CHAPTER NINE
Carpetbag Government
The negroes had exercised without hindrance their new privilege of the suffrage. Their incapacity as voters was illustrated in the character of the men who assumed office after the election in 1868.
In Sumter county, Tobias Lane was elected probate judge, but during the period of uncertainty when the constitution was in abeyance, concluding that congressional action respecting it would be unfavorable, he packed his carpetbag and returned to Ohio, having been one of the migrants from that state, so prolific of birds of his feather.
Beville, the sheriff, was an appointee of General Swayne. He was unable to give bond, but Swayne waived that formality and ordered him to continue in office without bond. In 1868 Richard Harris, a negro, who could neither read nor write, became his worthy successor.
As solicitor the discriminating voters chose Ben Bardwell, a negro, who was wholly deficient in the knowledge of reading and writing, a deficiency which made him “an easy mark” for one of the most learned bars in the state.
George Houston, a freedman, was sent to the lower house of the legislature. As his colleague Ben Inge, another “person of color,” absolutely illiterate, was selected.
An army captain, one Yordy, received the state senatorial honors, which he wore while serving Uncle Sam in the custom house at Mobile. He was a long-distance representative, having no domicile in Sumter, nor ever making his appearance there.
John B. Cecil, reputed federal army sutler and coming with the influx from fecund Ohio, was elected treasurer. He gradually and logically degenerated into a partnership with a negro in a grog-shop enterprise.
Badger, another bird of passage, became tax assessor. The revenue and road commission was a motley aggregation which comprised one carpetbagger and three negroes.
Edward Herndon, a native Union man, by grace of appointment and election, simultaneously devoted his talents to the offices of circuit clerk, register in chancery, notary public, justice of the peace, keeper of the poorhouse and guardian ad litem,—and perhaps felt aggrieved that he didn’t have “all that was coming to him.”
It would seem that, with this multiplicity of trusts, Mr. Herndon monopolized the privilege of plurality in office holding; but not so, for Mr. Daniel Price, a typical scalawag, with the reputation of a jailbird and desperado, made flight from Wetumpka to Sumter, and was endowed with a bunch of federal and county jobs,—register of voters, superintendent of education, postmaster and census taker. Insatiable, like Oliver Twist he wanted more, and as a side line to his multifarious activities, employed his scholarly attainments in the conduct of a negro school, meanwhile boarding and associating with negroes.
The harmony of the “color scheme” of the official colony in Perry county, adjoining Hale county, was never broken by a trace of the ebony hue.
Without exception, all of the county offices were held by carpetbaggers, officers of the 8th Wisconsin regiment, originally sent on garrison duty. Their characters are illustrated by the fact that, under the guise of selling properties which they had acquired in the county, all of them sold their offices in the time of political regeneration and betook themselves to the north. During Lindsay’s administration the sheriff, charged with conniving at the escape from jail of a prisoner incarcerated for murder, sold his job for $1,500. Democrats succeeded the aliens.
In Marengo county there were more places than “loyal and reconstructed” place-seekers, and consequently Charles L. Drake, who made his advent in 1866 as an army captain, was burdened with the cares and responsibilities of register in chancery, circuit clerk, United States commissioner and agent of the Freedmen’s Bureau; yet had time for political activity which made him especially obnoxious.
Another conspicuous character in Marengo was one Burton, a carpetbagger, who established in Demopolis a weekly newspaper, The Southern Republican. He had incorporated in the oppressive tax laws a provision that where a deed was made to a purchaser at a tax sale, it should be made conclusive evidence, whether the sale was legal or illegal, that all requisites to a valid sale had been complied with. In order to increase the advertising, a section of land was divided into sixteen parts and each part advertised separately. Legal advertising was confined to “loyal” papers, the test of loyalty being allegiance to the Radical party. The Southern Republican, being the only loyal paper in all that unreconstructed region, was designated as the official organ of Marengo, Greene, Perry and Choctaw counties.
The newspaper statute referred to was in these words:
“That it shall be the duty of the probate judge in each county of this state to designate a newspaper in which all local advertisements, notices, or publications of any and every character required by law to be made in his county shall be published. Provided, that no newspaper shall be designated as such official organ which does not in its columns sustain and advocate the maintenance of the government of the United States and of the government of the state of Alabama, which is recognized by the Congress of the United States as the legal government of this state; and if there be no such paper published in the county, then the probate judge, whose decision upon the question shall be final, shall designate the paper published nearest the county seat of his county which does sustain said government.”
The “loyal” papers so designated had no circulation beyond a small free distribution among office-holders. Few of the negroes in their general illiteracy could read them, and none of them were concerned in the advertisements. The white people, to whom all of the advertisements were addressed, would not permit a copy of the publications to be sent to them. Consequently, the payment of fees was a waste of public money. The purpose of the law was to create and sustain a detestable press at the expense of the taxpayers, or seduce the existing papers.
In 1870 Burton was nominee for lieutenant-governor. On account of some personally offensive publication, Mr. E. C. Meredith, of Eutaw, a Democratic leader (“Bravest of the Brave”), severely chastised him in Eutaw. Thereafter the “trooly loil” journalist made his periodical collections of fees in Greene county by proxy. About the time when frost touched with withering chill his budding political aspiration, Burton received an ominous communication, not intended for publication, but for his own guidance. It was embellished with pictures of cross-bones, skull and dagger, and inscribed with a legend which he interpreted as a sort of “move on” ordinance. And he stood not on the order of his going, but hiked.
General Dustin, a northern soldier, of good family connections, who settled in Demopolis and allied himself by marriage with one of the old and prominent families of the town, was appointed major general of militia, and endeavored, but unsuccessfully, to organize a force. The law provided that whenever forty or more men should enroll themselves and choose officers, the governor upon application should recognize them as a volunteer company. Governor Smith could not be persuaded to encourage the formation of a militia force; he preferred federal regulars, and they were always available.
While awaiting opportunity for employment of his warrior genius and acquirements, General Dustin, equally soldier and statesman, served the people of his adopted county in the legislature. His colleague in that august assembly of solons was Levi Wells, a “ward of the nation.”
Others who made reconstruction history in Marengo county will be mentioned incidentally as this narrative progresses. They were a rare lot, and equally with the others worthy of a place on the scroll of fame.
Choctaw county officials distinguished themselves in some features of their administration of affairs, according to testimony before a government commission. Dr. Foster was appointed probate judge and elected state senator, and served in the dual capacity. Receiving the appointment of revenue collector at Mobile, he discarded the probate judgeship, to which Hill was appointed, but polygamously refused to be divorced from the other love, the senatorship. Hill had been appointed treasurer before receiving the appointment to the judgeship. Withdrawing from the former place, his brother, Alexander, succeeded. It may not too much confuse the already complex situation to mention incidentally that the industrious Alexander filled in spare time by discharging the humble duties of justice of the peace, having before him the example of his eminent brother, who scorned not the lesser duties of register in chancery, with which also he was charged. In the progress of time, an inquisitive grand jury, nosing into matters, ascertained that Treasurer Aleck had received from the county tax collector fees to the amount of $3,600. While the jury was investigating, a disturbance occurred on the streets; the sheriff resigned, rather than interfere with the disturbers, and sought pastoral scenes. Circuit Judge J. Q. Smith, serving as a substitute for Luther R. Smith, adjourned court without receiving the jury’s report. Immediately after adjournment Probate Judge Hill, who had received a significant communication, with skull and dagger adornment, and maybe had been playfully shot at, retired to his farm, leaving his office in the care of the overburdened but willing Aleck. The circuit clerk accompanied the probate judge to his sylvan retreat, and imposed more work on Aleck by making him custodian of his office also. By the way, this clerk was first elected, but failed to qualify, whereupon Judge Smith cured the defect by appointing him to the place. Such was the situation of affairs when, at midnight, April 14, the structure burned, and, excepting documents in the hands of the jury, all of the records of the two offices, together with the treasurer’s account of moneys received and disbursed, fed the hungry flames. The treasurer said that all the funds were in the safe, but only charred packages of Confederate “shinplasters” were found therein when the safe was opened. The succeeding treasurer, an expert accountant, under instructions from the commissioners’ court, investigated accounts between the collector and former treasurer, and reported that the latter was in default to the extent of about $7,000, and the tax collector about $2,700. Meanwhile, the tax collector had sought a change of air in “the glorious climate of California.” Before his departure he related a tale of woe, the burden of which was that highwaymen had despoiled him of official collections of between $5,000 and $6,000.
The fire fiend had marked Choctaw officials for its victims. According to his own statement, the dwelling of the county superintendent of education was the repository of $4,000 of county funds when said “fiend” consumed it. The superintendent was the author of his own official bond, and in his inexperience omitted therefrom the customary penalty clause, which omission rendered the instrument non-enforceable. Feeling the inadequacy of local employment for his talents, he took up residence across the line in Sumter county, and thus qualified for election to the legislature, but there was no requisition for his services.
The superintendent was law partner of Joshua Morse, attorney general of the state. They were jointly indicted for the murder of Editor Thomas of the county paper at Butler, the county seat; they obtained a change of venue and were tried and acquitted in Mobile, the principal witness against them having disappeared.
William Miller, a former slaveowner and one of the largest landowners, became probate judge of Greene county in 1868. Judge Oliver, the incumbent, refused to recognize his claim, and Miller invoked the ever-responsive military powers; the soldiers forced entrance to the office and inducted the claimant. Oliver filed a protest and retired. Alexander Boyd, a nephew of Miller, became county solicitor and register in chancery.
Judge Luther R. Smith had a brother, Arthur A., who was languishing in Massachusetts, with talents unemployed and maybe unrecognized. The judge imported his brother and made him county superintendent of education. There were not many white Republicans in Greene, and it happened that the circuit court clerkship was “lying around loose,” and the judge thought Arthur was the man for the place. The latter accepted the gift, but failed to relinquish the superintendency of education. One Yordy figured as agent of the Freedmen’s Bureau.
These officials were unable to obtain board and lodging at either of the taverns or elsewhere, and jointly established and maintained for some time a bachelor establishment, duly ostracised by the people of the town and county.
Hale county had a complement of officials in keeping with the layout common to the counties of the district, including a negro legislator. The most troublesome was Dr. Blackford, probate judge. He had served as a delegate to the constitutional convention of 1867. He displaced Judge Hutchinson, a popular gentleman who had lost three brothers in one of the battles in Virginia, members of the famous Greensboro Guards.
Blackford was a skillful physician and surgeon, and of fair education. He served as surgeon in the Confederate army, and was stationed at Vicksburg during the siege. Subsequently a story circulated that he was there court-martialed on a charge of appropriating to his own use hospital stores, including liquors. However that may be, his services were dispensed with and he took up abode in Greensboro, and began to practice his profession with much success. In an evil hour he was tempted to cast his lot with the adventurers who were greedily fastening their clutches upon the substance of the country, and fell. Going from bad to worse, he affiliated with negroes and soon obtained absolute control of them. Claiming, as probate judge, that he had the right to supervise contracts between them and their employers, he constantly meddled in private affairs. Calling league meetings and taking the hands away from their work, he caused much vexation and loss to the planters.
About the time when he became probate judge an incident occurred in Greensboro in which was exhibited by the soldiers an unusual disapprobation of the administration of affairs. The agent of the Freedmen’s Bureau, one Clause, incurred the displeasure of some of them who were inclined to insubordination, and they administered to him a beating. Varying the proceeding, they seized a negro school teacher and conveyed him to a pond, in which they ducked him repeatedly.
Blackford became alarmed at this manifestation of displeasure, and fled to the hills north of the town. There he was pursued by the rioters in uniform, and, resuming his flight, sought refuge at the home of a citizen, who apprised leading citizens of Greensboro of his whereabouts and peril. They informed the military commander, who, in turn, dispatched a squad of cavalry to rescue him and conduct him to town. Blackford, on his return, renounced his political heresies and aspirations to the judgeship, which he declared he would not accept; but, recovering his confidence in the stability of the military powers and his negro backing, he quickly recanted and relapsed into arrogance.
Tuscaloosa county was not neglected by place-hunters, but the preponderance of whites in that county was a restraining influence.
Luther R. Smith, a carpetbagger from Michigan, provisional circuit judge in 1866, was elected to that position in 1868, and simultaneously a member of the legislature, but had decency to resign the latter trust. Notwithstanding he subsequently violated the judicial proprieties by presiding over a radical state convention in Selma. He was one of the most respectable of the intruders, and reputed to be just, impartial and courteous on the bench. Nevertheless he shared, in a lesser measure, the odium which attached to all. The feeling of the people was that no right-minded man would thrust himself into public position under the peculiar circumstances.
All the members of the United States House of Representatives from Alabama were carpetbaggers—officers in the United States army. Charles W. Pierce represented the fourth district. He held a commission as major. His course in the interval when the constitution was in abeyance was the same as that of Colonel Callis, who caused more discussion. Colonel Callis was elected to Congress from the Huntsville district, in competition with General Joseph W. Burke, a man of character and education. General Burke was the Republican nominee, and Callis bolted. Callis was a federal soldier and agent of the Freedmen’s Bureau, at Huntsville. While canvassing, he was attired in the uniform of a colonel. When the constitution was rejected and declared rejected by General Meade, and the fact communicated to General Grant and by him communicated to Congress, and the action of Congress looked to the rejection of the constitution, Colonel Callis left Huntsville and went upon duty to Mississippi as an army officer. When Congress accepted the constitution and admitted Alabama under the “omnibus” measure, Callis hurried to Washington and took his seat as a representative from Alabama, notwithstanding he had never been a citizen of the state and was then a resident of Mississippi. Pierce was succeeded by Charles Hays, of Greene county, in November, 1869.
The state was represented in the federal Senate by Willard Warner and George E. Spencer, the first named a northern general, the other, an army contractor. Judge Busteed, under oath, said that when elected Warner was not a citizen of Alabama; that when summoned a short while before as a juror in his court, Warner claimed exemption on the plea that he was a senator of the state of Ohio. Governor William H. Smith, in a letter published in the Huntsville Advocate, said: “Spencer lives upon the passions and prejudices of the races. The breath of peace would leave him on the surface, neglected and despised.” And Spencer characterized his colleague as a “a trifling and worthless man.”
Being unobjectionable as to “loyalty,” all of these non-citizens were permitted to take their seats; and for the first time since 1861 Alabama was represented (?) in the federal Congress, notwithstanding the fact that during a part of that period the people were taxed by the government which denied them representation—taxed unconstitutionally (in the case of cotton), as the Supreme Court subsequently decided.
William H. Smith, of Randolph county, displaced Governor Patton. His character will be revealed as these pages multiply.
The state supreme court justices were evicted, and S. W. Peck, Thomas M. Peters and B. F. Saffold substituted for them. There is little to be said of them by a layman, except that the first named favored suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, during the Ku Klux era, and the last named declared unconstitutional the law under which a justice of the peace was convicted of solemnizing the rites of matrimony between a white man and a negro, and reversed the judgment of the lower court.
President Lincoln in 1863 appointed Richard Busteed United States district judge, and in 1865 the appointee came to the state and assumed the bench. Whatever else may be said of him, he was bold in expression of opinion, judicial and personal; and during the carpetbag régime he testified that “the general character of Alabama office-holders for intelligence and honesty was not good.” In 1870 Francis S. Lyon, of Demopolis, testified that a bill was filed in Judge Busteed’s court to foreclose two mortgages on the Alabama Central Railroad (Selma to Meridian), and the cost of that suit, paid by New York creditors of the road, amounted to $122,000. The institution presided over by Judge Busteed was costly to litigants, to say the least.
A. J. Applegate became lieutenant-governor. Mr. William M. Lowe, of Huntsville, testifying before the congressional commission in 1870, said of him:
“I had occasion to look into his record, and published a statement in reference to his character, in which I proved conclusively that any petit jury in any New England state would have convicted him of grand larceny upon the evidence by his own declarations,—his own letters. These charges were made by me when he was living. Every opportunity was given him to make his defense; he had no defense to make but a lie. He had been a member of McPherson’s body-guard that stopped near Mrs. Jacob Thompson’s residence in Mississippi. He was there taken sick and taken into her house and nursed and kindly treated by her. At that time and under those circumstances, he, or some one with his knowledge and connivance, stole the deeds and patents and valuable papers belonging to the Thompson estate. After the war he settled here and wrote a letter to Mrs. Thompson. In his first letter he thanked her for her kind and Christian treatment of him while he was sick, although he was an enemy to her cause, saying that he would ever hold it in remembrance. The second letter called to her mind the fact that she had lost those valuable papers, and offered to return them or have them returned to her for a consideration. She wrote him back. The correspondence was published in full. Finally, he wrote to her if she wanted these papers better than she wanted $10,000, to send him on the money and get the papers. That was about his language, written in the most abominable and illiterate style.” The matter was placed in the hands of lawyers, who induced Applegate with $300 to surrender the papers.
General James H. Clanton, under oath, spoke thus of Harrington, speaker of the house of representatives:
“Mr. Harrington came to Mobile very poor, from the northeast somewhere. He was never a soldier that we knew of. He is now very rich. Just after the war he was charged with running free negroes into Cuba. I do not know whether it is true or not. The present sheriff of Montgomery county showed me a reward offered for him, from what purported to be a northwestern paper, on a charge of bank robbery. He requested me to say nothing about it lest Harrington should get away. He said he was going for him that night; that he had his accomplice in jail, and the accomplice said Harrington was the man. The description he showed me was lifelike.”
Asked whether it could not be a mistake, the general replied:
“No, sir; a man of marked physique. I did not give this information at the time to any of my law partners, but they smiled when I told them that Harrington would pay more reward to Barbour (the sheriff) and we would never hear of it again. And we never did hear of it till we published it in the last campaign, to which Harrington, who still lives there, made no response whatever. Colonel Thomas H. Herndon, a prominent lawyer of Mobile, said to me that a friend saw Harrington, during the last session of the legislature at which he presided, take a crowd off to drink champagne at a barroom known as the Rialto, in Montgomery, and when remonstrated with for his extravagance, he ran his hand in his pocket and pulled out seventeen one-hundred-dollar bills, with the remark that he could afford it, as he had made that much in one day in engineering a bill through the house.” The general further testified that Eugene Beebe, of Montgomery, told him he paid Harrington a sum of money to advocate a lottery charter before the house. He said that of the representatives whom he “approached” on the subject of the lottery, only one, a negro, exhibited any qualms, and he accepted fifty dollars, protesting that it was only “as a loan.”
When Colonel Joseph Hodgson became superintendent of education, he said that county superintendents had embezzled between $50,000 and $60,000 of school funds. Two sons of the former state superintendent were fugitives on that account.
Mr. P. T. Sayer, speaking of the Montgomery county representatives in the lower house of the legislature, said: “One of them is a man who came from Austria, by the name of Stroback. I understood that he was a sutler or something of that kind in the federal army. I further understood that he never has been naturalized; I do not know about that. He was said to be a gentleman in his own country; I do not know about that, but he certainly is not one in Montgomery. He is a man of a great deal of sense, and I think a dangerous man in any community situated as ours is. The others are three negroes.”
These character sketches of radical officials might be multiplied indefinitely, but the monotony would weary the reader. Necessarily others will be mentioned incidentally as this story of reconstruction progresses.