CHAPTER SIX
Military Regulations
Another cause of irritation was the offensive conduct of soldiers composing the garrisons, which provoked collisions with the more impetuous citizens. In 1865 the federal soldiers in Tuscaloosa, Greensboro, Eutaw and other towns subjected the people to very offensive regulations. Only a few examples need be mentioned as exhibiting the temper of both sides: The former soldiers of the Confederacy, having no means with which to replenish their wardrobes, wore their uniforms. The federals threatened, and sometimes attempted, to cut the buttons from the old gray coats, and the proud wearers were forced to resort to the expedient of covering them with thin cloth rather than let them serve as a pretext for insults. Flags were stretched across the sidewalks, so that pedestrians would have to pass under them. To defeat the obvious purpose, men and women, in going about, resorted to the roadway or diverged from the sidewalks at points where the flags were placed. In some instances these unwilling and protesting people were seized and forced under the flags. These and other practices, devised to provoke the people to exhibitions of hostility, caused severe smarting. Perhaps many young men who had received war schooling were not reluctant to encounter their former antagonists.
A memorable tragedy, with annoying consequences, resulted from such an encounter. August 31, 1865, election day, the brothers Tom and Toode Cowan, formerly heroic members of Forrest’s cavalry, became involved in a controversy with a squad of soldiers of the garrison in Greensboro; in the resulting affray pistols were used; the younger Cowan killed one of the soldiers, while his brother dangerously wounded another. The slayer mounted a horse and escaped, but the intrepid Tom scorned flight and yielded only to overpowering numbers. Intense excitement prevailed; the enraged soldiers sprang to arms, seized Cowan, and, defying their officers, prepared to hang the prisoner. At the critical moment came a message from the wounded man, generously acknowledging he was the aggressor and pleading for a fair trial for Cowan. This appeased the military mob and the prisoner was locked up. That night squads of cavalry roamed the country, ostensibly seeking the fugitive, but really to disarm and arrest the planters. Mr. Cowan was tried and acquitted. His brother was not apprehended.
In some cases the soldiers were insubordinate and manifested hostility to the people. One notable example in illustration is recalled: During the hours of darkness soldiers burned the Episcopal church in Demopolis. Some of them were detected with articles stolen from the sacred edifice, and the colonel was requested to have the impious robbers arrested. That officer declined to make the order, because the guilty men were dangerous characters and would seek revenge if called to account. Indeed, they threatened that when transferred from Demopolis they would set fire to the town. To prevent the execution of this purpose, another colonel was substituted for the commander of the regiment, and he placed sentinels around the quarters and marched the men away in ignorance of the fact that it was their final departure.
In Greensboro, in 1867, was enacted another regrettable tragedy, the attendant circumstances of which intensified the growing hostility between the races. John C. Orick shot and killed Aleck Webb, negro register of voters. The shooting occurred in daylight and on one of the principal sidewalks. Orick calmly retired from the scene, locked the doors of his store, and in disguise fled the town.
Orick was a bold, dashing and handsome young man who had won enviable laurels in the war. When hardly more than a boy, his adventurous spirit impelled him to leave home without parental consent and attach himself to Colonel Mosby’s command. One of his achievements is worthy of mention here: As an “observer” he visited Baltimore and Washington, and in the latter city ascertained the time of departure of the army pay train on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. Reporting to his commander the valuable information he had acquired, successful plans were formed for the capture of the train by Mosby’s command. With his share of the booty obtained in this enterprise, Orick, after the final surrender, purchased a stock of goods and established himself in business in Greensboro.
The negroes of the town and vicinity bitterly resented the killing of Webb, and during the night large bands of them roamed the surrounding country, avowedly seeking the slayer, but really bent on any mischief for which opportunity might offer. One band went to the Gewin premises. A young man, a member of the family, in his night clothes and barefooted, was encountered in the yard. Seeing that the marauders intercepted retreat to the house, Gewin fled to the woods, hotly pursued. After a chase which extended for a mile, over rough fields and woods, the fleeing man was overhauled, tied to the bare back of a horse and conveyed to the office of Dr. Blackford, in Greensboro. After a lengthy parley, his friends secured his release.
At dusk the town was thronged with infuriated armed negroes, who threatened to apply the torch. After some of the leading citizens had vainly expostulated with them, the whites armed themselves and prepared to expel them by force; but when Gewin was released, the negroes retired, sullenly, and a clash was averted.
The Gewin family and its connections comprised a considerable number of brave and resolute men, of remarkably fine physique, and they and their friends were indignant with Blackford, the probate judge, because of the suspicion that he had directed the negroes who committed the outrage,—a suspicion justified by the fact that Gewin was conveyed to Blackford’s office. Everybody sympathized with them. It was said that Blackford told the negroes they should avenge the killing of Webb, and that he instigated the incendiary threats, and he was thenceforward regarded as a factor of disturbance in the community.
As a result of these occurrences, an organization was formed in Greensboro for public defense, and arms were obtained. The members were, in event of necessity, to assemble at the ringing of a certain bell, and a rendezvous was selected. No oath was required of the members.
The first attempt to enforce the flag regulation in the case of a woman, in Tuscaloosa, was the last. Intrepid Ryland Randolph, editor of the Monitor, in uncontrollable indignation seized a sabre and in person challenged the responsible commander to mortal combat. Declining the proposed close encounter, that official thenceforward was more circumspect in his conduct.
The story of Randolph’s career is an interesting part of the history of Tuscaloosa. As an editor, he was belligerent, and relentless in his denunciation of radical maladministration of public affairs. So effective was his hostility that publication of his paper (official organ of the Ku Klux) was suppressed by military order. He accepted a challenge to a duel provoked by attacks upon the chief justice of the state supreme court, addressed to him by the judge’s son-in-law; but on the field mutual friends effected an amicable and honorable settlement.
A less dignified encounter involved him in more serious difficulties. Opposite the Monitor office a number of negroes were assembled one day, and two of them assaulted a white man. Suddenly Randolph, with pistol and bowie-knife in hand, appeared in the midst of the struggling throng. One shot was fired by him, when he, in turn, became the object of attack. One of the assailants, a political leader, received in his side a thrust from Randolph’s bowie, and another in the back, where the broken point of the knife remained. Within a few minutes the prostrate leader was the only one who remained on the scene. But the negroes, with augmented numbers, reassembled a short distance away. Randolph returned to his office and reappeared with a shotgun. His dauntless bearing discouraged further hostile demonstration by the blacks. In consequence of this affair, Randolph was arrested by the soldiers and taken to Montgomery for trial. En route, by stage-coach, he was made a spectacle for gloating negroes. He was acquitted, and his return was made an occasion of popular manifestation of esteem. A cavalcade met him some miles outside of Tuscaloosa, and on nearer approach to town was magnified into a vast procession of carriages and marchers, embracing men and women and school children. The procession moved to the sound of bells. A great meeting, with speechmaking, followed.
At that time the University of Alabama, at Tuscaloosa, was controlled by the radicals and boycotted by the whites. A brother of Governor Smith was a regent of the institution, and this regent’s son a student. One of the professors, Vaughan, had been persistently assailed by the Monitor, which charged him with incompetence and drunkenness. It was said that Vaughan enlisted Smith as a champion. Anyhow, the two sought Randolph on the streets and found him in conversation with a friend. While Vaughan stood some distance away, Smith approached Randolph and insultingly jostled him. Simultaneously and without hesitation, the two men drew pistols and began firing, each discharging five chambers of his revolver. One shot struck a thick book in Randolph’s coat pocket and lodged therein; another struck above the knee and ranged up the thigh, his leg being crooked at the moment. This shot necessitated amputation of the injured limb. An innocent bystander on the opposite side of the street was killed by a stray bullet. Smith and Vaughan were arrested. The former was rescued by fellow students and fled to Utah.
Randolph survived the reconstruction period and enjoyed the restoration of white supremacy. He died in 1903 from the effects of a fall in a streetcar.
An incident of the military régime in Eutaw early embittered relations between the people and their rulers. An “undesirable citizen” was given a ride on a rail. In the court martial trial of the accused, James A. Steele, Thomas W. Roberts, F. H. Mundy, John Cullen, Hugh L. White, William Pettigrew and Mr. Strayhorn were sentenced to hard labor at Dry Tortugas for periods ranging from two to six years. The circumstances attending their treatment as prisoners exhibited harshness which aroused indignation. Handcuffed and chained, they were conveyed by a squad to New Orleans and thence by sea to the island prison. They were not permitted to communicate with their families or friends nor to receive funds to relieve their wants. Their sufferings and indignities were severe and humiliating. An appeal in their behalf, with a presentation of the facts connected with the trial, was made to General Meade, and that commander remitted the sentence. The return of the victims to their homes was made the occasion of a memorable demonstration of popular feeling.