CHAPTER FOUR
A Grave Problem
At the termination of the war between the sections, the southern people had thrust upon them for solution the gravest and most difficult problem with which the white race on this continent was ever perplexed,—how to preserve their civilization with the government operating in opposition to their efforts.
After four years of warfare, the south was prostrate before the victorious people of the north, whose armies were quartered in garrisons everywhere in the surrendered territory, to enforce with arms, if necessary, whatever oppressive and humiliating measures might be conceived in hatred and vengeance by fanatics whose intolerance had made the bloody conflict irrepressible, and who were determined to extend and perpetuate the political power gained by conquest. The means adopted were enfranchisement of the emancipated slaves and disfranchisement of all white men who had at all distinguished themselves as leaders, while extending favors to those who would ally themselves with the oppressors and betray their countrymen.
The difficulties of the situation in which the defeated southerners were placed were appalling. Naught of the former wealth of the country was left save the land—which in the disorganized state of labor was almost a burden to the possessors—and some cotton which had accumulated because exportation was prevented by the blockade of the ports; and upon this the federal government imposed an unconstitutional tax of three cents a pound. Farm implements were crude and scarce; the necessities of the Confederate government in its expiring struggles had stripped the country of the best of the draft and food animals; in the Black Belt there were no factories; development of transportation had been checked in its incipiency; education was almost abandoned, and the civil laws suspended. Everything had to be organized or reorganized.
Cotton was one of the principal resources left to the people at the close of the war. In great demand and readily convertible into money at prices ranging from fifty cents a pound upward, and in considerable quantities, it would have furnished means for a “fresh start” had the people been permitted to hold it in undisputed possession; but the government begrudged even this remnant of lost fortunes. Unfortunately, during the war agents of the Confederacy from time to time contracted for quantities of cotton, to be paid for in bonds, but in most cases there had been no actual transfer of either bonds or cotton, and the latter remained on the plantations. After the surrender of General Taylor to General Canby, the federal commander promulgated an order requiring all persons who held such cotton to surrender it to the United States agents, under penalty of confiscation of their property. The military authorities claimed this cotton as a prize of war, and treasury agents—some of them fictitious, as afterward proven—were soon ranging the country in search for it. The holders believed that the question of ownership was at least debatable. Prior to the surrender, the Confederate government, fearing that federal raiders would seize the cotton, ordered that it be destroyed by the holders; but the authority of that government was not then potent, and the planters, instead of obeying the order, conveyed the bales to places of concealment in swamps and elsewhere, and believed that this act confirmed their claim to ownership. Some of the cotton was thus concealed when the agents began their search. The order of seizure was subsequently so modified as to permit the original holders to claim one-fourth of the cotton as compensation for caretaking. Very few took advantage of this concession; and, indeed, the greedy agents actually suppressed the order for months while the seizures were in progress. Attorneys who contested before military tribunals the right of seizure argued that, by reason of non-delivery, sales to the Confederate government had not been completed, and that the federal government had no right to capture the cotton after final surrender of the Confederate armies; but in some instances these attorneys were arrested and threatened with imprisonment unless they abated their zeal in behalf of clients.
There was in resulting evil practices a touch of picturesqueness. The unconquered and unconquerable veterans of the vanquished southern armies, in many instances impoverished, were ripe for any enterprise which promised congenial adventure and spoils which they regarded as legitimate. The agents went about supported by federal troops, and many were the clashes between the latter and so-called guerrilla bands composed of their late antagonists on other and more glorious fields. These bands were actuated by the conviction that the Confederate government having had no clear title to ownership of the cotton, the conquerors succeeded to none; and so they took up the contest where the intimidated attorneys dropped it, and contested with the agents and their armed supporters. These agents were well supplied with army teams and wagons, and often these, falling into the hands of the “guerrillas,” served the captors as a convenient means of transportation of booty. Yet, it sometimes happened that the guerrillas were the captives, and when in the toils were in sore straits to raise the ransom which was exacted in lieu of arrest and arraignment for trial. Even steamboats were hauled to and relieved of cargoes. That was the golden era for steamboatmen, when freight charges and salaries, especially of pilots, were phenomenal.
These transactions soon degenerated into plunder pure and simple, involving private cotton to which the government could lay no sort of claim.
Perhaps there had been collusion between holders of “Confederate” cotton and the raiding bands which seized and bore it off; anyhow, the inevitable effect was that unscrupulous men, taking advantage of popular tolerance of practices which originally sprang from patriotic impulses, disregarded private rights and indiscriminately stole. Planters paid for guards as high as thirty dollars each per night at critical times. Men who were unaccustomed to the command of money grew rich in a brief space and correspondingly lavish in their expenditures. Extravagance and demoralization which left their enduring impress ensued. Admissions were made in high quarters in after years that not one-tenth of the proceeds of cotton seized by agents ever went into the treasury of the United States. One example will suffice: An agent in Demopolis claimed and was allowed for four months’ services, on the basis of one-fourth of the cotton seized by him, $80,000; and the settlement was between him and military authorities who were quite as adept as he in the art of pilfering. Thus in a time of stress the producers were despoiled and adventurers enriched by the ungenerous policy of the victorious government.
The following facts are gathered from evidence taken before the committee in Congress in the investigation as to General Howard:
At the close of the war there were held in the south at least five million bales of cotton, worth in Liverpool $500,000,000. Only a fraction of this cotton was owned by the Confederate states government, and this was turned over to General E. R. S. Canby by General E. Kirby Smith on May 24, 1865. Besides the swarm of official agents, informers and spies sent down by the Treasury Department in search of Confederate cotton, contracts were made with private individuals to engage in the work. Much cotton was taken from plantations before the owners returned to their homes after the disbandment of the armies. Seizures were indiscriminate. Proof of private ownership had to be supported by tender of toll; there was no redress.
A Treasury Department regulation required that all cotton seized in the Atlantic and Gulf states should be shipped to Simon Draper, United States cotton agent in New York City; and that seized on the upper Mississippi river and in northern Georgia and northern Alabama to William P. Mellen, agent in Cincinnati. These agents sold by samples which were spurious and inferior to the cotton which they represented. Accordingly, cotton worth sixty cents to one dollar per pound was sold for ten to fifteen cents. The purchasers were in collusion with the agent. By the system of “plucking,” the weight of bales was reduced anywhere from one hundred to two hundred pounds before they were sold: the plucked cotton was termed “waste cotton,” packed and sold as “trash” to mills, but not at trash prices. These terms figured only in the reports to the department. Sometimes owners traced stolen cotton to the New York or Cincinnati agency; and if a thousand bales were involved, the agent reported that only two hundred had been received, and of very inferior quality, and was sold for ten or fifteen cents per pound, which his books would prove; that transportation, storage and commissions left only a small sum. Draper, when he became cotton agent, was a bankrupt. Subsequently he settled his debts and when he died was a multimillionaire. Fifty million dollars’ worth of cotton was shipped to Draper; the government derived only $15,000,000 net from that source as the reward for the wrong which it had committed in entrusting the enforcement of its doubtful claim against the impoverished southern people to dishonest and unscrupulous agents.
The Confederate States government imposed a tax in kind upon all provisions produced on plantations—one-tenth. The first year after the war this tax was enforced in some isolated sections by orders of minor military officers, and collected by agents. Of course this was fraudulent, and was stopped after a while.