief was organised."[2]
THE COMING OF LINCOLN
CHAPTER IV
THE COMING OF LINCOLN
The South did not know that she had a friend in Abraham Lincoln, and the
announcement of his presence in Richmond was not calculated to give
comfort or assurance.
"Abraham Lincoln came unheralded. No bells rang, no guns boomed in salute.
He held no levee. There was no formal jubilee. He must have been heartless
as Nero to have chosen that moment for a festival of triumph. He was not
heartless." So a citizen of Richmond, who was a boy at the time, and out
doors and everywhere, seeing everything, remembers the coming of Lincoln.
One of the women who sat behind closed windows says: "If there was any
kind of rejoicing, it must have been of a very somber kind; the sounds of
it did not reach me." Another who looked through her shutters, said: "I
saw him in a carriage, the horses galloping through the streets at a
break-neck speed, his escort clearing the way. The negroes had to be
cleared out of the way, they impeded his progress so." He was in Richmond
April 4 and 5, and visited the Davis Mansion, the Capitol, Libby Prison,
Castle Thunder and other places.
His coming was as simple, business-like, and unpretentious as the man
himself. Anybody who happened to be in the neighbourhood on the afternoon
of April 4, might have seen a boat manned by ten or twelve sailors pull
ashore at a landing above Rockett's, and a tall, lank man step forth,
"leading a little boy." By resemblance to pictures that had been scattered
broadcast, this man could have been easily recognized as Abraham Lincoln.
The little boy was Tad, his son. Major Penrose, who commanded the escort,
says Tad was not with the President; Admiral Porter, General Shepley and
others say he was.
Accompanied by Admiral Porter and several other officers and escorted by
ten sailors, President Lincoln, "holding Tad's hand," walked through the
city, which was in part a waste of ashes, and the smoke of whose burning
buildings was still ascending. From remains of smouldering bridges, from
wreckage of gunboats, from Manchester on the other side of the James, and
from the city's streets smoke rose as from a sacrifice to greet the
President.
A Northern newspaper man (who related this story of himself) recognizing
that it was his business to make news as well as dispense it, saw some
negroes at work near the landing where an officer was having débris
removed, and other negroes idling. He said to this one and to that: "Do
you know that man?" pointing to the tall, lank man who had just stepped
ashore.
"Who _is_ dat man, marster?"
"Call no man marster. That man set you free. That is Abraham Lincoln. Now
is your time to shout. Can't you sing, 'God bless you, Father Abraham!'"
That started the ball rolling. The news spread like wild-fire. Mercurial
blacks, already excited to fever-heat, collected about Mr. Lincoln,
impeding his progress, kneeling to him, hailing him as "Saviour!" and "My
Jesus!" They sang, shouted, danced. One woman jumped up and down,
shrieking: "I'm free! I'm free! I'm free till I'm fool!" Some went into
the regular Voodoo ecstasy, leaping, whirling, stamping, until their
clothes were half torn off. Mr. Lincoln made a speech, in which he said:
"My poor friends, you are free--free as air. But you must try to deserve
this priceless boon. Let the world see that you merit it by your good
works. Don't let your joy carry you into excesses. Obey God's commandments
and thank Him for giving you liberty, for to Him you owe all things.
There, now, let me pass on. I have little time here and much to do. I want
to go to the Capitol. Let me pass on."
Henry J. Raymond speaks of the President as taking his hat off and bowing
to an old negro man who knelt and kissed his hand, and adds: "That bow
upset the forms, laws and customs of centuries; it was a death-shock to
chivalry, a mortal wound to caste. Recognize a nigger? Faugh!" Which
proves that Mr. Raymond did not know or wilfully misrepresented a people
who could not make reply. Northern visitors to the South may yet see
refutation in old sections where new ways have not corrupted ancient
courtesy, and where whites and blacks interchange cordial and respectful
salutations, though they may be perfect strangers to each other, when
passing on the road. If they are not strangers, greeting is usually more
than respectful and cordial; it is full of neighbourly and affectionate
interest in each other and each other's folks.
The memories of the living, even of Federal officers near President
Lincoln, bear varied versions of his visit. General Shepley relates that
he was greatly surprised when he saw the crowd in the middle of the
street, President Lincoln and little Tad leading, and that Mr. Lincoln
called out:
"Hullo, General! Is that you? I'm walking around looking for Military
Headquarters."
General Shepley conducted him to our White House, where President Lincoln
wearily sank into a chair, which happened to be that President Davis was
wont to occupy while writing his letters, a task suffering frequent
interruption from some one or other of his children, who had a way of
stealing in upon him at any and all times to claim a caress.
Upon Mr. Lincoln's arrival, or possibly in advance, when it was understood
that he would come up from City Point, there was discussion among our
citizens as to how he should be received--that is, so far as our attitude
toward him was concerned. There were several ways of looking at the
problem. Our armies were still in the field, and all sorts of rumors were
afloat, some accrediting them with victories.
A called meeting was held under the leadership of Judge Campbell and Judge
Thomas, who, later, with General Joseph Anderson and others, waited on Mr.
Lincoln, to whom they made peace propositions involving disbandment of our
armies; withdrawal of our soldiers from the field, and reëstablishment of
state governments under the Union, Virginia inaugurating this course by
example and influence.
Mr. Lincoln had said in proclamation, the Southern States "can have peace
any time by simply laying down their arms and submitting to the authority
of the Union." It was inconceivable to many how we could ever want to be
in the Union again. But wise ones said: "Our position is to be that of
conquered provinces voiceless in the administration of our own affairs, or
of States with some power, at least, of self-government." Then, there was
the dread spectre of confiscation, proscription, the scaffold.
Judge Campbell and Judge Thomas reported: "The movement for the
restoration of the Union is highly gratifying to Mr. Lincoln; he will
give it full sympathy and coöperation."
[Illustration: THE WHITE HOUSE OF THE CONFEDERACY, RICHMOND, VA.
Presented to Mr. Davis, who refused it as a gift, but occupied it as the
Executive residence. Now known as the Confederate Museum.]
"You people will all come back now," Mr. Lincoln had said to Judge Thomas,
"and we shall have old Virginia home again."
Many had small faith in these professions of amity, and said so. "Lincoln
is the man who called out the troops and precipitated war," was bitterly
objected, "and we do not forget Hampton Roads."
A few built hopes on belief that Mr. Lincoln had long been eager to
harmonize the sections. Leader of these was Judge John A. Campbell,
ex-Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and
ex-Assistant Secretary of War of the expiring Confederacy. He had served
with Mr. Hunter and Mr. Stephens on the Hampton Roads Peace Commission,
knew Mr. Lincoln well, had high regard for him and faith in his earnest
desire for genuine reconciliation between North and South. When the
Confederate Government left the city, he remained, meaning to try to make
peace, Mr. Davis, it is said, knowing his purpose and consenting, but
having no hope of its success.
Only the Christmas before, when peace sentiments that led to the Hampton
Roads Conference were in the air, striking illustrations in Northern
journals reflected Northern sentiment. One big cartoon of a Christmas
dinner in the Capitol at Washington, revealed Mr. Lincoln holding wide the
doors, and the seceded States returning to the family love feast. Olive
branches, the "Prodigal's Return," and nice little mottoes like "Come
Home, Our Erring Sisters, Come!" were neatly displayed around the margin.
Fatted calves were not to be despised by a starving people; but the less
said about the pious influences of the "Prodigal's Return" the better.
That Hampton Roads Conference (February, 1865) has always been a sore
spot. In spite of the commissioners' statements that Mr. Lincoln's only
terms were "unconditional surrender," many people blamed Mr. Davis for the
failure of the peace movement; others said he was pusillanimous and a
traitor for sanctioning overtures that had to be made, by Lincoln's
requirements, "informally," and, as it were, by stealth.
"We must forget dead issues," our pacificators urged. "We have to face the
present. The stand Mr. Lincoln has taken all along, that the Union is
indissoluble and that a State can not get out of it however much she
tries, is as fortunate for us now as it was unlucky once."
"In or out, what matters it if Yankees rule over us!" others declared.
"Mr. Lincoln is not in favor of outsiders holding official reins in the
South," comforters responded. "He has committed himself on that point to
Governor Hahn in Louisiana. When Judge Thomas suggested that he establish
Governor Pierpont here, Mr. Lincoln asked straightway, 'Where is Extra
Billy?' He struck the table with his fist, exclaiming, 'By Jove! I want
that old game-cock back here!'"
When in 1862-3 West Virginia seceded from Virginia and was received into
the bosom of the Union, a few "loyal" counties which did not go with her,
elected Francis H. Pierpont Governor of the old State. At the head of
sixteen legislators, he posed at Alexandria as Virginia's Executive, Mr.
Lincoln and the Federal Congress recognizing him. Our real governor was
the doughty warrior, William Smith, nick-named "Extra Billy" before the
war, when he was always asking Congress for extra appropriations for an
ever-lengthening stage-coach and mail-route line, which was a great
Government enterprise under his fostering hand.
Governor Smith had left with the Confederate Government, going towards
Lynchburg. He had been greatly concerned for his family, but his wife had
said: "I may feel as a woman, but I can act like a man. Attend to your
public affairs and I will arrange our family matters." The Mansion had
barely escaped destruction by fire. The Smith family had vacated it to the
Federals, had been invited to return and then ordered to vacate again for
Federal occupation.
Mr. Lincoln said that the legislature that took Virginia out of the Union
and Governor Letcher, who had been in office then, with Governor Smith,
his successor, and Governor Smith's legislature, must be convened. "The
Government that took Virginia out of the Union is the Government to bring
her back. No other can effect it. They must come to the Capitol yonder
where they voted her out and vote her back."
Uncle Randolph was one of those who had formally called upon Mr. Lincoln
at the Davis Mansion. Feeble as he was, he was so eager to do some good
that he had gone out in spite of his niece to talk about the "policy" he
thought would be best. "I did not say much," he reported wistfully. "There
were a great many people waiting on him. Things look strange at the
Capitol. Federal soldiers all about, and campfires on the Square. Judge
Campbell introduced me. President Lincoln turned from him to me, and said:
'You fought for the Union in Mexico.' I said, 'Mr. Lincoln, if the Union
will be fair to Virginia, I will fight for the Union again.' I forgot, you
see, that I am too old and feeble to fight. Then I said quickly, 'Younger
men than I, Mr. President, will give you that pledge.' What did he say? He
looked at me hard--and shook my hand--and there wasn't any need for him to
say anything."
Mr. Lincoln's attitude towards Judge Campbell was one of confidence and
cordiality. He knew the Judge's purity and singleness of purpose in
seeking leniency for the conquered South, and genuine reunion between the
sections. The Federal commanders understood his devotion and integrity.
The newspaper men, in their reports, paid respect to his venerable,
dignified figure, stamped with feebleness, poverty, and a noble sorrow,
waiting patiently in one of the rooms at the Davis Mansion for audience
with Mr. Lincoln.
None who saw Mr. Lincoln during that visit to Richmond observed in him any
trace of exultation. Walking the streets with the negroes crowding about
him, in the Davis Mansion with the Federal officers paying him court and
our citizens calling on him, in the carriage with General Weitzel or
General Shepley, a motley horde following--he was the same, only, as those
who watched him declared, paler and wearier-looking each time they saw
him. Uncle Randolph reported:
"There was something like misgiving in his eyes as he sat in the carriage
with Shepley, gazing upon smoking ruins on all sides, and a rabble of
crazy negroes hailing him as 'Saviour!' Truly, I never saw a sadder or
wearier face in all my life than Lincoln's!"
He had terrible problems ahead, and he knew it. His emancipation
proclamation in 1863 was a war measure. His letter to Greeley in 1862,
said: "If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at
the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If I could preserve
the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it; if I could preserve
the Union by freeing all the slaves, I would do it.... What I do about the
coloured race, I do because I think it helps to save the Union."
[Illustration: GOVERNOR'S MANSION, RICHMOND, VA.
Erected 1811-13, to succeed a plain wooden structure called the
"Governor's Palace."]
To a committee of negroes waiting on him in the White House, August 14,
1862, Mr. Lincoln named colonisation as the one remedy for the race
trouble, proposing Government aid out of an appropriation which Congress
had voted him. He said: "White men in this country are cutting each
other's throats about you. But for your race among us, there would be no
war, although many men on either side do not care for you one way or the
other.... Your race suffers from living among us, ours from your
presence." He applied $25,000 to the venture, but it failed; New Grenada
objected to negro colonisation.
Two months before his visit to Richmond, some official (Colonel Kaye, as I
remember) was describing to him the extravagancies of South Carolina
negroes when Sherman's army announced freedom to them, and Mr. Lincoln
walked his floor, pale and distressed, saying: "It is a momentous
thing--this liberation of the negro race."
He left a paper in his own handwriting with Judge Campbell, setting forth
the terms upon which any seceded State could be restored to the Union;
these were, unqualified submission, withdrawal of soldiers from the field,
and acceptance of his position on the slavery question, as defined in his
proclamations. The movement gained ground. A committee in Petersburg,
headed by Anthony Keiley, asked permits to come to Richmond that they
might coöperate with the committee there.
"Unconditional surrender," some commented. "Mr. Lincoln is not disposed to
humiliate us unnecessarily," was the reassurance. "He promised Judge
Campbell that irritating exactions and oaths against their consciences are
not to be imposed upon our people; they are to be encouraged, not coerced,
into taking vows of allegiance to the United States Government; Lincoln's
idea is to make allegiance a coveted privilege; there are to be no
confiscations; amnesty to include our officers, civil and military, is to
be granted--that is, the power of pardon resting with the President, he
pledges himself to liberal use of it. Lincoln is long-headed and
kind-hearted. He knows the best thing all around is a real peace. He
wishes to restore confidence in and affection for the Union. That is
plain. He said: 'I would gladly pardon Jeff Davis himself if he would ask
it.'"
I have heard one very pretty story about Mr. Lincoln's visit to Richmond.
General Pickett, of the famous charge at Gettysburg, had been well known
in early life to Mr. Lincoln when Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Johnson, General
Pickett's uncle, were law partners in Illinois. Mr. Lincoln had taken warm
interest in young George Pickett as a cadet at West Point, and had written
him kindly, jovial letters of advice. During that hurried sojourn in
Richmond, Abraham Lincoln took time for looking up Mr. Johnson. His
carriage and armed retinue drew up in front of the old Pickett mansion.
The General's beautiful young wife, trembling with alarm, heard a strange
voice asking first for Mr. Johnson and then about General Pickett, and
finally: "Is General Pickett's wife here?" She came forward, her baby in
her arms. "I am General Pickett's wife." "Madam, I am George's old friend,
Abraham Lincoln." "The President of the United States!" "No," with a
kindly, half-quizzical smile, "only Abraham Lincoln, George's old friend.
And this is George's baby?" Abraham Lincoln bent his kindly, half-sad,
half-smiling glance upon the child. Baby George stretched out his hands;
Lincoln took him, and the little one, in the pretty fashion babies have,
opened his mouth and kissed the President.
"Tell your father," said Lincoln, "that I will grant him a special
amnesty--if he wants it--for the sake of your mother's bright eyes and
your good manners." A short while after that--when Lincoln was dead--that
mother was flying, terror-stricken, with her baby to Canada, where General
Pickett, in fear of his life, had taken refuge.
Mr. Lincoln left instructions for General Weitzel to issue passes to the
legislators and State officials who were to come to Richmond for the
purpose of restoring Virginia to the Union. The "Whig" had sympathetic
articles on "Reconstruction," and announced in due order the meeting of
citizens called "to consider President Lincoln's proposition for
reassembling the Legislature to take Virginia back into the Union." It
printed the formal call for reassembling, signed by the committee and many
citizens, and countersigned by General Weitzel; handbills so signed were
printed for distribution.
General Shepley, whose cordial acquiescence in the conciliation plan had
been pronounced, said in after years that he suffered serious misgivings.
When General Weitzel directed him to issue the passes for the returning
legislators, he inquired: "Have you the President's written order for
this?" "No. Why?" "For your own security you should have it, General. When
the President reaches Washington and the Cabinet are informed of what has
been done and what is contemplated, this order will be rescinded, and the
Cabinet will deny that it has ever been issued."
"I have the President's commands. I am a soldier and obey orders."
"Right, General. Command me and I obey."
Mr. Lincoln's written order reiterating oral instructions came, however.
Admiral Porter, according to his own account, took President Lincoln to
task for his concessions, and told him in so many words that he was acting
outside of his rights; Richmond, being under military rule, was subject to
General Grant's jurisdiction. The Admiral has claimed the distinction of
working a change in the President's mind and of recovering immediately the
obnoxious order from Weitzel, killing, or trying to kill, a horse or so in
the undertaking. He characterised the efforts of Judges Campbell and
Thomas to serve their country and avert more bloodshed as "a clever dodge
to soothe the wounded feelings of the people of the South." The Admiral
adds: "But what a howl it would have raised in the North!"
Admiral Porter says the lectured President exclaimed: "Well, I came near
knocking all the fat in the fire, didn't I? Let us go. I seem to be
putting my foot into it here all the time. Bless my soul! how Seward would
have preached if he had heard me give Campbell permission to call the
Legislature! Seward is an encyclopedia of international law, and laughs at
my horse sense on which I pride myself. Admiral, if I were you, I would
not repeat that joke yet awhile. People might laugh at you for knowing so
much more than the President."
He was acting, he said, in conjunction with military authorities. General
Weitzel was acting under General Grant's instructions. The conciliatory
plan was being followed in Petersburg, where General Grant himself had led
the formal entry.
"General Weitzel warmly approves the plan."
"He and Campbell are personal friends," the Admiral remarked
significantly.
Whatever became of those horses driven out by Admiral Porter's
instructions to be killed, if need be, in the effort to recover that
order, is a conundrum. According to Admiral Porter the order had been
written and given to General Weitzel while Mr. Lincoln was in the city.
According to Judge Campbell and General Shepley, and the original now on
file in Washington, it was written from City Point.
Dated, "Headquarters Department of Virginia, Richmond, April 13, 1865,"
this appeared in the "Whig" on the last afternoon of Mr. Lincoln's life:
"Permission for the reassembling of the gentlemen recently acting as the
Legislature is rescinded. Should any of the gentlemen come to the city
under the notice of reassembling already published, they will be furnished
passports to return to their homes. Any of the persons named in the call
signed by J. A. Campbell and others, who are found in the city twelve
hours after the publication of this notice will be subject to arrest,
unless they are residents. (Signed) E. O. C. Ord, General Commanding the
Department."
General Weitzel was removed. Upon him was thrown the blame of the
President's "blunder." He was charged with the crime of pity and sympathy
for "rebels" and "traitors." When Lincoln was dead, a high official in
Washington said: "No man more than Mr. Lincoln condemned the course
General Weitzel and his officers pursued in Richmond."
In more ways than one General Weitzel had done that which was not pleasing
in the sight of Mr. Stanton. Assistant Secretary of War Dana had let
Stanton know post-haste that General Weitzel was distributing "victuals"
to "rebels." Stanton wired to know of General Weitzel if he was "acting
under authority in giving food supplies to the people of Richmond, and if
so, whose?" General Weitzel answered, "Major-General Ord's orders approved
by General Grant."
Mr. Dana wrote Mr. Stanton, "Weitzel is to pay for rations by selling
captured property." General Weitzel apologised for magnanimity by
explaining that the instructions of General Ord, his superior, were "to
sell all the tobacco I find here and feed those in distress. A great many
persons, black and white, are on the point of starvation, and I have
relieved the most pressing wants by the issue of a few abandoned rebel
stores and some damaged stores of my own." "All receivers of rations must
take the oath," Mr. Stanton wrote back.
In Northern magazines left by Federal soldiers visiting negroes in
Matoaca's yard, black Cato saw caricatures of Southern ladies mixing in
with negroes and white roughs and toughs, begging food at Yankee bureaus.
"Miss Mato'ca," he plead earnestly, "don' go whar dem folks is no mo'. It
will disgrace de fam'ly." She had put pride and conscience in her pocket,
drawn rations and brought home her pork and codfish.
Revocation of permission for the reassembling of the Virginia Legislature
was one of Mr. Lincoln's last, if not his last, act in the War Department.
Stanton gave him no peace till it was written; he handed the paper to Mr.
Stanton, saying: "There! I think that will suit you!" "No," said the Iron
Chancellor of the Union. "It is not strong enough. It merely revokes your
permission for the assembling of the rebel legislators. Some of these men
will come to Richmond--are doubtless there now--in response to the call.
You should prohibit the meeting." Which was done. Hence, the prohibitory
order in the "Whig."
Mr. Lincoln wrote, April 14, to General Van Alen, of New York: "Thank you
for the assurance you give me that I shall be supported by conservative
men like yourself in the efforts I may use to restore the Union, so as to
make it, to use your own language, a Union of hearts as well as of hands."
General Van Alen had warned him against exposing himself in the South as
he had done by visiting Richmond; and for this Mr. Lincoln thanked him
briefly without admitting that there had been any peril. Laconically, he
had thanked Stanton for concern expressed in a dispatch warning him to be
careful about visiting Petersburg, adding, "I have already been there."
When serenaded the Tuesday before his death, he said, in speaking of the
bringing of the Southern States into practical relations with the Union:
"I believe it is not only possible, but easier to do this, without
deciding, or even considering, whether these States have ever been out of
the Union. Finding themselves safely at home, it would be utterly
immaterial whether they had ever been abroad."
His last joke--the story-tellers say it was his last--was about "Dixie."
General Lee's surrender had been announced; Washington was ablaze with
excitement. Delirious multitudes surged to the White House, calling the
President out for a speech. It was a moment for easy betrayal into words
that might widen the breach between sections. He said in his quaint way
that he had no speech ready, and concluded humorously: "I have always
thought 'Dixie' one of the best tunes I ever heard. I insisted yesterday
that we had fairly captured it. I presented the question to the
Attorney-General and he gave his opinion that it is our lawful prize. I
ask the band to give us a good turn upon it." In that little speech, he
claimed of the South by right of conquest a song--and nothing more.
THE LAST CAPITAL
CHAPTER V
THE LAST CAPITAL OF THE CONFEDERACY
From Richmond, Mr. Davis went to Danville. Major Sutherlin, the
Commandant, met him at the station and carried him and members of his
Cabinet to the Sutherlin Mansion, which then became practically the
Southern Capitol.
The President was busy night and day, examining and improving defenses and
fortifications and planning the junction of Lee's and Johnston's forces.
Men were seeking his presence at all hours; couriers coming and going;
telegrams flying hither and thither.
"In the midst of turmoil, and with such fearful cares and responsibilities
upon him, he did not forget to be thoughtful and considerate of others," I
have heard Mrs. Sutherlin say. "He was concerned for me. 'I cannot have
you troubled with so many interruptions,' he said. 'We must seek other
quarters.' But I would not have it so. 'All that you call a burden is my
privilege,' I replied. 'I will not let you go.' He had other quarters
secured for the Departments, but he and members of his Cabinet remained my
guests."
In that hospitable home the table was set all the time for the coming and
the going. The board was spread with the best the bountiful host and
hostess could supply. Mrs. Sutherlin brought out all her treasured
reserves of pickles, sweetmeats and preserves. This might be her last
opportunity for serving the Confederacy and its Chieftain.
The Sutherlins knew that the President's residence in their home was a
perilous honour. In case the Confederacy failed--and hope to the contrary
could not run high--their dwelling would be a marked spot.
Major Sutherlin had been a strong Union man. Mrs. Sutherlin has told me
how her husband voted against secession in the first convention to which
he was a delegate, and for it in the second, with deep regret. "I saw in
that convention," he told his wife, "strong, reserved men, men of years
and dignity, sign the Secession Ordinance while tears coursed down their
cheeks."
It is just to rehearse such things of men who were called "traitors" and
"rebels." It is just to remember how Jefferson Davis tried to prevent
secession. His letters to New England societies, his speeches in New
England and in Congress, testified to his deep and fervent desire for the
"preservation of the bond between the States," the "love of the Union in
our hearts," and "the landmarks of our fathers."
But he believed in States' Rights as fervently as in Union of States; he
believed absorption of State sovereignty into central sovereignty a
violation of the Constitution. Long before secession (1847) he declined
appointment of Brigadier General of Mississippi Volunteers from President
Polk on the ground that the central government was not vested by the
Constitution with power to commission officers of State Militia, the State
having this authority.[3]
Americans should not forget that this man entered the service of the Union
when a lad; that his father and uncles fought in the Revolution, his
brothers in the War of 1812. West Point holds trophies of his skill as
a commander and of his superb gallantry on the fields of Mexico. That
splendid charge without bayonets through the streets of Monterey almost to
the Plaza, and the charge at Buena Vista, are themes to make American
blood tingle! Their leader was not a man to believe in defeat as long as a
ray of hope was left.
[Illustration: ST. PAUL'S CHURCH, RICHMOND, VA.
It was to this church that the message was brought from Lee to Davis
announcing the necessity of evacuating Richmond.]
As Secretary of War of the United States, Mr. Davis strengthened the power
that crushed the South; in every branch of the War Department, his genius
and faithful and untiring service wrought improvements. In the days of
giants like Webster, Clay and Calhoun, the brilliant Mississippian drew
upon himself many eyes and his course had been watched as that of a bright
particular star of great promise. The candidacy of Vice-President of the
United States had been tendered him--he had been mentioned for the
Presidency, and it is no wild speculation that had he abjured his
convictions on the States' Rights' issue, he would have found himself some
day in the seat Lincoln occupied. He has been accused of overweening
ambition. The charge is not well sustained. He did not desire the
Presidency of the Confederacy.
In 1861, "Harper's Weekly" said: "Personally, Senator Davis is the Bayard
of Congress, _sans peur et sans reproche_; a high-minded gentleman; a
devoted father; a true friend ... emphatically one of those born to
command, and is doubtless destined to occupy a high position either in the
Southern Confederacy or in the United States." He was "gloriously linked
with the United States service in the field, the forum, and the Cabinet."
The Southern Confederacy failed, and he was "Davis, the Arch-Traitor."
"He wrote his last proclamation on this table," said Mrs. Sutherlin to me,
her hand on the Egyptian marble where the President's fingers had
traversed that final paper of state which expressed a confidence he could
not have felt, but that he must have believed it duty to affirm. He had
tried to make peace and had failed. Our armies were still in the field. A
bold front on his part, if it could do no more, might enable our generals
to secure better terms than unconditional surrender. At least, no worse
could be tendered. That final message was the utterance of a brave soul,
itself disheartened, trying to put heart into others. All along the way to
Danville, people had flocked to the railroad to hear him, and he had
spoken as he wrote.
He was an ill man, unutterably weary. He had borne the burden and heat of
the day for four terrible years; he had been a target for the criticism
even of his own people; all failures were laid at the door of this one man
who was trying to run a government and conduct a war on an empty treasury.
It must have cost him something to keep up an unwavering front.
Lieutenant Wise, son of General Henry A. Wise, brought news that Lee's
surrender was imminent; on learning of it, he had taken to horse and run
through the enemy's cavalry, to warn the President. Starvation had brought
Lee's army to bay. Men were living off grains of parched corn carried in
their pockets. Sheridan's cavalry had captured the wagon-trains of food
supplies. Also, the President was called from the dinner-table to see an
old citizen, who repeated a story from some one who had seen General Lee
in General Grant's tent. Other information followed.
Scouts came to say that Federal cavalry were advancing. There was danger
that the President's way to the South might be cut off, danger that he
might be captured. All were in haste to get him away; a special train was
made up. The Sutherlin carriage drove hurriedly to the Mansion, the
President and Major Sutherlin got out and entered the house.
"I am to bid you goodbye," said he to Mrs. Sutherlin, "and to thank you
for your kindness. I shall ever remember it."
"O, but it is a privilege--an honour--something for me to remember!"
As explanations were being made and preparations hastened, the President
said: "Speak low, lest we excite Mr. Memminger or distress his wife more
than need be."
Mr. Memminger, ex-Secretary of the Treasury, was upstairs, very ill; the
physician had just left after giving him a hypodermic of morphine and
ordering absolute quiet. Friends decided that the sick man and his wife
ran less risk in remaining than in following the President. But Mrs.
Memminger, leaning over the balustrade, heard; and she and her husband
came down and went after the President in a rude farm wagon, the only
vehicle Mrs. Sutherlin could impress.
"Mr. Davis kept up a cheerful countenance the whole time he was here," his
hostess has borne witness, "but I was sure that deep down in his heart he
was not cheerful--I felt it. He was brave, self-possessed. Only once did
he betray evidence of break-down. When he was leaving, I knew that he had
no money in his pockets except Confederate notes--and these would buy next
to nothing. We had some gold, and I offered it to him, pressed it upon
him. He shook his head. Tears came into his eyes. 'No, no, my child,' he
said, 'you and your husband are much younger than I am. You will need it.
I will not.' Mr. Davis did not expect to live long. He was sure he would
be killed."
When General Sherman was accused by Stanton of treachery because
he was not hotter on the scent of "Jeff Davis and his $13,000,000
treasure-trains," he retorted indignantly that those "treasure-trains
dwindled down to the contents of a hand-valise" found on Mr. Davis when
captured.
Mrs. Sutherlin pointed out to me the President's sleeping-room, an upper
chamber overlooking the lawn with its noble trees, in whose branches
mocking-birds lodge. At his first breakfast with her, Mr. Davis told Mrs.
Sutherlin how the songs of the mocking-birds refreshed him.
Another thing that cheered him in Danville was the enthusiasm of the
school-girls of the Southern Female College; when these young ladies, in
their best homespun gowns, went out on dress parade and beheld Mr. Davis
riding by in Major Sutherlin's carriage, they drew themselves up in line,
waved handkerchiefs and cheered to their hearts' content; he gave them his
best bow and smile--that dignified, grave bow and smile his people knew so
well. I have always been thankful for that bright bit in Mr. Davis' life
during those supremely trying hours--for the songs of the mocking-birds
and the cheers of the school-girls.
Some weeks after his departure, General Wright, U. S. A., in formal
possession of Danville, pitched his tent opposite the Sutherlin Mansion.
The next Mrs. Sutherlin knew, an orderly was bearing in a large pitcher,
another a big bowl, and between them General Wright's compliments and his
hopes "that you may find this lemonade refreshing" and "be pleased to
accept this white cut sugar, as the drink may not be sweet enough for your
taste." Another day, an orderly appeared with a large, juicy steak; every
short while orderlies came making presentation.
The Sutherlins accepted and returned courtesies. "We had as well be
polite," said Major Sutherlin. "There's no use quarrelling with them
because they have whipped us." When they came to him for official
information as to where Confederate Government ice-houses were, he
responded: "It is not my business to give you this information. Your
commanders can find out for themselves. Meanwhile, General Wright and his
staff are welcome to ice out of my own ice-houses." They found out for
themselves with little delay.
[Illustration: LAST CAPITOL OF THE CONFEDERACY
The Sutherlin Mansion, Danville, Va., which, for a short time after the
evacuation of Richmond, was the headquarters of the Confederate
Government. President Davis and the members of his Cabinet were guests of
Major Sutherlin at that time.
Photograph by Eutsler Bros., Danville, Va.]
On the verandah where the Confederate President and his advisers had
lately gathered, Federal officers sat at ease, smoking sociably and
conversing with the master of the house. If a meal-hour arrived, Major
Sutherlin would say: "Gentlemen, will you join us?" Usually, invitation
was accepted. Social recognition was the one thing the Northern soldier
could not conquer in the South by main strength and awkwardness; he
coveted and appreciated it.
All were listening for tidings of Johnston's surrender. At last the news
came. Around the Sutherlin board one day sat six guests: three Federal
officers in fine cloth and gold lace, three Confederate officers in shabby
raiment. A noise as of a terrific explosion shook the house. "Throw up the
windows!" said the mistress to her servants, an ordinary command when
shattering of glass by concussion was an every-day occurrence in
artillery-ridden Dixie. Save for this sentence, there was complete silence
at the table. The officers laid down their knives and forks and said not
one word. They knew that those guns announced the surrender of Johnston's
army. I suppose it was the salute of 200--the same that had been ordered
at every post as glorification of Lee's surrender.
Some time after this, Mayor Walker came to Major Sutherlin with a telegram
announcing that General Meade and his staff would stop in Danville over
night. They had been or were going to South Carolina on a mission of
relief to whites who were in peril from blacks. At the Mayor's request,
Major Sutherlin met the officers at the train.
"General," was his cordial greeting to General Meade, a splendid-looking
officer at that day, "I am here to claim you and your staff as my guests."
General Meade, accepting, said: "I will have my ambulance bring us up."
"O, no, General! You come in my carriage, if you will do me that honour.
It is waiting."
At breakfast, General Meade said to his hostess: "Madam, Southern
hospitality has not been praised too highly. I trust some day to see you
North that I may have opportunity to match your courtesy." Another time:
"Madam, I trust that no misfortune will come to you because of the
troubled state of our country. But if there should, I may be of service to
you. You have only to command me, and I ask it as a favour that you will."
A Northern friend had warned her: "Mrs. Sutherlin, I fear your property
may be confiscated because of the uses to which it has been put in the
service of the Confederate Government. You should take advantage of
General Wright's good will and of the good will of other Federal officers
towards Major Sutherlin to make your title secure." Did she ask General
Meade now to save her home to her?
"General, hospitality is our privilege and you owe us no debt. But I beg
you to extend the kindly feelings you express toward Major Sutherlin and
myself to one who lately sat where you now sit, at my right hand. I would
ask you to use your influence to secure more gracious hospitality to our
President who is in prison."
Dead silence. One could have heard a pin fall.
Wholesale confiscation of Greensboro was threatened because of Mr. Davis'
stop there. Major Sutherlin strove with tact and diligence to prevent it.
He lost no opportunity to cultivate kindly relations with Northerners of
influence, and to inaugurate a reign of good-will generally. Receiving a
telegram saying that Colonel Buford, a Northern officer, and his party,
would pass through Danville, the Major went to his wife and said: "I am
going to invite those Yankees here. I want you to get up the finest dinner
you can for them." Feeling was high and sore; she did not smile. The day
of their arrival he appeared in trepidation. "I have another telegram," he
said. "To my surprise, there are ladies in the party."
This was too much for the honest "rebel" soul of her. Men she could avoid
seeing except at table; but with ladies for her guests, more olive
branches must be exchanged than genuine feeling between late enemies could
possibly warrant. But her guests found her a perfect hostess, grave,
sincere, hospitable.
There was a young married pair. When her faithful coloured man went up to
their rooms to render service, they were afraid of him, were careful he
should not enter, seemed to fear that of himself or as the instrument of
his former owners he might do them injury.
Such queer, contradictory ideas Yankees had of us and our black people. A
Northern girl visiting the niece of Alexander H. Stephens at a plantation
where there were many negroes, asked: "Where are the blood-hounds?" "The
blood-hounds! We haven't any." "How do you manage the negroes without
them? I thought all Southerners kept blood-hounds--that only blood-hounds
could keep negroes from running away." "I never saw a blood-hound in my
life," Miss Stephens replied. "I don't know what one is like. None of our
friends keep blood-hounds."
But to the Sutherlin Mansion. The bride asked: "Mrs. Sutherlin, what room
did Mr. Davis occupy?"
"That in which you sleep."
The bride was silent. Then: "It is a pleasant room. The mocking-birds are
singing when we wake in the morning. Sometimes, I hear them in the night."
A shadow fell on the hostess' face. The words recalled the thought of Mr.
Davis, now shut out from the sight of the sky and the voice of the birds.
It has been said of this or that place at which Mr. Davis, moving
southward from Danville, stopped, that it was the "Last Capital of the
Confederacy." He held a Cabinet meeting in Colonel Wood's house in
Greensboro; was in Charlotte several days; held a Cabinet meeting or
council of war in the Armistead Burt House, Abbeville, S. C.; and in the
Old Bank, Washington, Ga. He said in council at Abbeville: "I will listen
to no proposition for my safety. I appeal to you for our country."
He stopped one night at Salisbury, with the Episcopal minister, whose
little daughter ran in while all were at the breakfast-table, and standing
between her father and Mr. Davis, cried out in childish terror and
distress: "O, Papa, old Lincoln's coming and is going to kill us all!"
President Davis laid down his knife and fork, lifted her face, and said
reassuringly: "No, no, my little lady! Mr. Lincoln is not such a bad man,
and I am sure he would not harm a little girl like you."
While the President was at Charlotte, there was another memorable peace
effort, Sherman and Johnston arranging terms. Johnston's overture was
dated April 13; Sherman's reply, "I am fully empowered to arrange with you
any terms for the suspension of hostilities," April 14, the last day of
Lincoln's life. Mr. Davis wrote General Johnston: "Your course is
approved." Mr. Stanton nearly branded Sherman as a traitor. Sherman gave
Johnston notice that he must renew hostilities. Mr. Davis left Charlotte,
thinking war still on.
[Illustration: THE OLD BANK BUILDING, WASHINGTON, GA.
The last meeting place of the Confederate Cabinet when that body was
reduced to two or three members.
Photographed in 1899]
In Washington, Ga., the first town in America named for the Father of his
Country, the Confederate Government breathed its last. A quiet,
picturesque, little place, out of track of the armies, it was suddenly
shaken with excitement, when Mr. Davis, attended by his personal staff,
several distinguished officers, besides a small cavalry escort, rode in.
Mrs. Davis had left the day before. As long as her wagons and ambulances
had stood in front of Dr. Ficklen's house, the people of Washington were
calling upon her; first among them, General Toombs with cordial offers of
aid and hospitality, though there had been sharp differences between him
and Mr. Davis. Here, it may be said, she held her last reception as the
First Lady of the Confederacy. She had expected to meet her husband, and
went away no doubt heavy of heart--herself, her baby, Winnie, and her
other little children, and her sister, Maggie Howell, again to be
wanderers of woods and waysides. With them went a devoted little band of
Confederate soldiers, their volunteer escort, Burton Harrison, the
President's secretary, and one or two negro servants whose devotion never
faltered.
On a lovely May morning, people sat on the Bank piazza asking anxiously:
"Where can Mr. Davis be?" "Is he already captured and killed?" Dr.
Robertson, an officer of the bank, and his family lived in the building.
With them was General Elzey, on parole, his wife and son. Kate Joyner
Robertson and her brother, Willie, sixteen years old and a Confederate
Veteran, were on the piazza; also David Faver, seventeen, and a
Confederate Veteran; these boys were members of the Georgia Military
Institute Battalion. A description of this battalion was recently given me
by Mr. Faver:
"There were as many negroes--body-servants--in our ranks as boys when we
started out, spick and span. We saw actual service; guarded the powder
magazines at Augusta and Savannah, fought the Yankees at Chattanooga,
stood in front of Sherman in South Carolina. Young Scott Todd lost his
arm--Dr. Todd, of Atlanta, carries around that empty sleeve today. I bore
handsome Tom Hamilton off the field when he was shot. I was just fifteen
when I went in; some were younger. Henry Cabaniss and Julius Brown were
the smallest boys in the army. We were youngsters who ought to have been
in knee pants, but the G. M. I. never quailed before guns or duty! I
remember (laughing) when we met the Cits in Charleston. They were all
spick and span--'Citadel Cadets' blazoned all over them and their
belongings. We were all tattered and torn, nothing of the G. M. I. left
about us! Rags was the stamp of the regular, and we 'guyed' the Cits. We
had seen fighting and they had not." Sixteen-year-old Lint Stephens,
Vice-President Stephens' nephew, was of this juvenile warrior band. On the
occasion of his sudden appearance at home to prepare for war, Mr. Stephens
asked what he had quit school for. "To fight for the fair sex," he
replied. And to this day some people think we fought to keep negroes in
slavery!
A "Georgia Cracker" rode in from the Abbeville road, drew rein before the
bank, and saluting, drawled: "Is you'uns seen any soldiers roun' here?"
There were Confederate uniforms on the piazza. "What kind of soldiers?" he
was asked, and General Elzey said: "My friend, you have betrayed yourself
by that military salute. You are no ignorant countryman, but a soldier
yourself." The horseman spurred close to the piazza. "Are there any
Yankees in town?" "None. Tell us, do you know anything about President
Davis?" After a little more questioning, the horseman said: "President
Davis is not an hour's ride from here."
The piazza was all excitement. "Where should the President be
entertained?" Ordinarily, General Toombs was municipal host. Everybody is
familiar with the reply he made to a committee consulting him about
erecting a hotel in Washington: "We have no need of one. When respectable
people come here, they can stop at my house. If they are not respectable,
we do not want them at all." Everybody knew that all he had was at the
President's command. But--there had been the unpleasantness. "Bring the
President here," Mrs. Robertson said promptly. Dr. Robertson added: "As a
government building, this is the proper place." Willie Robertson,
commissioned to convey the invitation, rode off with the courier, the envy
of every other G. M. I. in town. The little "Bats" were ready to go to war
again.
Soon, the President dismounted in front of the bank. Mrs. Faver (Kate
Joyner Robertson that was) says: "He wore a full suit of Confederate gray.
He looked worn, sad, and troubled; said he was tired and went at once to
his room. My mother sent a cup of tea to him. That afternoon, or next
morning, all the people came to see him. He stood in the parlor door, they
filed in, shook hands, and passed out." So, in Washington, he held his
last Presidential reception.
"To hear Mr. Davis," Mr. Faver reports, "you would have no idea that he
considered the cause lost. He spoke hopefully of our yet unsurrendered
forces. Secretary Reagan, General St. John and Major Raphael J. Moses were
General Toombs' guests. That night after supper, they walked to the bank;
my father's house was opposite General Toombs'. I walked behind them. I
think they held what has been called the Last Cabinet Meeting that night."
Mr. Trenholm, too ill to travel, had stopped at Charlotte; Secretary of
State Benjamin had left Mr. Davis that morning; at Washington, Secretary
of the Navy Mallory went; Secretary of War Breckinridge, whom he was
expecting, did not come on time. News reached him of Johnston's surrender.
General Upton had passed almost through Washington on his way to receive
the surrender of Augusta. The President perceived his escort's peril. To
their commander, Captain Campbell, he said: "Your company is too large to
pass without observation, and not strong enough to fight. See if there are
ten men in it who will volunteer to go with me without question wherever I
choose?" Captain Campbell reported: "All volunteer to go with Your
Excellency."
He was deeply touched, but would not suffer them to take the risk. With
ten men selected by Captain Campbell, and his personal staff, he rode out
of Washington, the people weeping as they watched him go. When he was
mounting, Rev. Dr. Tupper, the Baptist minister, approached him, uttering
words of comfort and encouragement. "'Though He slay me, yet will I trust
in Him,'" the President responded gently. He had made disposition of most
of his personal belongings, giving the china in his mess-chest to Colonel
Weems, the chest to General McLaws; to Mrs. Robertson his ink-stand,
table, dressing-case, some tea, coffee, and brandy, portions of which she
still retained when last I heard; the dressing-case and ink-stand she had
sent to the Confederate Museum at Richmond.
His last official order was written at the old bank; it appointed Captain
H. M. Clarke Acting Treasurer of the Confederacy. The last Treasury
Department was an old appletree at General Basil Duke's camp a short
distance from Washington, under whose shade Captain Clarke sat while he
paid out small amounts in coin to the soldiers. General Duke's
Kentuckians, Mr. Davis' faithful last guard, were the remnant of John H.
Morgan's famous command.
Soon after his departure, the treasure-train, or a section of it, reached
Washington. Boxes of bullion were stored in the bank; Mrs. Faver remembers
that officers laughingly told her and her sisters if they would lift one
of the boxes, they might have all the gold in it; and they tried, but O,
how heavy it was! She recalls some movement on the part of her parents to
convey the treasure to Abbeville, but this was not practicable.
"It was a fitting conclusion of the young Government ... that it marked
its last act of authority by a thoughtful loyalty to the comfort of its
penniless and starved defenders," says Avery's "History of Georgia,"
commenting on the fact that under that act Major Raphael J. Moses conveyed
to Augusta bullion exceeding $35,000, delivering it to General Molineux on
the promise that it would be used to purchase food and other necessaries
for needy Confederate soldiers and our sick in hospitals.
Soon after the treasure-train left Washington, some one galloped back and
flung into General Toombs' yard a bag containing $5,000 in gold. The
General was in straits for money with which to flee the country, but swore
with a great round oath he would use no penny of this mysterious gift, and
turned it over to Major Moses, who committed it to Captain Abrahams,
Federal Commissary, for use in relieving needy Confederates
home-returning. At Greensboro, General Joseph E. Johnston had taken
$39,000 for his soldiers. There have been many stories about this
treasure-train.[4] It carried no great fortune, and Mr. Davis was no
beneficiary. He meant to use it in carrying on the war.
The point has been made that Mr. Davis should have remained in Richmond
and made terms. Since governments were governments, no ruler has followed
the course that would have been. He thought it traitorous to surrender the
whole Confederacy because the Capital was lost. Even after Lee's surrender
the Confederacy had armies in the field, and a vast domain farther south
where commanders believed positions could be held. He believed it would be
cowardly to fail them, and that it was his duty to move the seat of
government from place to place through the Confederacy as long as there
was an army to sustain the government. To find precedent, one has but to
turn to European history. In England, the rightful prince has been chased
all over the country and even across the channel. Mr. Davis believed in
the righteousness of his cause; and that it was his duty to stand for it
to the death.
His determination, on leaving Washington, was to reach the armies of
Maury, Forrest, and Taylor in Alabama and Mississippi; if necessary,
withdraw these across the Mississippi, uniting with Kirby-Smith and
Magruder in Texas, a section "rich in supplies and lacking in railroads
and waterways." There the concentrated forces might hold their own until
the enemy "should, in accordance with his repeated declaration, have
agreed, on the basis of a return to the Union, to acknowledge the
Constitutional rights of the States, and by a convention, or quasi-treaty,
to guarantee security of person and property." What Judge Campbell
thought could be secured by submission, Mr. Davis was confident could only
be attained by keeping in the field a military force whose demands the
North, weary of war, might respect. What he sought to do for his people in
one way, Judge Campbell sought to do in another. Both failed.
[Illustration: GENERAL AND MRS. JOHN H. MORGAN]
While Mr. Davis was riding out of Washington, Generals Taylor and Maury,
near Meridian, Mississippi, were arranging with General Canby, U. S. A.,
for the surrender of all the Confederate forces in Alabama and
Mississippi. These generals were dining together and the bands were
playing "Hail Columbia" and "Dixie."
THE COUNSEL OF LEE
CHAPTER VI
THE COUNSEL OF LEE
"A few days after the occupation, some drunken soldiers were heard talking
in the back yard to our negroes, and it was gathered from what they said
that the Federals were afraid General Lee had formed an ambuscade
somewhere in the neighbourhood of the city, and that he might fall upon
them at any time and deliver Richmond out of their hands. How our people
wished it might be so!" Matoaca relates. "Do not buoy yourself up with
that hope, my dear," said her monitor. "There's no hope save in the mercy
of our conquerors. General Lee is a great soldier, an extraordinary
tactician, but he cannot do the impossible. Our army cannot go on fighting
forever without money and without food."
When our beloved general came home, the doctrine he taught by precept and
example was that of peace. "The stainless sword of Lee" had been laid down
in good faith. We had fought a good fight, we had failed, we must accept
the inevitable, we must not lose heart, we must work for our country's
welfare in peace. The very first heard of him in his modest, unheralded
home-returning, he was teaching this.
Young William McCaw, his courier for four years, rode in with him; and
General Lee, before going to his own home, delivered William, safe and
sound, to his father. Dr. McCaw came out when they stopped in front of his
door, and General Lee said:
"Here, Doctor, is your boy. I've brought him home to you."
William was standing beside Traveller, his arm clasped around General
Lee's leg, and crying as if his heart would break. The General put his
hand on William's head and said:
"No more fighting--that's all over. You've been a good fighter, Will--now
I want to see you work for your country's welfare in peace. Be a good boy.
I expect a fine Christian manhood of you. Goodbye," and he rode away to
his own home, where his invalid wife awaited him.
It was good to have them home again, our men in gray; good though they
came gaunt and footsore, ragged and empty-handed. And glad was the man in
gray to cross his own threshold, though the wolf was at the door. Our men
were ready enough for peace when peace--or what they mistook for
peace--came; that is, the mass of them were. They had fought and starved
their fill. The cries of destitute women and children called them home.
They had no time to pause and cavil over lost issues, or to forge new
occasions for quarrel. All they asked now was a chance to make meat and
bread and raiment for themselves and those dependent on them.
Yet some young spirits were restive, would have preferred death to
surrender. The lesson of utter submission came hard. The freeborn
American, fearless of shot and shell, and regarding free speech as his
birthright, found the task of keeping close watch over his tongue
difficult. General Lee knew the mettle of the fiery young courier to whom
he uttered the parting words that have been recorded. To many another
youth just out of armor, he gave the same pacific counsel:
"We have laid down the sword. Work for a united country."
[Illustration: RESIDENCE OF ROBERT E. LEE. 1861-65,
Richmond, Va.
Now the home of the Virginia Historical Society.]
One high-strung lad seeing a Federal soldier treat a lady rudely on the
street (a rare happening in Richmond), knocked him down, and was arrested.
The situation was serious. The young man's father went to General Ord and
said: "See here, General, that boy's hot from the battle-field. He doesn't
know anything but to fight." General Ord's response was: "I'll arrange
this matter for you. And you get this boy out of the city tonight."
There happened to be staying in the same house with some of our friends, a
young Confederate, Captain Wharton, who had come on sick leave to Richmond
before the evacuation, and who, after that event, was very imprudent in
expressing his mind freely on the streets, a perilous thing to do in those
days. His friends were concerned for his safety. Suddenly he disappeared.
Nobody knew what had become of him. Natural conclusion was that free
speech had gotten him into trouble. At last a message came: "Please send
me something to eat. I am in prison."
Ladies came to know if Matoaca would be one of a committee to wait on the
Provost-Marshal General in his behalf. She agreed, and the committee set
out for the old Custom House where the Federals held court. They were
admitted at once to General Patrick's presence. He was an elderly
gentleman, polite, courteous. "I was surprised," says Matoaca, "because I
had expected to see something with hoof and horns."
"General," she said, "we have come to see you about a young gentleman, our
friend, Captain Wharton. He is in prison, and we suppose the cause of his
arrest was imprudent speech. He has been ill for some time, and is too
feeble to bear with safety the hardships and confinement of prison life.
If we can secure his release, we will make ourselves responsible for his
conduct." She finished her little speech breathless. She saw the glimmer
of a smile way down in his eyes. "I know nothing about the case," he said
kindly. "Of course, I can not know personally of all that transpires. But
I will inquire into this matter, and see what can be done for this young
gentleman." Soon after, Captain Wharton called on Matoaca. She could
hardly have left General Patrick's presence before an orderly was
dispatched for his release.
Friction resulted from efforts to ram the oath down everybody's throat at
once. I recite this instance because of the part General Lee took and
duplicated in multitudes of cases. Captain George Wise was called before
the Provost to take the oath. "Why must I take it?" asked he. "My parole
covers the ground. I will not." "You fought under General Lee, did you
not?" "Yes. And surrendered with him, and gave my parole. To require this
oath of me is to put an indignity upon me and my general." "I will make a
bargain with you, Captain. Consult General Lee and abide by his decision."
The captain went to the Lee residence, where he was received by Mrs. Lee,
who informed him that her husband was ill, but would see him. The general
was lying on a lounge, pale, weary-looking, but fully dressed, in his gray
uniform, the three stars on his collar; the three stars--to which any
Confederate colonel was entitled--was the only insignia of rank he ever
wore. "They want me to take this thing, General," said the captain,
extending a copy of the oath. "My parole covers it, and I do not think it
should be required of me. What would you advise?"
"I would advise you to take it," he said quietly. "It is absurd that it
should be required of my soldiers, for, as you say, the parole
practically covers it. Nevertheless, take it, I should say." "General, I
feel that this is submission to an indignity. If I must continue to swear
the same thing over at every street corner, I will seek another country
where I can at least preserve my self-respect."
General Lee was silent for a few minutes. Then he said, quietly as before,
a deep touch of sadness in his voice: "Do not leave Virginia. Our country
needs her young men now."
When the captain told Henry A. Wise that he had taken the oath, the
ex-governor said: "You have disgraced the family!" "General Lee advised me
to do it." "Oh, that alters the case. Whatever General Lee says is all
right, I don't care what it is."
The North regarded General Lee with greater respect and kindness than was
extended to our other leaders. A friendly reporter interviewed him, and
bold but temperate utterances in behalf of the South appeared in the "New
York Herald" as coming from General Lee. Some of the remarks were very
characteristic, proving this newspaper man a faithful scribe. When
questioned about the political situation, General Lee had said: "I am no
politician. I am a soldier--a paroled prisoner." Urged to give his opinion
and advised that it might have good effect, he responded:
"The South has for a long time been anxious for peace. In my earnest
belief, peace was practicable two years ago, and has been since that time
whenever the general government should see fit to give any reasonable
chance for the country to escape the consequences which the exasperated
North seemed ready to visit upon it. They have been looking for some word
or expression of compromise and conciliation from the North upon which
they might base a return to the Union, their own views being considered.
The question of slavery did not lie in the way at all. The best men of the
South have long desired to do away with the institution and were quite
willing to see it abolished. But with them in relation to this subject,
the question has ever been: 'What will you do with the freed people?' That
is the serious question today. Unless some humane course based upon wisdom
and Christian principles is adopted, you do them a great injustice in
setting them free." He plead for moderation towards the South as the part
of wisdom as well as mercy. Oppression would keep the spirit of resistance
alive. He did not think men of the South would engage in guerilla warfare
as some professed to fear, but it was best not to drive men to
desperation. "If a people see that they are to be crushed, they sell their
lives as dearly as possible." He spoke of the tendency towards
expatriation, deploring it as a misfortune to our common country at a time
when one section needed building up so badly, and had, at the best, a
terribly depleted force of young, strong men. Throughout, he spoke of the
North and South as "we," and expressed his own great willingness to
contribute in every way in his power to the establishment of the communal
peace and prosperity.
A brave thing for a "rebel" officer to do, he spoke out for Mr. Davis.
"What has Mr. Davis done more than any other Southerner that he should be
singled out for persecution? He did not originate secession, is not
responsible for its beginning; he opposed it strenuously in speech and
writing."
[Illustration: MRS. ROBERT E. LEE
(Mary Randolph Custis)
Great-granddaughter of Martha Washington]
Wherever he appeared in Richmond, Federal soldiers treated him with
respect. As for our own people, to the day of his death Richmond stood
uncovered when General Lee came there and walked the streets. If, as he
passed along, he laid his hand on a child's head, the child never forgot
it. His words with our young men were words of might, and the cause of
peace owes to him a debt that the Peace Angel of the Union will not
forget.
"THE SADDEST GOOD FRIDAY"
CHAPTER VII
"THE SADDEST GOOD FRIDAY"
In Matoaca's little devotional note-book, I read: "Good Friday, 1865. This
is the saddest Good Friday I ever knew. I have spent the whole day praying
for our stricken people, our crushed Southland." "The saddest Good Friday
I ever knew"; nearly every man and woman in the South might have said that
with equal truth.
Her "Journal" of secular events contains a long entry for April 14; it is
as if she had poured out all her woes on paper. For the most part it is a
tale of feminine trivialities, of patching and mending. "Unless I can get
work and make some money," she writes, "we must stay indoors for decency's
sake." Her shoes have holes in them: "They are but shoes I cobbled out of
bits of stout cloth." The soles are worn so thin her feet are almost on
the ground. The family is suffering for food and for all necessaries. "O
God, what can I do!" she cries, "I who have never been taught any work
that seems to be needed now! Who is there to pay me for the few things I
know how to do? I envy our negroes who have been trained to occupations
that bring money; they can hire out to the Yankees, and I can't. Our
negroes are leaving us. We had to advise them to go. Cato will not. 'Me
lef' Mars Ran?' he cried, 'I couldn' think uv it, Miss Mato'ca!'"
Woes of friends and neighbours press upon her heart. Almost every home
has, like her own, its empty chair, its hungry mouths, its bare larder,
though some are accepting relief from the Christian Commission or from
Federal officers. Of loved ones in prison, they hear no tidings; from
kindred in other parts of the South, receive no sign. There are no
railroads, no mail service. In the presence of the conquerors, they walk
softly and speak with bated breath. The evening paper publishes threats of
arrest for legislators who may come to town obedient to the call Judge
Campbell issued with Mr. Lincoln's approval.
Good Friday was a day of joy and gladness North. From newspapers opened
eagerly in radiant family circles men read out such headlines as these:
"War Costs Over. Government Orders Curtailing Further Purchase of Arms,
Ammunition and Commissary Stores." "Drafting and Recruiting Stopped."
"Military Restrictions on Trade and Commerce Modified." Selma, Alabama,
with its rich stores of Confederate cotton, was captured. Mr. Lincoln's
conciliatory policy was commented on as "a wise and sagacious move."
Thursday's stock market had been bullish.
Rachel weeping for her children was comforted because they had not died in
vain. Larders were not bare, clothes were not lacking. The fastings and
prayers of the devout were full of praise and thanksgiving. For the
undevout, Good Friday was a feast day and a day of jollification.
In Charleston, South Carolina, gaping with scars of shot and shell of her
long, long, siege, the roses and oleanders and palmettoes strove to cover
with beauty the wounds of war, and in their fragrance to breathe nature's
sympathy and faithfulness. Her own desolate people kept within doors. The
streets were thronged with a cheerful, well-clad crowd; the city was
overflowing with Northern men and women of distinction. In the bay lay
Dahlgren's fleet, gay flags all a-flying. On land and water bands played
merrily.
Fort Sumter's anniversary was to be celebrated. The Union flag was to be
raised over the ruined pile by General Robert Anderson, who had lost the
fort in 1861. In the company duly assembled were Henry Ward Beecher,
Theodore Tilton, William Lloyd Garrison, Rev. Dr. Storrs. Mr. Beecher
uttered words of kindly sentiment towards the South. He gave God thanks
for preserving Lincoln's life, accepting this as a token of divine favor
to the Nation. Dr. Storrs read: "'When the Lord turned again the captivity
of Zion, we were like them that dream.'" The people: "'Then was our mouth
filled with laughter and our tongue with singing.'" And so on through the
126th Psalm. Then: "'Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we
will remember the name of the Lord our God.'" And: "'They are brought low
and fallen, but we are risen and stand upright.'"
"The Star-Spangled Banner" was sung, and the guns of Dahlgren's fleet
thundered honours to the Stars and Stripes, which, rising slowly and
gracefully, fluttered out in triumph against the Southern sky. At sunset,
guns boomed again, proud signal to the ending of the perfect day. The
city, silent and sad as far as its own people were concerned, rang with
the strangers' joyaunce. Social festivities ruled the hour. General
Gillmore entertained at a great banquet. The bay was ablaze with
fireworks; all forts were alight; the beautiful Sea Islands, whose owners
roamed in destitute exile, gleamed in shining circle, the jewels of the
sea.
The 14th was a red-letter day in the National Capital. Everything spoke of
victory and gladness. Washington held the two idols of the North--Lincoln
and Grant. It was Mr. Lincoln's perfect hour. He went about with a quiet
smile on his face. The family breakfast at the White House was very happy;
Captain Robert Lincoln was visiting his parents. General Grant was present
at the Cabinet meeting during the forenoon, Mr. Lincoln's last. These are
some of the President's words:
"I think it providential that this great rebellion is crushed just as
Congress has adjourned and there are none of the disturbing elements of
that body to hinder and embarrass us. If we are wise and discreet we shall
reanimate the States and get their governments in successful operation
with order prevailing, and the Union reëstablished before Congress comes
together in December. I hope there will be no persecution, no bloody work,
after the war is over. No one need expect me to take any part in hanging
or killing these men. Enough lives have been sacrificed. We must
extinguish resentment if we expect harmony and Union. There is too great a
disposition on the part of some of our very good friends to be masters, to
interfere with and dictate to these States, to treat the people not as
fellow-citizens; there is too little respect for their rights." He made it
plain that he meant the words of his second inaugural address, hardly six
weeks before, when he promised that his mission should be "to bind up the
wounds of the Nation."
"Very cheerful and very hopeful," Mr. Stanton reported, "spoke very kindly
of General Lee and others of the Confederacy, and of the establishment of
the Government of Virginia." Also, he spoke of the state government in
Louisiana, and that which he had mapped out for North Carolina. General
Grant was uneasy about Sherman and Johnston. The President said: "I have
no doubt that favourable news will come. I had a dream last night, my
usual dream which has preceded every important event of the war. I
seemed to be on a singular and indescribable vessel, always the same,
moving with great rapidity toward a dark and indefinite shore."
[Illustration: MRS. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON
(Lydia McLane, daughter of Senator McLane, of Delaware.)]
He did not know that on that day Sherman was writing Johnston, "I am
empowered to make terms of peace." But he knew he had so empowered
Sherman. I can imagine that through his heart the refrain was beating:
"There will be no more bloodshed, no more devastation. There shall be no
more humiliations for this Southern people, and God will give it into my
hands to reunite my country."
He went for a long, quiet drive with his wife. "Mary," he said, "we have
had a hard time of it since we came to Washington; but the war is over,
and with God's blessing we may hope for four years of peace and happiness.
Then we will go back to Illinois and pass the rest of our days in quiet."
He longed for quiet. The Sabbath before, while driving along the banks of
the James, he said: "Mary, when I die, I would like to lie in a quiet
place like this," and related a dream which he felt to be presage of
death.
Sailing on the James, he read aloud twice, and in a manner that impressed
Charles Sumner, who was present, this passage from Macbeth:
"'Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.'"
He was going, safe and whole, from the land of "rebels" to Washington. "We
have had a hard time in Washington, Mary." Read Sherman's "Memoirs," and
see what little liking great Federal generals had for journeys to
Washington; how for peace and safety, they preferred their battle-fields
to the place where politicians were wire-pulling and spreading nets.
The conclusion to his perfect day was a box in Ford's Theatre, his wife
and a pair of betrothed lovers for company; on the stage Laura Keene in
"Our American Cousin." The tragic sequel is indelibly impressed on the
brain of every American--the people leaning forward, absorbed in the play,
the handsome, slender figure of young Wilkes Booth moving with easy,
assured grace towards the President's box, the report of the pistol, the
leap of Booth to the stage, falling as the flag caught his foot, rising,
brandishing his weapon and crying: "_Sic Semper Tyrannis!_", his escape
with a broken ankle through the confused crowds; the dying President borne
out to the boarding-house on Tenth Street.
Seward's life was attempted the same evening by Booth's confederate, Lewis
Payne, who penetrated to the Secretary's sick-room and wounded him and his
son; Payne escaped. General Grant's death was a part of the plot; he and
Mrs. Grant had declined invitation to share the President's box, and
started west; Mr. Stanton's murder was also intended; but he escaped,
scathless of body but bitterer of soul than ever, bitterer than Mr.
Seward, who was wounded.
In a letter which Matoaca wrote years afterward, she said: "I well
remember the horror that thrilled our little circle when the news came.
'Now, may God have mercy on us!' Uncle exclaimed. He sat silent for a
while and then asked: 'Can it be possible that any of our own people could
do this thing? Some misguided fanatic?' And then, after a silence: 'Can
some enemy of the South have done it? Some enemy of the South who had a
grudge against Lincoln, too?' 'What sort of secret service could they
have had in Washington that this thing could happen? How was it that the
crippled assassin was able to make his escape?' he said when full accounts
appeared. The explanations given never explained to him.
"I heard some speak who thought it no more than just retribution upon Mr.
Lincoln for the havoc he had wrought in our country. But even the few who
spoke thus were horrified when details came. We could not be expected to
grieve, from any sense of personal affection, for Mr. Lincoln, whom we had
seen only in the position of an implacable foe at the head of a power
invading and devastating our land; but our reprobation of the crime of his
taking off was none the less. Besides, we did not know what would be done
to us. Already there had been talk of trying our officers for treason, of
executing them, of exiling them, and in this talk Andrew Johnson had been
loudest.
"I remember how one poor woman took the news. She was half-crazed by her
losses and troubles; one son had been killed in battle, another had died
in prison, of another she could not hear if he were living or dead; her
house had been burned; her young daughter, turned out with her in the
night, had died of fright and exposure. She ran in, crying: 'Lincoln has
been killed! thank God!' Next day she came, still and pale: 'I have prayed
it all out of my heart,' she said, 'that is, I'm not glad. But, somehow, I
_can't_ be sorry. I believe it was the vengeance of the Lord.'"
Jefferson Davis heard of Lincoln's death in Charlotte. A tablet in that
beautiful and historic city marks the spot where he stood. He had just
arrived from Greensboro, was dismounting, citizens were welcoming him when
the dispatch signed by Secretary of War Breckinridge was handed him by
Major John Courtney. Mrs. Courtney, the Major's widow, told me that her
husband heard the President say: "Oh, the pity of it!" He passed it to a
gentleman with the remark, "Here are sad tidings." The Northern press
reported that Jefferson Davis cheered when he heard of Lincoln's death.
Mrs. Davis, at the Armistead Burt House, Abbeville, received a message
from her husband announcing his arrival in Charlotte and telling of the
assassination. Mrs. Davis "burst into tears, which flowed from sorrow and
a thorough realization of the inevitable results to the
Confederates,"--her own words.
General Johnston and General Sherman were in Mr. Bennett's house near
Raleigh. Just before starting to this meeting, General Sherman received a
dispatch announcing Mr. Lincoln's assassination. He placed it in his
pocket, and, as soon as they were alone, handed it to General Johnston,
watching him narrowly. "He did not attempt to conceal his distress,"
General Sherman relates. "The perspiration came out in large drops on his
forehead." His horror and detestation of the deed broke forth; he
earnestly hoped General Sherman would not charge this crime to the
Confederacy. "I explained," states General Sherman, "that I had not yet
revealed the news to my own personal staff or to the army, and that I
dreaded the effect when it was made known." He feared that "a worse fate
than that of Columbia would befall" Raleigh, particularly if some "foolish
man or woman should say or do something that would madden his men." He
took pains when making the calamity known to assure his army that he did
not consider the South responsible.
Mr. Davis, under arrest, and on the way to Macon, heard that Andrew
Johnson had offered a reward of $100,000 for his arrest, charging him,
Clement C. Clay and other prominent Southerners with "inciting,
concerting, procuring" the "atrocious murder" of President Lincoln.
Between threatening soldiery, displaying the proclamation and shouting
over his capture, Mr. Davis and his family rode and walked.
At Macon, General Wilson received him with courtesy; when the proclamation
was mentioned, Mr. Davis said one person at least in the United States
knew the charge to be false, and that was the man who signed it, for
Andrew Johnson knew that he preferred Lincoln to himself.
In Augusta, Colonel Randall (author of "Maryland, My Maryland"), meeting
Clement C. Clay on the street, informed him of the proclamation. The old
ex-Senator at once surrendered, asking trial.[5]
In Southern cities citizens held meetings condemning the murder and
expressing sorrow and regret at the President's death. Ex-Governor Aiken,
known as the largest slave-owner in South Carolina, led the movement in
Charleston, heading a petition to General Gillmore for use of the
Hibernian Hall that the people might have a gathering-place in which to
declare their sentiments.
Even the Confederates in prison were heard from. The officers confined at
Fort Warren signed with General Ewell a letter to General Grant,
expressing to "a soldier who will understand" their detestation of Booth's
horrible crime. The commandant of the Fort, Major William Appleton, added
a note testifying to their deep sincerity.
THE WRATH OF THE NORTH
CHAPTER VIII
THE WRATH OF THE NORTH
The mad act of crazy Wilkes Booth set the whole country crazy. The South
was aghast, natural recoil intensified by apprehension. The North,
convulsed with anguish, was newly inflamed, and even when the cooler
moment came and we were acquitted of any responsibility for Booth's crazy
act, the angry humour of a still sore heart was against us. We, of both
sections, who suffered so lately as one people in the death of President
McKinley, can comprehend the woe and unreason of the moment.
Indignation and memorial meetings simply flayed the South alive. At one in
the New York Custom House, when the grieving, exasperated people did not
know whether to weep or to curse the more, or to end it by simply hanging
us all, Mr. Chittenden rose and said: "Peace, be still!" And declared the
death of Lincoln providential, God removing the man of mercy that due
punishment might be meted out to rebels. Before the pacific orator
finished, people were yelling: "Hang Lee!" and "The rebels deserve
damnation!" Pulpits fulminated. Easter sermons demanded the halter, exile,
confiscation of property, for "rebels and traitors"; yet some voices rose
benignly, as Edward Everett Hale's, Dr. Huntington's, and Rufus Ellis', in
words fitting the day. Beecher urged moderation.
The new President, Andrew Johnson, was breathing out threatenings and
slaughter before Lincoln's death. Thousands had heard him shout from the
southern portico of the Patent Office, "Jeff Davis ought to be hung
twenty times as high as Haman!"
In Nicolay and Hay's Life of Lincoln, the following paragraph follows
comment upon unanimity in Southern and Northern sentiment: "There was one
exception to the general grief too remarkable to be passed over in
silence. Among the extreme Radicals in Congress, Mr. Lincoln's determined
clemency and liberality towards the Southern people had made an impression
so unfavourable that, though they were shocked at his murder, they did
not, among themselves, conceal their gratification that he was no longer
in the way. In a political caucus held a few hours after the President's
death, 'the thought was nearly universal,' to quote the language of one of
their most representative members, 'that the accession of Johnson to the
Presidency would prove a godsend to the country.'"
The only people who could profit by Lincoln's death were in the Radical
wing of the Republican party. These extremists thought Johnson their man.
Senator Wade, heading a committee that waited on him, cried: "Johnson, we
have faith in you! By the gods, it will be no trouble now running the
Government!"
"Treason," said the new President, "is the highest crime in the calendar,
and the full penalty for its commission should be visited upon the leaders
of the Rebellion. Treason should be made odious." It is told as true
"inside history" that the arrest and execution of General Lee had been
determined upon; General Grant heard of it and went in the night to see
President Johnson and Secretary Stanton and said to them: "If General Lee
or any of the officers paroled by me are arrested while keeping the terms
of their parole, I will resign my commission in the United States Army."
But on April 15, even General Grant was of a divided mind, for he wired
General Ord: "Arrest J. A. Campbell, Mayor Mayo, and members of the old
Council who have not yet taken the oath of allegiance, and confine them in
Libby Prison ... arrest all paroled officers and surgeons until they can
be sent beyond our lines unless they have taken the oath of allegiance.
Extreme rigour will have to be observed whilst assassination is the order
of the day with rebels."
General Ord replied: "The two citizens we have seen. They are old, nearly
helpless, and, I think, incapable of harm. Lee and staff are in town among
the paroled prisoners. Should I arrest them under the circumstances, I
think the rebellion here would be reopened. I will risk my life that
present paroles will be kept, if you will allow me to so trust the people
here, who are ignorant of the assassination, done, I think, by some insane
Brutus with but few accomplices. Judge Campbell and Mr. Hunter pressed me
earnestly yesterday to send them to Washington to see the President. Would
they have done so if guilty?"
General Grant answered: "I leave my dispatch of this date in the light of
a suggestion to be executed only as far as you may judge the good of the
service demands." But the venerable peace-maker and his associates were
not to escape vengeance.
General Halleck, from Richmond, to General Grant, May 5: "Hunter is
staying quietly at home, advises all who visit him to support the Union
cause. His hostility to Davis did much to make Davis unpopular in
Virginia. Considering this, and the fact that President Lincoln advised
against arresting Hunter, I would much prefer not to arrest him unless
specially ordered to do so. All classes are taking the Amnesty Oath; it
would be unfortunate to shake by unnecessary arrests this desire for
general amnesty. Lee's officers are taking the oath; even Lee himself is
considering the propriety of doing so and petitioning President Johnson
for pardon."
May 11, Halleck to Stanton: "R. M. T. Hunter has, in accordance with
General Grant's orders, been arrested, and is now on a gunboat in the
James. Judge Campbell is still at his house. If necessary, he can be
confined with Mr. Hunter. He voluntarily submits himself to such
punishment as the Government may see fit to impose. He is very destitute
and much broken down, and his case excites much sympathy."
Fortress Monroe, May 22, General Halleck wires General Ord, Richmond: "The
Secretary of War directs that John A. Campbell be placed in the Libby or
some other secure prison. Do this at once." Announcements of arrivals at
Fort Pulaski in June would have made a fine page for any hotel desiring a
brilliant register, thus: "Ex-Senator R. M. T. Hunter, Virginia;
ex-Assistant Secretary of War Judge J. A. Campbell, Alabama; ex-Senator D.
L. Yulee, Florida; ex-Governor Clark, Mississippi; ex-Secretary of the
Treasury G. A. Trenholm, South Carolina;" and so on. Pulaski had rivals in
other Federal prisons.
A reward of $25,000 for "Extra Billy" did not bring him in, but he
delivered himself up to General Patrick, was paroled, and went to his home
in Warrenton, Fauquier, and set to work with a will, though he was, to
quote General Halleck, "seventy years old and quite feeble." The rightful
Governor of Virginia, he advised her people to cheerful acceptance of
Pierpont.
As soon as the aged Governor of Mississippi learned that General Dick
Taylor would surrender, he convened the Legislature; his message,
recommending the repeal of the secession ordinance and deploring
Lincoln's murder, was not more than read, when General Osband, under
orders from Washington, dissolved the Legislature with threats of arrest.
Governor Clark was arrested: "The old soldier straightened his mangled
limbs as best he could, with great difficulty mounted his crutches, and
with a look of defiance, said: 'General Osband, I denounce before high
Heaven this unparalleled act of tyranny and usurpation. I am the duly and
constitutionally elected Governor of Mississippi, and would resist, if in
my power, to the last extremity the enforcement of your order.'"
[Illustration: LIBBY PRISON, RICHMOND, VA.
Before 1861 this building was used as a warehouse, and in 1888-9 was
transported by a syndicate to Chicago, and is now known as Libby Prison
War Museum.]
Governors, generals and statesmen were arrested in all directions. No
exception was made for Alexander H. Stephens, the invalid, the
peace-maker, the gentlest Roman of them all. At Liberty Hall, Mr. Stephens
and a young friend, Robert W. Hull, were playing casino, when Tim, a
negro, ran in, exclaiming: "Marster, de town is full uh Yankees! Whole
heaps uv 'em, gallopin' all about, carryin' guns." Mr. Stephens rose and
said to his guest: "I have been expecting this. They have come for me.
Excuse me, please, while I pack." He went into his bedroom and began this
task, when an officer called. Mr. Stephens met him in the parlor. The
officer said, "Are you Alex Stephens?" "That is my name." "I have an order
for your arrest." "I would like to have your name and see your order." "I
am Captain Saint, of the 4th Iowa, acting under General Upton's orders.
Here is the order." Mr. Stephens saw that himself and General Toombs were
to be brought before General Upton in Atlanta. "I have been anticipating
arrest," he said quietly, "and have been careful not to be out of the way,
remaining here at home. General Upton need not have sent an armed force
for me. A simple intimation from him that my presence was desired would
have taken me to Atlanta." His negroes were weeping when he was carried
away; one, by special permission, accompanied him.
He was left under guard in a shanty on the road; the troops went on to
Washington, "to be back in a little while with Bob Toombs." "Where is
General Toombs?" asked Mr. Stephens, when they returned. "We don't know,"
was the rejoinder. "He flanked us." Thus:
General Toombs, going to the basement doorway of his house in Washington,
exclaimed suddenly: "My God! the blue-coats!" turned and went rapidly
through his house and out at the back door, saying to his wife: "Detain
them at the front as long as you can." Their daughter, Mrs. Du Bose,
helped her. "Bob Toombs" was asked for. Mrs. Du Bose went to bring "Bob
Toombs"; she reappeared leading a lovely boy. "Here is Bob Toombs," she
said, "Bob Toombs Du Bose, named for my father, General Toombs."
Mrs. Toombs took them through the house, showing them into every
room--keys of which were lost and had to be looked for. They would burn
the building, they insisted, if General Toombs was not produced. "Burn,"
she said, "and burn me in it. If I knew my husband's hiding-place, I would
not betray him." They told her to move her furniture out. She obeyed. They
changed their minds about the burning and went off. General Toombs escaped
to the woods, where he remained hidden until nightfall. His friend,
Captain Charles E. Irvin, got some gold from Mrs. Toombs, and carried the
money to him, together with his mare, Gray Alice. From Nassau Island he
crossed to England, where the doughty "rebel" was mightily liked.
Mr. Davis, Mr. Stephens, Mr. Clay, General Wheeler, and General Ralls met
aboard the steamer at Augusta, all prisoners. The President's arrest
occurred the day before Mr. Stephens', near Irwinsville. Picture it. Gray
dawn in the Georgia woods. A small encampment of tents, horses, and
wagons. Horses saddled and bridled, with pistols in holsters, picketed on
the edge of the encampment. A negro watching and listening. Suddenly, he
hurries to one of the tents: "Mars Jeff!" His call wakes a man lying fully
dressed on one of the cots. "What's the matter, Jim?" "Firin' 'cross de
branch, suh. Jes behin' our camp. Marauders, I reckon."
After leaving Washington, Mr. Davis had heard that marauders were in
pursuit of his wife's cortege, and turning out of his course, he rode hard
across country, found his family, conveyed them beyond the present danger,
as he thought, and was about to renew his journey south. Horses for
himself and staff were ready, when he heard that marauders were again
near; he concluded to wait, and so lay down to rest. At Jim's call, he
went to the tent-door, then turned to where his wife bent over her
sleeping baby, Winnie. "They are not marauders," he said, "but regular
troopers of the United States Army."
She begged him to leave her quickly. His horses and weapons were near the
road down which the cavalry was coming. In the darkness of the tent, he
caught up what he took to be his raglan, a sleeveless, waterproof garment.
It was hers. She, poor soul, threw a shawl over his head. He went out of
the tent, she keeping near. "Halt!" cried a trooper, levelling a carbine
at him. He dropped his wraps and hurried forward. The trooper, in the
dark, might miss aim; a hand under his foot would unhorse him; when Mr.
Davis would mount and away. Mrs. Davis saw the carbine, cast her arms
about her husband, and lost him his one chance of escape.
In one of her trunks, broken open by pilferers of the attacking party, a
hoop-skirt was found. I shall refer to this historic hoop-skirt again.
I left Generals Johnston and Sherman discussing Mr. Lincoln's death and
arranging terms of peace, based upon what Sherman recognized as the object
of the war--salvation of the Union; and upon instructions received from
Mr. Lincoln's own lips in their last interview when the President
authorized him to "assure Governor Vance and the people of North Carolina
that, as soon as the rebel armies will lay down their arms, they will at
once be guaranteed all their rights as citizens of a common country; and
that, to avoid anarchy, the State Governments now in existence will be
recognized."
"When peace does come, you may call upon me for anything. Then, I will
share with you the last crust and watch with you to shield your homes and
families against danger from every quarter." Thus Sherman closed his reply
to Calhoun's protest against the depopulation of Atlanta. Now that war was
over, he was for living up to this.
In soldierly simplicity, he thought he had done an excellent thing in
securing Johnston's guarantee of disbandment of all Confederate forces,
and settling all fear of guerilla warfare by putting out of arms not only
regular Confederates, but any who might claim to be such.
Stanton disposed of the whole matter by ordering Grant to "proceed to the
headquarters of Major-General Sherman and direct operations against the
enemy." This was, of course, the end to any terms for us. As is known,
General Johnston surrendered on the same conditions with Lee. Grant so
ordered his course as not to do Sherman injustice.
General Sherman wrote a spicy letter for Mr. Stanton's benefit: the
settlement he had arranged for would be discussed, he said, in a different
spirit "two or three years hence, after the Government has experimented a
little more in the machinery by which power reaches the scattered people
of this vast country known as the South." He had made war "hell"; now, the
people of "this unhappy country," as he pityingly designated the land he
had devastated, were for peace; and he, than whom none had done more to
bring them to that state of mind, was for giving them some of its fruits.
"We should not drive a people to anarchy"; for protection to life and
property, the South's civil courts and governments should be allowed to
remain in operation.
"The assassination has stampeded the civil authorities," "unnerved them,"
was the conclusion he drew when he went to Washington when, just after the
crime, the long roll had been beaten and the city put under martial law;
public men were still in dread of assassination. At the grand review in
Washington, Sherman, hero of the hour, shook hands with the President and
other dignitaries on the stand, but pointedly failed to accept Mr.
Stanton's.
After Mr. Lincoln's death, leniency to "rebels" was accounted worse than a
weakness. The heavy hand was applauded. It was the fashion to say hard
things of us. It was accounted piety and patriotism to condemn "traitors
and rebels." Cartoonists, poets, and orators, were in clover; here was a
subject on which they could "let themselves out."
THE CHAINING OF JEFFERSON DAVIS
CHAPTER IX
THE CHAINING OF JEFFERSON DAVIS
Strange and unreal seem those days. One President a fugitive, journeying
slowly southward; the other dead, journeying slowly north and west. Aye,
the hand of God was heavy on both our peoples. The cup of defeat could not
be made more bitter than it was; and into the cup of triumph were gall and
wormwood poured.
Hunters pursuing one chieftain with hoarse cries of "rebel!" and
"traitor!" For the other, bells tolling, guns booming requiem, great
cities hung with black, streets lined with weeping thousands, the
catafalque a victor's chariot before which children and maidens scattered
flowers. Nearly a month that funeral march lasted--from Washington through
Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Albany, Cleveland, Columbus,
Indianapolis, Chicago--it wound its stately way to Springfield. Wherever
it passed, the public pulse beat hotter against the Southern chieftain and
his people.
Yet the dead and the hunted were men of one country, born in the same
State. Sharp contrasts in many ways, they were yet enough alike in
personal appearance to have been brothers. Both were pure men, brave,
patriotic; both kindly and true. The dead had said of the living: "Let
Jeff escape."
Johnson's proclamation threw the entire South into a white rage and an
anguish unutterable, when it charged the assassination to Mr. Davis and
other representative men of the South. Swift on it came news that our
President was captured, report being spread to cast ridicule upon him
that, when caught, he was disguised in his wife's garments. Caricatures,
claiming to be truthful portraiture, displayed him in hoops and petticoats
and a big poke bonnet, of such flaming contrasts as certainly could not
have been found in Mrs. Davis' wardrobe.
In 1904, I saw at a _vaudeville_ entertainment in a New York department
store, a stereopticon representation of the War of Secession. The climax
was Mr. Davis in a pink skirt, red bonnet, yellow bodice, and
parti-coloured shawl, struggling with several Federals, while other
Federals were rushing to the attack, all armed to the teeth and pointing
warlike weapons at this one fantastic figure of a feeble old man. The
theatre was full of children. The attraction had been running some time
and thousands of young Americans had doubtless accepted its travesties as
history. The Northern friend with me was as indignant as myself.
When Mr. Davis' capture was announced in theatres and other places of
amusement in the North, people went crazy with joy, clapping their hands
and cheering, while bands played "Yankee Doodle" and "Star-Spangled
Banner." Many were for having him hung at once. Wendell Phillips wanted
him "left to the sting of his own conscience."
Presently, we heard that the "Clyde" was bringing Mr. Davis, his family,
General Wheeler, Governor Vance, and others, to Fortress Monroe. And
then--will I ever forget how the South felt about that?--that Mr. Davis
was a prisoner in a damp, casemated cell, that lights were kept burning in
his face all night until he was in danger of blindness; that human eyes
were fixed on him night and day, following his every movement; that his
jailer would come and look at him contemptuously and call him "Jeff";
that sightseers would be brought to peer at him as if he were some strange
wild beast; that his feeble limbs had been loaded with chains; that he was
like to lose his life through hardships visited upon him! To us who knew
the man personally, his sensitiveness, dignity, and refinement, the tale
is harrowing as it could not be to those who knew him not thus. Yet to all
Americans it must be a regrettable chapter in our history when it is
remembered that this man was no common felon, but a prisoner of State, a
distinguished Indian-fighter, a Mexican veteran, a man who had held a seat
in Congress, who had been Secretary of War of the United States, and who
for four years had stood at the head of the Confederate States.
When they came to put chains upon him, he protested, said it was an
indignity to which as a soldier he would not submit, that the intention
was to dishonour the South in him; stood with his back to the wall, bade
them kill him at once, fought them off as long as he could--fought them
until they held him down and the blacksmiths riveted the manacles upon his
wasted limbs. Captain Titlow, who had the work in charge, did not like his
cruel task, but he had no choice but to obey orders.[6]
And this was in Fortress Monroe, where of old the gates fell wide to
welcome him when he came as Secretary of War, where guns thundered
greeting, soldiers presented arms, and the highest officer was proud to do
him honour! With bated breath we speak of Russian prisons. But how is
this: "Davis is in prison; he is not allowed to say a word to any one nor
is any one allowed to say a word to him. He is literally in a living tomb.
His position is not much better than that of the Turkish Sultan, Bajazet,
exposed by his captor, Tamerlane, in a portable iron cage." ("New York
Herald," May 26, 1865.) The dispatch seemed positively to gloat over that
poor man's misery.
A new fad in feminine attire came into vogue; women wore long, large, and
heavy black chains as decorations.
The military murder of Mrs. Surratt stirred us profoundly. Too lowly,
simple, and obscure in herself to rank with heroic figures, her execution
lifts her to the plane where stand all who fell victims to the troubled
times. Suspicion of complicity in Mr. Lincoln's murder, because of her
son's intimacy with Wilkes Booth, led to her death. They had her before a
military tribunal in Washington, her feet linked with chains.
Several men were executed. Their prison-life and hers was another tale to
give one the creeps. They were not allowed to speak to any one, nor was
any one allowed to speak to them; they were compelled to wear masks of
padded cloth over face and head, an opening at the mouth permitting space
for breathing; pictures said to be drawn from life showed them in their
cells where the only resting-places were not beds, but bare, rough
benches; marched before judges with these same horrible hoods on, marched
to the gallows with them on, hanging with them on.
One of the executed, Payne, had been guilty of the attack on Mr. Seward
and his son; the others had been dominated and bribed by Booth, but had
failed to play the parts assigned them in the awful drama his morbid brain
wrought out.
OUR FRIENDS, THE ENEMY
CHAPTER X
OUR FRIENDS, THE ENEMY
There was small interchange of civilities between Northern and Southern
ladies. The new-comers were in much evidence; Southerners saw them riding
and driving in rich attire and handsome equipages, and at the theatre in
all the glory of fine toilettes.
There was not so much trouble opening theatres as churches. A good many
stage celebrities came to the Richmond Theatre, which was well patronised.
Decorated with United States flags, it was opened during the first week of
the occupation with "Don Cæsar de Bazan." The "Whig" reported a brilliant
audience. Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Grant, who had been driving over the city,
were formally invited by General Weitzel to attend the play, but did not
appear.
The band played every evening in the Square, and our people, ladies
especially, were invited to come out. The Square and the Capitol were at
one time overrun with negroes. This was stopped. Still, our ladies did not
go. Federal officers and their ladies had their music to themselves.
"There was no intentional slight or rudeness on our part. We did not draw
back our skirts in passing Federal soldiers, as was charged in Northern
papers; if a few thoughtless girls or women did this, they were not
representative. We tried not to give offense; we were heart-broken; we
stayed to ourselves; and we were not hypocrites; that was all." So our
women aver. In most Southern cities efforts were made to induce the ladies
to come out and hear the band play.
The day Governor Pierpont arrived, windows of the Spotswood and Monumental
were crowded with Northern ladies waving handkerchiefs. "I only knew from
the papers," Matoaca tells, "that the Mansion was decorated with flowers
for his reception. Our own windows, which had been as windows of a house
of mourning, did not change their aspect for his coming. Our rightful
governor was a fugitive; Governor Pierpont was an alien. We were
submissive, but we could not rejoice." This was the feminine and social
side. On the political and masculine side, he was welcomed. Delegations of
prominent Virginians from all counties brought him assurances of
coöperation. The new Governor tried to give a clean, patriotic
administration.
Northerners held socials in each others' houses and in halls; there were
receptions, unattended by Southerners, at the Governor's Mansion and
Military Headquarters. It might have been more politic had we gone out of
our way to be socially agreeable, but it would not have been sincere.
Federal officers and their wives attended our churches. A Northern
Methodist Society was formed with a group of adherents, Governor and Mrs.
Pierpont, and, later, General and Mrs. Canby among them. "We of the
Northern colony were very dependent upon ourselves for social pleasures,"
an ex-member who now considers herself a Southerner said to me recently.
"There were some inter-marriages. I remember an elopement; a Petersburg
girl ran away with a Federal officer, and the pair sought asylum at my
father's, in Richmond's Northern colony. Miss Van Lew entertained us
liberally. She gave a notable reception to Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase
and his beautiful daughter, Kate." Miss Van Lew, a resident, was suspected
of being a spy during the war.
Our ladies went veiled on the street, the motive that caused them to close
their windows impelling them to cover their faces with sorrow's shield.
There was not much opportunity for young blue-coats to so much as behold
our pretty girls, much less make eyes at them, had they been so minded.
That veil as an accompaniment of a lissome figure and graceful carriage
must have sometimes acted as a tantalising disguise.
I heard of one very cute happening in which the wind and a veil played
part. Mary Triplett, our famous blonde beauty, then in the rosy freshness
of early youth, was walking along when the wind took off her veil and
carried it to the feet of a young Federal officer. He bent, uplifted the
vagrant mask, and, with his cap held before his eyes, restored it. That
was a very honest, self-denying Yankee. Perhaps he peeped around the
corner of his cap. There was at that time in Richmond a bevy of
marvellously lovely buds, Mattie Ould, Miss Triplett's antithesis, among
the number.
The entire South seems to have been very rich then in buds of beauty and
women of distinction. Or, was it that the fires of adversity brought their
charms and virtues into high relief? Names flitting through my mind are
legion. Richmond's roll has been given often. Junior members of the
Petersburg set were Tabb Bolling, General Rooney Lee's sweetheart (now his
widow); Molly Bannister, General Lee's pet, who was allowed to ride
Traveller; Anne Bannister, Alice Gregory, Betty and Jeannie Osborne, Betty
Cabaniss, Betty and Lucy Page, Sally Hardy, Nannie Cocke, Patty Cowles,
Julia, Mary and Marion Meade, and others who queened it over General Lee's
army and wrought their pretty fingers to the bone for our lads in the
trenches. To go farther afield, Georgia had her youthful "Maid of Athens,"
Jule King, afterwards Mrs. Henry Grady; in Atlanta were the Clayton
sisters, and Maggie Poole, Augusta Hill, Ella Ezzard, Eugenia Goode,
besides a brilliant married circle. In South Carolina were Mrs. James
Chesnut, her sister, Mrs. David R. Williams, and all the fair troop that
figure in her "Diary From Dixie." Louisiana's endless roster might begin
with the Slocomb family, to which General Butler paid official tribute,
recording that "Mrs. Slocomb equipped the crack military company of New
Orleans, the Washington Artillery, in which her son-in-law, Captain David
Urquhart, is an officer." Mrs. Urquhart's daughter, Cora (afterwards Mrs.
James Brown Potter), was, I think, a tiny maiden then. Beloved for her
social charm and her charities, Mrs. Ida B. Richardson, Mrs. Urquhart's
sister, still lives in the Crescent City. There were the Leacock sisters,
Mrs. Andrew Gray and Mrs. Will Howell, the "madonna of New Orleans." There
was the King family, which produced Grace King, author and historian. A
Louisiana beauty was Addie Prescott, whose face and presence gave warrant
of the royal blood of Spain flowing in her veins. In Mississippi was
"Pearl Rivers," afterwards Mrs. Nicholson, good genius of the "Picayune";
and Mary E. Bryan, later the genius of the "Sunny South." Georgia and
Alabama claim Mme. Le Vert, to whose intellect Lamartine paid tribute, and
Augusta Evans, whose "Macaria" ran the blockade in manuscript and came out
up North during the war; that delightful "Belle of the Fifties," Mrs.
Clement C. Clay, is Alabama's own. Besides the "Rose of Texas" (Louise
Wigfall), the Lone Star State has many a winsome "Southern Girl" and woman
to her credit. Mrs. Roger A. Pryor is Virginia's own. Among Florida's fair
was the "Madonna of the Wickliffe sisters," Mrs. Yulee, Senator Yulee's
wife and, presently, Florida's Vice-Regent for the Ladies' Association
of Mt. Vernon. Mrs. Sallie Ward Hunt and Mrs. Sallie Ewing Pope lead a
long list in Kentucky, where Mary Anderson, the actress, was in her tender
teens, and Bertha Honoré (afterwards Mrs. Potter Palmer) was in pinafores.
To Mississippi and Missouri belongs Theodosia Worthington Valliant; and to
Tennessee Betty Vance, whose beauty's fame was world-wide, and Mary
Wright, later Mrs. Treadwell. At a ball given Prince Arthur when in this
country, a wealthy belle was selected to lead with him. The prince
thinking he was to choose his partner, fixed on Mary Wright, exquisite in
poverty's simple white gown, and asked: "May I lead with her?" In North
Carolina were Sophia Portridge, women of the houses of Devereaux, Vance,
Mordecai--but I am not writing the South's "Book of Fair and Noble Women."
I leave out of my list names brilliant as any in it.
[Illustration: MRS. DAVID L. YULEE
(Daughter of Governor Wickliffe, of Kentucky)
She was the wife of Senator Yulee, of Florida, Vice Regent of the Mount
Vernon Association of Florida, and was known as the "Madonna of the
Wickliffe Sisters."]
Of all the fair women I have ever seen, Mary Meade was fairest. No
portrait can do justice to the picture memory holds of her as "Bride" to
D'Arcy Paul's "Bridegroom" in the "Mistletoe Bough," which Mrs. Edwin
Morrison staged so handsomely that her amateurs were besought to "star" in
the interest of good causes. Our fair maids were no idle "lilies of
loveliness." The Meade sisters and others turned talents to account in
mending fallen family fortunes. Maids and matrons labored diligently to
gather our soldier dead into safe resting-places. The "Lyrical Memorial,"
Mrs. Platt's enterprise, like the "Mistletoe Bough" (later produced), was
called for far and wide. The day after presentation in Louisville, the
Federal Commandant sent Mary Meade, who had impersonated the South
pleading sepulture for her sons, a basket of flowers with a live white
dove in the center.
Slowly in Richmond interchange of little human kindnesses between
neighbors established links. General Bartlett, occupying the Haxall house,
who had lost a leg in the war, was "the Yankee who conquered my wife," a
Southerner bears witness. "I came home one day and found him sitting with
her on my steps. He suffered greatly from his old wound, bore it
patiently, and by his whole conduct appealed to her sweet womanliness. His
staff was quiet and orderly."
The beautiful daughter of one family and her feeble grandmother were the
only occupants of the mansion into which General Ord and his wife moved.
The pair had no money and were unable to communicate with absent members
of the household who had been cut off from home by the accidents of war
while visiting in another city. The younger lady was ill with typhoid
fever. The general and his wife were very thoughtful and generous in
supplying ice, brandy, and other essentials and luxuries.
"Under Heaven," the invalid bore grateful witness when recovering, "I owe
my life to General and Mrs. Ord." Her loveliness and helplessness were in
themselves an argument to move a heart of stone to mercy; nevertheless, it
was virtue and grace that mercy was shown.
We made small appeal for sympathy or aid; were too much inclined to the
reverse course, carrying poverty and other troubles with a stiff-neck,
scantily-clad backs, long-suffering stomachs, and pride and conscience
resolved. But--though some form of what we considered oppression was
continually before our eyes--our conquerors, when in our midst, were more
and more won to pity and then to sympathy. Our commandants might be stern
enough when first they came, but when they had lived among us a little
while, they softened and saw things in a new light; and the negroes and
the carpet-baggers complained of them every one, and the authorities at
Washington could not change them fast enough.
Southerners here and in other cities who had Federal boarders were
considered fortunate because of the money and protection secured. In such
cases, there was usually mutual kindness and consideration, politeness
keeping in the background topics on which differences were cruel and
sharp; but the sectional dividing lines prevented free social
intermingling.
In places garrisoned by soldiers of coarser types and commanded by men
less gentlemanly, women sometimes displayed more pronounced
disapprobation. Not always with just occasion, but, again, often with
cause only too grave. At the best, it was not pleasant to have strange men
sauntering, uninvited, into one's yard and through one's house, invading
one's kitchen and entertaining housemaids and cooks. That these men wore
blue uniforms was unfortunate for us and for the uniform. At that time,
the very sight of "army blue" brought terror, anguish and resentment.
Our famous physicians, Maguire and McCaw, were often called to the
Northern sick. Dr. McCaw came once direct to Uncle Randolph from the
Dents, where he had been summoned to Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant, and Matoaca
listened curiously to his and her uncle's cordial discussion of General
Grant, who had made friends at the South by his course at Appomattox and
his insistence on the cartel.
A conversation occurring between another of our physicians and a feminine
patient is not without significance. The lady and the doctor's wife had
been friends before the war. "Why has your wife not called upon me,
Doctor?" she asked. "Has she forgotten me?" "No, ma'am," he answered
gently, and then in a low, kindly voice: "But she cannot--yet--forget all
that has happened since you were girls together." "But she should not
treasure it against me individually." "She does not, ma'am. But she cannot
forget--yet. You would understand if you had been in the beleagured land.
If the good women of the North could only imagine themselves in the place
of the women of the South during the last four years and in their place
now!"
She sighed. "I can see only too plainly that they have suffered
unutterably many things that we have been spared. And that they suffer
now. It's natural, too, that they should hate to have us here lording it
over them."
Very different was the spirit of the wife of a Federal officer stationed
at Augusta, Georgia, whose declaration that she hoped to see the day when
"black heels should stand on white necks" startled the State of Georgia.
Many good ladies came South firm in the belief that all Southerners were
negro-beaters, slave-traders, and cut-throats; a folk sadly benighted and
needing tutelage in the humanities; and they were not always politic in
expressing these opinions.
After war, the war spirit always lingers longest in non-combatants--in
women and in men who stayed at home and cheered others on. "The soldiers,"
said General Grant, "were in favor of a speedy reconstruction on terms
least humiliating to the Southern people." He wrote Mrs. Grant from
Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1865: "The suffering that must exist in the
South ... will be beyond conception; people who speak of further
retaliation and punishment do not conceive of the suffering endured
already, or they are heartless and unfeeling."
General Halleck to General Meade, April 30, 1865: "The Army of the
Potomac have shown the people of Virginia how they would be treated as
enemies. Let them now prove that they know equally well how to treat the
same people as friends."
"The terrible sufferings of the South," our press commented, "have
softened the hearts of the stern warriors of the Armies of the Potomac and
the Cumberland, and while they are calling for pity and justice for us,
politicians and fanatics call for vengeance." General Sherman said: "I do
think some political power might be given to the young men who served in
the rebel army, for they are a better class than the adventurers who have
gone South purely for office."
During an exciting epoch in reconstruction, I was sitting beside a wounded
ex-Confederate in an opera-box, listening to a Southern statesman
haranguing us on our wrongs, real and heavy enough, heaven knows, heavier
than ever those of war had been. "Rather than submit to continued and
intensified humiliations," cried the orator, a magnetic man of the sort
who was carrying Northern audiences to opposite extremes, "we will buckle
on our swords and go to war again!" "It might be observed," remarked my
veteran drily, while I clapped my hands, "that if he should buckle on his
sword and go to war, it would be what he did not do before." I held my
hands quite still during the rest of that speech.
"Our women never were whipped!" I have heard grizzled Confederates say
that proudly. "There is a difference," remarked one hoary-headed hero,
who, after wearing stars on his collar in Confederate service represented
his State in the Federal Congress, "between the political and the feminine
war-spirit. The former is too often for personal gain. Woman's is the
aftermath of anguish. It has taken a long time to reconstruct Southern
women. Some are not reconstructed yet. Suffering was stamped too deep for
effacement. The Northern woman suffered with her Southern sister the agony
of anxiety and bereavement. But the Southern had other woes, of which the
Northern could have no conception. The armies were upon us. There was
devastation. The Southern woman and her loved ones lacked food and
raiment, the enemy appropriating what we had and blocking ways by which
fresh supplies might come; her home was burned over her head. Sometimes
she suffered worse things than starvation, worse things than the
destruction of her home.
"And women could only sit still and endure, while we could fight back.
Women do not understand that war is a matter of business. I had many
friends among the men I fought--splendid, brave fellows. Personally, we
were friends, and professionally, enemies. Women never get that point of
view."
Woman's war spirit is faithfulness and it is absolutely reckless of
personal advantages, as the following incident may illustrate. General
Hunton and General Turner knew each other pretty well, although in their
own persons they had never met. They had commanded opposing forces and
entertained a considerable respect for each other. General Turner was the
first Federal officer that came to Lynchburg, when General Hunton's wife
and youthful son were refugees; he sent Dr. Murray, a Confederate surgeon,
to call upon Mrs. Hunton with the message that she was to suffer for
nothing he could supply. General Hunton was in prison, she knew not where;
was not sure if he were alive or dead.
She had not the feelings her lord entertained for his distinguished
antagonist, and her response was: "Tell General Turner I would not accept
anything from him to save my life!"
Yet she must have been very hungry. She and her youthful son had been
reduced to goober-peas. First, her supplies got down to one piece of
beef-bone. She thought she would have a soup. For a moment, she left her
son to watch the pot, but not to stir the soup. But he thought he would do
well to stir it. So he stirred it, and turned the pot over. That day, she
had nothing for dinner but goober-peas.
"When I came home," said General Hunton, when asked for this story's
sequel, "and she told me about her message to General Turner, I wrote him
the nicest letter I knew how to write, thanking him for his kindness to
the wife of a man whose only claim on him was that he had fought him the
best he knew how.
"I don't think we would ever have had the trouble we had down here," he
continued, "if Northern people had known how things really were. In fact,
I know we would not. Why, I never had any trouble with Northern men in all
my life except that I just fought them all I knew how. And I never had
better friends than among my Republican colleagues in Congress after the
war. They thought all the more of me because I stood up so stoutly for the
old Confederate Cause."
Bonds coming about in the natural, inevitable order through interchange of
the humanities were respected. But where they seemed the outcome of
vanity, frivolity, or coquetry, that was another matter, a very serious
one for the Southern participant. The spirit of the times was morbid, yet
a noble loyalty was behind it.
Anywhere in the land, a Southern girl showing partiality for Federal beaux
came under the ban. If there were nothing else against it, such a course
appeared neither true nor dignified; if it were not treason to our lost
Confederacy, it were treason to our own poor boys in gray to flutter over
to prosperous conquerors.
Nothing could be more sharply defined in lights and shadows than the life
of one beautiful and talented Southern woman who matronised the
entertainments of a famous Federal general at a post in one of the Cotton
States, and thereby brought upon herself such condemnation as made her
wines and roses cost her dear. Yet perhaps such affiliations lessened the
rigors of military government for her State.
One of the loveliest of Atlanta's gray-haired dames tells me: "I am
unreconstructed yet--Southern to the backbone." Yet she speaks of
Sherman's godless cohorts as gently as if she were mother of them all. Her
close neighbour was a Yankee encampment. The open ground around her was
dotted with tents.
There were "all sorts" among the soldiers. None gave insolence or
violence. Pilfering was the great trouble; the rank and file were "awfully
thievish." Her kitchen, as usual with Southern kitchens of those days, was
a separate building. If for a moment she left her pots and ovens to answer
some not-to-be-ignored demand from the house, she found them empty on her
return, her dinner gone--a most serious thing when it was as by the skin
of her teeth that she got anything at all to cook and any fuel to cook
with; and when, moreover, cooking was new and tremendously hard work. "We
could not always identify the thief; when we could, we were afraid to
incur the enmity of the men. Better have our things stolen than worse
happen us, as might if officers punished those men on our report. I kept a
still tongue in my head."
Though a wife and mother, she was yet in girlhood's years, very soft and
fair; had been "lapped in luxury," with a maid for herself, a nurse for
her boy, a servant to do this, that, or the other thing, for her. She
thus describes her first essay at the family wash. There was a fine well
in her yard, and men came to get water. A big-hearted Irishman caught the
little lady struggling over soap-suds. It looked as if she would never get
those clothes clean. For one thing, when she tried to wring them, they
were streaked with blood from her arms and hands; she had peculiarly fine
and tender skin.
"Faith an' be jabbers!" said Pat, "an' what is it that you're thryin' to
do?" "Go away, and let me alone!" "Faith, an' if ye don't lave off clanin'
thim garmints, they'll be that doirty--" "Go 'way!" "Sure, me choild, an'
if ye'll jis' step to the other soide of the tub without puttin' me to the
inconvaniance--" He was about to pick her up in his mighty hands. She
moved and dropped down, swallowing a sob.
"Sure, an' it's as good a washerwoman as ivver wore breeches I am," said
Pat. "An' that's what I've larned in the army." In short order, he had all
the clothes hanging snow-white on the line; before he left, he cut enough
wood for her ironing. "I'm your Bridget ivery wash-day that comes 'roun',"
he said as he swung himself off. He was good as his word. This brother-man
did her wash every week. "Sure, an' it's a shame it is," he would say,
"the Government fadin' the lazy nagurs an' God an' the divvil can't make
'em wur-r-k."
Through Tony, her son, another link was formed 'twixt late enemies. It was
hard for mothers busy at housework to keep track of young children;
without fences for definement of yard-limits, and with all old landmarks
wiped out, it was easy for children to wander beyond bearings. A lost
child was no rarity. One day General and Mrs. Saxton drove up in their
carriage, bringing Tony. Tony had lost himself; fright, confusion, lack of
food, had made him ill; he had been brought to the attention of the
general and his wife, who, instead of sending the child home by a
subordinate, came with him themselves, the lady holding the pale little
fellow in her arms, comforting and soothing him. Thus began friendship
between Mrs. S. and Mrs. Saxton; not only small Tony was now pressed to
take airings with Yankees, but his mother. The general did all he could to
make life easier for her; had wood hauled and cut for her. The Southern
woman's reduction to poverty and menial tasks mortified him, as they
mortified many another manly blue-coat, witness of the reduction. "It is
pitiable and it is all wrong," said one officer to Mrs. S. "Our people up
North simply don't know how things are down here." A lady friend of Mrs.
S.'s tells me that she knew a Northern officer--(giving his name)--who
resigned his commission because he found himself unable to witness the
sufferings of Southern women and children, and have a hand in imposing
them.
Rulers who came under just condemnation as "military satraps" governing in
a democracy in time of peace by the bayonet, when divorced from the
exercise of their office, won praise as men. Thus, General Meade's rule in
Georgia is open to severest criticism, yet Ellen Meade Clarke, who saw him
as the man and not as the oppressor, says: "I had just married and gone to
Atlanta when Sherman ordered the citizens out, which order I hastily
obeyed, leaving everything in my Peachtree cottage home. Was among the
first to return. Knew all the generals in command; they were all
neighbors; General Meade, who was sent to see me by some one bearing our
name, proved a good and faithful friend and, on his death-bed, left me his
prayer-book."
[Illustration: MISS MARY MEADE, OF PETERSBURG, VA.
She was known far and wide for her loveliness of person and character, her
intellectual gifts and social graces.]
LOVERS AND PRAYERS
CHAPTER XI
BUTTONS, LOVERS, OATHS, WAR LORDS, AND PRAYERS FOR PRESIDENTS
Some military orders were very irritating.
The "Button Order" prohibited our men from wearing Confederate buttons.
Many possessed no others and had not money wherewith to buy. "Buttons were
scarce as hens' teeth." The Confederacy had been reduced to all sorts of
makeshifts for buttons. Thorns from thornbushes had furnished country
folks with such fastenings as pins usually supply, and served convenience
on milady's toilette-table when she went to do up her hair.
One clause in that monstrous order delighted feminine hearts! It provided
as thoughtful concession to all too glaring poverty that: "When plain
buttons cannot be procured, those formerly used can be covered with
cloth." Richmond ladies looked up all the bits of crape and bombazine they
had, and next morning their men appeared on the streets with buttons in
mourning! "I would never have gotten Uncle out of the front door if he had
realized what I was up to," Matoaca relates. "Not that he was not mournful
enough, but he did not want to mourn that way."
Somehow, nobody thought about Sam's button; he was a boy, only fifteen. He
happened to go out near Camp Grant in his old gray jacket, the only coat
he had; one of his brothers had given it to him months before. It was held
together over his breast by a single button, his only button. A Yankee
sergeant cut it off with his sword. The jacket fell apart, exposing
bepatched and thread-bare underwear. His mother and sisters could not help
crying when the boy came in, holding his jacket together with his hand,
his face suffused, his eyes full of tears of rage and mortification.
The "Button Trouble" pervaded the entire South. The Tennessee Legislature,
Brownlow's machine, discussed a bill imposing a fine of $5 to $25 upon
privates, and $25 to $50 upon officers for wearing the "rebel uniform."
The gaunt, destitute creatures who were trudging, stumping, limping,
through that State on their way from distant battlefields and Northern
prisons to their homes, had rarely so much as fifty cents in their
pockets. Had that bill become a law enforced, Tennessee prisons must have
overflowed with recaptured Confederates, or roads and woods with men in
undress.
Many a distinguished soldier, home-returning, ignorant that such an order
existed, has been held up at the entrance to his native town by a saucy
negro sergeant who would shear him of buttons with a sabre, or march him
through the streets to the Provost's office to answer for the crime of
having buttons on his clothes.
The provision about covering buttons has always struck me as the unkindest
cut of all. How was a man who had no feminine relatives to obey the law?
Granted that as a soldier, he had acquired the art of being his own
seamstress, how, when he was in the woods or the roads, could he get
scraps of cloth and cover buttons?
But of all commands ever issued, the "Marriage Order" was the most
extraordinary! That order said people should not get married unless they
took the Oath of Allegiance. If they did, they would be arrested. I have
forgotten the exact wording, but if you will look up General Order No.
4,[7] April 29, and signed by General Halleck, you can satisfy any
curiosity you may feel. It was a long ukase, saying what-all people should
not do unless they took the oath (some felt like taking a good many
daily!). Naturally, young people were greatly upset. Many had been engaged
a weary while, to be married soon as the war should be over.
Among those affected was Captain Sloan, whose marriage to Miss Wortham was
due the Tuesday following. The paper containing the order, heavily ringed
with black, darkened the roseate world upon which the bride-elect opened
her lovely eyes Saturday morning. The same hand that had put the order in
mourning had scribbled on the margin: "If Captain Sloan is not ready to
take that oath, I am."
Her maid informed her that Mr. Carrington, an elderly friend, fond of a
joke, was awaiting her. Descending to the drawing-room, she found it full
of sympathising neighbours, her betrothed in the midst, all debating a way
out of the difficulty. Not even sharp-witted lawyers could see one. In
times so out of joint law did not count.
The situation was saved by the fact that General Halleck had a namesake in
Captain Sloan's family. The Captain's "Uncle Jerry" (otherwise General
Jerry Gilmer, of South Carolina) had called a son "Henry Halleck" in
honour of his one-time class-mate at West Point. When the idea of the
namesake as basis of appeal dawned on Captain Sloan, day was passing. Miss
Wortham's father, who, before the Federal Government had interfered with
his dominion as a parent, had been anxious that his very youthful daughter
and her betrothed should defer their union, was now quite determined that
the rights of the lovers should not be abrogated by Uncle Sam. As member
of the Confederate Ambulance Committee, he had been in close touch with
Colonel Mulford, Federal Commissioner of Exchange; Judge Ould, Confederate
Commissioner, was his personal friend; in combination with these
gentlemen, he arranged a meeting twixt lover and war lord.
General Halleck received Hymen's ambassador with courtesy. The story of
the namesake won his sympathetic ear. When told what consternation his
order was causing--Captain Sloan plead other cases besides his own--the
war lord laughed, scribbled something on a slip of official paper and
handed it to Captain Sloan, saying: "Let this be known and I suppose there
will be a good many weddings before Monday." The slip read like this:
"Order No. 4 will not go into effect until Monday morning. H. W. Halleck,
General Commanding."
Alas! there were no Sunday papers. The news was disseminated as widely as
possible; and three weddings, at least, in high society, happened Sunday
in consequence. Mrs. Sloan, a prominent member of Baltimore society, gave
her own account of the whole matter in Mrs. Daniel's "Confederate
Scrap-Book," which any one may see at the Confederate Museum.
"The gown I wore the day after my marriage," she relates, "was a buff
calico with tiny dots in it, and as it was prettily and becomingly made,
I looked as well, and I know I was as happy, as if it had been one of
Worth's or Redfern's most bewildering conceits--and I am sure it was as
expensive, as it cost $30 a yard."
General Halleck's order was not unique. Restrictions on marriage had been
incorporated in the State Constitution of Missouri, 1864, a section
prescribing that "No person shall practice law, be competent as bishop,
priest, deacon, minister, elder, or other clergyman of any religious
persuasion, sect, or denomination, teach, preach, or solemnise marriage
until such person shall have first taken the oath required as to voters."
"Under these provisions," commented Senator Vest, from whom I borrow, "the
parent who had given a piece of bread or a cup of water to a son in the
Confederate service, or who had in any way expressed sympathy for such
son, was prohibited from registering as voter, serving as juror, or
holding any office or acting as trustee, or practicing law, or teaching in
any school, or preaching the Gospel, or solemnising the marriage rite."[8]
Strictly construed, the test-oath imposed by Congress in 1867, like that
of Missouri, excluded from franchise and office, the parent who had given
a piece of bread or a cup of water or his sympathy to a son in the
Confederate service; and the negro who had made wheat and corn for his
master's family, as the applicant must swear that he had not "given aid or
comfort to" Confederates.
The Missouri test-oath was one that prominent Union men, among them
General Francis P. Blair, leader of the Union Party in his State, a man
who had taken part in the siege of Vicksburg and marched with Sherman to
the sea, were unable to take. Americans beholding his statue in Statuary
Hall, Washington, as that of one of the two sons Missouri most delights to
honour, will find food for curious reflection in the fact that General
Blair, going in full Federal uniform to register as a voter, was not
allowed to do so. Visitors to Blair Hall at the St. Louis Exposition may
have been reminded of this little incident of reconstruction. In 1867,
Father John A. Cummings was arrested and tried for performing parochial
duties without taking the oath. A bill forbidding women to marry until
they took the oath was passed by Tennessee's Senate, but the House
rejected it. This bill, like Missouri's law, discriminated against
ministers of the Gospel; those who had sympathised with "rebels" or in any
way aided them, were condemned to work on the public roads and other
degrading forms of expiation.
There was no appreciable reluctance on the part of the people to take the
oath of allegiance. They could honestly swear for the future to sustain
the Government of the United States, but few, or no decent people, even
Unionists, living among Confederates, could vow they had given no "aid or
comfort" to one. The test-oath cultivated hypocrisy in natives and invited
carpet-baggers. A native who would take it was eligible to office, while
the honest man who would not lie, was denied a right to vote.
In readiness to take the oath of allegiance, people rushed so promptly to
tribunals of administration that the sincerity of the South was questioned
at the North, where it could not be understood how sharp was our need to
have formalities of submission over and done with, that we might get to
work. One striking cartoon pictured Columbia upon a throne gloomily
regarding a procession that came bending, bowing, kneeling, creeping,
crawling, to her feet, General Lee leader and most abject, with Howell
Cobb, Wade Hampton, and other distinguished Southerners around him.
Beneath was this: "Can I trust these men?" On the opposite page, a
one-legged negro soldier held out his hand; beneath was: "Franchise? And
not this man?"
[Illustration: MRS. HENRY L. POPE
(Sarah Moore Ewing)
First Kentucky State Regent D. A. R.
From a portrait by de Franca, photographed by Doerr. Louisville, Ky.]
A few people had serious scruples of conscience against taking the oath. I
know of two or three whose attitude, considering their personalities, was
amusing and pathetic. There was one good lady, Mrs. Wellington, who walked
all the way from Petersburg to Richmond, a distance of twenty miles, for
fear the oath might be required if she boarded a car!
I turn to Matoaca's journal:
"I have been visiting Cousin Mary in Powhatan. Of course they have
military government there, too. Soldiers ride up, enter without
invitation, walk through the house, seat themselves at the piano and play;
promenade to the rear, go into the kitchen, sit down and talk with the
darkeys.
"At church, I saw officers wearing side-arms. They come regularly to watch
if we pray for the President of the United States. I hope they were
edified; a number stood straight up during that prayer. Among the most
erect were the M. girls, who have very _retroussé_ noses. The Yankees
reported: 'Not only do they stand up when the President is prayed for, but
they turn up their noses.' They sent word back: 'A mightier power than the
Yankee Army turned up our noses.'
"I hear they have dealt severely with Rev. Mr. Wingfield because he would
not read that prayer for the President. When brought up for it, he told
the examining officer he could not--it was a matter of conscience. They
put a ball and chain on him and made him sweep the streets. And these
people are the exponents of 'freedom,' and 'liberty of conscience.' They
come from a land whose slogan is these words! They have no right to force
us to pray according to their views. For myself, I kneel during the
prayer, I try to pray it; I seek to feel it, since to pray without feeling
is mockery. But I don't feel it.
"Uncle advised: 'My daughter, no man needs your prayers more than the
President of the United States. He has great and grave responsibilities.
We must desire that a higher power shall direct him. The President is
surrounded by advisers bent on revenge, so bent on it that they seem to
care nothing whatever for the Union--the real union of the North and
South.' So I bow my head, and I try--God knows I try! But thoughts of all
the blood that has been shed, of the homes that have been burned, the
suffering and starvation endured, will rush into my mind as I kneel. Dear
Christ! did you know how hard a command you laid upon us when you said,
'Pray for your enemies?'"
An entry after Mr. Lincoln's death says: "How can I pray that prayer in
the face of this?" Below is pasted Johnson's proclamation charging the
assassination to Mr. Davis and other Southern leaders. This follows: "How
_can_ I pray for the President of the United States? That proclamation is
an insult flung in the face of the whole South! And we have to take it."
They had as much trouble at Washington over our prayers as over our few
buttons and clothes.
The Sunday after the evacuation--one week from the day on which the
messenger came from General Lee to Mr. Davis--the Federals were
represented in St. Paul's by distinguished and respectful worshippers.
Nearly all women present were in black. When the moment came for the
petition for "the President of the Confederate States and all others in
authority," you could have heard a pin fall. The congregation had kinsmen
in armies still under the authority of the President of the Confederacy;
they were full of anxiety; their hearts were torn and troubled. Were they
here before God to abjure their own? Were they to utter prayer that was
mockery? To require them to pray for the President of the United States
was like calling upon the martyrs of old to burn incense to strange gods.
Dr. Minnegerode read the prayer, omitting the words "for the President of
the Confederate States," simply saying "for all in authority." Generals
Weitzel, Shepley and Ripley had consented that it was to be thus.
Assistant Secretary of War Dana writes to Secretary of War Stanton: "On
Friday, I asked Weitzel about what he was going to do in regard to opening
the churches on Sunday. He said ministers would be warned against
treasonable utterances and be told they must put up loyal prayers."
It seems that after this conversation the determination of the Commandant
and his Staff to wrest piety and patriotism out of the rebels at one fell
swoop, underwent modification, partly, perhaps, as a concession to the
Almighty, of whom it was fair to presume that He might not be altogether
pleased with prayers offered on the point of a sword.
Scandalised at official laxity in getting just dues from Heaven for the
United States, Dana continues: "It shakes my faith a good deal in
Weitzel." In subsequent letters he says it was Shepley's or Ripley's
fault; Weitzel really thought the people ought to be made to pray right;
the crime was somehow fastened finally on Judge Campbell's back, and
Weitzel was informed that he must have no further oral communications with
this dangerous and seditious person. Thus Mr. Stanton rounded up Weitzel:
"If you have consented that services should be performed in the Episcopal
Churches of Richmond without the usual prayer said in loyal churches for
the President, your action is strongly condemned by this Department. I am
not willing to believe that an officer of the United States commanding in
Richmond would consent to such an omission of respect for the President of
the United States." Weitzel: "Do you desire that I should order this form
of prayer in Episcopal, Hebrew, Roman Catholic, and other churches where
they have a liturgy?" Stanton: "No mark of respect must be omitted to
President Lincoln which was rendered to the rebel, Jeff Davis." Weitzel:
"Dispatch received. Order will be issued in accordance therewith."
Is it any wonder that Grant and Sherman between them finally said to
President Johnson: "Mr. President, you should make some order that we of
the army are not bound to obey the orders of Mr. Stanton as Secretary of
War."
The Episcopal clergy presented the case clearly to General Weitzel and his
Staff, who, as reasonable men, appreciated the situation. "The Church and
State are not one in this country; we, as men, in all good faith take the
oath of allegiance required of us. As priests, we are under ecclesiastical
jurisdiction; we cannot add to the liturgy. A convention of the Church
must be called. Meanwhile, we, of course, omit words held treasonable,
reciting, 'for all in authority,' which surely includes the President.
Forcing public feeling will be unwise; members will absent themselves, or
go to a church which, not using any ritual, is not under compulsion; the
order is, in effect, discrimination against the Episcopal Church."
Our people, they said, "desire by quiet and inoffensive conduct to respond
to the liberal policy of those in command; they deeply appreciate the
conciliatory measures adopted, and all the more regret to appear as
dissenters." They wrote to President Johnson, asking opportunity for
action by heads of the diocese; they said that when the South seceded,
standing forms had obtained for months till change was so wrought. That
letter went the rounds of the War, State, and Executive Departments, and
was returned "disapproved," and the Episcopal Churches of Richmond were
actually closed by military order until they would say that prayer.
Even President Lincoln was moved to write General Weitzel, asking what it
meant that he hadn't made people pray as they ought! "You told me not to
insist upon little things," said Weitzel.
Had we been let alone in the matter of praying for the President, we would
all very soon have come to see the subject in the light in which Uncle
Randolph presented it. As it was, conscientious prelates were in
straitened positions, not wishing to lead their people in petitions which
the latter would resent or regard at the best as empty formula. Omission
of the prayer altogether was recommended by Bishop Wilmer, of Alabama, as
the wisest course for the moment; General Woods suspended the Bishop and
all clergy of his diocese; they were not to preach or to lead in church
service; and, I believe, were not to marry the living, baptise the
new-born, or bury the dead. President Johnson set such orders aside as
soon as he came to his senses after the shock of Mr. Lincoln's death.
General McPherson commanded pastors of Vicksburg (1864) to read the
prescribed prayer for the President at each and every service; pastors of
churches without such prescribed form were instructed to invent one. The
Bishop of Natchez, William Henry Elder, was banished because he would not
read the prayer. Some young ladies, of Vicksburg, were banished because
they rose and left the church, on Christmas morning, when a minister read
it. An order signed by General McPherson, served on each, said she was
"hereby banished and must leave the Federal lines within forty-eight hours
under penalty of imprisonment." No extension of time for getting "their
things ready" was allowed. Permission was given for the mother of one
delinquent to chaperon the bevy, which, with due ceremony, was deported
under flag of truce, hundreds of Federal soldiers watching.
One Sunday in New Orleans under Butler's rule, Major Strong was at Dr.
Goodrich's church; time came for prayer for the Confederacy; there was
silence. Major Strong rose and thundered: "Stop, sir! I close this church
in ten minutes!" Rev. Dr. Leacock[9] wrote Butler a tender letter begging
him not to force people to perjury in taking the oath through fear,
prefacing: "No man more desires restoration of the Union than I." Helen
Gray, Dr. Leacock's granddaughter, tells me: "My grandfather was arrested
in church and marched through the city in ecclesiastical robes to answer
for not praying as Butler bade; Rev. Dr. Goodrich and Rev. Mr. Fulton (now
Editor of the 'Church Standard') were also arrested. Butler sent them
North to be imprisoned in Fort Lafayette. The levee was thronged with
people, many weeping to see them go. They were met at New York by
influential citizens, among these Samuel Morse, the inventor, who
offered them his purse, carriage and horses. They were paroled and
entertained at the Astor House. Some people were bitter and small towards
them; many were kind, among these, I think, was Bishop Potter. Hon.
Reverdy Johnson took up their case. Grandfather served St. Mark's,
Niagara, Canada, in the rector's absence; the people presented him,
through Mrs. Dr. Marston, with a purse; he served at Chamblee, where the
people also presented him with a purse. Mrs. Greenleaf, Henry W.
Longfellow's sister, sent him a purse of $500; she had attended his church
during ante-bellum visits to New Orleans, and she loved him dearly. Rev.
F. E. Chubbuck, the Yankee Chaplain appointed to succeed my grandfather,
called on my grandmother, expressed regrets and sympathies, and offered to
do anything he could for her. I tell the tale as it has come to me."
Government reports confirm this in essentials.
[Illustration: MRS. WILLIAM HOWELL (Mary Leacock)
MRS. ANDREW GRAY (Lina Leacock)
Daughters of the Rev. Dr. Leacock, of Christ Church, New Orleans.]
Of course, denominations not using a liturgy, had an advantage, but they
were not exempt. Major B. K. Davis, Lexington, Mo., April 25, 1865, to
Major-General Dodge: "On the 7th of April, from the well-known disloyalty
of the churches of this place, I issued an order that pastors of all
churches return thanks for our late victories. The pastor of the M. E.
Church declined to do so, and I took the keys of his church."
In Huntsville, Alabama, 1862, Rev. F. A. Ross, Presbyterian minister, was
arrested and sent north by General Rousseau because, when commanded to
pray for the Yankees, he prayed: "We beseech thee, O Lord, to bless our
enemies and remove them from our midst as soon as seemeth good in Thy
sight!"[10]
"The Confederate Veteran" tells this of General Lee. At Communion in St.
Paul's soon after the occupation, the first person to walk up to the altar
and kneel was a negro man. Manner and moment made the act sinister, a
challenge, not an expression of piety. The congregation sat, stunned and
still, not knowing what to do. General Lee rose, walked quietly up the
aisle and knelt near the negro. The people followed and service proceeded
as if no innovation had been attempted. The custom by which whites
preceded negroes to the altar originated, not in contempt for negroes, but
in ideas of what was right, orderly and proper. So far were whites from
despising negroes in religious fellowship that it was not strange for both
races to assemble in plantation chapels and join in worship conducted by
the black preacher in the white preacher's absence. I sometimes think
those old Southerners knew the negro better than we ever can. But just
after the war, they were not supposed to know anything of value on any
subject.
Wherever there was a press, it was muzzled by policy if not by such direct
commands as General Sherman's in Savannah, when he ordained that there
should be no more than two newspapers, and forbade "any libelous
publication, mischievous matter, premature acts, exaggerated statements,
_or any comments whatever upon the acts of the constituted authorities_,"
on pain of heavy penalties to editors and proprietors. Some people say we
ought, even now, for the family honour, to hush up everything unpleasant
and discreditable. Not so! It is not well for men in power to think that
their acts are not to be inquired into some day.
CLUBBED TO HIS KNEES
CHAPTER XII
CLUBBED TO HIS KNEES
As illustrations of embarrassments we had to face, I have chiefly chosen
incidents showing a kindly and forbearing spirit on the part of Federal
commanders, because I desire to pay tribute wherever I may to men in blue,
remembering that Southern boys are now wearing the blue and that all men
wearing the blue are ours. I have chiefly chosen incidents in which the
Federal officers, being gentlemen and brave men--being decent and
human--revolted against exercise of cruelty to a fallen foe.
Truth compels the shield's reverse.
In Richmond, one officer in position went to a prominent citizen and
demanded $600 of him, threatening to confiscate and sell his home if he
did not give it. This citizen, a lawyer and man of business, knew the
threat could not be executed, and refused to meet the demand. Others not
so wise paid such claims. In all parts of the South, many people, among
them widows and orphans, were thus impoverished beyond the pinched
condition in which war left them. Some sold their remnants of furniture,
the very beds they slept on, a part of their scanty raiment, and in one
case on official record, "the coverlid off the baby's bed," to satisfy the
spurious claims of men misusing authority.
An instance illustrating our helplessness is that of Captain Bayard, who
came out of the war with some make-shift crutches, a brave heart, and a
love affair as the sum total of his capital in life. He made his first
money by clerical work for sympathetic Federal officials. This he invested
in a new suit of clothes; "They are right nice-looking," he said with
modest pride when conveying the pleasing intelligence to one interested;
and he bought a pair of artificial feet.
Then he set out to see his sweetheart, feeling very proud. It was the
first time he had tried his feet on the street, and he was not walking
with any sense of security, but had safely traversed a square or two and
was crossing a street, when a Federal officer came galloping along and
very nearly ran over him; he threw up his cane. The horse shied, the
cavalryman jumped off and knocked him down. As fast as he struggled up,
the cavalryman knocked him down again. A burly man ran to his assistance;
the cavalryman struck this man such a blow that it made tears spring in
his eyes; then mounted and galloped off. "He was obliged to see," said the
captain, "that I was a cripple, and that I could not get out of his way or
withstand his blows."
The worst Virginia had to bear was as nothing to what the Carolinas
suffered. There was that poor boy, who was hung in Raleigh on Lovejoy's
tree--where the Governor's Mansion now stands. He had fired off a pistol;
had hurt nobody--had not attempted to hurt anybody; it was just a boy's
thoughtless, crazy deed.
Entering Rosemont Cemetery, Newberry, S. C., one perceives on a tall
marble shaft "The Lone Star of Texas" and this: "Calvin S. Crozier, Born
at Brandon, Mississippi, August 1840, Murdered at Newberry, S. C.,
September 8, 1865."
At the close of the war, there were some 99,000 Confederates in Federal
prisons, whose release, beginning in May, continued throughout the
summer. Among these was Crozier, slender, boyish in appearance, brave,
thin to emaciation, pitifully weak and homesick. It was a far cry to his
home in sunny Galveston, but he had traversed three States when he fell
ill in North Carolina. A Good Samaritan nursed him, and set him on his way
again. At Orangeburg, S. C., a gentleman placed two young ladies,
journeying in the same direction, under his care. To Crozier, the trust
was sacred. At Newberry, the train was derailed by obstructions placed on
the track by negro soldiers of the 33d U. S. Regiment, which, under
command of Colonel Trowbridge, white, was on its way from Anderson to
Columbia. Crozier got out with others to see what was the matter.
Returning, he found the coach invaded by two half-drunk negro soldiers,
cursing and using indecent language. He called upon them to desist,
directing their attention to the presence of ladies. They replied that
they "didn't care a d----!" One attempted gross familiarities with one of
the ladies. Crozier ejected him; the second negro interfered; there was a
struggle in the dark; one negro fled unhurt; the other, with a slight cut,
ran towards camp, yelling: "I'm cut by a d----d rebel!" Black soldiers
came in a mob.
The narrative, as told on the monument, concludes: "The infuriated
soldiers seized a citizen of Newberry, upon whom they were about to
execute savage revenge, when Crozier came promptly forward and avowed his
own responsibility. He was hurried in the night-time to the bivouac of the
regiment to which the soldiers belonged, was kept under guard all night,
was not allowed communication with any citizen, was condemned to die
without even the form of a trial, and was shot to death about daylight the
following morning, and his body mutilated."
He had been ordered to dig his own grave, but refused. A hole had been
dug, he was made to kneel on its brink, the column fired upon him, he
tumbled into it, and then the black troops jumped on it, laughing,
dancing, stamping. The only mercy shown him was by one humane negro, who,
eager to save his life, besought him to deny his identity as the striker
of the blow. White citizens watched their moment, removed his remains, and
gave them Christian burial.
There was the burning of Brenham, Texas, September 7, 1866. Federal
soldiers from the post attended a negro ball, and so outraged the
decencies that negro men closed the festivities. The soldiers pursued the
negro managers, one of whom fled for safety to a mansion, where a party of
young white people were assembled. The pursuers abused him in profane and
obscene terms. The gentlemen reminded them that ladies were in hearing;
they said they "didn't care a d----!" and drew pistols on the whites. A
difficulty ensued, two soldiers were wounded, their comrades carried them
to camp, returned and fired the town. The incendiaries were never
punished, their commander spiriting them away when investigation was
begun.[11]
"Numbers of our citizens were murdered by the soldiers of the United
States, and in some instances deliberately shot down by them, in the
presence of their wives and children," writes Hon. Charles Stewart, of
reconstruction times, early and late, in Texas, and cites the diabolical
midnight murder of W. A. Burns and Dallas, his son, giving the testimony
of Sarah, daughter of one, sister of the other, and witness of the
horrible deed, from the performance of which the assassins walked away
"laughing." "Let no one suppose that the instances given were isolated
cases of oppression that might occur under any Government, however good,"
says Mr. Stewart. "They were of such frequent occurrence as to excite the
alarm of good people."
Federal posts were a protection to the people, affording a sense of peace
and security, or the reverse, according to the character of the
commanders. To show how differently different men would determine the same
issue, it may be cited that General Wilde confiscated the home of Mrs.
Robert Toombs to the uses of the Freedmen's Bureau, ordering her to give
possession and limiting the supplies she might remove to two weeks'
provisions. General Steedman humanely revoked this order, restoring her
home to Mrs. Toombs. There was no rule by which to forecast the course a
military potentate, ignorant of civil law, might pursue. The mood he was
in, the dinner he had eaten, the course of a flirtation on hand, motives
of personal spite, gain or favoritism, might determine a decision
affecting seriously a whole community, who would be powerless to appeal
against it, his caprice being law.
In a previous chapter I have told a story showing General Saxton in a most
attractive light. In his "Provisional Governorship of South Carolina,"
Governor Perry says: "The poor refugees (of the Sea Islands) were without
fortune, money or the means of living! Many had nothing to eat except
bread and water, and were thankful if they could get bread. I appointed W.
H. Trescott to go to Washington and represent them in trying to recover
their lands. He procured an order for the restoration, but General Saxton
or some of his sub-agents thwarted in some way the design and purport of
this order, and I believe the negroes are still in possession."
So, in some places you will hear Southerners say that, save for domestic
and industrial upheavals resulting from emancipation and for the
privations of acute poverty, they suffered no extreme trials while under
the strictly martial regime--were victims of no act of tyranny from local
Federal authorities; in other places, you will hear words reflecting
praise on such authorities; in others, evidence is plain that inhabitants
endured worse things of military satraps than Israel suffered of Pharaoh.
As the days went by, there were fresh occasions for the conclusion: "The
officers who gave Captain Bayard work and the officer who knocked him down
are types of two classes of our conquerors and rulers. One is ready to
help the cripple to his feet, the other to knock him down again and again.
Congress will club the cripple with the negro ballot." "If that be true,"
said some, "the cripple will rise no more. Let me go hence ere my eyes
behold it. Spilled blood and ruin wrought I can forgive, but not this
thing!"
NEW FASHIONS
CHAPTER XIII
NEW FASHIONS: A LITTLE BONNET AND AN ALPACA SKIRT
The confessions of Matoaca:
"I will never forget how queer we thought the dress of the Northern
ladies. A great many came to Richmond, and Military Headquarters was very
gay. Band answered band in the neighbourhood of Clay and Twelfth Streets,
and the sound of music and dancing feet reached us through our closed
shutters.
"Some ladies wore on the streets white petticoats, braided with black,
under their dresses, which were looped up over these. Their gowns were
short walking length, and their feet could be seen quite plainly. That
style would be becoming to us, we said to ourselves, thinking of our small
feet--at least I said so to myself. Up to that time we had considered it
immodest to show our feet, our long dresses and hoop-skirts concealing
them. We had been wearing coal-scuttle bonnets of plaited straw, trimmed
with corn-shuck rosettes. I made fifteen one spring, acquired a fine name
as a milliner, and was paid for my work.
"I recall one that was quite stunning. I got hold of a bit of much-worn
white ribbon and dyed it an exquisite shade of green, with a tea made of
coffee-berries. Coffee-berries dye a lovely green; you might remember that
if you are ever in a war and blockaded. Our straw-and-shuck bonnets were
pretty. How I wish I had kept mine as a souvenir--and other specimens of
my home-made things! But we threw all our home-made things away--we were
so tired of make-shifts!--and got new ones as soon as we could. How eager
we were to see the fashions! We had had no fashions for a long time.
"When the Northern ladies appeared on the streets, they did not seem to
have on any bonnets at all. They wore tiny, three-cornered affairs tied on
with narrow strings, and all their hair showing in the back. We thought
them the most absurd and trifling things! But we made haste to get some.
How did we see the fashions when we kept our blinds closed? Why, we could
peep through the shutters, of course. Remember, we had seen no fashions
for a long time. Then, too, after the earlier days, we did not keep our
windows shut.
"I began braiding me a skirt at once. The Yankees couldn't teach me
anything about braid! To the longest day I live, I will remember the reign
of skirt-braid during the Confederacy! There was quite a while when we had
no other trimming, yet had that in abundance, a large lot having been run
through the blockade; it came to the Department. The Department got to be
a sort of Woman's Exchange. Prices were absurd. I paid $75 for a paper of
pins and thought it high, but before the war was over, I was thankful to
get a paper for $100. I bought, once, a cashmere dress for the price of a
calico, $25 a yard, because it was a little damaged in running the
blockade. At the same time, Mrs. Jefferson Davis bought a calico dress
pattern for $500 and a lawn for $1,000; one of my friends paid $1,400 for
a silk, another, $1,100 for a black merino. Mine was the best bargain. It
lasted excellently. I made it over in the new fashion after the
evacuation. One of the styles brought by the Northern ladies was black
alpaca skirts fringed. I got one as soon as I could.
"The Yankees introduced some new fashions in other things besides clothes
that I remember vividly, one being canned fruit. I had never seen any
canned fruit before the Yankees came. Perhaps we had had canned fruit, but
I do not remember it. Pleasant innovations in food were like to leave
lasting impressions on one who had been living on next to nothing for an
indefinite period."
The mystery of her purchase of the alpaca skirt and the little bonnet is
solved by her journal:
"I am prospering with my needlework. I sew early and late. My friends who
are better off give me work, paying me as generously as they can. Mammy
Jane has sold some of my embroideries to Northern ladies. Many ladies,
widows and orphans, are seeking employment as teachers. The great trouble
is that so few people are able to engage them or to pay for help of any
kind. Still, we all manage to help each other somehow.
"Nannie, our young bride, is raising lettuce, radish, nasturtiums, in her
back yard for sale. She is painting her house herself (with her husband's
help). She is going to give the lettuce towards paying the church debt.
She has nothing else to give. I think I will raise something to buy
window-panes for this house. Window-panes patched with paper are all the
fashion in this town.
"The weather is very hot now. After supper, we go up on Gamble's Hill, our
fashionable cooling-off resort, to get a breath of fresh air; then come
back and work till late in the night. O, for a glimpse of the mountains! a
breath of mountain air! But I can only dream of the Greenbrier White and
the Old Sweet Springs!
"Last night, on Gamble's Hill, we observed near us a party whom we
recognized by accent and good clothes as Northerners. One of the ladies,
looking down on our city, said: 'Behold the fruits of secession!' Below us
in the moonlight lay Richmond on her noble river, beautiful in spite of
her wounds. A gentleman spoke: 'Massachusetts thought of seceding once. I
am sorry for these people.' How I wanted to shout: 'Behold the fruits of
invasion!' But, of course, I did not. I thanked our advocate with my
eyes."
A few had a little store laid up previous to the evacuation. A short time
before that, the Confederate Government was selling some silver coin at $1
for $60 in notes; at Danville, it was sold for $70; and thrifty ones who
could, bought.
Women who had been social queens, who had had everything heart could wish,
and a retinue of servants happy to obey their behests and needing nothing,
now found themselves reduced to harder case than their negroes had ever
known, and gratefully and gracefully availed themselves of the lowliest
tasks by which they might earn enough to buy a dress for the baby, a pair
of shoes for little bare feet, coffee or tea or other luxury for an
invalid dear one, or a bit of any sort of food to replenish a nearly empty
larder.
The first greenbacks were brought to one family by a former dining-room
servant. His mistress, unable to pay him wages, had advised him to seek
employment elsewhere. At the end of a week, he returned, saying: "Mistiss,
here is five dollahs. I'm makin' twenty dollahs a month, an' rations,
waitin' on one uh de Yankee officers. I'll bring you my wages evvy week."
"John," she said, "I don't know how to take it, for I don't see how I can
ever pay it back." He knew she was in dire straits. "You took care uh me
all my life, Mistiss, an' learnt me how to work. I orter do whut I kin
fuh you." Seeing her still hesitate: "You got property, you kin raise
money on presen'y. Den you kin pay me back, but I'd be proud ef you
wouldn' bother yo'se'f." Could her son have done more? The Old South had
many negroes as good and true. Was the system altogether wrong that
developed such characters?
Some of our people had Northern friends and relatives who contrived money
to them. Mrs. Gracebridge was one of the fortunate; and everybody was
glad. No one deserved better of fate or friends. She had entertained many
refugees, was the most hospitable soul in the world. Had her table been
large enough to seat the world, the world would have been welcome. From
her nephew, living in New York, an officer of the United States Navy came
with a message and money.
She had a way of addressing everybody as "my dear friend." Her household
teasingly warned her that she was going to call this messenger "my dear
friend." "Never!" she exclaimed. "Never in the world will I call a Yankee,
'my dear friend!' Never! How can you say such a thing to me! I am
surprised, astonished, at the suggestion!" They listened, and before she
and her guest had exchanged three sentences, heard her calling him "my
dear friend," in spite of the insistent evidence of his gorgeous blue
uniform, gold lace and brass buttons, that he was decidedly a Yankee.
It was a custom, rooted and grounded in her being, to offer refreshments
to guests; when nothing else was left with which to show good feeling, she
would bring in some lumps of white sugar, a rarity and a luxury, and pass
this around. Never will spying intimates forget the expression of that
naval officer's countenance when, at her call, a little black hand-maid
presented on an old-fashioned silver salver, in an exquisite saucer, a
few lumps of white sugar! He looked hard at it; then grasped the
situation and a lump, glancing first at her, then at the sugar, as if he
did not know whether to laugh or to cry.
She was a delightful woman. She and her two little darkeys afforded her
friends no end of diversion. She had never managed her negroes in
slavery-time. After the war, everybody's darkeys did as they pleased; hers
did a little more so. At this pair, she constantly exclaimed, in great
surprise: "They don't mind a word I say!" "My dear lady!" she was
reminded, "you must expect that. They are free. They don't belong to you
now."
And she would ask: "If they don't belong to me, whose are they?" That was
to her a hopeless enigma. They had to belong to somebody. It was out of
decency and humanity that they should have nobody to belong to! They would
stand behind her chair, giggling and bubbling over with merriment.
THE GENERAL IN THE CORNFIELD
CHAPTER XIV
THE GENERAL IN THE CORNFIELD
We did anything and everything we could to make a living. Prominent
citizens became pie-sellers. Colonel Cary, of General Magruder's Staff,
came home to find his family desperately poor, as were all respectable
folks. He was a brave soldier, an able officer; before the war, principal
of a male academy at Hampton. Now, he did not know to what he could turn
his hand for the support of himself and family. He walked around his
place, came in and said to his wife: "My dear, I have taken stock of our
assets. You pride yourself on your apple-pies. We have an apple-tree, and
a cow. I will gather the apples and milk the cow, and you will make the
pies, and I will go around and sell them."
Armed with pies, he met his aforetime antagonists at Camp Grant and
conquered them quite. The pies were delicious; the seller was a soldier,
an officer of distinction, in hard luck; and the men at Camp Grant were
soldiers, too. There was sharp demand and good price; only the
elite--officers of rank--could afford to indulge in these confections.
Well it was that Yankee mothers had cultivated in their sons an appetite
for pies. One Savannah lady made thirty dollars selling pies to Sherman's
soldiers; in Georgia's aristocratic "City by the Sea," high-bred dames
stood at basement windows selling cakes and pies to whoever would buy.
Colonel Cary had thrifty rivals throughout Dixie. A once rich planter near
Columbia made a living by selling flowers; a Charleston aristocrat peddled
tea by the pound and molasses by the quart to his former slaves. General
Stephen Elliott, Sumter's gallant defender, sold fish and oysters which he
caught with his own hands. His friend, Captain Stoney, did likewise.
Gentlemen of position and formerly of wealth did not pause to consider
whether they would be discredited by pursuing occupations quite as humble.
Men of high attainments, without capital, without any basis upon which to
make a new start in life except "grit," did whatever they could find to do
and made merry over it.
Yet reporters going over our battle-swept, war-scarred land from whose
fields our laboring class had been by one fell stroke diverted, judged us
by evidences of inertia seen from windows of creepy little cars--(where we
had any cars at all)--that stopped every few hours to take on wood or
water or to repair something or other. For a long time, there was good
reason why our creepy railroads should be a doubly sore subject. Under the
reconstruction governments every State paid thousands of dollars for
railroads that were never built.
All that Southern white men did, according to some ready scribes, was to
sit around cross-roads stores, expectorate tobacco-juice, swap jokes, and
abuse Yankees and niggers. In honesty, it must be confessed there was too
much of this done, any being too much. Every section has its corps of
idlers, its crew of yarn-spinners and drinkers, even in ordinary times
when war has not left upon men the inevitable demoralisation that follows
in its train. Had railway travellers gone into cotton and cornfields and
tobacco lots, they would have found there much of the flower and chivalry
of the Old South "leading the row." Sons of fathers who had been the
wealthiest and most influential men in Dixie came home from the war to
swing the hoe and drive the plow as resolutely as ever they had manned a
battery or charged the breastworks.
But the young men of the South were not born tillers of the soil; not
fitted by inheritance or education for manual toil. They were descendants
of generations who had not labored with their hands but had occupied
themselves as lawyers, doctors, politicians, gentlemen of leisure, and
agriculturists commanding large working forces. Our nation might have been
gainer had the Government devised measures by which talented men could
have been at once bound to its interests and their gifts utilised for the
common advantage. Instead of which, they were threatened with trial for
treason, with execution or exile, were disfranchised, disqualified, put
under the ban. Many who would have made brilliant and useful servants of
the Republic were driven abroad and found honourable service in Mexico,
Brazil, Egypt and Europe.
It is difficult for us at this day to realise what little promise life
held for the young American of the South; difficult even for the South of
the present to appreciate the irritations and humiliations that vexed and
chafed him. Many felt that they had no longer a country.
Mischief was inevitable as the result of repressed or distorted energies,
thwarted or stifled ambition. Some whose record for courage and steadiness
on the field of battle reflects glory on our common country, failed
utterly at adaptation. But as the patient effort of the great body politic
changed the times and opened opportunity, middle-age and youth were ready
to rush in with a will, occupying and improving fields of industry.
But the old people of the South never reacted. Many simply sat down and
died, succumbing to bereavement, hardships and heartbreak. They felt that
their country was dead. Men of their own blood, their brothers, had set
an alien race, an ignorant race, half-human, half-savage, above them; were
insisting that they should send their children to school with children of
this race, while their consciences cried out against the mere discussion
of this thing as an evil to themselves and the negro, and against the
thing itself as crime. Intermarriage was discussed in legislative halls;
bills sanctioning it were introduced; and the horrible black, social evil
due to passions of the white man and the half-human, half-savage
woman--the incubus, the nightmare, under which the whole section had
groaned with groanings that cannot be uttered--was flung in their faces as
more than fair reason.
With reconstruction there was strengthening of the tendency towards
expatriation. Despair and disgust drove many away; and more would have
gone had means been at hand. Whole families left the South and made homes
in Europe; among these, a goodly proportion were proud old Huguenots from
South Carolina. In some of the Cotton States it looked as if more white
men were to be lost thus than had been lost in battle. In December, 1867,
Mr. Charles Nathan, of New Orleans, announced through the press that he
had contracted with the Emperor of Brazil to transport 1,000 yearly to
that empire.
Many went into the enemy's country--went North. Their reports to old
neighbours were that they liked the enemy immensely at home; the enemy was
serenely unconscious of the mischief his fad was working in other people's
homes. He set down everything ill that happened South to the Southern
whites' "race prejudice"; and sipped his own soup and ate his own pie in
peace. The immigrant learned that it was wise to hold his tongue when
discussion of the negro came up. He was considered not to know anything
worth hearing upon the subject. His most careful and rational utterances
would be met with a pitying look which said as plainly as words lips
polite withheld: "Race prejudice hallucination!"
General Lee raised no uncertain voice against expatriation; from his
prison cell, Jefferson Davis deplored it in the first letters he was
allowed to write. Lee set prompt example in doing what his hand found to
do, and in choosing a task rather for public service than for private
gain. I quote a letter written by Mrs. Lee to Miss Mason, dated Derwent,
Virginia, December, 1865:
"The papers will have told you that General Lee has decided to accept the
position at Lexington. I do not think he is very fond of teaching, but he
is willing to do anything that will give him an honourable support. He
starts tomorrow _en cheval_ for Lexington. He prefers that way, and,
besides, does not like to part even for a time from his beloved steed, the
companion of many a hard-fought battle.... The kindness of the people of
Virginia to us has been truly great, and they seem never to tire. The
settlement of Palmore's surrounding us does not suffer us to want for
anything their gardens or farms can furnish.... My heart sinks when I hear
of the destitution and misery which abound further South--gentle and
refined women reduced to abject poverty, and no hope of relief."
Far more lucrative positions had been offered him; salaries without work,
for the mere use of his name. Solicitations came from abroad, and
brilliant opportunities invited across the ocean. He took the helm at
Washington College with this avowal: "I have a self-imposed task which I
must accomplish. I have led the young men of the South in battle. I have
seen many of them fall under my standard. I shall devote my life now to
training young men to do their duty in life." Urged in 1867 to run for
office, he declined, believing that his candidacy might not contribute to
sectional unification. As nearly perfect was this man as men are made. Our
National Capitol is the poorer because his statue is not there. If it ever
is, I should like to see on its pedestal Grant's tribute: "There was no
use to urge him to do anything against his ideas of what was right."
When the crippled and impoverished General Hood refused to receive money
raised by subscription, the "Albany Evening Journal" commented: "It is the
first instance we have ever seen recorded of a 'Southern gentleman' too
proud or self-reliant to accept filthy lucre, come from what source it
may." The "Petersburg Index-Appeal" responded:
"Hood has only done what Lee did a dozen times, what Beauregard did,
what Magruder did, and what President Davis did. The noble response of
Magruder to the people of Texas, who contributed a handsome purse to
procure him a fine plantation, was the impulse and utterance of the
universal spirit of the Southern soldier: 'No, gentlemen, when I
espoused the cause of the South, I embraced poverty and willingly
accepted it.'"
Near Columbia, on the ruins of his handsome home which Sherman burned,
General Wade Hampton, clever at wood-work, built with his own hands and
with the help of his faithful negroes, a lowly cottage to shelter himself
and family. A section was added at a time, and, without any preconceived
design on his part, the structure stood, when completed, a perfect cross.
Miss Isabella Martin, looking upon it one day, exclaimed: "General, you
have here the Southern Cross!" So "Southern Cross" the place was called.
Here, Mrs. Wade Hampton, who, as Miss McDuffie, had been the richest
heiress in South Carolina, and as such and as Hampton's wife, the
guardian angel of many black folk, wrought and ruled with wisdom and with
sweetness unsoured by reverses. South Carolina offered Hampton a home, as
Virginia and then Washington College offered Lee, but Hampton, almost in
want, refused.
This is the plight in which General M. C. Butler, Hampton's aide, came out
of the war: "Twenty-nine years old, with one leg gone, a wife and three
children to support, seventy slaves emancipated, a debt of $15,000, and,
in his pocket, $1.75 in cash." That was the situation of thousands. It
took manhood to make something of it.
For months after the surrender, Confederates were passing through the
country to their homes, and hospitality was free to every ragged and
footsore soldier; the poor best the larder of every mansion afforded was
at the command of the gray-jacket. How diffidently proud men would ask for
bread, their empty pockets shaming them! When any man turned them off with
cold words, it was not well for his neighbours to know, for so, he was
like to have no more respectable guests. The soldiers were good company,
bringing news from far and wide. Most were cheerful, glad they were going
home, undaunted by long tramps ahead. The soldier was used to hard
marches. Now that his course was set towards where loved ones watched for
his coming, life had its rosy outlook that turned to gray for some who
reached the spot where home had stood to find only a bank of ashes.
Reports of country through which they came were often summed up: "White
folks in the fields, negroes flocking to towns. Freedmen's Bureau offices
everywhere thronged with blacks."
A man who belonged to the "Crippled Squad," not one of whom had a full
complement of arms and legs, told this story: As four of them were
limping along near Lexington, they noticed a gray-headed white man in
rough, mud-stained clothes turning furrows with a plow, and behind him a
white girl dropping corn. Taking him for a hired man, they hallooed:
"Hello, there!" The man raised his head. "Say," they called, "can you tell
us where we can get something to eat?" He waved them towards a house,
where a lady who was on the porch, asked them to have a seat and wait
while she had food cooked.
They had an idea that she prepared with her own hands the dinner to which
they presently sat down, of hot hoe-cakes, buttermilk, and a little meat
so smothered in lettuce leaves that it looked a great deal. When they had
cleared up the table, she said: "I am having more bread cooked if you can
wait a few minutes. I am sorry we have not more meat and milk. I know this
has been a very light repast for hungry men, but we have entertained
others this morning, and we have not much left. We hate to send our
soldiers hungry from the door; they ought to have the best of everything
when they have fought so long and bravely and suffered so much." The way
she spoke made them proud of the arms and legs they didn't have.
Now that hunger was somewhat appeased, they began to note surroundings.
The dwelling was that of a military man and a man of piety and culture. A
lad running in addressed the lady as "Mrs. Pendleton," and said something
about "where General Pendleton is plowing."
They stumbled to their crutches! and in blushing confusion, made humble
apologies, all the instincts of the soldier shocked at the liberties they
had taken with an officer of such high grade, and at the ease of manner
with which they had sat at his table to be served by his wife. They knew
their host for William Nelson Pendleton, late Brigadier-General, C. S. A.,
Chief of Artillery of the Army of Northern Virginia, a fighting preacher.
She smiled when they blundered out the excuse that they had mistaken him
for a day-labourer.
"The mistake has been made before," she said. "Indeed, the General is a
day-labourer in his own field, and it does not mortify him in the least
now that all our people have to work. He is thankful his strength is
sufficient, and for the help that the schoolboys and his daughters give
him." She put bread into their haversacks and sent them on their way
rejoicing. The day-labourer and his plow were close to the roadside, and
as they passed, they drew themselves up in line and brought all the hands
they had to their ragged caps in salute.
Dr. Robert G. Stephens, of Atlanta, tells me of a Confederate soldier who,
returning armless to his Georgia home, made his wife hitch him to a plow
which she drove; and they made a crop. A Northern missionary said in 1867,
to a Philadelphia audience, that he had seen in North Carolina, a white
mother hitch herself to a plow which her eleven-year-old son drove, while
another child dropped into the furrows seeds Northern charity had given. I
saw in Virginia's Black Belt a white woman driving a plow to which her
young daughters, one a nursing mother, were hitched; and near the same
time and place an old negro driving a milch-cow to his cart. "Uncle Eph,
aren't you ashamed," I asked, "to work your milch-cow?" "Law, Miss,
milch-white-'oman wuk. Huccom cow can't wuk?"
TOURNAMENTS AND PARTIES
CHAPTER XV
TOURNAMENTS AND STARVATION PARTIES
It would seem that times were too hard and life too bitter for
merry-making. Not so. With less than half a chance to be glad, the
Southerner will laugh and dance and sing--and make love. At least, he used
to. The Southerner is no longer minstrel, lover, and cavalier. He is
becoming a money-maker. With cannons at our gates and shells driving us
into cellars, guitars were tinkling, pianos were not dumb, tripping feet
were not stayed by fear and sorrow. When boys in gray came from camp,
women felt it the part of love and patriotism to give them good cheer,
wearing smiles while they were by, keeping tears for them when absent.
With the war over and our boys coming home for good, ah, it was not hard
to laugh, sing and dance, poor as we were! "Soldiers coming up the road,"
"Some soldiers here for tonight," the master of the house would say, and
doors would fling wide. "Nice fellows, I know," or "I knew this one's
father, and that one's uncle is Governor--and this one went to school with
our Frank; and these fought side by side with friends of ours," or "Their
names are so-and-so," or just, "They are gentlemen." Maidens would make
themselves fair; wardrobes held few or no changes, but one could dress
one's hair another way, put a rose in one's tresses, draw forth the
many-times-washed-over or thrice-dyed ribbon for adornment. After supper,
there would be music in the parlor, and perhaps dancing. But not always!
too often, the guest's feet were not shod for dancing. It might be that
he was clothed from shirt to shoe in garments from the host's own store.
Many a soldier would decline entering the great house and beg off from
presentations, feeling the barn a more fitting shelter for his rags, and
the company of ladies a gift the gods must withhold.
Joy reigned in every household when its owner came home from the war, joy
that defeat at arms could not kill. The war was over! it had not ended as
we had prayed, but there was to be no crying over spilt milk if young
people had their way.
Departure of old servants and installation of new and untried ones was
attended with untold vexation, but none of this was allowed to interfere
with the pleasure and happiness of young people when it was possible to
prevent it. Southern mistresses kept domestic difficulties in the
background or made merry over them. On the surface, domestic machinery
might seem to move without a hitch, when in reality it was in so severe a
state of dislocation that the semblance of smooth operation was little
short of a miracle.
Reserves of cotton and tobacco that had escaped the attention of the
Yankee Army sold high. Fortunate possessors were soon flush with
greenbacks which were put in quick circulation. It was a case of a little
new bonnet and an alpaca skirt with girls everywhere; women had done
without clothes so long, they felt they just must have some now; our boys
had gone in rags so long, they must have new clothes, too; everybody had
lived so hard and been so sad, there must be joy now, love-making and
dancing. The "Starvation Party" did not go out of fashion with war. Festal
boards were often thinly spread, but one danced not the less lightly for
that. Enough it was to wing the feet to know that the bronzed young
soldier with his arm about your waist must leave you no more for the
battle.
[Illustration: MISS ADDIE PRESCOTT
(A Louisiana Belle)
Afterwards Mrs. R. G. H. Kean, of Lynchburg, Va.]
To show how little one could be festive on, we will take a peep at a
starvation party given on a plantation near Lexington, North Carolina, by
Mrs. Page, soon after General Kilpatrick's troops vacated the mansion. "We
had all been so miserable," Mrs. Page tells, "that I was just bound to
have some fun. So I gave a dining."
She invited ten ladies, who all came wondering what on earth she could set
before them. They walked; there was not a carriage in the neighbourhood.
They were all cultured, refined women, wives and daughters of men of
prominence, and accustomed to elegant entertainment. A few days before,
one of them had sent to Mrs. Page for something to eat, saying she had not
a mouthful in the house, and Mrs. Page had shared with her a small supply
of Western pork and hardtack which her faithful coloured man, Frank, had
gotten from the Yankees. Mrs. Page had now no pork left. Her garden had
been destroyed. She had not a chair in the house, and but one cooking
utensil, a large iron pot. And not a fork, spoon, cup, plate or other
table appointment.
With pomp and merriment, Mrs. Drane, a clergyman's widow, the company's
dean and a great favourite with everybody, was installed at the head of
the bare, mutilated table, where rude benches served as seats. Mrs.
Marmaduke Johnston, of Petersburg, was accorded second place of honour.
The _menu_ consisted of a pudding of corn-meal and dried whortle-berries
sweetened with sorghum; and beer made of persimmons and honeyshucks, also
sweetened with sorghum. The many-sided Frank was butler. The pudding,
filling the half of a large gourd, was placed in front of Mrs. Drane, and
she, using hardtack as spoon, dipped it up, depositing it daintily on
other hardtack which answered for plates and saucers.
The beer was served from another gourd into cups made of newspapers folded
into shape; the ladies drank quickly that the liquid might not soak
through and be lost. They enjoyed the beverage and the pudding greatly and
assured their hostess that they had rarely attended a more delightful
feast. The pudding had been boiled in the large iron pot, and Frank had
transferred it to the gourd. In his kitchen and pantry, gourds of various
sorts and sizes seemed to ask: "Why were vessels of iron, pewter, and
copper ever invented, and what need has the world of china-ware so long as
we grow on the backyard fence?"
How Frank's mistress, a frail-looking, hospitable, resourceful little
woman, provided for herself and family and helped her friends out of next
to nothing; how her cheerfulness, industry, and enterprise never failed
her or others; and how Frank aided her, would in itself fill a book.
But then it is a story of Southern verve and inventiveness that could be
duplicated over and over again.
Did not Sir George Campbell write in an English magazine of how much he
enjoyed a dinner in a Southern mansion, when all the feast was a dish of
roasted apples and a plate of corn-bread? Not a word of apology was
uttered by his host or hostess; converse was so cultured and pleasing,
welcome so sincere, that the poverty of the board was not to be weighed in
the balance. This host who had so much and so little to give his guest was
Colonel Washington Ball, nearest living kinsman to General George
Washington.
The fall of 1865 was, in Virginia at least, a bountiful one. Planters'
sons had come home, gone into the fields, worked till the crop was all
laid by; and then, there was no lack of gaiety. A favourite form of
diversion was the tournament, which furnished fine sport for cavalry
riders trained under Stuart and Fitz Lee.
One of the most brilliant took place in 1866, at a famous plantation on
the North Anna River. The race-track had been beaten down smooth and hard
beforehand by the daily training of knights. It was in a fair stretch of
meadow-land beyond the lawns and orchards. The time was October, the
weather ideal, the golden haze of Indian Summer mellowing every line of
landscape. On the day appointed the grounds were crowded with carriages,
wagonettes, buggies and vehicles of every sort, some very shabby, but
borrowing brightness from the fair young faces within.
The knights were about twenty-five. Their steeds were not so richly
caparisoned as Scott's in "Ivanhoe," but the riders bestrode them with
perhaps greater ease and grace than heavy armor permitted mediæval
predecessors. Some wore plumed hats that had covered their heads in real
cavalry charges, and more than one warrior's waist was girt with the red
silk sash that had belted him when he rode at the head of his men as Fitz
Lee's captain. A number were in full Confederate uniform, carrying their
gray jackets as jauntily as if no battle had ever been lost to them. One
of these attracted peculiar attention. He was of very distinguished
appearance; and from his arm floated a long streamer of crape. Every one
was guessing his name till the herald cried: "Knight of Liberty Lost!" The
mourning knight swept before the crowd, bearing off on the point of his
spear the three rings which marked his victory for at least that run.
For this sport, three gibbet-like structures stand equal distances apart
on a straight race-track. From the arm of each, a hook depends and on
each hook a ring is hung. Each knight, with lance poised and aimed, rides
full tilt down this track and takes off all the rings he can in a given
number of rides. He who captures most rings is victor. It is his right to
choose the Queen of Love and Beauty, riding up to her on the field and
offering a ring upon his spear. The knight winning the second highest
number chooses the First Maid of Honour; and so on, until there is a royal
quartette of queen and maids.
The tournament was to the South what baseball is to the nation; it was
intensely exciting and picturesque, and, by reason of the guerdon won,
poetic, investing an ordinary mortal with such power as Paris exercised
when he gave the golden apple to Venus. It had spice of peril to make it
attractive, if "danger's self is lure alone." Fine horsemanship, a steady
hand, and sure eye were essentials.
"Liberty Lost" won, and the mourning knight laid his laurels at the feet
of a beautiful girl who has since reigned as a social queen in a Northern
home. The coronation took place in the mansion that evening. After a
flowery address, each knight knelt and offered a crown to his fair one.
The symbols of royalty were wreaths of artificial flowers, the queen's
shaped like a coronet, with sprays forming points. Her majesty wore a gown
that had belonged to her great-grandmother; very rich silk in a bayadere
pattern, that served as becoming sheath for her slim blonde loveliness.
After the coronation, the knights led their fair ones out in the "Royal
Set" which opened the ball.
Perhaps it is better to say that George Walker, the negro fiddler, opened
the ball. He was the most famous man of his craft in the Piedmont region.
There he was that night in all his glory at the head of his band of
banjoists, violinists and violincellist; he was grandeur and gloss
personified when he made preliminary bow and flourish, held his bow aloft,
and set the ball in motion!
"Honour yo' pardners!"
"And didn't we do as George told us to do!" Matoaca says. "Such
dance-provoking melodies followed as almost bewitched one's feet. 'Life on
the Ocean Wave,' 'Down-town Girls Won't You Come Out Tonight and Dance by
the Light of the Moon!' 'Fisher's Horn-Pipe' and 'Ole Zip Coon' were some
of them. Not high-sounding to folks of today, but didn't they make feet
twinkle! People did what was called 'taking steps' in those days. I can
almost hear George's fiddle now, and hear him calling: 'Ladies to the
right! Gents to the right! Ladies to the center! Gents to the center!
Hands all 'roun' an' promenade all!' Who could yell 'Do se do!' and
'Sashay all!' with such a swing?"
About one o'clock all marched in to supper, the queen and her knights and
maidens leading. It was hard times in Virginia, but the table groaned
under such things as folks then thought ought to adorn a festal board.
There was not lacking the mighty saddle-o'-mutton, roast pig with apple in
his mouth, Smithfield ham, roast turkey, and due accompaniments. The
company marched back to the ball-room, and presently marched again to a
second supper embracing sweets of all descriptions.
Commencements at schools and colleges, which the South began to restore
and refill as quickly as she was able, brought the young people together
and were strong features in our social life. So were Sunday schools; and,
in the country, protracted meetings or religious revivals. And barbecues.
Who that has gone out to a frolic in the Southern woods and feasted on
shote or mutton roasted over a pit and basted with vinegar and red pepper
gravy, can forget what a barbecue is!
Summer resorts became again meeting-grounds for old friends, and new.
Social gatherings at the Greenbrier White Sulphur were notable. General
Lee was there with his daughter, and the first to lead in extending
courtesies to Northern guests attracted to the White by the reputation of
that famous watering-place. Again, our women were at their ancient haunts,
wearing silks and laces as they were prospering under the new order or as
their great-grandmothers' trunks, like that of Love and Beauty's Queen,
held reserves not yet exhausted. And under the silks and laces, hearts
cried out for loved ones who would gather on the green lawns and dance in
the great halls no more. But heroism presented a smiling face and took up
life's measure again.
In cities changes were not so acute as in the country, where people,
without horses and vehicles, were unable to visit each other. The larger
the planter, the more extreme his family's isolation was like to be, his
land and his neighbours' lands stretching for miles between houses. I
heard a planter's wife say, "Yours is the first white woman's face I have
seen for six months." Her little daughter murmured mournfully: "And I
haven't seen a little white girl to play with for longer than that."
Multitudes who had kept open house could no longer. To a people in whom
the social instinct was so strong and hospitality second nature, abrupt
ending of neighbourly intercourse was a hard blow.
Stay and bankrupt laws for the benefit of the debtor class and bearing
much hardship on creditors, often orphan minors, were passed, and under
these planters were sold out and moved to new places, their overseers
often succeeding them and reigning in their stead. It was not an
unknown thing for men to manage to get themselves sold out under these
laws, thus evading payment of obligations and at the same time securing a
certain quota for themselves, which the law allowed. It seemed to me that
many who took it were better off than before. There were unfortunates who
had to pay security debts for bankrupts. Much hard feeling was engendered.
[Illustration: MRS. DAVID URQUHART, OF NEW ORLEANS
A famous hostess, distinguished for her social graces and her good deeds.]
Some measure for relief of the debtor class was necessary. A man who had
contracted debts on the basis of thousands of acres at fifteen to fifty
dollars an acre, and owning a hundred or more negroes, worth a thousand
dollars each, could not meet in full such engagements when his land would
not bring two dollars an acre, when his negroes were set free, and hired
labour, if he had wherewithal to hire, could not be relied on. Some men
took the Bankrupt Law for protection, then set themselves to work and paid
obligations which could not be exacted by law.
THE BONDAGE OF THE FREE
CHAPTER XVI
THE BONDAGE OF THE FREE
"Had slavery lasted a few years longer," I have heard my mother say, "it
would have killed Julia, my head-woman, and me. Our burden of work and
responsibility was simply staggering."
In the ante-bellum life of the mistress of a Southern plantation there was
no menial occupation, but administrative work was large and exacting. The
giving out of rations, clothes, medicines, nursing of the sick, cutting
out of garments, sewing, spinning, knitting, had to be directed. The
everlasting teaching and training, the watch-care of sometimes several
hundred semi-civilized, semi-savage people of all ages, dispositions and
tempers, were on the white woman's hands.
The kitchen was but one department of that big school of domestic science,
the home on a Southern plantation, where cooks, nurses, maids, butlers,
seamstresses and laundresses had understudies or pupils; and the white
mistress, to whom every student's progress was a matter of keen personal
interest and usually of affectionate concern, was principal and director.
The typical Southern plantation was, in effect, a great social settlement
for the uplift of Africans.
For a complete picture of plantation life, I beg my readers to turn to
that chapter in the "Life of Leonidas Polk" written by his son, Dr. W. M.
Polk, which describes "Leighton" in the sugar-lands on Bayou La Fourche.
Read of the industrial work and then of the Sabbath, when the negroes
assembled in the bishop's house where the chaplain conducted the service
while the bishop sat at the head of his servants. Worship over, women
withdrew into another room, where Mrs. Polk or the family governess gave
them instruction; the children into still another, where Bishop Polk's
daughter taught them; the men remained with the chaplain for examination
and admonition. The bishop made great efforts to preserve the sanctity of
family life among his servants. He christened their babies; their weddings
were celebrated in his own home, decorated and illuminated for them. The
honour coveted by his children was to hold aloft the silver candlesticks
while their father read the marriage service. If a couple misbehaved, they
were compelled to marry, but without a wedding-feast.
Andrew P. Calhoun, eldest son of John C. Calhoun, was President of the
South Carolina Agricultural College and owner of large lands in Alabama
and South Carolina. He took pride in raising everything consumed on his
plantations. In the New York home of his son, Mr. Patrick Calhoun, three
of his old servants live; his wife's maid says proudly: "I have counted
thirty things on my Miss' dinner-table that were grown on the place."
Cotton and wool were grown on the place and carded, spun, dyed, woven into
cloth by negro women; in great rooms, well lighted, well aired, well
equipped, negro cutters, fitters and seamstresses fashioned neat and
comfortable garments for a contented, well-cared-for laboring force. Mrs.
Calhoun devoted as much time to this department of plantation work, which
included the industrial and moral education of negro women, as Mr. Calhoun
devoted to the general management of his lands and the industrial and
moral uplift of negro men. The Polk and Calhoun plantations were types of
thousands; and their owners types of thousands of planters who applied
the same principles, if sometimes on lesser scale, to farming operations.
No institutional work can take the place of work of this kind. It is like
play to the real thing. Without decrying Hampton, Petersburg and Tuskegee,
it can be said with truth that these institutions and many more in
combination would be unable to do for a savage race what the old planters
and the old plantation system of the South did for Africa's barbarians.
Employers of white labor might sit at the feet of those old planters and
learn wisdom. Professor Morrison, of the Chair of History and Sociology at
Clemson College, tells me that the instruction of students in their duty
to their servants constituted a recognised department in some Southern
colleges.
[Illustration: FRANCES DEVEREUX POLK
(Wife of General Leonidas Polk, the Warrior Bishop.)
She was the spiritual and industrial educator of many negroes, and the
mistress of a large sugar plantation.]
Mammy Julia was my mother's assistant superintendent, so to speak. "I
could trust almost anything to her," her mistress bore testimony, "for she
appreciated responsibility and was faithfulness itself. I don't know a
negro of the new order who can hold a candle to her." Mammy Julia and my
mother had no rest night or day. Black folks were coming with troubles,
wants, quarrels, ailments, births, marriages and deaths, from morning till
night and night till morning again. "I was glad and thankful--on my own
account--when slavery ended and I ceased to belong, body and soul, to my
negroes." As my mother, so said other Southern mistresses.
Perhaps the Southern matron's point of view may be somewhat surprising to
those who have thought that under ante-bellum conditions, slavery was all
on the negro's side and that all Southern people were fiercely bent on
keeping him in bonds. Many did not believe in slavery and were trying to
end it.
Mrs. Robert E. Lee's father and uncle freed some five hundred slaves, with
General Lee's approval, thus alienating from her over $500,000 worth of
property. The Hampton family, of South Carolina, sent to Liberia a great
colony of freed slaves, who presently plead to be brought home. General
Preston, Confederate, of Kentucky, freed his negroes; he would not sell,
and could not afford to keep, them; they were "over-running and ruining
his plantation, and clearing up forests for firewood; slavery is the curse
of the South."
Many families had arranged for a gradual emancipation, a fixed percentage
of slaves being freed by each generation. By will and otherwise, they
provided against division of families, an evil not peculiar to slavery, as
immigrant ships of today, big foundling asylums, and train-loads of
home-seeking children bear evidence.
But freedom as it came, was inversion, revolution. Whenever I pass "The
House Upside Down" at a World's Fair, I am reminded of the South after
freedom. In "South Carolina Women in the Confederacy,"[12] Mrs. Harby
tells how Mrs. Postell Geddings was in the kitchen getting Dr. Geddings'
supper, while her maid, in her best silk gown, sat in the parlour and
entertained Yankee officers. Charleston ladies cooked, swept, scrubbed,
split wood, fed horses, milked and watered the cattle; while filling their
own places as feminine heads of the house, they were servants-of-all-work
and man of the house. Mrs. Crittendon gives an anecdote matching Mrs.
Geddings'. A Columbia lady saw in Sherman's motley train an old negress
arrayed in her mistress' antiquated, ante-bellum finery, lolling on the
cushions of her mistress' carriage, and fanning (in winter) with a huge
ostrich-feather fan. "Why, Aunt Sallie, where are you going?" she called
out impulsively. "Law, honey! I'se gwine right back intuh de Union!" and
on rode Aunt Sallie, feathers and flowers on her enormous poke-bonnet all
a-flutter.
Mrs. Jewett, of Stony Creek, saw her negro man walking behind the Yankee
Army with her husband's suit of clothes done up in a red silk handkerchief
and slung on a stick over his shoulder. Her two mulatto nurse-girls laid
down their charges, attired themselves in her best apparel and went; her
seamstress stopped sewing, jumped on a horse behind a soldier who invited
her, and away she rode.
As victorious armies went through the country, they told the negroes, "You
are free!" Negroes accepted the tidings in different ways. Old Aunt Hannah
was not sure but that the assurance was an insult. "Law, marster!" she
said, "I ain' no free nigger! I is got a marster an' mistiss! Dee right
dar in de great house. Ef you don' b'lieve me, you go dar an' see."
"You're a d----d fool!" he cried and rode on. "Sambo, you're free!" Some
negroes picked up the master's saddle, flung it on the master's horse,
jumped on his back and rode away with the Yankees. After every Yankee army
swarmed a great black crowd on foot, men, women, and children. They had to
be fed and cared for; they wearied their deliverers.
Yankees told my father's negroes they were free, but they did not accept
the statement until "Ole Marster" made it. I remember the night. They were
called together in the back yard--a great green space with blossomy
altheas and fruit-trees and tall oaks around, and the scent of
honeysuckles and Sweet Betseys making the air fragrant. He stood on the
porch beside a table with a candle on it. I, at his knee, looked up at
him and out on the sea of uplifted black faces. Some carried pine
torches. He read from a paper, I do not know what, perhaps the
emancipation proclamation. They listened silently. Then he spoke, his
voice trembling:
"You do not belong to me any more. You are free. You have been like my own
children. I have never felt that you were slaves. I have felt that you
were charges put into my hands by God and that I had to render account to
Him of how I raised you, how I treated you. I want you all to do well. You
will have to work, if not for me, for somebody else. Heretofore, you have
worked for me and I have supported you, fed you, clothed you, given you
comfortable homes, paid your doctors' bills, bought your medicines, taken
care of your babies before they could take care of themselves; when you
were sick, your mistress and I have nursed you; we have laid your dead
away. I don't think anybody else can have the same feeling for you that
she and I have. I have been trying to think out a plan for paying wages or
a part of the crop that would suit us all; but I haven't finished thinking
it out. I want to know what you think. Now, you can stay just as you have
been staying and work just as you have been working, and we will plan
together what is best. Or, you can go. My crops must be worked, and I want
to know what arrangements to make. Ben! Dick! Moses! Abram! line up,
everybody out there. As you pass this porch, tell me if you mean to stay;
you needn't promise for longer than this year, you know. If you want to go
somewhere else, say so--and no hard thoughts!"
The long line passed. One and all they said: "I gwi stay wid you,
Marster." A few put it in different words. Uncle Andrew, the dean of the
body, with wool as white as snow, a widower who went sparking every
Sunday in my grandfather's coat and my grandfather's silk hat, said: "Law,
Marster! I ain' got nowhar tuh go ef I was gwine!" Some wiped their eyes,
and my father had tears in his.
Next morning, old Uncle Eph, Andrew's mate, was missing; his aged wife was
in great distress. She came to my father reproachfully: "Marster," she
said, "I wish you wouldn' put all dat foolishness 'bout freedom in Eph's
hade. He so ole I dunno what gwi become uh him 'long de road. When I wake
up dis mo'nin', he done tied all his close up in his hankercher and done
lit out." In a few days he returned, the butt of the quarters for many a
day. "I jes wanter see whut it feel lak tuh be free," he said, "an' I
wanter to go back to Ole Marster's plantation whar I was born. It don'
look de same dar, an' I done see nuff uh freedom."
Presently my father was making out contracts and explaining them over and
over; he would sign his name, the negro would make his mark, the witnesses
sign; and the bond for a year's work and wages or part of the crop, was
complete. At first, contracts had to be ratified by a Freedmen's Bureau
agent, who charged master and servant each fifty cents or more. After one
of our neighbours told his negroes they were free, they all promised to
stay, as had ours. Next morning all but two were gone. In a few days all
returned. The Bureau Agent had made them come back.
Many negroes leaving home fared worse than Uncle Eph. After the fall of
Richmond, Mr. Hill, who had been a high official of the Confederacy, went
back to his plantation, where he found but three negroes remaining, the
rest having departed for Washington, the negro heaven. One of these, a man
of seventy, said he must go, too. His ex-master could not dissuade him.
He was comfortably quartered and Mr. Hill told him he would be cared for
the rest of his life. Nothing would do but he must sell his chickens and
his little crop of tobacco to one of the other negroes and go. Mr. Hill
gave him provisions for ten days, had the wagon hitched up and sent him to
Culpeper, where he was to take the train. On Culpeper's outskirts was the
usual collection of negroes, snack-house, bad whiskey, gambling, and
kindred evils. Here Uncle John stopped. He had started with $15 cash. In
less than a week his money was gone and he was thrown out on the common.
Mr. Hill, summoned before the Provost-Marshal on the charge of having
driven Uncle John off, said: "The man sitting out there in my buggy can
tell you whether I did that." The testimony of the black witness was
conclusive, the Provost dismissed the case. Mr. Hill went to the commons.
Lying in the sun, stone-blind, was Uncle John. He raised his head and
listened. "Mistuh, fuh Gawd's sake, please do suppin fuh me!" "Old man,
why are you here?" "Lemme hear dat voice again!" "Uncle John!" "Bless de
Lawd, Marster! you done come. Marster, a 'oman robbed me uf all I had an'
den th'owed me out. Fuh Gawd's sake, take me home!" "I will have you cared
for tonight, and tomorrow I will come in the wagon for you." "Lawd,
Marster, I sho is glad I gwine home! I kin res' easy in my min', now I
_know_ I gwine home!"
Mr. Hill returned to the Provost: "I shall come or send for the old man
tomorrow," he said. "Meanwhile, he must be cared for." The Provost was
indifferent. This was one of many cases. "If you do not provide food and
shelter for that negro," he was sharply assured, "I shall report you to
the authorities at Washington." The Provost promised and sent two
orderlies to attend to the matter. Next morning the master was back. The
old man was dead. He had been put in the scale-house, an open shed. There,
instead of in his old home surrounded by friends who loved him, Uncle John
had breathed his last.
From many other stories, companions in pathos, I choose Mammy Lisbeth's.
Her son went with the Yankee army. She grieved for him till her mistress'
heart ached. The mistress returned one day from a visit to find Lisbeth
much excited. "Law, Miss, I done hyerd f'om my chile!" "How, Mammy?" "A
Yankee soldier come by an' I ax 'im is he seed my son whar he been goin'
'long? An' I tell 'im all 'bout how my chile look. An' he say he done been
seen 'im. An' I say, 'Law, mister, ain't my chile gwi come home?' An' he
gimme de answer: 'He can't come ef he ain' got no money.' An' I answer,
'Law, marster, I got a fi'-dollar gol' piece my ole miss dat's done dade
gimme long time ago. Does you know any safe passin'?' An' he answer, jes
ez kin', how he gwine datter way hisse'f, an' he'll kyar it. I run in de
house an' got dat fi'-dollar gol' piece an' gi' to 'im. An' now my chile's
comin' home, Miss! my chile's comin' home! He say, 'In 'bout two weeks,
you go to de kyars evvy day an' look fuh im.'" Her mistress had not the
heart to tell her the man had robbed her. Never before had a white man
robbed her; it was second nature to trust the white face.
"It is heart-breaking," her mistress wrote, "to see how she watches for
him. She is at the depot every day, scanning the face of every coloured
passenger getting off. I've been to the Bureau making inquiries. The Agent
says if he could catch the rascal, the robber, he would string him up by
the thumbs, but her description fits any strolling private. He says: 'Any
woman who would trust a stranger so with her money deserves to be fooled.
I wouldn't trouble about it, Madam!' Yankees do not understand our
coloured people and us. How can I help being troubled by anything that
troubles Mammy Lisbeth?"
Here is another old letter: "Cousin mine: I came home from school a few
days ago. Railroads all broken up and it took several days to make the
journey in the carriage, stopping over-night along the route. At most
houses, there was hardly anything to offer but shelter, but hospitality
was perfect. Only cornbread and sassafras tea at one place; no servants to
render attention; silver gone; family portraits punctured with bayonets;
furniture and mirrors broken. Reaching home, found everything strange
because of great change in domestic regime. Our cook, who has reigned in
our kitchen for thirty years, is in Richmond, coining money out of a
restaurant. Most of our servants have gone to the city. Our old butler and
Mammy abide. I think it would have killed me had Mammy gone!
"I cannot tell you how it oppressed me to miss the familiar black faces I
have loved all my life, and to feel that our negroes cared so little for
us, and left at the first invitation. I have something strange to tell
you. Mammy has been free since before I was born. I never knew till now. I
was utterly wretched, and exclaimed: 'Well, Mammy, I reckon you'll go
too!' She took it as a deadly insult; I had to humble myself. While she
was mad, the secret burst out: 'Ef I'd wanted to go, I could ha' gone long
time ago. No Yankees sot me free! My marster sot me free.' She showed me
her manumission papers in grandfather's hand, which she has worn for I
don't know how long, in a little oil-silk bag around her neck, never
caring to use them. Domestic cares are making me gray! But I get some fun
trying to do things I never did before, while Mammy scolds me for
'demeaning' myself." There was honour in the "gritty" way the Southern
housewife adapted herself to the situation, humour in the way spoiled
maidens played the part of milkmaid or of Bridget.
"Do you know how to make lightbread?" one of our friends inquired, and
proceeded to brag of her new accomplishments, adding: "I had never gotten
a meal in my life until the morning after the Yankees passed, when I woke
to find not a single servant on the place. There was a lone cow left. I
essayed to milk her, but retired in dire confusion. I couldn't make the
milk go in the pail to save my life! It squirted in my face and eyes and
all over my hair. The cow switched her tail around and cut my countenance,
made demonstrations with her hind feet, and I retired. One of my daughters
sat on the milking-stool and milked away as if she had been born to it."
"The first meal I got," another friend wrote, "my sons cooked. They
learned how in the army. I thought the house was coming down while they
were beating the biscuit! They drove me from the kitchen. 'We don't hate
the Yankees for thrashing us,' they said, 'but God knows we hate them for
turning our women into hewers of wood and drawers of water.' Now, I'm as
good a cook as my boys. Can do everything domestic except kill a chicken.
I turn the chicken loose every time."
"I write in a merry vein," was another recital, "because it is no good to
write in any other. But I have the heart-break over things. I see this big
plantation, once so beautifully kept up, going to rack and ruin. I see the
negroes I trained so carefully deteriorating every day. We suffer from
theft, are humiliated by impertinence; and cannot help ourselves. Negroes
call upon me daily for services that I, in Christian duty, must render
whether I am able or not. And I cannot call upon them for one thing but I
must pay twice over--and I have nothing to pay with. This is the first
rule in their lesson of freedom--to get all they can out of white folks
and give as little as possible in return."
Letters teemed with experiences like this: "We went to sleep one night
with a plantation full of negroes, and woke to find not one on the
place--every servant gone to Sherman in Atlanta. Negroes are camped out
all around that city. We had thought there was a strong bond of affection
on their side as well as ours! We have ministered to them in sickness,
infancy, and age. But poor creatures! they don't know what freedom is, and
they are crazy. They think it the opening of the door of Heaven. Some put
me in mind of birds born and raised in a cage and suddenly turned loose
and helpless; others, of hawks, minks and weasels, released to do
mischief.
"We heard that there was much suffering in the camps; presently our
negroes were all back, some ill from exposure. Maum Lucindy sent word for
us to send for her, she was sick. Without a vehicle or team on the place,
it looked like an impossible proposition, but my little boys patched up
the relics of an old cart, borrowed the only steer in the neighbourhood,
and got Maum Lucindy back. The raiders swept us clean of everything. We
are unable to feed ourselves. How we shall feed and clothe the negroes
when we cannot make them work, I do not know."
My cousin, Mrs. Meredith, of Brunswick, Virginia, congratulated herself,
when only one of her servants deserted his post to join Sheridan's trail
of camp-followers. A week after Simeon's departure, she woke one morning
to discover that six women had decamped, one leaving her two little
children in her cabin from which came pitiful wails of "Mammy!" "Mammy!"
Simeon had come in the night, and related of Black's and White's (now
Blackstone) where a garrison had been established, that calico dresses
were as plentiful as leaves on trees and that coloured women were parading
the streets with white soldiers for beaux. My cousin, Mrs. White, said a
whole wagon-load of negro women passed her house going to Blackstone, and
that one of them insisted upon presenting her with a four-year-old child,
declaring it too much trouble. It was not an unknown thing for negro
mothers to leave their children along the roadsides.
Blackstone drew recruits until there was just one woman-servant remaining
with the Merediths. Why she stayed was a mystery, but as she was "the only
pebble on the beach," everything was done to make home attractive. One day
she asked permission (why, could not be imagined) to go visiting. She did
not return. Shortly, Captain Meredith was haled before the Freedmen's
Bureau at Black's and White's to answer the charge of thrashing Viny.
Marched into court, he took a chair. "Get up," said the Bureau Agent, "and
give the lady a seat." He rose, and Viny dropped into it. She was
shamefaced and brazen by turns; finally, burst into tears and begged "Mars
Tawm's" pardon, saying she had brought the charge because she had "no
'scuse for leavin'" and had to invent one; "nevver knowed Mars Tawm was
gwi be brung in cote 'bout it."
The early stirrings of the social equality problem were curious.
Adventurous Aunt Susan tried the experiment of "eatin' wid white folks."
She was bursting to tell us about it, yet loath to reveal her
degradation--"White folks dat'll eat wid me ain't fitten fuh me to eat
wid," being the negro position. "But dese folks was rale quality, Miss,"
Susan said when murder was out. "I kinder skittish when dee fus' ax me to
set down wid 'em. I couldn' eat na'er mouthful wid white folks a-lookin'
at me an' a rale nice white gal handin' vittles. An' presen'ly, mum, ef I
didn' see dat white gal settin' in de kitchen eatin' her vittles by
herse'f. Rale nice white gal! I say, 'Huccum you didn' eat wid tur white
folks?' She say, 'I de servant.'"
Mrs. Betts, of Halifax (Va.), was in her kitchen, her cook, who was in her
debt, having failed to put in an appearance. The cook's husband approached
the verandah and requested a dollar. "Where is Jane?" he was asked. "Why
hasn't she been here to do her work?" "She are keepin' parlour." "What is
that?" "Settin' up in de house hol'in' her han's. De Civilise Bill done
been fulfill an' niggers an' white folks jes alike now."
Coloured applicant for menial position would say to the door-opener: "Tell
dat white 'oman in dar a cullud lady out here want to hire." "De cullud
lady" was capricious. My sister in Atlanta engaged one for every day in
one month, in fact, engaged more than that average, engaged every one
applying, hoping if ten promised to come in time to get breakfast, one
might appear.
With two hundred black trial justices, South Carolina had more than her
share of funny happenings, as of tragic. A gentleman who had to appear
before some tribunal, wrote us: "Whom do you suppose I found in the seat
of law? Pete, my erstwhile stable-boy. He does not know A from Z, had not
the faintest idea of what was to be done. 'Mars Charles,' he said, 'you
jes fix 'tup, please, suh. You jes write down whut you think orter be
wroted, an' I'll put my mark anywhar you tell me.'"
Into a store in Wilmington sauntered a sable alderman whom the merchant
had known from boyhood as "Sam." "What's the matter with Sam?" the
merchant asked as Sam stalked out. Soon, Sam stalked back. "Suh, you didn'
treat me wid proper respecks." "How, Sam?" "You called me 'Sam,' which my
name is Mr. Gary." "You're a d----d fool! There's the door!" Gary had the
merchant up in the mayor's court. "What's the trouble?" asked the mayor.
"Dis man consulted me." "You ought to feel flattered! What did he do to
you?" "He called me 'Sam,' suh." "Ain't that your name?" "My name's Mr.
Gary." "Ain't it Sam, too?" "Yessuh, but--" "Well, there ain't any law to
compel a man to call another 'Mister.' Case dismissed." "Dar gwi be a law
'bout dat," muttered Sam.
Washington was the place of miracles. When Uncle Peter went there, some
tricksters told him his wool could be made straight and his colour
changed--"Said dee could make it jes lak white folks' ha'r," he informed
his mistress mournfully, when he had paid the price--nearly his entire
capital--and returned home with flaming red wool. His wife did not know
him, or pretended not to, and drove him out of the house. He appealed to
his mistress and she made Manda behave herself.
"Ole Miss," asked my mother's little handmaiden, "now, I'se free, is I gwi
tu'n white lak white folks?" "You must not be ashamed of the skin God gave
you, Patsy," said her mistress kindly. "Your skin is all right." "But I
druther be white, Ole Miss." And there was something pathetic in the
aspiration.
Some of the older and more intelligent blacks held their children back
from doffing with undignified haste old ways for new. But in most cases,
the Simian quality showed itself promptly ascendant. Negroes did things
they saw white people do, not because these things were right or seemly,
but because white people did them, selecting for imitation trifles in
conduct which they thought marked the social dividing line between white
and black. As, for instance, they dropped the old sweet "Daddy" and
"Mammy" for the dreadful "Pa" and "Ma," or the infantile "Popper" and
"Mommer" which white people inflict upon parents. It would be laughable to
hear a big buck negro addressing his sire as "Popper."
I have seen in a Southern street-car all blacks sitting and all whites
standing; have seen a big black woman enter a car and flounce herself down
almost into the lap of a white man; have seen white ladies pushed off
sidewalks by black men. The new manners of the blacks were painful,
revolting, absurd. The freedman's misbehaviour was to be condoned only by
pity that accepted his inferiority as excuse. Southerners had taken great
pains and pride in teaching their negroes good manners; they wanted them
to be courtly and polished, and it must be said for the negroes, they took
polish well. It was with keen regret that their old preceptors saw them
throw all their fine schooling in etiquette to the winds.
Interest in and affection for negroes made these new manners the more
obnoxious. Here, in one woman's statement, is the point illustrated: "I
considered Mammy part of our family; my family pride would have been
aggrieved, I would have tingled with mortification, to see her so far
forget what was due herself as to push herself into places where she was
not wanted. These are things she could not possibly do of herself, her
own good taste, perfect breeding, and sturdy self-respect forbidding. But
her husband and son quickly succumbed to the demoralisation of freedom and
were vulgar and troublesome; we were in fear and trembling lest they
should lead her into some situation in church, theatre, or car, where she
would find herself conspicuous and from which she would not know how to
withdraw until officially escorted out in the midst of trouble created by
her men."
Many worthy negroes, the old, infirm and children, lost needed protection.
Negroes had not been permitted to get drunk--except around corn-shucking
and Christmas. There was no such restraint now. Formerly, a negro, if so
disposed, could not beat his child unmercifully. Now, women and children
might feel a heavy hand unknown before. White people might not interfere
in family disputes as formerly, though they continued, at personal risk,
to do what they could. A case in point was that of Mr. R., a respected
merchant of Petersburg, who ejected his cook's drunken husband from the
kitchen where the brute was cruelly maltreating her. The old gentleman was
arrested and marched through the streets, as I have been told, by negro
sergeants to trial before a negro magistrate.
A characteristic common to uncultured motherhood is over-indulgence and
over-severity by turns. When provoked, the negro mother would descend like
a fury upon her offspring, beating it as a former master would never have
suffered her to abuse his property. A word or suggestion from a white
would bring fresh blows upon the luckless wight, the mother thinking thus
to demonstrate independence and ownership.
Under freedom, negroes developed bodily ills from which they had seemed
immune. A consumptive of the race was rarely heard of before freedom.
After freedom, they began to die of pulmonary complaints. There were
frequent epidemics of typhoid fever, quarters not being well kept. "The
race is dying out," said prophets. Negroes began to grow mad. An insane
negro was rarely heard of during slavery. Regular hours, regular work,
chiefly out of doors, sobriety, freedom from care and responsibility, had
kept the negro singularly exempt from insanity and various other
afflictions that curse the white. Big lunatic asylums established for
negroes soon after the war and their continual enlargement tell their own
story.[13]
Freedom broke up families. Under stress of temptation, the young and
strong deserted the aged, the feeble, the children, leaving these to shift
for themselves or to remain a burden upon a master or mistress themselves
impoverished and, perhaps, old and infirm.
In the face of so much distraction, demoralisation and disorder, the
example of those negroes who were not affected by it shines out with
greater clearness as witness for the best that is in the race. Thousands
stood steadfastly to their posts, superior to temptations which might have
shaken white people, performing their duties faithfully, caring for their
children, sick and aged, shirking no debt of love and gratitude to past
owners. Some negroes still live in families for which their ancestors
worked, the bond of centuries never having been broken.
When this is true, the tie between white and black is yet strong, sweet
and tender, like the tie of blood. The venerable "uncles" and "aunties"
with their courtly manners, their good warm hearts, their love for the
whites, are swiftly passing away, and their like will not be seen again.
They were America's black pearl; and America had as good reason to be
proud of her faithful and efficient serving-class as of her Anglo-Saxons.
They were needed; they filled an honourable and worthy place and filled it
well.
[Illustration: MRS. ANDREW PICKENS CALHOUN
Daughter of General Duff Green, of Georgia, and daughter-in-law of John C.
Calhoun, the statesman, of South Carolina.
This picture was taken when Mrs. Calhoun was 71 years of age.]
This is not to justify slavery. Slavery was forced upon this country over
Colonial protests, particularly from Southern sections fearing
negroisation of territory; the slave-trade was profitable to the English
Crown; our forefathers, coming into independence, faced a problem of awful
magnitude in the light of Santo Domingo horrors; New England's slave-ships
and Eli Whitney's cotton-gin complicated it; it is curious to read in the
proceedings of the Sixth Congress how Mr. John Brown, of Rhode Island,
urged that this Nation should not be deprived of a right, enjoyed by every
civilised country, of bringing slaves from Africa[14]--particularly as
transference to a Christian land was a benefit to Africans, a belief held
by many who believed that the Bible sanctioned slavery. Through kindliness
of temperament on both sides and the clan feeling fostered by the old
plantation life of the South, the white man and the negro made the best
they could of an evil thing. But the world has now well learned that a
superior race cannot afford to take an inferior into such close company as
slavery implies. For the service of the bond-slave the master ever pays to
the uttermost in things precious as service, imparting refinements,
ideals, standards, morals, manners, graces; in the end he pays that which
he considers more precious than service; he pays his blood, and in more
ways than one.
BACK TO VOODOOISM
CHAPTER XVII
BACK TO VOODOOISM
The average master and mistress of the old South were missionaries without
the name. Religious instruction was a feature of the negro quarters on the
Southern plantation--the social settlements for Africans in America.
Masters and mistresses, if themselves religious, usually held Sabbath
services and Sunday schools for blacks. Some delegated this task,
employing preachers and teachers. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney was the
first rice planter to introduce systematic religious instruction among
negroes on the Santee, influenced thereto by Bishop Capers. He subscribed
to the Methodist Episcopal Mission for them, and a minister came every
week to catechise the children and every Sabbath to preach at the negro
church which Mr. Pinckney, with the assistance of his neighbours,
established for the blacks on his own and neighbouring plantations. Soon
fifty chapels on his model sprang up along the seaboard. In the Methodist
churchyard in Columbia, a modest monument marks the grave of Bishop
Capers, "Founder of the Mission to the Slaves." Nearby sleeps Rev. William
Martin, who was a distinguished preacher to whites and a faithful
missionary to blacks. In Zion Presbyterian Church, Charleston, built
largely through the efforts of Mr. Robert Adger, no less a preacher than
Rev. Dr. Girardeau ministered to negroes. The South entrusted the
spiritual care of her negroes to her best and ablest, and what she did for
them is interwoven with all her history. You will hear to-day how the
great clock on top of the church on Mr. Plowden Weston's plantation kept
time for plantations up and down the Waccamaw. In that chapel, Rev. Mr.
Glenrie and an English catechist diligently taught the blacks. After
Sherman's visit to Columbia, Trinity (Episcopal) Church had no Communion
service; the sacred vessels of precious metals belonging to the negro
chapel on the Hampton place were borrowed for Trinity's white
congregation.
The rule where negroes were not so numerous as to require separate
churches was for both races to worship in one building. Slavery usages
were modelled on manorial customs in England, where a section of church or
chapel is set apart for the peasantry, another for gentry and nobility.
The gallery, or some other section of our churches, was reserved for
servants, who thus had the same religious teaching we had; there being
more of them, they were often in larger evidence than whites at worship.
After whites communed, they received the Sacrament from the same hands at
the same altar. Their names were on our church rolls. Our pastors often
officiated at their funerals; sometimes an old "exhorter" of their own
colour did this; sometimes our pastors married them, but this ceremony was
not infrequently performed by their masters.
The Old African Church, of Richmond, was once that city's largest
auditorium. In it great meetings were held by whites, and famous speakers
and artists (Adelina Patti for one) were heard. One of Mr. Davis' last
addresses as President was made there. The regular congregation was black
and their pastor was Rev. Robert Ryland, D. D., President of Richmond
College; "Brother Ryland," they called him. He taught them with utmost
conscientiousness; they loved him and he them. When called upon for the
marriage ceremony, he would go to the home of their owners, and marry them
in the "white folks' house" or on the lawn before a company of whites and
blacks. Then, as fee, a large iced cake would be presented to him by a
groomsman with great pomp.
After the war, the old church was pulled down, and a new one erected by
the negroes with assistance of whites North and South. Then they wrote Dr.
Ryland, who had gone to Kentucky, asking him to return and dedicate it. He
answered affectionately, saying he appreciated greatly this evidence of
their regard and that nothing would give him greater pleasure, but he was
too poor to come; he would be with them in spirit. They replied that the
question of expense was none of his business; it was theirs. He wrote that
they must apply the sum thus set aside to current expenses, to meet which
it would be needed. They answered that they would be hurt if he did not
come; they wanted no one else to dedicate their church. So he came,
stopping at Mr. Maury's.
He was greatly touched when he met his old friends, the congregation
receiving him standing. So much feeling was displayed on their part, such
deep emotion experienced on his, that he had to retire to the study before
he could command himself sufficiently to preach.
In religious life, after the war, the negro's and the white man's path
parted quickly. Negro galleries in white churches soon stood empty.
Negroes were being taught that they ought to sit cheek by jowl in the same
pews with whites or stay away from white churches.
With freedom, the negro, _en masse_, relapsed promptly into the voodooism
of Africa. Emotional extravaganzas, which for the sake of his health and
sanity, if for nothing else, had been held in check by his owners, were
indulged without restraint. It was as if a force long repressed burst
forth. "Moans," "shouts" and "trance meetings" could be heard for miles.
It was weird. I have sat many a night in the window of our house on the
big plantation and listened to shouting, jumping, stamping, dancing, in a
cabin over a mile distant; in the gray dawn, negroes would come creeping
back, exhausted, and unfit for duty.
In some localities, devil-dancing, as imported from Africa centuries ago,
still continues. I have heard of one place in South Carolina where
worshippers throw the trance-smitten into a creek, as the only measure
sufficiently heroic to bring them out of coma. Devil-worship was rife in
Louisiana just after the war.
One of my negro friends tells me: "Soon atter de war, dar wuz a
trance-meetin' in dis neighbourhood dat lasted a week. De cook at
marster's would git a answer jes befo' dinner dat ef he didn' bring a part
uv evvything he cooked to de meetin', 'de Lawd would snatch de breath
outen his body.' He brung it. Young gals dee'd be layin' 'roun' in
trances. A gal would come to meetin' w'arin' a jacket a white lady gin
'er. One uh de gals in a trance would say: 'De Lawd say if sich an' sich a
one don' pull dat jacket off, he gwi snatch de breath out dar body.' One
ole man broke dat meetin' up. Two uv his gran'sons was lyin' out in a
trance. He come down dar, wid a han'-full uh hickory switches an' laid de
licks on dem gran'chillun. Evvybody took out an' run. Dat broke de meetin'
up.
"Endurin' slavery, dar marsters wouldn' 'low niggers tuh do all dat
foolishness. When freedom come, dee lis'n to bad advice an' lef' de white
folks' chu'ches an' go to doin' all sorts uh nawnsense. Now dee done
learnt better again. Dee goin' back sorter to de white folks' chu'ches.
Heap uh Pristopals lak dar use tuh be. In Furginny, Bishop Randolph come
'roun' an' confirm all our classes. An' de Baptis'es dee talk 'bout takin'
de cullud Baptis'es under dar watch-keer. An' all our folks dee done
learnt heap better an' all what I been tellin' you. I don' want you tuh
put dat in no book lessen you say we-all done improved."
Southern men who stand at the head of educational movements for negroes,
state that they have advanced greatly in a religious sense, their own
educated ministry contributing to this end. Among those old half-voodoo
shouters and dreamers of dreams were negroes of exalted Christian
character and true piety, and, industrially, of far more worth to society
than the average educated product. I have known sensible negroes who
believed that they "travelled" to heaven and to hell.[15]
It has been urged that darkness would have been quickly turned to light
had Southern masters and mistresses performed their full duty in the
spiritual instruction of their slaves. To change the fibre of a race is
not a thing quickly done even where undivided and intense effort is bent
in this direction. The negro, as he came here from Africa, changed much
more quickly for the better in every respect than under freedom he could
have done. It has been charged that we had laws against teaching negroes
to read. I never heard of them until after the war. All of us tried to
teach darkeys to read, and nothing was ever done to anybody about it. If
there were such laws, we paid no attention to them, and they were framed
for the negroes' and our protection against fanatics.[16]
I have treated this subject to show the swing back to savagery the instant
the master-hand was removed; one cause of demoralisation in field and
kitchen; the superstitious, volatile, inflammable material upon which
political sharpers played without scruple.
THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU
CHAPTER XVIII
THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU
Federal authorities had a terrific problem to deal with in four millions
of slaves suddenly let loose. Military commanders found themselves between
the devil and the deep sea.
Varied instructions were given to bring order out of chaos. "Freedmen that
will use any disrespectful language to their former masters will be
severely punished," is part of a ukase issued by Captain Nunan, at
Milledgeville, in fervent if distracted effort for the general weal. By
action if not by order, some others settled the matter this way: "Former
masters that will use any disrespectful language to their former slaves
will be severely punished"; as witness the case where a venerable lady,
bearing in her own and that of her husband two of the proudest names in
her State, was marched through the streets to answer before a military
tribunal the charge of having used offensive language to her cook.
With hordes of negroes pilfering and pillaging, new rulers had an elephant
on their hands. No vagrant laws enacted by Southern Legislatures in 1865-6
surpassed in severity many of the early military mandates with penalties
for infraction. The strongest argument in palliation of the reconstruction
acts is found in these laws which were construed into an attempt to
re-enslave the negro. The South had no vagrant class before the war and
was provided with no laws to meet conditions of vagrancy which followed
emancipation with overwhelming force.
Comparing these laws with New England's, we find that in many respects the
former were modelled on the latter, from which the words "ball and chain,"
"master and mistress" and the apprentice system, which Mr. Blaine declared
so heinous, might well have been borrowed, though New England never faced
so grave a vagrancy problem as that which confronted the South.
Negroes flocked to cities, thick as blackbirds. Federal commanders issued
orders: "Keep negroes from the cities." "The Government is feeding too
many idlers." "Make them stay on the plantations." "Impress upon them the
necessity of making a crop, or famine is imminent throughout the South."
"Do not let the young and able-bodied desert their children, sick, and
aged." As well call to order the wild things of the woods! In various
places something like the old "patter-roller" system of slavery was
adopted by the Federals, wandering negroes being required to show passes
from employers, saying why they were abroad.
General Schofield's Code for the Government of Freedmen in North Carolina
(May, 1865) says: "Former masters are constituted guardians of minors in
the absence of parents or other near relatives capable of supporting
them." The Radicals made great capital out of a similar provision in
Southern vagrancy laws.
Accounts of confusion worse confounded wrung this from the "New York
Times" (May 17, 1865): "The horse-stealing, lemonade and cake-vending
phase of freedom is destined to brief existence. The negro misunderstands
the motives which made the most laborious, hard-working people on the face
of the globe clamour for his emancipation. You are free, Sambo, but you
must work. Be virtuous, too, O Dinah! 'Whew! Gor Almighty! bress my
soul!'"
The "Chicago Times" (July 7, 1865) gives a Western view: "There is chance
in this country for philanthropy, a good opening for abolitionists. It is
to relieve twenty-eight millions of whites held in cruel bondage by four
million blacks, a bondage which retards our growth, distracts our
thoughts, absorbs our efforts, drives us to war, ruptures our government,
disturbs our tranquillity, and threatens direfully our future. There never
was such a race of slaves as we; there never was another people ground so
completely in the dust as this nation. Our negro masters crack their whips
over our legislators and our religion."
The Freedmen's Bureau was created March 3, 1865, for the care and
supervision of negroes in Federal lines. Branches were rapidly established
throughout the South and invested with almost unlimited powers in matters
concerning freedmen. An agency's efficiency depended upon the agent's
personality. If he were discreet and self-respecting, its influence was
wholesome; if he were the reverse, it was a curse. If he were inclined to
peculate, the agency gave opportunity; if he were cruel--well, negroes who
were hung up by the thumbs, or well annointed with molasses and tied out
where flies could find them had opinions.
I recall two stories which show how wide a divergence there might be
between the operations of two stations. A planter went to the agent in his
vicinity and said: "Captain, I don't know what to do with the darkeys on
my place. They will not work, and are committing depredations on myself
and neighbours." The agent went out and addressed the negroes: "Men, what
makes you think you can live without work? The Government is not going to
support any people in idleness on account of their complexions. I shall
not issue food to another of you. I have charged this planter to bring
before me any case of stealing. If you stay on this plantation, you are to
work for the owner."
In a week, the planter reported that they still refused to labour or to
leave; property was disappearing, wanton damage was being done; but it was
impossible to spot thieves and vandals. The agent, a man of war, went up
in a hurry, and his language made the air blue! "If I come again," was his
parting salutation, "I'll bring my cannon, and if you don't hoe, plow, or
do whatever is required, I'll blow you all to pieces!" They went to work.
A gentleman of Fauquier tells me: "When I got home from prison, July,
1865, I found good feelings existing between whites and their former
slaves; everything was going on as before the war except that negroes were
free and received wages. After a while there came down a Bureau Agent who
declared all contracts null and void and that no negro should work for a
white except under contract written and approved by him. This demoralised
the negroes and engendered distrust of whites."
"If a large planter was making contracts," I heard Mr. Martin, of the
Tennessee Legislature, relate, "the agent would intermeddle. I had to make
all mine in the presence of one. These agents had to be bribed to do a
white man justice. A negro would not readily get into trouble with a
gentleman of means and position when he would make short work of shooting
a poor white. Yet the former had owned slaves and the latter had not."
Planters, making contracts, might have to journey from remote points
(sometimes a distance of fifty miles over bad roads), wherever a Bureau
was located, whites and blacks suffering expense, and loss of time. Both
had to fee the agent. A contract binding on the white was not binding on
the negro, who was irresponsible. If the Bureau wrought much mischief, it
also wrought good, for there were some whites ready to take advantage of
the negro's ignorance in driving hard bargains with him; sorrowfully be it
said, if able to tip the agent, they would usually be able to drive the
hard bargain.
After examination for the Government into Bureau operations, Generals
Fullerton and Steedman reported, May, 1866: "Negroes regard the Bureau as
an indication that people of the North look upon the whites here as their
natural enemies, which is calculated to excite suspicion and bad feeling.
Only the worthless and idle ask interference, the industrious do not
apply. The effect produced by a certain class of agents, is bitterness and
antagonism between whites and freedmen, a growing prejudice on the part of
planters to the Government and expectations on the part of freedmen that
can never be realised. Where there has been no such interference or bad
advice given, there is a growing feeling of kindness between races and
good order and harmony prevail." They condemned the "arbitrary,
unnecessary and offensive interference by the agents with the relations of
the Southern planters and their freedmen."
General Grant had reported (Dec. 18, 1865) to President Johnson, after a
Southern tour: "The belief widely spread among freedmen that the lands of
former owners will, at least in part, be divided among them, has come
through agents of this Bureau. This belief is seriously interfering with
the willingness of the freedmen to make contracts."
Whether agents originated or simply winked at the red, white and blue
stick enterprise, I am unable to say. Into a neighborhood would come
strangers from the North, seeking private interviews with negroes
possessing a little cash or having access to somebody else's cash; to
these would be shown, with pledges of secrecy, packages of red, white and
blue sticks, four to each package. "Get up before light on such a date,
plant a stick at the four corners of any piece of land not over a mile
square, and the land is yours. Be wary, or the rebels will get ahead of
you."
Packages were five dollars each. One gentleman found a set for which he
had lent part of the purchase money planted on his land. If a negro had
not the whole sum, the seller would "trust" him for the balance till he
"should come into possession of the land."
Generals Fullerton and Steedman advised discontinuance of the Bureau in
Virginia; and some similar recommendation must have accompanied the report
for Florida and the Carolinas which contained such revelations as this
about the Trent River Settlement, where 4,000 blacks lived in "deplorable
condition" under the superintendency of Rev. Mr. Fitz, formerly U. S. A.
Chaplain. "Four intelligent Northern ladies," teaching school in the
Settlement, witnessed the harsh treatment of negroes by Mr. Fitz, such as
suspension by the thumbs for hours; imprisonment of children for playing
on the Sabbath; making negroes pay for huts; taxing them; turning them out
on the streets. Interesting statements were given in regard to the
"planting officials" who impressed negroes to work lands under such
overseers as few Southern masters (outside of "Uncle Tom's Cabin") would
have permitted to drive negroes they owned, the officials reaping profits.
The Bureau had ways of making whites know their place. One could gather a
book of stories like this, told me recently by an aged lady, whose name I
can give to any one entitled to ask: "Captain B., of the Freedmen's
Bureau, was a very hard man. He took up farms around and put negroes on
them. We had a large place; he held that over a year and everything was
destroyed. Saturdays, Captain B. would send many negroes out there--and it
was pandemonium! My husband was in prison. My father was eighty; he would
not complain, but I would. We went to the Bureau repeatedly about the
outrages. Captain B. was obsequious, offered father wine; but he did not
stop the outrages. Once he asked: 'Have you not had any remuneration for
your place?' 'No,' I said, 'and we are not asking it. We only beg you to
make the negroes you send out there behave decently.' He said he would do
anything for us, but did nothing; at last, I went direct to General
Stoneman, and he helped us."
Not long after Generals Grant's, Fullerton's, and Steedman's reports,
Congress enlarged the powers of the Bureau. Coincident with this, the
negro became a voter, the Bureau a political machine, the agent a
candidate. The Bureau had been active in securing negro enfranchisement.
It was natural that ambitious agents should send hair-raising stories
North of the Southerner's guile, cruelty and injustice, and touching ones
of the negro's heavenly-mindedness in general and of his fitness to be an
elector and law-maker in particular; all proving the propriety and
necessity of his possession of the ballot for self-protection and defense.
In signal instances, the Bureau became the negro's protector in crime, as
when its officials demanded at one time of Governor Throckmorton, of
Texas, pardon and release of two hundred and twenty-seven negroes from the
penitentiary, some of whom had been confined for burglary, arson, rape,
murder.
The Bureau did not in the end escape condemnation from those for whom it
was created, and who, on acquisition of the ballot, became its "spoiled
darlings." "De ossifers eat up all de niggers' rations, steal all dey
money, w'ar all dey Sunday clo'se," said Hodges, of Princess Anne, in
Virginia's Black and Tan Convention. The failure of the Freedmen's Savings
Bank was a scandal costing pain and humiliation to all honest Northerners
connected with the institution, and many a negro his little hoard and his
disposition to accumulate.
It is not fair to overlook benefits conferred by the Bureau because it
failed to perform the one great and fine task it might have accomplished,
as the freedman's first monitor, in teaching him that freedom enlarges
responsibility and brings no exemption from toil. If much harm, great good
was also done in distribution of Government rations, in which whites
sometimes received share with blacks. In numbers of places, both races
found the agent a sturdy friend and wise counsellor.[17]
No one who knows General O. O. Howard, who was Commissioner, can, I think,
doubt the sincerity and purity of purpose which animated him and scores of
his subordinates. From the start, the Bureau must have been a difficult
organization to handle; once the negro entered into count as a possible or
actual political factor, the combined wisdom of Solomon and Moses could
not have made its administration a success nor fulfilled the Government's
benign intention in creating it.
PRISONER OF FORTRESS MONROE
CHAPTER XIX
THE PRISONER OF FORTRESS MONROE
An extract from a letter by Mrs. Robert E. Lee to Miss Mason, from
Derwent, September 10, 1865, may interest my readers: "I have just
received, dear Miss Em, a long letter from Mrs. Davis in reply to one of
mine. She was in Augusta, Ga.; says she is confined to that State. She has
sent her children to kindred in Canada. Says she knows nothing whatever of
her husband, except what she has seen in the papers. Says any letter sent
her under care of Mr. Schley will reach her safely. She writes very sadly,
as she well may, for I know of no one so much to be pitied.... She
represents a most uncomfortable state of affairs in Augusta. No one, white
or black, can be out after ten o'clock at night without a pass.... We must
wait God's time to raise us up again. That will be the best time." In a
later letter, Mrs. Lee said: "I cannot help feeling uneasy about Mr.
Davis. May God protect him, and grant him deliverance!"
The whole South was anxious about Mr. Davis. Those who had come in close
touch with him felt a peculiar sympathy for him inspired by a side of his
character not generally recognized, as his manner often conveyed an
impression of coldness and sternness. Under his reserve, was an almost
feminine tenderness revealed in many stories his close friends tell. Thus:
One night, Judge Minor, to see the President on business of state, sat
with him in the room of the "White House" where the telegraph wire came in
at the window (now, Alabama Room in the Confederate Museum), when in
stumbles little Joe, in night-gown, saying: "Papa, I want to say my
prayers." The President, caressing his child, despatched a message,
answered Judge Minor's immediate question, and saying, "Excuse me a
moment," led his little one's devotions. He was of wide reading and
wonderful memory, yet was ignorant of "Mother Goose" until he heard his
children babbling the jingles. Mrs. Davis brought "Babes in the Wood" to
his notice. He suffered from insomnia after visits to the hospitals; his
wife would try to read him to sleep. One night she picked up the "Babes"
as the one thing at hand, and was astonished to find the poem unknown to
him; at the children's desertion he rose, exclaiming: "Was there no one to
help those poor tender babies? The thought is agonizing!" A part of his
childhood was spent in a Kentucky monastery, where the good monks did not
bethink themselves to teach him nursery rhymes.
There was the story of the soldier's widow, to answer whose call the
President left his breakfast unfinished. Mrs. Davis found him trying to
comfort and to induce her to partake of a tray of delicacies sent in by
his order. She was trying to find her husband's body, and feared that as
he was a poor private due aid might not be given her; she had been certain
that she would receive scant attention from the Chief Magistrate. But he
was telling her that the country's strength and protection lay in her
private soldier. "My father, Madam, was a private in the Revolution, and I
am more proud of what he did for his country than if he had been an
officer expecting the world's praise. Tell your sorrows to my wife. She
will take you in her carriage wherever you wish to go, and aid you all she
can."
Dr. Craven, Mr. Davis' Federal physician at Fortress Monroe, testifies in
his book to his patient's unusual depth and quickness of sympathy:
"Despite a certain exterior cynicism of manner, no patient ever crossed my
path who, suffering so much himself, appeared to feel so warmly and
tenderly for others." In Confederate hospitals, he had not limited pity to
wearers of the gray. A "White House" guest told me of his robbing his
scant table more than once for a sick Federal who had served with him in
Mexico. Another laughingly remarked: "I don't see how he managed to rob
his table of a delicacy. When I sat down to it, it had none to spare. Yet
certainly he might have kept a bountiful board, for Government stores were
accessible to Government officials, and the President might have had first
choice in purchasing blockade goods. But the simplicity of our White House
regime was an object-lesson. I recall seeing Mr. Davis in home-spun,
home-made clothes at State receptions. That required very positive
patriotism if one could do better! 'Do look at Mr. Davis!' Mrs. Davis
whispered, 'He _will_ wear those clothes, and they look lop-sided!' Their
deficiencies were more noticeable because he was so polished and elegant."
One of the faithful shows me in her scrap-book a dispatch, of May 25,
1865, in the "Philadelphia Inquirer": "Jeff does not pine in solitude. An
officer and two soldiers remain continually in the cell with him." And
then points to these words from the pen of Hugh McCulloch, Mr. Davis'
visitor from Washington: "He had the bearing of a brave and high-born
gentleman, who, knowing he would have been highly honoured if the Southern
States had achieved their independence, would not and could not demean
himself as a criminal because they had not." She tells how men who had
served under Mr. Davis in Mexico were among his guards at Fortress Monroe
and showed him respect and kindness; and how almost everybody there grew
to like him, he was so kind and courteous, and to the common soldier as to
the strapped and starred officer.
Our ladies sent articles for his comfort to Mr. Davis, but knew not if he
received them. Dr. Minnegerode's efforts to see him were for a weary while
without success. It seemed that his pastor, at least, might have had this
privilege without question, especially such as Dr. Minnegerode, a man of
signal peace and piety who had carried the consolations of religion and
such comforts as he could collect in an almost famine-stricken city to
Federals in prison. His first endeavour, a letter of request to President
Johnson, met no response. Finally, appeal was made through Rev. Dr. Hall,
Mr. Stanton's pastor; to the committee of ladies waiting on him, Dr. Hall
said he did not wish to read the petition, wished to have nothing to do
with the matter; they besought, he read, and secured privilege of
intercourse between pastor and prisoner.
For months, Mr. Davis was not allowed to correspond with his wife; was
allowed no book but the Bible; June 8, 1865, Stanton reproved General
Miles for permitting the prison chaplain to visit him. He was unprepared
for his pastor's coming, when Dr. Minnegerode, conducted by General Miles,
entered his cell. In a sermon in St. Paul's after Mr. Davis' death, Dr.
Minnegerode described this meeting. Mr. Davis had been removed (on medical
insistence) from the casemate, and was "in an end room on the second floor
of Carroll Hall, with a passage and windows on each side of the room, and
an anteroom in front, separated by an open grated door--a sentinel on each
passage and before the grated door of the anteroom; six eyes always
upon him, day and night." With these eyes looking on, the long-parted
friends, the pastor and the prisoner, met.
[Illustration: A VIEW OF FORTRESS MONROE
Showing section of casemates overlooking the moat. In a casemate of this
fort Mr. Davis was confined.
Photographed in 1890]
When the question of Holy Communion was broached, Mr. Davis hesitated. "He
was a pure and pious man, and felt the need and value of the means of
grace. But could he take the Sacrament in the proper spirit--in a
forgiving mind? He was too upright and conscientious to eat and drink
unworthily--that is, not at peace with God and man, as far as in him lay."
In the afternoon, General Miles took the pastor to the prisoner again. Mr.
Davis was ready to pray, "Father, forgive them!" "Then came the Communion.
It was night. The fortress was so still that you could hear a pin fall.
General Miles, with his back to us, leaned against the fire-place in the
anteroom, his head on his hands--not moving; sentinels stood like
statues."
Of Mr. Davis' treatment, Dr. Minnegerode said: "The officers were polite
and sympathetic; the common soldiers--not one adopted the practice of high
dignitaries who spoke sneeringly of him as 'Jeff.' Not one but spoke of
him in a subdued and kindly tone as 'Mr. Davis.' I went whenever I could,"
he adds, "to see my friend, and precious were the hours spent with that
lowly, patient, God-fearing soul. It was in these private interviews that
I learned to appreciate his noble, Christian character--'pure in heart,'
unselfish, without guile, and loyal unto death to his conscience and
convictions." The prisoner's health failed fast. Officers thought it would
be wise and humane to allow him more liberty; they knew that he not only
had no desire to escape, but could not be induced to do so. He was begging
for trial. The pastor, encouraged by Dr. Hall, called on Mr. Stanton. He
had hoped to find the man of iron softened by sorrow; Mr. Stanton had lost
a son; his remaining child was on his knees. His greeting was like ice--a
bow and nothing more. The pastor expressed thanks for permit to visit the
prisoner, and respectfully broaching the subject of Mr. Davis' health,
suggested that, as he neither would nor could escape, he be allowed the
liberty of the fort. Mr. Stanton broke his silence: "It makes no
difference what the state of Jeff Davis' health is. His trial will come
on, no doubt. Time enough till that settles it." "It settled it in my
leaving the presence of that man," said the pastor. "I realise," Dr.
Craven protested, "the painful responsibilities of my position. If Mr.
Davis were to die in prison, without trial, subject to such indignities as
have been visited upon his attenuated frame, the world would form unjust
conclusions, but conclusions with enough colour to pass them into
history." Arguments breathing similar appreciation of the situation began
to appear in the Northern press, while men of prominence, advocating the
application of the great principles of justice and humanity to his case,
called for his release or trial; such lawyers as William B. Reed, of
Philadelphia, and Charles O'Conor, of New York, tendered him free
services. Strong friends were gathering around his wife. The Northern
heart was waking. General Grant was one of those who used his influence to
mitigate the severity of Mr. Davis' imprisonment.
Again and again Mrs. Davis had implored permission to go to him. "I will
take any parole--do anything, if you will only let me see him! For the
love of God and His merciful Son, do not refuse me!" was her cry to the
War Department, January, 1866. No reply. Then, this telegram to Andrew
Johnson from Montreal, April 25, 1866: "I hear my husband's health is
failing rapidly. Can I come to see him? Can you refuse me? Varina Davis."
Stanton acquiesced in Johnson's consent. And the husband and wife were
reunited.
Official reports to Washington, changing their tone, referred to him as
"State Prisoner Davis" instead of merely "Jeff Davis." The "National
Republican," a Government organ, declared: "Something ought in justice to
be done about his case. By every principle of justice as guaranteed by the
Constitution, he ought to be released or brought to trial." It would have
simplified matters had he asked pardon of the National Government. But
this he never did, though friends, grieving over his sufferings, urged
him. He did not hold that the South had committed treason or that he, in
being her Chief Magistrate, was Arch-Traitor. Questions of difference
between the States had been tried in the court of arms; the South had
lost, had accepted conditions of defeat, would abide by them; that was all
there was to it. Northern men were coming to see the question in the same
light.
Through indignities visited upon him who had been our Chief Magistrate was
the South most deeply aggrieved and humiliated; through the action of
Horace Greeley and other Northern men coming to his rescue was the first
real balm of healing laid upon the wound that gaped between the sections.
That wound would have healed quickly, had not the most profound
humiliation of all, the negro ballot and white disfranchisement, been
forced upon us.
Among relics in the Confederate Museum is a mask which Mr. Davis wore at
Fortress Monroe. His wife sent it to him when she heard that the
everlasting light in his eyes and the everlasting eyes of guards upon him
were robbing him of sleep and threatening his eyesight and his reason.
Over a mantel is Jefferson Davis' bond in a frame; under his name are
those of his sureties, Horace Greeley's leading the signatures of
Cornelius Vanderbilt, Gerrit Smith, Benjamin Wood, and Augustus Schell,
all of New York; A. Welsh and D. K. Jackson, of Philadelphia; and Southern
sureties, W. H. McFarland, Richard Barton Haxall, Isaac Davenport, Abraham
Warwick, Gustavus A. Myers, W. Crump, James Lyons, John A. Meredith, W. H.
Lyons, John Minor Botts, Thomas W. Boswell, James Thomas. Thousands of
Southerners would have rejoiced to sign that bond; but it must be pleasing
now to visitors of both sections to see Northern and Southern names upon
it. The mask and the bond tell the story.
RECONSTRUCTION ORATORY
CHAPTER XX
RECONSTRUCTION ORATORY
Northern visitors, drawn to Richmond in the Spring of 1867, to the Davis
trial, came upon the heels of a riot if not squarely into the midst of
one. Friday, May 10, began with a mass-meeting at one of the old
Chimborazo buildings, where negroes of both sexes, various ages, and in
all kinds of rags and raiment, congregated. Nothing could exceed the
cheerfulness with which their initiation fees and monthly dues were
received by the white Treasurer of the National Political Aid Society,
while their names were called by the white Secretary--the one officer a
carpet-bagger, the other a scalawag. Initiation fee was a quarter, monthly
dues a dime; the Treasurer's table was piled with a hillock of small
change. The Secretary added 400 names to a roll of 2,000.
A negro leader, asked by a Northern reporter, "What's this money to be
used for?" replied: "We gwi sen' speakers all 'roun' de country, boss; gwi
open de eyes er de cullud folks, an' show 'em how dee gotter vote. Some
niggers out in de country don' know whe'er dee free er not--hoein' an'
plowin' fuh white folks jes lak dee always been doin'. An' dee gwi vote
lak white folks tell 'em ef dar ain' suppin' did. De country's gwi go tuh
obstruction ef us whar knows don' molighten dem whar don' know. Dat huccum
you sees what you does see." When collection had been taken up, a young
carpet-bagger led in speech-making:
"Dear friends: I rejoice to find myself in this noble company of
patriots. I see before me men and women who are bulwarks of the nation;
ready to give their money, to work, to die, if need be, for freedom.
Freedom, my friends, is another name for the great Republican Party.
("Hise yo' mouf tellin' dat truf!" "Dat's so!" "Halleluia!" "Glory be tuh
Gawd!") The Republican Party gave you freedom and will preserve it
inviolate! (Applause; whispers: "What dat he spoken 'bout?" "Sho use big
words!" "Dat man got sense. He know what he talkin' 'bout ef we don't!")
That party was unknown in this grand old State until a few months ago. It
has been rotten-egged!--("Now ain't dat a shame!") although its speakers
have only advocated the teachings of the Holy Bible. ("Glory Halleluia!"
"Glory to de Lamb!" "Jesus, my Marster!") The Republican Party is your
friend that has led you out of the Wilderness into the Promised Land!"
Glories and halleluias reached climax in which two sisters were carried
out shouting. "Disshere gitten' too much lak er 'ligious meetin' tuh suit
me," a sinner observed.
"You do not need for me to tell you never to vote for one of these white
traitors and rebels who held you as slaves. ("Dat we ain't!" "We'll see
'em in h---- fust!") We have fought for you on the field of battle. Now you
must organize and fight for yourselves. ("We gwi do it, too! Dat we is! We
gwi fight!") We have given you freedom. We intend to give you property.
We, the Republican Party, propose to confiscate the land of these white
rebels and traitors and give it to you, to whom it justly belongs--forty
acres and a mule and $100 to every one of you! (The Chairman exhausted
himself seeking to subdue enthusiasm.) The Republican Party cannot do this
unless you give it your support. All that it asks is your vote and your
influence. If the white men of the South carry the elections, they will
put you back into slavery."
A scalawag delivered the gem of the occasion: "Ladies and gentlemen: I am
happy to embrace this privilege of speaking to you. I desire to address
first and very especially a few words to these ladies, for they wield an
influence of which they are little aware. Whether poor or rich, however
humble they may be, women exert a powerful influence over the hearts of
men. I have been gratified to see you bringing your mites to the cause of
truth. Emulate, my fair friends, the example of your ancestors who came
over in the Mayflower, emulate your ancestors, the patriotic women of '76.
Give your whole hearts, and all your influence to this noble work. And in
benefits that will come to you, you shall be repaid an hundred-fold for
every quarter and dime you here deposit!" The meeting closed with
race-hatred stirred up to white heat in black breasts.
Later in the day, Richmond firemen were entertaining visiting Delaware
firemen with water-throwing. A policeman requested a negro, standing
within reserved space, to move; Sambo would not budge; the officer pushed
him back; Sambo struck the officer; there was a hubbub. A white bystander
was struck, and struck back; a barber on the corner jerked up his pole and
ran, waving it and yelling: "Come on, freedmen! Now's de time to save yo'
nation!" Negroes of all sizes, sexes and ages, some half-clad, many drunk,
poured into the street; brickbats flew; the officer was knocked down, his
prisoner liberated. Screams of "Dem p'licemens shan't 'res' nobody, dat
dee shan't!" "Time done come fuh us tuh stan' up fuh our rights!" were
heard on all sides. The police, under orders not to fire, tried to
disperse or hold them at bay, exercising marvellous patience when blacks
shook fists in their faces, saying: "I dar you tuh shoot! I jes dar you
tuh shoot!"
Mayor Mayo addressed the crowd: "I command you in the name of the
Commonwealth to go to your homes, every one, white and black; I give you
my word every case shall be looked into and justice done." They moved a
square, muttering: "Give us our rights, now--de cullud man's rights!" An
ambulance rumbled up. Negroes broke into cheers. In it sat General
Schofield, Federal Commandant, and General Brown, of the Freedmen's
Bureau. "Speech! speech!" they called. "I want you to go to your homes and
remain there," said General Schofield. They made no motion to obey, but
called for a speech. "I did not come here to make a speech. I command you
to disperse." They did not budge. The war lord was not there to trifle. In
double-quick time, Company H of the Twenty-Ninth was on the ground and
sent the crowd about its business. That night six companies were marched
in from Camp Grant and disposed about the city at Mayor Mayo's discretion.
High carnival in the Old African Church wound up the day. An educated
coloured man from Boston presided, and Carpet-Bagger-Philanthropist
Hayward (who, having had the cold shoulder turned on him in Massachusetts,
had come to Virginia) held forth: "The papers have made conspicuous my
remarks that the negro is better than the white man. Why, I had no idea
anybody was so stupid as to doubt it. When I contemplate such a noble
race, and look upon you as you appear to me tonight, I could wish my own
face were black!" "Ne'm min', boss!" sang out a sympathetic auditor, "Yo'
heart's black! Dat's good enough!" The speaker was nonplussed for a
second.
"When I go to Massachusetts, shall I tell the people there that you are
determined to ride in the same cars on which white men and women ride?"
"Yes! Yes!" "Shall I tell them you intend to go in and take your seats in
any church where the Gospel is preached?" "Yes! Yes! Dat we is!" "Shall I
tell them you intend to occupy any boxes in the theatre you pay your money
for?" "You sho kin, boss!" "Yes, yes!" "Shall I tell them you intend to
enjoy, _in whatever manner you see fit_, any rights and privileges which
the citizens of Massachusetts enjoy?" "Dat you kin!" "Tell 'em we gwi have
our rights!"
"If you cannot get them for yourselves, the young men of the Bay State
will come down and help you. We have made you free. We will give you what
you want." The coloured gentleman from Boston had to employ all his
parliamentary skill before applause could be subdued for the speaker to
continue. "You are brave. I am astonished at evidences of your bravery. To
any who might be reckless, I give warning. You would not endanger the life
of the illustrious Underwood, would you?" (Judge Underwood, boss of the
black ring, was in town to try Mr. Davis.) "Dat we wouldn'!" "_Well, then,
as soon as he leaves, you may have a high carnival in whatever way you
please. It is not for me to advise you what to do, for great masses do
generally what they have a mind to._"
Wrought up to frenzy, the negroes fairly shook the house; the chairman
made sincere efforts to bring the meeting to order. The young white
Secretary of the National Political Aid Society arose and said: "Mr.
Speaker, you may tell the people of Massachusetts that the coloured people
of Richmond are determined to go into any bar-room, theatre, hotel, or car
they wish to enter." "Yes, you tell 'em dat! We will! We will!"
Next morning, our war lord brought Hayward up in short order. The meeting
had come to his notice through Cowardin's report in the "Dispatch." The
hearing was rich, a cluster of bright newspaper men being present, among
them the "New York Herald" reporter, who endorsed Mr. Cowardin's account,
and declared Hayward's speech inflammatory. It developed that negroes had
been petitioning to Washington for General Schofield's removal, a
compliment paid all his predecessors.
The idle and excitable negroes must not be accepted as fully
representative of their race. Those not heard from were the worthy ones,
remaining at the houses of their white employers or in their own homes,
and performing faithfully their regular duties. They were in the minority,
but I believe the race would prefer now that these humble toilers should
be considered representative rather than the other class. Lending neither
aid nor encouragement to insurrectionary methods, they yet dared not
openly oppose the incendiary spirit which, had it been carried far enough,
might have swept them, too, off their feet as their kindred became
involved. Negroes stick together and conceal each other's defections; this
does not proceed altogether from race loyalty; they fear each other; dread
covert acts of vengeance and being "conjured." Mysterious afflictions
overtake the "conjured" or bewitched.
THE PRISONER FREE
CHAPTER XXI
THE PRISONER FREE
On a beautiful May afternoon, two years after Mr. Davis' capture, the
"John Sylvester" swung to the wharf at Rocketts and the prisoner walked
forth, smiling quietly upon the people who, on the other side of the blue
cordon of sentinels, watched the gangway, crying, "It is he! it is he!"
Always slender, he was shadowy now, worn and thin to emaciation. He did
not carry himself like a martyr. Only his attenuation, the sharpness of
his features, the care-worn, haggard appearance of the face, the hair
nearly all gray, the general indications of having aged ten years in two,
made any appeal for sympathy. With him were his wife, Judge Ould, and Mr.
James Lyons, Dr. Cooper, Mr. Burton Harrison, and General Burton, General
Miles' successor, whose prisoner he yet was, but whose attitude was more
that of friend than custodian.
A reserved and dignified city is the Capital on the James, taking joys
sedately; but that day she wore her heart on her sleeve; she cheered and
wept. The green hills, streets, sidewalks, were alive with people;
porches, windows, balconies, roofs, were thronged; Main Street was a lane
of uncovered heads as two carriages rolled swiftly towards the Spotswood,
one holding Mr. Davis, General Burton, Dr. Cooper and Mr. Harrison; the
other, Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Lyons, Mr. Lyons and Judge Ould; an escort of
Federal cavalry bringing up the rear with clattering hoofs and clanging
sabres. It was more like a victor's home-returning than the bringing of a
prisoner to trial. Yet through popular joy there throbbed the tragic note
that marks the difference between the huzzas of a conquering people for
their leader, and the welcoming "God bless you!" of a people subdued.
This difference was noticeable at the Spotswood, which famous hostelry
entertained many Northern guests. A double line of policemen, dividing the
crowd, formed an avenue from sidewalk to ladies' entrance. This crowd, it
seems, had its hat on. Among our own people may have been some who thought
it not wise in their own or the prisoner's interests to show him too much
honour. But as the emaciated, careworn man with the lofty bearing, stepped
from the carriage, a voice, quiet but distinct, broke the impressive
stillness: "Hats off, Virginians!" Instantly every man stood uncovered.
Monday he went to trial. The Court Room in the old Custom House was
packed. In the persons of representative men, North and South were there
for his vindication of the charge of high treason. Were he guilty, then
were we all of the South, and should be sentenced with him.
Reporters for Northern papers were present with their Southern brethren of
scratch-pad and pencil. The jury-box was a novelty to Northerners. In it
sat a motley crew of negroes and whites. For portrait in part of the
presiding judge, I refer to the case of McVeigh vs. Underwood, as reported
in Twenty-third Grattan, decided in favour of McVeigh. When the Federal
Army occupied Alexandria, John C. Underwood used his position as United
States District Judge to acquire the homestead, fully furnished, of Dr.
McVeigh, then in Richmond. He confiscated it to the United States, denied
McVeigh a hearing, sold it, bought it in his wife's name for $2,850
when it was worth not less than $20,000, and had her deed it to himself.
The first time thereafter that Dr. McVeigh met the able jurist face to
face on a street in Richmond, the good doctor, one of the most amiable of
men, before he knew what he was doing, slapped the able jurist over and
went about his business; whereupon, the Honourable the United States
Circuit Court picked himself up and went about his, which was sitting in
judgment on cases in equity. In 1873, Dr. McVeigh's home was restored to
him by law, the United States Supreme Court pronouncing Underwood's course
"a blot upon our jurisprudence and civilisation." Underwood was in
possession when he presided at the trial of Jefferson Davis.
[Illustration: AN HISTORICAL PETIT JURY
This is the Petit Jury impaneled to try President Jefferson Davis, being
the first mixed Petit Jury ever impaneled in the United States. Judge
Underwood, not Chief Justice Chase, presided.]
His personal appearance has been described as "repellant; his head
drooping; his hair long; his eyes shifty and unpleasing, and like a
basilisk's; his clothes ill-fitting;" he "came into court, fawning,
creeping, shuffling; ascended the bench in a manner awkward and ungainly;
lifted his head like a turtle." "Hear ye! hear ye! Silence is commanded
while the Honourable the United States Circuit Court is in session!" calls
the crier on this May morning.
General Burton, with soldierly simplicity, transfers the prisoner from the
military to the civil power; Underwood embarrasses the officer and shames
every lawyer present by a fatuous response abasing the bench before the
bayonet. Erect, serene, undefiant, surrounded by mighty men of the
Northern and Southern bar--O'Conor, Reed, Shea, Randolph Tucker,
Ould--Jefferson Davis faces his judge, his own clear, fearless glance
meeting squarely the "basilisk eye."
The like of Underwood's charge to the jury was never heard before in this
land. It caused one long blush from Maine to Texas, Massachusetts to
California; and resembled the Spanish War that came years after in that it
gave Americans a common grievance. This poor, political bigot thought to
please his Northern hearers by describing Richmond as "comely and spacious
as a goodly apple on a gilded sepulchre where bloody treason flourished
its whips of scorpions" and a "place where licentiousness has ruled until
a majority of the births are illegitimate," and "the pulpit prostituted by
full-fed gay Lotharios." But the thing is too loathsome to quote! Northern
reporters said it was not a charge, took no cognisance of the matter
before the Court, was a "vulgar, inflammatory stump speech." The "New York
Herald" pronounced it "The strangest mixture of drivel and nonsense that
ever disgraced a bench," and "without a parallel, with its foul-mouthed
abuse of Richmond." "A disgrace to the American bench," declared the "New
York World." "He has brought shame upon the entire bench of the country,
for to the people of other countries he is a representative of American
judges."
There was no trial. Motion was made and granted for a continuance of the
case to November, and bail given in bond for $100,000, which Horace
Greeley signed first, the crowd cheering him as he went up to write his
name, which was followed by signatures of other well-known men of both
sections. "The Marshal will discharge the prisoner!" a noble sentence in
the judge's mouth at last! Applause shakes the Court Room. Men surge
forward; Mr. Davis is surrounded; his friends, his lawyers, his sureties,
crowd about him; the North and the South are shaking hands; a love-feast
is on. Human nature is at its best. The prisoner is free. When he appears
on the portico the crowd grows wild with joy. Somebody wrote North that
they heard the old "Rebel yell" once more, and that something or other
unpleasant ought to be done to us because we would "holler" like that
whenever we got excited.
It looks as if his carriage will never get back to the Spotswood, people
press about him so, laughing, crying, congratulating, cheering. Negroes
climb upon the carriage steps, shaking his hand, kissing it, shouting:
"God bless Mars Davis!" No man was ever more beloved by negroes he owned
or knew.
The South was unchained. The South was set free. No! That fall the first
election at which negroes voted and whites--the majority disqualified by
test-oath provision--did not vote, was held to send delegates to a
convention presided over by John C. Underwood. This convention--the Black
and Tan--made a new Constitution for the Old Dominion.
"If black men will riot, I will fear that emancipation is a failure." So
spoke the great abolitionist, Gerrit Smith, from the pulpit of the Old
African Church Tuesday night after the Davis trial. "Riots in Richmond,
Charleston, and New Orleans have made me sick at heart." On the platform
with him were Horace Greeley, Governor Pierpont, Colonel Lewis and Judge
Underwood. His audience consisted of negroes, prominent white citizens of
Richmond, Federal officers and their wives. The negroes, as ready to be
swayed by good advice as bad, listened attentively to the wisest, most
conservative addresses they had heard from civilians of the North, or than
they were again to hear for a long time. Gerrit Smith, who was pouring out
his money like water for their education, told them:
"I do not consider the white people of the South traitors. The South is
not alone responsible for slavery. Northern as well as Southern ships
brought negroes to this shore. When Northern States passed laws abolishing
slavery in their borders, Northern people brought their negroes down here
and sold them before those laws could take effect. I have been chased in
the North by a pro-slavery mob--never in the South." Referring to the
South's impoverished condition, he said he wished the Federal Government
would give the section six years' exemption from the Federal tax to make
rapid rehabilitation possible. He plead for harmony between races; urged
whites to encourage blacks by selling lands to them cheap; urged blacks to
frugality, industry, sobriety; plead with them not to drink. "Why cannot
you love the whites among whom you have been born and raised?" he asked.
"We do! we do!" cried the poor darkeys who had yelled, "We will! we will!"
when Hayward was inciting them to mischief.
Horace Greeley said: "I have heard in Richmond that coloured people would
not buy homes or lands because they are expecting these through
confiscation. Believe me, friends, you can much sooner earn a home.
Confiscation is a slow, legal process. (Underwood had not found it so.)
Thaddeus Stevens, the great man who leads the movement--and perhaps one of
the greatest men who ever sat in Congress--is the only advocate of such a
course, among all our representatives and senators. If it has not taken
place in the two years since the war, we may not hope for it now. Famine,
disaster, and deadly feuds would follow confiscation." His voice, too, was
raised against calling Southern whites "traitors." "This seems to me," he
said, "to brand with the crime of treason--of felony--millions of our
fellow-countrymen."
It is to be said in reference to one part of Gerrit Smith's advice, that
Southerners were only too ready to sell their lands at any price or on
any terms to whoever would buy. Had the negroes applied the industrial
education which they then possessed they might have become owners of half
the territory of the South. Politicians and theorists who diverted negroid
energies into other channels were unconsciously serving Nature's purpose,
the preservation of the Anglo-Saxon race. Upon every measure that might
thwart that purpose, Nature seems to smile serenely, turning it to reverse
account.
* * * * *
A lively account of the seating of the first negro in the Congress of the
United States was contained in a letter of February, 1870, from my friend,
Miss Winfield, stopping in Washington. "Revels," she wrote, "occupies the
seat of Jefferson Davis. The Republicans made as much of the ceremony as
possible. To me it was infinitely sad, and infinitely absurd. We run
everything in the ground in America. Here, away from the South, where the
tragedy of it all is not so oppressively before me and where I see only
the political clap-trap of the whole African business, I am prone to lose
sight of the graver side and find things simply funny."
A lively discussion preceded the seating. Senator Wilson said something
very handsome about the "Swan Song of Slavery" and God's hand in the
present state of affairs; as he was soaring above the impious Democrats,
Mr. Casserly, one of the last-named sinners, bounced up and asked: "I
would like to know when and where the Senator from Massachusetts obtained
a commission to represent the Almighty in the Senate? I have not heard of
such authorisation, and if such person has been selected for that office,
it is only another illustration of the truism that the ways of Providence
are mysterious and past finding out." Laughter put the "Swan Song" off
key; Casserly said something about senators being made now, not by the
voice of God and the people, but by the power of the bayonet, when
somebody flung back at him, "You use the shelalah in New York!"
"But the ceremony!" Miss Winfield wrote. "Nothing has so impressed me
since the ball to Prince Arthur, nor has anything so amused me unless it
be the pipe-stem pantaloons our gentlemen wear in imitation of His Royal
Highness. Senator Wilson conducted Revels to the Speaker's desk with a
fine air that said: 'Massachusetts has done it all!' Vice-President Colfax
administered the oath with such unction as you never saw, then shook hands
with great warmth with Revels--nobody ever before saw him greet a
novitiate so cordially! But then, those others were only white men! With
pomp and circumstance the sergeant-at-arms led the hero of the hour to his
exalted position. 'Some day,' said my companion, 'history will record this
as showing how far the race-madness of a people can go under political
spurs.' Republican Senators fell over each other to shake Revels' hand and
congratulate him. Poor Mississippi! And Revels is not even a native.
General Ames, of Maine, is her other senator. Poor Mississippi!"
A LITTLE PLAIN HISTORY
CHAPTER XXII
A LITTLE PLAIN HISTORY
For clearness in what has gone before and what follows, I must write a
little plain history.
Many who ought to have known Mr. Lincoln's mind, among these General
Sherman, with whom Mr. Lincoln had conversed freely, believed it his
purpose to recognise existing State Governments in the South upon their
compliance with certain conditions. These governments were given no
option; governors calling legislatures for the purpose of expressing
submission, were clapped into prison. Thus, these States were without
civil State Governments, and under martial law. Some local governments and
courts continued in operation subject to military power; military
tribunals and Freedmen's Bureaus were established.
Beginning May 29, 1865, with North Carolina, President Johnson
reconstructed the South on the plan Mr. Lincoln had approved, appointing
for each State a Provisional Governor empowered to call a convention to
make a new State Constitution or remodel the old to meet new conditions.
His policy was to appoint a citizen known for anti-Secession or Union
sentiments, yet holding the faith and respect of his State, as Perry, of
South Carolina; Sharkey, of Mississippi; Hamilton, of Texas. The
conventions abolished slavery, annulled the secession ordinance,
repudiated the Confederate debt, acknowledged the authority of the United
States. An election was held for State officers and members of the
legislature, voters qualifying as previous to 1861, and by taking the
amnesty oath of May 29. Legislatures reënacted the convention's work of
annulling secession, abolishing slavery, repudiating debt; and passed
civil rights bills giving the negro status as a citizen, but without the
franchise, though some leaders advised conferring it in a qualified form;
they passed vagrancy laws which the North interpreted as an effort at
reënslavement.
Congress met December, 1865; President Johnson announced that all but two
of the Southern States had reorganised their governments under the
conditions required. Their representatives were in Washington to take
their seats. With bitter, angry, contemptuous words, Congress refused to
seat them. April 2, 1866, President Johnson proclaimed that in the South
"the laws can be sustained by proper civil authority, State and Federal;
the people are well and loyally disposed;" military occupation, martial
law, military tribunals and the suspension of the writ of _habeas corpus_
"are in time of peace, dangerous to public liberty," "incompatible with
the rights of the citizen," etc., "and ought not to be sanctioned or
allowed; ... people who have revolted and been overcome and subdued, must
either be dealt with so as to induce them voluntarily to become friends or
else they must be held by the absolute military power and devastated ...
which last-named policy is abhorrent to humanity and freedom."
March 2, 1867, Congress passed an act that "Whereas, no legal State
Governments exist ... in the rebel States ... said rebel States shall be
divided into five military districts." Over each a Federal General was
appointed; existing local governments were subject to him; he could
reverse their decisions, remove their officials and install
substitutes; some commanders made radical use of power; others, wiser and
kindlier, interfered with existing governments only as their position
compelled. Upon the commanders Congress imposed the task of reconstructing
these already once reconstructed States. Delegates to another convention
to frame another Constitution were to be elected, the negroes voting. Of
voters the test-oath was required, a provision practically disfranchising
Southern whites and disqualifying them for office. Thaddeus Stevens,
leader of the party forcing these measures, said of negro suffrage: "If it
be a punishment to rebels, they deserve it."
[Illustration: AUGUSTA J. EVANS WILSON
OCTAVIA WALTON LE VERT
The South's two most prominent literary women at the close of the war; one
a novelist and the other a writer of translations and books of travel.]
Black and Tan Conventions met in long and costly sessions. That of
Mississippi sat over a month before beginning the task for which convened,
having passed the time in fixing per diems, mileages, proposing a bonus
for negroes dismissed by employers, imposing taxes on anything and
everything to meet the expenses of the convention; and badgering General
Gillem, Commander of the District. The Black and Tan Conventions framed
constitutions which, with tickets for State and National officers, were
submitted to popular vote, negroes, dominated by a few corrupt whites,
determining elections. With these constitutions and officials, "carpet-bag
rule" came into full power and States were plundered. The sins of these
governments have been specified by Northern and Southern authorities in
figures of dollars and cents. At first, Southern Unionists and Northern
settlers joined issues with the Republican Party. Oppressive taxation,
spoliation, and other evils drove all respectable citizens into coalitions
opposing this party; these coalitions broke up Radical rule in the
Southern States, the last conquest being in Louisiana and South Carolina
in 1876. No words can present any adequate picture of the "mongrel"
conventions and legislatures, but in the following chapter I try to give
some idea of the absurdities of one, which may be taken as type of
all.[18]
THE BLACK AND TAN CONVENTION
CHAPTER XXIII
THE BLACK AND TAN CONVENTION: THE "MIDNIGHT CONSTITUTION"
The Black and Tan Convention met December 3, 1867, in our venerable and
historic Capitol to frame a new constitution for the Old Dominion. In this
body were members from New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maine, Vermont,
Connecticut, Maryland, District of Columbia, Ireland, Scotland, Nova
Scotia, Canada, England; scalawags, or turn-coats, by Southerners most
hated of all; twenty-four negroes; and in the total of 105, thirty-five
white Virginians, from counties of excess white population, who might be
considered representative of the State's culture and intelligence. It was
officered by foreigners and negroes; John C. Underwood, of New York, being
President.
Capitol Square was garlanded with tables and stands; and the season was
one of joy to black and yellow vendors of ginger-cakes, goobers, lemonade,
and cheap whiskey. Early ornaments of the Capitol steps were ebony
law-makers sporting tall silk hats, gold-headed canes, broadcloth suits,
the coat always Prince Albert. Throughout the South this was the uniform
of sable dignitaries as soon as emoluments permitted. The funny sayings
and doings of negroes, sitting for the first time in legislative halls,
were rehearsed in conversation and reported in papers; visitors went to
the Capitol as to a monkey or minstrel show. Most of these darkeys, fresh
from tobacco lots and corn and cotton fields, were as innocent as babes of
any knowledge of reading and writing.
They were equally guileless in other directions. Before the body was
organised, an enthusiastic delegate bounced up to say something, but the
Chair nipped him untimely in the bud: "No motion is in order until roll is
called. Gentlemen will please remember parliamentary usage." The member
sank limp into his seat, asking in awed whisper of his neighbour: "Whut in
de worl' is dat?" Perplexity was great when a member rose to "make an
inquiry." "Whut's dat?" "Whut dat he gwi make?" was whispered round, the
question being settled summarily: "Well, it don' make no diffunce. We ain'
gwi let him do it nohow case he ain' no Radicule." White constituents soon
tried to muzzle black orators. Word was passed that white "Radicules"
would talk and black members keep silent and vote as they were bid. "Shew!
She-ew!" "Set down!" "Shut the door!" were household words, the last
ejaculation coming into request when scraps seemed imminent and members
wanted the sergeant-at-arms to take each other, yet preferred that the
public should not be witness to these little family jars.
Black, white, and yellow pages flew around, waiting on members; the
blacker the dignitary, the whiter the page he summoned to bring pens, ink,
paper, apples, ginger-cakes, goober-peas. And newspapers. No sooner did
darkeys observe that whites sent out and got newspapers than they did
likewise; and sat there reading them upside down.
The gallery of coloured men and women come to see the show were almost as
diverting as the law-makers. Great were the flutterings over the seating
of John Morrissey, the "Wild Irishman," mistaken for his namesake, the New
York pugilist. "Dat ain't de man dat fit Tom Higher?" "I tell you it am!"
"Sho got muscle!" "He come tuh fit dem Preservatives over dar." According
to the happy darkey knack of saying the wrong thing in the right place, a
significant version of "Conservative" was thus applied to the little
handful of representative white Virginians. Great, too, were the
flutterings when Governor "Plowpint" (so darkeys pronounced Pierpont) paid
his visit of ceremony; and when General Schofield and aide marched in in
war-paint and feathers: the Chair waved the gavel and the convention rose
to its feet to receive the distinguished guests. The war lord was to pay
another and less welcome visit. The piety of neither gallery nor
convention could be questioned if the fervor and frequency of "Amens!"
interrupting the petitions of the Chaplain (from Illinois) were an
indication; Dr. Bayne, of Norfolk, so raised his voice above the rest that
his colleagues became concerned lest that seaport were claiming for
herself more than just proportion of religious zeal.
Curiosity was on tip-toe when motion was made that a stenographer be
appointed. "'Snographer?' What's dat?" "Maybe it's de pusson whut takes
down de speeches befo' dee's spoken," explains a wise one. The riddle was
partly solved when a spruce, foreign individual of white complexion rose
and walked to the desk, vacated in his favour by a gentleman of colour.
"Dar he! dat's him!" "War's good close, anyhow!" was pronounced of the new
official; then the retired claimed sympathy: "Whut he done?" "Whut dee
tu'n him out fuh?" "Ain't dee gwi give niggers nothin'?" "Muzzling" was
not yet begun; this occasion for eloquence was not to be ignored by the
Honourable Lewis Lindsay, representing Richmond: "Mistah Presidet, I hopes
in dis late hour dat Ole Fuhginny am imperilated, dat no free-thinkin' man
kin suppose fuh one minute dat we 'sires tuh misrippersint de idee dat we
ain' qualify de sability uh de sternogphy uh dis convention. I hopes, suh,
dat we kin den be able tuh superhen' de principles uh de supposition."
Lindsay would always rise to an occasion if his coat-tails were not pulled
too hard. Fortunately, his matchless oration on the mixed school question
was not among gems lost to the world: "Mistah Presidet, de real flatform,
suh. I'll sw'ar tuh high Heaven. Yes, I'll sw'ar higher dan dat. I'll go
down an' de uth shall crumble intuh dus' befo' dee shall amalgamise my
rights. 'Bout dis question uh cyarpet-bags. Ef you cyarpet-baggers does go
back on us, woes be unto you! You better take yo' cyarpet-bags an' quit,
an' de quicker you git up an' git de better. I do not abdicate de
supperstition tuh dese strange frien's, lately so-called citizens uh
Fuhginny. Ef dee don' gimme my rights, I'll suffer dis country tuh be lak
Sarah. I'll suffer desterlation fus! When I blows my horn dee'll hear it!
When de big cannons was thund'in, an' de missions uh death was flyin' thu
de a'r, dee hollered: 'Come, Mr. Nigguh, come!' an' he done come! I'se
here tuh qualify my constituents. I'll sing tuh Rome an' tuh Englan' an'
tuh de uttermos' parts uh de uth--" "You must address yourself to the
Chair," said that functionary, ready to faint. "All right, suh. I'll not
'sire tuh maintain de House any longer."
That clause against mixed schools was a rock upon which the Radical party
split, white members with children voting for separate education of races;
most darkeys "didn' want no sech claw in de law"; yet one declared he
didn't want his "chillun tuh soshate wid rebels an' traitors nohow"; they
were "as high above rebels an' traitors ez Heaven 'bove hell!" Lindsay
took occasion to wither white "Radicules" with criticism on colour
distribution in the gallery. "Whar is de white Radicule members' wives
an' chillun?" he asked, waving his hand towards the white section. "When
dee comes here dee mos'ly set dar se'ves on dat side de House, whilst I
brings mine on dis side," waving towards the black, "irregardless uh how
white she is!"
Hodges, of Princess Anne, was an interesting member; wore large,
iron-rimmed spectacles and had a solemn, owl-like way of staring through
them. One day, he gave the convention the creeps: "Dar's a boy in dis
House," he said with awful gravity, "whar better be outen do's. He's done
seconded a motion." The House, following his accusing spectacles and
finger, fixed its eye upon a shrivelling mulatto youth who had slipped
into a member's chair. A coloured brother took the intruder's part.
Lindsay threw himself into the breach: "Mistah Presidet, I hears de
correspondence dat have passed an' de gemmun obsarves it have been
spoken." "I seen him open his mouf an' I seen de words come outen it!"
cried Hodges. The usurper, seizing the first instant Hodges turned his
head another way, fled for his life, while somebody was making motion "to
bring him before the bar."
The convention's thorn in the side was Eustace Gibson, white member from
Giles and Pulaski, who had a knack for making the convention see how
ridiculous it was. Negroes were famous for rising to "pints of order";
they laughed at themselves one day when two eloquent members became
entangled and fell down in a heap in the aisle and Mr. Gibson, gravely
rising to a point of order, moved that it was "not parliamentary for two
persons to occupy the floor at one time." When questions of per diem
arose, sable eloquence flowed like a cataract and Gibson's wit played like
lightning over the torrents. Muzzling was difficult. "Mistah Churman, ef
I may be allowed tuh state de perquisition--" a member would begin and get
no further before a persuasive hand on his coat-tails would reduce him to
silence. Dr. Bayne's coat-tails resisted force and appeal.
"I wants $9, I does," he said. "But den I ain' gwi be dissatisfied wid
$8.50. Cose, I kin live widout dat half a dollar ef I choose tuh. But ef I
don' choose tuh? Anybody got anything tuh say 'gins dat? Hey? Here we is
sleepin' 'way f'om home, leavin' our wives an' our expenses uh bode an'
washin'. Why, whut you gwi do wid de po' delegate dat ain' got no expenses
uh bode an' washin'? Tell me dat? Why, you fo'ce 'em tuh steal, an' make
dar constituen's look upon 'em as po' narrer-minded fellers." One member
murmured plaintively: "I ain' had no money paid me sence 'lection--"
"Shew! She-ew! Shew!" his coat-tails were almost jerked off. "You gwi tell
suppin you ain' got no business!" "Mr. Churman, I adject. De line whar's
his line, an' dat's de line I contain fuh--" "Shew! She-ew! Set down!"
"What de Bible say 'bout it?" demanded a pious brother. "De Bible it say:
'Pay de labour' de higher.' Who gwi 'spute de Book?" "This debate has
already cost the State $400," Mr. Gibson interposed wearily.
They finally agreed to worry along upon $8 a day--a lower per diem than
was claimed, I believe, in any other State. When the per diem question
bobbed up again, State funds were running low, but motion for adjournment
died when it was learned that of the $100,000 in the treasury when the
convention began to sit, $30,000 remained. Retrenchment was in order,
however, and the "Snographer's" head fell. He was impeached for charging
$3.33 a page for spider-legs, which he was not translating into English.
Mr. Gibson showed that he had been drawing $200 a day in advance for ten
days; had drawn $2,000 for the month of February, yet had not submitted
work for January. The convention began to negotiate a $90,000 loan on its
own note to pay itself to sit longer, when our war lord came to the front
and gave opinion that it had sat long enough to do what it had been called
to do, and that after ten days per diems must cease. Another hurrying
process was said to be at work. Reports were abroad that the Ku Klux,
having reached conclusion that Richmond had been neglected, was on the
way. Solid reason for adjournment was death of the per diem; but for which
the convention might have been sitting yet.
The morning of the last day, the sergeant-at-arms flung wide the door,
announcing General Schofield, who, entering with Colonels Campbell, Wherry
and Mallory, of his Staff, was escorted to the Speaker's stand. He came to
protest against constitutional clauses disqualifying white Virginians. He
said: "You cannot find in Virginia a full number of men capable of filling
office who can take the oath you have prescribed. County offices pay
limited salary; even a common labourer could not afford to come from
abroad for the purpose of filling them. I have no hesitation in saying
that I do not believe it possible to inaugurate a government upon that
basis." It was a business man's argument, an appeal to patriotism and
common sense. It failed. When he went out, they called him "King
Schofield," and retained those clauses in the instrument which they
ratified that night when the hands on the clocks of the Capitol pointed to
twelve and the Midnight Constitution came to birth.
When General Schofield left in 1868 to become Secretary of War, the
leading paper said: "General Schofield has been the best of all the
military commandants placed over the Southern States. He has saved
Virginia from much humiliation and distress that other States have
suffered." What he did for Virginia, General Gillem, General Hancock and
some other commanders tried to do for districts under their command.
General Stoneman, who succeeded General Schofield, also fought the
test-oath clauses.
When our Committee of Nine went to Washington to protest against those
clauses, General Schofield appeared with them before President-elect Grant
and one of General Grant's first acts as President was to arrange with
Congress that Virginia should have the privilege of voting upon those
clauses and the constitution separately, and that other States should have
like privileges in regard to similar clauses in their constitutions.
Every American should study the history in detail of each Southern State
during the period of which I write. He should acquaint himself at first
hand with the attitude of the South when the war closed, and in this
connection I particularly refer my reader to the address Governor Allen
delivered to the people of Louisiana before going to Mexico, where he died
in exile; and to the addresses of Perry, of South Carolina, and
Throckmorton, of Texas.[19] He should compare the character and costs of
the first legislatures and conventions assembling and the character and
costs of the mongrel bodies succeeding them. He will then take himself in
hand and resolve never to follow blindly the leadership of any party, nor
attempt to put in practice in another man's home the abstract theories of
speculative humanitarians.
SECRET SOCIETIES
CHAPTER XXIV
SECRET SOCIETIES
LOYAL LEAGUE, WHITE CAMELIAS, WHITE BROTHERHOOD, PALE FACES, KU KLUX
Parent of all was the Union or Loyal League, whose history may be briefly
summarised: Organisation for dignified ends in Philadelphia and New York
in 1862-3; extension into the South among white Unionists; formation,
1866, of negro leagues; admission of blacks into "mixed" leagues; rapid
withdrawal of native whites and Northern settlers until leagues were
composed almost wholly of negroes dominated by a few white political
leaders. Churches, halls, schoolhouses, were headquarters where mystic
initiation rites, inflammatory speeches, military drills, were in order.
The League's professed object was the training of the negro to his duties
as a citizen. It made him a terror and forced whites into the formation of
counter secret societies for the protection of their firesides.
"To defend and perpetuate freedom and the Constitution, the supremacy of
law and the inherent rights of civil and religious freedom, and to
accomplish the objects of the organisation, I pledge my life, my fortune
and my sacred honour." This was the oath in part. Members were sworn to
vote only for candidates endorsed by the league. The ritual appealed to
the negro's superstition. The catechism inculcated opposition to the
Democratic Party, fealty to the Radical Republican, condemnation of
Southern whites as traitors. Candidates for membership were conducted to
the Council Chamber; here, the Marshal rapped the league alarm, the
Sentinel called, "Who comes under our signal?" Answer given, the door
opens cautiously, countersign is demanded, and given in the "Four Ls"--the
right hand pointing upward with the word, "Liberty," sinking to shoulder
level with "Lincoln," dropping to the side with "Loyal," folding to the
breast with "League." The Council receives the novitiates standing, as
they march in arm in arm, singing, "John Brown's Body" and take positions
around the altar before which the President stands in regalia.
The altar is draped with the flag, on which lies an open Bible, the
Declaration of Independence, a sword, ballot-box, sickle, and anvil or
other toy emblems of industry. At first the room may be in darkness with
sounds of groans and clanking chains issuing from corners. The chaplain
calls the league to prayer, invoking Divine vengeance on traitors. From a
censer (sometimes an old stove vase) upon the altar blue flames, "fires of
liberty," leap upward. The Council opens ranks to receive novitiates;
joining hands, all circle round the altar, singing, "The Star-Spangled
Banner" or other patriotic air. Novitiates lay hands upon the flag, kiss
the Bible and swear: "I will do all in my power to elect true and loyal
men to all offices of trust and profit." Instructions in pass-words,
signals, etc., are given. Secret business is transacted.
Negroes were drilled, armed and marched about. Into League rooms social
features were introduced, League literature was read aloud, feminine
branches were formed. Leagues furnished a secret service bureau. Coloured
servants told what happened in white houses. "My cook and I were children
together," a friend tells me. "As we grew up, she made me read and write
her letters. One day, after freedom, she said, 'Miss, put 'tin dar fuh
Jeems tuh write me suppin funny nex' time he do write. We has to have all
our letters read out in church an' when dere's anything funny, de folks
laugh.' Soon she ceased asking my services. Through this plan of having
letters read out in church leagues and bureaus collected information of
happenings in private homes from far and wide. Such gleanings might be
useful in revealing political or self-protective movements among whites,
in hunting a man down; or serving his political or social enemy, or
would-be robber."
In a South Carolina mansion, Mrs. Vincent and her daughter Lucy lived
alone except for a few faithful ex-slaves. A cabin on the edge of the
plantation was rented to Wash, a negro member of the Loyal League, whose
organiser was Captain Johnson, commander of a small garrison in a nearby
town. The captain was fond of imposing fines upon whites against whom
negroes entered complaint. There seemed nice adjustment between fines and
defendants' available cash. One day Wash, pushing past Lucy's maid into
the Vincent parlor, said to Lucy's mother, "I'se come to cote Miss Lucy."
"Leave the house!" "I ain' gwi leave no such a thing! I'se gwi marry Lucy
an' live here wid you." Lucy appeared. "I'se come to ax you to have me.
I'se de ve'y man fuh you to hitch up wid. Dis here place b'long to me. You
b'long to me." She whipped out a pistol and covered him. "Run! Run for
your life!" He ran. When he was out of pistol-shot, he turned and yelled:
"You d----d white she-cat! I'll make you know!" She caught up a musket and
fired. Balls whistled past his head; he renewed his flight.
Next morning, as the ladies, pale and miserable, sat at breakfast, a squad
of soldiers filed in, took seats, helped themselves and ordered the
butler around. The ladies rose and were arrested. A wagon was at the door.
"Please, marsters," said black Jerry humbly, "lemme hitch up de kerridge
an' kyar Mistiss an' Miss Lucy in it. 'Taint fitten fuh 'em to ride in a
waggin--an' wid strange mens." His request was refused. The ladies were
arraigned before Captain Johnson on charge that they had used insulting
language to Mr. Washington Singleton Pettigru; and that Lucy, "in defiance
of law and morals and actuated by the devil," had "without provocation"
fired on him with intent to kill. A fine of $1,000 or six months in jail
was imposed. "I have not so much money!" cried Mrs. Vincent. "Jail may
change your mind," said the captain. They were committed to a loathsome
cell, their determination alone preventing separation.
Lawyers flocked to their defense; the captain would hear none. Towards
nightfall the town filled with white men wearing set faces. The captain
sent for one of the lawyers. The lawyer said: "Unless you release those
ladies from the jail at once, no one can tell what may happen. But this I
believe: you, nor a member of your garrison, will be alive tomorrow." They
were released; fine remitted; the captain left in haste. An officer came
from Columbia to investigate "disorder in the district." He condemned
Johnson's course and tried to reassure the community. It came out that
Johnson had received information that Mrs. Vincent held a large,
redeemable note; he had incited Wash to "set up" to Miss Lucy, urging that
by marrying her he would become the plantation's owner: "Call in your best
duds and ask her to marry you. If she refuses, we will find a way to
punish her." Wash, it was thought, had fled the country. The negro
body-servant of Lucy's dead brother had felt that the duty of avenger
devolved upon him, and in his own way he had slain Wash and covered up
the deed.
A white congregation was at worship in a little South Carolina church when
negro soldiers filed in and began to take seats beside the ladies. The
pastor had just given out his text; he stretched forth his hands and said
simply: "Receive the benediction," and dismissed his people. A
congregation in another country church was thrown into panic by balls
crashing through boards and windows; a girl of fourteen was killed
instantly. Black troops swung by, singing. Into a dwelling a squad of
blacks marched, bound the owner, a prominent aged citizen, pillaged his
house, and then before his eyes, bound his maiden daughter and proceeded
to fight among themselves for her possession. "Though," related my
informant with sharp realism, "her neck and face had been slobbered over,
she stood quietly watching the conflict. At last, the victor came to her,
caught her in his arms and started into an adjoining room, when he wavered
and fell, she with him; she had driven a knife, of which she had in some
way possessed herself, into his heart. The others rushed in and beat her
until she, too, was lifeless. There was no redress."
In black belts, where such things happened and where negroes talked openly
of killing out white men and taking white women for wives, the whites, few
in number, poorly armed and without organisation, scattered over the
country and leading themselves in no insignificant proportion the lives of
the hunted, faced a desperate situation. Many who chanced to give offense
to the ruling faction or who by force of character were considered
obstacles to its advancement, found themselves victims of false charges,
and, chased by troops, had to leave their families and dwell in swamps or
other hiding-places. Compelled by necessity to labour in the field, white
gentlemen going to their toil, let down gaps in surrounding fences so that
they might fly at a moment's notice, and plowed with saddles on their
horses' backs. Northerners, and Southerners who did not live in that day
and in black belts, can form no conception of the conditions which gave
rise to the white secret societies of which the most widely celebrated is
the Ku Klux.
Larger in numbers and wider in distribution was the order of the Knights
of the White Camelia, originating in Louisiana; small protective bodies
consolidating May 23, 1867, in New Orleans, took this title. Extension
over the United States was purposed. Its first article of faith was
preservation of the integrity of the white race, and, in government, white
supremacy. At the door of the Council Chamber the blindfolded candidate
for initiation vowed: "The cause of our race must triumph;" and "We must
all be united as are the flowers that grow on one stem." He swore "Never
to marry any woman but of the white race." Mongrel legislatures were
enacting laws about co-education and intermarriage of races; the whites
were a "bewildered people." In Mississippi, the order of the Knights of
the White Rose was modelled on the White Camelias; in Alabama, the White
Brotherhood and the White League; there were Pale Faces, Union Guards, and
others, all of which, with the White Camelias, may be included in the Ku
Klux movement.
The Ku Klux originated near Pulaski, Tennessee, 1866, in something akin to
a college boys' frolic. Some young ex-Confederates, of good families,
finding time heavy on their hands after war's excitement, banded together
in a fraternity, with initiation rites, signals, oaths of secrecy, and a
name after the Greek, kyklos, a circle, corrupted into kuklos, kuklux, and
adding klan. Their "den" was a deserted house near the town. They rode
at night in queer disguises; at first, without other object than
diversion. Their fear and fame spread; branches were formed in other
counties and States. In their pranks and negro superstition, whites found
weapon for protection and defense. Through troubled neighbourhoods, white
horsemen riding in noiseless procession, restored peace by parade and
sometimes by sterner measures.
[Illustration: MRS. DAVID R. WILLIAMS, OF SOUTH CAROLINA
(Daughter of Governor Miller)
From a portrait by Osgood, photographed by Reckling & Sons]
Notices left as warnings on doors or pinned to town-pumps or trees bore
cross-bones and skull in red ink, and such inscriptions as:
K K K
The Raven Croaked
and we are come to Look on the Moon.
The Lion Tracks the Jackal
the Bear the Wolf
Our Shrouds are Bloody
But the Midnight is Black.
The Serpent and Scorpion are Ready.
Some Shall Weep and Some Shall Pray.
Meet at Skull
For Feast of the Wolf and
Dance of the Muffled Skeletons.
The Death Watch is Set
The Last Hour Cometh.
The Moon is Full.
Burst your cerements asunder
Meet at the Den of the Glow-Worm
The Guilty Shall be Punished.
I have felt defrauded of my rights because I never saw a Ku Klux; my
native Virginia seems not to have had any. I have seen them abundantly,
however, through the eyes of others. One of my cousins went, during K. K.
days, to be bridesmaid to a Georgia cousin. One night, as she and the
bride-elect sat on the piazza, there appeared in the circular driveway a
white apparition of unearthly height, on a charger in white trappings.
Behind came another and another, the horses moving without sound; they
passed in silent review before the girls, each spectre saluting. With cold
chills running down her spine, Sue asked, "_What_ are they?" Her companion
laughed. "Haven't you been saying you wanted to see the Ku Klux?" News
enough next morning! A white man had been found tied to a tree, and over
his head, pinned to the bark, a notice written in his blood, warning him
to leave the county at once unless he desired to be carried out by a
pathway to--a grave with headstone neatly drawn and showing epitaph with
date of death, completed the sentence. He had been flogged and a scratch
on his breast showed whence red ink had been drawn. As soon as untied, he
left for parts unknown.
Neighbourhood darkeys had eyes big as saucers. Many quarters had been
visited. Sable uncles and aunties shook their heads, muttering: "Jedgment
Day 'bout tuh come. Gab'el gwi blow his ho'n an' sinners better be
a-moanin' an' a-prayin'. Yes, my Lawd!" And: "'Tain't jes one Death
a-ridin' on a pale horse! it's tens uv thousan's uv 'em is ridin' now.
Sinner, you better go pray!" A few who had been making themselves
seriously obnoxious observed terrified silence and improved demeanour. An
expert chicken-thief had received a special notice in which skulls and
cross-bones and chicken-heads and toes were tastefully intermixed. Others
were remembered in art designs of the "All-Seeing Eye," reminder that they
were being watched.
The white man was a receiver of stolen goods and instigator of
barn-burnings; had been tried for some one of his offenses and committed
to the penitentiary, only to be pardoned out by the State Executive. In a
North Carolina case of which I heard, a negro firebug who could not be
brought to justice through law, though the burning of two barns and a full
stable were traced to him, disappeared as if the earth had swallowed him
up after a night in which all the darkeys around smelled brimstone and saw
fiery-eyed and long-tailed devils at large. People were hard put to it for
protection against fire-fiends.
In a South Carolina newspaper a notice appeared from a man who gave
warning that he would take vengeance into his own hands if incendiaries
fired his property again.
The Ku Klux ruled its members with iron rod. Mr. M., of the order in
Tazewell, N. C., was building a cabin on his place for a negro who had
come under ban because of evil influence over other negroes; word had been
passed that he was to be crowded out. A message reached Mr. M.: "Do not
let this negro come on your place. K. K. K.", with due skull and
cross-bones accompaniment. To close friends of the order Mr. M. said: "My
rights shall not be abridged by the Klan." The cabin was finished on
Saturday. Sunday he asked a visitor: "Let's take a stroll in the woods and
a look at Henry's cabin." When they came to where the cabin had stood, Mr.
M. exclaimed: "Why, what does this mean? Lo and behold, the cabin and
everything is torn down and the logs scattered every which-a-way!" "And
what's this?" his friend asked, pointing to three new-made graves with
pine head-boards, inscribed respectively in epitaph to Mr. M., Henry, and
Henry's wife, Mr. M.'s death dated the ensuing Sabbath. On a tiny hillock
was a small gallows with grapevine attachment. As one of the order, Mr. M.
knew enough to make him ill at ease. Friends begged him to leave the
country for a time, and he went. "This may look like tyranny," said my
informant, "but Mr. M. ought to have heeded the first message. The order
could only do effective work through unfailing execution of sentence."
Between a young lady and the son of a house in which she was a guest, a
tender passion arose. He had mysterious absences lasting half or all
night, after which his horse would be found in the stables, lathered with
foam. The family rallied him on his devotion to a fair demoiselle in an
adjoining county. Though under cold treatment from the guest, he gave no
other explanation until one day he conducted her and his sister into his
room, locked the door, swore them to secrecy, drew from its hiding-place
up the chimney a Ku Klux outfit and asked them to make duplicates for a
new Klan he was forming. The lovers came to understanding; the girl
reproached him: "Why did you not tell me before?" "I did not know if you
could keep a secret. I have a public duty to perform; the liberty of my
men can be imperiled by a careless word."
The widow of a Ku Klux captain tells me that one night, when her husband
was absent on duty in a town where whites were in terror because the
negroes were threatening to burn it, her own house was fired. She was in
bed, her new-born baby at her side; stealthy steps were heard under her
window. Her old black mauma was afraid to go to the window and look out.
There was a smell of fire; the mauma ran to the door and shrieked alarm. A
shout answered from the cellar, where a faithful negro man-servant was
putting out flames. He had let the incendiaries go away thinking their
purpose fulfilled. The returning husband, sorely perplexed, said: "I do
not see how I can do my duty by my family and the public. I must give up
my Klan." "No," she answered. "All have to take turns in leaving their own
unprotected. I let you go into the army. Some one must lead, and your men
will not follow and obey any one else as they will you." He had been their
captain in the Confederate Army.
To a Loyal League jury or magistrate a prisoner on trial had but to give
the League signal to secure acquittal. A convicted and sentenced criminal
would be pardoned by a Loyal League Governor. Klans took administration of
justice into their own hands because courts were ineffective. In a den,
regularly established and conducted, a man would be tried by due process
before judge and jury, with counsel appointed for defense; evidence would
be taken, the case would be argued; the jury would render verdict; the
judge would dismiss the case or pronounce sentence. The man on trial might
or might not be present. A Ku Klux captain tells me that great effort was
made to give fair trials; acquittals were more frequent than convictions.
But when the court imposed sentence, sentence was carried out.
In the hill country of South Carolina, a one-armed ex-Confederate, a "poor
white," made a scanty living for his large family by hauling. Once, on a
lonely road when his load was whiskey, he was surrounded by negro
soldiers, who killed him, took possession of the whiskey and drank it.
Ring-leaders were arrested and lodged in jail; some were spirited away to
Columbia and released; a plan was afoot to free the rest, among them the
negro captain who had boasted of his crime, and flouted the whites with
their powerlessness to punish him. The prison was surrounded one night by
silent, black-robed horsemen on black-draped horses moving without sound;
jailer and guards were overpowered; cells entered; prisoners tried--if
proceedings interrupted by confessions and cries for mercy can be called
trial. Sentences were pronounced. The black-robed, black-masked circle
chanted "Dies Iræ, Dies Illa." The town awoke from a night of seeming
peace and silence to behold dead bodies swinging from the trees.[20]
The Stevens Mystery, of Yanceyville, N. C., has never been unravelled; the
$5,000 reward which President Grant offered for answer to the question,
"Who killed Stevens?" was never won, though skilled detectives tried for
it. Stevens was a scalawag. He achieved his sobriquet, "Chicken Stevens,"
through being chased out of his native county for stealing chickens. One
of his adherents, when quite drunk, said before an audience of two
thousand negroes: "Stevens stole chickens; that elected him to the
Legislature; if he steals turkeys, it will elect him to Congress." The
pleasantry was cheered to the echo. Stevens was charged with instigating
riots and barn-burnings. He received a mystic warning to leave the
country. He did not go.
One day, while court was in full session, he was seen in the Court Room,
in conversation with several people; was seen to leave in amicable company
with a citizen who parted with him and went out by the street door, while
Stevens entered a county office where clerks were busy; several persons
recalled seeing and speaking to him here, but nobody could remember seeing
him alive afterwards. Yet hall and offices were thronged with his
adherents. He was soon missed by the negroes who set a guard around the
building. Next day he was found in the Grand Jury Room, sitting bolt
upright, dead, strangled or with his throat cut, I forget which. This room
opened on the hall through which a stream of people, white and black, had
been passing all day; a negro cabin commanded a view of the window; a
negro janitor held the key.
Kirke's cut-throats, sent down by Governor Holden, arrested prominent
citizens and carried them to Raleigh. No evidence for conviction could
ever be found, and they were liberated. Stevens' death has been charged to
Ku Klux; also, to his confederates, who, it is said, received instructions
from headquarters to "kill off Stevens," meaning politically, which they
construed literally. I have been told that one of the slayers is living
and that at his death, a true statement will be published showing who
killed Stevens and how.
These stories are sufficient to show the good and the evil of Ku Klux;
there is public peril in any secret order which attempts to administer
justice. Uniform and methods employed to justifiable or excusable ends by
one set of people were employed to ends utterly indefensible by another.
The Radicals were quick to profit by Ku Klux methods; and much was done
under the name and guise that the Klan did not do. Yet, in its own ranks
were men reckless, heedless, and wicked, avengers of personal grudges.
The Invisible Empire, as the Klan was called in its organisation in 1867
under the leadership of Grand Wizard, General Nathan Bedford Forrest, and
with men like General Dudley Du Bose, of Georgia, for division commanders,
had a code that might have served for Arthur's Round Table. Its first
object was "To protect the weak, innocent and defenseless from the
indignities, wrongs and outrages of the lawless, the violent and the
brutal; to relieve the injured and oppressed, to succour the suffering and
unfortunate, especially the widows and orphans of Confederate soldiers."
Its second: "To protect and defend the Constitution of the United States
and all laws passed in conformity thereto." Its third: "To aid and assist
in the execution of all constitutional laws, and to protect the people
from unlawful seizure and from trial except by their peers in conformity
to the laws of the land."
"Unlawful seizure" was practiced in South Carolina, Arkansas, Louisiana,
Mississippi and other States, where white men would be arrested on blank
warrants or no warrant at all; carried long distances from home, held for
weeks or months; and then, as happened in some famous cases, be released
without ever having been brought to trial; in other instances, they were
beaten; in others, committed to penitentiaries; in others, it was as if
the earth had swallowed them up--they have never been heard from. Some
agency was surely needed to effect ends which the Klan named as object of
its existence; that the Klan was effective of these ends in great degree
no one conversant with facts will deny, nor will they deny that
"Tom-foolery" and not violence was its most frequent weapon.
Where Ku Klux rode around, negroes ceased to venture out after dark. Some
told tales of ghastly nocturnal visitors who plead for a drink of water,
saying, "Dee ain' had nay drap sence de Yankees killed 'em at Gettysburg.
An' den, suh, when you han' 'em er gode-full, dee say: 'Kin you let me
have de bucket? I'se jes come f'om hell an' I'se scotchin' in my insides.'
An' den, mun, dat ar hant des drink down dat whole bucket at a gulp, an' I
hyern it sizzlin' down his gullet des same ez you done flung it on de
coals! I ain' gwi fool longer nothin' lak dat! Some folks say it's white
folks tryin' tuh skeer we-all, but, suh, I b'lieve it's hants-er Ole Satan
one!" Terrible experience it was when "A hant--or suppin nur--wid er hade
mighty nigh high ez er chimley ud meet a nigger in de road an' say: 'I
come f'om torment (hell) tuh shake han's wid you!' An' de nigger--he didn'
wanter do it, but he feared tuh 'fuse--he tooken shuck han's wid dat ar
hant, an' dat ar han' what he shuck was a skelumton's--de bones fa'r
rattle!"
The regular Ku Klux costume was a white gown or sheet, and a tall, conical
pasteboard hat; for the horse a white sheet and foot-mufflers. Black gown,
mask and trappings, and red ones, were also worn; bones, skulls of men and
beasts, with foxfire for eyes, nose and mouth, were expedients. A rubber
tube underneath robe or sheet, or a rubber or leather bag, provided for
miraculous consumption of water. In negro tales of supernatural
appearances, latitude must be allowed for imagination. A Ku Klux captain
tells me that one night as he rose up out of a graveyard, one of his
negroes passed with a purloined gobbler in possession; he touched the
negro on the shoulder. The negro dropped the turkey and flew like mad, and
the turkey flew, too. Next morning, the darkey related the experience to
his master (omitting the fowl). "How tall was that hant, George?" "Des
high ez a tree, Marster! an' de han' it toch my shoulder wid burnt me lak
fire. I got mutton-suet on de place." "I was about three feet taller than
my natural self that night," says Captain Lea. George wore a plaster on
his arm and for some time complained that it was "pa'lised."
Klans and Union Leagues came to an end conjointly when carpet-bag rule was
expiring. The Invisible Empire was dissolved formally by order of the
Grand Wizard, March, 1869. It had never been a close organisation, and
"dens" and counterfeit "dens" continued in existence here and there for
awhile, working good and evil. Ku Klux investigations instituted by State
authorities and the Federal Government were travesties of justice. Rewards
offered for evidence to convict caused innocent men to be hunted down,
arrested, imprisoned, and on false accusation and suborned testimony,
convicted and committed to State prisons or sent to Sing Sing. The jails
of Columbia, at one time, overflowed with the first gentlemen of the
state, thrown into filthy cells, charged with all manner of crimes.
The Union League incited to murder and arson, whipped negroes and whites.
But I never heard of Union Leaguers being tried for being Union Leaguers
as Ku Klux were tried for being Ku Klux. There are no Southerners to
contend that the Klan and its measures were justifiable or excusable
except on the grounds that the conditions of the times called for them;
informed Northerners will concede that the evils of the day justified or
excused the Klan's existence. For my part, I believe that this country
owes a heavy debt to its noiseless white horsemen, shades of its troubled
past.[21]
THE SOUTHERN BALLOT-BOX
CHAPTER XXV
THE SOUTHERN BALLOT-BOX
Free negroes could vote in North Carolina until 1835, when a
Constitutional Convention, not without division of sentiment, abolished
negroid franchise on the ground that it was an evil. Thereafter, negroes
first voted in the South in 1866, when the "Prince of Carpet-Baggers,"
Henry C. Warmouth, who had been dismissed from the Federal Army, conferred
the privilege in a bogus election; he had a charity-box attachment to
every ballot-box and a negro dropping a ballot into one had to drop fifty
cents into the other, contributions paying Warmouth's expenses as special
delegate to Washington, where Congress refused to recognize him. He
returned to Louisiana and in two years was governor and in three was worth
a quarter of a million dollars and a profitable autograph. "It cost me
more," said W. S. Scott, "to get his signature to a bill than to get the
bill through the Legislature"--a striking comparison, for to get a bill
through this Legislature of which Warmouth said, "there is but one honest
man in it," was costly process. Warmouth said of himself, "I don't pretend
to be honest, but only as honest as anybody in politics."
Between the attitude of the army and the politicians on the negro
question, General Sherman drew this comparison: "We all felt sympathy for
the negroes, but of a different kind from that of Mr. Stanton, which was
not of pure humanity but of politics.... I did not dream that the former
slaves would be suddenly, without preparation, manufactured into
voters.... I doubted the wisdom of at once clothing them with the elective
franchise ... and realised the national loss in the death of Mr. Lincoln,
who had long pondered over the difficult questions involved."
April Fool's Day, 1870, a crowd clustered around General Grant in the
White House; a stroke of his pen was to proclaim four millions of people,
literate or illiterate, civilised or uncivilised, ready or unready,
voters. When the soldier had signed the instrument politicians had
prepared for him, the proclamation announcing that the Fifteenth Amendment
had been added to the Constitution of the United States by the
ratification of twenty-nine, some one begged for the historic pen, and he
silently handed it over. One who was present relates: "Somebody exclaimed,
'Now negroes can vote anywhere!', and a venerable old gentleman in the
crowd cried out, 'Well, gentlemen, you will all be d----d sorry for this!'
The President's father-in-law, Dent, Sr., was said to be the speaker." In
Richmond, the Dent family had seen a good deal of freedmen. Negroes voted
in 1867, over two years prior to this, Congress by arbitrary act vesting
them with a right not conferred by Federal or State Constitutions. They
voted for delegates to frame the new State Constitutions; then on their
own right to vote!--this right forming a plank in said Constitutions.
The Southern ballot-box was the new toy of the Ward of the Nation; the
vexation of housekeepers and farmers, the despair of statesmen, patriots,
and honest men generally. Elections were preceded by political meetings,
often incendiary in character, which all one's servants must attend. With
election day, every voting precinct became a picnic-ground, to say no
worse. Negroes went to precincts overnight and camped out. Morning
revealed reinforcements arriving. All sexes and ages came afoot, in carts,
in wagons, as to a fair or circus. Old women set up tables and spread out
ginger-cakes and set forth buckets of lemonade. One famous campaign
manager had all-night picnics in the woods, with bonfires, barrels of
liquor, darkeys sitting around drinking, fiddling, playing the banjo,
dancing. The instant polls opened they were marched up and voted. Negroes
almost always voted in companies. A leader, standing on a box, handed out
tickets as they filed past. All were warned at Loyal Leagues to vote no
ticket other than that given by the leader, usually a local coloured
preacher who could no more read the ballots he distributed than could the
recipients. Fights were plentiful as ginger-cakes. The all-day picnic
ended only with closing of polls, and not always then, darkeys hanging
around and carrying scrapping and jollification into the night.
How their white friends would talk and talk the day before election to
butlers, coachmen, hoers and plowers, on the back porch or at the woodpile
or the stables; and how darkeys would promise, "Yessuh, I gwi vote lak you
say." And how their old masters would return from the polls next day with
heads hung down, and the young ex-masters would return mad, and saying,
"This country is obliged to go to the devil!"
There were a great many trying phases of the situation. As for example:
Conservatives were running General Eppa Hunton for Congress. Among the
General's coloured friends was an old negro, Julian, his ward of pity, who
had no want that he did not bring to the General. Election day, he sought
the General at the polls, saying: "Mars Eppie, I want some shingles fuh my
roof." "You voted for me, Julian?" "Naw, naw, Mars Eppie, I voted de
straight Publikin ticket, suh." He got the shingles. When "Mars Eppie"
was elected, Julian came smiling: "Now, Mars Eppie, bein' how as you's
goin' to Congress, I 'lowed you mought have a leetle suppin tuh gimme." A
party of young lawyers tried to persuade their negro servant to vote with
them. "Naw, naw," he said. "De debbul mought git me. Dar ain't but two
parties named in de Bible--de Publikins an' Sinners. I gwi vote wid de
Publikins."
In everything but politics, the negro still reposed trust in "Ole
Marster;" his aches, pains, "mis'ries," family and business troubles, were
all for "Ole Marster," not for the carpet-baggers. The latter feared he
would take "Ole Marster's" advice when he went to the polls, so they
wrought in him hatred and distrust. The negro is not to blame for his
political blunders. It would never have occurred to him to ask for the
ballot; as greatness upon some, so was the franchise untimely thrust upon
him, and he has much to live down that would never have been charged
against him else.
"Brownlow's armed cohorts, negroes principally," one of my father's
friends wrote from Tennessee in 1867, "surround our polls. All the
unlettered blacks go up, voting on questions of State interest which they
do not in the least understand, while intelligent, tax-paying whites, who
must carry the consequences of their acts, are not allowed to vote. I
stayed on my plantation on election day and my negroes went to the polls.
So it was all around me--white men at home, darkeys off running the
government. Negro women went, too; my wife was her own cook and
chambermaid--and butler, for the butler went."
Educated, able, patriotic men, eager to heal the breaches of war, anxious
to restore the war-wrecked fortunes of impoverished States, would have to
stand idly by, themselves disfranchised, and see their old and faithful
negroes marched up to the polls like sheep to the shambles and voted by,
and for the personal advancement of, political sharpers who had no solid
interest in the State or its people, white or black. It would be no less
trying when, instead of this meek, good-natured line, they would find
masses of insolent, armed blacks keeping whites from the polls, or receive
tragic evidence that ambushed guards were commanding with Winchesters all
avenues to the ballot-box. Not only "Secesh" were turned back, but Union
men, respectable Republicans, also; as in Big Creek, Missouri, when a
citizen who had lost four sons in the Union Army was denied right to vote.
"Kill him! kill him!" cried negroes when at Hudson Station, Virginia, a
negro cast a Conservative ticket.
"This county," says a Southerner now occupying a prominent place in
educational work for the negro, "had about 1,600 negro majority at the
time the tissue ballot came into vogue. It was a war measure. The
character and actions of the men who rode to power on the negro ballot
compelled us to devise means of protection and defense. Even the negroes
wanting to vote with us dared not. One of my old servants, who sincerely
desired to follow my advice and example in the casting of his ballot, came
to me on the eve of election and sadly told me he could not. 'Marster,' he
said, 'I been tol' dat I'll be drummed outer de chu'ch ef I votes de
Conserv'tive ticket.' A negro preacher said: 'Marse Clay, dee'll take away
my license tuh preach ef I votes de white folks' ticket.' I did not cease
to reproach myself for inducing one negro to vote with me when I learned
that on the death of his child soon afterwards, his people showed no
sympathy, gave no help, and that he had to make the coffin and dig the
grave himself. I would have gone to his relief had I known, but he was too
terrorised to come to me. I did not seek to influence negro votes at the
next election; I adopted other means to effect the issue desired."
"If the whites succeed at the polls, they will put you back into slavery.
If we succeed, we will have the lands of the whites confiscated and give
every one of you forty acres and a mule." This scare and bribe was used in
every Southern State; used over and over; negroes only ceased to give
credence when after Cleveland's inauguration they found themselves still
free. On announcement of Cleveland's election, many negroes, prompt to
choose masters, hurried to former owners. The butler of Dr. J. L. M. Curry
(administrator of the Peabody Education Fund), appeared in distress before
Dr. Curry, pleading that, as he now must belong to some one, Dr. Curry
would claim him. An old "mammy" in Mayor Ellyson's family, distracted lest
she might be torn from her own white folks and assigned to strangers, put
up piteous appeal to her ex-owners.
From the political debauchery of the day, men of the old order shrank
appalled. Even when the test-oath qualification was no longer exacted and
disabilities were removed, many Southerners would not for a time touch the
unclean thing; then they voted as with averted faces, not because they had
faith in or respect for the process, but because younger men told them the
country's salvation demanded thus much of them. If a respectable man was
sent to the Legislature or Congress, he felt called upon to explain or
apologise to a stranger who might not understand the circumstances. His
relatives hastened to make excuse. "Uncle Ambrose is in the Legislature,
but he is honest," Uncle Ambrose's nieces and nephews hurried to tell
before the suspicious "Honourable" prefixed to his name brought judgment
on a good old man who had intended no harm, but had got into the
Legislature by accident rather than by design--who was there, in fact, by
reason of circumstances over which he had no control. The few
representative men who got into these mixed assemblies had difficulty in
making themselves felt. Judge Simonton, of the United States Circuit Court
(once President of the Charleston Library Association, Chairman of the
Board of School Commissioners, bearer of many civic dignities besides),
was member of a reconstruction legislature. He has said: "To get a bill
passed, I would have to persuade a negro to present it. It would receive
no attention presented by me."
Negroes were carried by droves from one county to another, one State to
another, and voted over and over wherever white plurality was feared.
Other tricks were to change polling-places suddenly, informing the negroes
and not the whites; to scratch names from registration lists and
substitute others. Whites would walk miles to a registration place to find
it closed; negroes, privately advised, would have registered and gone.
When men had little time to give to politics, patriotism was robust if it
could devote days to the siege of a Registration Board, trying to catch it
in place in spite of itself.
The Southerner's loathing for politics, his despair, his inertia,
increased evils. "Let the Yankees have all the niggers they want," he was
prone to say. "Let them fill Congress with niggers. The only cure is a
good dose!" But with absolute ruin staring him in the face, he woke with a
mighty awakening. Taxpayers' Conventions issued "Prayers" to the public,
to State Governments, to the Central Government; they raised out of the
poverty of the people small sums to send committees to Washington; and
these committees were forestalled by Radical State Governments who, with
open State Treasuries to draw upon, sent committees ahead, prejudicing the
executive ear and closing it to appeal.
The most lasting wrong reconstruction inflicted upon the South was in the
inevitable political demoralisation of the white man. No one could regard
the ballot-box as the voice of the people, as a sacred thing. It was a
plaything, a jack-in-the-box for the darkeys, a conjurer's trick that
brought drinks, tips and picnics. It was the carpet-bagger's
stepping-stone to power. The votes of a multitude were for sale. The votes
of a multitude were to be had by trickery. It was a poor patriot who would
not save his State by pay or play. Taxation without representation, again;
the tissue ballot--a tiny silken thing--was one of the instruments used
for heaving tea--negro plurality--into the deep sea.
"As for me," says a patriot of the period, "I bless the distinguished
Virginian who invented the tissue ballot. It was of more practical utility
than his glorious sword. I am free to say I used many tissue ballots. My
old pastor (he was eighty and as true and simple a soul as ever lived)
voted I don't know how many at one time, didn't know he was doing it, just
took the folded ballot I handed him and dropped it in, didn't want to vote
at all." Others besides this speaker assume that General Mahone invented
the tissue ballot, but General Mahone's intimates say he did not, and that
to ask who invented the tissue ballot is to ask who struck Billy
Patterson. Democrats waive the honour in favor of Republicans, Republicans
in favor of Democrats; nobody wants to wear it as a decoration. For my
part, I think it did hard work and much good work, and quietly what else
might have cost shedding of blood.
"We had a trying time," one citizen relates, "when negroes gained
possession of the polls and officered us. Things got simply unendurable;
we determined to take our town from under negro rule. One means to that
end was the tissue ballot. Dishonest? Will you tell me what honesty there
was, what reverence for the ballot-box, in standing idly by and seeing a
horde of negroes who could not read the tickets they voted, cram our
ballot-boxes with pieces of paper ruinous to us and them? We had to save
ourselves by our wits. Some funny things happened. I was down at the
precinct on Bolingbrook Street when the count was announced, and heard an
old darkey exclaim: 'I knows dat one hunderd an' ninety-seben niggers
voted in dis distric', an' dar ain' but th'ee Radicule ballots in de box!
I dunno huccum dat. I reckon de Radicule man gin out de wrong ones. I
knows he gin me two an' I put bofe uv 'em in de box.'"
Tissue ballots were introduced into South Carolina by a Republican named
Butts, who used them against Mackey, another Republican, his rival for
Congressional honours; there was no Democratic candidate. Next election
Democrats said: "Republicans are using tissue ballots; we must fight the
devil with fire." A package arrived one night at a precinct whereof I
know. The local Democratic leader said: "I don't like this business." He
was told: "The Committee sent them up from the city; they say the other
side will use them and that we've got to use them."
According to election law, when ballots polled exceeded registration
lists, a blindfolded elector would put his hand in the box and withdraw
until ballots and lists tallied. Many tissue ballots could be folded into
one and voted as a single ballot; a little judicious agitation after they
were in the box would shake them apart. A tissue ballot could be told by
its feel; an elector would withdraw as sympathy or purchase ran. Voting
over at the precinct mentioned, the box was taken according to regulations
into a closed room and opened. Democrats and Republicans had each a
manager. The Republican ran his hand into the box and gave it a stir;
straightway it became so full it couldn't be shut, ballots falling apart
and multiplying themselves. The Republican laughed: "I have heard of
self-raising flour. These are self-raising ballots! Butts' own game!" That
precinct went Democratic.
So went other precincts. Republicans had failed on tissues. A
Congressional Committee, composed of Senators McDonald of Indiana,
Randolph of New Jersey, and Teller of Colorado, came down to inquire into
elections. Republicans charged tissue ballots on Democrats. But, alas! one
of the printers put on the stand testified that the Republicans had
ordered many thousand tissue ballots of him, but he had failed to have
them on time!
There were other devices. Witness, the story of the Circus and the Voter.
"A circus saved us. Each negro registering received a certificate to be
presented at the polls. Our people got a circus to come through and made a
contract with the managers. The circus let it be known that registration
certificates would be accepted instead of admission tickets, or entrance
fees, we agreeing to redeem at admission price all certificates turned
over to us. The arrangement made everybody happy--none more than the
negroes, who got a better picnic than usual and saw a show besides. The
circus had tremendous crowds and profited greatly. And one of the most
villainous tickets ever foisted upon a people was killed quietly and
effectually."
An original scheme was resorted to in the Black Belt of Mississippi in
order to carry the day. An important local election was to be held, and
the whites felt that they could not afford to lose. But how to keep out
the black vote was a serious question. Finally, a bright young fellow
suggested a plan. For a week preceding election, he collected, by paying
for it, negro hair from barbers serving negroes, and he got butchers to
save waste blood from slaughter-pens. The night before the election,
committees went out about a mile on every road and path leading to the
town, and scattering wool and blood generously, "pawed up the ground" with
foot-tracks and human body imprints. Every evidence of furious scuffle was
faithfully carried out. The day dawned beautiful and bright, but not a
black vote was cast--not a negro was to be seen. Hundreds had quit
farm-work to come to vote, but stopped aghast at the appalling signs of
such an awful battle, and fled to their homes in prompt and precipitate
confusion.
I heard a good man say, with humour and sadness, "I have bought many a
negro vote, bought them three for a quarter. To buy was their terms. There
was no other way. And we couldn't help ourselves." "There were Federal
guards here and they knew just what we were doing," another relates, "knew
we were voting our way any and everybody who came up to vote, had seen the
Radicals at the same thing and knew just what strait we were in. I voted a
dead man knowingly when some one came up and gave his name. I did the same
thing unknowingly. I heard one man ask of a small funeral procession,
'Who's dead?' 'Hush!' said his companion, 'It's the man that's just
voted!'" "I never voted a dead man," a second manager chimes in, "but I
voted a man that was in Europe. His father was right in front of the
ballot-box, telling about a letter just received from his son, when up
comes somebody in that son's name and votes. The old man was equal to the
occasion. 'Why, my dear boy!'--had never seen the other before--'so glad
you got back in time to cast your vote!' and off they walked, arms around
each other."
"The way we saved our city," one says, "was by buying the Radical manager
of the election. We were standing right under the statue of George
Washington when we paid the $500 he demanded. These things are all wrong,
but there was no other way. Some stood off and kept clean hands. But a
thing had to be done, and we did it, not minding the theoretical dirt. The
negroes were armed with ballots and bayonets, and the bayonets were at our
breasts. Our lands were taxed until we were letting our homes go because
we could not pay the taxes, while corrupt officials were waxing fat. We
had to take our country from under negro rule any way we could." It was
not wounds of war that the Southerner found it hard to forget and forgive,
but the humiliation put upon him afterward, and his own enforced
self-degradation.
I do not wish to be understood as saying that the Southerner re-won
control of local government by only such methods as described; I emphasize
the truth that, at times, he did use them and had to use them, because
herein was his deep moral wound. He employed better methods as he could;
for instance, when every white man would bind himself to persuade one
negro to vote with him, to bring this negro to the polls, and protect him
from Radical punishment. Also, he availed himself of weak spots in the
enemy's armour. Thus in Hancock County, Georgia, in 1870, Judge Linton
Stephens challenged voters who had not paid poll-tax, and, when election
managers would not heed, had them arrested and confined, while their
places were supplied and the election proceeded. The State Constitution,
framed by the Radicals themselves, called for this poll-tax--a dollar a
head--and its application to "educational purposes." The extravagant
Radical regime, falling short of bribing money, remitted the poll-tax in
lieu thereof. Judge Stephens caught them. Governor Bullock disapproved his
action; United States Marshal Seaford haled him before United States
Commissioner Swayze. The Federal Grand Jury ignored the charge against
him, and that was the end of it. The Judge had, however, been put to
expense, trouble, and loss of time.
THE WHITE CHILD
CHAPTER XXVI
THE WHITE CHILD
Upon the Southern white child of due age for schooling the effects of war
fell with cruel force.
The ante-bellum planter kept a tutor or governess or both for his
children; his neighbours' children sometimes attended the school which he
maintained for his own. Thus, were sons and daughters prepared for academy
and college, university, finishing school. Private schools were broken up
quite generally by the war. It became quite the custom for the mother or
an elder sister to fill the position of instructor in families on big
plantations. Such schooling as this was none too plentiful in rural Dixie
just after the war. Sisters of age and capacity to teach did not stay in
one family forever. Sometimes they got married; though many a beautiful
and brilliant girl sacrificed her future for little brothers and sisters
dependent upon her for mental food. The great mass of Southern women had,
however, to drop books for broomsticks; to turn from pianos and guitars
and make music with kettles and pans. Children had to help. With labour
entirely disorganised, in the direst poverty and the grasp of such
political convulsions as no people before them had ever endured, the hour
was strenuous beyond description, and it is no wonder if the claims of
children to education were often overlooked, or, in cruel necessity, set
aside.
Sometimes neighbours clubbed together and opened an "old field school,"
paying the teacher out of a common fund subscribed for the purpose; again,
a man who could teach went around, drummed up pupils at so much a head,
opened a school and took chances on collection of dues. Many
neighbourhoods were too poor for even such expedients; to get bread itself
was a struggle to which children must lend labour. The seventies found few
or no rural districts without a quota of half-grown lads and lassies
unable to read and write. It was no strange thing to see little white boys
driving a plow when they were so small they had to lift their hands high
to grasp the handles; or little white girls minding cows, trotting to
springs or wells with big buckets to fill, bending over wash-tubs, and
working in the crops.
The public school system was not put in operation at once, and if it had
been, could not have met conditions of the hour. Planters lived far apart;
roads in some sections long unworked, in others lately plowed by cannons
or wagon-trains, were often impassable for teams--if people were so
fortunate as to have teams; and much more so for little feet; then, too,
the reign of fear was on; highways and by-ways were infested by roving
negroes; many were harmless; would, indeed, do a child a kindness; but
some were dangerous; the negro, his own master now, was free to get drunk
at other times than Christmas and corn-shucking. An argument against the
success of the public as of the "old field" school, lay in the strong
spirit of caste animating the high-born Southerner. It was against his
grain to send his children--particularly his daughters--to school with
Tom, Dick and Harry; it did not please him for them to make close
associates of children in a different walk of life--the children of the
"poor white trash." This spirit of exclusiveness marks people of position
today, wherever found. Caste prejudice was almost inoperative, however,
having small chance to pick and choose. Gaunt poverty closed the doors of
learning against the white child of the South, while Northern munificence
was flinging them wide to the black.
Soon as war ended, schools for negroes were organised in all directions
with Government funds or funds supplied by Northern charity; and under
Northern tutelage--a tutelage contributing to prejudice between the races.
These institutions had further the effect of aggravating the labour
problem--a problem so desperate for the Southern farmer that he could not
turn from it to give his own child a chance for intellectual life.
He was not pleasantly moved by touching stories that went North of
class-rooms where middle-age, hoary-head and pickaninny sat on the same
bench studying the same page, all consumed with ambition to master the
alphabet. It did not enter into these accounts that the plows and hoes of
a sacked country had been deserted for the A B C book. He resented the
whole tendency of the time, which was to make the negro despise manual
labour and elevate book-learning above its just position. Along with these
appealing stories did not go pictures of fields where white women and
children in harness dragged plows through furrows; the artists did not
portray white children in the field wistfully watching black children
trooping by to school; had such pictures gone North in the sixties and
seventies, some would have said, so bitter was the moment, "Just
retribution for the whites," but not the majority. The great-hearted men
and women of the North would have come to the rescue.
"There were two reasons for Northern indifference to the education of the
Southern white child," an embittered educator says; "natural prejudice
against the people with whom they had been at war, and the feeling that
the negro had been persecuted--had been 'snatched from his happy home in
Africa' (they forgot they had done more than a full share of the
snatching); brought over here and sold into slavery (they forgot they had
done more than a full share of the selling), and thereby stripped of all
his brilliant opportunities of life in Africa and the advancement he might
else have had; the Southern white man, instead of sending him to college,
had made him work in the fields; to even up matters now, the negro must go
to college and the white man work in the fields. This was the will of
Providence and they its executors."
The two reasons given--undue prejudice against the Southern white and
overweening pity for the negro--were the grand disposing cause of Northern
indifference to the white child and abnormal sensibility about everything
concerning the black. But at the bottom was ignorance of actual conditions
here. The one story was put before them, the other was not. It was not to
the interests of Freedmen's Bureau agents to let the other be known; and,
of course, the business of teachers and missionaries was to make out the
strongest case possible in order to draw funds for negro education. The
negro's ignorance, in a literary sense, could hardly be exaggerated, nor
his poverty; but he was a laborer and an artisan and held recuperative
power in his hands.
It was not in the thought of the proud old planter to cry for help; it was
his habit to give, not take; he and his wife and children made as little
parade as possible of their extremities to their nearest neighbour; such
evidences as would not down were laughed over with a humour inherent as
their spirit of independence.
In 1867, Mrs. Sarah Hughes said: "Since leaving Kentucky last December, I
have travelled many thousand miles in the South; I have seen spreading
out before me in sad panorama solitary chimneys, burned buildings, walls
of once happy homes, grounds and gardens grown with weeds and briers;
groups of sad human faces; gaunt women and children; old, helpless men;
young men on crutches, and without arms, sick, sad, heart-broken. Words
cannot describe the destitute condition of the orphaned children. It
excites my deepest commiseration. The children of the dead soldiers are
wandering beggars, hand in hand with want. Except in large cities, there
are no schools or homes for the fatherless. An attractive academy has been
built near Atlanta by citizens of Northern cities for the children of the
freedmen; and it is in a flourishing condition," etc. An editorial in a
newspaper of the day reads: "The white children of the South are growing
up in pitiful neglect, and we are wrong to permit it."
General Pope, commanding Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida, wrote
General Grant, April 14, 1867: "It may be safely said that the remarkable
progress made in the education of these people (the negroes), aided by
noble charitable institutions of Northern societies and individuals, finds
no parallel in the history of mankind. If the white people exhibit the
same indisposition to be educated that they do now, five years will have
transferred intelligence and education so far as the masses are concerned,
to the coloured people of the district." Does it not seem incredible that
an Anglo-Saxon should regard with complacency a situation involving the
supreme peril of his race, should consider it cause of congratulation? The
state of affairs was urged as argument that the negro was or quickly would
be qualified for exercise of the franchise with which he had been invested
and his late master deprived.
The Sunday School acquired new interest and significance. I remember one
that used to be held in summer under the trees near a blacksmith's shop,
in which Webster's Spelling Book divided attention with the New Testament.
The school was gotten up by a planter in kindly effort to do what he could
for the poor children in the neighbourhood. There were grown girls in it
who spelled out rather than read Bible verses. On weekdays, the planter's
daughter received and taught free of charge a class of poor whites. A
Georgia friend, who was a little boy at the close of the war, tells me:
"The Sunday Schools made more impression upon me than any other
institution of the period. There were, I suppose, Sunday Schools in plenty
before and during the war, but somehow they seemed a new thing
thereafter."
This movement was at once an expression of a revival of religious
sentiment (there was a strong revival movement at the time), the desire
for social intercourse, and an effort to advance the educational interests
of the young, who in countless instances were deprived of ordinary means
of instruction. Hon. Henry G. Turner wrote of the conditions of that day:
"Cities and great tracts of country were in ashes. Colleges and schools
were silent, teachers without pupils, pupils without teachers. Even the
great charities and asylums were unable to take care of lunatics, the deaf
and the blind.... Repudiation by States of bonds, treasury notes, and
other obligations issued during the war reduced to penury thousands of
widows and orphans, and many people too old to start life over again."
Congress demanded this repudiation at the point of the bayonet.
The South was not unmindful of her orphans; there were early organised
efforts such as the land was capable of making; the churches led in many
of these. And there were efforts of a lighter order, such as the bazaar
which the Washington and Lee Association held in Norfolk. The Baltimore
Society for the Liberal Education of Southern Children was a notable
agency. Individual effort was not lacking. Few did more according to their
might than Miss Emily V. Mason, who provided for many orphans gravitating
towards her at a time when she was paying for her nieces' board with
family silver, a spoon or a fork at a time. One of her most sympathetic
aides was a Miss Chew, of the North, with whom during the entire war she
had maintained an affectionate correspondence begun in times of peace.
Illustrative of a rather odd form of relief is this extract from a letter
by Mrs. Lee to Miss Mason:
"My dear Miss Em, did I ever write you about a benevolent lady at the
North who is anxious to adopt two little 'rebel' children, five or six
years old--of a Confederate officer--and she writes General Lee to
recommend such a party to her. She wants them of gentle blood. I have no
doubt there are a great many to whom such an offer would be acceptable. Do
you know of any?" In regard to Baltimore's work, she says: "How can we
ever repay our kind friends in Baltimore for all they have done for us?"
When the Confederate General, John B. Hood, died, he left a number of very
young children in poor circumstances; one of their benefactors was the
Federal General McClellan, I have heard.
Doubtless many hands were outstretched from the North in some such manner
as is indicated in Mrs. Lee's letter. Thousands would have extended help
in every way had the truth been known. What the Southern white child
really needed, however, was the removal of an oppressive legislation which
was throttling his every chance in life, and a more temperate view on the
part of the dominant section of the negro question--a question that was
pressing painfully at every point upon his present and future. He had a
right to an equal chance in life with the negro.
That quality in Northern people which made them pour out money for the
freedmen, would have stirred their sense of justice to the white child had
the situation been clear to them. One of the earliest homes for orphans of
Confederate soldiers was established at Macon by William H. Appleton, of
New York, at the suggestion of his friend, Bishop Beckwith, of Georgia.
Vanderbilt and Tulane Universities, the Seney benefactions to Emory and
Wesleyan Colleges, and other evidences of awakening interest in the
South's white youth, will occur at once to my readers. Chief of all was
the Peabody Fund, in which white and black had share. Dr. Sears, of
Boston, first administrator, was sharply blamed by William Lloyd Garrison
and others because he did not make mixed schools a condition of bestowal
upon whites; his critics grew quiet when shown that, under the terms of
the gift, such a course would divert the whole fund to white children.
To illustrate white need: Late as 1899, I heard, through Miss Sergeant,
Principal of the Girls' High School, Atlanta, of a white school in the
Georgia mountains where one short shelf held all the books--one grammar,
one arithmetic, one reader, one history, one geography, one spelling-book.
Starting at the end of the first bench, a book would pass from hand to
hand, each child studying a paragraph. There are schools of scrimped
resources now, where young mountaineers make all sorts of sacrifices and
trudge barefoot seemingly impossible distances to secure a little
learning. Nobody in these communities dreams of calling for outside help
and sympathy, and when help is tendered, it must be with the utmost
circumspection and delicacy, or native pride is wounded and rejects.
Appalachia is a region holding big game for people hunting chances to do
good.
[Illustration: MISS EMILY V. MASON
Photograph by Vianelli, Italy]
The various Constitutional Conventions adopted public school systems for
their commonwealths. In Virginia, it was not to go into operation until
1871, after which there was to be as rapid extension as possible and full
introduction into all counties by 1876. The convention made strenuous
efforts, as did that of every other State, to force mixed schools, in
which, had they succeeded, the white child's chance of an education would
have suffered a new death.
Early text-books used in public schools grated on the Southerner; they
were put out by Northern publishing houses and gave views of American
history which he thought unjust and untrue. The "Southern Opinion" printed
this, August 3, 1867: "In a book circulating in the South as history, this
occurs: 'While the people of the North were rejoicing because the war was
at an end, President Lincoln, one of the best men in the world, was
cruelly murdered in Washington by a young man hired by the Confederates to
do the wicked deed.' It calls Lee 'a perjured traitor;' says 'Sherman made
a glorious march to the sea;' prints 'Sheridan's Ride' as a school
recitation." To comprehension of the Southern mind as it was then and is
now in some who remember, it is essential that we get its view of the
"Ride" and the "March."
"Have you seen a piece of poetry," a representative Southern woman wrote
another in the fall of 1865, "called 'Sheridan's Ride'? If you can get it,
do send it to me. I want to see if there isn't some one smart enough to
reply to it and give a true version of that descent of armed ruffians upon
store-rooms, stables, hen-roosts and ladies' trunks--even tearing the
jewelry from their persons--even robbing the poor darkies of their
watches and clothing. Not a single Confederate soldier did they encounter.
They ought to live in history! My Vermont friend, Lucy Adams, says these
things 'are not true, no one at the North believes them, they are
impossible.' But we know they are true. I was very anxious to send you
Sherman's speech at Cincinnati--perhaps you have seen it--in which he
unblushingly sanctions all the outrages committed by his men. I really
think some notice ought to be taken of it, but our papers, you see, are
all ruined now; and in New York, only 'The News' dares publish anything
true.... I have found a copy, but this says at 'Lancaster, Ohio'; perhaps
he said the same thing twice; it was at the close of a grand speech:
'Soldiers, when we marched through and conquered the country of the
rebels, we became owners of all they had; and I don't want you to be
troubled in your consciences for taking, while on our great march, the
property of the conquered rebels--they had forfeited their right to it.'"
"For several years since the nineties it has been my privilege to serve a
large charitable institution here," a Southern friend writes me from a
Northern city. "On the Fourth of July I join with as much fervor as
anybody in the flag salute, in singing 'America' and all the other
patriotic songs, until they come to 'Marching Through Georgia.' That takes
the very heart out of me! Sometimes it is all I can do to keep from
bursting into tears! Then again I feel as if I must stand up and shout:
'We should not teach any American child to sing that song!' You know the
home of one of my dearest friends was in the way of that march; it was
burned to the ground and she, a little girl, and her aged grandfather
wandered homeless in the night. I wonder, O, I wonder, if our soldiers in
the Philippines, Northern and Southern boys, are giving grounds for any
such songs as that! I'd rather we'd lose the fight!"
A cause operating against education of both races remains to be cited. The
carpet-bag, scalawag and negroid State Governments made raids on
educational funds. In North Carolina, $420,000 in railroad stock belonging
to the Educational Fund for the Benefit of Poor Children were sold for
$158,000, to be applied in part payment of extended per diems of
legislators. These legislators gave at State expense lavish
entertainments, and kept a bar and house of prostitution in the Capitol;
took trips to New York and gambled away State funds by thousands; war had
left a school fund, taxation increased it; but for two years no child,
white or black, received benefits. There was money enough for the Governor
to raise and equip two regiments, one of negroes, for intimidation of
whites, but none for education. Of Georgia's public school fund of
$327,000, there seems not to have been a penny left to the State when her
million-dollar legislature adjourned in 1870.
Louisiana's permanent school fund for parishes vanished with none to tell
where it went. Attention was called to its disappearance by W. E. Brown,
the negro State Superintendent of Education. When Warmouth, was
inaugurated (1868), the treasury held $1,300,500 for free schools. "Bonds
representing this," states Hon. B. F. Sage, "the most sacred property of
the State, were publicly auctioned June, 1872, to pay warrants issued by
Warmouth." Warmouth, like Holden of North Carolina, and Scott and Moses of
South Carolina, raised and maintained at State expense a black army. In
1870, the Radical Governor of Florida made desperate efforts to lay hands
on the Agricultural Land Scrip, property of the Agricultural College of
that State; to save it from his clutches C. T. Chase, President of Public
Instruction, asked President Grant's intervention. A forger, embezzler and
thief presided over Mississippi's Department of Education. In every State
it was the same story of public moneys wasted by nefarious tricksters who
had ridden to power on the negro ballot; the widow and the orphan robbed,
the gray-beard and the child; the black man and the white.
SCHOOLMARMS AND OTHERS
CHAPTER XXVII
SCHOOLMARMS AND OTHER NEWCOMERS
Many good people came down to do good to us and the negroes; we were not
always so nice to these as we ought to have been. But very good people can
try other very good people sorely sometimes. Besides, some who came in
sheep's clothing were not sheep, and gave false ideas of the entire flock.
Terms of professional philanthropy were strange in the Southerner's mouth.
It never occurred to the men, women and maidens who visited all the poor,
sick, old and feeble negroes in their reach, breaking their night's rest
or their hours of recreation or toil without a sense of sacrifice--who
gave medicines, food, clothing, any and everything asked for to the blacks
and who ministered to them in neighbourly ways innumerable--that they were
doing the work of a district or parish visitor. Southerners have been
doing these things as a matter of course ever since the negroes were
brought to them direct from Africa or by way of New England, making no
account of it, never organizing into charitable associations and taking on
corresponding tags, raising collections and getting pay for official
services; the help a Southerner gave a darkey he took out of his own
pocket or larder or off his own back; and that ended the matter till next
time.
Yet, here come salaried Northerners with "Educator," "Missionary," or
"Philanthropist" marked on their brows, broidered on their sleeves; and as
far as credit for work for darkeys goes, "taking the cake" from the
Southerner, who had no warm welcome for the avalanche of instructors
pouring down upon him with the "I am holier than thou" expression, and
bent as much upon teaching him what he ought to have been doing as upon
teaching the negro to struggle indecorously for the semblance of a
non-existent equality.
Newcomers were upon us like the plagues of Egypt. Deserters from the
Federal Army, men dismissed for cause, followers in its wake, political
gypsies, bums and toughs. Everybody in New York remarked upon the thinning
out of the Bowery and its growing orderliness during enlistments for the
Spanish-American War; and everybody knew what became of vanishing
trampdom; it joined the army. The Federal Army in the sixties was not
without heavy percentage of similar element; and, when, after conquest, it
returned North, it left behind much riff-raff. Riff-raffs became
politicians and intellectual and spiritual guides to the negroes. From
these, and from early, unwise, sometimes vicious Freedmen's Bureau
instructors, Southerners got first ideas of Yankee schoolmasters and
schoolmarms.
"Yankee schoolmarms" overran the country. Their spirit was often noble and
high as far as the black man's elevation--or their idea of it--was
concerned; but towards the white South, it was bitter, judicial,
unrelenting. Some were saints seeking martyrdom, and finding it; some were
fools; some, incendiaries; some, all three rolled into one; some were
straight-out business women seeking good-paying jobs; some were
educational sharps.
Into the Watkins neighbourhood came three teachers, a male preacher and
two women teachers. They went in among the negroes, ate and slept with
them, paraded the streets arm-in-arm with them. They were disturbed to
perceive that, even among negroes, the familiarity that breeds contempt
is not conducive to usefulness; and that they were at a disadvantage in
the eyes of the negroes because white people failed to recognise them.
Mr. Watkins, master of the manor, was a shining light to all who knew him.
In summer his verandah, in winter his dining-room, was crowded Sunday
afternoons with negroes on his invitation: "I will be glad to have you
come to sing and pray with me." He would read a chapter from the Bible,
lead the opening prayer, then call upon some sable saint to lead, himself
responding with humble "Amens." White and black would sing together. When
the newcomers found how things were, they felt aggrieved that they had not
his countenance.
He had seen one of them walk up to his ex-hostler and lay her hand on his
coat-collar, while she talked away archly to him. I hardly believe a
gentleman of New York, Boston or Chicago would conclude that persons
making intimates of his domestic force could desire association with his
wife and daughters or expect social attentions from them; I hardly believe
he would urge the ladies of his family to call upon these persons. Mr.
Watkins did not send his women-kind to see the newcomers; at last, the
newcomers took the initiative and came to see his family. His daughters
did not appear, but Mrs. Watkins received them politely. They went
straight to the point, lodging complaint against the community.
"We had no reason to suppose," said she, quietly, "that you cared for the
coöperation of our white people. You acted independently of us; you did
not advise with us or show desire for affiliation. We would have been
forcing ourselves upon you. I will be as frank as you have been. Had you
started this work in a proper spirit and manner, my husband for one would
have responded to the limit of his power to any call you made upon him."
They dragged in the social equality business and found her adamant. When
they charged "race prejudice," she said promptly: "Were I to visit
relatives in Boston, the nice people there would, I doubt not, show me
pleasant attentions. Were I to put myself on equal terms with their
domestics, I could hardly expect it. The question is not altogether one of
race prejudice, but of fitness of things." "But we are missionaries, not
social visitors." "We do not feel that you benefit negroes by teaching
them presumption and to despise and neglect work and to distrust and hate
us."
A garrulous negress was entertaining one of these women with hair-raising
accounts of cruelties practiced upon her by whites when, as a slave, she
cooked for them. The schoolmarm asked: "Why didn't you black people poison
all the whites and get your freedom that way? You're the most patient
people on earth or you would have done so." A "mammy" who overheard
administered a stinging rebuke: "Dat would ha' been a sin even ef our
white folks wuz ez mean ez Sukey Ann been tellin'. Mine wuz good tuh me.
Sukey Ann jes been tellin' you dem tales tuh see how she kin wuk you up."
Perhaps the school-teacher had not meant to be taken more literally than
Sukey Ann deserved to be.
Until freedom, white and black children could hardly be kept apart. Boys
ran off fishing and rabbit-hunting together; girls played dolls in the
garret of the great house or in a sunny corner of the woodpile. They
rarely quarrelled. The black's adoration of the white, the white's desire
to be allowed to play with the black, stood in the way of conflict. An
early result of the social equality doctrine was war between children of
the races. Such strife was confined almost wholly to white and black
schools in towns, where black and white children were soon ready to "rock"
each other. A spirit of dislike and opposition to blacks, which their
elders could hardly understand, having never experienced it, began to take
possession of white children. The following story will give some idea of
these dawning manifestations of race prejudice:
Negro and white schools were on opposite sides of the street in
Petersburg, the former a Freedmen's Bureau institution, the latter a
private school taught by a very youthful ex-Confederate, Captain M., who,
though he looked like a boy himself, had made, after a brilliant
university course, a shining war record. The negro boys, stimulated by the
example of their elders who were pushing whites off the sidewalks, and
excited by ill-timed discourses by their imported white pedagogue,
"sassed" the white boys, contended with them for territory, or aggravated
them in some way. A battle ensued, in which the white children ran the
black off the street and into their own schoolhouse, the windows of which
were damaged by rocks, the only serious mischief resulting from exchange
of projectiles.
In short order six Federal soldiers with bayonets fixed marched into the
white schoolhouse, where the Captain was presiding over his classes,
brought by this time to a proper sense of penitence and due state of
order, their preceptor being a military disciplinarian. The invading squad
came to capture the children. The Captain indignantly protested, saying he
was responsible for his boys; it was sufficient to serve warrant on him,
he would answer for them; it was best not to make a mountain out of a
mole-hill and convulse the town with a children's quarrel. The sergeant
paid him scant courtesy and arrested the children. The Captain donned his
old Confederate overcoat, than which he had no other, and marched down the
street with his boys to the Provost's office.
The Provost, a soldier and a gentleman, after examining into the case and
considering the small culprits, all ranged in a terrified row and not
knowing but that they would be blown next moment into Paradise or the
other place, asked the Captain if he would guarantee that his children
would keep the peace. The Captain assured him that he could and would if
the teacher of the coloured boys would keep his charges in bounds, adding
that he would have the windows repaired at his expense. The Provost
accepted this pledge, and with a withering look at the pedagogic
complainant, said to the arresting officer: "Sergeant, I am sorry it was
necessary to send six armed men to arrest these little boys." This
happened at ten o'clock in the morning. Before ten that night the Provost
was removed by orders from Washington. So promptly had complaint been
entered against him that he was too lenient to whites, so quickly had it
taken effect! Yet his course was far more conservative of the public peace
than would have been the court-martialing of the children of prominent
citizens of the town, and the stirring-up of white and black parents
against each other.
"It's no harm for a hungry coloured man to make a raid on a chicken-coop
or corn-pile," thus spoke Carpet-Bagger Crockett in King William County,
Virginia, June, 1869, in the Walker-Wells campaign, at a meeting opened
with prayer by Rev. Mr. Collins, Northern missionary. Like sentiment was
pronounced in almost the same words by a carpet-bag officer of state, a
loud advocate of negro education, from the steps of the State House in
Florida. Like sentiment was taught in direct and indirect ways by no
small number of preceptors in negro schoolhouses.
A South Carolina schoolmarm, after teaching her term out at a fat salary,
made of her farewell a "celebration" with songs, recitations, etc.; the
scholars passed in procession before the platform, she kissed each, and to
each handed a photograph of herself for $1. She carried off a harvest.
Various other small ways of levying tribute were practiced by the
thoughtless or the unscrupulous; and negroes pilfered to meet demands.
Schoolmarms and masters did not always teach for sweet charity's sake.
With moving stories some drew heavily upon the purse of the generous North
for contributions which were not exactly applied to the negro's relief or
profit. In order to attract Northern teachers to Freedmen's schools in
Mississippi salaries were paid out of all proportion to their services or
to the people's ability to pay. "Examinations for teachers' licenses were
not such as to ascertain the real fitness of applicants or conduce to a
high standard of scholarship," says James Wilford Garner in
"Reconstruction in Mississippi." "They were asked a few oral questions by
the superintendent in his private office and the certificate granted as a
matter of course."
"While the average pay of the teachers in Northern schools is less than
$300 a year, salaries here range from $720 to $1,920," said Governor
Alcorn to the Mississippi Legislature in 1871. The old log schoolhouses
were torn down by the reconstructionists, new and costly frame and brick
ones built; and elegant desks and handsome chairs, "better suited to the
academy than the common school," displaced equipments that had been good
enough for many a great American's intellectual start in life. In Monroe
County, schoolhouses which citizens offered free of charge were rejected
and new ones built; teachers' salaries ranged from $50 to $150 a month;
schools were multiplied; heavy special taxes were levied. In Lowndes, a
special tax of $95,000 over and above the regular tax for education was
levied. Taxpayers protested in formal meetings. The Ku Klux whipped
several male teachers, one an ex-Confederate, and warned a schoolmarm or
two to leave. Expenses came down.
What was true of one Southern State was true of others where costly
educational machinery and a peculative system covering "deals" and "jobs"
in books, furniture, schoolhouse construction, etc., were imposed.
Whippings with which Ku Klux visited a few male teachers and school
directors here and there, and warnings to leave served upon others of both
sexes, were, in most cases, protests--and the only effective protests
impoverished and tax-ridden communities could make--against waste of
public funds, peculation, subordination of the teacher's office to that of
political emissary, Loyal League organizer, inculcator of social equality
doctrines and race hatred. Some whippings were richly deserved by those
who got them, some were not; some which were richly deserved were never
given. It was not always Ku Klux that gave the whippings, but their foes,
footing up sins to their account. It became customary for white
communities to assemble and condemn violence, begging their own people to
have no part in it.
I have known many instances where Southern clergy maintained friendly
relations with schoolmarms, aiding them, operating with them, lending them
sympathy, thinking their methods often wrong, but accepting their
earnestness and devotion and sacrifice at its full value. I have heard
Southerners speak of faculties of certain institutions thus: "Those
teachers came down here in the spirit that missionaries go to a foreign
land, expecting persecution and ostracism, and prepared to bear it." I
have deeply respected the lovely and exalted character of some schoolmarms
I have personally known, who suffered keenly the isolation and loneliness
of their position; to missionaries and teachers of this type, I have seen
the Southern attitude change as their quality was learned. I have seen
municipal boards helping with appropriations Northern workers among
negroes, while these workers were ungraciously charging them with race
prejudice. And I have seen the attitude of such workers gradually change
towards their white neighbours as they understood our white and black
people better.
Early experiments must have sometimes perplexed the workers. Negroes had
confused ideas of education. Thus, a negress who did not know the English
alphabet, went to a teacher in Savannah and demanded to be taught French
right off. Others simply demanded "to know how to play de pianner." The
mass were eager for "book-learnin'." Southerners who had been trying to
instruct indifferent little negroes beheld with curiosity this sudden and
intense yearning when "education" was held up as a forbidden fruit of the
past.
It has been said that Southern whites would not at first teach in the
negro schools. "Rebels" were not invited and would not have been allowed
to teach in Bureau schools. Reconstructionists preferred naturally their
own ilk. Certainly all Southerners were not opposed _per se_ to negro
schools, for we find some so influential as the Bishop of Mississippi
advising planters in 1866 to open schools for their negroes. Leading
journals and some teachers' conventions in 1867 advocated public schools
for negroes, with Southern whites as teachers. It has been said, too, that
Northern teachers who came to teach the negroes could not secure board in
respectable white families, and, therefore, had no choice but to board in
black. I think this may be wholly true. The Southerner firmly believed
that the education given the negro was not best for him or the country;
and he was deeply prejudiced against the Northern teacher and all his or
her ways. The efforts of Black and Tan assemblies to force mixed schools
upon the country was a ground of prejudice against teachers and the
schools; so, too, the course of some teachers in trying to compel this.
How could rational people, with the common welfare at heart, advocate
mixed schools when such feelings were in evidence at outset as the captain
and the pedagogue incident and many similar ones in many States proved
existent? Such feelings were not and are not limited to the South. Only a
year or two ago the mixed school question caused negroes to burn a
schoolhouse near Boston. Many white and black educators at the North seem
to agree that it is not best to mix the races there. Prominent negroes are
now asserting that it is not best for the negro child to put him in
schools with whites; he is cowed as before a superior or he exhibits or
excites antipathy. Besides, he casts a reflection upon his own race in
insisting upon this association.
If white Southerners at first objected to teaching negroes, this objection
speedily vanished before the argument: "We should teach the negroes
ourselves if we do not wish them influenced against us by Yankees," and,
"We should keep the money at home," and the all-compelling "I must make a
living." As the carpet-bag governments went out of power, Northern
schoolteachers lost their jobs and Southern ones got them. As negroes were
prepared, Southern whites appointed negroes to teach negroes, which was
what the blacks themselves desired and believed just.
School fights between the races ceased as Southern whites or Southern
negroes came in charge of schools for blacks, and as Northern people who
came South to work in charitable enterprises understood conditions better.
Those who had unwittingly wrought ill in the first place had usually meant
well. The missionary of the sixties and seventies was not as wise as the
missionary of today, who knows that he must study a people before he
undertakes to teach and reform them, and that it is all in the day's work
for him not to run counter heedlessly to established social usages or to
try to uproot instantly and with violence customs centuries old. A
reckless reformer may tear up more good things in a few weeks than he can
replant, or substitute with better, in a lifetime.
THE CARPET-BAGGER
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE CARPET-BAGGER
The test-oath was invitation to the carpet-bagger. The statements of
Generals Schofield and Stoneman show how difficult it was to find in the
South men capable of filling office who could swear they had "never given
aid or comfort" to a Confederate. Few or no decent people could do it. In
the summer of 1865, President Johnson instructed provisional governors to
fill Federal offices of mail, revenue and customs service with men from
other States, if proper resident citizens--that is, men who could take the
test-oath--could not be found. Office-seekers from afar swarmed as bees to
a hive.
The carpet-bagger was the all-important figure in Dixie after the war; he
was lord of our domain; he bred discord between races, kept up war between
sections, created riots and published the tale of them, laying all blame
on whites. Neither he nor his running mate the scalawag or turn-coat
Southerner, was received socially. Sentence fell harder upon the latter
when old friends insulted him and the speaker on the hustings could say of
him no word too bitter. His family suffered with him. The wife of the
native Radical Governor of one Southern State said when her punishment was
over: "The saddest years of my life were spent in the Executive Mansion.
In a city where I had been beloved, none of my old friends, none of the
best people, called on me." In times of great poverty, temptations were
great; men, after once starting in politics, were drawn further than they
had dreamed possible. Again, men with State welfare at heart, urged
compromises as the only way to secure benefits to the State; on being
irritated, urged unwisely; on being ostracized, out-Heroded Herod. Our
foreign office-holders were not all bad men or corrupt. We will not call
these carpet-baggers. The carpet-bagger has been defined: "A Yankee, in a
linen duster and with a carpet-bag, appearing suddenly on a political
platform in the South, and calling upon the negroes to vote him into
office." I give portraits of two types.
In the wake of Sherman's Army which passed through Brunswick, Virginia,
toward Washington, came and stopped two white men, Lewis and McGiffen.
They were desperadoes and outlaws, carried Winchester rifles and were fine
shots; said they hailed from Maine; to intimates, the leader, Lewis,
boasted that he had killed his step-father and escaped the hangman by
playing crazy. They leased the farm of a "poor white," Mrs. Parrish. Lewis
opened a negro school and a bank, issuing script for sums from twenty-five
cents to five dollars; he organized a Loyal League, collecting the fees
and dues therefrom. He armed and drilled negroes and marched them around
to the alarm of the people. Court House records show lawful efforts of
whites at self-protection. August 8, 1868, Lewis was tried before William
Lett, J. P., for inciting negroes to insurrection, when, under pretense of
preaching the Gospel to them, he convened them at Parrish's. He was
sentenced to the penitentiary for seven years. The State was under
military rule, and the decision of the civil court was set aside and Lewis
left at large. John Drummond was a witness against Lewis.
Lewis soon had the negroes well organised; he established a system of
signal stations from the North Carolina line to Nottoway and Dinwiddie. By
the firing of signal guns, they would receive notice to congregate.
Suddenly, all hands on a man's plantation would stop work and say: "Got
orders, suh, tuh go tuh de Cote House." And all at once roads would be
lined with negroes from every direction bound for the Court House. In a
few hours the little town would fill with darkeys, a thousand or more on
the streets. They would collect thus from time to time, and hold secret or
public political meetings, Lewis, McGiffen and other speakers working them
up to a state of great excitement.
At one meeting, a riot occurred in which several men were killed or
wounded. Mr. Freeman Jones, later Sheriff of the County, gave me a version
of it. He said: "Meade Bernard (afterwards Judge Bernard) and Sidney Jones
were set upon. Negroes knocked the last-named gentleman senseless,
continuing chastisement until he was rescued by the Freedmen's Bureau
officer. When Bernard was attacked, his old coloured nurse, Aunt Sally
Bland, rushed into the melée, crying: 'Save my chile! save my chile!'
Sticks were raining blows on his head when she interfered, pleading with
them to desist until they stopped. These white men had shown all their
lives, only kindness to negroes. When set upon they were doing nothing to
give offense, they were simply listening to the speeches. One negro,
observing their presence, cried out: 'Kill the d----d white scoundrels!'
Others took up the cry.
"The whites, a little handful, retreated towards the village, followed by
at least a thousand negroes, yelling intention to sack and fire the town.
The road passed through a very narrow lane into Main Street. Here they
were blocked and confronted by Mr. L. G. Wall, carrier of the United
States Mail, who, as a Government official, halted them, telling them he
had right of way and that they were obstructing Government service; he
ordered them to move back and make room; they would not; he drew his
pistol and fired five or six times. I believe every shot took effect.
Several negroes were desperately wounded. The mob retired and Wall went
on. In the suburbs the negroes held an angry meeting, but they had got
enough of mob violence." Which was fortunate. The normal white male
population of the village did not exceed forty or fifty. White men went to
the polls soon after not knowing what to expect, and found everything
quiet. Negroes had come, voted early and gone. They had learned a salutary
lesson.
Lewis claimed to be an officer duly commissioned, and went about making
arrests, selecting some prominent men. One of his victims was William
Lett, an old and wealthy citizen, and the justice before whom Lewis had
been brought to trial. A complaint by Mr. Lett's cook was the ostensible
ground of Lewis' call upon Mr. Lett; the real purpose was robbery. The
outlaws had seduced into their service John Parrish, an unlettered boy who
liked to hunt with them, and who, boy-like, was pleased with their
daredevil ways. He composed the third in the "team" that went around
arresting people. He recently gave me the next chapter in the Lewis story.
"I was jes a little boy an' I done what I was ordered to. I was goin' out
sqir'l huntin', an' I see Dr. Lewis, an' he had a paper in his han', an'
he say: 'Johnny, I want you to go with me this evenin'.' I says: 'I wants
to go squir'l huntin'.' He says: 'I summons you to go wid me to serve a
warrant on Mr. Lett.' An' I lef' my dawgs at my sister's an' I taken my
little dollar-an'-a-half gun along. He says: 'Johnny, people tell me this
ole man is mighty hot-headed. If he comes out of his house an' I tell you
to shoot, shoot.' Dr. Lewis called Mr. Lett out to de gate, an' read de
warrant to him. An' Mr. Lett said he wouldn' be arrested by him, an' Dr.
Lewis grabbed at his coat collar, an' Mr. Lett broke loose, an' hollered
for somebody to han' him his gun outer de house. An' he went into de house
an' got a gun an' shot Lewis, an' Lewis stepped behin' de gate-pos', an'
he called to me: 'D---- him! where is he?' An' I said: 'Jes behin' de
winder.' An' I stepped behin' de corner, an' Dr. Lewis called me, an' I
stepped out, an' I thought I see a gun or pistol pointin' my way f'om de
winder, an' I thought I heard Lewis say 'Shoot!' an' I shot. It warn't
nothin' but a little bitter dollar-an'-a-half bird gun. But dem shot went
through de weather-bo'din'. I heard Mr. Lett's gun when it fell an' I
heard him when he fell. Lewis was standin' behin' de gate-pos'. The
cook-woman hollered: 'Here he is! here he is, going out at de back door!'
And thar was a little chicken-house. An' Lett shot Lewis with bird-shot."
Mr. Freeman Jones summed it up simply thus: "When the gang came to capture
Mr. Lett, the old man attempted a defense, ordering them off his place,
and barricading himself behind the nearest thing at hand, which happened
to be a chicken-coop. Lewis shot and nearly killed him; the old man
lingered some time between life and death." Mr. Lett, it seems, was shot
by both. "They toted Lewis away," concludes Parrish, "to de house of a
feller named Carroll, an' he stayed thar. They sent for de military
soldiers an' they came, an' I stated de case well as I could, an' they
discharged me." Lewis was tried in the civil court, sentenced to a term in
the penitentiary, was carried by the sheriff to that institution and
pardoned next day by Governor Wells, military appointee of General
Schofield; he got back to the county almost as soon as the sheriff.
The people became more and more incensed at repeated outrages. Dr. Powell,
whose assassination was attempted, tells me that the immediate cause of
the final tragedies was that Lewis ordered Carroll to leave home. John B.
Drummond, volunteering, was appointed special constable to arrest Lewis.
He met Lewis and his gang in a turn of the road and halted them, telling
Lewis he had a warrant for him. Lewis fired, killing him instantly. The
temper of the public was now such that Lewis and McGiffen fled the State,
enticing Parrish along. They sought asylum in North Carolina and sent
Parrish back for some property. A reward was offered for them. In a little
one-horse wagon which Parrish brought with Lewis' pony, they travelled by
night to Charleston, South Carolina. Here Lewis opened a school and
Parrish hired himself out. They staid there two years. McGiffen married
again. He had taken his little child from his Brunswick wife; now he
concluded to carry it back to her.
"I went with him," says Parrish. "We come near a village an' we stopped at
a man's house. He mistrusted something wrong." (Naturally! Dr. Powell says
he saw his guests moulding bullets, ordered them out, and they defied him,
declaring they would spend the night.) "He sent out an' got two men an'
they come in thar wid thar guns an' staid all night. When we got up in de
little town nex' mornin', thar come out twenty men wid guns in thar han's,
an' de Mayor he was thar, an' McGiffen tole 'em to stop; an' they stopped.
He tole 'em thar couldn' but one or two come near. They suspicioned about
our having the little chile along. You see, thar was trouble 'bout dat
time 'bout children bein' kidnapped an' carried off to de Dismal Swamp. I
see ten or thirteen men on de railroad, an' they comin' pretty close.
McGiffen hollered out for 'em to stop, or he would certainly shoot. An'
they stopped. Then somebody hollered 'Close up!'
"I had de little boy in my lap. To keep him f'om gittin' hurt, I set him
down by de roadside. McGiffen an' me had been ridin' one horse, takin'
turns, de one ridin' carryin' de baby. A feller kep' comin' closer, an' I
hollered, 'Stop, sir, or I'm goin' to shoot you!' an' I shot him in de
han'. He kep' hollerin' I had killed him, an' de other fellers sorter
scattered, an' that give McGiffen chance to git away. An' I got away. Had
to leave de baby settin' thar side de road. An' they follered me up an'
got me, an' they got McGiffen. After they captured us, they heard about
thar bein' three strangers down whar we had come f'om, an' they
suspicioned we was de men dat had been advertised for because of de
trouble in Brunswick. An' they sent after Lewis. It was one night. He had
unbuckled his pistols an' laid 'em on his bureau, an' some visitors come
to see him; an' he was talkin' to them, an' eight or ten men stepped up
behin' him an' that's how they got him. An' they had de three of us. An'
Governor Walker sent Bill Knox, de detective, an' Dr. Powell he was sent
to identify us. An' we were carried to Richmond, an' then we were carried
to Greensville, an' we were tried. De little boy was sent back to his
mother. I was sent to de penitentiary for eight years, but I got out
sooner for good behaviour; an' I learned a good trade thar. But I don't
think they ought to ha' sent me, because I was jes a boy an' I done what I
was ordered to do when I shot Mr. Lett--that what's they sent me for. An'
de military soldiers had said I warn't to blame. Lewis he played off crazy
like he done befo', an' they sent him to de asylum, an' he escaped like he
done befo'. De superintendent was a member of de Loyal League. An'
McGiffen was hung, an' I never thought he ought to ha' been hung."
Military rule was at an end and Virginia was back in the Union when the
fugitives were captured.
There was another flutter of the public pulse in this county when,
perhaps, the one thing that saved the day was the confidence of the
negroes in Sheriff Jones. Court was in session when several people ran
into the court room, shouting: "Sheriff! Sheriff! they are killing the
negroes out here!" Sheriff Jones ran out and saw a crowd of five or six
hundred negroes, some drunk, in the street, and in their midst two drunken
white men. A few other whites were lined up against a fence, their hands
on their pistols, not knowing what a moment would bring forth. People
cried out: "Don't go into that crowd, Sheriff! You're sure to get shot!"
"Here, boys!" called the Sheriff to some negroes he knew, "take me into
that crowd." Two negroes made a platform of their hands, and on this the
officer was carried into the mob, his bearers shouting as they went:
"Lis'n to de sheriff! Hear what de sheriff say!" He called on everybody to
keep the peace, had no trouble in restoring quiet, and arrested everybody
he thought ought to be arrested. "But our coloured people soon became
orderly and well-behaved after the carpet-baggers left us," says Sheriff
Jones.
In several Southern States at this period, such a termination to the last
incident would have been almost impossible. Here, the officer was a
representative native white; he understood the people and all elements
trusted him; the interest of the community was his own. With an outsider
in position, the case must have been quite different; the situation more
difficult and the sequel probably tragic, even conceding to the officer
sincere desire to prevent trouble, a disposition carpet-baggers did not
usually betray. Riots in the South were breath of life to carpet-bag
governments. July 25, 1870, Governor Smith, Republican, of Alabama, said
over his signature, of a politician who had criticised him for not calling
out negro militia to intimidate whites: "My candid opinion is that Sibley
does not want the law executed, because that would put down crime, and
crime is his life's blood. He would like very much to have a Ku Klux
outrage every week, to assist him in keeping up strife between whites and
blacks, that he might be more certain of the latter's votes. He would like
to have a few coloured men killed weekly to furnish semblance of truth to
Senator Spencer's libels against the State."
In quiet country places where people did not live close enough for mutual
sympathy and protection, the heavy hand was often most acutely felt. Such
neighbourhoods were shortened, too, of ways to make oppression known at
headquarters; it cost time and money to send committees to Washington, and
influence to secure a hearing. When troubles accumulated, some hitherto
peaceful neighbourhood, hamlet or town would suddenly find unenviable fame
thrust upon it. There was, for instance, the Colfax Riot, Grant Parish,
Louisiana, where sixty-three lives were lost. Two tickets had been
announced elected. Governor Kellogg, after his manner of encouraging race
wars, said, "Heaven bless you, my children!" to both, commissioned the two
sets of officers, and told them to "fight it out," which they did with the
result given and the destruction of the Court House by fire. Negroes had
been called in, drilled, armed and taught how to make cannon out of
gas-pipe.
And now for the portrait of a carpet-bagger of whom all who knew him said:
"He is the most brilliant man I ever met." I can only give fictitious
names. Otherwise, innocent people might be wounded.
A young lieutenant, discharged from the Federal Army, located in Roxmere,
a college town. His first move was to pose as a friend to whites, and to
insinuate himself into nice families. When there was trouble--which he
stirred up--between the races, he would assume the authority--none was
given him by the Government--to interfere and settle it. For instance, he
would undertake to punish negroes for impertinence. He began to practise
law. He married a young lady of the section, of means but not a daughter
of the aristocracy; she had owned many negroes; he made out a list, which
he kept, expecting the Government to pay for them. He said his father was
an English clergyman, and he spoke beautifully and feelingly of his early
life. When it became apparent that the negro was to be made a voter,
Yankee Landon (as Roxmere called him), changed tactics; he organized Union
Leagues, drilled negroes and made incendiary speeches.
One day, Judge Mortimer, hurrying into the Court House, said: "Yankee
Landon is on the hustings making a damnable speech to the negroes!"
Landon's voice could be heard and the growls of his audience. The whites
caught these words ringing clear and distinct: "We will depopulate this
whole country of whites. We have got to do it with fire and sword!" Some
one else, much excited, came in, saying, "A movement's on foot to lynch
Landon." The old Judge hastened up the street. He met some stern-faced men
and stopped them. "We know what Landon is saying," they told him, "and we
intend to swing him." He tried to turn them from their purpose, but they
declared: "There is no sense in waiting until that scoundrel has incited
the negroes to massacre us." Another cool-headed jurist sought to stay
them. "Do you realise what you are going to do?" he asked. "We are going
to hang Yankee Landon." "That will not do!" "We've got to do it. The
safety of our homes demands it." The combined efforts of conservative men
stayed summary action. Landon got wind of what was brewing, and for a time
was more prudent of tongue; then, concluding that the people were afraid
to molest him, broke forth anew.
In the Union League season, there was a tremendous negro crowd on the
streets; whites had hardly room to walk; they got very sick of it all.
Roxmere's college men decided to take a hand and disposed themselves for
action. "Don't give way one inch to these old slavocrats!" Landon was
shouting from a goods-box, when they sent Cobb Preston out. Cobb, in a
dressing-gown trailing four feet, walked into the crowd. He placed a chip
on his hat. "Will some one step on my dressing-gown or knock this chip
off?" he asked loudly and suavely. Everybody gave him room to trail around
in. Nobody stepped near the tail of that dressing-gown! No hand approached
within yards of that chip! Any sudden turn he made was a signal for fresh
scatterings which left wide swath for his processional. Did he flirt
around quickly, calling on somebody to step on his gown or knock off his
chip, darkeys fell over each other getting out of his way. Landon
understood. He knew if the college boys succeeded in starting a row he
would be killed. After that, whites could use sidewalks without being
shoved off. Landon was adept in pocketing insults. Men cast fearful
epithets in his teeth. "I have heard Vance McGregor call him a dog, a
thief--and he would take it," says a lawyer who practised in the same
courts with him.
He and a negro "represented" the county in the Black and Tan Convention.
He came back a much richer man. Nobody visited his family. One day, Rev.
Dr. Godfrey encountered on the street a little girl, who asked: "Have you
seen my papa?" "Who is your papa, little one?" "Yan-kee Landon!" she
piped. He led her to the corner and tenderly directed her way. Rev. Dr.
Godfrey did not hesitate to arraign Landon from his pulpit. One Sunday,
when Landon and his wife sat in the front pew, and the conversion of
Zaccheus happened to be his subject, the congregation was electrified to
hear him draw comparisons between Zaccheus and carpet-baggers, to the
great disparagement of the latter. He spoke of the fine horses, wines and
cigars of modern Mr. Zaccheus, and of Mrs. Zaccheus' silks and jewels.
"Zaccheus of old could say," he cried, "'If I have taken anything from any
man, I restore him fourfold!' Not so Zaccheus of today," and he looked
straight in Landon's face. Landon's contribution was equal to that of all
the other people in the church put together. The Landons gave up their
pew, and attended worship elsewhere, but presently came back to Dr.
Godfrey's, the "swell" church. He spared them not. But he went to see
Landon's wife and sent his wife to see her. "Mrs. Landon is a young
mother, my dear," he said, "you should go."
Twice Landon represented the district in the Legislature, first in the
House, then in the Senate. While Commonwealth's Attorney, he made a
startling record; he ran a gambling saloon, a thing it was his sworn duty
to ferret out and prosecute. Hazard, chuck-a-luck and other games of
chance were played there. It was a new departure in a quiet, religious
town; the college boys were drawn in. Judge Mortimer's little son trotted
into it at the heels of a grown-up relative, and going home innocently
told his father about "the funny little things they play with; when they
win, they take the money; when Mr. Landon wins, he takes it." In modern
parlance, the old judge "pulled" that saloon next evening, bagging thirty
of the nicest young fellows in the community. They were indicted for
gambling and Landon for keeping a gambling saloon. Landon prosecuted
everybody but himself, convicting the last one; then resigned, and
McGregor conducted the case against him. His sentence was $100 fine and
four months in jail. While in jail he studied law and acquired more
knowledge of it than in all the years of his freedom; he had known little
about it, shrewdness and sharpness standing him in place of knowledge. A
hog-drover was put in the cell with him one night and he won $150 out of
him at poker. The Governor pardoned him out at three months. He ran for
Commonwealth's Attorney and was elected; he made an able and efficient
officer. He would prosecute unswervingly his closest friend. His political
ally built the new jail, Landon getting him the job. "I wonder who will be
the first fool to get in here," he said to Landon. He was; Landon
convicted him. Men who despised his principles admired his intellect. In
court-room repartee he could take the wind out of McGregor's sails, and
McGregor was past master in the art. He was able, brilliant, unscrupulous,
without a moral conscience, but with a keen intellectual one. He was no
spendthrift in rascality, economised in employment of evil means, using
them no farther than self-interest required. He could show kindness
gracefully; ceased to stir up negroes when it ceased to pay. A neighbour
who was civil when others snubbed him, went to Washington when Landon, at
his zenith, was there in a high Government position, and opened a law
office. Landon threw work his way.
One day McGregor, Governor of his State, got a letter from Landon; a great
foreign dignitary, visiting this country, was to be entertained at
Landon's palace; would McGregor lend the old State flag to be draped with
the Stars and Stripes and the foreigner's flag over the end of the room
where Landon and the dignitary would stand while receiving? McGregor sent
it. In the little town in which he tricked and won his way, court was
never paid to Landon on account of his wealth and power, but people
gradually came to treat him less coldly as he changed with the times.
Reconstruction tried men's souls and morals; a man who went to pieces
under temptation sometimes came out a gentleman, or something like it,
when temptation was over. Landon won favors of all parties. Cleveland gave
him a position. A committee waited upon Mr. McKinley, asking appointment
for Landon. Mr. McKinley demurred: "I understand that in the South, Mr.
Landon is not considered a gentleman." "We promised him this if he would
render the party the service which he has rendered." The President had to
yield. Roosevelt, who came to the Presidency without election, turned this
man down with a firm hand.
THE DEVIL ON THE SANTEE
CHAPTER XXIX
THE DEVIL ON THE SANTEE
(A Rice-Planter's Story)
Between the plantation where harmony and industry still prevailed and that
in which was complete upheaval of the old order, were thousands showing
its disintegration in intermediate grades. On the James River, in
Virginia, and on waterways in rice and cotton lands up which Federal
gunboats steamed, and on the Sea Islands, plantations innumerable
furnished parallel cases to that set forth in the following narrative,
which I had from Captain Thomas Pinckney, of Charleston, South Carolina.
When Captain Pinckney went down to El Dorado, his plantation on the
Santee, in 1866, he found things "in a shocking condition and the very
devil to pay." The night before reaching his place he spent at the house
of an English neighbour, who had had oversight of his property. He
received this report:
"Your negroes sacked your house, stripped it of furniture, bric-a-brac,
heirlooms, and divided these among themselves. They got it into their
heads that the property of whites belongs to them; and went about taking
possession with utmost determination and insolence. Nearly all houses here
have been served the same way. I sent for a United States officer and he
made them restore furniture--the larger pieces, which are much damaged.
Small things--mementoes which you value as much or more--are gone for
good. There was but one thing they did not remove--the mirror in the
wall."[22] "The negroes have been dancing shin-digs in your house," the
Englishman went on. "They have apportioned your land out among
themselves."
Yet the Captain was not fully prepared for the desolation that met his
eyes when he went home next day. Ever before, he had been met with glad
greetings. Now, instead of a merry crowd of darkeys rushing out with
shouts of "Howdy do, Marster!" "Howdy do, Boss!", silence reigned and no
soul bade him welcome as he made his way to his own door. Within the house
one faithful servant raised her voice in lonely and pathetic notes of joy.
"Where are the others?" he asked. "Where are the men?" "Don' know,
Marster." "Tell any you can find to come here." She returned from search
to say none could be found. Dinner-hour passed. The men kept themselves
invisible. He said to her: "I will be back tomorrow. Tell the men I must
see every one of them then." He returned armed. It was his known custom as
a huntsman to carry a gun; hence he could carry one now without betraying
distrust. "Indeed, I felt no fear or distrust," he says; "these were my
own servants, between whom and myself the kindest feelings had always
existed. They had been carefully and conscientiously trained by my
parents; I had grown up with some of them. They had been glad to see me
from the time that, as a little boy, I accompanied my mother when she made
Saturday afternoon rounds of the quarters, carrying a bowl of sugar, and
followed by her little handmaidens bearing other things coloured people
liked. At every cabin that she found swept and cleaned, she left a present
as an encouragement to tidiness. I could not realise a need of going
protected among my own people, whom I could only remember as respectful,
happy and affectionate."
He bade the woman summon the men, and he waited under the trees. They
came, sullen, reluctant, evincing no trace of old-time cordiality;
addressed him as "you" or "Cap'n"; were defiant; brought their guns.
"Men," he said, "I know you are free. I do not wish to interfere with your
freedom. But I want my old hands to work my lands for me. I will pay you
wages." They were silent. "I want you to put my place in order, and make
it as fruitful as it used to be, when it supported us all in peace and
plenty. I recognise your right to go elsewhere and work for some one else,
but I want you to work for me and I will on my part do all I can for you."
They made answer short and quick: "O yes, we gwi wuk! we gwi wuk all
right. De Union Ginruls dee done tell us tuh come back f'om follin arter
de army an' dig greenbacks outer de sod. We gwi wuk. We gwi wuk fuh
ourse'ves. We ain' gwi wuk fuh no white man." "Where will you go?" "We
ain' gwine nowhar. We gwi wuk right here on de lan' whar we wuz bo'n an'
whar belongs tuh us." Some had not been born on the land, but had been
purchased during the war by Captain Pinckney, in the kindness of his
heart, to prevent family division in the settlement of an estate. One of
this lot, returning from a Yankee gunboat, swaggered to conference under
the trees, in a fine uniform, carrying a handsome rifle, and declared he
would work or not as he pleased, come and go as he pleased and consider
the land his own. He went to his cabin, stood in the door, looked the
Captain in the eye, brought his gun down with a crash, and said: "Yes, I
gwi wuk right here. I'd like tuh see any man put me outer dis house!"
Captain Pinckney, after waiting for the men to think over the situation,
assembled them again. Their attitude was more insolent and aggressive. He
gave them ten days longer for decision; then all who would not work must
go. His neighbours were having similar experiences. In a section where a
few years before perfect confidence had existed between white and black,
all white men went armed, weapons exposed to view. They were few, the
blacks many. After consultation, they reported conditions to General
Devens at Charleston, and suggested that he send down a representative. He
sent a company under an officer whom the planters carried from plantation
to plantation. Negroes were called and addressed: "I have come to tell you
people that these lands belong to these planters. The Government has not
given these lands to you; they do not belong to the Government to give.
You are free to hire out to whom you will, or to rent lands. But you must
work. You can't live without work. I advise you to make contracts quickly.
If crops are not made, you and your families will suffer."
This Federal visitation was not without wholesome effect. Yet the negroes
would not work till starvation drove them to it. The Captain's head-plower
came confessing: "Cap'n, I 'clar' 'fo' Gawd, suh, I ain' got no vittles
fuh my wife an' chillun. I ain' got a day's rations in my cabin." "It's
your own fault. You can go to work any minute you want to." "Cap'n, I'se
willin'. I been willin' fuh right smart while. I ain' nuvver seed dis way
we been doin' wuz zackly right. I been 'fused in my min'. But de other
niggers dee won' let me wuk. Dee don' want me tuh wuk fuh you, suh. I'se
feared." The Captain was sorely tempted to give rations without
conditions, but realised that he must stand his ground. In a day or two
the head-plower reappeared. "Cap'n, I come tuh ax you tuh lemme wuk fuh
you, suh." "All right. There's your plow and mule ready. You can draw
rations ahead." One by one all came back. They had suffered, and their
ex-master had suffered with them.
Many planters had severer trials than the Captain and his immediate
neighbours. Down on the coast, negroes demanded possession of plantations,
barricaded them and shot at owners. They pulled up bridges so owners could
not reach their homes, and in this and other ways kept the whites out of
property. Many planters never recovered their lands. When the time came
that they might otherwise have done so, they were unable to pay
accumulated taxes, and their homesteads passed forever out of their
keeping.
In making contracts, Captain Pinckney's negroes did not want money. "We
don' trus' dat money. Maybe it git lak Confeddick money." In rice they saw
a stable value. Besides a share in the general crop, the Captain gave each
hand a little plot on which to grow rice for family consumption. When the
general crop was divided into shares, they would say, after retaining a
"sample": "Keep my part, suh, an' sell it wid yo's." They knew he could do
better for them than they could for themselves. In business and in the
humanities, they looked to him as their truest friend. If any got sick,
got out of food and clothes, got into a difficulty or trouble of any sort,
they came or sent for him; sought his advice about family matters wherein
they would trust no other man's counsel; trusted him in everything except
politics, in regard to which they would rely upon the word of the most
unprincipled stranger did he but appear under the title "Republican,"
"Radical," "Union Leaguer."
Carpet-baggers told them: "If the whites get into power, they will put you
back in slavery, and will not let your wives wear hoop-skirts. If we win
the election we will give you forty acres and a mule." "I know for a
fact," Captain Pinckney assured me, "that at Adam's Run negroes came to
the polls bringing halters for mules which they expected to carry home."
The excitement of the election of 1876, when native whites strained every
nerve to win the negro vote, was fully felt on the Santee. The morning
news reached El Dorado of Hampton's election, the Captain, according to
custom, walked down to his wharf to give orders for the day. He found his
wharf foreman sitting on an upturned canoe, his head hung down, the
picture of dejection. "William," the Captain said, "I have good news."
"Whut is it, suh?" "General Hampton is elected." Silence. Presently the
negro half lifted his face, and looking into the eyes of the white man
with the saddest, most hopeless expression in his own, asked slowly:
"Well--Cap'n--_whut you goin' tuh do wid we, now?_" The master's heart
ached for him! Remanded back to slavery--that was what negroes were taught
to look for--to slavery not such as they had known, but in which all the
follies and crimes to which they had been incited since freedom should be
charged up to them. They did not, could not, realise how their old owners
pitied, condoned, forgave.
Next election the struggle was renewed. After a hopeful barbecue, the
Captain's hands were threshing his rice crop. He called the foreman behind
the stacks, and asked: "Well, Monday, what are you people going to do at
the polls tomorrow?" "Dee gwi vote de 'Publican ticket, suh. Ef dee
tells you anything else, dee's lyin'. I gwi vote de 'Publican ticket, suh.
I got it tuh do. I b'lieve all what you white gent'muns been tellin' us at
de barbecues. I knows myse'f dat dis way we niggers is a-doin' an'
a-votin' ain' de bes' way fuh de country--anybody kin see dat. But den I
got tuh vote de 'Publican ticket, suh. We all has. Las' 'lection I voted
de Democrack ticket an' dee killed my cow. Abum, he vote de Democrack
ticket; dee killed his colt." Monday counted off the negroes who had voted
the "Democrack" ticket, and every one had been punished. One had been
bombarded in his cabin; another's rice crop had been taken--even the
ground swept up and every grain carried off, leaving him utterly
destitute. "I tell you, suh," said Monday, "I got tuh do it on my 'count,
an' on yo' 'count. You make me fo'man an' ef I didn' vote de 'Publican
ticket, I couldn' make dese niggers wuk. I couldn' do nothin' 'tall wid
'em."
[Illustration: MRS. WADE HAMPTON
(Daughter of Governor McDuffie, of South Carolina.)
From a painting photographed by Reckling & Sons, Columbia, S. C.]
The night before an election the Democratic Club was in session at
McClellanville when Mr. McClellan came in and said there would be trouble
next day. He had heard on the river that negroes were buying up ammunition
and were coming armed to the polls. He had gone to stores and given orders
that sale should be stopped. Whites now tried to buy but found stock sold
out. They collected available arms and ammunition in village and
neighbourhood, and concealed these under a hay-wagon, which appeared next
day near the polls, one of many of similar appearance. Squads were
detailed for duty near polls and wagon.
Blacks came armed, and, demurring, stacked muskets at the cross-roads
which marked the hundred-yard limit prescribed by election ruling; all day
they were in terrible humour. "I heard my own servants," Captain Pinckney
tells, "between whom and myself the kindliest feelings had existed, say
in threatening tones: 'We's here tuh stan' up fuh our rights. We ain' gwi
leave dese polls. None our colour got tuh leave dese polls 'fo' dee
close.'"
Whites preserved a front of unconcern they were far from feeling.
Seventy-five whites and 500 blacks voted at this precinct. Guns once in
the hands of the blacks, and turned against this little handful of whites,
God help all concerned! Whites had begun to hope the day would end
smoothly, when a trifling incident seemed to precipitate conflict. Two
drunken white men rode hallooing along the road. The negroes, taking this
as a pretext for a fight, rushed for their muskets. An old trial justice,
Mr. Leland, sprang on a box and called loudly: "Come here! Come here!"
They looked back. "I am the Peace Officer!" he yelled. "Come, listen to
me!" Threatening, curious, sullen, they came back some paces with an air
of defiance, of determination suspended for the moment. "I don't like the
looks of things," said the old trial justice, "and I am going to call on
the most influential men in the community to act as my constabulary force
and help me maintain order. Pinckney!" The gunboat desperado stepped
forward. "Calhoun! De Saussure! Huger! Horry! Porcher! Gaillard!" So the
wily old justice went on, calling names famous in the annals of South
Carolina, and black men answered. "Line up there! Take the Oath of Office!
Hold up your hands and swear that, so help you God, you will help me
maintain the laws and preserve the peace and dignity of the State of South
Carolina!" He happened to have in his pocket a dozen old badges of office,
and swift as he swore the men in, he pinned badges on them. He made them a
flighty, heroic little speech and the face of events was changed.
He had picked off ring-leaders in mischief for justices of the peace.
Whites found it difficult to pocket smiles while beholding them strutting
around, proud as peacocks, and reducing to meekness inoffensive negroes
who would never have made any disturbance in the first place but for the
prodding of these same new "limbs of the law." It was trying in a
different way to see a peaceable, worthy negro knocked about incontinently
by bullies "showing off." Yet the matter in hand was to get the day over
without bloodshed. And this end was achieved.
Avoidance of bloodshed was not attained at all public meetings, as
students of reconstruction history know too well. "And all sorts of lies
went North about us," says the Captain, "the Radicals and their paid
allies sending them; and sometimes, good people writing about things they
did not understand or knew by hearsay only. I stopped reading Northern
papers for a long time--they made me mad. The 'Tribune's' false accounts
of the Ellenton Riot exasperated me beyond endurance. It got its story
from a Yankee schoolmarm who got it from a negro woman. I was so
aggravated that I sat down and wrote Whitelaw Reid my mind. I told him I
had subscribed to the 'Tribune' for years, but now it was so partisan it
could not tell the truth; its reports were not to be trusted and I could
not stand it any longer; and he would oblige me by never sending me
another copy; he could give the balance of my subscription to some
charity. I directed his attention to the account of the Ellenton Riot in
the 'New York Herald' and reminded him that the truth was as accessible to
one paper as the other. Reid did not answer my letter except through an
editorial dealing with mine and similar epistles." He said in part, to the
best of the Captain's memory:
"We have received indignant letters from the South in regard to recent
articles in this paper. A prominent South Carolinian writes: 'I can't
stand the "Tribune" any longer!' One party from Texas says: 'Stop that
d----d paper!' Now, all this for reasons which can be explained in a few
words. When the 'Tribune' is exposing Republican rascalities, the
Southerners read it with pleasure. But when it exposes Democratic
rascalities, they write: 'Stop that d----d paper!'"
BATTLE FOR THE STATE HOUSE
CHAPTER XXX
BATTLE FOR THE STATE-HOUSE
South Carolina's first Governor under her second reconstruction was
General R. K. Scott, of Ohio, ex-Freedmen's Bureau Chief. His successor
was Franklin J. Moses, Jr., scalawag, licentiate and débauché, four years
Speaker of the House, the "Robber Governor." Moses' successor was D. H.
Chamberlain, a cultivated New Englander, who began his public career as
Governor Scott's Attorney General. A feature of the Scott-Moses
administration was a black army 96,000 strong, enrollment and equipment
alone costing over a half-million dollars, $10,000 of which, on Moses'
admission, went into his own pocket as commission on purchases. The
State's few white companies were ordered to surrender arms and disband.
The State House was refurnished on this scale: $5 clocks were replaced by
$600 ones; $4 looking-glasses by $600 mirrors; $2 window curtains by $600
to $1,500 ones; $4 benches by $200 sofas; $1 chairs by $60 chairs; $4
tables by $80 tables; $10 desks, $175 desks; forty-cent spittoons, $14
cuspidors, etc. Chandeliers cost $1,500 to $2,500 each. Each legislator
was provided with Webster's Unabridged, a $25 calendar ink-stand, $10 gold
pen; railroad passes and free use of the Western Union Telegraph were
perquisites. As "Committee Rooms," forty bed-rooms were furnished each
session; legislators going home, carried the furniture. At restaurant and
bar, open day and night in the State House, legislators refreshed
themselves and friends at State expense with delicacies, wines, liquors,
cigars, stuffing pockets with the last. Orders for outside entertainments,
given through bar and restaurant, were paid by the State. An incident of
Radical rule: "Hell Hole Swamp," purchased by the Benevolent Land
Commission as site for homes for homeless negroes. Another: Moses lost
$1,000 on a horse race; next day the House of Representatives voted him
$1,000 as "gratuity." The order on the Treasurer, signed by Moses as
Speaker, to pay this "gratuity" to Moses is on file in Columbia.
Bills made by officials and legislators and paid by the State, reveal a
queer medley! Costly liquors, wines, cigars, baskets of champagne, hams,
oysters, rice, flour, lard, coffee, tea, sugar, suspenders, linen-bosom
shirts, cravats, collars, gloves (masculine and feminine, by the box),
perfumes, bustles, corsets, palpitators, embroidered flannel, ginghams,
silks, velvets, stockings, chignons, chemises, gowns, garters, fans, gold
watches and chains, diamond finger-rings and ear-rings, Russia-leather
work-boxes, hats, bonnets; in short, every article that can be worn by
man, woman or infant; every article of furniture and house furnishing from
a full parlour-set to a baby's swinging cradle; not omitting a $100
metallic coffin.
Penitentiary bills display in abundant quantities fine liquors, wines,
delicacies and plain provisions; yet convicts nearly starved; bills for
the coloured Orphan Asylum, under coloured General Senator Beverly Nash's
direction, show silks, satins, corsets, kid gloves, all manners of
delicacies and substantials for the table, yet it came out that orphans
got at "breakfast, hominy, mackerel and bean coffee--no milk. At dinner, a
little bacon or beef, cornbread and hominy, sometimes a little baker's
bread; at supper, a slice of baker's bread and black molasses, each
child dipping a slice into a saucer passed around." The State-paid
gardener worked Senator Nash's garden; coal and wood bought "for the
Asylum" was delivered at Senator Nash's; ditto lumber and other supplies.
The matron sold dry goods and groceries. I have mentioned trifles. For big
"steals" and "hauls," Railroads, Bond and Printing Ring swindles, consult
the Fraud Reports.
[Illustration: RADICAL MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATURE OF SOUTH CAROLINA.
These are the photographs of sixty-three members of the "reconstructed"
Legislature of South Carolina. Fifty of them were Negroes or Mulattos;
thirteen were white men. Of the twenty-two among them who could read and
write only eight used the vernacular grammatically. Forty-one made their
mark with the help of an amanuensis. Nineteen were taxpayers to an
aggregate of $146.10. The other forty-four paid no taxes, and yet this
body was empowered to levy on the white people of the state taxes
amounting to $4,000,000.]
The State University was negroised, adult white and black men
matriculating for the express purpose; its scholastic standard was reduced
below that of an academy. Attempt to negroise the Deaf and Dumb Asylum
closed it. At the Insane Asylum the tact and humanity of Dr. J. F. Ensor,
Superintendent, made the situation possible to whites.[23]
South Carolinians beheld Franklin J. Moses, Jr., owner of the beautiful
and historic Hampton-Preston home; at receptions and fêtes the carriages
of a ring-streaked, striped and speckled host rolled up gaily to ancient
gateways hitherto bars exclusive to all that was not aristocratic and
refined. One-time serving-maids sat around little tables under the
venerable trees and luxuriant vines and sipped wine in state. A Columbian
tells me she used to receive a condescending bow from her whilom maid
driving by in a fine landau. Another maid, driving in state past her
ex-mistress's door, turned her head in shame and confusion. One maid
visited her ex-mistress regularly, leaving her carriage a square or two
off; was her old, respectful, affectionate self, and said these hours were
her happiest. "I'se jes myse'f den." A citizen, wishing to aid his butler,
secured letters of influence for him and sent him among rulers of the
land. George returned: "Marster, I have associated with gentlemen all my
life. I can't keep comp'ny with these folks. I'd rather stay with you, I
don' care how poor we are."
One night when Rev. William Martin's family were asleep, there came a
knocking at the door. Miss Isabella Martin answered. Maum Letty stood
outside weeping: "Miss Isabella, Robert's (her son) been killed. He went
to a party at General Nash's an' dee all got to fightin'. I come to ax you
to let me bring 'im here." Permission was given. A stream of negroes
flowed in and out of the basement rooms where the dead was laid. And it
was, "The General says this," "The General says that." Presently the
General came. "Good morning, Beverly," said Miss Martin. "Good morning,
Miss Isabella;" he had been a butler and had nice manners. "This is a sad
business, Beverly." "Yes, Miss Isabella. It happened at my house, but I am
not responsible. There was a party there; all got to fighting--you know
how coloured people will do--and this happened." It is law for the coroner
to see a corpse, where death has occurred from violence, before any
removal or change is made. The coroner did not see Robert until noon.
General Nash had gotten the body out of his house quickly as possible.
Belles of Columbia were Misses Rollins, mulattoes or quadroons. Their
drawing-room was called "Republican Headquarters." Thick carpets covered
floors; handsome cabinets held costly bric-a-brac; a $1,000 piano stood in
a corner; legislative documents bound in morocco reposed with big albums
on expensive tables. Jewelers' and other shops poured treasures at Misses
Rollins' feet. In their salon, mingling white and dusky statesmen wove the
destinies of the old Commonwealth. Coloured courtezans swept into
furniture emporiums, silk trains rustling in their wake, and gave orders
for "committee rooms"; rode in fine carriages through the streets,
stopped in front of this or that store; bareheaded white salesmen ran out
to show goods or jewels. Judge M. (who went over to the Radicals for the
loaves and fishes and ever afterward despised himself) was in Washington
with a Black and Tan Committee, got drunk, and for a joke took a yellow
demi-mondaine, a State official's wife, on his arm and carried her up to
President and Mrs. Grant and introduced her at a Presidential reception.
Black Speaker Elliott said ("Cincinnati Commercial," Sept. 6, 1876): "If
Chamberlain is nominated, I shall vote for Hampton." A member of the
Chamberlain Legislature tells me this is how the Chamberlain-Elliot split
began. Mrs. Chamberlain was a beautiful woman, a perfect type of
high-born, high-bred, Anglo-Saxon loveliness, noble in bearing, lily-like
in fairness. She brought a Northern Governor, his wife, and other guests
to the State House. They were standing near my informant in the "white
part" of the House, when Elliott, black, thick-lipped, sprang down from
the Speaker's chair, came forward and asked a gentleman in attendance for
introduction. This gentleman spoke to Alice Chamberlain. The lily-white
lady lifted her eyes toward Elliott, shivered slightly, and said: "No!"
Elliott did not forgive that.
If the incident were not on good authority, I should doubt it. At
Chamberlain's receptions, the black and tan tide poured in and out of his
doors; he entertained black legislators, and presumably Elliott, at
dinners and suppers. But all men knew Chamberlain's rôle was repugnant to
him and his exquisite wife. What she suffered during the hours of his
political successes, who can tell? Tradition says she was cut to the quick
when a black minister was called in by her husband to perform the last
rites of the church over her child. Any white clergyman of the city would
have responded on call. There were many to say Chamberlain turned to
political account even so sacred a thing. Others to say that if white
ministers had shown him scant attention he was right not to call upon
them. And yet I cannot blame the white clergy for having stood aloof,
courting no favours, of the foreigner who fraternised with and was one of
the leaders of the State's spoilers, whether he was a spoiler himself or
no.
Governor Chamberlain was fitted for a better part than he had to play; he
won sympathy and admiration of many good citizens. He was a gentleman; he
desired to ally himself with gentlemen; and the connections into which
ambition and the times forced him was one of the social tragedies of the
period. He began his administration denouncing corruption within his own
party and promising reforms. At first, he investigated and quieted race
troubles, disbanding negro militia, and putting a stop to the drilling of
negroes. He bestowed caustic criticisms on "negrophilists," which Elliott
brought against him later. He was at war with his legislature; when that
body elected W. J. Whipper, an ignorant negro gambler, and ex-Governor
Moses to high judicial positions, he refused to commission them.
Of that election he wrote General Grant: "It sends a thrill of horror
through the State. It compels men of all parties who respect decency,
virtue, or civilisation, to utter their loudest protests." He prophesied
immediate "reorganization of the Democratic Party as the only means left,
in the judgment of its members, for opposing solid and reliable front to
this terrible _crevasse_ of misgovernment and public debauchery." There
was then no Democratic party within the State; Democrats had been
combining with better-class Republicans in compromise tickets. To an
invitation from the New England Society of Charleston, to address them on
"Forefathers' Day," he said: "If there was ever an hour when the spirit of
the Puritans, the spirit of undying, unconquerable enmity and defiance to
wrong ought to animate their sons, it is this hour, here, in South
Carolina. The civilisation of the Puritan and the Cavalier, the Roundhead
and the Huguenot, is in peril."
A new campaign was at hand. Chamberlain's name was heard as leader of a
new compromise ticket. He had performed services that seemed inspired by
genuine regard for the old State and pride in her history. He was
instrumental in having the Washington Light Infantry, of Charleston, at
Bunker Hill Centennial, and bringing the Old Guard, of New York, and the
Boston Light Infantry to Fort Moultrie's Centennial, when he presented a
flag to the Washington Light Infantry and made a speech that pleased
Carolinians mightily. He and Hampton spoke from the same platform and sat
at the same banquet. He was alive to South Carolina's interest at the
Centennial in Philadelphia. The State began to honour him in invitations
to make addresses at college commencements and on other public occasions.
A Democratic Convention in May came near nominating him. Another met in
August. Between these he shook confidence in his sincerity. Yet men from
the low country said: "Let's nominate him. He has tried to give honest
government." Men from the up country: "He can not rule his party, his
party may rule him." Men from the low country: "We cannot elect a straight
ticket." Men from the up country: "We have voted compromise tickets the
last time. We are not going to the polls unless we have a straight, clean
white ticket." They sent for Hampton and nominated him. His campaign reads
like a tale of the old Crusades. To his side came his men of war, General
Butler, General Gary and Colonel Haskell. At his name the people lifted up
their hearts in hope.
Governor Chamberlain had denounced the rascalities of Elliott, Whipper's
election in the list. He was nominated by the Blacks and Tans, on a ticket
with R. H. Cleaves, mulatto; F. L. Cardoza, mulatto; Attorney General R.
B. Elliott, black, etc. He walked into the convention arm in arm with
Elliott. Soon he was calling for Federal troops to control elections,
charging all racial disorders to whites; ruling harsh judgments against
Red Shirts and Rifle Clubs; classing the Washington Light Infantry among
disorderly bodies, though he had been worthily proud of this company when
it held the place of honour in the Bunker Hill parade and, cheered to the
echo, marched through Boston, carrying the battle-flag of Colonel William
Washington of the Revolution.
That was a picturesque campaign, when every county had its "Hampton Day,"
and the Red Shirts rode, and ladies and children raised arches of bloom
and scattered flowers in front of the old cavalry captain's curvetting
steed. Barbecues were spread for coloured brethren, and engaging speakers
tried to amuse, instruct and interest them.
The Red Shirts, like the Ku Klux, sprang into existence almost as by
accident. General Hampton was to speak at Anderson. The Saturday before
Colonel R. W. Simpson proposed to the Pendleton Club the adoption of a
badge, suggesting a red shirt as cheap and conspicuous. Pickens men caught
up the idea. Red store supplies ran out and another club donned white
ones. The three clubs numbered a body of three hundred or more stalwart,
fine-looking men of the hill-country, who had nearly all seen service on
battlefields, and who rode like centaurs. Preceded by the Pendleton Brass
Band, they made an imposing procession at the Fair Grounds on the day of
the speaking, and were greeted with ringing cheers. The band-wagon was
red; red flags floated from it and from the heads of four horses in red
trappings; the musicians wore red garments; instruments were wrapped in
red. The effect was electrical. In marching and countermarching military
tactics were employed with the effect of magnifying numbers to the eyes of
the negroes, who had had no idea that so many white men were alive.
The red shirt uniform idea spread; a great red-shirted army sprang into
existence and was on hand at public meetings to see that speakers of the
White Man's Party had equal hearing with the Black Republicans. The Red
Shirts rode openly by day and by night, and where they wound their scarlet
ways women and children felt new sense of security. Many under its
protection were negroes. Hampton strove hard to win the negro vote. He had
been one of the first after the war to urge qualified suffrage for them.
In public speeches he declared that, if elected, he would be "the governor
of all the people of South Carolina, white and black." He got a large
black vote. Years after, when he lay dying, friends bending to catch his
last words, heard him murmur: "God bless my people, white and black!"
Mrs. Henry Martin tells me of some fearful days following the pleasant
ones when her father, Professor Holmes, entertained the Old Guard in his
garden among the roses and oleanders. "One night, my brother, after seeing
a young lady home from a party, was returning along King Street with Mr.
Evaugh, when they encountered a crowd of negro rowdies and ran into a
store and under a counter. The negroes threw cobble-stones--the street was
in process of paving--on them. My brother was brought home in a wagon.
When our mother removed his shirt, the skin came wholly from his back with
it; he lived several years, but never fully recovered from his injuries.
My father cautioned us to stoop and crawl in passing the window on the
stairway to his room. In other houses, people were stooping and crawling
as they passed windows; a shadow on a curtain was a target for a rock or a
bullet. Black women were in arms, carrying axes or hatchets in their hands
hanging down at their sides, their aprons or dresses half-concealing the
weapons." "There are 80,000 black men in the State who can use Winchesters
and 200,000 black women who can light a torch and use a knife," said
"Daddy Cain," ex-Congressman and candidate for reëlection, in his paper,
"The Missionary Record," July, 1876, and in addressing a large negro
gathering, when Rev. Mr. Adams said, "Amen!"
Northern papers were full of the Hamburg and Ellenton riots, some blaming
whites, some blacks, some distributing blame impartially. Facts at Cainhoy
blazed out the truth about that place, at least. The whites, unarmed
except for pistols which everybody carried then, were holding peaceable
meeting when fired into from ambush by negroes with muskets, who chased
them, continuing to fire. A youth of eighteen fell, with thirty-three
buckshot in him; another, dying, wrote his mother that he had been giving
no trouble. A carpenter and a shoemaker from Massachusetts, and an aged
crippled gentleman were victims.
"Kill them! Kill them all! Dis town is ours!" Old Charlestonians recall
hearing a hoarse cry like this from negro throats (Sept. 6, 1876), recall
seeing Mr. Milton Buckner killed while trying to protect negroes from
negroes. They recall another night of unforgettable horror, when stillness
was almost as awful as tumult; frightened blacks were in-doors, but how
long would they remain so? Rifle Clubs were protecting a meeting of black
Democrats. Not a footfall was heard on the streets; not a sound broke the
stillness save the chiming of St. Michael's bells. Women and children and
old men listened for the alarm that might ring out any moment that the
negroes had risen _en masse_ for slaughter. They thanked God when
presently a sound of careless footsteps, of talk and laughter, broke upon
the night; the Rifle Club men were returning in peace to their firesides.
General Hunt, U. S. A., reported on the Charleston riot, November, 1876,
when white men, going quietly to places of business, were molested by
blacks, and young Ellicott Walker was killed. The morning after the
election General Hunt "walked through the city and saw numbers of negroes
assembled at corners of Meeting and Broad Streets," and was convinced
there would be trouble, "though there was nothing in the manner of the
whites gathered about the bulletin board to provoke it." Surgeon De Witt,
U. S. A., told him "things looked bad on King and other streets where
negroes insisted on pushing ladies off the sidewalks."
When Walker was killed, and the real trouble began, General Hunt hurried
to the Station House; the Marshal asked him for assistance; reports came
in that negroes were tearing up trees and fences, assailing whites, and
demanding arms of the police. General Hunt found at the Station House "a
number of gentlemen, young and old," who offered aid. Marshal Wallace
said, "But these are seditious Rifle Clubs." Said General Hunt, "They are
gentlemen whom I can trust and I am glad to have them." Pending arrival of
his troops, he placed them at the Marshal's disposal. The general relates:
"They fell in with his forces; as I was giving instructions, he
interposed, saying the matter was in his hands. He then started off. I
heard that police were firing upon and bayonetting quiet white people. My
troops arrived and additional white armed citizens. One of the civil
authorities said it was essential the latter be sent home. I declined
sending these armed men on the streets, and directed them to take position
behind my troops and remain there, which direction they obeyed
implicitly."
With the Mayor and other Radical leaders General Hunt held conference; the
negro police was aggravating the trouble, he proposed that his troops
patrol streets; the mayor objected. "Why cannot the negroes be prevailed
upon to go quietly home?" the General asked. "A negro has as much right to
be on the streets armed as a white man." "But I am not here to discuss
abstract rights. A bloody encounter is imminent. These negroes can be sent
home without difficulty by you, their leaders." "You should be able to
guarantee whites against the negroes, if you can guarantee negroes against
the whites." "The cases are different. I have no control over the blacks
through their reason or intelligence. They have been taught that a
Democratic victory will remand them to slavery. Their excited fears,
however unfounded, are beyond my control. You, their leaders, can quiet
and send them home. The city's safety is at stake." The Mayor said he must
direct General Hunt's troops; Hunt said he was in command. The Mayor wired
Chamberlain to disband the Rifle Clubs "which were causing all the
mischief." Hunt soon received orders to report at Washington.
"Hampton is elected!" the people rejoiced. "Chamberlain is elected!" the
Radicals cried, and disputed returns. The Radical Returning Board threw
out the Democratic vote in Laurens and Edgefield and made the House
Radical. The State Supreme Court (Republican) ordered the Board to issue
certificates to the Democratic members from these counties. The Board
refused; the Court threw the Board in jail; the United States Court
released the Board. The Supreme Court issued certificates to these
members. November 28, 1876, Democrats organised in Carolina Hall, W. H.
Wallace, Speaker; Radicals in the State House, with E. W. Mackey, Speaker,
and counting in eight Radical members from Laurens and Edgefield. The
Democratic House sent a message to the Radical Senate in the State House
that it was ready for business. Senate took no notice. On Chamberlain's
call upon President Grant, General Ruger was in Columbia with a Federal
regiment.
[Illustration: THE SOUTHERN CROSS
General Hampton, while Governor, built this, his residence, with his own
hands and with the assistance of his faithful negroes. The men in the
picture, from left to right, are: Hon. LeRoy F. Youmans, General Hampton,
Judge McIver, Hon. Joseph D. Pope, General James McGowan.
Photograph by Reckling & Sons, Columbia, S. C.]
November 29, the Wallace House marched to the State House, members from
Edgefield and Laurens in front. A closed door, guarded by United States
troops, confronted them. J. C. Sheppard, Edgefield, began to read from the
State House steps a protest, addressed to the crowd around the building
and to the Nation. The Radicals, fearful of its effect, gave hurried
consent to admission. Each representative was asked for his pistol and
handed it over. At the Hall of Representatives, another closed and guarded
door confronted them. They saw that they had been tricked and quietly
returned to Carolina Hall.
The people were deeply incensed. General Hampton was in town, doing his
mightiest to keep popular indignation in bounds. He held public
correspondence with General Ruger, who did not relish the charge that he
was excluding the State's representatives from the State House and
promised that the Wallace House should not be barred from the outer door,
over which he had control. But its members knew they took their lives in
their hands when they started for the Hall. A committee or advance guard
of seven passed Ruger's guard at the outer door. Col. W. S. Simpson (now
President of the Board of Directors of Clemson College), who was one of
the seven, tells me:
"On the first floor was drawn up a regiment of United States troops with
fixed bayonets; all outside doors were guarded by troops. Upstairs in the
large lobby was a crowd of negro roughs. Committee-rooms were filled with
Chamberlain's State constables. General Dennis, from New Orleans, a
character of unsavoury note, with a small army of assistants, was
Doorkeeper of the Hall. Within the Hall, the Mackey House, with one
hundred or more sergeants-at-arms, was assembled, waiting Mackey's arrival
to go into session." The seven dashed upstairs and for the door of the
Hall. The doorkeepers, lolling in the lobby, rushed between them and the
door and formed in line; committee presented certificates; doorkeepers
refused to open the door.
"Come, men, let's get at it!" cried Col. Alex. Haskell, seizing the
doorkeeper in front of him. Each man followed his example; a struggle
began; the door parted in the middle; Col. Simpson, third to slip through,
describes the Mackey House, "negroes chiefly, every man on his feet,
staring at us with eyes big as saucers, mouths open, and nearly scared to
death." Meanwhile, the door, lifted off its hinges, fell with a crash. The
full Democratic House marched in, headed by Speaker Wallace, who took
possession of the Speaker's chair. Members of his House took seats on the
right of the aisle, negroes giving way and taking seats on the left.
Speaker Wallace raised the gavel and called the House to order. Speaker
Mackey entered, marched up and ordered Speaker Wallace to vacate the
chair. Speaker Wallace directed his sergeant-at-arms to escort Mr. Mackey
to the floor where he belonged. Speaker Mackey directed his
sergeant-at-arms to perform that office for General Wallace. Each
sergeant-at-arms made feints. Speaker Mackey took another chair on the
stand and called the House to order. There was bedlam, with two Speakers,
two clerks, two legislative bodies, trying to conduct business
simultaneously! The "lockout" lasted four days and nights. Democrats were
practically prisoners, daring not go out, lest they might not get in.
Radicals stayed in with them, individual members coming and going as they
listed, a few at a time.
The first day, Democrats had no dinner or supper; no fire on their side of
the House, and the weather bitterly cold. Through nights, negroes sang,
danced and kept up wild junketings. The third night Democrats received
blankets through windows; meals came thus from friends outside; and fruit,
of which they made pyramids on their desks. Two negroes came over from the
Mackey side; converts were welcomed joyously, and apples, oranges and
bananas divided. The opposition was enraged at defection; shouting,
yelling and rowdyism broke out anew. Both sides were armed. The House on
the left and the House on the right were constantly springing to their
feet, glaring at each other, hands on pistols. Wallace sat in his place,
calm and undismayed; Mackey in his, brave enough to compel admiration;
more than once he ran over to the Speaker's stand, next to the Democratic
side, and held down his head to receive bullets he was sure were coming.
Yet between these armed camps, small human kindnesses and courtesies went
on; and they joined in laughter at the comedy of their positions. Between
Speakers, though, there was war to the knife, there was also common bond
of misery.
The third afternoon Democrats learned that their massacre was planned for
that night. Negro roughs were congregating in the building; the Hunkidory
Club, a noted gang of black desperadoes, were coming up from Charleston. A
body of assassins were to be introduced into the gallery overlooking the
floor of the Hall; here, even a small band could make short work its own
way of any differences below. Chamberlain informed Mackey; Mackey informed
Wallace. Hampton learned of the conspiracy through Ruger; he said: "If
such a thing is carried out, I cannot insure the safety of your command,
nor the life of a negro in the State." The city seethed with repressed
anxiety and excitement. Telegrams and runners were sent out; streets
filled with newcomers, some in red shirts, some in old Confederate
uniforms with trousers stuffed in boots, canteens slung over shoulders.
Hampton's soldiers had come.
Twenty young men of Columbia contrived, through General Ruger, it is said,
to get into the gallery, thirty into the Hall, the former armed with
sledge-hammers to break open doors at first intimation of collision. The
Hook and Ladder Company prepared to scale the walls. The train bringing
the Hunkidory Club broke down in a swamp, aided possibly by some
peace-loving agency. The crowding of Red Shirt and Rifle Clubs into the
city took effect. The night passed in intense anxiety, but in safety. Next
day, Speaker Wallace read notification that at noon the Democrats, by
order of President Grant, would be ejected by Federal troops if, before
that time, they had not vacated the State House; in obedience to the
Federal Government, he and the other Democratic members would go,
protesting, however, against this Federal usurpation of authority. He
adjourned the House to meet immediately in Carolina Hall. Blankets on
their shoulders, they marched out. A tremendous crowd was waiting. Far as
the eye could reach, Main Street was a mass of men, quiet and apparently
unarmed.
I have heard one of Hampton's old captains tell how things were outside
the State House. "The young men of Columbia were fully armed. Clerks in
our office had arms stowed away in desks and all around the rooms; we were
ready to grab them and rush on the streets at a moment's notice. It was
worse than war times. We had two cannon, loaded with chips of iron,
concealed in buildings, and trained on the State House windows and to rake
the street. We marched to the State House in a body. General Hampton had
gone inside. He had told us not to follow him. He and General Butler, his
aide, had been doing everything to keep us quiet. He knew we had come to
Columbia to fight if need be. 'I will tell you,' he said, 'when it is time
to fight. You have made me your governor, and, by Heaven, I will be your
governor!' Again and again he promised that. Usually, we obeyed him like
lambs. But we followed him to the State House.
"Federal troops were stationed at the door. What right had they there? It
was our State House! Why could roughs and toughs and the motley crowd of
earth go in, on a pass from Doorkeeper Dennis, a Northern rascal imported
by way of New Orleans, while we, the State's own sons and taxpayers, could
not enter? We pressed forward. We were told not to. We did not heed. We
were ready not to heed even the crossed bayonets of the guard. Things are
very serious when they reach that pass. The guard in blue used the utmost
patience. Federal soldiers were in sympathy with us. Colonel Bomford,[24]
their officer, ran up the State House steps, shouting: 'General Hampton!
General Hampton! For God's sake come down and send your men back!' In an
instant General Hampton was on the steps, calmly waving back the
multitude: 'All of you go back up the street. I told you not to come here.
Do not come into collision with the Federal troops. I advise all, white
and black, who care for the public welfare to go home quietly. You have
elected me your Governor, and by the eternal God, I will be your Governor!
Trust me for that! Now, go back!' We obeyed like children. On the other
side of the State House a man ran frantically waving his hat and shouting:
'Go back! go back! General Hampton says go back!' This man was ex-Governor
Scott, who a few years before had raised a black army for the intimidation
and subjugation of South Carolina!"
The Wallace House sat, until final adjournment, in South Carolina Hall,
the Mackey House in the State House. Governor Chamberlain, with the town
full of Rifle Clubs supposed to be thirsting for his gore, rode back and
forth in his open carriage to the State House and occupied the executive
offices there, refusing to resign them to General Hampton. He was
inaugurated inside the "Bayonet House"; General Hampton in the open
streets. General Hampton conducted the business of the State in two
office-rooms furnished with Spartan simplicity. The Wallace House said to
the people: "Pay to tax collectors appointed by Governor Hampton, ten per
cent of the tax rate you have been paying Governor Chamberlain's tax
collectors, and we will run your Government on it." So the people paid
their tax to Hampton's collectors and to no others. Without money, the
Chamberlain Government fell to pieces.
Northern sentiment had undergone change. Tourists had spread far and wide
the fame of Black and Tan Legislatures. Mr. Pike, of Maine, had written
"The Prostrate State." In tableaux before a great mass-meeting and
torchlight procession in New York, South Carolina had appeared kneeling in
chains before the Goddess of Liberty. The North was protesting against
misuse of Federal power in the South. General Sherman said: "I have always
tried to save our soldiers from the dirty work. I have always thought it
wrong to bolster up weak State Governments by our troops." "Let the South
alone!" was the cry. One of Grant's last messages reflected this temper.
President Hayes was exhibiting a spirit the South had not counted on. He
sent for Hampton and Chamberlain to confer with him in Washington. The old
hero's journey to the National Capital and back was an ovation. Soon after
his return, Chamberlain resigned the keys and offices of the State House.
Chamberlain was bitter and felt that the Federal Government had played him
false.
With Governor Nicholls established in Louisiana and Governor Hampton in
South Carolina, the battle between the carpet-baggers and the native
Southerners for their State Houses was over. The Federal soldiers packed
up joyfully, and the Southerners cheered their departure.
Louisiana had been engaged in a struggle very similar to South Carolina's.
For three months she had two governors, two legislatures, two Supreme
Courts. Again and again was her Capitol in a state of siege. Once two
Republican parties faced each other in battle array for its possession--as
two Republican parties had faced each other in Little Rock contending for
Arkansas's Capitol. One morning, Louisianians woke to find the entrance
commanded by United States Artillery posted on the "Midnight Order" of a
drunken United States District Judge. Once a thousand negroes, impressed
as soldiers, lived within the walls, eating, drinking, sleeping, until the
place became unspeakably filthy and small-pox broke out. More than once
for its possession there was warfare on the levees, bloodshed in
barricaded streets. Once the citizens were marching joyfully to its
occupation past the United States Custom House, and the United States
soldiers crowded the windows, waved their caps and cheered. Once members
were ejected by Federal force; Colonel de Trobriand regretting that he had
the work to do and the Louisianans bearing him no grudge; it was, "Pardon
me, gentlemen, I must put you out." "Pardon us, that we give you the
trouble."
These corrupt governments had glamours. Officials had money to burn. New
Orleans was like another Monte Carlo for one while. Gambling parlours
stood open to women and minors. Then was its twenty-five-year charter
granted the Louisiana State Lottery. At a garden party in Washington not
long ago, a Justice of the Supreme Court said in response to some question
I put: "It would take the pen of a Zola to describe reconstruction in
Louisiana! It is so dark a chapter in our national history, I do not like
to think of it." A Zola might base a great novel on that life and death
struggle between politicians and races in the land of cotton and sugar
plantations, the swamps and bayous and the mighty Mississippi, where the
Carpet-Bag Governments had a standing army, of blacks chiefly, with
cavalry, infantry, artillery, and navy of warships going up and down
waterways; where prominent citizens were arrested on blank warrants,
carried long distances, held for months; where women and children listened
for the tramp, tramp, of black soldiers on piazzas, the crash of a musket
on the door, the demand for the master or son of the house!
Dixie after the war is a mine for the romancer, historian, ethnologist.
Never before in any age or place did such conditions exist. The sudden
investiture of the uncivilised slave with full-fledged citizenship wrought
tragedy and comedy not ready to Homer's, Shakespeare's or Cervantes's pen.
The strange and curious race-madness of the American Republic will be a
study for centuries to come. That madness took a child-race out of a warm
cradle, threw it into the ocean of politics--the stormiest and most
treacherous we have known--and bade it swim for its own life and the life
of the nation!
CRIME AGAINST WOMANHOOD
CHAPTER XXXI
CRIME AGAINST WOMANHOOD
The rapist is a product of the reconstruction period. In the beginning he
commanded observation North less by reason of what he did than by reason
of what was done unto him. His chrysalis was a uniform; as a soldier he
could force his way into private homes, bullying and insulting white
women; he was often commissioned to tasks involving these things. He came
into life in the abnormal atmosphere of a time rife with discussions of
social equality theories, contentions for coeducation and intermarriage.
General Weitzel, resigning his command, wrote from La Fourche and La Teche
to Butler in New Orleans: "I can not command these negro regiments. Women
and children are in terror. It is heartrending."[25] General Halleck
wrote, April, 1865, to General Grant of a negro corps: "A number of cases
of atrocious rape by these men have already occurred. Their influence on
the coloured people is reported bad. I hope you will remove it." Similar
reports were made by other Federal officers. Governor Perry, of South
Carolina, says: "I continued remonstrances to Secretary Seward on the
employment of negro troops, gave detail of their atrocious conduct. At
Newberry ... (Crozier's story). At Anderson, they protected and carried
off a negro who had wantonly murdered his master. At Greenville, they
knocked down citizens in the streets without slightest provocation. At
Pocotaligo, they entered a gentleman's house, and after tying him,
violated the ladies." Mr. Seward wrote that Northern sentiment was
sensitive about negro troops. When Governor Perry handed Generals Meade
and Gillmore the Pocotaligo report, General Meade said he was opposed to
negro troops and was trying to rid the army of them, but had to exercise
great caution not to offend Northern sentiment. General Gillmore had some
offenders executed. Federal commanders largely relieved the South of black
troops, but carpet-bag officials restored them in the form of militia.
I have told elsewhere Crozier's story. Let me contrast his slayers with a
son of industry it was my honour to know, Uncle Dick, my father's
coachman. During the war, when my father had occasion to send a large sum
in gold coin through the country, Uncle Dick carried it belted around his
body under his shirt. My father's ward was attending the Southern Female
College in Danville when the President and his Cabinet, fleeing from
Richmond, reached that place. Knowing that Danville might become a
fighting center, Mr. Williams T. Davis, Principal, wrote my father to send
for Sue. The way to reach Danville was by private conveyance, seventy
miles or more. Uncle Dick, mounted high on his carriage-box, a
white-headed, black-faced knight-errant of chivalry, set forth. Nobody
knew where the armies were. He might have to cut his horses loose from his
carriage, mount Sue on one, himself take the other, and bring her through
the forest. In due time the carriage rolled into our yard, Uncle Dick
proud and happy on his box, Sue inside wrapped in rugs, sound asleep, for
it was midnight. That is the way we could trust our black men.
The following account by an ex-Confederate captain shows how General
Schofield handled a case of the crime which is now under discussion: "A
young white girl on her way to Sunday School was attacked by a negro;
'attempted' assault, the family said; it is usually put that way;
'consummated' nails the victim to a stake. Our people were in a state of
terror; they seemed paralysed; they were inured to dispossession and
outrage. No one seemed to know what to do. I picked up several young men
and trailed down the ruffian. Then I sent a letter to General Schofield
(with whom I had some acquaintance, as we had met each other hunting),
asking instructions. He sent two detectives and a file of soldiers,
requesting that I call for further assistance if occasion demanded. I
wrote full statement of facts, had the girl's testimony taken in private;
evidence was laid before General Schofield; the negro was sent to the
penitentiary for eighteen years. The promptness of his action inspired
people here with hope. We had no Ku Klux in Virginia--one reason, I have
always thought, was the swiftness with which punishment was meted out in
that case."
I have, as I believe, from Judge Lynch himself particulars of another case
in which, the law being inactive, citizens took justice into their own
hands:
"Two young girls, daughters of a worthy German settler, were out to bring
up cows, when attacked by a negro tramp; they ran screaming, but were
overtaken; he seized the older; the younger, about ten years old,
continued to run. Some passers on the nearest road, a private and lonely
one, rushed to the relief of the older girl, who was making such outcry as
she could. We found her prostrate, the negro having her pinioned with one
knee on either arm. His jack-knife open, was held between his teeth, and
he was stuffing his handkerchief in her mouth to stifle her cries. We
rescued her, took him prisoner, carried him to the nearest magistrate, a
carpet-bag politician, who committed him to jail to await the action of
the grand jury. He made his escape a few days afterward, was recaptured
and relodged in jail. Ten days later a band was organised among
respectable citizens in and around our town; a Northern settler was a
member. One detachment set out about dark for the rendezvous where they
met a score more of resolute, armed men, some with masks, some without.
They effected entrance into the jail, but their way was arrested when they
found the prisoner in a casemated cell, which other negroes readily
pointed out, one offering a lamp; a railroad section hand procured
crow-bars with which the casemate was crushed in; the prisoner was taken
in charge. He stood mute; seemed calm and unmoved; was put in a close
carriage, the purpose being to drive him to the exact spot of his crime,
but it coming on day, the company thought best to execute him at once. He
was placed upon a mule; a rope attached to his neck was tied to the limb
of a tree about ten feet above. The leader now learned of an intention to
riddle his body with bullets when the drop occurred. Each member had
pledged obedience to orders; each had been pledged to take no liquor for
hours before, or during this expedition--pledges so far rigidly observed.
The leader addressed them: 'We are here to avenge outrage on a helpless
child, and to let it be well known that such crime shall not go unpunished
in this community. But mutilation of this fiend's remains will be a
reflection upon ourselves and not a dispensation of justice.'
"The negro, seeing his end surely at hand, broke down, pleading for mercy;
confessed that he had appreciated in advance the great peril in which his
crime might place him, but had argued that, as a stranger, he would not be
liable to identification, and that as the country was thickly wooded, he
was sure of escape. 'But, fo' Gawd, gent'mun, ef a white man f'om de Norf
hadn't put't in my hade dat a white 'oman warn' none too good fuh--'
"Word was given, and he dropped into eternity. It was broad daylight when
the party got back to town. They overtook several negro men going to work
who knew full well what they had been about. But there was no sign of
protest or demur. The Commonwealth's Attorney made efforts to ascertain
the perpetrators of the deed, but as the company entered the town and jail
so quietly and left it with so little disturbance that only one person in
the village had knowledge of their coming and going, no one was discovered
who could name a single member of the party or who had any idea of whence
they came or whither they went. So of course no indictment could be
found." This was in 1870; since then till now no similar crime has
occurred in that community. Within the circumscribed radius of its
influence, lynching seems to eradicate the evil for which administered.
The moderation marking this execution has not always accompanied lynching.
Reading accounts of unnecessary tortures inflicted, of very orgies of
vengeance, people remote from the scenes, Southerners no less than others,
have shuddered with disgust, and trembled with concern for the dignity of
their own race. Only people on the spot, writhing under the agony of
provocation, comprehended the fury of response to the crime of crimes.
Vigilants meant to make their awful vengeance effective deterrent to the
crime's repetition. No other crime offers such problems to relatives and
officers of justice and to the people among whom it occurs; it is so
outside of civilisation that there seem no terms for dispassionate
discussion, no fine adjustment of civil trial and legal penalty.
Listen to this out of the depths of one Southern woman's experience: "I
stood once with other friends, who were trying to nurse her back to life
and reason, by the bedside of a girl--a beautiful, gentle, high-born
creature--who had been outraged. We were using all the skill and tact and
tenderness at our command. It seemed impossible for her to have one hour's
peaceful sleep. She would start from slumber with a shriek, look at us
with dilated eyes, then clutch us and beg for help. But the most
unspeakable pity of it all was her loathing for her own body; her prayers
that she might die and her body be burned to ashes. I heard her physician
say to an officer who came to take her deposition: 'I would be signing
that girl's death warrant if I let you in there to make her tell that
horrible story over again.' When a grim group came with some negroes they
wanted to bring before her for identification, her brothers and her lover
said: 'Only over our dead bodies.'"
Lynching is inexcusable, even for this crime, which is comparable to no
other, and to which murder is a trifle. So we may coolly argue when the
blow has not fallen upon ourselves or at our own door. When it has, we
think there's a wolf abroad and we have lambs. Those to whom the wrecked
woman is dear are quiveringly alive to her irreparable wrong. The victim
has rights, they argue; if, unhappily for herself, she survive the
outrage, she is entitled to what poor remnants of reason may be left her;
it is naturally their whole care to preserve her from memories that sear
and craze, and from rehearsal before even the most private tribunal, of
events that the merciful, even if not of her blood, must wish her to
forget. Under such strain, men see as the one thing imperative the prompt
and informal removal from existence of the offender, whom they look upon,
not as man, but beast or fiend.
The "poor white" is the most frequent sufferer from assault; the wife of
the small farmer attending household duties in her isolated home while her
husband is in the fields or otherwise absent about his work; or the small
farmer's daughter when she goes to the spring for water, or to the meadow
for the cows, or trudges a lonely road or pathway to school; these are
more convenient material than the lady of larger means and higher station,
who is more rarely unattended. In cases on record the ravished and slain
were children, five, six, eight years old; in others, mothers with babies
at their breasts, and the babies were slain with the mothers. Here is a
case cited by Judge M. L. Dawson: A negro raped and slew a farmer's
five-year-old child. Arrested, tried, convicted, appealed, sentence
reversed, reappealed (on insanity plea); people took him out and hung him.
In full-volumed indignation over lynching, the usual course of the
Northern press was to almost lose sight of the crime provoking it. It was
a minor fact that a woman was violated, that her skull was crushed or that
she sustained other injuries from which she died or which made her a wreck
for life--particulars too trivial to be noted by moulders of public
opinion writing eloquent essays on "Crime in the South." Picking up a
paper with this glaring headline, one would have a right to expect some
outburst of indignation over the ravishment and butchering of womanhood.
But there would be editorial after editorial rife with invectives against
lynching and lynchers, righteous with indignation over "lawlessness in the
South," and not one word of sympathy or pity for the white victim of negro
lust! The fact that there was such a victim seemed lost sight of; the
crime for which the negro was executed would often escape everything but
bare mention, sometimes that. What deductions were negroes to draw from
such distinctions, except that lynching was monstrous crime, rape an
affair of little moment, and strenuous objection to it only one feature of
damnable "Race Prejudice in the South"?
"They do not care, the men and women of the North," I have heard a
Southern girl exclaim, "if we are raped. They do not care that we are
prisoners of fear, that we fear to take a ramble in the woods alone, fear
to go about the farms on necessary duties, fear to sit in our houses
alone; fear, if we live in cities, to go alone on the streets at hours
when a woman is safe anywhere in Boston or New York."
From the Northern attitude as reflected in the press and in the pulpit,
negroes drew their own conclusions. Violation of a white woman was no
harm; indeed, as a leveler of social distinctions, it might almost be
construed into an act of grace. The way to become a hero in the eyes of
the white North and to win the crown of martyrdom for oneself and new
outbursts of sympathy for one's race was to assault a white woman of the
South. This crime was a development of a period when the negro was
dominated by political, religious and social advisers from the North and
by the attitude of the Northern press and pulpit. It was practically
unknown in wartime, when negroes were left on plantations as protectors
and guardians of white women and children.
"There was only one case,[26] as far as the writer can ascertain, of the
negro's crime against womanhood during all the days of slavery," said
Professor Stratton in the "North American Review" a few years ago, "while
his fidelity and simple discharge of duty during the Civil War when the
white men were away fighting against his liberty have challenged the
admiration of the world; but since he has been made free, his increase in
crime and immorality has gone side by side with his educational
advancement--and even in greater ratio." The Professor gave figures, as
others have done, which proved his case, if figures can prove anything.
Considered with reference to the crime under discussion, it is difficult
to see how purely intellectual training tends to its increase, if there is
any truth in the doctrine that brain development effects a reduction of
animal propensities. Only in moral education, however, rests any real
security for conduct. Negroes educated and negroes uneducated, in a
technical sense, have committed this crime.[27]
The rapist is not to be taken as literal index to race character; he is an
excrescence of the times; his crime is a horror that must be wiped out for
the honour of the land, the security of womanhood, the credit of our
negro citizenhood. The weapon for its destruction is in the hands of
Afro-Americans; overwhelming sentiment on their part would put an end to
it; they should be the last to stand for the rapist's protection; rather
should they say to him: "You are none of us!" They should be quick to aid
in his arrest, identification and deliverance to the law. Such attitude
would be more effective than any other one force that can be brought to
bear upon this crime and that of lynching. I chronicle here as worthy of
record, that in June, 1870, William Stimson, rapist, was tried before a
negro jury, convicted on negro evidence, and hung November 4. This
happened in North Carolina during negro rule.
The negro guilty of this hideous offense has committed against his race a
worse crime than lynching can ever be. By the brutish few the many are
judged--particularly when the many in vociferous condemnation of the
penalty visited upon the criminal seem to condone his awful iniquity
against themselves. Black men who have been and will be womanhood's
protectors outnumber the beasts who wear like skins as many thousands to
one; and it is not fair to themselves that they pursue any course, utter
any sentiment, which causes them to be classed in any way whatever with
these. Black men are seeing this and are setting their faces towards
stamping out the crime which causes lynching. Utterances from some of
their pulpits and resolutions passed by some of their religious bodies
indicate this.
The occurrence of rapes, lynchings and burnings in the North and West has
had beneficial influence upon the question at large. It has led white
people of other sections to understand in some degree the Southern
situation and to express condemnation of the crime that leads to lynching.
The attitude of the Northern press has undergone great change in recent
years, change effective for reform, in that while lynching is as severely
under the ban as ever--which it should be--the companion crime goes with
it. Southern sentiment is against lynching; I recall seven
governors--Aycock of North Carolina, Montague of Virginia, Heyward of
South Carolina, Candler and Terrell of Georgia, Jelks of Alabama, Vardaman
of Mississippi--who have so placed themselves conspicuously on record. All
our newspapers have done so, I believe, from the "Times-Dispatch" of
Richmond, the Charlotte "Observer," the "Constitution" and the "Journal"
of Atlanta, the "State" of Columbia, the Charleston "News-Courier," the
Savannah "News," to the "Times-Democrat" of New Orleans, and "Times-Union"
of Jacksonville.
One hope and promise of the new constitutions with which Southern States
lately replaced the Black and Tan instruments is the eradication of this
method of procedure. Soon after Virginia adopted hers, three negro rapists
in that State received legal trial and conviction and not over hasty
execution. On motion of District Attorney E. C. Goode, reprieve was
granted after conviction that a case in Mecklenburg might be looked into
more fully. Such deliberation has not been exceeded--if, indeed, it has
been equaled--north of Mason & Dixon's line. But as long as rapes are
committed, so long will there be danger of lynchings, not only in the
South, but anywhere else. In the presence of this worse than savage crime
the white race suffers reversion to savagery.
RACE PREJUDICE
CHAPTER XXXII
RACE PREJUDICE
As late as 1890, Senator Ingalls said: "The use of the torch and dagger is
advised. I deplore it, but as God is my judge, I say that no people on
this earth have ever submitted to the wrongs and injustice which have been
put upon the coloured men of the South without revolt and bloodshed."
Others spoke of the negro's use of torch and sword as his only way to
right himself in the South. When prominent men in Congressional and
legislative halls and small stump speakers everywhere fulminated such
sentiments, the marvel would have been if race prejudice had not come to
birth and growth. Good men, whose homes were safe, and who in heat of
oratory or passion for place, forgot that other men's homes were not, had
no realisation of the effect of their words upon Southern households,
where inmates lay down at night trembling lest they wake in flames or with
black men shooting or knifing them.
But for a rooted and grounded sympathy and affection between the races
that fierce and newly awakened prejudice could not kill, the Sepoy
massacres of India would have been duplicated in the South in the sixties
and seventies. Under slavery, the black race held the heart of the white
South in its hands. Second only in authority to the white mother on a
Southern plantation, was the black mammy; hoary-headed white men and
women, young men and maidens and little children, rendered her reverence
and love. Little negroes and little white children grew up together,
playing together and forming ties of affection equal to almost any
strain. The servant was dependent upon his master, the master upon his
servant. Neither could afford to disregard the well-being of the other. No
class of labour on earth today is as well cared for as were the negroes of
the Old South. Age was pensioned, infancy sheltered. There was a state of
mutual trust and confidence between employer and employee that has been
seen nowhere else and at no time since between capital and labour.
Had the negro remained a few centuries longer the white man's dependant,
often an inmate of his home, and his close associate on terms not raising
questions and conflicts, his development would have proceeded. Through the
processes of slavery, the negro was peaceably evolving, as agriculturist,
shepherd, blacksmith, mechanic, master and mistress of domestic science,
towards citizenship--inevitable when he should be ready for it;
citizenship all the saner, because those who were training him were
unconscious of what they were doing and contemplated making no political
use of him. They were intent only on his industrial and moral education.
His evolution was set back by emancipation.
Yet, if destruction of race identity is advancement, the negro will
advance. The education which he began to receive with other Greek gifts of
freedom has taught him to despise his skin, to loath his race identity, to
sacrifice all native dignity and nobility in crazy antics to become a
white man. "Social equality!" those words are to be his doom. It is a pity
that the phrase was ever coined. It is not to say that one is better than
the other when we say of larks and robins, doves and crows, eagles and
sparrows, that they do not flock together. They are different rather than
unequal. Difference does not, of itself, imply inequality. To ignore a
difference inherent in nature is a crime against nature and is punished
accordingly by nature.
The negro race in America is to be wiped out by the dual process of
elimination and absorption. The negro will not be eliminated as was the
Indian--though the way a whole settlement of blacks was made to move on a
few years ago in Illinois, looks as if history might repeat itself in
special instances. Between lynchings and race riots in the North and West
and those in the South there has usually been this difference: in the
former, popular fury included entire settlements, punishing the innocent
with the guilty; in the latter, it limited itself to the actual criminal.
Another difference between sectional race problems. I was in New York
during Subway construction when a strike was threatened, and overheard two
gentlemen on the elevated road discussing the situation: "The company
talks of bringing the blacks up here." "If they do, the tunnel will run
blood! These whites will never suffer the blacks to take their work." I
thought, "And negroes have had a monopoly of the South's industries and
have scorned it!" I thought of jealous white toilers in the slime of the
tunnel; and of Dixie's greening and golden fields, of swinging hoes and
shining scythes and the songs of her black peasantry. And I thought of her
stalwart black peasants again when I walked through sweat-shops and saw
bent, wizened, white slaves.
The elimination of the negro will be in ratio to the reduction of his
potentiality as an industrial factor. Evolutionary processes reject
whatever has served its use. History shows the white man as the exponent
of evolution. There were once more Indians here than there are now
negroes. Yet the Indian has almost disappeared from the land that belonged
to him when a little handful of palefaces came and found him in their
way. Had he been of use, convertible into a labourer, he would have been
retained; he was not so convertible, and other disposition was made of him
while we sent to Africa for what was required. The climate of the North
did not agree with the negro; he was not a profitable labourer; he
disappeared. He was a satisfactory labourer South; he throve and
multiplied. He is not now a satisfactory labourer in any locality. What is
the conclusion if we judge the white man's future by his past?
The white man does not need the negro as _littérateur_, statesman,
ornament to society. Of these he has enough and to spare, and seeks to
reduce surplus. What he needs is agricultural labour. The red man would
not till the soil, and the red man went; if the black man will not,
perhaps the yellow man will. Sporadic instances of exceptional negroid
attainments may interest the white man--in circumscribed circle--for a
time. But the deep claim, the strong claim, the commanding claim would be
that the negro filled a want not otherwise supplied, that the negro could
and would do for him that which he cannot well do for himself--for
instance, work the rice and cotton lands where the negro thrives and the
white man dies.
The American negro is passing. The mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, strike the
first notes in the octave of his evolution--or his decadence, or
extinction, or whatever you may call it. The black negro is rare North and
South. Negroes go North, white Northerners come South. In States
sanctioning intermarriage, irregular connections obtain as elsewhere
between white men and black women; and, in addition, between black men and
white women of most degraded type or foreigners who are without the saving
American race prejudice. Recent exposure of the "White Slave Syndicate" in
New York which kidnapped white girls for negro bagnios, is fresh in the
public mind.
Under slavery many negroes learned to value and to practice virtue; many
value and practice it now; but the freedwoman has been on the whole less
chaste than the bond. With emancipation the race suffered relapse in this
as in other respects. The South did not do her whole duty in teaching
chastity to the savage, though making more patient, persistent and heroic
struggle than accredited with. The charge that under slavery miscegenation
was the result of compulsion on the part of the superior race finds answer
in its continuance since. Because he was white, the crying sin was the
white man's, but it is just to remember that the heaviest part of the
white racial burden was the African woman, of strong sex instincts and
devoid of a sexual conscience, at the white man's door, in the white man's
dwelling.[28]
In 1900, negroes constituted 20.4 per cent. of the population of Texas,
the lowest rate for the Southern States; in Mississippi, 58.6, the
highest. In Massachusetts, they were less than two per cent. Questions of
social intermingling can not be of such practical and poignant concern to
Massachusetts as to Mississippi, where amalgamation would result in a
population of mulatto degenerates. Prohibitions are protective to both
races. Fortunately, miscegenation proceeds most slowly in the sections of
negro concentration, the sugar and cotton lands of the lower South. In
these, it is also said, there is lower percentage of negro crime of all
kinds than where negroes are of lighter hue.
Thinkers of both races have declared amalgamation an improbable,
undesirable conclusion of the race question; that it would be a
propagation of the vices of both races and the virtues of neither. In a
letter (March 30, 1865) to the Louisville "Courier-Journal," recently
reproduced in "The Outlook," Mr. Beecher said: "I do not think it wise
that whites and blacks should mix blood ... it is to be discouraged on
grounds of humanity." Senator Ingalls said: "Fred Douglas once said to me:
'The races will blend, coalesce, and become homogeneous.' I do not agree
with him. There is no affinity between the races; this solution is
impossible.... There is no blood-poison so fatal as the adulteration of
race."
At the Southern Educational Conference in Columbia, 1905, Mr. Abbott, in
one of the clearest, frankest speeches yet heard from our Northern
brotherhood, declared the thinking North and South now one upon these
points: the sections were equally responsible for slavery; the South
fought, not to perpetuate slavery, but on an issue "that had its beginning
before the adoption of the Federal Constitution;" racial integrity should
be preserved. In one of the broadest, sanest discussions of the negro
problem to which the American public has been treated, Professor Eliot, of
Harvard, has said recently: "Northern and Southern opinion are identical
with regard to keeping the races pure--that is, without admixture of the
one with the other ... inasmuch as the negroes hold the same view, this
supposed danger of mutual racial impairment ought not to have much
influence on practical measures. Admixture of the two races, so far as it
proceeds, will be, as it has been, chiefly the result of sexual vice on
the part of white men; it will not be a wide-spread evil, and it will not
be advocated as a policy or method by anybody worthy of consideration."
"It will not be a wide-spread evil!" The truth stares us in the face.
Except in the lower South the black negro is now almost a curiosity. In
any negro gathering the gamut of colour runs from ginger-cake to white
rivaling the Anglo-Saxon's; and according as he is more white, the negro
esteems himself more honourable than his blacker fellow; though these
gradations in colour which link him with the white man, were he to judge
himself by the white man's standard, would be, generally speaking, badges
of bastardy and shame.
In Florida, a tourist remarked to an orange-woman: "They say Southerners
do not believe in intermingling of the races. But look at all these
half-white coons!" "Well, Marster," she answered, "don't you give Southern
folks too much credit fuh dat. Rich Yankees in de winter-time; crap uh
white nigger babies in de fall. Fus' war we all had down here, mighty big
crap uh yaller babies come up. Arter de war 'bout Cuba, 'nother big crap
come 'long. Nigger gal ain' nuvver gwi have a black chile ef she kin git a
white one!" Blanch, my negro hand-maiden, is comely, well-formed, black;
the descendant of a series of honest marriages, yet feels herself at a
disadvantage with quadroons and octoroons not nearly her equals in point
of good looks or principle. "I'd give five hundred dollars ef I had it, ef
my ha'r was straight," she tells me with pathetic earnestness; and "I wish
I had been born white!" is her almost heart-broken moan.[29] She would
rather be a mulatto bastard than the black product of honest wedlock.
The integrity of the races depends largely upon the virtue of white men
and black women; also, it rests _on the negroid side upon the aspiration
to become white_, acknowledgment in itself of inferiority and
self-loathing. The average negress will accept, invite, with every wile
she may, the purely animal attention of a "no-count white man" in
preference to marriage with a black. The average mulatto of either sex
considers union with a black degradation. The rainbow of promise spanning
this gloomy vista is the claim that the noble minority of black women who
value virtue is on the increase as the race, in self-elevation, recognises
more and more the demands of civilisation upon character, and that dignity
of racehood which will not be ashamed of its own skin or covet the skin of
another. The virtuous black woman is the Deborah and the Miriam of her
people. She is found least often in crowded cities, North and South; most
often in Southern rural districts. Wherever found, she commands the white
man's respect.
Hope should rest secure in the white man. If the faith of his fathers, the
flag of his fathers, the Union of his fathers, are worthy of preservation,
is not the blood of his fathers a sacred trust also? Besides, before
womanhood, whatever its colour or condition, however ready to yield or
appeal to his grosser senses, the white man should throw the ægis of his
manhood and his brotherhood.
The recent framing of State Constitutions in the South to supersede the
Black and Tan creations revived the charge of race prejudice because their
suffrage restrictions would in great degree disfranchise the negro. As
compared with discussion of any phase of the race issue some years ago,
the spirit of comment was cool and fair. "The Outlook" led in justifying
the South for protecting the franchise with moderate property and
educational qualifications applying to both races, criticising, however,
the provision for deciding upon educational fitness--a provision which
Southerners admit needs amendment. One effect of these restrictions will
be to stimulate the negro's efforts to acquire the necessary education or
the necessary three hundred dollars' worth of property. Another effect
will be decrease of the white farmer's scant supply of negro labour; this
scarcity, in attracting white immigrants, provides antidote for
Africanisation of the South.
As to whether negro ownership of lands improves country or not, I will
give a Northern view. I met in 1903 at the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, a
wealthy Chicagoan and his wife (originally from Massachusetts), who were
looking for a holiday residence in Tidewater Virginia. They made various
excursions with land agents, and one day reported discovery of their ideal
in all respects but one. "The people around are ruining property by
selling lands to negroes. A gentleman at whose house we stopped, a
Northerner, had just bought, as he told us, at much inconvenience, a
plantation adjoining his own to make sure it would not be cut up and sold
by degrees to negroes." I hear Southern farmers in black belts say: "I had
much rather have a quiet, orderly negro for neighbour than a troublesome
white." But the fact remains that negro ownership of property reduces
value of adjoining lands. Besides the social reason, the average negro
exhausts and does not improve lands.
"Why don't the negroes live up North?" one is asked; "they go up there and
make a little money and come back and buy lands."
"Land is cheap here. It is almost beyond their reach there. The climate
here appeals. Then, this is home." Thus I answered in 1902, in Southside,
Virginia. After further travel, I amend: Negroes do not wish to work for
white land-owners; they wish to remain in the South or to return to the
South, as land-owners. They are acquiring considerable property. But,
generally speaking, they are thinning out. One may journey miles along
Southern railroads and see but few in fields where once were thousands. In
Northern cities and pleasure resorts negroes increase. The race problem is
broadening, changing territory.
The daughter of an Ohioan gave me a glimpse of this changing base.
"Columbus negroes--those born there or who came there long ago, are very
different from Southern negroes. They will have nothing to do with the
negroes coming direct. The Southern negroes have nice, deferential
manners; the Northern negroes hate them for it. Columbus negroes--why,
they will push white ladies off the streets!" In a New York store in 1904,
I observed two negresses in a crowd near a window where articles of
baggage were on check. They pushed their way to the front and demanded
belongings without the courteous "please" which any Southerner, or which
Northern gentlefolks, would have used; the young white girl in charge--it
was a hot day and she looked faint--was doing her cheerful best to meet
the noon rush, but was not quick enough for the coloured persons; they
hurried and reproved her; as she turned about within, confused by their
descriptions and commands, they exclaimed: "That's it! Right befo' you!
Don't you see that case right there? What a fool!" She never thought of
resenting; came up humbly, loaded with their property, glad to have found
it. Their manners would have scandalised a black aristocrat of the Old
South.
We cannot afford to wrong this race as we wronged the Indian. We must aid
the negro's advancement in the right direction. But we should not
discriminate against the white race. Educational doors are open to the
negro throughout the land; the South is rich in noble institutions of
learning for him; in black belts Southerners are paying more to educate
black children than white. In black belts, in white belts, in the
mountains, white children are put into fields and factories when they
ought to be going to school. Educational odds are against the white
children. In regard to schools of manual training, to limit the negro to
these and these to the negro is to put a stigma on manual labor in the
eyes of white youth and to continue the negro's monopoly of a field which
he does not appreciate. We should do more educationally for the white
child and not less for the negro. The negro pays small percentage of the
Southern educational tax and enjoys full benefits. The negro needs to
realize that if the white man owes him a debt, he owes the white man one;
and that he cannot safely despise the school of service in house and field
which white people from Europe and yellow people from the Orient are eager
to enter.
I would close no door of opportunity to the negro. But I must say my
affection is for the negro of the old order. I owe reverence to the memory
of a black mammy and a debt to negroes generally for much kindness. The
real negro I like, the poet of the veldt and jungle, the singer in field
and forest, the tiller of the soil, the shepherd of the flocks, the
herdsman of the cattle, the happy, soft-voiced, light-footed servitor. The
negro who is a half-cut white man is not a negro, and it can be no offense
to the race to say that he is unattractive when compared with the dear old
darkey of Dixie who was worth a million of him! At Fort Mill, S. C., hard
by a monument to a forgotten people, the Catawba Indians, stands a
monument to the "Faithful Slaves of the Confederacy," type of a memorial
many hearts yet hold. The new negro, in reaching out for higher and
better things than the old attained, will be wise not to sacrifice those
qualities which told in his ancestor in spite of all shortcomings.
The one true plane of equalisation is that of mutual service, each race
doing for the other all it can. The old negro and the white man stood more
surely on this plane than do their descendants, yet not more surely than
all must wish their descendants to stand. My regard for the negro, my
pride in what he has really accomplished under the hammering of
civilisation, call, in his behalf, for a race pride and reserve in him
which shall match the Anglo-Saxon's. There are negroes who have it and who
deplore efforts placing them in the position of postulants for a social
intermingling which they do not consider essential to their dignity or
happiness.[30] Between blacks and whites South we constantly see race
pride maintained on one side as on the other while humanities are observed
in manifold exchanges of kindness and courtesy that make a bond of
brotherhood.[30] Whatever position the white Southerner takes
theoretically on manufactured race issues, he will usually fight rather
than see his inoffensive black neighbour or employe maltreated; his black
neighbour or employe will often do as much for him. This attitude is
sometimes an expression of the clan habit surviving the destruction of
clan-life (old plantation-life in which the white man was Chief and his
negroes his clansmen); also, it exists in the recognition of a common bond
of humanity more than skin deep. Upon this rock the future may be
builded.[30] As a useful, industrious, citizen, the negro is his own
argument and advocate.[30]
MEMORIAL DAY
Daughters of all the South! Sons of all the South! We, your own old
soldiers, pause a moment this day in our march and facing to the front,
touching eternity on our right, we stand erect before you as if on dress
parade. We know that the day of our personal presence has passed its noon,
but we would cast no shadow upon the land we leave to you and yours, nor
raise one barrier to your full possession of local and national rights. We
are but the living Color Guard of the great army of your Southern fathers,
and their history and honor are safely in your keeping. The war flag of
precious memory waves peacefully above us, and we ask you for our sakes,
and its own sake, to love it forever. The Star-spangled Banner of our
country waves over all of us and over all our States and people,
commanding the respect of every nation. Let it never be dishonored. With
the feeling of pride that we are Confederate soldiers, we salute you, not
by presenting arms, but with the salutations of our beating hearts. And
now we will march on, march forward in column: and, as we go you will hear
from us the echo of the angels' song--Peace on earth, good will to
men.--_From an address by General Clement A. Evans, Commander of the
Georgia Division, U. C. V., Memorial Day, 1905, Atlanta, Ga._
CHAPTER XXXIII
MEMORIAL DAY AND DECORATION DAY. CONFEDERATE SOCIETIES
Peculiar interest attaches to the inauguration of Memorial Day in
Richmond, in 1866, when Northerners, watching Southerners cover the graves
of their dead with flowers, went afterwards and did likewise, thus
borrowing of us their "Decoration Day" and with it a custom we gladly
share with them.[31] In Hollywood and Oakwood slept some 36,000 Southern
soldiers, representing every Confederate State. On April 19, Oakwood
Memorial Association "was founded by a little band in the old Third
Presbyterian Church, after prayer by Rev. Dr. Proctor." The morning of May
10 a crowd gathered in St. John's Church,[32] and after simple exercises
led by Dr. Price and Dr. Norwood, "the procession, numbering five hundred
people, walking two and two, their arms loaded with spring's sweetest
flowers, walked out to Oakwood" and strewed with these the Confederate
graves. May 3, the Hollywood Memorial Association was formed, and May 31
was its first Memorial Day. The day before, an extraordinary procession
wended its way to the cemetery.
The young men of Richmond, the flower of the city, marched to Hollywood,
armed with picks and spades, and numbering in their long line, moving with
the swing of regulars, remnants of famous companies, whose gallantry had
made them shining marks on many a desperate battlefield. "It was a
striking scene," wrote a witness, "as the long line filed by, not as in
days of yore when attired in gray and bearing the glittering muskets, they
were wont to step to the strains of martial music while the Stars and Bars
of the young Republic floated above them; but in citizens' garbs, bearing
the peaceful implements of agriculture, performing a pilgrimage to the
shrine of departed valour." It was symbolic. The South sought to honour
her past in peaceful ways, and to repair by patient industry the ravages
of war, wielding cheerfully weapons of progress to which her hands were as
yet unaccustomed. As the soldier-citizens marched along, people old and
young, by ones and twos and threes, or in organised bodies, fell into the
ever-lengthening line. At the cemetery, the pick-and-spade bearers were
divided into squads and companies, and under the direction of commanders,
worked all day, raking off rubbish, rounding up graves, planting
head-boards and otherwise bringing about order. Old men and little boys
helped. Negroes faithful to the memory of dead friends and owners were
there, busy as the whites in love's labour. Several men in Federal uniform
lent brotherly hands. When the sun went down the place was transformed.
That first fair Memorial Day looked as though it were both Sabbath and
Saints' Day. Over or on doors of business houses was the legend, garlanded
with flowers or framed in mourning drapery: "Closed in Honour of the
Confederate Dead." Federal soldiers walking the quiet streets would pause
and study these symbols of grief and reverence. Carloads of flowers
poured into the city. Every part of the South in touch with Richmond by
rail or wagon sent contribution. Grace Church was a floral depot; maids,
matrons and children met there early to weave blossoms and greenery into
stars, crosses, crowns and flags--their beloved Southern cross. Vehicles
lent by express and hotel companies formed floral caravanseries moving
towards the cemetery.
[Illustration: MRS. REBECCA CALHOUN PICKENS BACON
Daughter of Francis W. Pickens, the "Secession Governor" of South
Carolina: organizer of the D. A. R. in her state.]
Then, another procession wound its way to Hollywood, the military
companies and the populace, flower-laden, and a long, long line of
children, many orphans. There were few or no carriages. The people had
none. Old and young walked. The soldiers' section was soon like one great
garden of roses white and red; of gleaming lilies and magnolias; of all
things sweet-scented, gay and beautiful. Scattered here and there like
forget-me-nots over many a gallant sleeper was the blue badge in ribbon or
blossom of the Richmond Blues. Thousands visited the green hillside where
General Jeb Stuart lay, a simple wooden board marking the spot; his grave
was a mound of flowers. From an improvised niche of evergreens,
Valentine's life-like bust of the gay chevalier smiled upon old friends.
No hero, great or lowly, was forgotten. What a tale of broken hearts and
desolate homes far away the many graves told! Here had the Texas Ranger
ended his march; here had brave lads from the Land of Flowers and all the
States intervening bivouacked for a long, long night, from whose slumbers
no bugle might wake them. What women and children standing in lonely
doorways, hands shading their eyes, watched for the coming of these marked
"Unknown"!
Little Joe Davis' lonely grave was a shrine on which children heaped
offerings as they marched past in procession, each dropping a flower,
until one must thrust flowers aside to read the inscriptions that make of
that tiny tomb a mile-stone in American history--"Joseph, Son of our
Beloved President, Jefferson Davis," "Erected by the little boys and girls
of the Southern Capital." As blossoms fell, the hearts of the
flower-strewers beat tenderly for little Joe's father, then the Prisoner
of Fortress Monroe, and for his troubled mother and her living children.
In freedom to honour the Confederate dead by public parade, Virginia was
more fortunate than North Carolina. In Raleigh, the people were not
allowed to march in procession to the cemetery for five long years. Yet,
even so, the old North State faithfully observed the custom of decorating
her graves at fixed seasons, the people going out to the cemetery by twos
and threes. Indeed, the claim has been made that Dixie's first Memorial
Day was observed in Raleigh rather than in Richmond, and the story of it
is too sad for telling. March 12, 1866, Mrs. Mary Williams wrote the
"Columbus Times," of Georgia, a letter, from which I quote: "The ladies
are engaged in ornamenting and improving that portion of the city cemetery
sacred to the memory of our gallant Confederate dead.... We beg the
assistance of the press and the ladies throughout the South to aid us in
the effort to set apart a certain day to be observed, from the Potomac to
the Rio Grande, and to be handed down through time as a religious custom
of the South, in wreathing the graves of our martyred dead with flowers."
All our cities, towns and hamlets shared in the honour of originating
Memorial Day, for, throughout the fair land of Dixie, soon as flowers
began to bloom, her people began to cover graves with them; and the North
did likewise.
In reading the recently published "History of the Confederated Memorial
Associations of the South," I am newly impressed with the devotion of
Southern women, their promptness, energy and resourcefulness in gathering
from hillside and valley their scattered dead and providing marked and
sheltered sepulture and monuments when there was so little money in their
land. I am impressed, too, with the utter lack of sectional bitterness in
this volume, which consists chiefly of unpretentious reports of work done.
Here and there is a word of grateful acknowledgment to former foes for aid
rendered. The simple records throb with a deep human interest to which the
heart of the world might make response.
At a meeting of the Atlanta Memorial Association, May 7, 1897, Mrs.
Clement A. Evans offered a resolution providing for concert of action
among State Associations on questions relating to objects and purposes in
common. Before long, this movement was absorbed in a larger. One of the
latest formed local associations was at Fayetteville, Arkansas, where
war's end found "homes in ashes, farms waste places" and "every foot of
soil, marked by contest, red with blood"; six long years of care and toil
passed before the women found time for organised work. Yet from this body,
not large in numbers nor rich in treasury, sprang the measures--Miss
Garside (afterwards Mrs. Welch) suggesting--which resulted in the
organisation, May 30, 1900, in the Galt House, Louisville, Kentucky, of
the Confederated Southern Memorial Associations with Mrs. W. J. Behan, of
New Orleans, President. In 1903, Mrs. Behan, in the name of the order,
thanked Senator Foraker of Ohio for bringing before Congress a bill for an
appropriation for marking Confederate graves in the North, a bill Congress
passed without delay.
As Ladies' Memorial Associations developed out of the war relief
societies, so the United Daughters of the Confederacy grew out of
Memorial Associations and Ladies' Auxiliaries to the United Confederate
Veterans. Immediate initiative came from "Mother Goodlett," of Nashville,
Tennessee, seconded by Mrs. L. H. Raines, of Savannah, the "Nashville
American" aiding the movement by giving it great publicity; the U. D. C.
was organized at Nashville in the fall of 1894. Of the United Confederate
Veterans, a member of the Association tells me: "The Ku Klux--not the
counterfeit, but the real Ku Klux working under the code of Forrest--was
the Confederate soldier protecting his home and fireside in the only way
possible to him. General Forrest disbanded the order; then, for purely
memorial, historical, benevolent and social purposes, Confederate Veteran
Camps came into existence, springing up here and there without concert of
action; presently they united," the federation being effected in New
Orleans, June 16, 1889, by representatives of about fifty camps, General
John B. Gordon in command. There are now some 1,600 camps with 30,000
members. Of about 300,000 Confederates at the end of the war, this 30,000
is left--"the thin, gray line."
When our veterans have gone North a-visiting, the North has been unsparing
in honour and hospitality. Our old gray-jackets give some illustrations
like this. Two, walking into a Boston fruit store, handed the dealer a
five-dollar bill to be changed in payment of purchases, and received it
back with the words: "It cannot pass here." A veteran laid down silver.
"That is no good." Concerned lest all his money be counterfeit, the
gray-jacket said to his comrade: "May be you have some good money." The
comrade's wealth was refused; but in opening his purse, he revealed a
Confederate note. "Now," said the smiling storekeeper, "if I could only
change that into the same kind of money, it would pass. That's the only
good money in Boston today."
The object and influence of these Confederate orders are primarily
"memorial and historical"; they occasionally transcend these--as when, for
instance, a few years ago, U. C. V. camps passed resolutions condemning
lynching. Their tendency is the reverse of keeping bitter sectional
feeling alive. It is their duty and office to see to it that new
generations shall not look upon Southern forefathers as "traitors," but as
good men and true who fought valiantly for conscience's sake, even as did
the good men and true of the North. While the Daughters of the American
Revolution, a larger and richer body, are worthily engaged in rescuing
Revolutionary history from oblivion, it is the no less patriotic care of
the Confederate orders, whose members are active in Revolutionary work
also, to preserve to the future landmarks and truths about the War of
Secession. Upon Memorial Hall, New Orleans, the Confederate relic rooms at
Columbia and Charleston; the "White House," Montgomery; the Mortuary
Chapel, "Old Blandford," Petersburg; the Confederate Museum, Richmond;
other relic rooms; and monuments and tablets scattered throughout the
South; the work of the Confederate Memorial Literary Society; the Battle
Abbey to be erected in Richmond for reception of historic treasures;--upon
these must American historians rely for records of facts and for object
lessons in relics that would have been lost but for the patient and
faithful endeavours of these orders.
Mrs. Joseph Thompson, in welcoming the Daughters of the American
Revolution to Atlanta during the Exposition of 1895, commended in the name
of the South, the "broadening and nationalising influence" of the order.
To no other one agency harmonising the sections does our country owe more
than to patriotic societies. In 1866, Northern and Southern women found
their first bond of reunion in the Mount Vernon Association, which began
in 1853, as a Southern movement, when the home and tomb of Washington were
for sale and Ann Pamela Cunningham, of South Carolina, called upon
America's women to save Mount Vernon, won Edward Everett to lecture for
the cause, coaxed legislators, congressmen and John Washington to terms,
and rested not until Mount Vernon belonged to the Nation; during the war
it was the one spot where men of both armies met as brothers, stacking
arms without the gates; Miss Cunningham held her regency, and Mrs. Eve, of
Georgia, Mme. Le Vert and the other Southern Vice Regents continued on the
Board with women of the North. In 1889, when the tomb of Washington's
mother was advertised for sale, Margaret Hetzel, of Virginia, appealed
successfully through the "Washington Post" to her countrywomen to save it
to the Nation. The founders, in 1890, of the Daughters of the American
Revolution were Eugenia Washington of Virginia, Mary Desha of Kentucky,
Ellen Hardin Walworth of Virginia and Kentucky ancestry; a most active
officer was Mary Virginia Ellett Cabell, of Virginia. The First Regent of
the New York City Chapter was a Virginian, Mrs. Roger A. Pryor. Flora
Adams Darling, widow of a Confederate officer, had a large hand in
originating the order and founded that of the Daughters of the Revolution
and the Daughters of the United States, 1812. The daughter of the
Secession Governor of South Carolina, Mrs. Rebecca Calhoun Pickens Bacon,
started the D. A. R. in her State, delivering seven flourishing chapters
to the National society. The daughter of General Cook, C. S. A., Mrs.
Lawson Peel, of Atlanta, is a power in D. A. R. work. The present
National Regent, Mrs. Donald McLean, is a Marylander and, therefore, a
Southerner, as Mrs. Adlai E. Stevenson, one of her predecessors, avowed
herself to be in part if her Kentucky and Virginia ancestry counted. In no
movement of patriotism, in no measures promoting good feeling, has the
South been unrepresented.
[Illustration: MRS. ROGER A PRYOR]
"Mary, when I die, bury me in my Confederate uniform. I want to rise a
Confederate." So said to his wife Dr. Hunter Maguire, the great
Stonewall's Surgeon-in-Chief, a short time before his death. He was no
less true to the living Union because he was faithful to the dead
Confederacy. Visitors used to love to see General Lee at the Finals of
Washington College in his full suit of Confederate gray; it became him to
wear it in the midst of the draped flags and stacked arms, for while he
was teaching our young men to love our united country and to reverence the
Stars and Stripes, he did not want them to fail in reverence to the past.
None can want us so to fail. Mrs. Lizzie George Henderson, President of
the U. D. C., says in the "Confederate Veteran": "Wherever there is a
chapter North or West, our Northern friends are so kind and help so much
that it brings us closer together as one people."
The thought of her who was "Daughter of the Confederacy" is inseparable
from my text. One afternoon Matoaca and I called on Miss Mason at her
quaint old house in Georgetown, D. C., a place of pilgrimage for patriotic
Southerners. We sat on the little back porch which is on a level with Miss
Emily's flower-garden, and she gave us tea in little old-fashioned cups,
pouring it out of a little old-fashioned silver tea-pot that sat on a
little old-fashioned table. She and Matoaca fell to talking about Mr.
Davis.
"I shall never forget him as I saw him first," said Miss Emily, "a young
lieutenant in the United States Army, straight as an arrow, handsome and
elegant. It was at the Governor's Mansion in Detroit; my young brother was
Governor of Michigan, the State's first Executive; Lieutenant Davis was
our guest; the Black Hawk War, in which he had greatly distinguished
himself, was just ended, and he was bringing Black Hawk through the
country. I was much impressed with the young Lieutenant. I watched his
career with interest. I met him again when he was a member of President
Pierce's Cabinet. He made a very able Secretary of War.
"Strange how events turn, that it should have been Mr. Davis who sent
General McClellan (then Colonel) and General Lee (then Colonel) to the
Crimea to study the art of war as practised by the Russians. General
McClellan's son, now Mayor of New York, has said that his father had ample
opportunity to form unbiassed opinion of the Secretary, as he spent much
time in Washington before and after his mission to Russia and was in close
touch with Mr. Davis. He quoted his father as saying: 'Colonel Davis was a
man of extraordinary ability. As an executive officer, he was remarkable.
He was the best Secretary of War--and I use _best_ in its widest sense--I
ever had anything to do with.'"
"I like 'Little Mac' for saying that and his son for repeating it. 'Little
Mac' fought us like a gentleman. When his son runs for the Presidency
perhaps I shall urge everybody to vote for him," said Matoaca.
"Unless a Southerner runs," I suggested.
"Alas! When will a Southerner be President of the United States? I heard
Mr. Davis make his famous speech bidding farewell to the Senate when
Mississippi seceded. It was the most eloquent thing I ever listened to!
All the women--and even men--were in tears. Senators went up to him and
embraced him. I saw Mr. Davis in Richmond as President of the Confederacy.
I saw him in prison; His Eminence, the Cardinal, secured me permission. He
was very thin and feeble, but he rose in his old graceful manner and
offered me his seat, a little wooden box beside his bed, a small iron one.
The eyes of the guard were on us all the time. General Miles came and
looked in. I asked Mr. Davis if I could do anything for him. He said he
would like some reading matter. I had had some newspapers, but had not
been permitted to bring them in. I was allowed to remain only a few
moments.
"I next saw him in Paris. I am so glad to have that memory of him. So many
Southerners came abroad in those days. During reconstruction the
procession seemed endless! While in Rome I introduced so many Southerners
to Pope Pius IX. that His Holiness used to call me '_L'Ambassadrice du
Sud_.' Mr. Davis was much fêted in France, as he had been in England.
While he was at Mr. Mann's in Chantilly, Judah P. Benjamin came from
London to see him. Mr. Benjamin was delightful company. I was at Mr.
Charles Carroll's when Mr. Davis was entertained there. I recall one
dinner when the Southern colony flocked around him in full force and
played a game on him. You know of his wonderful memory and wide reading.
We laid our heads together before he came in and studied up puzzling
quotations to trip him. But the instant one of us would spring couplet,
quatrain or epigram on him, he would answer with the author. He perceived
our friendly conspiracy and entered merrily into the spirit of it. I alone
tripped him--with something I had read in early childhood. I am glad to
have this happy memory of Mr. Davis. Otherwise I should always be seeing
him as he looked in prison."
Mr. and Mrs. Davis came to Paris for their young daughter, Winnie, who was
under Miss Emily's care. They had left her some years before at school in
Carlsruhe. Knowing in the early part of 1881 that Miss Mason was
travelling in Germany, they wrote her to bring Winnie to Paris, where the
girl was to abide until their arrival, studying music and acquiring
Parisian graces. When Miss Mason called at Carlsruhe, Winnie rushed into
her arms joyously: "I am so glad," she cried, "to see someone from home!"
She had many questions to ask; no sooner were they alone in their railway
compartment than Winnie turned to Miss Mason: "At last I see a Southern
woman! Now I can learn all that happened to my parents just after the war,
when I was a baby. Miss Em, what did Papa do just after the war--just
after Richmond fell? What happened to my papa then?" Miss Emily caught her
breath! "Winnie, what your papa did not think best you should know, I must
decline to tell you. You will soon see him in France." Winnie took small
interest in acquiring Parisian graces. "Miss Em, what are papa's favourite
songs?" Miss Mason sought faithfully to turn her attention to _chansons_
of the day and to operatic airs in vogue. "But I am only going to sing to
papa. I am going to the plantation--to Beauvoir. How shall I need to sing
opera airs there? Tell me, dear Miss Em, the songs my father loves!"
"When I met her father," Miss Mason says, "I ventured to question him
concerning Winnie's ignorance of his prison life, expressing surprise that
he had not claimed the sympathy of his child. 'I was unwilling to
prejudice her,' he said, 'against the country to which she is now
returning and which must be hers. I thought that but justice to the child.
I want her to love her country.'"
[Illustration: THE DAUGHTER OF THE CONFEDERACY
Winnie (Varina Anne), youngest child of Jefferson Davis; born in Richmond,
Va., June 27, 1864, and died at Narragansett Pier, R. I., September 18,
1895. General John B. Gordon gave her the above title by which she was
known.]
Years later, in Georgia, Veterans gathered to hear her father speak,
greeted Winnie's appearance with ringing cheers. General John B. Gordon,
placing his hands on her shoulders as he drew her forward, said:
"Comrades! here is our daughter, the Daughter of the Confederacy!" She
lived much in the North and died there. An escort from the Grand Army of
the Republic bore her remains from the hotel at Narragansett Pier to the
railway station; in New York, a Guard of Honour from the Confederate
Veterans and the Southern Society received her and brought her to
Richmond, and Richmond took her own. North, South, East and West sent
flowers to deck the bier of the Daughter of the Confederacy, and the North
said: "Let us be brothers today in grief as we were only yesterday
brothers-in-arms at Santiago."
Men in blue followed Gordon, Fitzhugh Lee and Joe Wheeler to their graves;
Joe Johnston and Buckner were Grant's pall-bearers. Our dead bind us
together. The voices of Lee, our Beloved, Davis, our Martyr, Stephens, our
Peacemaker, Grady, our Orator, of Hampton, Gordon and all their noble
fellowship, have spoken for true Unionism; blending with theirs is the
voice of Grant, in his last hours at McGregor, the voice of McKinley in
Atlanta, the voice of Abraham Lincoln, as, just before his martyrdom, he
stood pityingly amid the ruins of Richmond.
When President McKinley declared that the Confederate as well as the
Federal dead should be the Nation's care, he said the right word to "fire
the Southern heart," albeit our women were not ready to yield to the
government their holy office. The name of Charles Francis Adams, of
Massachusetts, is a household word in the South because of his tributes to
Lee when Virginia thought to place Lee's statue in Washington. The names
of Col. W. H. Knauss, of Columbus, and W. H. Harrison, of Cincinnati, and
of others of the North should be, for the pious pains they have taken to
honour our dead who rest in Northern soil. In Oakwoods Cemetery, Chicago,
stands the first Confederate Monument erected in the North; the Grand Army
of the Republic, the Illinois National Guards, the City Troop, the Black
Hussars, took part with the Confederate Veterans in its dedication. After
Katie Cabell Currie, of Texas, and her aides had consecrated the historic
battery given by the Government, the Guards paid tribute by musket and
bugle to Americans who died prisoners at Camp Douglas. A sectional bond
exists in the National Park Military Commission, on which Confederate
Veterans serve with Grand Army men; General S. D. Lee, Commander-in-Chief
of the U. C. V., is Chairman of the Vicksburg board of which General Fred
Grant is a member. When Judge Wilson on behalf of Bates' Tennesseeans
presented the Confederate Monument at Shiloh to the Commission, General
Basil Duke accepted it in the name of the Nation.
When President Roosevelt and Congress sent Dixie's captured battle-flags
home, the Southern heart was fired anew. In all our history no more
impressive reception was given to a President than when on his recent
visit to Richmond, Mr. Roosevelt was conducted by a guard of Confederate
Veterans in gray uniforms to our historic Capitol Square. In other
Southern cities he found similar escort. Earlier, when he visited
Louisville, a Confederate guard attended him, General Basil W. Duke, who
followed Mr. Davis's fortunes so faithfully, being on conspicuous duty.
True to her past, the South is not living in it. A wonderful future is
before her. She is richer than was the whole United States at the
beginning of the War of Secession; in a quarter of a century her cotton
production has doubled, her manufactures quadrupled. In one decade, her
farm property increased in value twenty-six per cent, her manufacturing
output forty-seven; her farm products nearly one hundred. Her railroad and
banking interests give as strong indications of her vigorous new life.
Immigrants from East and West and North and over seas are seeking homes
within her borders. The South is no decadent land, but a land where "the
trees are hung with gold," a land of new orchards and vineyards and
market-gardens; of luscious berries and melons; of wheat and corn and
tobacco and much cattle and poultry; of tea-gardens; and rice and sugar
plantations and of fields white with cotton for the clothing of the
nations. She is the land of balm and bloom, of bird-songs, of the warm
hand and the open door.
I prefaced this book with words uttered by Jefferson Davis; I close with
words uttered by Theodore Roosevelt, in Richmond, which read like their
fulfilment:
"Great though the meed of praise which is due the South for the soldierly
valor her sons displayed during the four years of war, I think that even
greater praise is due for what her people have accomplished in the forty
years of peace which have followed.... For forty years the South has made
not merely a courageous but at times a desperate struggle. Now, the
teeming riches of mines and fields and factory attest the prosperity of
those who are all the stronger because of the trials and struggles through
which this prosperity has come. You stand loyally to your traditions and
memories; you stand also loyally for our great common country of today and
for our common flag."
THE END.
INDEX
INDEX.
Abbeville, S. C., 56, 58, 61, 84.
Abbott, Ernest H., 396.
Abrahams, Captain, 61.
Adam's Run, 346.
Adams, Charles Francis, 417.
Adams, Lucy, 306.
Adams, Rev. Mr., 362.
Adger, Mr. Robert, 201.
Africa, 197, 311, 394, 395.
African Church, Old, Richmond, 202, 232, 241.
Agricultural College of Florida, 308.
Agricultural College, South Carolina, 180.
Agricultural Land Scrip, 307-308.
Aiken, ex-Governor William, 85.
Alabama, 62, 63, 180, 301, 333, 387.
Alabama Room, Confederate Museum, 220.
Albany, N. Y., 101.
"Albany Evening Journal," 160.
Alcorn, Gov. James Lusk, 317.
Alexandria, Va., 34.
Allen, Gov. Henry Watkins, of La., 260.
Ames, Senator Adelbert, 244.
Anderson, S. C., 365, 377.
Anderson, General Joseph, 32.
Anderson, Mary (Mrs. Navarro), 111.
Anderson, General Robert, 79.
Andrews, E. B., 250.
Appleton, Maj. William, 85.
Appleton, William H., 304.
Appomattox, 113.
Arkansas, 276, 372, 409.
"Armies of the Potomac and the Cumberland," 115.
Armistead Burt House, Abbeville, S. C., 56, 84.
Arthur, Prince, 111, 244.
Astor House, 135.
Athens (Ga.), "Maid of," 109.
Atlanta, Ga., 3, 12, 93, 96, 190, 192, 411, 417.
"Atlanta Constitution," The, 387.
"Atlanta Journal," The, 387.
Atlanta Memorial Association, 409.
Atlantic Monthly, 250, 278.
Augusta, Ga., 58, 60, 85, 114, 219.
Aycock, Governor Charles B., N. C., 387.
Bacon, Mrs. Rebecca Calhoun Pickens, 412.
Ball, Washington, 170.
Baltimore, Md., 101.
Baltimore Soc. for Liberal Education, etc., 303.
Bankrupt Law, 174-5.
Bannister, Anne, 109.
Bannister, Molly, 109.
Bartlett, General William Francis, 112.
Bates' Tennesseeans, 418.
Battle Abbey, The, 411.
Battle for State-House, 353.
Bayard, Captain, 139-140, 144.
Bayne, Dr., of Norfolk, 255, 258.
"Bayonet House," The, 370.
Bayou la Fourche, 179.
Beauregarde, General Pierre G. T., 160.
Beckwith, Bishop John Watrus, Ga., 304.
Beecher, Henry Ward, 79, 89.
Behan, Mrs. W. J., 409.
Bellows, Henry W., 89.
Benevolent Land Commission, 354.
Benjamin, Judah P., 60, 415.
Bernard, Meade, 327.
Betts, Mrs., of Halifax, 192.
Black, Colonel, 370.
Black Hawk, 414.
Black and Tan Assemblies, 249, 253, 320, 335, 360, 387, 398.
Black's and White's (Blackstone), 191.
Blaine, Jas. G., 210.
Blair, General Francis P., 127, 128.
Bland, Aunt Sally, 327.
Bolling, Tabb, 109.
Bomford, Colonel, 370.
Booth, J. Wilkes, 82, 89, 104.
Boston, 22, 313, 314, 320, 359, 360, 384, 410.
Boston Light Infantry, 359.
Boswell, Thomas W., 226.
Botts, John Minor, 226.
Bowery, The, 312.
Brazil, 157;
Emperor of, 158.
Breckinridge, General John Cabell, 60, 83.
Brown, General Orlando, 232.
Brown, John, R. I., 197.
Brown, Julius, 58.
Brown, W. E., 307.
Brown, William Garrott, 250.
Brownlow's Machine, Tennessee Legislature, 124, 128.
Brunswick, Va., 326, 331.
Bryan, Mary E., 110.
Buckner, Milton, 362.
Buena Vista, 49.
Bullock, Gov. Rufus B., Ga., 293.
Bunker Hill Centennial, 359, 360.
Burgess, J. W., 250.
Burns, W. A., Dallas, Sarah, 142.
Burton, General, 237, 239.
Butler, General B. F., 110, 134, 377.
Butler, General M. C., 161, 360, 369.
Butts and tissue ballots, 289, 290.
Cabaniss, Betty, 109.
Cabaniss, Henry, 58.
Cabell, Mary Virginia Ellett, 412.
Calhoun, Andrew P., 180.
Calhoun, Mrs. Andrew P., 180.
Calhoun, John C., 49, 180.
Calhoun, Patrick, 180.
Calhoun, Mayor, of Atlanta, 3, 96.
Campbell, Captain Given, 60.
Campbell, Col. John Allen, 259.
Campbell, Judge John A., 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 40, 41, 63, 78, 91, 92,
132.
Campbell, Sir George, 170.
Camp Douglas, Chicago, 418.
Camp Grant, 123, 155.
Canada, 39, 135, 219, 253.
Canby, General Edward R., 63;
and Mrs. Canby, 108.
Candler, Gov. Allen D., Ga., 387.
Capers, Bishop William, 201.
Capital, Last of Confederacy, 47.
Cardoza, F. L., 360.
Carolina Hall, 365, 369, 370.
Carolinas, The, 214.
Carrington, Mr., 125.
Carroll, Mr. Charles, 415.
Carroll, Mr., 329, 330.
Cary, Colonel, 155.
Casserly, Senator Eugene, 243, 244.
Castle Thunder, 29.
Catawba Indians, 401.
Centennial, The, Philadelphia, 359.
Chamberlain, Daniel H., 358, 360, 364, 365, 368, 370, 371.
Chamberlain, Mrs. Daniel H., 357.
Chamblee, Canada, 135.
Charleston, S. C., 78, 85, 155, 182, 241, 330, 341, 344, 359, 361, 368.
Charleston "News-Courier," 387.
Charlotte, N. C., 56, 57, 83, 84.
Charlotte "Observer," 387.
Chase, C. T., 308.
Chase, Salmon P., and his daughter, Kate, 108.
Chattanooga, Tenn., 58.
Chesnut, Mrs. James, 110.
Chew, Miss, 303.
Chicago, Ills., 22, 101, 313, 399;
Dedication Confederate Monument, 418;
Black Hussars, City Troop, Confederate Veterans, Illinois National
Guards, Grand Army of the Republic, 418.
"Chicago Times," 211.
Chilton, General, 20.
Chimborazo Hospital, 16, 17, 229.
Chittenden, Mr. L. E., 89.
Christian Commission, The, 78.
Christmas, Washington, 33.
Chubbuck, Rev. F. E., 135.
Churches:
in _Alabama_, 133-135;
_Canada_, Chamblee, 135;
Niagara, St. Mark's, 135;
_Louisiana_, New Orleans, Christ Church and other churches, 134-135;
_Mississippi_, Vicksburg, 134;
_Missouri_, Lexington, 135;
_S. Carolina_, Charleston, St. Michael's, 363;
Zion Presbyterian, 201;
Columbia Trinity, 202;
Washington St. M. E., 4, 201;
Hampton plantation Chapel, 202;
Plowden Weston Chapel, 202;
_Virginia_, Richmond, Churches of, 9, 132;
Grace, 407;
Dr. Hoge's, 9;
Northern Methodist Society, 108;
Old African Church, 202;
St. John's, 405;
St. Paul's, 9, 130, 222.
Cincinnati, 306, 418.
"Cincinnati Commercial," The, 357.
Citadel Cadets, Charleston, 58.
City Point, Va., 32, 41.
Clarke, Gov. Charles, of Mississippi, 92, 93.
Clarke, Ellen Meade, 120.
Clarke, Captain H. M., 61, 62.
Clay, Clement C., 84, 85.
Clay, Mrs. Clement C., 85, 94, 110.
Clay, Henry, 49.
Clayton sisters, the, 110.
Cleaves, R. H., 360.
Clemson College, 181, 366.
Cleveland's inauguration, President, 286.
Cleveland, O., 101.
"Clyde," The, 102.
Cobb, Howell, 129.
Cocke, Nannie, 109.
Colfax (Schuyler), Vice-President, 244.
Colfax Riot, La., 333.
Colquhoun, A. R., 395.
Columbia, "The State," 387.
Columbia, S. C., 3-6, 12, 16, 19, 84, 141, 155, 160, 201, 266, 273, 278,
354, 365, 369, 396, 411.
Columbia University (N. Y.) Studies, 250.
Columbus, Ohio, 101, 400, 418.
"Columbus Times," Ga., 408.
Confederacy, United Daughters of the, 409-410.
Confederate Army, 1.
Confederate Memorial Literary Society, 411.
Confederate Museum, Richmond, Va., 60, 126, 225, 411.
Confederate relic rooms, 411.
Confederate Scrap-book, Mrs. Lizzie Cary Daniel's, 126.
"Confederate Veteran," The, 413.
Confederate Veterans, The United, 410, 418.
Confederated Memorial Associations of the South, 409.
Cooper, Dr. George E., 237.
Council, W. H., 402.
Courtney, Major John, 83.
Cowardin, of "The Dispatch," 234.
Cowles, Patty, 109.
Craven, Dr. John J., 221, 224.
Crittendon, Mrs., 182.
Crockett, Carpet-Bagger, 316.
Crozier, Calvin S., 140-141, 377, 378.
Crump, W., 226.
Cuba, 20.
Culpeper, Va., 186.
Cummings, Father John A., 128.
Cunningham, Ann Pamela, 412.
Currie, Katie Cabell, 418.
Curry, Dr. J. L. M., 286.
"Daddy Cain," 362.
Dahlgren's fleet, 78, 79.
Dana, Charles A., 41, 103, 131.
Daniel's Confederate Scrap-Book, Miss Lizzie Cary, 126.
Danville, Va., 47, 50, 52, 54, 55, 150, 378.
Darling, Flora Adams, 412.
Daughters of the American Revolution, 411, 412.
Daughters of the Confederacy, 411.
Daughters of the Revolution, 412.
"Daughter of the Confederacy, The," Winnie Davis, 413, 416-417.
Daughters of the United States, 1812, 412.
Davenport, Isaac, 226.
Davis, Maj. B. K., 135.
Davis, Jefferson, 9, 32-34, 38, 47-57, 59-63, 72, 83-85, 90-91, 94-95,
101-104, 130, 132, 202, 219, 223-225, 233, 237, 239, 240, 241,
243, 413-418, 419.
Davis, Mrs. Jefferson, 57, 84, 102, 148, 159, 219, 220-222, 224-225,
229, 237, 408.
Davis, little Joe, 220, 407-8.
Davis, Winnie, 57, 95.
Davis, Williams T., 378.
Dawson, Judge M. L., 383.
Deaf and Dumb Asylum, S. C., 355.
Decoration Day, 405.
Delaware Firemen, 231.
Dennis, General, 366, 369.
Dents, The, 113, 282.
Derwent, Va., 159, 219.
Desha, Mary, 412.
Devens, General Charles, 344.
Devens' Division, First Brigade, 24, 25.
Devereaux, 111.
De Witt, Surgeon, 363.
Dismal Swamp, 330.
"Dixie" (the song), 43, 63.
Dodge, Maj.-Gen., 135.
Douglas, Frederick, 396.
Drane, Mrs., 169, 170.
Drummond, John, 326, 330.
Du Bose, Dudley, 275.
Du Bose, Mrs., 94.
Duke, General Basil W., 418.
Duke's Camp, General Basil, 61.
Dunning, W. A., 250.
Educational Fund, N. C., 307.
Education, Mississippi's Department of, 308.
Egypt, 157.
Elder, W. H., Bishop, of Natchez, Miss., 134.
El Dorado, S. C., 341, 346.
Eliot, Professor C. W., of Harvard, 396.
Elliott, Speaker, 357, 358, 360.
Elliott, General Stephen, 156.
Ellis, Rev. Rufus, 89.
Ellyson, ex-Mayor J. Taylor, 205, 286.
Elzey, General, 57, 58.
Emory and Wesleyan Colleges, Ga., 304.
Ensor, Dr. J. F., 355.
Europe, 157.
Evans, Mrs. Clement A., 409.
Evans Wilson, Augusta, 110.
Evaugh, Mr., 361.
Eve, Mrs. Philoclea, 412.
Everett, Edward, 412.
Ewell, General, 85.
Expatriation, 157, 159.
Ezzard, Ella, 110.
Farmville, Va., 205.
Fauquier, Va., 212.
Faver, David, 57, 58.
Fayetteville, Ark., 409.
Federal Prisons, Confederates released from, 140.
Fifteenth Amendment, Grant signing, 282.
Fitz, Rev. Mr., 214.
Fleming, Walter A., 135, 250, 278.
Florida, Agricultural Land Scrip, 307-308.
Florida, 214, 301, 307, 391.
Florida, State House of, 316.
Florida, "Times-Union," Jacksonville, 387.
Foraker, Senator, 409.
Ford's Theatre, 82.
"Forefathers' Day," 359.
Forrest, Nathan Bedford, 62, 275, 410.
Fort Lafayette, 134.
Fort Pulaski, 92.
Fortress Monroe, 92, 102, 103, 219, 222.
Fort Warren, 85.
Foss, Rev. A., 135.
Freedmen's Bureau, 143, 211, 353.
Freedmen's Saving Bank, 216.
Fullerton, General J. S., 213, 214, 215.
Fulton, Rev. Mr., 134.
Galt House, Louisville, Ky., 409.
Gamble's Hill, Richmond, 149.
Gambling parlours, 372.
Garner, James Wilford, 317.
Garrison, William Lloyd, 79, 304.
Garside, Miss (Mrs. Welch), 409.
Gary, General, 360.
Geddings, Dr., 182.
Geddings, Mrs. Postell, 182.
Georgia, 109, 120, 206, 269, 275, 292, 301, 307, 408, 412.
Georgia Military Institute Battalion, 58.
Georgetown, D. C., 413.
Gettysburg, 38.
Gibson, Eustace, 257, 258-9.
Gildersleeve, Dr. J. R., 16.
Gillem, General Alvan Cullem, 249, 260.
Gilmer, General Jerry (Jeremy Francis), 125.
Gillmore, General Quincy Adams, 79, 85, 378.
Girardeau, Rev. Dr., 201.
Glenrie, Rev. Mr., 202.
Godfrey, Rev. Dr., 336.
Goode, E. C., 387.
Goode, Eugenia, 110.
"Goodlett, Mother" (Mrs. M. C.), 410.
Goodrich, Rev. Dr., 134.
Goodwin, Mayor of Columbia, S. C., 4.
Gordon, General John B., 410, 417.
Grace Church, Richmond, 407.
Gracebridge, Mrs., 151.
Grady, Henry Woodfin, 417.
Graham, John M., 85.
Grand Army of the Republic, 405, 417, 418.
Grant, General Frederick Dent, 418.
Grant, General Ulysses S., 23, 40, 41, 50, 79-80, 82, 85, 90-92, 97,
113-114, 132, 160, 213, 215, 224, 260, 274, 282, 301, 308,
357-358, 365, 368, 371, 377, 417.
Grant, Mrs. Ulysses S., 82, 107, 113, 114, 357.
Gray, Helen, 134.
Greeley, Horace, 36, 225, 226, 240, 241, 242.
Greenbrier White Sulphur (Springs), The, 149, 174.
Greenleaf, Mrs., 135.
Greensboro, N. C., 55, 56, 61, 83.
Greenville, S. C., 378.
Gregory, Alice, 109.
Hahn, Governor Michael, 34.
Hale, Edward Everett, 89.
Hall, Rev. Dr. Charles H., 222-223.
Halleck, General Henry W., 91, 92, 114, 125, 127, 377.
Hamilton, Gov. A. J., Texas, 247.
Hamilton, "Handsome Tom," 58.
"Hampton Day," 360.
Hampton family freeing slaves, 182.
Hampton, Wade, 6, 129, 160-161, 346, 359, 360-361, 364-365, 368-369,
370-371, 417.
Hampton, Mrs. Wade, 160-161.
Hampton, Va., 181.
Hampton Roads Peace Commission, 33.
Hancock, General Winfield Scott, 260.
Harby, Mrs. Lee, 182.
Hardy, Sally, 109.
"Harper's Weekly," 12, 49.
Harrison, Burton, 57, 237.
Harrison, W. H., 418.
Haskell, Col. Alex. C., 366.
Haxall house, 112.
Haxall, Richard Barton, 226.
Hayes, President Rutherford B., 371.
Hayward, 232, 234.
"Hell Hole Swamp," 354.
Henderson, Mrs. Lizzie George, 413.
Henry, Patrick, 405.
Herbert, Hilary, 127, 142.
Hetzel, Margaret, 412.
Heyward, Gov. Duncan C., of S. C., 387.
Hill, Augusta, 110.
Hill, Mr., 185-187.
Hodges, of Princess Anne, 216, 257.
Hoge, Rev. Dr. Moses D., 9.
Holden, Gov. William Woods, N. C., 275, 307.
Hollywood, Richmond, 405, 406, 407.
Hollywood Memorial Association, 405.
Holmes, Professor, 361.
Honoré, Bertha (Mrs. Potter Palmer), 111.
Hood, General John B., 3, 60, 303.
Howard, General O. O., 216.
Howell, Miss Maggie, 57.
Hughes, Mrs. Sarah, 300.
Hull, Robert W., 93.
Hunkidory Club, The, 368.
Hunt, General, 363, 364.
Hunt, Mrs. Sallie Ward, 111.
Hunter, General, 377.
Hunter, R. M. T., 33, 91, 92.
Huntington, Dr. (Bishop) F. E., 89.
Hunton, General Eppa, 116, 283-284.
Huntsville, Ala., 135.
Illinois, 81, 393.
Illinois National Guards, 418.
Indian, The, 393-4, 400, 401.
Indianapolis, Ind., 101.
Ingalls, Senator John G., 391.
Iowa University Studies, 216.
Irvin, Charles E., 94.
Irwinsville, Ga., 95.
Jackson, D. K., 226.
James River, Va., 341.
Jefferson Hotel, Richmond, 399.
Jelks, Gov. W. D., 387.
Jewett, Mrs., Stony Creek, 183.
"John Sylvester," The, 237.
Johns, Annie E., 18.
Johns Hopkins U. Studies, 250.
Johnson, Andrew, 83, 84-85, 90, 101, 130, 132, 133, 213, 222, 224, 247,
248, 325.
Johnson, Captain, 265, 266.
Johnson, Reverdy, 135.
Johnston, Joseph E., 47, 53, 56, 57, 60-62, 80-81, 84, 96, 417.
Johnston, Mrs. Marmaduke, 169.
Jones, Freeman, 327, 329, 332.
Kaye, Colonel, 37.
Keatley, Colonel J. H., 3.
Keene, Laura, 82.
Keiley, Anthony M., 37.
Kellogg, Gov. W. P., La., 333.
Kentucky, 220, 300, 412.
Kilpatrick's troops, General H. J., 169.
King, Grace, 110.
King, Jule (Mrs. Henry Grady), 109.
King St., Charleston, 361.
Kirke's cut-throats, 275.
Knauss, Colonel W. H., 418.
Knights of the White Camelia, 268.
Knox, Bill, 331.
Kohn, Mr. August, 182.
Kohn, Mrs. August, 182.
Ku Klux, 259, 268, 269-272, 275-278, 318, 360, 379, 410.
La Fourche, 377.
Lancaster, Ohio, 306.
La Têche, 377.
Laurens and Edgefield, 365.
Lea, Captain, 277.
Leacock, Rev. Dr., 134-135.
Leacock sisters, The, 110.
Lee, General Fitzhugh, 171, 417.
Lee's mother (Anna Maria Mason), General Fitzhugh, 20.
Lee, General Robert E., 9, 43, 50, 67-68, 70-72, 89, 90-92, 97, 129,
130, 136, 159, 161, 174, 181, 303, 305, 413-414, 417.
Lee, Mrs. Robert E., 20, 47, 50, 70, 159, 181, 219, 303.
Lee's surrender, 50, 53, 62.
Lee, General Sidney Dill, 418.
Lee, General Rooney (W. H. F.), his sweetheart, 109.
Lee, Susan Pendleton, 197.
Leland, J. P., Mr., 348.
"Leslie's Weekly," 385.
Letcher, Gov. John, 35.
Lett, J. P., William, 326, 329, 331.
Le Vert, Mme. (Octavia Walton), 110, 412.
Lewis, Colonel, 241.
Lewis, Dr., 326, 327, 328, 330, 331.
Lexington, N. C., 169.
Lexington, Va., 159, 162.
Libby Prison, 20, 29, 91, 92.
Liberty Hall, A. H. Stephens' mansion, 93.
Lincoln, Abraham, 23, 29-43, 56, 57, 78, 79-89, 90, 91, 96-97, 101, 130,
132, 133, 247, 264, 282, 305, 377, 417.
Lincoln, Mrs. Abraham, 81, 107.
Lincoln, Robert, 80.
Lincoln, "Tad," 30, 31.
Lindsay, Lewis, 255, 256.
Little Rock, Ark., 372.
Logan, General John A., 405.
London, Bishop of, 134.
Longfellow's sister, Mrs. Greenleaf, 135.
Louisiana, 80, 204, 250, 260, 268, 276, 281, 307, 333, 371, 372.
Louisiana State Lottery, 372.
Louisville "Courier-Journal," 396.
Louisville, Ky., 111, 409, 418.
Lowndes Co., Miss., 318.
Loyal or Union League, 263-265, 273, 277-278, 326, 334.
Ls, The Four, 264.
Lynchburg, Va., 35.
Lyons, James, 226, 237.
Lyons, Judge, 15.
Lyons, W. H., 226.
McCaw, Dr. James B., 16, 17, 67, 113.
McCaw, William, 67-68.
McClellan, General George B., 303, 414.
McClellan, George B., Mayor of New York, 414.
McClellan, Mr., 347.
McClellanville, S. C., 347.
McCulloch, Hugh, 221.
McDonald, Senator Joseph Ewing, 290.
McFarland, W. H., 226.
McGiffen, 326, 327, 330, 331.
McGregor, Vance, 335, 337, 338.
McKinley, President William, 89, 338, 417.
McLaws, General Lafayette, 60.
McLean, Mrs. Donald, 413.
McPherson, General James B., 133, 134.
McVeigh, Dr., 238, 239.
McVeigh vs. Underwood, 238.
Mackey, E. W., Speaker, 365, 367, 368, 370.
Mackey, Rep. candidate, 289.
Mackey House, 366.
Macon, Ga., 85, 304.
Magill, Bishop, 18.
Magruder, General J. B., 62, 155, 160.
Maguire, Dr. Hunter, 113, 114.
Mahone, General William, 288.
Mallory, Colonel, 259.
Mallory, Stephen Russell, Sec. Navy, 60.
Manchester, Va., 30.
Mann's, Mr., in Chantilly, France, 415.
"Marching Through Georgia," 305-307.
"Marriage Order," The, 124-127, 128.
Marston, Mrs. Dr., 135.
Martin, Mr., of Tenn. Leg., 212.
Martin, Mrs. Henry, 361.
Martin, Rev. William, 4, 201, 356.
Martin, Isabella D., 160, 356.
Mason, Miss Emily V., 18, 159, 219, 303, 413-417.
Mason, Gov. Stevens Thomson, of Michigan, 414.
Massachusetts, 48, 150, 232, 233, 243, 244, 395-399, 417.
Matoaca, 11, 21-23, 42, 67-69, 77, 82, 108, 113, 123, 129, 147, 173, 413.
Maury, General Dabney Herndon, 62, 63.
Maury, Mr., 203.
Mayflower, The, 231.
Mayo, Mayor Joseph, 15, 16, 24, 91, 232.
Meade, General George G., 54, 114, 120, 378.
Meade, Julia, Mary and Marion, 109.
Meade, Mary, 111.
Means, Celina E., 274.
Mecklenburg, Va., 387.
Memminger, Mr. and Mrs. Charles G., 51.
"Memorial Associations of the South, History of the Confederated," 408.
Memorial Day, 405.
Memorial Hall, New Orleans, 411.
Meredith, Captain, 191.
Meredith, John A., 226.
Meredith, Judge, 15.
Meredith, Mrs., of Brunswick, 190.
Meridian, Miss., 63.
Mexico, 35, 49, 157, 221, 260.
Michigan, 414.
Miles, General Nelson A., 222, 223, 415.
Milledgeville, Ga., 209.
Minnegerode, Rev. Dr. Charles, 9, 18, 131, 222, 223.
Minor, Judge, 219, 220.
"Missionary Record," The, 362.
Mississippi, 62, 244, 247, 249, 268, 276, 290, 301, 308, 317, 395.
Mississippi, Bishop of, 319.
Mississippi, 134.
Missouri, 135.
Missouri, 127, 128, 135, 285.
Molineux, General Edward Leslie, 61.
Money, facts and incidents about, 51-52, 61-62, 77, 140, 143, 148, 149,
150, 155, 168, 175, 185, 186, 187, 188, 203, 212, 214, 229, 258,
265-266, 291-292, 293, 302, 304, 307, 317, 320, 326, 336-337,
344-345, 353, 355-356, 372, 409, 410, 411, 419.
Monroe Co., Miss., 317.
Montague, Gov. A. J., Va., 387.
Monterey, Mexico, 49.
Montgomery, Ala., The "White House," 411.
Montreal, Canada, 224.
Monumental, The, 108.
Mordecai, 111.
Morgan, John H. (his command), 61.
Morrisey, John, 254.
Morrison, Mrs. Edwin, 111.
Morrison, Prof. W. S., 181.
Morse, Samuel F. B., 135.
Mortimer, Judge, 334, 336.
Moses, Jr., Franklin J., 307, 351, 353, 355, 358.
Moses, Raphael, J., 61.
Mount Vernon, 412.
Mount Vernon Association, 111, 412.
Murray, Dr., 116.
Myers, Gustavus A., 226.
Nash, Beverly, 354, 355, 356.
"Nashville American," The, 410.
Nashville, Tenn., 410.
Nassau Island, 94.
Nathan, Charles, 158.
"Nation," The, 385.
National Park Military Commission, 418.
National Political Aid Society, 229, 233.
Newberry, S. C., 140-1, 377.
New England, 48, 210, 311.
New England Society, 359.
New Grenada, Central America, 37.
New Orleans, 3, 12, 110, 134-135, 158, 241, 268, 366, 369, 372, 377,
409, 410, 411.
Newspapers, 135.
New York, 22, 101, 135, 151, 263, 307, 312, 313, 371, 384, 393, 395.
New York Custom House, 89.
"New York Herald," The, 71, 104, 240, 349.
New York "News," 306.
New York, Old Guard of, 359, 361.
New York "Times," 210.
New York "Tribune," The, 48, 349, 350.
"New York World," The, 240.
Niagara, Canada, 135.
Nichols, Gov. Francis T., La., 371.
North American Review, 377, 385, 395.
North Anna River, 171.
North Carolina, 80, 96, 210, 247, 270, 271, 274, 307, 326, 330, 386, 408.
Norwood, Rev. Dr., 405.
Nunan, Captain, 209.
Oakwood, Richmond, 405.
Oakwood Memorial Association, 405.
Oakwoods, Chicago, 418.
Oath of Allegiance, The, 37-38, 70-71, 91-92, 124-125, 128.
Oath, The Test, 127, 128, 249, 259, 260, 325.
O'Connell, Father, 5.
O'Conor, Charles, New York, 224, 239.
Ohio, 409.
Old Bank, Washington, Ga., 56.
"Old Blanford," Petersburg, Va., 411.
Old Guard, of New York, 359.
Old Sweet Springs, Va., 149.
Orangeburg, S. C., 141.
Ord, General E. O. C., 41, 42, 69, 91, 92;
and Mrs. Ord, 112.
Orphan Asylum, Colored, 354.
Osband, General, 93.
Osborne, Betty and Jeannie, 109.
Ould, Judge, 126, 237, 239.
Ould, Mattie, 109.
"Outlook," The, 396, 398.
Page, Betty and Lucy, 109.
Page, Mrs., 169.
Pale Faces, 268.
Palmore's, Va., 159.
Paris, France, 415.
Parker, W. T., 377.
Parks, H. B., 402.
Parrish, John, 328, 330.
Patrick, General Marsena R., 21, 69, 92.
Patti, Adelina, 202.
Paul, D'Arcy, 111.
Payne, Lewis, 82, 104.
Peabody Fund, 286, 304.
Peel, Mrs. Lawson, 412.
Pendleton, General and Mrs., 162-163.
Pendleton Club, S. C., The, 360.
Penn, J. Garland, 402.
Penrose, Major, 30.
Perry, Gov. Benj. F., S. C., 143, 144, 260, 377, 378.
Petersburg, 37, 40, 43, 108, 109, 129, 160, 205.
Petersburg "Index-Appeal," 160.
Peyster, Lieutenant de, 12.
Philadelphia, Pa., 101, 163, 263, 359.
"Philadelphia Inquirer," 221.
Philippines, 20, 306.
Phillips, Wendell, 102.
"Picayune," The, 110.
Pickens County men, 360.
Pickett, Gen. Geo. E., 38.
Pierce's Cabinet, President, 414.
Pierce, Paul Skeels, 216.
Pierpont, Gov. F. H., 34, 92, 241, 255;
and Mrs. Pierpont, 108.
Pike, Mr. J. S., of Maine, 371.
Pinckney, Captain Thomas, 341, 343-347, 349.
Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth (of the Revolution), 201, 342.
Pius IX., Pope, 415.
"Planting officials," The, 214.
Platt, Mrs. William H., 111.
Pocotaligo, S. C., 378.
Polk, Bishop Leonidas and Mrs., 179.
Polk, Dr. W. M., 179.
Polk, President James K., 48.
Poole, Maggie, 110.
Pope, General John, 301.
Pope, Mrs. Sallie Ewing, 111.
Poppenheim, Miss M. B., 182.
Porter, Admiral David D., 30, 40, 41.
Portridge, Sophia, 111.
Potter, Bishop Horatio, 135.
Potter, Mrs. James Brown, 110.
Powell, Dr., 330, 331.
Powhatan, Va., 129.
Prescott, Addie, 110.
Preston, Cobb, 335.
Preston, General William, 182.
Price, Rev. Dr., 405.
Prince Arthur, 111, 244.
Proctor, Rev. Dr., 405.
Pryor, Mrs. Roger A., 110, 412.
Raines, Mrs. L. H., 410.
Raleigh, N. C., 84, 114, 140, 275, 408.
Raleigh, Mr. Bennett's house near, 84.
Ralls, General, 95.
Randall, James R., 85.
Randolph, Bishop Alfred Magill, 205.
Randolph, Senator Theodore F., 290.
Randolph, Uncle, 12, 23, 35, 113, 133.
Raymond, Henry J., 31.
Raymond, Miss, 22.
Reagan, John H., 59.
Red Shirts, The, 360, 368.
Reed, William B., 224, 239.
Reid, Whitelaw, 349.
Revels, Hiram R., 243, 244.
Rhett, Mrs., 20.
Richardson, Mrs. Ida B., 110.
Richmond, Va., 3, 9-25, 37, 62-63, 69, 72, 91, 92, 109, 111, 123, 139,
150, 185, 187, 205, 229, 231, 240, 241, 255, 399, 405-408, 417-418.
Richmond Blues, The, 407.
Richmond College, 202.
Richmond Theatre, 107.
Richmond "Times-Dispatch," 25, 387.
Rifle Clubs, The, 360, 363, 364, 368, 370.
Riots:
Brunswick, 332-333;
Cowboy, 362;
Charleston, 241, 363;
Colfax, 333;
Ellenton, 349;
Hamburg, 362;
Little Rock, 371-372;
New Orleans, 241, 372;
Richmond, 229, 234, 241.
Ripley, General Edward H., 24-25, 131.
Robertson, Dr. and Mrs., 57, 59, 60;
Kate Joyner Robertson (Mrs. Faver), 59, 61;
Willie Robertson, 59.
Rockett's, 29.
Rollins, Misses, 356.
Rome, Italy, 415.
Roosevelt, President Theodore, 338, 418, 419.
Rosemont Cemetery, Newberry, S. C., 140.
Rousseau, General, 135.
Roxmere, 334.
Ruger, General Thomas Howard, 365, 368, 370.
Ryland, Rev. Dr. Robert, 202-203.
Sage, B. F., 307.
Saint, Captain, 4th Iowa, 93.
St. John, General I. M., 59.
St. Michael's bells, 363.
Santo Domingo, 197.
Salisbury, N. C., 56.
Santee River, The, 341.
Savannah, Ga., 58, 135, 155, 410.
Savannah "News," The, 387.
Saxton, General and Mrs. Rufus, 119, 120;
General, 143.
Schell, Augustus, 226.
Schley, Mr., Augusta, Ga., 219.
Schofield's Code for Freedmen, 210.
Schofield, General J. M., 232, 234, 255, 259, 260, 325, 329, 379.
Scott, Gov. R. K., S. C., 281, 307, 351, 370.
Seaford, U. S. Marshal, 293.
Sea Islands, The, 79, 341.
Sears, Dr. Barnas, 304.
Selma, Ala., 78.
Seney (George Ingraham), benefactions, 304.
"Sentinel," The, 22.
Sepoy Massacres, 391.
Sergeant, Miss, of Atlanta, 304.
Sewanee Review, 250.
Seward, William H., 82, 378.
Sharkey, Gov. William L., Miss., 247.
Shea, George, 239.
Shepley, General George F., 11, 12, 22, 30, 31, 32, 36, 39, 41, 131.
Sheppard, J. C., 365.
"Sheridan's Ride," 305.
Sherman, General, 3-6, 16, 18, 37, 50-51, 57, 80, 81, 84, 96, 97, 115,
128, 132, 135, 182, 190, 202, 247, 281, 305, 326, 330, 371, 377.
Shiloh, National Park, 418.
Sibley, 333.
Simonton, Judge C. H., 287.
Simpson, Colonel R. W., 360.
Simpson, W. S., 366.
Sing Sing, N. Y., 278.
Sligo, Lord, 134.
Sloan, Captain, 125.
Slocomb, Mrs., 110.
Slocomb family, 110.
Smith, Gerrit, 226, 241, 242.
Smith, W. B. (author), 395.
Smith, Gov. William H., Ala., 333.
Smith, Gov. William, 34, 35, 92.
Smythe, Mrs. A. T., 182.
South Carolina, 4-6, 37, 54, 140, 143, 158, 160-161, 180, 192, 204, 206,
247, 250, 260, 265, 267, 271, 273, 276, 289, 317, 348, 359, 370,
371, 377, 412.
South Carolina Agricultural College, 180.
South Carolina, State University, 355.
"South Carolina Women in the Confederacy," 182.
Southern Ballot-Box, 281.
"Southern Cross," Hampton's cottage, 160.
Southern Educational Conference, 1905, 396.
"Southern Opinion," The, 305.
Southside Virginia, 399.
Spanish-American War, 312.
Spencer, C. B., 402.
Spencer's libels, Senator G. E., 333.
Spotswood, The, 108, 237.
Springfield, Ills., 101.
Stanton, Edwin M., 41-43, 51, 57, 80, 82, 90, 92, 96, 97, 132, 223, 224,
281.
"State," The Columbia, 387.
Steedman, General James Barrett, 213-215.
Stephens, Alexander H., 33, 55, 58, 93, 94, 95, 417.
Stephens, Judge Linton, 292-293.
Stephens, Lint, 58.
Stephens, Dr. Robert G., 163.
Stevens, Atherton H., 12, 16.
Stevens Mystery, Yanceyville, N. C., 274.
Stevens, Thaddeus, 242.
Stevenson, Mrs. Adlai E., 413.
Stewart, Hon. Charles, 142-143.
Stimson, William, 386.
Stoneman, General George, 260, 325.
Stoney, Captain, 156.
Storrs, Rev. Dr. Richard S., 79.
Stratton, Professor, 385.
Strong, Major George C., 134.
Stuart, J. E. B., 171, 407.
Sumner, Charles, 81.
Sumter's anniversary, 79.
Surratt, Mrs., 104.
Sutherlin, Major, 47, 48, 52, 53-55.
Sutherlin Mansion, 47, 48, 51, 52, 56.
Sutherlin, Mrs., 47, 48, 49, 51, 52, 53-56.
"Sun," The New York, 103.
Swayze, U. S. Commissioner, 293.
Taylor, Mrs. Thomas, 182.
Taylor, General Richard, 62, 63, 92.
Teller, Senator Henry Moore, 290.
Tennessee, 268, 418.
Tennesseeans, Bates', 418.
Terrell, Gov. Joseph M., of Ga., 387.
Texas, 62, 142, 160, 215, 247, 260, 350, 395, 418.
Texas Ranger, 407.
Thomas, James, 226.
Thomas, Judge, 32, 33, 34, 40, 41.
Thomas, William Hannibal, 385.
Thompson, Mrs. Joseph, 411.
Throckmorton, Gov. J. W., 215, 260.
Tidewater Virginia, 399.
Tillinghast, J. A., 395.
Tilton, Theodore, 79.
"Times-Democrat," The, New Orleans, 387.
Tissue Ballots, 288.
Titlow, Captain, 103.
Todd, Dr. Scott, 58.
Toombs, General Robert, 57, 59, 60, 61, 93.
Toombs, Mrs. Robert, 94, 143.
Tournaments, 167.
Traveller, 68, 109.
Trenholm, G. A., 60, 92.
Trent River Settlement, 214.
Trescot, W. H., 143.
Triplett, Mary, 109.
Trobriand, General Philippe Regis de, 372.
Trowbridge, Colonel, 141.
Tucker, John Randolph, 239.
Tulane University, 304.
Tupper, Rev. Dr., 60.
Turner, Henry G., 302.
Tuskegee, Ala., 181.
"Uncle Tom's Cabin," 214.
Underwood, Judge John C., 233, 239, 241, 242, 253.
Upton, General, 60, 93.
Urquhart, Captain David, 110.
Urquhart, Mrs. David, 110.
Urquhart, Cora (Mrs. James Brown Potter), 110.
Ursuline Convent, 4.
Valentine's, Stuart, 407.
Valliant, Theodosia Worthington, 111.
Van Alen, General, 42.
Vance, Betty, 111.
Vance, Gov. Zebulon B., N. Carolina, 96, 102.
Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 226.
Vanderbilt University, 304.
Van Lew, Miss, 108.
Vardaman, Gov., of Miss., 387.
Vest, Senator, 127.
Vicksburg, Miss., 128;
pastors of, 133, 134, 418.
Vincent, Mrs., and Lucy, 265-266.
Virginia, 34-35, 39, 41, 42, 71, 80, 115, 139, 161, 170, 214, 232,
260-269, 285, 305, 326, 341, 379, 387, 399, 408, 412.
Wade, Senator Benj. F., 90.
Walker, George, 172-173.
Walker, Gov. Gilbert C., Va., 331.
Walker-Wells Campaign, 316.
Walker, J. M., Mayor, of Danville, 53.
Wall, L. G., 327, 328.
Wallace House, The, 365, 370.
Wallace, Marshal, 363.
Wallace. W. H., Speaker, 365, 366, 367, 368.
Walworth, Ellen Hardin, 412.
Warmouth, Henry C., 281, 307.
Warwick, Abraham, 226.
Washington Artillery, N. O., 110.
Washington, Booker T., 402.
Washington, D. C., 33, 39, 41, 79, 81, 83, 91, 97, 101, 104, 113, 130,
185, 187, 221, 225, 234, 243, 248, 260, 281, 287, 316, 333, 337,
364, 371, 372, 417.
Washington, Ga., 57, 59, 60, 94.
Washington (and Lee) College, Lexington, Va., 159, 161, 413.
Washington and Lee Association, 303.
Washington, Eugenia, 412.
Washington, George, 170;
Statue of, 292;
tomb of, 412;
his mother's tomb, 412.
Washington, John, 412.
Washington, Colonel William, 360.
Washington Light Infantry, Charleston, 359.
Washington, Miss, of S. Carolina, 182.
"Washington Post," The, 412.
Watkins, Judge, 205.
Watkins Neighbourhood, 312.
Watkins, Mr. and Mrs., 313.
Webster, Daniel, 49.
Weems, Colonel, 60.
Weitzel, Godfrey, 16, 17, 20, 22-24, 36, 39-42, 107, 131-133, 377.
Welch, Mrs. (Miss Garside), 409.
Wellington, Mrs. 129.
Wells, Gov. Henry H., 329.
Welsh, A., 226.
West Point, N. Y., 20, 38, 48, 126.
West Virginia, 34.
W. Virginia University Studies, 250, 278.
Wharton, Captain, 69, 70.
Wheeler, General Joe, 94-95, 102, 417.
Wheeless, John F., 62.
Wherry, Col. W. M., 259.
"Whig," The, 24, 39, 41, 42, 107.
Whipper, W. J., 358, 360.
White, Mrs., of Brunswick, 191.
White Brotherhood, The, 268.
White House, The, Montgomery, Ala., 411.
White House, The Davis Mansion, Richmond, 29, 36, 60, 126, 219, 221, 411.
White House, The, Washington, D. C., 37, 43, 80, 282.
White League, 268.
White Rose, Order of the, 268.
Whitney, Eli, 197.
Wigfall, Louise (Mrs. Wright), 110.
Wilde, General, 143.
Williams, Mrs. David R., 110.
Williams, Mrs. Mary, 408.
Wilmer, Bishop, of Alabama, 133.
Wilmington, N. C., 193.
Wilson, General James H., 85.
Wilson, Judge S. F., 418.
Wilson, Senator Henry, 243, 244.
Wilson, Woodrow, 250.
Winfield, Miss, 243, 244.
Wingfield, Rev. J. H. L. (Bishop), 129.
Winnsboro, S. C., 6.
Wise, Captain George, 70, 71.
Wise, Henry A., 50, 71.
Wise, Lieutenant, 50.
Wood, Benjamin, 226.
Wood's house in Greensboro, Col., 56.
Woods, General William B., 133.
Wortham, Miss, 125.
Wright, General Horatio D., 52, 53, 54.
Wright, Mary (Mrs. Treadwell), 111.
Yulee, Senator D. L., 92.
Yulee, Mrs. D. L., 110.
Yankee Landon, 334, 335, 336, 337, 338.
Zola, 372.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Gentlemen of the old regime would say: "A woman's name should appear
in print but twice--when she marries and when she dies"; the "Society"
page of to-day was unknown to them. They objected to newspaper notoriety
for themselves, and were prone to sign pseudonyms to their newspaper
articles. Matoaca, loyal to her uncle's prejudices, requires that I print
him only by the name she gives him and the title, one which was
affectionately applied to him by many who were not his kin. To give his
real name in full would be to give hers.
[2] General Ripley, in "Confederate Column" of the "Times-Dispatch,"
Richmond, Virginia, May 29, 1904.
[3] In 1793, 1803, 1812-14, 1844-50, Northern States threatened to secede.
Of Massachusetts' last movement Mr. Davis said in Congress: "It is her
right." Nov. 1, Dec. 17, Feb. 23, 1860-61, the "New York Tribune" said:
"We insist on letting the Cotton States go in peace ... the right to
secede exists."
[4] For full statement, see Captain H. M. Clarke's paper in Southern Hist.
Society Paper, Vol. 9, pp. 542-556, and Paymaster John F. Whieless'
report, Vol. 10, 137.
[5] The account which I had from Colonel Randall at the home of Mr. John
M. Graham, Atlanta, Ga., in the spring of 1905, does not quite coincide
with that given by Mrs. Clay in "A Belle of the Fifties." In years
elapsing since the war, some confusion of facts in memory is to be
expected.
[6] Fac-simile of the order under which Mr. Davis was chained appears in
Charles H. Dana's "Recollections of the Civil War," p. 286. The hand that
wrote it, when Mr. Davis died, paid generous tribute to him in the "Sun,"
saying: "A majestic soul has passed."
[7] General Halleck to General Stanton (Richmond, April 28, 1865): "I
forward General Orders No. 4.... You will perceive from paragraph V, that
measures have been taken to prevent, as far as possible, the propagation
of legitimate rebels." Paragraph V: "No marriage license will be issued
until the parties desiring to be married take the oath of allegiance to
the United States; and no clergyman, magistrate, or other party authorized
by State laws to perform the marriage ceremony will officiate in such
capacity until himself and the parties contracting matrimony shall have
taken the prescribed oath of allegiance," all under pains of imprisonment,
etc.
[8] "Why Solid South," Hilary Herbert. To this book I owe a large debt for
information, as does every other present-day writer on reconstruction.
[9] An Englishman of Queen's College; the Bishop of London had sent him as
Chaplain to Lord Sligo, Governor of Jamaica, but at this time he was
Rector of Christ Church, New Orleans.
[10] "Civil War & Reconstruction in Alabama," W. L. Fleming.
[11] See Stewart on "Texas" in "Why Solid South," by Hilary Herbert and
others.
[12] A collection of records, sketches, etc., edited and published by Mrs.
Taylor, Mrs. Smythe, Mrs. Kohn, Miss Poppenheim and Miss Washington, of
that State. Owner, August Kohn, Columbia, S. C. For confirmation of first
chapter of this book, see same.
[13] Syphilitic diseases, from which under slavery negroes were nearly
exempt, combine with tuberculosis to undermine racial health.
[14] See Susan Pendleton Lee's "History of Virginia."
[15] Among Southerners assuring me that education is advancing negroes, I
may mention ex-Mayor Ellyson, of Richmond, and Judge Watkins, of
Farmville, who credit educated negro clergy with such moral improvement in
the race. Both gentlemen were deeply interested in the educational work at
Petersburg. Said Mayor Ellyson: "We take equal care in selecting teachers
for both races."
[16] Such laws were adopted after 1830 in Alabama, Georgia and South
Carolina, when secret agents of the abolitionists were spreading
incendiary literature. It is a fact, though not generally understood, that
abolition extremists arrested several emancipation movements in the South;
whites dared not release to the guidance of fanatics a mass of
semi-savages in whose minds doctrines of insurrection had been sown. See
recent articles on Slavery in the "Confederate Veteran"; "The Gospel to
the Slaves"; "An Inquiry into the Law of Negro Slavery in the United
States; with an Historical Sketch of Slavery," by Thomas R. R. Cobb; and
Southern histories of the Southern States.
[17] See University of Iowa Studies, "Freedmen's Bureau," by Paul Skeels
Pierce.
[18] See "History of the Last Quarter Century in the United States," by E.
B. Andrews; "Reconstruction and the Constitution," by J. W. Burgess;
"Destruction and Reconstruction," by Richard Taylor; "History of the
American People; Reunion and Nationalism," by Woodrow Wilson; "A Political
Crime," by A. M. Gibson; "The Lower South" and "History of the United
States since the Civil War," by W. G. Brown; "Essays on the Civil War and
Reconstruction" and "Reconstruction, Political and Economic," by W. A.
Dunning; articles in "Atlantic Monthly" during 1901; Johns Hopkins
University Studies and Columbia University Studies; Walter L. Fleming's
"Documents Illustrative of the Reconstruction Period"; besides treating
every phase of the subject, these "Documents" give a full bibliography; "A
New South View of Reconstruction," Trent, "Sewanee Review," Jan., 1901;
and other magazine articles.
[19] Phelps' "Louisiana," Perry's "Provisional Governorship," "Why Solid
South," Hilary Herbert.
[20] This case was used by Celina E. Means in "Thirty-four Years." The
Stevens case is misused by Tourgee in "A Fool's Errand."
[21] See "Documents Illustrative of the Reconstruction Period," by Walter
L. Fleming, Professor of History, West Virginia University; also articles
in the "Atlantic Monthly."
[22] This mirror had been built into the wall when the house was erected
by the Captain's grandfather, General Thomas Pinckney, of the Revolution,
soon after his return from the Court of St. James, where he served as
United States Minister by Washington's appointment. It was Charles
Cotesworth, brother of this Thomas, who threw down the gage to France in
the famous words: "The United States has millions for defense but not one
cent for tribute!"
[23] See "Reconstruction in South Carolina," by John S. Reynolds, in the
Columbia "State."
[24] I think this was General Ruger or Colonel Black, but I let the name
stand as my informant gave it.
[25] See Sherman-Halleck correspondence in Sherman's "Memoirs" on "the
inevitable Sambo." Also, W. T. Parker, U. S. A., on "The Evolution of the
Negro Soldier," N. Amer. Rev., 1899. Lincoln disbanded the troops
organised by General Hunter.
[26] In Boston, 1676. I suppose this is the case meant as it rests on
court records. "The Nation," 1903, published letters showing four specific
cases from slavery's beginning to 1864; that just cited, one mentioned in
Miss Martineau's "Society in America"; one reported in "Leslie's Weekly,"
1864; one reported in a periodical not named. In the earliest days of
slavery, laws enacted against negro rape (the penalty was burning) seem to
show that the crime existed or that the Colonists feared it would exist.
The fact that during the War of Secession, Southern men left their
families in negro protection is proof conclusive that this tendency, if
inherent, had been civilised out of the race.
[27] For other reasons for rape than I have given see "The Negro; The
Southerner's Problem," by Thomas Nelson Page, p. 112, and "The American
Negro," by William Hannibal Thomas (negro), pp. 65, 176-7, 223.
[28] "The Negro in Africa and America," J. A. Tillinghast. On
miscegenation see "The Color Line," W. B. Smith; also A. R. Colquhoun, N.
Amer. Rev., May, 1903.
[29] Fakirs, taking advantage of the general racial weakness, are selling
"black skin removers," "hair straighteners," etc.
[30] See Council, Penn, and Spencer, "Voice of Missions" (H. B. Parks,
Ed.), Sept., Nov., Dec., 1905. See Booker T. Washington's "Up from
Slavery," "Character Building," "Future of the American Negro."
[31] "'Decoration Day,' a legal holiday. The custom of 'Memorial Day,' as
it is otherwise called, originated with the Southern States and was copied
scatteringly in Northern States. On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan,
then Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, issued an order
appointing May 30."--Encyclopedia Americana.
[32] In this church, Patrick Henry said: "Give me liberty or give me
death!"
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