INDEX
Abolition sentiment in Alabama, [10].
Agriculture, during the war, [232];
since the war, [710-734].
Alabama, admitted to Union, [7];
secedes, [36];
readmitted, [547].
Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad, [591-600].
American Missionary Association and negro education, [459], [462], [463], [617], [620].
Amnesty proclamation of President Johnson, [349];
published by military commanders in Alabama, [409].
Amusements during the war, [241].
Andrew, Bishop, and the separation of the Methodist church, [22].
Anti Ku Klux, [690].
Anti-slavery sentiment in Alabama, [10].
Applegate, A. J., lieutenant-governor, [736].
Army, U. S., and the civic authorities, [410];
in conflict with Federal court, [414];
relations with the people, [417-420];
used in elections, [694-701], [746], [756], [789], [794].
Athens sacked by Colonel Turchin, [63].
Bacon used to influence elections, [785].
Banks and banking during the war, [162].
Baptist church, separation of, [22];
declaration in regard to the state of the country, [222];
during Reconstruction, [639];
relations with negroes, [642].
“Barbour County Fever,” [709].
Bingham, D. H., mentioned, [346], [350], [402];
in convention of 1867, [526];
in Union League, [557].
Birney, James G., mentioned, [10].
Black Belt, during slavery, [710];
at the end of the war, [713];
share system in, [722];
decadence of, during Reconstruction, [726].
“Black Code,” or “Black Laws,” [378].
“Black Republican” party arraigned, [20].
Blockade-running, [183].
Bonded debt of Alabama, [580-586].
Bonds, of state, [580];
of counties and towns, [580], [581];
fraudulent issues, [581], [582];
of railroads, [587-607];
fraudulent indorsements, [596-606].
Boyd, Alexander, killed by Ku Klux, [686].
Bragg, W. L., Democratic campaign manager, [793].
Brooks, William M., president of convention of 1861, [28];
letter to President Davis, [112];
advocates limited negro suffrage, [388].
Brown, John, plans negro uprising in Alabama, [18].
Buchanan, Admiral Franklin, at battle of Mobile Bay, [69].
Buck, A. E., carpet-bagger, in convention of 1867, [518];
elected to Congress, [750].
Buckley, C. W., carpet-bagger, agent of Freedmen’s Bureau, [426], [437], [440], [448], [458];
in convention of 1867, [518];
elected to Congress, [737];
on Ku Klux Committee, [702];
sides with the Robinson faction, [774].
Bulger, M. J., in secession convention, [29], [31], [33], [38];
candidate for governor, [372];
in politics, [513].
Busteed, Richard, Federal judge, on Fourteenth Amendment, [394];
in Radical politics, [511], [744], [774].
Byrd, William M., “Union” leader, [15].
Calhoun Democrats, [11].
Callis, John B., carpet-bagger, agent of Freedmen’s Bureau, [426];
in Union League, [557];
elected to Congress, [738].
Campaign, of 1867, [503-516];
of 1868, [493], [747];
of 1870, [751];
of 1872, [754];
of 1874, [782-797].
Carpet-bag and negro rule, [571] et seq.
Carpet-baggers, in convention of 1867, [517], [518], [530];
in Congress, [738], [749], [754], [761].
See also [Republicans].
Chain gang abolished, [393].
Charleston convention of 1860, [18].
Churches, separation of, [21-24];
during the war, [222];
seized by the Federal army and the northern churches, [227];
condition after the war, [325], [326];
attitude toward negro education and religion, [225], [457], [641];
during Reconstruction, [636-652].
Civil Rights Bill of 1866, [393].
Civil War in Alabama, [61-78];
seizure of the forts, [61];
operations in north Alabama, [62];
Streight’s Raid, [67];
Rousseau’s Raid, [68];
operations in south Alabama, [69];
Wilson’s Raid, [71];
destruction by the armies, [74].
Clanton, Gen. James H., organizes opposition to Radicals, [508], [512];
on negro education, [625], [630];
on the religious situation, [638].
Clay, Senator C. C., speech on withdrawal from U. S. Senate, [25];
arrested by Federals, [262].
Clayton, Judge Henry D., charge to the Pike County grand jury on the negro question, [385].
Clemens, Jere (or Jeremiah), in secession convention, [29], [34], [47];
mentioned, [64], [111];
deserter, [125], [127], [143];
advocates Reconstruction, [125], [144], [145].
Clews & Company, financial agents, [592], [596], [597].
Cloud, N. B., superintendent of public instruction, [610-632].
Cobb, W. R. W., “Union” leader, [16];
disloyal to Confederacy, [139].
Colleges during the war, [212].
Colonies of negroes, [421], [444].
Color line in politics, [779].
Commercial conventions, [25].
Commissioners sent to southern states, [46], [48].
Composition of population of Alabama, [3], [4].
Concentration camps of negroes, [421], [422], [444].
“Condition of Affairs in the South,” [311].
Confederate property confiscated, [285].
Confederate States, established, [39-42];
Congress of, [130];
enrolment laws, [92], [98];
finance in Alabama, [162-183].
Confederate text-books, [217].
Confiscation, proposed in secession convention, [48];
by United States, [284] et seq.;
frauds, [284], [290];
of cotton, [290];
of lands, [425];
supports Freedmen’s Bureau, [431];
belief of negroes in, [446], [447];
for taxes, [578].
Congress, C. S., Alabama delegation to, [130].
Congress, U. S., rejects Johnson’s plan, [377], [405];
imposes new conditions, [391];
forces carpet-bag government on Alabama, [547-552];
members of, from Alabama, [737], [749], [754], [761].
“Conquered province” theory of Reconstruction, [339].
Conscription, [92-108];
enrolment laws, [92-98];
trouble between state and Confederate authorities, [96-98].
Conservative party, [398], [401], [512].
See also [Democratic party].
Constitution, of 1865, [366], [367];
of 1868, [535],
vote on, [538],
rejected, [541];
imposed by Congress, [547-552], [797];
of 1875, [797];
of 1902, [800].
Contraband trade, [189].
“Convention” candidates in 1868, [493], [530].
Convention, of 1861, [27];
of 1865, [359];
of 1867, [491], [517];
of 1875, [797].
Coöperationists, [28];
policy of, in secession convention, [30];
speeches of, [32] et seq.
“Cotton is King,” [184].
Cotton, exported through the lines, [187], [191-193];
confiscated, [290] et seq.;
agents prosecuted for stealing, [297], [413];
cotton tax, [303];
production of, in Alabama, [710-734], [804].
County and local officials during Reconstruction, [742], [743], [753], [761], [796].
County and town debts, [580], [581], [604], [605].
Crowe, J. R., one of the founders of Ku Klux Klan, [661].
Curry, J. L., M., in Confederate Congress, [131];
defeated, [134];
on negro education, [457], [467], [468], [625], [631].
Dargan, E. S., in secession convention, [29], [40], [41];
on impressment, [175].
Davis, Nicholas, in Nashville convention, [14];
in secession convention, [29], [33], [38], [54];
in Radical politics, [403], [511];
opposed by Union League, [564];
opinion of Rev. A. S. Lakin, [612].
“Deadfalls,” [769].
Debt commission, work of, [583-586].
Debt of Alabama, [580-586].
Democratic party, ante-bellum, [7] et seq.;
reorganized, [398], [401];
during Reconstruction, [748], [750], [755], [778];
Populist influence, [799].
Department of Negro Affairs, [421].
Deserters, [112-130];
outrages by, [119];
prominent men, [124];
numbers, [127].
Destitution, during the war, [196-205];
after the war, [277].
Destruction of property, [74], [253].
Disaffection toward the Confederacy, [108-130], [136], [137].
Disfranchisement of whites, [489], [524], [806];
of negroes, [801], [806].
“Disintegration and absorption” policy of the northern churches, [636].
Domestic life during the war, [230-247].
Drugs and medicines, [239].
Economic and social conditions, 1861-1865, [149-247];
in 1865, [251];
during Reconstruction, [710-734], [761-770].
Education, during the war, [212];
during Reconstruction, [579], [606-632], [684];
discussion of, in convention of 1867, [522];
of the negro, [456-468], [624].
Election, of Lincoln, [19], [20];
of 1861, [131];
of 1863, [134];
of 1865, [373-375];
of 1867, [491];
of 1868, [493], [747];
of 1870, [750];
of 1872, [754];
of 1874, [793];
of 1876, [796];
of 1880, [798];
of 1890, [799];
of 1902, [800].
Election methods, [748], [751], [754], [755].
See also [Union League].
Emancipation, economic effects of, [710-734].
Emigration of whites from Alabama, [769].
Enforcement laws, state, [695];
Federal, [697].
Enrolment of soldiers from Alabama, [78-87];
laws relating to, [92], [95].
Episcopal church, divided, [24];
closed by the Federal army, [325];
loses its negro members, [646].
Eufaula riot, [794].
Eutaw riot, [686].
Exemption from military service, [101-108];
numbers exempted, [107].
Expenditures of the Reconstruction régime, [574], [575], [577].
Factories during the war, [149-162].
Farms and plantations during the war, [232].
Federal army closes churches, [226].
Federal courts and the army, [413].
Finances during the war, [162-183];
banks and banking, [162];
bonds and notes, [164];
salaries, [168];
taxation, [169];
impressment, [174];
debts, stay laws, sequestration, [176];
trade, barter, prices, [178];
during Reconstruction, [571-606].
Financial settlement, 1874-1876, [583-586].
Fitzpatrick, Benjamin, in Nashville convention, [14];
arrested, [262];
president of convention of 1865, [360].
Florida, negotiations for purchase of West Florida, [577].
Force laws, state and Federal, [695], [697].
“Forfeited rights” theory of Reconstruction, [341].
Forsyth, John, on Fourteenth Amendment, [394];
mayor of Mobile, [430].
“Forty acres and a mule,” [447], [515].
Fourteenth Amendment, proposed, [394];
rejected, [396], [397];
adopted by reconstructed legislature, [552].
Fowler, W. H., estimates of number of soldiers from Alabama, [78], [81].
Freedmen, see [Negroes].
Freedmen’s aid societies, [459].
Freedmen’s Bureau, [392], [421-470];
organization of, in Alabama, [423-427];
supported by confiscations, [431];
character of agents of, [448];
native officials of, [428], [429];
relations with the civil authorities, [427];
administration of justice, [438-441];
the labor problem, [433-438];
care of the sick, [441];
issue of rations, [442];
demoralization caused, [444];
effect on negro education, [456-468];
connection with the Union League, [557], [567], [568].
Freedmen’s codes, [378].
“Freedmen’s Home Colonies,” [422], [439], [444].
Freedmen’s Savings-bank, [451-455];
bank book, [452];
good effect of, [453];
failure, [455].
General officers from Alabama in the Confederate service, [85].
Giers, J. J., tory, [119], [147].
Gordon, Gen. John B., speech on negro education, [625].
Grant, Gen. U. S., letter on condition of the South, [311];
elected President, [747];
orders troops to Alabama, [789].
Haughey, Thomas, scalawag, deserter, elected to Congress, [488].
Hayden, Gen. Julius, in charge of Freedmen’s Bureau, [426].
Hays, Charles, scalawag, in Eutaw riot, [686];
member of Congress, [749], [754];
letter to Senator Joseph Hawley on outrages in Alabama, [786-788].
Herndon, Thomas H., candidate for governor, [754].
Hilliard, Henry W., “Union” leader, [15].
Hodgson, Joseph, mentioned, [512];
superintendent of public instruction, [631].
Home life during the war, [230-247].
Houston, George S., “Union” leader, [16];
elected to U. S. Senate, [374];
on Debt Commission, [582];
elected governor, [782], [795].
Humphreys, D. C., deserter, [126], [143], [350].
Huntsville parade of Ku Klux Klan, [686].
Immigration to Alabama, [321], [717], [734];
not desired by Radicals, [769].
Impressment by Confederate authorities, [174].
“Independents” in 1874, [781].
Indian question and nullification, [8], [9].
Indorsement of railroad bonds, [596-606].
Industrial development during the war, [149-162], [234];
military industries, [149];
private enterprises, [156].
Industrial reconstruction, [710-734], [804].
Intimidation, by Federal authorities, [789];
by Democrats, [791].
“Iron-clad” test oath, [369].
Jemison, Robert, in secession convention, [28], [29], [40], [49], [54];
elected to Confederate Senate, [134].
Johnson, President Andrew, plan of restoration,
[337];
amnesty proclamation, [349];
grants pardons, [356], [410];
interferes with provisional governments, [375], [419];
his work rejected by Congress, [377], [405], [406].
Joint Committee on Reconstruction, report on affairs in the South, [313].
Jones, Capt. C. ap R., at the Selma arsenal, [152].
Juries, of both races ordered by Pope, [480];
during Reconstruction, [745].
Keffer, John C., mentioned, [506], [518], [524], [554], [737], [751].
Kelly, Judge, in Mobile riot, [481], [509].
“King Cotton,” confidence in, [184].
Knights of the White Camelia, [669], [684].
See also [Ku Klux Klan].
Ku Klux Klan, causes, [653];
origin and growth, [660];
disguises, [675];
warnings, [678];
parade at Huntsville, [685];
Cross Plains or Patona affair, [685];
drives carpet-baggers from the State University, [612-615];
burns negro schoolhouses, [628];
table of alleged outrages, [705];
Ku Klux investigation, [701];
results of the Ku Klux revolution, [674].
Labor laws, [380], [381].
Labor of negroes and whites compared, [710-734].
Labor regulations of Freedmen’s Bureau, [433-438].
Lakin, Rev. A. S., Northern Methodist missionary, [637], [639], [648], [650];
in Union League, [557];
elected president of State University, [612];
Davis’s opinion of, [612].
Lands confiscated for taxes, [578].
Lane, George W., Unionist, Federal judge, [125], [127].
Lawlessness in 1865, [262].
Legislation, by convention of 1861, [49];
of 1865, [366];
of 1867, [528];
about freedmen, [379].
Legislature during Reconstruction, [738-741], [752], [755-795].
Lewis, D. P., in secession convention, [29];
deserter, [126];
repudiates Union League, [563];
elected governor in 1872, [754].
Life, loss of, in war, [251].
Lincoln, effect of election of, [20];
his plan of Reconstruction, [336].
Lindsay, R. B., taxation under, [573-576];
action on railroad bonds, [594-600];
elected governor, 1870, [751].
Literary activity during the war, [211].
Loss of life and property, [251].
“Loyalists,” during the war, [112], [113];
after the war, [316].
McKinstry, Alexander, lieutenant-governor, assists to elect Spencer, [756-760].
McTyeire, Bishop H. N., on negro education, [457], [467].
Meade, Gen. George G., in command of Third Military District, [493];
his administration, [493-502];
installs the reconstructed government, [552].
Medicines and drugs in war time, [239].
Methodist church, separation, [22];
during Reconstruction, [637];
favors negro education, [648].
Military commissions, see [Military government].
Military government, 1865-1866, [407-420];
trials by military commissions, [413-415];
objections to, [416-417].
Military government under the Reconstruction Acts, [473-502];
Pope’s administration, [473-493];
Meade’s administration, [493-502];
control over the civil government, [477], [495];
Pope’s trouble with the newspapers, [485];
trials by military commissions, [487], [498].
Militia system during the Civil War, [88-92];
during Reconstruction, [746].
Miller, C. A., carpet-bagger, agent of the Freedmen’s Bureau, [425], [426];
in convention of 1867, [518];
elected secretary of state, [737].
Mitchell, Gen. O. M., [62-65].
Mobile Bay, battle of, [69].
Mobile riot, [481], [509].
Mobile schools during Reconstruction, [617].
Moore, A. B., governor, calls secession convention, [27];
orders forts seized, [61];
objects to blockade-running, [184];
arrested by Federal authorities, [262].
Morgan, John T., in secession convention, [29], [40], [42], [49].
Morse, Joshua, scalawag, attorney-general, [737].
Mossbacks, tories, and unionists, [112], [113];
numbers, [127].
Nashville convention of 1850, [14].
“National Guards,” a negro organization, [774].
National Union movement, [400], [401].
Negro Affairs, Department of, [421].
See also [Freedmen’s Bureau].
Negro criminality, [762], [763];
negro labor, [710-734];
family relations, [763];
church in politics, [777];
women in politics, [776].
Negro education, favored by southern whites, [457], [626], [627];
native white teachers, [463];
Freedmen’s Bureau teaching, [456-468];
opposition to, [628];
character of, [464], [465], [625-630].
Negroes during the war, [205-212];
in the army, [86], [87], [205];
on the farms, [209];
fidelity of, [210];
in the churches, [225];
home life, [243].
Negroes under the provisional government, test their freedom, [269];
suffering among them, [273];
colonies of, [421], [444];
civil status of, [383], [384];
insurrection feared, [368], [412];
not to be arrested by civil authorities, [411];
attitude of army to, [410-413];
negro suffrage in 1866, [386].
Negroes during Reconstruction, controlled by the Union League, [553-568];
first vote, [514];
in the convention of 1867, [518], [521], [530];
in the campaign of 1874, [775], [776];
negro Democrats, [777], [778];
punished by Ku Klux Klan, [682];
negro juries, [480], [745];
disfranchised, [801], [806].
Negroes, social rights of, allowed in street cars, [393];
not allowed at hotel table, [417];
demand social privileges, [522], [764], [780], [783].
Negroes and the churches, [642], [777].
Newspapers, during the war, [218];
under Pope’s administration, [485].
Nick-a-Jack, a proposed new state, [111].
Nitre making, [152].
Non-slaveholders uphold slavery, [10], [11].
Norris, B. W., carpet-bagger, agent Freedmen’s Bureau, [426];
elected to Congress, [738].
North Alabama, anti-slavery sentiment in, [10];
in secession convention, [53];
during the Civil War, [109];
during Reconstruction, [403], [404], [748], [770], [779].
Northern men, treatment of, [318], [400].
Nullification, on Indian question, [8], [9];
divides the Democratic party, [11].
Oath, “iron-clad,” [369];
prescribed for voters, [475], [527].
Ordinance of Secession, [36], [37];
declared null and void, [360].
Painted stakes sold to negroes, [448].
Pardons by President Johnson, [356], [410].
Parsons, L. E., obstructionist and “Peace Society” man, [143], [147], [343];
provisional governor, [350], [353];
elected to U. S. Senate, [374];
speaks in the North, [392], [401];
advises rejection of Fourteenth Amendment, [396];
originates “White Man’s Movement,” [536];
Radical politician, [735], [751], [755-760].
Parties in the Convention of 1861, [28];
of 1865, [359].
Patona, or Cross Plains, affair, [686].
Patton, R. M., mentioned, [281];
elected governor, [373];
vetoes legislation for blacks, [378], [379];
on the Fourteenth Amendment, [395-397];
advises Congressional Reconstruction, [502].
Peace Society, [137-143].
Pike County grand jury, Judge Clayton’s charge to, [384].
“Pike County Platform,” [781].
“Political bacon,” [783-785].
Political beliefs of early settlers, [7].
Politics, during the war, [130-148];
1865-1867, [398];
1868-1874, [735] et seq.
Pope, General John, in command of Third Military District, [473-475];
his administration, [473-493];
quarrel with the newspapers, [485];
removed, [492].
Population, composition of, [3], [4].
Populist movement, [799].
Presbyterian church, separation, [22], [23], [24];
during Reconstruction, [640];
attitude toward negroes, [645].
Prescript of Ku Klux Klan, [664], [665].
President’s plan of reconstruction, [333] et seq.;
rejected by Congress, [377];
fails, [405], [406].
Prices during the war, [178].
Property, lost in war, [251];
decreases in value during Reconstruction, [578].
Provisional government, [351], [376].
Pryor, Roger A., debate with Yancey, [17].
Public bonded debt, [580-586].
Publishing-houses during the war, [221].
Race question, in convention of 1867, [521];
in the campaign of 1874, [679-782].
Races, segregation of, see maps in text.
Radical party organized, [505].
See also [Republican party].
Railroad legislation and frauds, [587-606].
Railroads aided by state, counties, and towns during Reconstruction, [591-606].
Railroads, built during the war, [155];
destroyed, [259].
Randolph, Ryland, a member of Ku Klux Klan, [612], [667], [668];
expelled from legislature, [741].
Rapier, J. T., negro member of Congress, mentioned, [488], [521], [523], [524];
supports Robinson-Buckley faction, [774].
Rations issued by Freedmen’s Bureau, [442], [445].
Reconstruction, sentiment during the war, [143-148];
theories of, [333-339];
early attempts at, [341];
Reconstruction Acts, [473-475], [490];
Reconstruction Convention, [491], [517-530];
constitution rejected, [494];
completed by Congress, [531], [550-552];
its successes and failures, [801].
Reconstruction, and education, [606-632];
and the churches, [637-653].
Registration of voters, [488], [491], [493].
Regulators, see [Ku Klux Klan].
Reid, Dr. G. P. L., on Knights of the White Camelia, [684].
Religious conditions, during the war, [222-230];
in 1865, [324];
during Reconstruction, [637-653].
Republican party in Alabama, organized, [402-405];
numbers, [735], [765];
in the legislature, [738], [752], [755];
divisions in, [771], [775];
“Lily Whites” and “Black and Tans,” [799].
“Restoration,” by the President, [349] et seq.;
convention, [358];
completed, [367];
rejected, [377].
Restrictions on trade in 1865, [284].
Riot, at Eufaula, [794];
at Eutaw, [686];
at Mobile, [481], [509].
Roddy, Gen. P. D., mentioned, [62], [68].
Roman Catholic church and the negroes, [646].
Rousseau’s Raid, [68].
Salt making, [158].
Sansom, Miss Emma, guides General Forrest, [67].
Savings-bank, Freedmen’s, [451-455].
Scalawags, in convention of 1867, [518], [529], [530].
See also [Republicans].
Schools, see [Education].
Schurz’s report on the condition of the South, [312].
Secession, [14], [15], [19], [27-57];
convention called, [27], [28];
ordinance passed, [36], [37];
debate on, in 1865, [360].
Secession convention, parties in, [23], [29];
political theories of members, [34];
slave trade prohibited, [42];
sends commission to Washington, [48];
legislation, [49-53].
Secessionists, [28];
policy in secession convention, [30].
Secret societies, see [Union League] and [Ku Klux Klan].
Segregation of races, [710-734].
See also the maps in the text.
Seibels, J. J., favors coöperation, [15];
obstructionist, [143], [147], [343].
Sequestration of enemies’ property, [176].
Share system of farming, [723].
Sheets, C. C., tory, [115], [126];
in convention of 1865, [365];
visited by Ku Klux Klan, [681].
Shorter, John G., elected governor, [131];
defeated, [134];
arrested by Federal authorities, [262].
Slaveholders and non-slaveholders, location of, [6].
Slavery, and politics, [10-14];
upheld by non-slaveholders, [10-11];
abolished, [362].
Slaves, see [Negroes].
Slave trade prohibited by secession convention, [42].
Smith, William H., deserter, [350], [510], [534];
a registration official, [488];
first Reconstruction governor, [735];
indorses railroad bonds, [591], [595], [601];
opinion of Senator Spencer, [692].
Smith, William R., “Union” leader, [16];
coöperationist leader in secession convention, [29], [33], [43], [49];
candidate for governor, [372];
president of State University, [612].
Social and economic conditions, during the war, [149-247];
in 1865, [251] et seq.;
during Reconstruction, [710-734], [761] et passim.
Social effects of Reconstruction, on whites, [767];
on blacks, [761] et seq.;
on carpet-baggers, [766].
Social rights for negroes, [523], [772], [775].
Soldiers from Alabama, numbers, character, organization, [78-87].
Southern Aid Society, [23].
“Southern outrages,” [399], [555], [786].
“Southern theory” of Reconstruction, [334].
“Southern Unionists’” convention, 1866, [402].
Speed, Joseph H., superintendent of public instruction, [633].
Spencer, G. E., carpet-bagger, election to U. S. Senate, [737], [755], [760];
Governor Smith’s opinion of, [691].
State Rights Democrats, [11], [12];
led by Yancey, [12], [13].
“State Suicide” theory of Reconstruction, [338].
Statistics of cotton frauds, [279].
Status, of freedmen, [384];
of the provisional government, [376].
Steedman and Fullerton’s report on the Freedmen’s Bureau, [449].
Stevens’s plan of Reconstruction, [339].
Streight, Col. A. D., raids into Alabama, [67].
Strobach-Robinson division in the Radical party, [774].
Suffrage for negroes in 1866, [387].
Sumner’s plan of Reconstruction, [338].
Swayne, Gen. Wager, assistant commissioner of Freedmen’s Bureau, [424], [425];
on the temper of the people, [315];
opinion of the laws relating to freedmen, [379], [380], [384];
fears negro insurrection, [369];
in command of Alabama, [407], [476];
attitude toward civil authorities, [428], [439];
forces negro education, [459];
enters politics, [404], [511];
removed, [492].
Sykes, F. W., in Radical politics, [510];
elected to U. S. Senate, [757], [760].
Taxation during the war, [169];
during Reconstruction, [571-579];
amounts to confiscation, [578].
Temper of the people after the war, [308].
Test oath, iron-clad, [369], [370], [527].
Text-books, Confederate, [217];
Radical, [624].
Theories of Reconstruction, [333] et seq.
Third Military District, under the Reconstruction Acts, [473-502].
Thomas, Gen. G. H., mentioned, [325], [407], [408], [474].
Tories and deserters, [108-430];
in north Alabama, [109];
definition, [112], [113];
outrages by, [119];
numbers, [127].
Trade through the lines, [189].
Treasury agents prosecuted, [297].
Trials by military commission, [413], [414], [487], [498].
Tribune, of New York, investigates the “Hays-Hawley letter,” [788].
Truman, Benjamin, report on the South, [312].
Turchin, Col. J. B., allows Athens to be sacked, [63].
Underground railway in Alabama, [18].
Union League of America, [553-568];
white members, [556];
negroes admitted, [557];
ceremonies, [559];
organization and method, [561];
influence over negroes, [568];
control over elections, [514], [515];
resolutions of Alabama Council, [307].
Union troops from Alabama, [87].
Unionists, tories, mossbacks, [112], [113].
University of Alabama under the Reconstruction régime, [612].
Wages of freedmen, [422], [433], [720], [731].
Walker, L. P., in Nashville convention, [14];
at Charleston convention, [18];
on negro suffrage, [389].
Wards of the nation, [421-470].
Warner, Willard, carpet-bagger, elected to U. S. Senate, [737].
Watts, Thomas H., “Union” leader, [15];
in secession convention, [29], [35], [45], [48];
defeated for governor, [131];
elected, [134];
supports the Confederacy, [135];
troubles over militia with conscript officials, [91], [97], [104];
favors blockade-running, [185];
speech in 1865, [341];
arrested by Federal authorities, [262].
Whig party, appears, [11];
its progress on the slavery question, [12];
breaks up, [16], [17].
White Brotherhood, [708].
White Camelia, [670].
White counties, agriculture in, [727];
destitution in, [196-205];
politics in, see maps.
White labor superior to negro labor, [726].
White League, [709].
“White Man’s Government,” [364].
“White man’s party,” [536], [778], [779].
Wilmer, Bishop R. H., [24];
trouble with military authorities, [325-329];
suspended, [325].
Wilson’s Raid, [71].
Women, interest in public questions, [230].
Women’s Gunboat, [245].
Yancey, William Lowndes, leader of State Rights Democrats, [12], [13];
author of Alabama Platform of 1848, [13];
advocates secession, [14], [15];
debate with Roger A. Pryor, [17];
offered nomination for vice-presidency, [19];
in secession convention, [29], [31], [36], [39], [44], [46], [57].
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Footnotes:
Nativities of the Free Population
| State or Country | 1850 | 1860 | ||
| Alabama | 237,542 | 320,026 | ||
| Connecticut | 91 | 343 | ||
| Florida | 1,060 | 1,644 | ||
| Georgia | 58,997 | 83,517 | ||
| Kentucky | 2,694 | 1,966 | ||
| Louisiana | 628 | 1,149 | ||
| Maine | 215 | 272 | ||
| Maryland | 757 | 683 | ||
| Massachusetts | 654 | 753 | ||
| Mississippi | 2,852 | 4,848 | ||
| New York | 1,443 | 1,848 | ||
| North Carolina | 28,521 | 23,504 | ||
| Ohio | 276 | 265 | ||
| Pennsylvania | 876 | 989 | ||
| South Carolina | 48,663 | 45,185 | ||
| Tennessee | 22,541 | 19,139 | ||
| Virginia | 10,387 | 7,598 | ||
| England | 941 | 1,174 | ||
| France | 503 | 359 | ||
| Germany | 1,068 | 2,601 | ||
| Ireland | 2,639 | 5,664 | ||
| Scotland | 584 | 696 | ||
| Spain | 163 | 157 | ||
| Switzerland | 113 | 138 |
| Totals | 1850 | 1860 | ||
| Native | 420,032 | 526,769 | ||
| Foreign | 7,638 | 12,352 |
The total population from 1820 to 1860 was as follows:—
| White | Black | |||
| 1820 | 85,451 | 41,879 | ||
| 1830 | 190,406 | 117,549 | ||
| 1840 | 335,185 | 253,532 | ||
| 1850 | 426,514 | 342,844 | ||
| 1860 | 526,271 | 435,080 |
[2] Hundly, “Social Relations”; Hodgson, “Cradle of the Confederacy,” Ch. 1; Garrett, “Reminiscences,” Ch. 1; Miller’s and Brown’s “Histories of Alabama,” passim; Saunders, “Early Settlers,” passim. From 1840 to 1860 there was a slight sectional and political division between the counties of north Alabama and those of central and south Alabama, owing to the conflicting interests of the two sections and to the lack of communication. By 1860 this was tending to become a social division between the white counties and the black counties. The division to some extent still exists.
[3] In all studies of the sectional spirit it should be remembered that the Southwest was settled somewhat in spite of the Washington government and without the protection of the United States army; the reverse is true of the Northwest.
[4] Hodgson, “Cradle of the Confederacy,” Chs. 2, 4, 6, 8; DuBose, “Life of William L. Yancey”; Phillips, “Georgia and State Rights,” Chs. 2, 3; Pickett, “Alabama,” Owen’s edition.
[5] In 1832 there were eight emancipation societies in north Alabama: The State Society, Courtland, Lagrange, Tuscumbia, Florence, Madison County, Athens, and Lincoln. Publications, Southern History Association, Vol. II, pp. 92, 93.
[6] See Hodgson, p. 7. In 1842 representation in the legislature was changed from the “federal” basis and based on white population alone. This change was made by the Democrats and was opposed by the Whigs. The latter predominated in the Black Belt.
[7] Hodgson, Ch. 1; Debates of Convention of 1861, passim.
[8] Miller, “Alabama,” p. 123.
[9] Known as the “Alabama Platform” of 1848.
[10] Benjamin Fitzpatrick led the conservative element of the Democratic party and opposed Yancey.
[11] This division in the State Rights ranks existed until secession was actually achieved and even after.
[12] Each extreme southern state—Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina—showed a desire to have some more moderate state act first. Some prominent men in this convention were Yancey, Seibels, Thomas Williams, John A. Elmore, B. F. Saffold, Abram Martin, A. P. Bagley, Adam C. Felder, David Clopton, and George Goldthwaite, nearly all South Carolinians by birth.
[13] A dodging of the question.
[14] For an account of one of these, see the American Historical Review, Oct., 1900.
[15] General Pryor informs me that at the convention of 1858 no one understood that there was any desire on the part of Yancey and others to reopen the slave trade. They recognized that the rest of the world was against them on that question and were demanding simply a repeal of what they considered discriminating laws. Yancey compared the question to that of the tea tax in the American colonies. See also Hodgson, p. 371, and Yancey’s speeches in Smith’s “Debates of 1861.”
[16] A branch of the Underground Railway reached from Ohio as far into Alabama as Tallapoosa County. Kagi, one of Brown’s confederates, had marked out a chain of black counties where he had travelled and where the negroes were expected to rise. He had travelled through South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. Russell County, Alabama, was one of those marked on his map. The people were greatly alarmed when the map was discovered. See Seibert’s “Underground Railroad,” pp. 119, 160, 167, 195; Hinton, “John Brown”; Hague, “Blockaded Family.” As early as 1835 incendiary literature had been scattered among the Alabama slaves, and in that year the grand jury of Tuscaloosa County indicted Robert G. Williams of New York for sending such printed matter among the slaves. General Gayle demanded that he be sent to Alabama for trial, but Governor Marcy refused to give him up. See Brown’s “Alabama,” p. 167, and Gulf States Hist. Mag., July, 1903.
[17] Afterwards Confederate Secretary of War.
[18] Yancey was willing to disregard instructions and not withdraw; the rest of the delegation overruled him. See paper by Petrie in Transactions Ala. Hist. Soc., Vol. IV.
[19] Hodgson, Ch. 15.
[20] Acts of Alabama (1859-1860), pp. 689-690; Smith’s “Debates,” pp. 10, 11.
[21] Acts of Alabama (1859-1860), pp. 681-682; Senate Journal (1859-1860), pp. 147, 176, 293, 302.
[22] During this session Judge Sam. Rice, in reply to John Forsyth and others who feared that secession would lead to war, said: “There will be no war. But if there should be, we can whip the Yankees with popguns.” After the war, when he had turned “scalawag,” he was taken to task for the speech. “You said we could whip the Yankees with popguns.” “Yes,—but the damned rascals wouldn’t fight that way.”
[23] The popular vote in Alabama was: for Breckenridge, 48,831; for Douglas, 13,621; for Bell, 27,875.
[24] Many people believed that Hamlin was a mulatto.
[25] Horace Greeley, “The American Conflict,” Vol. I, p. 355. For a similar meeting in Montgomery, see Hodgson, p. 459 et seq.
[26] See Townsend Collection, Columbia University Library, Vol. I, p. 187. One poor white man in Tallapoosa County welcomed the election of Lincoln, for “now the negroes would be freed and white men could get more work and better pay.” Authorities for the political history of Alabama before 1860: Hodgson’s “Cradle of the Confederacy”; Garrett’s “Reminiscences of Public Men of Alabama”; Brewer’s “Alabama”; Brown’s “History of Alabama”; Miller’s “History of Alabama”; Pickett’s “History of Alabama” (Owen’s edition); “Northern Alabama Illustrated”; “Memorial Record of Alabama”; DuBose’s “Life and Times of William L. Yancey”; Hilliard’s “Politics and Pen Pictures and Speeches”; Transactions of Ala. Hist. Soc., Vol. IV, papers by Yonge, Cozart, Culver, Scott, and Petrie.
[27] O’Gorman, “History of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States,” p. 425.
[28] Carroll, “Religious Forces of the United States,” p. 306; Thompson, “History of the Presbyterian Churches in the United States,” pp. 41, 135.
[29] Statistics of Churches, Census of 1890, p. 146; Riley, “History of the Baptists in the Southern States East of the Mississippi,” p. 205 et seq.; Newman, “History of the Baptists of the United States,” pp. 443-454.
[30] See Smith, “Life of James Osgood Andrew”; Buckley, “History of Methodism”; McTyeire, “History of Methodism”; Alexander, “History of the Methodist Episcopal Church South”; Statistics of Churches, p. 581.
[31] Statistics of Churches, p. 566.
[32] Southern Aid Society Reports, 1854-1861.
[33] Statistics of Churches, p. 684; Carroll, “Religious Forces,” pp. 281, 306; Thompson, “History of the Presbyterian Churches,” p. 135.
[34] Thompson, “History of the Presbyterian Churches,” p. 155; Johnson, “History of the Southern Presbyterian Church,” pp. 333, 339; McPherson, “History of the Rebellion,” p. 508; “Annual Cyclopædia” (1862), p. 707; Statistics of Churches, p. 683.
[35] Carroll, “Religious Forces,” pp. 93, 178.
[36] Annual Cyclopædia (1864), p. 683.
[37] Wilmer, “Recent Past,” p. 248.
[38] Perry, “History of the American Episcopal Church,” Vol. II, p. 328 et seq.; McPherson, “History of the Rebellion,” p. 515; Whitaker, “Church in Alabama.”
[39] President of Columbia College (N.Y.) during and after the war.
[40] Smith, pp. 448-450, condensed.
[41] Smith, “History and Debates of the Convention of Alabama,” 1861, p. 12. My account of the convention is condensed almost entirely from Smith’s “Debates.” Smith was a coöperationist member from Tuscaloosa County. He kept full notes of the proceedings and is impartial in his reports of speeches. Almost the entire edition of the “Debates” was destroyed by fire in 1861. Hodgson, “Cradle of the Confederacy,” and DuBose, “Life and Times of William L. Yancey,” both give short accounts of the convention.
[42] Except Yancey, who declared that the disease preying on the vitals of the Federal Union was not due to any defect in the Constitution, but to the heads, hearts, and consciences of the northern people; that no guarantees, no amendments, could reëducate the northern people on the slavery question, so as to induce a northern majority to withhold the exercise of its power in aid of abolition. Governor Moore, in the commissions given to the ambassadors to the other states, declared that the peace, honor, and security of the southern states were endangered by the election of Lincoln, the candidate of a purely sectional party, whose avowed principles demanded the destruction of slavery.
[43] It would seem that after this vote no one would say that nearly half of the members were “Unionists,” yet nearly all accounts make this statement.
[44] There were many indications that the opposition was more sectional and personal than political. It is safe to state for north Alabama that had the Black Belt declared for the Union, that section would have voted for secession.
[45] This minority report was signed by Clemens of Madison, Lewis of Lawrence, Winston of De Kalb, Kimball of Tallapoosa, Watkins of Franklin, and Jemison of Tuscaloosa, all from north Alabama.
[46] c.=coöperationist; s.=secessionist; cs.=coöperationist who voted for secession.
[47] It was he who compiled the debates of the convention.
[48] He was the oldest general officer in the Confederate service.
[49] Constitution, Article I, Section X: “No state shall without the consent of Congress enter into any agreement or compact with another state,” etc.
[50] He was here referring indirectly to the action of the state authorities in seizing the forts at Pensacola and Mobile before secession.
[51] Clemens was accused of voting for secession in order to obtain the command of the militia. He had formerly been an army officer, and was now made major-general of militia. It was not long before he deserted and went North.
[52] Who succeeded Yancey in the convention after the latter was sent to Europe.
[53] The present (1905) senior U. S. senator from Alabama.
[54] Bulger of Tallapoosa, Jones and Wilson of Fayette, and Sheets of Winston voted in the negative.
[55] See below, [Ch. III, sec. 5].
[56] Coffee was a white county and had very few slaves.
[57] The commissioners sent to the various states were as follows: Virginia, A. F. Hopkins and F. M. Gilmer; South Carolina, John A. Elmore; North Carolina, I. W. Garrott and Robert H. Smith; Maryland, J. L. M. Curry; Delaware, David Clopton; Kentucky, S. F. Hale; Missouri, William Cooper; Tennessee, L. Pope Walker; Arkansas, David Hubbard; Louisiana, John A. Winston; Texas, J. M. Calhoun; Florida, E. C. Bullock; Georgia, John G. Shorter; Mississippi, E. W. Pettus. Only one state, South Carolina, sent a delegate to Alabama.
[58] It was not until the end of June, 1861, that the United States postal service was withdrawn and final reports made to the United States. The Confederate postal service succeeded. At first, the Confederate Postmaster-General directed the postmasters to continue to report to the United States.
[59] This account of the work of the convention is compiled from the pamphlet ordinances in the Supreme Court Library in Montgomery.
[60] So Smith, the coöperationist historian, reported.
[61] See Smith’s “Debates”; Hodgson’s “Cradle of the Confederacy”; DuBose’s “Yancey”; Wilmer’s “Recent Past.”
[62] Gov. A. B. Moore to President Buchanan, Jan. 4, 1861, in O. R. Ser. I, Vol. I, pp. 327, 328.
[63] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 89.
[64] Miller, “History of Alabama,” p. 158.
[65] See D. C. Buell, “Operations in North Alabama,” in “Battles and Leaders of the Civil War,” Vol. II, pp. 701-708.
[66] Miller, p. 160; Brewer, “Alabama,” p. 65; Mrs. Clay-Clopton, “A Belle of the Fifties,” Chs. 18-22; O. R., Ser. I, Vol. X, Pt. II, pp. 204, 294, 295, et passim. Buell stated that “habitual lawlessness prevailed in a portion of General Mitchell’s command,” and that though authority was granted to punish with death there were no punishments. Discipline was lost. The officers were engaged in cotton speculation, and Mitchell’s wagon trains were used to haul the cotton for the speculators. Flagrant crimes, Buell stated, were “condoned or neglected” by Mitchell. “Battles and Leaders,” Vol. II, pp. 705, 706. North Alabama was not important to the Federals from a strategic point of view, and only the worst disciplined troops were stationed in that section.
[67] His real name was Ivan Vasilivitch Turchinoff. Several other officers were court-martialled at the same time for similar conduct. Keifer, “Slavery and Four Years of War,” Vol. I, p. 277; Miller, p. 160; “Battles and Leaders,” II, p. 706. A former “Union” man declared after the war that the barbarities of Turchin crushed out the remaining “Union” sentiment in north Alabama. Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Testimony, p. 850 (Richardson); O. R., Ser. I, Vols. X and XVI, passim; Brewer, “Alabama,” pp. 319, 348. Accounts of eye-witnesses.
[68] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. X, Pt. II, pp. 204, 294, 295.
[69] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. X, Pt. II, p. 212.
[70] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. X, Pt. II, pp. 167, 168, 174 (May, 1862); for Clemens and Lane, see [Ch. III, sec. 4].
[71] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. X, Pt. II, pp. 290-293.
[72] Brewer, p. 485, et passim; Miller, p. 125; O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXXIII, Pt. III, pp. 750-751.
[73] Gen. D. S. Stanley to Gen. William D. Whipple, Feb., 1865; O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. I, p. 718.
[74] Clanton’s report, March, 1864; O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXXIII, Pt. III, p. 718.
[75] Miller, “Alabama.”
[76] Miller, p. 165.
[77] Miller, “Alabama”; Brewer, pp. 318, 348.
[78] Brewer, pp. 284, 383.
[79] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XVI, Pt. I, pp. 841, 839; Wyeth, “Life of Forrest,” pp. 111-113.
[80] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXXII, Pt. I, p. 394.
[81] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XX, Pt. II, p. 442.
[82] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XX, Pt. II, p. 443.
[83] The Andrews raiders in Georgia were hanged as spies for being dressed “in the promiscuous southern style.”
[84] Wyeth, “Life of Forrest,” pp. 185-222; Mathes, “General Forrest,” pp. 109-127; Miller, Ch. 32.
[85] Brewer, p. 339.
[86] Miller, p. 213.
[87] After completion at Selma the Tennessee was taken down the river to defend Mobile. It was found, even after removing her armament, that the vessel could not pass the Dog River bar, and timber was cut from the forests up the river and “camels” made with which to buoy up the heavy vessel. By accident these camels were burned and more had to be made. At last the heavy ram was floated over the bar. Of course the newspapers harshly criticised those in charge of the Tennessee. Maclay, “History of the United States Navy,” Vol. II, p. 448.
[88] Brewer, p. 389; Scharf, “Confederate Navy,” Ch. 18; Miller, pp. 205-206.
[89] Brewer, p. 120; Miller, p. 207.
[90] Some of the Confederate gunboats were sunk (Huntsville and Tuscaloosa), and Commander Farrand surrendered twelve gunboats in the Tombigbee. All of these had been built at Mobile, Selma, and in the Tombigbee.
[91] Miller, pp. 208, 217-221.
[92] It was intended that Wilson should raid to and fro all through central Alabama. His men were armed with repeating carbines; his train of 250 wagons was escorted by 1500 unmounted men who secured mounts as they went farther into the interior. Greeley, Vol. II, p. 716.
[93] N. Y. Herald, April 6, 1865.
[94] April 5 Cahaba was captured by a part of Wilson’s force and twenty Federal prisoners released from the military prison at that place. They reported that they had been well treated.—N. Y. Herald, April 29, 1865.
[95] Wyeth, “Life of Forrest,” pp. 606, 607.
[96] Parsons’s Cooper Institute Speech in N. Y. Times, Nov. 27, 1865; Trowbridge, “The South,” pp. 435, 440. Accounts of eye-witnesses.
[97] Trowbridge, “The South,” p. 435.
[98] Hardy, “History of Selma,” p. 51; Miller, “Alabama,” pp. 221-226; Parsons, speeches in N. Y. Times, Nov. 27, 1865, Apr. 20, 1866; N. Y Herald, May 4, and Apr. 6, 1865; Montgomery Advertiser, July 14, 1867; Wilson’s Report, June 29, 1865; Selma Times, Feb. 13, 1866; “Our Women in War Times,” p. 277; Greeley, Vol. II, p. 719; Wyeth, “Life of Forrest,” pp. 604-607; “Northern Alabama,” p. 655.
[99] Hardy, “History of Selma,” p. 52, says four regiments were organized, and the others were driven away.
[100] 125,000 bales, according to Greeley, Vol. II, p. 719.
[101] The Advertiser of April 18, 1865.
[102] N. Y. World, May 1 and July 18, 1865; N. Y. Herald, May 4 and 15, and June 17, 1865; Brewer, p. 512; Greeley, Vol. II, p. 720.
[103] N. Y. Daily News, May 29, 1865; Century Magazine, Nov., 1889; Transactions Ala. Hist. Soc., Vol. IV, p. 449.
[104] Report, June 29, 1865.
[105] Somers, “The South Since the War,” pp. 134, 135.
[106] Truman in N. Y. Times, Nov. 2, 1865.
[107] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. III, pp. 230-233.
[108] See Brewer, “County Notes.”
[109] Brewer, p. 188 et passim; Miller, p. 179; O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXIII, Pt. I, pp. 245-249.
[110] Miller, p. 183; Garrett, “Public Men.”
[111] Miller, p. 301.
[112] Speech at Cooper Institute, Nov. 13, 1865, in N. Y. Times, Nov. 27, 1895.
[113] N. Y. Herald, May 4 and 15, 1865; the World, May 1, 1865; the Times, April 20, and Nov. 2, 1865; Montgomery Advertiser, July 14, 1867; Selma Times, Feb. 13, 1866; Wilson’s Report, June 29, 1865: Hardy, “History of Selma,” pp. 46, 51.
[114] “The South,” p. 440.
[115] Hague, “Blockaded Family,” passim; Riley, “Baptists in Alabama,” pp. 304, 305; “Our Women in the War,” p. 275 et seq.; Riley, “History of Conecuh County,” p. 173.
[116] Miller, “History of Alabama,” p. 359; Brewer, “History of Alabama,” pp. 68, 69; Transactions Ala. Hist. Soc., Vol. II, p. 188.
[117] Miller, “History of Alabama,” p. 360; Colonel Moore’s article in the Louisville Post, May 30, 1900.
[118] Miller, p. 359.
[119] For other estimates, see Livermore, “Numbers and Losses,” and Curry, “Civil History of the Confederate States,” pp. 152, 153.
[120] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 102, 103.
[121] Livermore, “Numbers and Losses,” pp. 20, 21.
[122] Alabama did not succeed in organizing the militia.
[123] Miller, “Alabama,” Appendix; Report of Col. E. D. Blake, Supt. of Special Registration, in O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 102, 103; Brewer, “Alabama,” see “Regimental Histories.”
[124] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. III, pp. 440, 445; Brewer, “Alabama.” Several commands were equipped at the expense of the commanders; others were equipped by the communities in which they were raised; one old gentleman, Joel E. Matthews of Selma, gave his check for $15,000 to the state, besides paying for the outfitting of several companies of soldiers. “Northern Alabama Illustrated,” p. 661.
[125] These regiments were the 57th and 61st Infantry, and 7th Cavalry.
[126] General Lee protested against this practice as preventing the proper recruitment of the armies. Livermore, “Numbers and Losses in the Civil War,” p. 12.
[127] The infantry regiments in Lee’s army had 12 companies.
[128] See summary of Confederate legislation on the subject. Livermore, p. 30. The purpose of these laws was to discourage the formation of new commands. It was not effective in Alabama.
[129] These were the infantry regiments numbered 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 41, 44, 48.
[130] The infantry regiments numbered 9, 11, 44, 48.
[131] The infantry regiments numbered 43, 47, 49, 61. Brewer, “Regimental Histories.”
[132] These were the infantry regiments numbered 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 41, 44, 48.
[133] When the regiments enlisted for a short time were retained in the service, the men were allowed to change to other regiments if they desired, and many did so. These transfers and reënlistments swelled the total enrolment of popular regiments.
[134] This has since been the method of estimating the number of soldiers furnished by Alabama,—each enlistment counting as one man.
[135] The infantry regiments numbered 20, 23, 28, 31, 34, 37, 42, 55.
[136] The 23d Infantry.
[137] The regiments that were united were: 24, 34, and 28; 33 and 38; 32 and 58; 23 and 46; 7, 39, 22, and 26-50. All were in Johnston’s army except the 32d and 58th, which were in Taylor’s command. Some of these regiments were consolidated after only one year’s service; the others after less than two years. This indicates a low enrolment. Many companies were never recruited to the minimum. Three infantry regiments were disbanded after short service,—1, 2 and 7,—and the men reënlisted in other organizations.
[138] The 62d, 63d, 65th. A thousand to the regiment is a very liberal estimate; 500 is probably more nearly correct, I am told by old soldiers.
[139] Jeff Davis Artillery, Hadaway’s Battery, Jeff Davis Legion, 4th Battalion Infantry, 23d Battalion Infantry.
[140] The 1st, 3d, 8th, 10th, and 15th Confederate regiments of cavalry had some companies from Alabama.
[141] The 6th Infantry.
[142] Miller, p. 374.
[143] Brewer evidently follows Fowler, as to the Army of Northern Virginia.
[144] Not that this deceived the Confederate administration, but the large estimates sounded well in the governor’s messages, and when there was a dispute with Richmond about the quota of the state.
[145] In 1861 and 1862 some regiments enlisted for short terms, some for three years, some for the war. I have been unable, in more than two or three cases, to find out the exact term, but there could hardly have been more than one reënlistment of an organization.
[146] The 1st, 2d, 7th, 11th, 21st, 25th, 26th-50th, 27th, 29th, 42d, 46th, 54th, 55th, 56th, 58th, 59th, 60th, 62d, 65th.
[147] The 3d, Russell’s 4th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th.
[148] (a) There had been to the end of 1863, 90,857 enlistments in Alabama. Included in these figures were all reënlistments and transfers.
(b) In the summer of 1863 the state took a census of all males from sixteen to sixty years of age, a total of 40,500 names. These included 8835, and later 10,000, exempts, and all the cripples and deadheads in the state. Since this was six months previous to the report of the 90,857 enlistments, there must have been in the latter number many that were on the former list. See O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 101-103, 1101.
[149] West Point graduates, nine.
[150] Killed in battle, ten.
[151] Derry, “Story of the Confederate States”; Southern Hist. Soc. Papers, Vol. VI; Brewer, “Alabama,” “Regimental Histories”; Miller, “History of Alabama,” p. 375; Brown, “History of Alabama,” pp. 238-254.
[152] Annual Cyclopædia (1864), p. 7.
[153] Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 10.
[154] Riley, “Baptists of Alabama,” p. 305; O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 1193.
[155] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol I, p. 1088; Vol. II, pp. 94, 197.
[156] N. Y. World, March 12, 1864; “The Land We Love,” Vol. II, p. 296.
[157] Southern Hist. Soc. Papers, Vol. II, p. 61; Shaver, “History of the Sixtieth Alabama,” p. 106; Miller, “History of Alabama,” pp. 359, 374; Brewer, “Alabama,” pp. 586-705; “Confederate Military History”—Alabama; Longstreet, “Manassas to Appomattox”; “Memorial Record of Alabama” (Wheeler’s “Military History”); McMorries, “History of the First Alabama Regiment.”
[158] Transactions Ala. Hist. Soc., Vol. II, p. 188; also John S. Wise, “End of an Era”; Longstreet, “Manassas to Appomattox.”
[159] Montgomery Advertiser Almanac (1901), p. 220.
[160] Report of 1866, Appendix, Pt. I, p. 166.
[161] Report of the Secretary of War, 1866, Appendix, Pt. I, p. 69; Report of the Secretary of War (1864-1865), p. 28; Moore, “Rebellion Record,” Vol. VII, p. 45; Miller, p. 360; O. R., Ser. III, Vol. III, pp. 1115, 1190, and Vol. IV, pp. 16, 921, 925, 269, 1270; O. R., Ser. II, Vol. V, pp. 589, 570, 626, 627, 716, 946, 947; “Confederate Military History”—Alabama.
[162] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 592.
[163] Moore, “Rebellion Record,” Supplement.
[164] The 89th, 94th, 95th, etc. See Moore, “Rebellion Record,” Supplement. The highest number of a militia regiment to be found on the records was the 102d, in Sumter County.
[165] See O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXVI, Pt. II (Shorter to Johnston).
[166] Moore, “Rebellion Record,” Vol. VI; O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, pp. 253-256.
[167] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXXIX, Pts. II and III, pp. 780, 855; Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 175, 323.
[168] Act of General Assembly, Aug. 29, 1863, which seems to have followed an act of Congress of similar nature.
[169] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 1133.
[170] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 172-174, 256, 376. The state supreme court held the same view.
[171] Moore, “Rebellion Record,” Vol. VIII, p. 378.
[172] Acts of General Assembly, Dec. 12, 1864.
[173] N. Y. Times, April 16, 1865; Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 10.
[174] See O. R., General Index.
[175] The 61st, 62nd, and 65th regiments were thus formed, the men becoming subject to duty under the conscript act, or by volunteering.
[176] Act, April 16, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess.
[177] Act, April 21, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess.
[178] Act, Sept. 27, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 2d Sess.
[179] Act, Oct. 9, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 2d Sess. These details were still carried on the rolls of the company.
[180] Act, Oct. 11, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 2d Sess. The exemption of one white for twenty negroes was called the “twenty-nigger law.” One peaceable Black Belt citizen wished to stay at home, but he possessed only nineteen negroes. His neighbors thought that he ought to go to war, and no one would give, lend, or sell him a slave. Unable to purchase even the smallest negro, he was sadly making preparations to depart, when one morning he was rejoiced by the welcome news that one of the negro women had presented her husband with a fine boy. The tale of twenty negroes was complete, and the master remained at home.
[181] Act of April 14, 1863, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 3d Sess.
[182] Acts, Dec. 28, 1863, and Jan. 5, 1864, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 4th Sess.
[183] Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 4th Sess.
[184] Act, Feb. 17, 1864, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 4th Sess.
[185] Acts, Jan. 31, 1861, 1st Called Session.
[186] Act, Aug. 29, 1863.
[187] Nov. 25, 1862.
[188] Dec. 6, 1862.
[189] Act, Aug. 29, 1863.
[190] Dec. 13, 1864. This was a measure of obstruction, since the Confederate laws did not exempt millers. The legislature elected in 1863 contained many obstructionists.
[191] Act, Aug. 29, 1863.
[192] Resolution, Dec. 4, 1863.
[193] Ex parte Hill, In re Willis et al. vs. Confederate States—38 Alabama Reports (1863), 429. All over the state at various times men sought to avoid conscription or some certain service under every pretext, sometimes “even resorting to a habeas corpus before an ignorant justice of the peace, who had no jurisdiction over such cases.” See O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXVI, Pt. II, p. 139; also Governor Shorter to General Johnston. Aug., 1863.
[194] Dunkards, Quakers, Nazarenes. In re Stringer—38 Alabama (1863), 457.
[195] 38 Alabama, 458.
[196] 39 Alabama, 367.
[197] 39 Alabama, 254.
[198] 39 Alabama, 457.
[199] 39 Alabama, 440.
[200] 39 Alabama, 611.
[201] 39 Alabama, 609.
[202] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 256, 463, et passim.
[203] Memorial, Oct. 7, 1864.
[204] Acts, Dec. 12, 1864.
[205] Dec. 13, 1864.
[206] Curry, “Civil History of the Confederate States,” p. 151.
[207] The Conscript Bureau had posts at the following places: Decatur, Courtland, Somerville, Guntersville, Tuscumbia, Fayetteville, Pikeville, Camden, Montgomery, Selma, Lebanon, Pollard, Troy, Mobile, West Point (Ga.), Marion, Greensborough, Blountsville, Livingston, Gadsden, Cedar Bluff, Jacksonville, Ashville, Carrollton, Tuscaloosa, Eutaw, Eufaula, Jasper, Newton, Clarksville, Talladega, Elyton. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 819-821.
[208] See De Leon, “Four Years in Rebel Capitals.”
[209] President Davis visited Mobile in October, 1863, and upon reviewing the Alabama troops recently raised, was much moved at seeing the young boys and the old gray-haired men in the ranks before him. See Annual Cyclopædia (1863), p. 8. The A. and I. General of Alabama reported, July 29, 1862, that not more than 10,000 conscripts could be secured from Alabama unless the enemy could be expelled from the Tennessee valley. In that case, 3000 more men might be secured. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, p. 21.
[210] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 1149; Vol. II, pp. 87, 207, 208, 790.
[211] See Curry, “Civil History,” p. 151.
[212] James Phelan to President Davis, O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XVII, Pt. II, p. 790.
[213] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XVII, Pt. II, p. 790.
[214] C. C. Clay, Jr., to Secretary of War, O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, pp. 141, 142.
[215] I know of one man who for two years carried his arm in a sling to deceive the enrolling officers. It was sound when he put it into the sling. After the war ended he could never regain the use of it.
A draft from the Home Guards of Selma was ordered to go to Mobile. The roll was made out, and opposite his name each man was allowed to write his excuse for not wishing to go. One cripple, John Smith, wrote, “One leg too short,” and was at once excused by the Board. The next man had no excuse whatever, but he had seen how Smith’s excuse worked, so he wrote, “Both legs too short,” but he had to go to Mobile. “The Land We Love,” Vol. III, p. 430.
[216] Shorter’s Proclamation, Dec. 22, 1862.
[217] M. J. Saffold, afterward a prominent “scalawag,” escaped service as an “agent to examine political prisoners.” O. R., Ser. II, Vol. VI, p. 432.
[218] The list of pardons given by President Johnson will show a number of the titles assumed by the exempts. The chronic exempts were skilled in all the arts of beating out. If a new way of securing exemption were discovered, the whole fraternity of “deadheads” soon knew of it. In 1864 nearly all the exemptions and details made in order to supply the Quartermaster’s Department were revoked, and agents sent through the country to notify the former exempts that they were again subject to duty. Before the enrolling officers reached them nearly all of them had secured a fresh exemption, and from a large district in middle Alabama, I have been informed by the agent who revoked the contracts, not one recruit for the armies was secured. Often the exemption was only a detail, and large numbers of men were carried on the rolls of companies who never saw their commands. Often a man when conscripted would have sufficient influence to be at once detailed, and would never join his company. Little attention was paid to the laws regarding exemption.
[219] Curry, “Civil History,” pp. 142-148. The wealthy young men volunteered, at first as privates or as officers; the older men of wealth nearly all became officers, chosen by their men. One company from Tuskegee owned property worth over $2,000,000. Opelika Post, Dec. 4, 1903.
[220] Act of Feb. 17, 1864, Pub. Laws, C. S. A.
[221] Curry, “Civil History,” pp. 142-148, 151.
[222] N. Y. World, March 28, 1864.
[223] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 881.
[224] The law of Feb. 17, 1864, provided for the separate enrolment of these two classes, and the enrolling officers interpreted it as requiring separate service. Such an interpretation would practically prohibit the formation of volunteer commands and would leave the reserves to the enrolling officers to be organized in camp.
[225] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 322, 323, 463, 466, 1059, 1060.
[226] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 817, 819, 920.
[227] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 821, 848. At this time there were in the state 1223 officials who had the governor’s certificate of exemption. There were 1012 in Georgia, 1422 in Virginia, 14,675 in North Carolina, and much smaller numbers in the other states. See O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 851.
[228] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 224 (March 18, 1864).
[229] An ex-Confederate related to me his experiences with the conscript officers. In 1864 he was at home on furlough and was taken by the “buttermilk” cavalry, carried to Camp Watts, at Notasulga, and enrolled as a conscript, no attention being paid to his furlough. To Camp Watts were brought daily squads of conscripts, rounded up by the “buttermilk” cavalry. They were guarded by conscripts. When rested, the new recruits would leave, the guards often going with them. Then another squad would be brought in, who in a day or two would desert. This soldier came home again with a discharge for disability. The conscript officials again took him to Camp Watts. He presented his discharge papers; the commandant tore them up before his face, and a few days later this soldier with a friend boarded the cowcatcher of a passing train and rode to Chehaw. The commandant sent guards after the fugitives, who captured the guards and then went to Tuskegee, where they swore out, as he said, a habeas corpus before the justice of the peace and started for their homes with their papers. They found the swamps filled with the deserters, who did not molest them after finding that they too were “deserters.”
[230] 8835 to January, 1864. See report of Colonel Preston, April, 1864, in O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 355, 363. The estimate was based on the census of 1860.
[231] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 101, 103, et passim.
[232] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 355, 363.
[233] Feb. 17, 1864.
[234] There were 1223 to Nov. 30, 1864.
[235] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 1, 103-109.
[236] G. O., No. 144, Dept. of the Cumberland, Atlanta, Ga., Oct. 4, 1864, War Department Archives. There were other similar cases, but I found record of no other conviction. The “tories” were sometimes in league with the conscript officers, and sometimes they shot them at sight.
[237] D. P. Lewis of Lawrence, Jeremiah (or Jere) Clemens of Madison, and C. C. Sheets of Winston deserted later.
[238] T. H. Clark, “Railroads and Highways,” in the “Memorial Record of Alabama,” Vol. I, pp. 322-323.
[239] Smith, Clemens, Jemison, and Bulger, in Smith’s “History and Debates of the Convention of 1861”; Hodgson, “Cradle of the Confederacy”; Garrett, “Public Men of Alabama.”
[240] See Smith’s “History and Debates of the Convention of 1861”; Nicolay and Hay, “Lincoln,” Vol. III, p. 186.
[241] A. B. Hendren, mayor of Athens and editor of the Union Banner, wrote in 1861 to Secretary Walker, stating that he had strongly opposed secession, but was now convinced that it was right; as mayor, he was committed to reconstruction, which he no longer favored; he did not proclaim his new sentiments through his paper for fear of pecuniary loss, but people were becoming suspicious of his lukewarm reconstruction spirit. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, pp. 181, 182.
[242] “Northern Alabama Illustrated,” p. 47; Ku Klux Rept. Ala. Test., pp. 592, 824; Saunders, “Early Settlers”; Brewer, “Alabama,” p. 65; Garrett, “Public Men”; Miller, “Alabama”; Nicolay and Hay, Vol. III, p. 186; DuBose, “Life of Yancey,” pp. 562, 563.
[243] See DuBose, “Life of Yancey,” p. 563.
The non-slaveholders in the Black Belt appear to have been more dissatisfied than those of the white counties at the outbreak of the war. May 13, 1861, William M. Brooks, who had presided over the secession convention, wrote from Perry County to President Davis in regard to the bad effect of the refusal to accept short-time volunteers. He said that though there were 20,000 slaves in Perry County, most of the whites were non-slaveholders. Some of the latter had been made to believe that the war was solely to get more slaves for the rich, and many who had no love for slaveholders were declaring that they would “fight for no rich man’s slave.” The men who had enlisted were largely of the hill class, poor folks who left their work to go to camp and drill. Here, while their crops wasted, they lost their ardor, and when they heard that their one-year enlistment was not to be accepted, they began to murmur. They were made to believe by traitors that a rich man could enter the army for a year and then quit, while they had to enlist for the war. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. VIII, pp. 318-319.
Horace Greeley in the Tribune was reported to have said: Large slaveholders were not secessionists, they resisted disunion; those who had much at stake hesitated a long while; it was not a “slaveholders’ rebellion”; it was really a rebellion of the non-slaveholders resident in the strongholds of slavery, springing from no love of slavery, but from the antagonism of race and the hatred of the idea of equality with the blacks involved in simple emancipation.—Ku Klux Rept., p. 519. There is a basis of truth in this.
[244] North Alabama before the war was overwhelmingly Democratic and was called “The Avalanche” from the way it overran the Whiggish counties of the southern and central sections. This was shown in the convention, where representation was based on the white vote. Since the war representation in the conventions is based on population, and the Black Belt has controlled the white counties. “Northern Alabama Illustrated,” pp. 251, 756. See also DuBose, “Yancey,” p. 562.
[245] Professor George W. Duncan of Auburn, Ala., and many others have given me information in regard to the people in that section. See also H. Mis. Doc. No. 42, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; N. Y. Tribune, Nov. 14, 1862.
[246] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. III, p. 249. For much information concerning the conditions in north Alabama during the war, I am indebted to Professor O. D. Smith of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, a native of Vermont who was then a Confederate Bonded Treasury Agent and travelled extensively over that part of the country.
[247] Reid, “After the War,” pp. 348-350; Saunders, “Early Settlers,” pp. 115, 164; Jones, “A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary,” Vol. I, pp. 182, 208.
[248] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, pp. 141. 142.
[249] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. X, Pt. II, p. 638.
[250] Moore, “Anecdotes, Poetry, and Incidents of the War,” p. 215 (Letters from the chaplain of Streight’s regiment); O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XVI, Pt. I, pp. 124, 785 (Streight’s Report); Miller, “Alabama”; Jones, “Diary,” Vol. I, pp. 182-208.
[251] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. VII, p. 840.
[252] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. VII, pp. 153-156, 424.
[253] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 1149.
[254] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, p. 258.
[255] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, pp. 819-821.
[256] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. X, p. 431.
[257] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXXIX, Pt. II, p. 57.
[258] The official statement of the War Department. See also “Confederate Military History,” Vol. XII, p. 502.
[259] Act of General Assembly, Aug. 29, 1863.
[260] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, p. 680.
[261] Joint Resolution, Dec. 4, 1863.
[262] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXXII, Pt. I, p. 671.
[263] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXXII, Pt. I, p. 671, and Vol. XXXIII, Pt. III, pp. 570, 683, 856.
[264] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXXIII, Pt. III, pp. 825, 826, 856.
[265] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. I, p. 659.
[266] Somers, “The Southern States since the War,” p. 135; Montgomery Advertiser, Aug. 17, 1902; N. Y. Tribune, Feb. 10, 1865; Freemantle, “Three Months in the Southern States.”
[267] Moore, “Rebellion Record,” Vol. VII, p. 45; Freemantle, p. 141.
[268] Freemantle, “Three Months in the Southern States,” p. 141, quoted from a local newspaper; accounts of eye-witnesses.
[269] Miller, passim; Somers, “Southern States,” p. 135.
[270] Miller, p. 193; Moore, “Rebellion Record,” Vol. VII, p. 357.
[271] Saunders, “Early Settlers,” pp. 115, 164.
[272] This correspondent defined a “unionist” or “loyalist” as one truly devoted to the Union and who had never wavered, thus excluding from consideration those who had gone with the Confederacy and later become disappointed. Boston Journal, Nov. 15, 1864; N. Y. Herald, April 7, 1864; The Tribune, Nov. 14, 1862; N. Y. Times, Nov. 23, 1862; Tharin, “The Alabama Refugee.”
[273] The World, Feb. 15, 1865.
[274] Information in regard to affairs in southeast Alabama during the war I have obtained from relatives (all of whom were “Union” men before the war) and from neighbors who were acquainted with the conditions in that section of the country.
[275] Miller, “Alabama.” Sanders had been a Confederate officer.
[276] Thickets which the eye could not penetrate.
[277] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. LII, p. 403.
[278] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXVIII, Pt. II, p. 273; Ser. IV, Vol. II, p. 1043.
[279] Joint Resolution, Oct. 7, 1864. J. J. Seibels proposed to raise a regiment for state defence of men under and over military age. He wanted, also, to get the skulkers who could not otherwise be obtained. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, p. 604.
[280] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 1042, 1043 (Solicitor James N. Arrington and Attorney-General M. A. Baldwin).
[281] Clemens was a cousin of “Mark Twain.” He was fond of drink, and once when William L. Yancey asked him not to drink so much, he answered that he was obliged to drink his genius down to a level with Yancey’s.
[282] N. Y. Tribune, May 23, 1865. See Smith, “Debates,” Index.
[283] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. X, Pt. II, pp. 167, 168, 174, 178. Clemens had been captain, major, and colonel of the Thirteenth United States Infantry. From 1849 to 1853 he was United States Senator. He died in Philadelphia a few years after the war. Garrett, “Public Men of Alabama,” pp. 176-179.
[284] Brewer, “Alabama,” p. 364.
[285] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. LII, Pt. II, p. 35.
[286] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. X, Pt. II, pp. 161-163.
[287] “Northern Alabama Illustrated,” p. 327; Acts of Alabama, 1862, p. 225; Moore, “Anecdotes, Poetry, and Incidents of the War,” p. 215.
[288] Lewis became the second “Radical” or scalawag governor of Alabama, serving from 1872 to 1874. Miller, “Alabama,” pp. 260, 261; Brewer, “Alabama,” p. 368.
[289] O. R., Ser. II, Vol. VIII, p. 86.
[290] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXX, Pt. III, pp. 750-751.
[291] It is a notable fact that among the disaffected persons of prominence there were none of the old Whigs, or Bell and Everett men. Nearly all were Douglas Democrats. The Bell and Everett people so conducted themselves during the war that afterwards they were as completely disfranchised and out of politics as were the Breckenridge Democrats. The work of reconstruction under the Johnson plan fell mainly to the former Douglas Democrats and the lesser Whigs.
[292] Report of the Secretary of War, 1865, Vol. I, p. 45; “Confederate Military History,” Vol. XII, p. 501.
[293] Report of the Secretary of War, Vol. I, p. 45; “Confederate Military History,” Vol. XII, p. 501.
[294] I am indebted to old soldiers for descriptions of conditions in north and west Alabama before and following Taylor’s surrender. All agree in their accounts of the conditions in Alabama and Mississippi at that time.
[295] These estimates are based on half a hundred other estimates made during the war by state, Confederate, and Federal officials, and by other observers, and from estimates made by persons familiar with conditions at that time. They are rather too small than too large. O. R., Ser. IV, Vols. I to IV passim.
[296] O. R., Ser. IV, pp. 880, 881.
[297] See also Pollard, “Lost Cause,” p. 563; Schwab, p. 190.
[299] See DuBose, “Yancey,” pp. 566, 567, and Brewer and Garrett under the names of the above.
[300] Brewer, p. 126; Garrett, p. 723.
[301] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 709.
[302] Joint Resolution, Acts of 1st Called Sess., 1861, p. 142.
[303] Joint Resolution, Acts of Called Sess. and 2d Regular Sess., 1862, p. 202.
[304] Acts of Called Sess. and 3d Regular Sess., 1863, p. 52.
[305] A “bomb-proof” was a person who secured a safe position in order to keep out of service in the field. A “feather bed” was one who stayed at home with good excuse,—a teacher, agriculturist, preacher, etc., who had only recently been called to such profession.
[306] By act of the legislature soldiers in the field were to vote, but no instance is found of their having done so.
[307] See Hannis Taylor, “Political History of Alabama,” in “Memorial Record of Alabama,” Vol. I, p. 82.
[308] Jones, “A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary,” Vol. I, pp. 250, 335, 391; Schwab, “Confederate States,” p. 210; Garrett, p. 385; Brewer, p. 411.
[309] Acts of 2d Regular Sess., 1862, p. 200.
[310] Annual Cyclopædia (1862), p. 9; Schwab, “Confederate States,” pp. 195, 196; Brewer, 127; Garrett, pp. 722, 724. See infra, p. [97].
[311] Shorter’s Proclamation, Dec. 22, 1862, in Moore, “Rebellion Record,” Vol. IV, and above, p. 88.
[312] Annual Cyclopædia (1863), p. 6; O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, p. 126; Brewer, pp. 66, 126, 460; Garrett, p. 722; Hannis Taylor, in “Memorial Record of Alabama,” p. 82.
[313] Acts, 3d Regular Sess., 1864, p. 217.
[314] Annual Cyclopædia (1863), p. 7. Francis Wayland, Jr., in a “Letter to a Peace Democrat” in the Atlantic Monthly, Dec., 1863, quotes Governor Watts as saying immediately after he had been elected: “If I had the power I would build up a wall of fire between Yankeedom and the Confederate States, there to burn for ages.” See also O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 120; McMorries, “History of the First Alabama Regiment of Infantry.”
[315] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 37, 463, 466, 817, 820. See also above, pp. [97], [103], [104].
[316] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 683, 685, 735, 736.
[317] Act, Oct. 7, 1864.
[318] Act, Dec. 12, 1864.
[319] See McPherson, “Rebellion,” pp. 419-421.
[320] The “Confederate Military History” states that in 1864 the people hoped for terms of peace, believing that Democratic successes in the northern elections would result in an armistice, and later reconstruction; that the people were always ready to go back to the principles of 1787, and it was believed that Davis was willing, but that the unfavorable elections of 1864 and the military interference by the Federal administration in the border states killed this constitutional peace party. See Vol. I, pp. 505, 537.
[321] Williamson R. W. Cobb of Jackson County, a very popular politician, a member of the 36th Congress, met his first defeat in 1861, when a candidate for the Confederate Congress. In 1863 he was successful over the man who had beaten him in 1861. After the election, if not before, he was in constant communication with the enemy and went into their lines several times. The Congress expelled him by a unanimous vote. It was rumored that President Lincoln intended to appoint him military governor, but he killed himself accidentally in 1864. Cobb was a “down east Yankee” who had come into the state as a clock pedler. He had no education and little real ability, but was a smooth talker and was master of the arts of the demagogue. In political life he was famed for shaking hands with the men, kissing the women, and playing with the babies. At a Hardshell foot-washing he won favor by carrying around the towels, in striking contrast with his Episcopalian rival, who sat on the back bench. Cobb was for the Confederacy as long as he thought it would win; when luck changed, he proceeded to make himself safe. After his desertion he lost influence among the people of his district. See Brewer, pp. 286, 287; McPherson, pp. 49, 400, 402, 411.
[322] O. R., Vol. II, p. 726 (W. T. Walthall, commandant of conscripts for Alabama, Talladega, Aug. 6, 1863). In the fall of 1864 a secret peace society was discovered in southwest Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 802-820.
[323] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXVI, Pt. II, pp. 555-557.
[324] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXVI, Pt. II, p. 548.
[325] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXVI, Pt. II, pp. 551, 552.
[326] The 61st Alabama Regiment was composed largely of conscripts under veteran officers. It was evidently at first called the 59th. Brewer, p. 673.
[327] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXVI, Pt. II, p. 550.
[328] The 57th Alabama Regiment was recruited in the counties of Pike, Coffee, Dale, Henry, and Barbour. See Brewer, p. 669.
[329] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXVI, Pt. II, p. 550.
[330] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXVI, Pt. II, p. 556. The 59th Alabama Regiment was formed from a part of Hilliard’s Legion. Brewer, p. 671.
[331] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXVI, Pt. II, pp. 552, 556.
[332] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXVI, Pt. II, p. 556; Brewer, “Alabama,” p. 671. It may be that the 59th Regiment here spoken of as consolidated was not the 59th under the command of Bolling Hall, but was merely the first number given to the regiment, which later became the 61st. See Brewer, pp. 671, 673. However, the society existed in Bolling Hall’s regiment.
[333] See Nicolay and Hay, “Lincoln,” Vol. VIII, pp. 410-415; McPherson, “Rebellion,” pp. 320-322.
[334] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XXXIII, Pt. III, pp. 682, 683, and Vol. XXII, Pt. I, p. 671; Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 393-397. A fuller account of the Peace Society will be found in the South Atlantic Quarterly, July, 1903. Some of the prominent leaders in the Peace Society were said to be: Lewis E. Parsons, later provisional governor, said to be the head of it; Col. J. J. Seibels of Montgomery; R. S. Heflin, state senator from Randolph County; W. W. Dodson, William Kent, David A. Perryman, Lieut.-Col. E. B. Smith, W. Armstrong, and A. A. West, of Randolph County; Capt. W. S. Smith, Demopolis; L. McKee and Lieut. N. B. DeArmon.
General James H. Clanton testified in 1871 that while in the Alabama legislature during the war L. E. Parsons, afterwards governor, introduced resolutions invoking the blessings of heaven on the head of Jefferson Davis and praying that God would spare him to consummate his holy purposes. Jabez M. Curry charged Parsons with being a “reconstructionist” during the war, that is, with being disloyal to the government. Parsons had two young sons in the Confederate army, and one of them was so indignant at the charge against his father that he shot and wounded Curry. Dr. Ware of Montgomery afterwards made the same charge. Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 234.
[335] See O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. I, p. 718. “Confederate Military History,” Vol. I, pp. 505, 509, 511, 512, 537.
[336] A Douglas Democrat, a Douglas elector, and a strong secessionist, who had deserted to the enemy. Brewer, p. 364.
[337] N. Y. Times, Feb. 14, 1864; Annual Cyclopædia (1864), pp. 10, 11; N. Y. Daily News, April 16, 1864, from Columbus (Ga.) Sun.
[338] N. Y. Tribune, May 23, 1865.
[339] N. Y. World, March 28, 1864.
[340] N. Y. Times, March 24, 1864; N. Y. World, March 28, 1864. Busteed was a newly appointed Federal judge who afterward became notorious in “carpet-bag” days. He succeeded George W. Lane in the judgeship.
[341] There were several regular, reliable correspondents in north Alabama, for the New York, Boston, and Chicago papers. Their accounts are corroborated by the reports made later by Confederate and Federal officials.
[342] At this time Bulger was in active service. See Brewer, “Alabama,” pp. 548, 660; “Confederate Military History”—Alabama, see Index. Bradley was a north Alabama man who had gone over to the enemy to save his property. This was his chief claim to notoriety. He became a prominent “scalawag” later.
[343] N. Y. Herald, Nov. 29, 1864; N. Y. Times, Feb. 10, 1865; Boston Journal, Nov. 15, 1864; The World, March 28, 1864, Feb. 11, 1865; O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. I, pp. 590, 659.
[344] Later governor, succeeding Parsons.
[345] Letter from Giers at Decatur, Jan. 26, 1865; O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. I, pp. 590, 718. See also Report of Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Pt. III, pp. 13-15, 60, 64.
[346] Giers, from Nashville, to Grant; O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. I, p. 659.
[347] Judging from the correspondence of Giers, the plan had the approval of General Grant.
[348] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. II, p. 560.
[349] This fear is expressed in all their correspondence.
[350] Davis, “Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government,” Vol. I, p. 471; O. R., Ser. I, Vol. III, p. 440.
[351] Miller, “History of Alabama,” p. 158; Davis, “Confederate Government,” Vol. I, p. 476; O. R., Ser. I, Vol. III, p. 440.
[352] Acts of 2d Called and 1st Regular Sess. (1861), pp. 75, 211.
[353] April 10, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess.
[354] April 16, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess.; Governor’s Proclamation, March 1, 1862.
[355] April 17, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess.
[356] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. III, pp. 870, 875.
[357] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 986, 987; Davis, Vol. I, p. 480; “Southern Hist. Soc. Papers,” Vol. II, p. 61.
[358] Miller, “History of Alabama,” pp. 180, 181; Davis, Vol. I, pp. 480, 481; Hardy, “History of Selma,” pp. 46, 47; N. Y. Times, Nov. 2, 1865 (Truman); O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 986, 987. The arsenal was commanded by Col. J. L. White; the naval foundries and the rolling mills were under the direction of Capt. Catesby ap Roger Jones, the designer of the Virginia; Commodore Ebenezer Farrand superintended the construction of war vessels at the Selma navy-yard. Captain Jones cast the heavy ordnance for the forts at Mobile, Charleston, and Wilmington. Five gunboats were built at Selma in 1863 and two or three others in 1864-1865. The ram Tennessee, built in 1863-1864, was constructed like the Virginia, but was an improvement except for the weak engines. When the keel of the Tennessee was laid, in the fall of 1863, some of the timbers to be used in her were still standing in the forest, and the iron for her plates was ore in the mines. Scharf, “Confederate Navy,” pp. 50, 534, 550, 555; “Northern Alabama Illustrated,” p. 654; Maclay, “History of United States Navy,” Vol. II, pp. 446, 447; Wilson, “Ironclads in Action,” Vol. I, p. 116.
[359] Ball, “Clarke County,” p. 765.
[360] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, pp. 29, 102.
[361] Miller, pp. 201, 230; Davis, Vol. I, p. 473; Porcher, p. 378.
[362] April 11, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess.
[363] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 195, 697.
[364] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 695.
[365] One of the most valuable of these caves was the “Santa Cave.” See O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, pp. 29, 102.
[366] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 695, 698.
[367] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, pp. 29, 102.
[368] In 1861 the War Department gave Leonard and Riddle of Montgomery an order for 60,000 pounds of nitre, and a company near Larkinsville in north Alabama was making 700 pounds a day, which it sold to the government at 22 to 35 cents a pound. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 556.
[369] April 17, 1862. Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess.; Acts of Ala., Dec. 7, 1861, and Dec. 2, 1862; O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 195, 698, 702, 987; Davis, Vol. I, pp. 316, 473, 477; Miller, pp. 201, 230; Schwab, “Confederate States,” p. 270; Annual Cyclopædia (1862), p. 9; Le Conte’s “Autobiography,” p. 184.
[370] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 556.
[371] Somers, “Southern States,” p. 162.
[372] Somers, p. 175.
[373] April 9, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess.
[374] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 695, 700, 702, 990.
[375] Freight rates in Alabama were as follows in December, 1862:—
| 1. Ammunition | $0.60 per 100 lbs., per 100 miles. | |
| 2. (Second class) | 0.30 per 100 lbs., per 100 miles. | |
| 3. Live stock | 30.00 per car, per 100 miles. | |
| 4. Hay, fodder, wagons, ambulances, etc. | 20.00 per car, per 100 miles. |
Troops were to be carried for 2½ to 3½ cents a mile per man. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, p. 276.
[376] Charles T. Pollard, president of the Montgomery and West Point R.R., who ran his road under direction of the government, reported, April 4, 1862, that he had placed the whole line between Montgomery and Selma under contract, and that it would be completed within the year if iron could be obtained. He thought the road between Selma and Meridian ought to be completed at once. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, pp. 10, 48. On Sept. 14, 1864, it was reported that the grading was finished on the road between Montgomery and Union Springs, but that no iron could be obtained. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 576.
[377] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 941; Pub. Laws, C.S.A., Feb. 15, 1862.
[378] On April 4, 1862, the Secretary of War wrote to A. S. Gaines that the road from Selma to Demopolis had been completed; from Demopolis to Reagan, a distance of 24 miles, a part of the grading had been done; while the road from Reagan to Meridian, a distance of 27 miles, had been graded, bridged, and some iron had been laid. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, pp. 1048-1049, 1061. Gaines stated, April 24, 1852, that on the Mississippi end of the road the road was completed to within 8 miles of Demopolis, Ala., and was being built at the rate of 3 miles a week. Connection was made by boat to Gainesville, within 2 miles of which a spur of the Mobile and Ohio, 21 miles long, had been completed. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 1089.
[379] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 1171.
[380] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, pp. 1089, 1145; Vol. II, pp. 106, 148, 149, 655.
[381] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, pp. 144-145; Vol. III, p. 312; Stats.-at-Large, Prov. Cong., C.S.A., Feb. 15, 1862; Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess., April 7 and Oct. 2, 1862.
[382] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 783.
[383] Acts, Feb. 8, 1861.
[384] Acts, 2d Called and 1st Regular Sess., p. 70.
[385] Governor Moore to Sec. L. P. Walker, July 2, 1861, O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 493; Somers, p. 136.
[386] Schwab, “Confederate States,” p. 271.
[387] Somers, p. 136.
[388] Acts, Dec. 13, 1864, Acts of Ala., 2d Called and 1st Regular Sess. passim.
[389] Le Conte states that in 1863 he found the only Bessemer furnace in the Confederacy at Shelbyville; it was the first that he had ever seen. “Autobiography,” pp. 184-185. It was probably the first in America.
[390] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 3.
[391] Miller, pp. 179, 180, 181, 193; Davis, Vol. I, p. 481; Montgomery Advertiser, July 14, 1867; N. Y. Herald, May 15, 1865.
[392] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 1010.
[393] This act authorized the governor to lease the salt springs belonging to the state and to require the lessee to sell salt at 75 cents a bushel at the salt works. The state paid 10 cents a bushel bounty and advanced $10,000 to the salt maker. Acts, Nov. 11 and Nov. 19, 1861.
[394] One private maker with one furnace and from 15 to 20 hands made 60 bushels a day. Another, with 15 hands, burning 5 cords of wood, made 36 bushels a day. There were also many other private salt makers.
[395] Ball, “Clarke County,” pp. 645-649, 765; “Our Women in War,” p. 275 et seq.
[396] Acts, Nov. 9, 1861, and Dec. 9, 1862.
[397] Acts, Dec. 9, 1862, Oct. 11, 1864, and Dec. 13, 1864.
[398] Miller, “Alabama,” pp. 156, 167, 230; Hague, “Blockaded Family”; “Our Women in War,” pp. 267, 268.
[399] N. Y. Herald, Sept. 20, 1864; Miller, p. 167.
[400] American Cyclopædia (1864), p. 10; N. Y. Times, April 15, 1864. To show the character of the white laborers employed in the salt works: in reconstruction days, a prominent negro politician told how, when a slave, he had to keep accounts, and read and write letters for the whites at the salt works, who were very ignorant people.
[401] Later the Southern Express Company, which is still in existence. It was the southern division of the Adams Express Company.
[402] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 711.
[403] Miller, pp. 179, 180, 181, 193; Davis, Vol. II, p. 481; Montgomery Advertiser, July 14, 1867; N. Y. Herald, May 15, 1865; Acts of the General Assembly of Alabama, 1861-1864, passim. The Freedman’s Bureau was largely supported by sales of the remnants of iron works, etc.
[404] Smith, “Debates,” pp. 38, 39.
[405] Smith, “Debates,” pp. 37, 39.
[406] In his message of Oct. 25, 1861, Governor Shorter made a report showing that the finances of the state for 1861 were in good condition, and advised against levying a tax on the people to pay the state’s quota of the Confederate tax. He stated that the banks had done good service to the state; that, though in time of peace they were a necessary evil, now they were a public necessity; that all the money used to date by the state in carrying on the war had come from the banks. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, pp. 697-700.
[407] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, pp. 697-699; Acts of Gen. Assembly, Feb. 2, Nov. 27 and 30, and Dec. 7 and 9, 1861; Patton’s Message, Jan. 16, 1866.
[408] Ordinance No. 33, amending sections 1373, 1375, 1393, of the Code, March 16, 1861.
[409] In 1861 two banks were chartered, two in 1862, five in 1863, and two in 1864. Several of these were savings-banks.
[410] Ordinance No. 18, Jan. 19, 1861; Nos. 35 and 36, March 18, 1861.
[411] Schwab, p. 302; Davis, Vol. I, p. 495; Journal of the Convention of 1865, p. 61; Acts of Ala., Jan. 29, Feb. 6 and 8, Dec. 10, 1861; Stats.-at-Large, Prov. Cong., C. S. A., Feb. 8, 1861; Miller, “Alabama,” pp. 152, 157.
[412] Journal of the Convention, 1865, p. 61; Acts of Ala., Nov. 8, Dec. 4, 8, and 9, 1862; Miller, p. 168.
[413] Jour. of the Convention of 1865, p. 61; Acts of Ala., Aug. 29, Dec. 8, 1863; Miller, pp. 186, 189.
[414] Miller, p. 215; Acts of Ala., Oct. 7 and Dec. 13, 1864.
[415] Resolutions of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 1, 1862; Schwab, p. 50.
[416] Resolutions, Dec. 8, 1863.
[417] Confederate Funding Act, Feb. 17, 1864.
[418] Acts of Ala., Oct. 7, 1864; Schwab, pp. 73, 74.
[419] Acts of Ala., Dec. 10, 1861.
[420] Acts of Ala., passim. Notes of the state and of state banks were hoarded, while Confederate notes were distrusted. Pollard, “Lost Cause,” p. 421.
[421] Acts of Ala., Nov. 9, 1861; Schwab, p. 8. It was considered a matter of patriotism to invest funds in Confederate securities. Not many other investments offered; there was little trade in negroes. Pollard, “Lost Cause,” p. 424.
[422] Acts of Ala., Dec. 8, 1863.
[423] Acts of Ala., Dec. 13, 1864.
[424] Clark, “Finance and Banking,” in the “Memorial Record of Alabama,” Vol. I, p. 341. Statement of J. H. Fitts.
[425] Patton’s Message, Jan. 16, 1866.
[426] Jones, “Diary,” Vol. I, p. 114. North Carolina alone had contributed more—$325,000.
[427] Clark, “Education in Alabama,” p. 90.
[428] Acts of Ala., Dec. 7, 1863.
[429] The state authorities considered it inexpedient to levy heavier state taxes. The people had always been opposed to heavy state taxes, but paid county taxes more willingly. So the gift of $500,000 to the Confederate government in 1861 and the $2,000,000 war tax of the same year were assumed by the state, and bonds were issued. Stats.-at-Large, Prov. Cong., C.S.A., Feb. 8, 1861; Acts of Ala., Nov. 27, 1861.
[430] Another measure aimed at the speculator.
[431] Acts of Ala., Dec. 8, 1863.
[432] Acts of Ala., Dec. 13, 1864.
[433] Pub. Laws, 1st Cong., 1st Sess., April 21, 1862.
[434] Pollard, “Lost Cause,” p. 427.
[435] Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 3d Sess., April 24, 1863.
[436] See also Curry, “Confederate States,” p. 110.
[437] Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 4th Sess., Jan. 30, 1864.
[438] Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 2d Cong., 1st Sess., June 10 and 14, 1864.
[439] Miller, “Alabama,” p. 190.
[440] N. Y. Times, Feb. 2, 1864.
[441] Fitzgerald Ross, “Cities and Camps of the Confederate States,” pp. 237, 238.
[442] Miller, p. 230.
[443] Acts of Ala., Nov. 19, 1862.
[444] Acts of Ala., Nov. 17, 1862.
[445] Acts of Ala., Oct. 31, 1862.
[446] O. R., Ser. II, Vol. III, p. 933; G. O., 86, A. and I. G. Office, Richmond, Dec. 12, 1864; Miller, pp. 198, 199; Beverly, “History of Alabama,”; A. C. Gordon, in Century Magazine, Sept., 1888; David Dodge, in Atlantic Monthly, Aug., 1886.
[447] Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 3d Sess., March 26, 1863.
[448] A conference of impressment commissioners met in Augusta, Ga., Oct. 26, 1863. Among those present were Wylie W. Mason, of Tuskegee, Ala., and Robert C. Farris, of Montgomery, Ala. See O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, pp. 898-906.
[449] Schwab, p. 202; Saunders, “Early Settlers.” Schedules were printed in all the newspapers, and many have been reprinted in the Official Records.
[450] Jones, “Diary,” Vol. I, p. 194; Miller, “Alabama,” pp. 198, 199; Pollard, “Lost Cause,” pp. 487-488.
[451] Acts of Ala., Nov. 25, 1863.
[452] Jones, “Diary,” Vol. I, p. 301.
[453] Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 2d Cong., 1st Sess., June 14, 1864; Saunders, “Early Settlers.”
[454] Resolutions of Gen. Assembly, Nov. 26, 1864.
[455] Ball, “Clarke County,” p. 501.
[456] Smith, “Debates,” pp. 174-183.
[457] Stats.-at-Large, Prov. Cong., C.S.A.
[458] Stat.-at-Large, Prov. Cong., 2d Sess.; McPherson, “Rebellion,” pp. 203, 204. European merchants and capitalists also had a large trade with the South when the war broke out, and thus sustained great losses. They had made large advances to southern planters and merchants, and were also interested in property in the South. Proceeds were remitted to foreign creditors or owners in Confederate or state currency or bonds for there was no other form of remittance. Robertson, “The Confederate Debt and Private Southern Debts” (English pamphlet).
[459] McPherson, “Rebellion,” pp. 203, 204; Acts of Prov. Cong., Aug. 30, 1861; Benjamin’s “Instructions to Receivers,” Sept. 12, 1861.
[460] Stats.-at-Large, Prov. Cong., 3d Sess., Feb. 15, 1862.
[461] McPherson, “Rebellion,” p. 613.
[462] Acts of Ala., Dec. 10, 1861.
[463] Two years after the passage of the Sequestration Law its entire proceeds in the Confederacy amounted to less than $2,000,000. Pollard, “Lost Cause,” p. 220.
[464] Suspension of specie payments had been made in order to prevent a drain on the banks. The Confederate government took possession of some of the coin, while much was used in the contraband and blockade trade. All this contributed to discredit Confederate paper currency. Pollard, “Lost Cause,” p. 421. In May, 1862, General Beauregard seized $500,000 in coin from a bank in Jackson, Ala. The coin belonged to a New Orleans bank and had been sent out to prevent confiscation by Butler. Confederate money was almost worthless at Mobile in 1864, while in the interior of the state it still had a fair value.
[465] Confederate paper held up well in 1861 and 1862, though prices were very high. The people were opposed to fixing a depreciated value to Confederate money, but they were forced to do so by speculators. The money was worth more the farther away from Richmond, though comparison with gold should not be made, as gold was scarce, and prices in gold fell. Board, which formerly cost $2 a day, could now be had for fifty cents in gold. Gold was not a standard of value, but an article of commerce with a fictitious value. Pollard, “Lost Cause,” p. 425.
[466] Clark, “Finance and Banking Memorial Record,” Vol. I, p. 341; “Two Months in the Confederate States by an English Merchant,” pp. 111, 115; DeBow’s Review for 1866.
[467] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. X, Pt. II, p. 639.
[468] Ball, “Clarke County,” pp. 294, 295; Miller, p. 230; oral accounts.
[469] N. Y. Times, April 5, 1864 (from Mobile papers).
[470] N. Y. Times, Sept. 6, 1864.
[471] Smedes, “A Southern Planter,” p. 226.
[472] Hague, “Blockaded Family,” passim; “Our Women in the War,” passim; Jacobs, “Drug Conditions.”
[473] Ball, “Clarke County,” p. 501.
[474] Miller, p. 232. A negro went to a conscript camp in 1864 with a fifty-cent jug of whiskey. He gave his master a bottleful from the jug, replacing what he had taken out by water. The resulting mixture he sold for $5 a drink, a drink being a cap-box full. Each drink poured out of the jug was replaced by the same measure of water. In this way he made $300 before the mixture was so diluted that the thirsty soldiers would not buy. Related by the negro’s master.
[475] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 686.
[476] Montgomery Daily Advertiser, April 18, 1865. But for another month state money circulated in Montgomery.
[477] See Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VI, p. 14.
[478] Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VI, pp. 15, 37.
[479] In 1860 the South exported $150,000,000 worth of cotton, and Mobile was the second cotton port of America. Scharf, “History of the Confederate Navy,” pp. 439, 533. Besides the regular ship channel there were two shallow entrances to Mobile Bay, through which blockade-runners passed. Soley, “The Blockade and the Cruisers,” p. 134. Regular water communication with New Orleans was kept up until 1862 through Mississippi Sound. Scharf, p. 535; Maclay, “A History of the United States Navy,” Vol. II, p. 445.
[480] Miller, “Alabama,” p. 167; Acts of the Called Sess. (1861), p. 123; Acts of 2d Called and 1st Regular Sess. (1861), pp. 151, 168, 214, 278.
[481] The blockading force before Mobile in 1861 often consisted of only one vessel (Soley, p. 134), and the people of Mobile believed that foreign nations would not recognize the blockade as effective. There was an English squadron under Admiral Milne in the Gulf, and on Aug. 4, 1861, the Mobile Register and Advertiser said that a conflict between the English and United States forces was expected; the English were then to raise the blockade. Scharf, p. 442.
[482] This, however, was not the plan favored by Ex-Gov. A. B. Moore, who, on Feb. 3, 1862, wrote to President Davis stating his belief that the permission given by the Federal fleet to export cotton was a “Yankee trick” to get cotton to leave port in order to seize it. He thought that the Confederate government should forbid all exportation of cotton until the close of the war. “This leaky blockade system should be deprecated as one [in which the parties] are either dupes or knaves and [is] not in the least calculated to demonstrate the fact that our cotton crops are a necessity to the commerce of the world.” If cotton was not a necessity to Europe, then the sooner the South knew it the better; if it was a necessity, the sooner Europe knew it the better. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 905.
[483] Acts of Feb. 6 and Dec. 10, 1861.
[484] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 735; Ser. I, Vol. XXXIII, Pt. III, p. 805.
[485] The Confederate War and Treasury Departments required that each steamship coming and going should reserve one-half its tonnage for government use. The owners of an outgoing vessel had to make bond to return with one-half the cargo for the government and the other half in articles the importation of which was not prohibited by the Confederate government. The Confederate government paid five pence sterling a pound on outgoing freight, payable in a British port. On return freight £25 a ton was paid in cotton at a Confederate port. The expenses of one blockade-runner for one trip amounted to $80,265; while the gross profits were $172,000, leaving a net gain of $91,735 on the trip. Scharf, pp. 481, 485.
[486] Joseph Jacobs, “Drug Conditions.”
[487] Soley, pp. 44, 156.
[488] See Taylor, “Running the Blockade.” A typical blockade-runner of 1862-1864 was a long, low, slender, rakish sidewheel steamer, of 400 to 600 tons, about nine times as long as broad, with powerful engines, twin screws, and feathering paddles. The funnels were short and could be lowered to the deck. It was painted a dull gray or lead color, and the masts being very short, it could not be seen more than two hundred yards away. When possible to obtain it, anthracite coal was burned, and when running into port all lights were turned out and the steam blown off under water. Scharf, p. 480; Soley, p. 156; Spears, Vol. IV, p. 55.
[489] “Two Months in the Confederate States by English Merchant,” p. 111; Taylor, “Running the Blockade”; Hague, “A Blockaded Family”; “Our Women in War,” passim; Jacobs, “Drug Conditions.”
[490] Report of A. Roane, Chief of the Produce Loan Office; Richmond, to Secretary of Treasury Trenholm, Oct. 30, 1864, in H. Mis. Doc., No. 190, 44th Cong., 1st Sess.; “Two Months in the Confederate States,” p. 111.
[491] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, p. 462.
[492] Jones, “A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary,” Vol. I, p. 350.
[493] Scharf, pp. 484, 486; Spears, Vol. IV, p. 56.
[494] Bancroft. “Seward,” Vol. II, p. 209; Wilson, “Ironclads in Action,” Vol. I, pp. 196-197.
[495] Scharf, p. 487; Wilson, pp. 187, 192.
[496] Scharf, p. 446, says that the press and public sentiment were against allowing shipment of cotton to districts or through ports held by the United States. When in danger of capture the cotton was burned. Pollard states that the Richmond authorities were opposed to allowing any extensive cotton trade through the lines or through blockaded ports, because it was believed that the Union finances were in bad condition and would not stand the loss of cotton manufacturing. Moreover, the Confederate authorities were afraid of the demoralization caused by contraband trade, and also feared that Europe might consider that licensed trade through ports in possession of the enemy, like New Orleans, was a confession of the weakness of King Cotton, and would refuse to recognize the Confederacy. “Lost Cause,” pp. 484-485.
[497] The North was determined to show that cotton was not king, and to do this it must get all the cotton possible from the South by allowing a contraband trade in which nearly or quite all the profits on the cotton should be stripped off, leaving only the bare cost to the Confederate government or cotton planter. The North was willing that the South should sell all its cotton, but the North was to be middleman. Scharf, p. 443; “Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant,” Vol. I, p. 331.
[498] The various proclamations, orders, regulations, and laws affecting commercial intercourse between the United States and the Confederate States will be found in a compilation of the United States Treasury Department entitled “Acts of Congress and Rules and Regulations prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury, in pursuance thereto, with the approval of the President, concerning Commercial Intercourse with and in States and parts of States declared in insurrection, Captured, Abandoned, and Confiscable Property, the care of freedmen, and the purchase of products of insurrectionary districts on government account.” The proclamations of the President will be found in the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. See also Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 56, 40th Cong., 2d Sess., and No. 23, 43d Cong., 3d Sess., p. 58; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. , 45th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 36; Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 190, 44th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 39. A fuller account of the trade regulations is in the South Atlantic Quarterly, July, 1905.
[499] Act, April 19, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess.
[500] Act, Feb. 6, 1864, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 4th Sess.
[501] The state officials in 1862-1863 planned to exchange cotton from Mississippi and Alabama with the cotton speculators in Tennessee for bacon. Davis opposed (Pollard, p. 481), but, nevertheless, the change was made. Along the Tennessee River there was much trading with the enemy. In order to conform with the United States regulations forbidding the payment of coin for Confederate staples, the northern speculator bought Confederate and state money, often at a high price ($100 gold for $225 in Confederate currency or $120 to $125 in Alabama, Georgia, or South Carolina bank-notes), with which to carry on the cotton trade. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, p. 10.
[502] Shorter, who was opposed to contraband trade, complained in July, 1862, that the cotton speculators in Mobile had an understanding with Butler and Farragut by which salt was allowed to come in and cotton, in unlimited quantities, allowed to go out. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, p. 21.
[503] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 16, 38th Cong., 2d Sess.
[504] Ho. Rept., No. 24, 38th Cong., 2d Sess.
[505] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 16, 38th Cong., 2d Sess.
[506] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 1180, 1181. Davis probably made his last official indorsement on this report, Apr. 10, 1865. He forwarded it to the Adjutant and Inspector-General with instructions to look into the matter.
[507] Somers, “The Southern States since the War,” p. 134. General Grant, July 21, 1863, stated that this trade through west Tennessee was injurious to the United States forces. “Restriction, if lived up to,” he said, “makes trade unprofitable and hence none but dishonest men go into it. I will venture to say, that no honest man has made money in west Tennessee in the last year, while many fortunes have been made there during the time.” So vexed was General Grant with the speculators that, early in 1865, he suspended all permits, but within a month he had to remove the suspensions. Scharf, pp. 443, 446, 447.
[508] Taylor, “Destruction and Reconstruction,” pp. 227, 235.
[509] Confederate currency was plentiful in the North, where it was made even more cheaply than in the South, and the southerners did not notice the difference.
[510] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. X, Pt. II, pp. 291-293, 638-640.
[511] Ho. Rept., No. 83, 45th Cong., 3d Sess.; No. 618, 46th Cong., 2d Sess.
[512] N. Y. Herald, April 7, 1864.
[513] Jacobs, “Drug Conditions,” p. 7. The Southern Express Company worked in connection with the Adams, of which it had been a part before 1861.
[514] Jacobs, “Drug Conditions,” pp. 7-10.
[515] Ho. Repts., 38th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 174. Before this, Samuel Noble of Rome, Georgia, representing himself as a “loyal” man (he was introduced and vouched for by George W. Quintard), made a contract with a United States Treasury agent to deliver 250,000 bales of cotton from Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and South Carolina. In Alabama at that time he owned 800 bales at Selma, 1256 at Mobile, and had much more contracted for. The cotton was to be delivered at Huntsville, Mobile, and places in the adjoining states. Noble was to get three-fourths of the proceeds, according to the regulations. Ho. Rept., No. 24, 38th Cong., 2d Sess.
[516] Statement of Professor O. D. Smith of Auburn, Ala., who was then a Confederate bonded agent operating in north Alabama.
[517] Taylor, “Destruction and Reconstruction,” p. 232.
[518] Letter of Secretary Chase to Hon. E. B. Washburne, in Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 78, 38th Cong., 1st Sess.
[519] Acts of Gen. Assembly, Nov. 11, 1861. As early as Jan. 14, 1861, Governor Moore reported that the poorest classes were in want and that much suffering, perhaps starvation, would result unless aid were given. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 51. The soldiers’ families were reported to be almost destitute in April, 1861. Idem, p. 220.
[520] Acts of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 31, 1861.
[521] Act of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 29, 1861.
[522] Annual Cyclopædia (1862), p. 9.
[523] Jones, “Diary,” Vol. I, pp. 194, 198.
[524] Act of Gen. Assembly, Nov. 8, 1862.
[525] Act of Gen. Assembly, Nov. 11, 1862.
[526] Act of Gen. Assembly, Nov. 8, 1862.
[527] Act of Gen. Assembly, Oct. 16, 1864.
[528] Acts of Gen. Assembly, Oct. 9 and Dec. 9, 1862, and Aug. 29, 1863. Miller, “Alabama,” p. 167.
[529] Acts of Gen. Assembly, Nov. 26, 1862.
[530] Act of Gen. Assembly, Nov. 28, 1862.
[531] Jones, “Diary,” Vol. I, p. 194.
[532] Annual Cyclopædia (1863), p. 6.
[533] N. Y. Herald, Dec. 26, 1863.
[534] Act, April 19, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 18th Sess.; Act of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 5, 1863.
[535] Act of Gen. Assembly, Aug. 29, 1863.
[536] Act of Gen. Assembly, Aug. 27, 1863.
[537] Act of Gen. Assembly, Aug. 27, 1863.
[538] Resolutions of Gen. Assembly, Aug. 27, 1863.
[539] Act of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 8, 1863.
[540] Acts of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 4 and Dec. 7, 1863.
[541] Acts of Gen. Assembly, Oct. 7, 1864, and Dec. 13, 1864.
[542] Act of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 9, 1864.
[543] Act of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 13, 1864.
[544] Act of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 4, 1864.
[545] Acts of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 8, 1862, Aug. 27 and 29, 1863, and Dec. 13, 1864.
[546] Acts of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 8, 1863. There were Confederate soldiers who were paid only twice in two years’ service, and then not enough to buy a new uniform. The following incident is related of the 9th Alabama Infantry: at Chancellorsville some Federals had been captured by the regiment, and as they were being sent back over the field covered with dead Federals, one of the prisoners remarked: “You rebs are sharper than you used to be. You used to shoot us anywhere; now you shoot us in the head so as not to bloody our clothes.” The 9th was a regiment of sharpshooters from north Alabama. The narrator says that the prisoner was alluding to “the practice of stripping the dead of their clothing to cover our nakedness.”—“The Land We Love,” Vol. II, pp. 216.
[547] The legislature had offered $200,000 for 50,000 pairs of shoes, but received none.
[548] Miller, p. 167; Acts of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 8, 1863; O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. II, pp. 32, 196.
[549] Resolutions of Gen. Assembly, Nov. 28, 1863.
[550] Miller, “Alabama,” p. 229.
[551] Miller, p. 198.
[552] Miller, “Alabama,” pp. 198, 199, 229.
[553] Saunders, “Early Settlers,” p. 68.
[554] Saunders, “Early Settlers,” p. 206; Hague, “Blockaded Family”; Clayton, “White and Black under the Old Régime”; “Our Women in the War.”
[555] Governor Shorter’s Proclamation, March 1, 1862; Annual Cyclopædia (1862), p. 9.
[556] Annual Cyclopædia (1863), p. 6; Resolution, April 4, 1863, Pub. Laws, 15th Cong., 3d Sess.
[557] A report to Davis in October, 1864, stated that Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi had been supplying the Confederate armies. Georgia was exhausted, and Alabama, having sent 125,000 pounds of bacon, could do no more. Pollard, “Lost Cause,” pp. 648-649. But in remote counties were large stores of supplies that could not be moved for want of transportation facilities.
[558] “Our Women in the War,” p. 275 et seq.
[559] Moore, “Rebellion Records,” p. 3; O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 701.
[560] Acts of Gen. Assembly, Nov. 11, 1862.
[561] Jones, “Diary,” Vol. I, p. 198; Schwab, p. 180.
[562] Acts of Gen. Assembly, Nov. 8, 1862.
[563] Act of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 13, 1864.
[564] Act of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 8, 1862.
[565] Act of Gen. Assembly, Dec. 8, 1863.
[566] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. X, p. 971.
[567] In September, 1864, Surgeon Richard Potts was instructed to buy all the apple brandy to be had, at not more than $35 a gallon, but to purchase as a private individual in order not to have to pay too much. O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 682.
[568] Saunders, “Early Settlers of Alabama,” p. 29; O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. I, p. 608.
[569] See also article by C. C. Jones, Jr., in Magazine of American History, Vol. XVI, pp. 168-175; J. W. Beverly (colored), “History of Alabama,” p. 22.
[570] Act, Jan. 31, 1861; Beverly, “Alabama,” p. 200.
[571] April 15 and 21, 1862, Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 2d Sess.
[572] Acts, Oct. 31 and Nov. 20, 1862.
[573] Resolutions, Aug. 29, 1863.
[574] I have known two men who hired negro substitutes to go to the army, and the negroes having been killed in battle, the whites were forced to go.
[575] Beverly, “Alabama,” p. 200; Miller, “Alabama,” pp. 198, 199, 207; Curry, “Civil History,” p. 110; O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 933.
[576] John S. Wise, “End of an Era,” pp. 161, 212, speaks of the impression made by the 3d Alabama before and after the two years’ service. The privates in one company in this regiment paid tax on $3,000,000.
[577] See also Beverly, “Alabama,” p. 200. Several of these old body-servants have related their experiences to me.
[578] Sewanee Review, Vol. II, pp. 94-95; Acts of Ala., Nov. 20, 1863, and Resolution of Aug. 29, 1863; Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 10.
[579] See also C. C. Jones, Jr., in the Magazine of American History, Vol. XVI, pp. 168-175. When the war ended General (now Senator) Morgan was recruiting near Selma for a Confederate negro brigade.
[580] His master was named Godwin. Horace learned to make bridges, and became so skilful and was so much in demand that he was set free. By special act of the Alabama legislature he was given civil rights and at once he became a slave owner. After the war he was in Republican politics for a while, but soon went back to bridge-building.
[581] Some masters, like General John B. Gordon, informed their slaves that the victory of the North meant the freedom of the negroes. See Ku Klux Rept., Ga. Test., and Sewanee Review, Vol. II, p. 95. I have been told by ex-slaves that the negroes in the quarters believed from the first that their freedom would follow the defeat of the masters, but that few slaves believed that their masters could be defeated.
[582] The following are some of the various occupations in which slaves relieved whites: spinners, weavers, dyers, cutters and dressmakers, body-servants, butlers, coachmen, gardeners, carpenters, planters, brick masons, painters, tanners, shoemakers, harness makers, barrel makers, wheelwrights, blacksmiths, machinists, engineers, millers, seine and sail makers, and ship carpenters, besides farm occupations. Nearly all of the skilled laborers were negroes. Their industrial capacity was even greater during the war than in time of peace. President Winston in Proceedings of Fourth Conference for Education in the South, pp. 40, 41. See also the books of Miss Hague, Mrs. Clayton, and Booker T. Washington.
[583] Harrison, “Gospel Among the Slaves,” p. 299.
[584] See Mallard, pp. 209, 210; Hague, “Blockaded Family”; Clayton, “White and Black”; “Our Women in War”; Sewanee Review, Vol. II, p. 95.
[585] See Mallard, p. 210; Sewanee Review, Vol. II, pp. 94-95; Southern Magazine, Jan., 1874.
[586] It has been estimated that one-fourth of the total number of negroes was not engaged in field labor, but in some kind of service which brought them into close relations with the whites. Tillinghast, “Negro in Africa and America,” p. 126. And on the farms and smaller plantations also the blacks knew their “white folks.”
[587] See W. H. Thomas, “American Negro,” p. 41.
[588] The experiences of Reconstruction showed that the negro had only to feel the touch of a stronger hand, and, with most of them, the attachments of a lifetime were of no force. The negro was as wax in the hands of a stronger race. Hence the influence of the carpet-baggers, who were for a time the stronger power.
[589] Harrison, “Gospel among the Slaves,” pp. 299, 300; McTyeire, “A History of Methodism”; Riley, “Baptists in Alabama”; Mallard, “Plantation Life,” p. 74 et seq. W. H. Thomas (colored), “American Negro,” pp. 41, 149, gives as reasons why the slaves did not revolt during the war: (1) genuine affection for the whites; (2) the desire on the part of the negro to do the duty intrusted to him; (3) and most important—the supreme and all-pervading influence of religion. The mission work among the negroes was kept up all during the war. Harrison, pp. 292-300; Tichenor, “Work of Southern Baptists among the Negroes” (pamphlet).
[590] Harrison, pp. 299, 300. For general information in regard to the negroes during the war, consult Beverly (colored), “Alabama,” pp. 201, 202; Miller, “Alabama,” pp. 142-157; Mallard, “Plantation Life”; Washington, “Up from Slavery”; Washington, “Future of the American Negro”; Thomas, “The American Negro”; Tillinghast, “Negro in Africa and America”; Hague, “A Blockaded Family”; Clayton, “White and Black under the Old Régime”; Smedes, “Southern Planter”; “Our Women in War.”
[591] W. G. Clark, “Education in Alabama,” pp. 87-92; W. G. Clark, “The Progress of Education,” in “Memorial Record,” Vol. I, p. 160; Acts, 1st Called Sess. (1861), p. 56; N. Y. Daily News, May 29, 1865; Century Magazine, Nov., 1889. In recent years Congress has made a grant of lands in north Alabama to replace the burned buildings. Rept. Comr. of Ed., 1899-1900, Vol. I, p. 484.
[592] Clark, “Education in Alabama,” pp. 149, 152, 153, 156; “Northern Alabama Illustrated,” p. 453.
[593] Clark, “Education in Alabama,” pp. 164, 174, 179, 180.
[594] Clark, “Education in Alabama,” pp. 204, 208, 259; Acts, 1st Called Sess. (1861), pp. 67, 70, 82, 113; Acts, 2d Called Sess. and 1st Regular Sess., pp. 92, 93, 94; Brewer, “Alabama,” p. 347.
[595] “Northern Alabama Illustrated,” p. 513.
[596] Clark, “Education in Alabama,” pp. 6, 7, 224, 226, 229, 239, 259; Ingle, “Southern Side-Lights,” p. 172.
[597] Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess., April 21, 1862; 1st Cong., 2d Sess., Oct. 11, 1862.
[598] Acts, 1st Called Sess. (1861), p. 82.
[599] Acts (1862), p. 97.
[600] Acts, 2d Called and 1st Regular Sess. (1861), pp. 65, 182, 183, 223, 253, 255; Acts of 1863 and 1864, passim.
[601] My chief source of information in regard to the common schools during the war has been the accounts of persons who were teachers and pupils in the schools.
[602] From 1863 to 1865 W. G. Clark and Co. of Mobile, the chief educational publishers of the state, brought out a series of five readers, “The Chaudron Series,”—by Adelaide de V. Chaudron, a well-known writer of Mobile. Large numbers were sold. S. H. Goetzel of Mobile published Madame Chaudron’s spelling-book, of which 40,000 copies were sold in 1864 and 1865. W. G. Clark and Co. printed a revision of Colburn’s Mental Arithmetic in 1864. A Mental Arithmetic by G. Y. Browne of Tuscaloosa is dated Atlanta, 1865, but was probably published in North Carolina. In 1864 W. G. Clark and Co. announced “A Book of Geographical Questions.” Before the close of the war Confederate text-books were quite common in the state. The series were usually named “Confederate,” “Dixie,” “Texas,” “Virginia,” etc. Stephen B. Weeks, in “A Preliminary Bibliography of Confederate Text-books” (Rept. of Comr. of Ed., 1898-1899, Vol. I, p. 1139), lists 16 primers, 14 spellers, 29 readers, 4 geographies, 1 dictionary, 12 arithmetics, 12 grammars, 8 books in foreign languages, 20 Sunday-school and religious works, and 10 miscellaneous educational publications. Those published in Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Virginia sold largely in Alabama. Few came from the West. See also Yates Snowden, “Confederate Books.”
[603] See Weeks, “Bibliography of Confederate Text-books.”
[604] See Mrs. Clayton, “White and Black,” p. 115, and Hague, “Blockaded Family.”
[605] See Hague, “A Blockaded Family.” Miss Hague was a teacher in a plantation school during the war.
[606] W. W. Screws, “Alabama Journalism,” in “Memorial Record,” Vol. II, pp. 195, 234.
[607] Screws, pp. 194, 195, 205, 212, 218, 233, 234; Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess., April 21, 1862; 2d Sess., Oct. 11, 1862; Yates Snowden, “Confederate Books.”
[608] Screws, pp. 161, 166, 188, 192, 231.
[609] See also Yates Snowden, “Confederate Books.” I have examined copies of most of the books mentioned.
[610] Riley, “History of the Baptists of Alabama,” p. 279.
[611] McPherson, “Rebellion,” p. 514.
[612] Smith, “Life and Letters of James Osgood Andrew,” p. 473.
[613] N. Y. World, Dec. 26, 1860.
[614] Riley, “Baptists of Alabama,” p. 291.
[615] McPherson, “Rebellion,” p. 591.
[616] Pub. Laws, C.S.A., 1st Cong., 1st Sess., April 21, 1862, and 2d Sess., Oct. 11, 1862.
[617] Acts of Ala., Dec. 9, 12, and 13, 1864.
[618] N. Y. Times, Aug. 30, 1865.
[619] Rev. J. William Jones, “The Great Revival in the Southern Armies”; Rev. J. William Jones, “Confederate Military History,” Vol. XII, p. 119 et seq.; Bennett, “The Great Revival in the Southern Armies”; Alexander, “History of the Methodist Church South,” p. 74.
[620] Hague, “Blockaded Family,” pp. 111, 112, 142; Ball, “Clarke County,” p. 283.
[621] For one instance, see Hague, “Blockaded Family,” p. 141; and for others, Jones on the “Morale of the Confederate Armies,” in Vol. XII, “Confederate Military History.”
[622] By the Alabama Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, there was appropriated for slave missions in the state
| From 1829 to 1844 | $17,366.36 | |
| From 1845 to 1864 | 340,166.67 |
Before the separation the planters were not favorably inclined toward Methodist missionaries on account of the attitude of the northern section of the church. They preferred the Baptists and Presbyterians, who did most of their work with the blacks in connection with the white congregations. After the separation, in 1845, there was a greater demand for Methodist missionaries. Many planters of the Episcopal Church paid the salaries of Baptist and Methodist missionaries to their slaves, and erected chapels for their use. Harrison, “Gospel among the Slaves,” pp. 302, 312, 313, 326. In 1860 there were 20,577 negro southern Methodists in Alabama, about half of whom were attached to the white churches and the rest to plantation missions. The number was rapidly increasing. The number of negro Baptists was much greater, but there are no exact statistics of membership. There were smaller numbers in all the other churches.
[623] The following statistics relate to colored mission work by the Methodists:—
| Year | Number of Missions | Members | Missionaries | Appropriations |
| 1859 | 38 | 8381 | 39 | $25,849.10 |
| 1860 | 40 | 9208 | 40 | 27,091.66 |
| 1861 | 40 | —— | 40 | 27,091.66 |
| 1862 | 36 | 8962 | 35 | 10,800.00 |
| 1863 | 37 | 9020 | 37 | 31,311.59 |
| 1864 | 22 | 5153 | 22 | 24,508.00 |
| (Montgomery Conference) | ||||
| 1864 | 23 | 5684 | 33 | 26,938.16 |
| (Mobile Conference) | ||||
| 1865 | Some money was raised in 1864 for 1865. |
The General Conference raised, in 1862, $93,509.87 for negro missions; in 1864, $158,421.96; and, for 1865, $80,000.
[624] Harrison, p. 314.
[625] Riley, “Baptists of Alabama.”
[626] Hague, pp. 10, 11.
[627] Riley, “Baptists of Alabama,” pp. 286, 300; McTyeire, “A History of Methodism,” p. 671; Tichenor, “The Work of the Baptists among the Negroes.” The war records of the churches show that sometimes the slaves gave more money for church purposes than the whites; for example, in the Methodist church of Auburn, Ala.
[628] Smith, “Methodists in Georgia and Florida.”
[629] McPherson, p. 521.
[630] McPherson, p. 521.
[631] McPherson, pp. 521, 522; Nicolay and Hay, Vol. V, p. 337.
[632] See Gulf States Hist. Mag., Sept., 1902, on “The Churches in Alabama during Civil War and Reconstruction”; O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. I, p. 718; Southern Review, April, 1872, p. 414; Boston Journal, Nov. 15, 1864; McTyeire, “A History of Methodism,” p. 673.
[633] Richardson, “Lights and Shadows of Itinerant Life,” p. 183.
[634] See Whitaker’s paper in Transactions Ala. Hist. Soc., Vol. IV, p. 211 et seq.
[635] Col. Higginson seems to understand the influence of the women, but not the reason for their interest in public questions. He says: “But for the women of the seceding states, the War of the Rebellion would have been waged more feebly, been sooner ended, and far more easily forgotten.... Had the voters of the South been all women, it would have plunged earlier into the gulf of secession, dived deeper, and come up even more reluctantly.” Higginson, “Common Sense about Women,” pp. 54, 209. Professor Burgess, with a better understanding, explains the reason for the interest of the women in sectional questions. He says that, after the attempt of John Brown to incite the slaves to insurrection, “especially did terror and bitterness take possession of the hearts of the women of the South, who saw in slave insurrection not only destruction and death, but that which to feminine virtue is a thousand times worse than the most terrible death. For those who would excite such a movement or sympathize with anybody who would excite such a movement, the women of the South felt a hatred as undying as virtue itself. Men might still hesitate ... but the women were united and resolute, and their unanimous exhortation was: ‘Men of the South, defend the honor of your mothers, your wives, your sisters, and your daughters. It is your highest and most sacred duty.’” Burgess, “Civil War and the Constitution,” Vol. I, p. 42.
[636] “Our Women in War,” passim; Ball, “Clarke County,” pp. 261-274; oral accounts, scrap-books, letters.
[637] One of my acquaintances says that quite often she had only bread, milk, and syrup twice a day. Sometimes she was unable to eat any breakfast, but after spinning an hour or two she was hungry enough to eat. To many the diet was very healthful, but the sick and the delicate often died for want of proper food.
[638] At the close of the war my mother was twelve years old; for more than two years she had been doing a woman’s task at spinning. Her sister had been spinning for a year, though she was only six years old.
[639] Many of the heavier articles woven during the war, such as coverlets, counterpanes, rugs, etc., are still, after forty years, almost as good as new.
[640] Acts, Dec., 1861, 2d Called and 1st Regular Sess., p. 70.
[641] Hague, “Blockaded Family,” passim; Miller, pp. 223-232; “Our Women in the War,” p. 275 et seq.; Clayton, “White and Black under the Old Régime,” pp. 112-149; Porcher, “Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests,” pp. 70, 107, 284-295, 351, 372, 657.
[642] Clayton, “White and Black under the Old Régime”; Hague, “Blockaded Family,” passim; Miller, p. 229; Jacobs, “Drug Conditions,” p. 16; oral accounts; Porcher, passim.
[643] O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, pp. 1073-1075; Jacobs, “Drug Conditions.”
[644] Jacobs, pp. 4-6, 12-14, 16-21; Porcher, p. 65.
[645] Hague, “Blockaded Family.”
[646] Jacobs, “Drug Conditions,” pp. 4-6, 12-14, 16-21; Hague, “Blockaded Family,” passim; “Our Women in the War”; Ball, “Clarke County”; Miller, “Alabama”; Porcher; Pub. So. Hist. Ass’n, March, 1903.
[647] Smedes, “A Southern Planter,” p. 226.
[648] In the early part of the war when a soldier received a slight wound he was given a furlough for a few weeks until he was well again. Slight wounds came to be called “furloughs,” and some soldiers when particularly homesick are said to have exposed themselves unnecessarily in order to get a “furlough.”
[649] See Boston Journal, Sept. 29 and Nov. 15, 1864.
[650] See Mrs. Clayton’s “White and Black” in regard to rations for negroes.
[651] See Acts of Ala., Nov. 28 and 30, 1861, Dec. 9, 1862, and Dec. 8, 1863; Transactions Ala. Hist. Soc., Vol. IV, pp. 219 et seq.
[652] It was estimated that one-fourth of the people of the state were furnished for three years with meal and salt.
[653] Moore, “Rebellion Record,” Vol. IV (1862).
[654] N. Y. News, March 29, 1864, from the Richmond Whig, from the Mobile Evening News; oral accounts. There were numbers of women who actually cut off their hair, thinking that it could be sold through the blockade. For a while they were hopeful and enthusiastic in regard to the plan of selling their hair.
[655] P. A. Hague’s “Blockaded Family” is the best account of life in Alabama during the war. Mrs. Clayton’s “White and Black under the Old Régime” is very good, but brief. “Our Women in the War” is a valuable collection of articles by a number of women. Nearly all the incidents mentioned I have heard related by relatives and friends. “John Holden, Unionist,” by T. C. De Leon, gives a good account of life in the hill country. Mary A. H. Gay’s “Life in Dixie during the War” and Miller’s “History of Alabama” give information based on personal experiences. Porcher’s “Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests,” published in 1863, is a mine of information in regard to economic conditions in the South. Porcher quotes much from the newspapers and from correspondence. The second edition, published in 1867, omits much of the more interesting material.
[656] In his inaugural proclamation of July 20 (or 21), 1865, Governor Parsons gives the following figures:—
| Alabama male population (1860), 15 to 60 years | 126,587 | |
| Connecticut male population (1860), 15 to 60 years | 120,249 | |
| Alabama soldiers enlisted | 122,000 | |
| Connecticut soldiers enlisted | 40,000 | |
| Alabama soldiers died in service | 35,000 | |
| Alabama soldiers disabled | 35,000 |
N. Y. Times, Aug. 2, 1865; N. Y. Herald, Aug. 11, 1865; Parsons’s Message, Nov. 22, 1865; Parsons’s Speech at Cooper Institute, Nov. 13, 1865.
[657] Fowler’s Report, Transactions Ala. Hist. Soc., Vol. II, p. 188.
[658] Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 114, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[659] N. Y. Times, Oct. 31, 1865.
[660] Southern Hist. Soc. Papers, Vol. XV (Paroles at Appomattox); Miller, “History of Alabama,” p. 233; Brewer, “Regimental Histories.”
[661] Census of 1866, Selma Times and Messenger, March 24, 1868.
[662] Censuses of 1860, 1866, 1870.
| Whites | Blacks | |||||
| 1860 | 526,271 | 1860 | 437,770 | |||
| 1866 | 522,799 | 1866 | 423,445 | |||
| 1870 | 521,384 | 1870 | 475,510 |
[663] Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 114, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[664] Miller, “History of Alabama,” p. 141.
[665] Miller, “Alabama,” p. 141 (Auditor’s Report).
[666] 1860, 6,385,724 acres; 1880, 6,375,706 acres.
[667] 1860, $7,433,178; 1890, $4,511,645; 1900, $8,675,900.
[668] Which must be reduced by one-fifth for depreciated currency.
[669] See Census Bulletin, No. 155, 12th Census.
[670] Census, 1860 and 1900; Miller, “Alabama,” p. 235.
[671] N. Y. Times, Nov. 2, 1865 (Truman).
[672] The explosion was caused by fire reaching the ordnance stores left by the Confederate troops. One of the cotton agents claimed that 9000 bales of cotton were destroyed for him in the explosion. But the government held otherwise. It was charged, without satisfactory proof, that the cotton agents caused the explosion to cover their shortage.
[673] “Northern Alabama Illustrated,” p. 321.
[674] “Northern Alabama Illustrated,” p. 427.
[675] M. G. Molinari, “Lettres sur les États-Unis et le Canada,” p. 233; Somers, “Southern States,” pp. 181, 183.
[676] Somers, “Southern States,” p. 114; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 114, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[677] John Hardy, “History of Selma,” pp. 51, 52; Reid, “After the War,” pp. 211, 214, 222, 371; Miller, “Alabama,” pp. 233-235; Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 114, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. (Patton to Congress); N. Y. Times, Nov. 2, Oct. 31, and Aug. 17, 1865; Riley, “History of Conecuh County”; Riley, “Baptists of Alabama,” pp. 304, 305; Brewer, “Alabama,” pp. 65, 69; Brown, “Alabama,” pp. 254, 256; DuBose, “Alabama,” pp. 114, 115; “Our Women in the War,” p. 277 et seq.
[678] Somers, “Southern States,” p. 115.
[679] Somers, “Southern States,” p. 115.
[680] Somers, “Southern States,” p. 114.
[681] Reid, “After the War,” pp. 222, 371; Ball, “Clarke County,” p. 294; Riley, “Baptists of Alabama,” pp. 304-305; N. Y. Times, Oct. 31, 1865; N. Y. Herald, July 23, 1865.
[682] An indignant northern newspaper correspondent appealed to the military authorities to check this “rebellious discrimination,” but nothing was done. The railroad officials, as well as all other southern people, were now suspicious of paper money.
[683] Ho. Repts., Vol. IV, 39th Cong., 2d Sess., on “Affairs of Southern Railroads”; Trowbridge, “The South,” p. 451; Reid, “After the War,” p. 212; Brewer, “Alabama,” pp. 78, 79; Miller, “Alabama,” pp. 141, 234; N. Y. World, July 18, 1865; Selma Times, Jan. 25 and Feb. 2, 1866; N. Y. Times, Oct. 31, 1865; April 25 and July 2, 1866; Berney, “Handbook of Alabama”; Hodgson, “Alabama Manual and Statistical Register.”
[684] N. Y. Herald, June 17 and Aug. 30, 1865; Taylor, “Destruction and Reconstruction,” pp. 227, 228; Miller, “History of Alabama,” p. 237; McCulloch, “Men and Measures,” p. 235.
[685] N. Y. Herald, July 17 and 20, 1865; N. Y. World, July 20, 1865; N. Y. Times, Aug. 17 and Dec. 27, 1865; Miller, “History of Alabama,” pp. 235, 237; Herbert, “The Solid South,” pp. 18, 19; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 451; oral accounts.
[686] “Our Women in the War,” p. 279; Riley, “Baptists of Alabama,” pp. 304, 305. See also Elizabeth McCracken, “The Southern Woman and Reconstruction,” in the Outlook, Nov., 1903.
[687] Miller, “History of Alabama,” p. 238; Patton’s Message, Jan. 16, 1866.
[688] Brewer, “Alabama,” pp. 205, 206.
[689] N. Y. Times, Nov. 2, 1865 (Truman).
[690] N. Y. Herald, Oct. 5, 1895; Report of Carl Schurz.
[691] Chicago Tribune, (fall of) 1865, Montgomery correspondence.
[692] Governor Patton’s Message, Jan. 16, 1866.
[693] Oral accounts; Daily News, Sept. 3, 1865 (Selma correspondence).
[694] Ordinances, No. 4, Sept. 20, 1865, and No. 54, Sept. 30, 1865.
[695] Reid, “After the War,” pp. 351, 352; Ordinance, No. 43, Sept. 30, 1865.
[696] Daily Times, Aug. 17, Nov. 2, and Dec. 27, 1865; Report of Carl Schurz; oral accounts.
[697] Report of the Freedmen’s Bureau, Oct. 24, 1865; Patton’s Message, Jan. 16, 1866; Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Pt. III, p. 140.
[698] N. Y. Times, Oct. 10, 1865. See also Resolutions of Legislature, 1865-1866.
[699] Joint Memorial and Resolutions of the General Assembly, in Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), pp. 598-600.
[700] Memorial and Joint Resolutions, Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), pp. 601-603.
[701] Miller, “Alabama,” p. 242.
[702] N. Y. Herald, Dec. 15, 1865.
[703] The wife of one of these officers was a notorious prostitute.
[704] Selma Times, Feb. 22, 1866.
[705] From Ms. account by a citizen of Greensboro. The young man who came so near hanging was some years later a hotel proprietor in Birmingham and created much newspaper discussion by ordering General Sherman to leave his hotel.
[706] See Mrs. Clayton, “White and Black Under the Old Régime,” pp. 152-153.
[707] Washington, “Up From Slavery,” pp. 23, 24.
[708] Columbus (Ga.) Sun, Nov. 22, 1865; The World, July 20, 1865; N. Y. Herald, July 23, 1865; Parsons’s Speech, Cooper Institute, Nov. 13, 1865; Riley, “Baptists of Alabama,” pp. 305, 307; Ball, “Clarke County,” p. 294; Herbert, “Solid South,” pp. 19, 20; Miller, “History of Alabama,” Ch. CXLI; oral accounts.
[709] N. Y. Herald, Aug. 27, 1865; Mobile Register, Aug. 16, 1865.
[710] Huntsville Advocate, July 26 and Nov. 9, 1865; McTyeire, “History of Methodism”; Riley, “Baptists of Alabama”; conversations with various negroes and whites.
[711] Hardy, “History of Selma,” p. 85.
[712] DeBow’s Review, March, 1866.
| Negro population in 1860 | 437,770 | |
| Negro population in 1866 | 423,325 | |
| Decrease | 14,445 |
[714] Estimated 20,000—Census of 1866.
[715] Southern Mag., Jan., 1874. Authorities as already noted and DeBow’s Review, March, 1866; Montgomery Advertiser, March 21, 1866; Hardy, “History of Selma,” p. 85; N. Y. Times, Oct. 31, 1865; Huntsville Advocate, Nov. 9, 1865; N. Y. Herald, July 17, 1865; N. Y. News, Sept. 7 and Dec. 4, 1865; Census of 1866 in Selma Times and Messenger, March 24, 1868; Mrs. Clayton, “White and Black,” pp. 152, 153; “Our Women in the War”; Thomas, “The American Negro,” p. 190; Report of the Joint Committee, Pt. III, p. 140; B. C. Truman, Report to the President, April 9, 1866; Carl Schurz, Report to the President, see Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 2, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; General Grant, Report to the President, Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 2, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[716] Southern Mag., Jan., 1874.
[717] Protestant Episcopal Freedmen’s Commission, Occasional Papers, Jan., 1866.
[718] N. Y. Times, Aug. 17, 1865, Jan. 25, Feb. 12, and July 2, 1866; N. Y. Herald, June 24, 1866; The Nation, Feb. 15 and April 19, 1866; Reid, “After the War,” pp. 369-371; Reports of Grant, Truman, and Schurz; Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction (Fisk); Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 20; Paper by Petrie in Transactions Ala. Hist. Soc., Vol. IV, p. 465.
[719] Brown, “Alabama,” p. 259.
[720] Montgomery Advertiser, Dec., 1865, and Jan. 31, 1866; N. Y. Times, Oct. 31 and Dec. 27, 1865; N. Y. News, Dec. 4, 1865; N. Y. Herald, Dec., 1865, and Jan. 31, 1866; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 42, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. (W. H. Smith); Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 6, 39th Cong., 2d Sess. (Swayne’s Report); Riley, “Baptists of Alabama,” p. 305; Trowbridge, “The South,” p. 445; Miller, “Alabama,” pp. 228, 229; Somers, “South since the War,” p. 134; Huntsville Advocate, Nov. 23, 1865.
[721] Montgomery Advertiser, Jan. 31, 1866.
[722] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; Buckley’s Report, Jan. 16, 1865; Report of John H. Hurst and A. B. Strickland, Oct. 4, 1865.
[723] Swayne’s Report, Oct. 31, 1866; R. T. Smith to Swayne, Jan. 6, 1866 (in Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.); W. H. Smith, D. C. Humphreys, and J. J. Giers, Memorial to Congress, Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 42, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; Patton’s Message, Jan. 16, 1866.
[724] Report of M. H. Cruikshank, March, 1866.
[725] Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 114, 39th Cong., 1st Sess; National Intelligencer, Oct. 2, 1866.
[726] Huntsville Independent, April 3 and 19, 1866; Selma Times, June 9, 1866; oral accounts.
[727] W. Garrett to Swayne, Jan. 15, 1866, in Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 38th Cong., 1st Sess.
[728] Chicago Tribune, June 2, 1866 (Correspondent at Bellefonte, Jackson County); Huntsville Independent, April 3 and 19, 1866; Reports of General Swayne, 1865-1866.
[729] March 8, 1867, General Howard of the Freedmen’s Bureau reported that in Alabama there were 10,000 whites and 5000 blacks in a destitute condition, and that during the next five months, owing to the failure of the crops in 1866, there would be needed 2,250,000 rations valued at $562,500, or 25 cents per ration. Sen. Ex. Docs., No. 1, 40th Cong., 1st Sess. Report of Swayne, Oct. 31, 1866; Report of Com. Bureau, Nov. 1, 1867; G. O., No. 4, Hq. Dist. of Ala., Montgomery, Oct. 10, 1866.
[730] Freedmen’s Bureau Report, Oct. 24, 1868.
[731] Swayne’s Report, Nov., 1866; Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 6, 39th Cong., 2d Sess.; Reid, “After the War,” p. 221; Freedmen’s Bureau Report, Nov. 1, 1866, Nov. 1, 1867, Oct. 2, 1868; and other authorities noted above.
[732] These were general agents, supervising special agents, assistant special agents, local special agents, agency aids, aids to the revenue, customs officers, and superintendents of freedmen. Rules and Regulations, July 29, 1864. Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 190, 44th Cong., 1st Sess.
[733] Amended regulations, Sec. IV, March 30, 1865.
[734] Rules and Regulations, Sec. IX, Treasury Department, May 9, 1865. Renewed by Circular Instructions, May 16, 1865, and in force to June 30, 1865. In Alabama the regulation was enforced during the entire summer. Ho. Rept., No. 83, 45th Cong., 3d Sess.
[735] McPherson, “Reconstruction,” p. 9.
[736] Proclamations, June 13 and 23, 1865.
[737] Proclamation, Aug. 29, 1865.
[738] Wilson burned at Selma 32,000 bales, and at Columbus, Ga., 150,000 bales, much of which came from Alabama. During the raid he destroyed 275,000 bales, 125,000 of which were burned in Alabama. The Confederates destroyed at Montgomery 80,000 bales (other accounts say 97,000 and 125,000; see Greeley, Vol. II, p. 19). Government cotton was, of course, the first destroyed, and there is no doubt but that nearly all of it was burned either by the raiders or by the Confederates to prevent its falling into the hands of the enemy. Cotton was also destroyed at Mobile and by the Federal armies that came up from the South.
[739] Report of A. Roane, Chief of the Produce Loan, C.S.A. Office, in Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 190, 44th Cong., 1st Sess.
[740] Roane then estimated that by April 1, 1865, the Confederacy owned in all no more than 150,000 bales. Dr. Curry, a member of the Confederate Congress, stated that only 250,000 bales were ever owned by the Confederate government. “Civil History,” pp. 115, 128. F. S. Lyon, when a member of the Confederate Congress in 1864, found that the Confederacy had a claim on about 150,000 bales scattered over ten states. Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., 1426.
[741] J. Barr Robertson, “The Confederate Debt and Private Southern Debts,” p. 25.
[742] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 78, 38th Cong., 1st Sess. (Chase).
[743] Circular, Sept. 9, 1865.
[744] Act, March 12, 1863.
[745] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 114, 39th Cong., 2d Sess.; Treasury Department Doc., No. 2261. According to a decision of the Supreme Court in case of Klein vs. United States (13 Wallace, 128), “disloyal” owners might become “loyal” by pardon and thus have all rights of property restored. This was the effect of proclamations of the President. “The restoration of the proceeds [then] became the absolute right of persons pardoned.” See Ho. Repts., No. 784, 51st Cong., 1st Sess., and No. 1377; 52d Cong., 1st Sess. The Attorney-General stated that “Congress took notice of the fact that captures of private property on land had been made and would continue to be made by the armies as a necessary and proper means of diminishing the wealth and thus reducing the powers of the insurgent rulers,” and that after a seizure had been made there could be no question of whether the usages of war were observed or violated, except through the courts; the President and the Secretary of the Treasury had no discretion in the matter. Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 114, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. According to the opinion of the United States law officers, “No one who submitted to the Confederate States, obeyed their laws, and contributed to support their government ought to recover under the statute” of March 12, 1863, See Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 22, 40th Cong., 2d Sess.
[746] Secretary McCulloch to President of the Senate, Jan. 16, 1869. Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 22, 40th Cong., 2d Sess., No. 37, 39th Cong., 25th Sess.
[747] Department Circular, No. 4, Jan. 9, 1900; 15 Stats.-at-Large, p. 251.
[748] See Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 16, 42d Cong., 2d Sess.; No. 12, 42d Cong., 3d Sess.; No. 23, 43d Cong., 1st Sess.; No. 18, 43d Cong., 2d Sess.; No. 30, 44th Cong., 1st Sess.; No. 4, 45th Cong., 2d Sess.; Nos. 10 and 30, 46th Cong., 2d Sess.; also Treasury Department Doc., No. 2261 (1901); Department Circular, No. 4. Jan. 9, 1900.
[749] Sen. Rept., No. 41, Pt. I, pp. 442, 445, 42d Cong., 2d Sess.
[750] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 1941.
[751] Curry, “Civil History Confederate States,” pp. 115, 126, 128. See testimony of Lieut.-Col. Hunter Brooke in Rept. Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Pt. III, p. 115.
[752] Whitelaw Reid, “After the War,” p. 204.
[753] Reid, “After the War,” pp. 208, 209.
[754] Miller, “Alabama,” p. 236.
[755] One who suffered writes from Selma: “Our cotton, the only thing left us with which to buy the necessaries of life, was seized at the point of the bayonet under the plea that it was Confederate cotton and that it was being seized by the government for its own use, whereas it was taken by the officers and sold, and the money put into their own pockets. It was then worth $255 a bale. Gen. —— commanded at this place, and he and his staff coined money faster than a mint could turn it out.” Judge B. H. Craig. In July, 1865, a train of wagons at Talladega was sent to the ginnery of Ross Green, at Alexandria, and 59 bales of cotton, Green’s own property, worth $100 a bale in gold, were carried off. Miller, p. 236.
[756] Testimony in Rept. of Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Pt. III, p. 115; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 1426. F. S. Lyon said that the people would have been better reconciled to the confiscation had the cotton been sold for the benefit of the United States, but it was plainly stolen by the agents and the army, and they began to resist in every way. Some of them concealed Confederate cotton; some stole from the government, some from the agents what the latter had stolen from them; some went into partnership with the agents. No one believed that any one except the original owner had a right to the cotton, and they did anything to get even.
[757] Miller, p. 236; N. Y. Times, March 2 and Aug. 30, 1865. In the Black Belt the United States military authorities collected the tax-in-kind which had been levied by the Confederate authorities but not collected. One planter had to pay one thousand bushels of corn, two barrels of syrup, and smaller quantities of other produce. From those who refused to pay the tax was taken forcibly. See Ku Klux Rept., p. 446 (F. S. Lyon).
[758] Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 30, 46th Cong., 2d Sess.
[759] Trowbridge, “The South,” p. 447; Reid, “After the War,” pp. 208, 209, 375; N. Y. Times, Aug. 30, 1865; N. Y. Herald, June 23, 1865.
[760] N. Y. Times, Aug. 30 and Nov. 2, 1865; De Bow’s Review, 1866; oral accounts.
[761] McCulloch, “Men and Measures,” pp. 234, 235.
[762] Sen. Rept., No. 41, Pt. I, 42d Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 442-445.
[763] The minority Ku Klux Report asserted that it was a well-known fact that Draper when appointed cotton agent was a bankrupt, and that when he died he was a millionnaire.
[764] The cotton secured in this way was, it was claimed, sold as “waste,” “trash,” or “dog tail” to some friend of the agent, who would divide with the latter.
[765] All freight, agency, auctioneer, insurance, storage, etc., charges, and fees for legal advice, were charged against the cotton, and had to be paid before it was restored.
[766] Probably Draper was correct here. The agents would consign to him all cotton that they felt sure the government had record of, and the rest they sold for their own benefit.
[767] Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 190, 44th Cong., 1st Sess.
[768] Secretary McCulloch to President of the Senate, March 2, 1867, in Sen. Ex. Doc. No. 37, 39th Cong., 2d Sess. In this way, during the summer of 1865, $616,844.34 was restored to owners, and to the end of 1866 $1,018,459.83 was restored. Most of the owners lived in Alabama and Louisiana.
[769] See Brewer, p. 375, and Garrett, p. 587. Lyon was one of the most useful, reliable, and respected public men of Alabama and his account is entitled to confidence. He had been a lawyer, clerk of the senate, senator, member of Congress, state bank commissioner, presidential elector, member Confederate Congress, etc.
[770] Letter to F. P. Blair, in Sen. Rept., No. 41, Pt. I, p. 445, 42d Cong., 2d Sess.
[771] Under the reconstruction government Dustin held the office of major-general of militia.
[772] See Ku Klux Rept., pp. 444-446. Letter of F. S. Lyon to General Blair. Also Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 1410-1426, 1661.
Lyon had been agent for the Confederate Produce Loan, and consequently knew what was government cotton and what was not. After the war he acted as attorney for those whose cotton was unlawfully seized. The general officers commanding in his district approved his conduct, but he was hated by the cotton agents, who frequently complained of his “rebellious conduct.” Lyon tried to save even the cotton pledged to the Confederacy, on the ground that the promise or sale had not been completed and that the transaction was void from the beginning, and that the right of capture did not exist after the close of the war.
[773] Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 190, 44th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 146.
[774] Calculation based on subscriptions to Produce Loan. Most of it had been destroyed.
[775] N. Y. Times, June 2, 1865; Huntsville Advocate, May 26, 1866. Report of Grand Jury.
[776] N. Y. Times, June 2, 1866.
[777] Worth $500,000, at the lowest price.
[778] G. O., No. 55, Department of Ala., Oct. 30, 1865; G. O., No. 8, Department of Ala., Feb. 14, 1866; Ms. records in War Department archives. For years these men were in prison while their friends were working to secure their release. The principal arguments for Dexter’s release were the virtue of his wife’s relations in New England and the illegality of the trial before the military commission in time of peace. Judging from the tone of the indorsements he was probably released, though there is no record of the fact in the archives. The manuscript proceedings of the trial show that thousands of bales of cotton had been “spirited away,” but everything was in such a state of confusion that little could be plainly proven against the agents. Only one thing was certain, “that much more cotton was seized for the government than was received by the government.” The investigation was hushed up as soon as possible; too many were implicated.
[779] Sen. Rept., No. 41, Pt. I, pp. 442, 445, 42d Cong., 2d Sess. This estimate is probably too large for both numbers.
[780] “Civil History, Confederate States,” pp. 115, 128.
[781] Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 37, 39th Cong., 2d Sess.
[782] Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 56, 40th Cong., 2d Sess.
[783] Sen. Rept., No. 41, Pt. I, p. 444, 42d Cong., 2d Sess.
[784] After which date confiscation was forbidden by Treasury regulation.
[785] An example of the way charges were piled up: A lot of 448 bales of cotton was seized in Eufaula, Alabama, and shipped to New York, via Appalachicola. The expenses were:—
| Expenses to and at Appalachicola | $24,264.85 | |
| Freight | 4,164.69 | |
| Expenses at New York | 2,500.05 | |
| Information and collecting | 30,893.31 | |
| Total expenses | 61,822.90 | |
| Gross proceeds of sale | 78,352.56 | |
| Net proceeds of sale | 16,529.66 |
Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 23, 43d Cong., 2d Sess.
The following cotton statistics show how the Mobile agents ran up expenses:—
| J. R. Dillon, 1st Agency: | Cotton sales | $57,033.66 | |
| Total proceeds of all sales | 129,076.33 | ||
| Expenses, total | 64,350.01 | ||
| S. B. Eaton, 1st Agency: | Cotton sold | 15,963.01 | |
| Total receipts | 27,799.48 | ||
| Total expenses | 27,799.48 | ||
| T. C. A. Dexter, 9th Agency: | Cotton sold | 39,945.39 | |
| Total receipts | 783,152.62 | ||
| Expenses | 485,137.77 | ||
| J. M. Tomeny, 9th Agency: | Cotton sold | 14,159.51 | |
| Total receipts | 208,185.63 | ||
| Expenses | 208,185.63 | ||
| Total expenses of every kind amounted to | 6,546,000.95 | ||
| On receipts of | 34,396,189.95 | ||
| Of which cotton sold for | 29,518,041.17 | ||
[786] Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 56, 40th Cong., 2d Sess.
[787] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 97, 39th Cong., 2d Sess.
[788] See Ku Klux Rept., pp. 443-446; Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 37, 39th Cong., 2d Sess.; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 97, 39th Cong., 2d Sess.; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 113, 41st Cong., 2d Sess.; Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 23, 43d Cong., 2d Sess.; Department Circular, No. 4, Jan. 9, 1900.
[789] Department Circular, No. 4, Jan. 9, 1900; Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 23, 43d Cong., 2d Sess. There are imperfect records of only two Alabama agencies, which reported a certain number of bales seized. The other agencies did not report their operations in Alabama. The agents not reporting were: J. R. Dillon, H. M. Buckley, S. B. Eaton, E. P. Hotchkiss, L. Ellis, A. D. Banks, James and Ellis Carver, and perhaps others. None of the numerous collecting agents made reports or kept records. In 1876, thirty-three cotton agents were defaulters to the United States, one man owing the United States $337,460.44. Of these, sixteen were not to be found anywhere. Four of the defaulters had operated in Alabama. These men were by their own records defaulters—having failed to turn over to the government the proceeds of sales they had reported. Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 190, 44th Cong., 1st Sess.
[790] In addition to the tax of twenty-five per cent on purchases of cotton levied by a Treasury regulation during the war and in force during 1865. Treasury regulations, May 9, 1865. See also President’s proclamation, in McPherson, “Reconstruction,” p. 9.
[791] Governor Patton, in his message of Nov. 12, 1866, stated that the cotton tax of three cents a pound was oppressive and unjust, a burden on the farmers and on the laborers also; that the tax went into the United States Treasury and then passed into the hands of the manufacturers as a gratuity of three cents per pound; that there was no way of getting the ruinous tax raised or lightened unless by an appeal in the form of a petition; that the people of Alabama had no voice in the government; that this “law paralyzes our energies and represses the development of our resources and is injurious to the whole country.” Governor’s Message, House Journal, 1866-1867, p. 21.
[792] Twenty states and territories are not included in these sums, as no reports were received from them. Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 181, 42d Cong., 3d Sess., and Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 2, 39th Cong., 2d Sess.
[793] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 181, 42d Cong., 3d Sess.
[794] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 47, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 181, 42d Cong., 3d Sess.
[795] $54,191,229 in 1870.
[796] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 181, 42d Cong., 3d Sess.
[797] The cotton tax was justified on the ground that while Alabama had paid $14,200,982 from 1862 to 1872, New Jersey had paid a total tax of $48,528,298, the two states having very nearly the same population. But no account was taken of the fact that for four years no tax was collected from Alabama by the United States, while nearly all of the movable wealth was destroyed during the war, and that in 1865 property was almost non-existent in Alabama. New Jersey, however, was a rich state. Alabama had besides paid an enormous war tax and had been looted of millions of dollars’ worth of cotton. And in Alabama there were 500,000 negroes who paid no tax, while most of the population of New Jersey were taxpayers. Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 181, 42d Cong., 3d Sess.
[798] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 34, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[799] Sen. Mis. Doc., No. 100, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. (A. A. Low, Chairman of Committee of the N. Y. Chamber of Commerce).
[800] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 383, 403 (General Pettus); Journal of the Convention of 1867.
[801] See Saunders, “Early Settlers,” p. 31 (Reverdy Johnson to Saunders). Jan. 18, 1872, the Alabama legislature (Republican Senate and Democratic House) memorialized Congress, asking to have the cotton tax refunded to the impoverished people, and stating that the tax was “most unjust and oppressive, a direct tax upon industry”; that to refund the tax would be “evenhanded but tardy justice.” Acts of Ala., 1871-1872, pp. 445-446. A similar petition was made on Feb. 23, 1875. Acts of Ala., 1874-1875, p. 674.
[802] In December, 1903, Representative J. S. Williams of Mississippi introduced a measure in Congress to refund the amount of the cotton tax to the southern states.
[803] It is difficult to understand now how thoroughly the Confederate soldier realized that the questions at issue were decided against him. But that it was a crime to have been a Confederate soldier, he did not understand. See also testimony of John B. Gordon and of Edmund W. Pettus in the Ku Klux Testimony.
[804] A neglected point of view is the attitude of the Confederate soldier. He had surrendered with arms in hand, and certain terms had been made with him, as he thought, a contract, embodied in the parole. This he believed secured his rights in return for laying down arms, and that as long as he was law-abiding his rights were to be inviolate. He was well pleased with the “spirit of Appomattox,” but nearly all that happened after Appomattox was in violation, he felt, of the terms of surrender. The whole radical programme was contrary to the contract made with men who had arms in their hands. Lee had decided that there should be no guerilla warfare, and in return certain moral obligations rested on the North. See the statements of General (now Senator) Edmund W. Pettus, in Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 377, 383, and of General John B. Gordon, in Ga. Test., pp. 314, 332, 333, 343.
[805] See “Our Women in the War,” p. 280; Ball, “Clarke County,” p. 463; Le Conte, “Autobiography,” p. 236.
[806] N. Y. Herald, June 17 and Aug. 30, 1865; N. Y. Times, Aug. 17 and Oct. 31, 1865; Mrs. Clay, “A Belle of the Fifties”; Nation, Feb. 15, 1865; oral accounts; Clayton, “White and Black under the Old Régime.”
[807] Letter concerning affairs at the South, Dec. 18, 1865, Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 2, 39th Cong., 2d Sess.; McPherson, “Reconstruction,” p. 67. General Grant’s conclusions were undoubtedly correct, but they evidently could not be based on the information gathered in a week’s journeying through the South. This gave the Radicals an opportunity to attack his report as being based on insufficient information. But General Grant knew the men against whom he had fought, he had talked with many of the representative men of the South, and through military channels was well informed as to actual conditions at the South.
[808] Report of Carl Schurz, Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 2, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. Schurz made a journey of more than two months through the southern states. Judging from the testimony which he submits, his confidence must have been confined to the officers of the Freedmen’s Bureau. As a foreigner (a German), he would not be able, even if so inclined, to ascertain anything of the sentiments of the representative people. However, his report was evidently not based entirely on the evidence submitted with it; if it had been, it would have been even more unfavorable. In McClure’s Magazine, January, 1904, Schurz has an article which is practically a rewriting of this report made nearly forty years before. He repeats some of the same stories told him then, and endeavors to reconcile his attitude in 1865-1866 with his course as a Liberal Republican in 1871-1872.
[809] Report of Benjamin C. Truman to the President, April 9, 1866, Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 43, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; N. Y. Times, March 2, 1865. Truman spent two months in Alabama, and saw many prominent men whom Schurz did not see, and came in contact with thousands of other citizens. His aim was to picture conditions as they were. The newspaper correspondents, regardless of politics, gave better accounts than the volunteer officers, who had little training or education and much prejudice.
[810] See Blaine, Vol. II, p. 127.
[811] The sub-committee: Senator Harris (New York) and Senator Boutwell (Massachusetts) and Morrill (Vermont) from the House.
[812] Smith and Humphreys.
[813] J. J. Giers.
[814] M. J. Saffold. He was pardoned by President Johnson for that offence.
[815] George E. Spencer, Colonel 1st Alabama Union Cavalry.
[816] The witnesses who furnished testimony to the Congressional committee were:—
| Name | Nativity | Remarks | |
| 1. | Warren Kelsey | Massachusetts | Cotton speculator |
| 2. | General Edward Hatch | Iowa | Volunteer army |
| 3. | General George E. Spencer | Iowa | Volunteer army |
| 4. | William H. Smith | Alabama | Deserter |
| 5. | J. J. Giers | Alabama | Tory |
| 6. | Mordecai Mobley | Iowa | |
| 7. | General George H. Thomas | Virginia | U. S. Army |
| 8. | General Clinton B. Fisk | North | Freedmen’s Bureau |
| 9. | M. J. Saffold | Alabama | “Union” man |
| 10. | D. C. Humphreys | Alabama | Deserter |
| 11. | Colonel Milton M. Bane | Illinois | Volunteer army |
| 12. | General Joseph R. West | California | Volunteer army |
| 13. | Colonel Hunter Brooke | North | Volunteer army |
| 14. | General Grierson | Illinois | Volunteer army |
| 15. | General Swayne | North | Freedmen’s Bureau |
| 16. | General C. C. Andrews | Minnesota | Volunteer army |
| 17. | General Chetlain | Illinois | Volunteer army |
| 18. | General Tarbell | North | Volunteer army |
[817] One of these men (W. H. Smith) became the first scalawag governor of Alabama, another (George E. Spencer) became a United States senator by negro votes, the third (Giers) was provided for in the departments at Washington, the fourth (Saffold) became a circuit judge in Alabama, and the fifth (Humphreys) a judge of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. See Herbert, “The Solid South,” pp. 19, 20.
[818] Testimony of General Swayne, Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, 1866, Pt. III, pp. 138-141.
[819] Other witnesses gave, in some respects, more favorable testimony, though most of them were very much more bitter. General Swayne showed no bias except the natural bias of one who did not understand the people, and who had no sympathy with any of the southern social or political principles. Of the northern men he was the best qualified by experience and observation to testify as to conditions in the South. He was an intelligent, educated man, trained in the law, and had a good military record. Most of the others were distinctly below his standard,—ignorant, prejudiced officers of volunteers from the West.
[820] General Swayne was in Alabama nearly three years as the head of the unpopular Freedmen’s Bureau, and his accounts, from first to last, of conditions in Alabama were marked by a fairness which can be found in but little of the official correspondence from the South. He believed in the Freedmen’s Bureau, in negro suffrage, and in the political proscription of white leaders; but his feelings influenced his judgment but little, and, unlike other Bureau officials, he never made misrepresentations.
[821] The Nation, Feb. 15, 1866.
[822] Huntsville Advocate, July 26, 1865.
[823] Herbert, “Solid South,” pp. 29, 30; Atlantic Monthly, Feb., 1901.
[824] See Memorial of William H. Smith, J. J. Giers, and D. C. Humphreys to Congress, Feb., 1866, in Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 42, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. Testimony of the same and of M. J. Saffold in Report of Joint Committee on Reconstruction, 1866; letter of D. H. Bingham from West Point, New York; Reid, “After the War,” passim.
[825] See Le Conte, “Autobiography,” p. 236; Montgomery correspondent in N. Y. Daily News, May 7, 1866.
[826] A newspaper correspondent, the guest of ex-Governor C. C. Clay, wrote: “While the Yankee boldly marched in at the front door into his [Clay’s] parlors and best chambers to dream loyal dreams and rest now that the warfare’s o’er, the quondam aristocrat N. Y. Times, Aug. 17, 1865. The Times usually had very little of such correspondence. The Times, the Herald, and the World had good correspondents in the South, especially during Reconstruction.
[827] An old Alabama river steamboat captain had had his boat burned by Wilson, but had secured another. The Federal army regarded him as a most unmitigated “rebel.” He would play “Dixie” in spite of all prohibitions. He was finally arrested on a more serious charge.
“What do you answer to the charge against you?”
“Faith, an’ which one?”
“That you refuse to take the bodies of dead Federal soldiers on your boat to Montgomery.”
“No, no, that’s not true. God knows it would be the pleasure of my life to take the whole Yankee nation up the river in that same fix.” “Our Women in the War,” p. 281.
Colonel Robert McFarland returned to Florence in the only suit he possessed—a gray uniform. He was peremptorily ordered by the Federal officers not to wear it. He was in a quandary until a friend secured a long linen duster for him to wear. “Northern Alabama,” p. 291.
[828] Gen. T. Kilby Smith, on Sept. 14, 1865, in Mobile, made a statement for Carl Schurz in which he asserted that one of the most intelligent, well-bred, pious ladies of Mobile wanted the military authorities to whip or torture into a confession of theft two negroes whom she suspected of stealing. She considered it a hardship, he said, that a negro might not be whipped or tortured in order to force a confession, when there was no evidence against him. “I offer this,” he wrote, “as an instance of the feeling that exists in all classes against the negro.” See Doc. No. 9, accompanying the report of Schurz.
[829] I have seen a coarse article reflecting on the character of southern women originally published in the Tribune and copied in a small Alabama paper each issue for several weeks. It asserted in thinly veiled terms that many of the young southern women were too intimate with negro men; the solution of the race question by amalgamation was asserted as sure to come; details of such a solution were suggested, and examples of what was taking place were cited.
[830] General Terry attempted to explain the condition of affairs by saying that the results of the war were but the legitimate consequence of a conflict between an inferior and a superior race. “Land We Love,” Vol. IV, p. 243. Gen. T. Kilby Smith, in September, 1865, complained that Federal officers were not received in society in Mobile. General Wood, he said, had been six weeks in Mobile, “ignored socially and damned politically”; and this, he said, in a community which before the war was considered one of the most refined and hospitable of all the southern maritime cities, the favorite home of army and naval officers. Doc. No. 9, accompanying the report of Schurz.
[831] In addition to references cited above, see also Huntsville Advocate, March 9 and 23, July 26, 1865; Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 42, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; Sen. Mis. Doc., No. 43, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. (Truman); Reid, “After the War,” pp. 211, 212, 218, 219; “The Land We Love,” passim; “Our Women in the War,” p. 279 et passim; Abbott, “The Rights of Man,” pp. 224-226; Clayton, “White and Black,” pp. 150-152; Clay, “A Belle of the Fifties”; Straker, “The New South Investigated,” pp. 24, 57; Report of the Joint Committee, 1866, Pt. III; N. Y. Daily News, April 16, 1864, and Dec. 4, 1865; Reports of Schurz, Truman, and Grant; Reports of the Freedmen’s Bureau; Southern Magazine, 1874 (DeLeon); N. Y. Times, Oct. 31, 1865; N. Y. Herald, July 23, 1865; Miller, “Alabama,” pp. 233-251; Columbus (Ga.) Sun, March 22 and April 19, 1865; The Nation, Feb. 15, 1866; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., passim; Reconstruction articles in Atlantic Monthly, 1901.
[832] Trowbridge, “The South,” p. 448.
[833] Thomas W. Conway, of the Freedmen’s Bureau, who passed through the state in 1866, stated that there were men in Alabama who, rather than sell their lands to northern men or borrow money in the North, would see their plantations lie waste, and before they would hire their former slaves as free laborers they would starve. The spirit of hatred toward northern men was universal, he said. Report to Chamber of Commerce, New York, June 7, 1866.
[834] Jan. 17, 1867, the state legislature declared that the reports published in the northern papers that it was unsafe for northern men to reside in Alabama were false. The lower house declared that “we, in the name of the people of Alabama, most cordially invite skilled labor and capital from the world, and particularly from all parts of the United States, and pledge the hearty coöperation and support of the state.” Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 15. For several years every inducement was offered by the planters to encourage immigration to the Black Belt. As late as 1869 immigration conventions were held. Annual Cyclopædia (1869), p. 10. During 1865 the north Alabama “unionists” hoped to see northern white men come in and take the place of the negroes. The Nation, Aug. 17, 1865.
[835] Report of Truman, Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 43, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; Reid “After the War,” passim; Trowbridge, “The South,” p. 448; N. Y. Times, Nov. 10, 1865, July 2 and Oct. 31, 1866; General Swayne’s testimony, Report Joint Committee, Pt. III, p. 141; General Tarbell’s testimony, Report Joint Committee, Pt. III, pp. 155, 156.
[836] Report Joint Committee, 1866, Pt. III, pp. 139-141.
[837] In addition to the above references, see The World, Nov. 13, 1865; N. Y. Times, July 2 and Sept. 9, 1866; N. Y. Herald, July 23 and Aug. 28, 1865 (Swayne); Truman’s Report, April 9, 1866; Swayne’s Report, Jan., 1866; Harper’s Monthly Magazine, Jan., 1874.
[838] Pastoral Letters, May 30 and June 20, 1865.
[839] Perry, “History of the American Episcopal Church,” Vol. II, p. 328 et seq.; Whitaker, “The Church in Alabama,” pp. 172-175; N. Y. Herald, Sept. 4, 1865; Wilmer, “The Recent Past from a Southern Standpoint,” p. 143. Gen. T. Kilby Smith said that Wilmer had great influence among the better class of people, especially the women. Doc. No. 9, accompanying the report of Carl Schurz.
[840] Perry, “History of the American Episcopal Church,” Vol. II, p. 328 et seq.; Whitaker, pp. 175, 176; Wilmer, pp. 143-145.
[841] Whitaker, p. 177; Wilmer, “Recent Past,” p. 145. A copy of the order was also found in the War Department archives.
[842] Pastoral Letter, Sept. 28, 1865.
[843] Whitaker, pp. 180, 181; Wilmer, pp. 145, 146; Montgomery Mail, Oct. 2, 1865.
[844] Whitaker, p. 182; Wilmer, p. 146; Copy of order in War Department archives. Republished on G. O. 2, Jan. 10, 1866, Hq. Dept. Ala., Mobile.
[845] Whitaker, p. 186; Mobile Register, Jan. 9, 1866; Montgomery Mail, Jan. 19, 1866.
[846] Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 25; Wilmer, pp. 147-152; Whitaker, pp. 189-194; Perry, Vol. II, p. 328 et seq. The northern conferences of the Methodist Protestant Church returned in 1877 to the southern organization. See “Statistics of Churches,” p. 566.
[847] See Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. X, p. 562.
[848] See Dunning, “Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction,” pp. 100-103.
[849] McPherson, “Reconstruction,” pp. 121, 122, 504, 505.
[850] Taylor, “Destruction and Reconstruction”; Report of Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Pt. III, pp. 15, 60.
[851] See Dunning, “Essays,” pp. 103-104.
[852] With only two dissenting votes.
[853] Some of these were southerners who were about to withdraw.
[854] Cong. Globe, July 22, 24, 25, 1861.
[855] Cong. Globe, Dec. 5, 1862.
[856] Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VI, pp. 5-12.
[857] Proclamation, Dec. 8, 1863, in Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VI, p. 213.
[858] Proclamation, July 8, 1864, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VI, p. 223.
[859] Lincoln to Reverdy Johnson, Nicolay and Hay, p. 349.
[860] Nicolay and Hay, Vol. IX, p. 457; Vol. X, p. 123.
[861] Nicolay and Hay, Vol. VIII, p. 434.
[862] Message, Dec. 4, 1865, in Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VI, p. 379.
[863] Cong. Globe, Feb. 11, 1862.
[864] Atlantic Monthly, Oct., 1863.
[865] Globe, Feb. 25, 1865, and Dec. 4, 1865. See Henry Adams, “Historical Essays.”
[866] Speeches in the Globe, 1865-1867.
[867] Globe, Aug. 2, 1861.
[868] Globe, Jan. 8, 1863.
[869] Globe, Jan. 22, 1864.
[870] Globe, Jan. 8, 1863.
[871] Globe, Dec. 4, 1865, March 10, 1866; Taylor, “Destruction and Reconstruction,” p. 244.
[872] See also Dunning, “Essays,” pp. 106-108.
[873] See Dunning, “Essays,” pp. 99-112; Texas versus White (1869), 7 Wallace 700; Scott, “Reconstruction during the Civil War”; McCarthy, “Lincoln’s Plan of Reconstruction”; Burgess, “Reconstruction and the Constitution,” pp. 1-143.
[874] N. Y. Times, April 4, 1865.
[875] Elected in 1863.
[876] Testimony of M. J. Saffold, Report Joint Committee, 1866, Pt. III, p. 60. The “union” men greatly exaggerated the strength of the “union” sentiment in the state during the war and their individual part in the peace movement. This was necessary in order to secure recognition as representatives of a strong “union” element. When the plan of the President was so modified as to leave them in their natural position of no influence, they became very bitter against it and played the martyr act to perfection.
[877] Testimony of J. J. Giers, Report Joint Committee, Pt. III, p. 15; O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. II, pp. 473, 485, 505, 506.
[879] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. II, p. 560.
[880] Judge Byrd was elected to the Supreme Court in 1865. He was a distant relative of Colonel William Byrd, of Westover, Va., Esq. Brewer, p. 224.
[881] General C. C. Andrews, in O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. II, p. 727; N. Y. Commercial Advertiser, May 27, 1865; N. Y. Tribune, June 2, 1865.
[882] There were present: Ex-Gov. John G. Shorter, M. A. Baldwin (Attorney-General, Brewer, p. 445), W. B. Bell, A. B. Clitherall (Brewer, p. 479), all of whom had been ardent secessionists, and L. E. Parsons (see p. [143]), Col. J. C. Bradley, Col. J. J. Seibels (Brewer, p. 459; see p. [143]), W. J. Bibb, J. G. Strother, M. J. Saffold (Brewer, p. 215), George Goldthwaite (Brewer, p. 451, A. and I. General). It was a fairly representative body of government officials and “stay-at-homes.”
[883] Garrett, p. 166. Reese was a “Union” man.
[884] N. Y. Commercial Advertiser, May 27, 1865; N. Y. Tribune, June 2, 1865; Montgomery Mail, May 12, 1865. The members of the committee which went to Washington were: Joseph C. Bradley, L. E. Parsons, M. J. Saffold, Lewis Owen, George S. Houston, James Birney, W. J. Bibb, John M. Sutherlin, Albert Roberts, Luke Pryor. None of the committee had been secessionists. Reese had been a “Union” man, Saffold a “political agent.” W. J. Bibb had made a visit to Washington during the war and had a consultation with Lincoln. Parsons was a “Union” man. Houston and Pryor (see Brewer, pp. 324, 326) were neither “Union” nor “secessionist,” but “constitutional.” The others were unknown to public life.
[885] Formerly colonel of the 48th Alabama Infantry.
[886] N. Y. Daily News, May 29, 1865.
[887] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. II, p. 826.
[888] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. II, p. 971.
[889] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. II, pp. 810, 854, 877.
[890] Member of Congress, Confederate colonel of the 36th Alabama, former Whig. Brewer, p. 425.
[891] Former Whig, Adjutant and Inspector-General during the war. Brewer, p. 397.
[892] N. Y. Herald, June 15, 1865.
[893] N. Y. World, June 13, 1865. The absence of the old names in all these movements is noticeable. The old leaders had been strongly in favor of the Confederacy and now took back seats while smaller men came forward. They never came into power again.
[894] Huntsville Advocate, July 19, 1865.
[895] In one of the mountain counties, but the exact location was never named in any of the accounts of the convention.
[896] N. Y. Herald, June 17, 1865.
[897] He represented Talladega in the convention of 1867.
[899] Parsons, Bradley, Houston, Nicholas Davis, Pryor, Saffold, Bibb, Roberts, etc.
[900] Letter in N. Y. Herald, June 17, 1865.
[901] See McPherson, “Rebellion,” p. 286.
[902] The Mobile Register and Advertiser (John Forsyth, editor) supported the President’s policy: “The states were never out of the Union”—July 18, 1865. The Huntsville Advocate, July 19, said, “The presidential policy is simple, direct, and emphatic.” Henry W. Hilliard, General Cullen A. Battle, Ex-Governors Shorter, Moore, Watts, and Fitzpatrick declared that there would be no opposition but a hearty effort “to get straight.”
[903] Lilian Foster, “Andrew Johnson: Services and Speeches,” pp. 199, 210, “Address to Loyal Southerners,” April, 1865.
[904] There is little reason to believe that Lincoln could have succeeded in the struggle with Congress.
[905] See Foster, “Andrew Johnson,” for change of feeling in Johnson as expressed in his speeches in 1865 and 1866.
[906] “President Tamers” the Radicals called them.
[907] McCulloch, p. 517 and Preface; Nation, Oct. 26, 1865; Mayes, “L. Q. C. Lamar”; Reid, “After the War,” pp. 404, 405, 578; Mobile Register and Advertiser, July 18, 1865; Huntsville Advocate, July 18, 1865.
[908] McPherson, p. 10; Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VI, p. 310.
[909] McPherson, p. 10.
[910] G. O., Nos. 5, 13, and 14, Department of Alabama, 1865.
[911] N. Y. Herald, June 21, 1865; Brewer and Garret, sub. nom.
[912] Article II, section 2: Article IV, section 4.
[913] Lewis Eliphalet Parsons, born 1817, Boone County, New York, was the son of a farmer and the grandson of the celebrated Jonathan Edwards. He came to Alabama in 1840 and practised law in Talladega, was a Whig, later a Douglas Democrat, and on both sides during the war. See above, p. [143].
[914] Here “loyal” seems to mean those who had taken the amnesty oath.
[915] Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VI, p. 323.
[916] Those who could take the iron-clad test oath of 1862.
[917] Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 26, p. 97, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[918] James Redpath in The Nation, Aug. 17, 1865, condensed.
[919] See Foster, “Andrew Johnson,” pp. 199, 210, 214, 220, 250.
[920] The 22d of May was the date when the Confederate state government ceased to exist.
[921] Garrett, p. 735, says Aug. 30 and Sept. 12. The convention met on Sept. 12.
[922] Parsons’s Proclamation, July 20 (or 22), 1865; in N. Y. Herald, July 26 and Aug. 11, 1865; Garrett, p. 735; McPherson, p. 21.
[923] Parsons’s Message to Convention, Sept. 21, 1865; Proclamation, July 20, 1865; in N. Y. Herald, Aug. 11, 1865.
[924] Huntsville Advocate, Aug. 17, 1865.
[925] See McCulloch, p. 517 and passim; N. Y. Tribune, May 4, 1866; Mobile Times, April 25, 1866.
[926] N. Y. Herald, Sept. 3, 1865.
[927] Testimony of M. J. Saffold, Report of Joint Committee, 1866, Pt. III, pp. 59-63.
[928] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 16, 40th Cong., 2d Sess.
[929] Others were pardoned for having aided the Confederacy in the following occupations: agents of the Nitre and Mining Bureau; tax collector and state assessor; tax receiver (Confederate); general officer of the Confederate army; postmasters who had held office before the war; members of the state legislature; cotton agents; foreign agents and commissioners; graduates of West Point and Annapolis; resigning United States service to join Confederacy; mail contractors; clerks of the Confederate government; state and Confederate judges; members of Congress; receivers of subscriptions for the Confederacy; marshals and deputy marshals; clerks of state and Confederate courts; agents for the purchase of supplies; members of advisory board; cotton bond agent; Confederate government official; commissioner of appraisement; depositary; route agent; commissioner of Indian affairs; member of convention of 1861; prize commissioner; commissioner to take testimony; Indian agent; Confederate financial agent; commissioner to examine prisoners held by military authorities; agent of the Produce Loan; receiver of the tax-in-kind; leaving loyal state; commissioner of “fifteen million loan”; agent to receive subscriptions for cotton and produce loans; depot agent to receive the tax-in-kind; agent under sequestration laws; enrolling officer; impressment agent; Treasury agent; Confederate contractor; sequestration commissioner; agent to collect provisions for the army; district attorney; state printer; border agriculturist; custom officer; agent to receive titles; commissioner to examine political prisoners. Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 16, 40th Cong., 2d Sess., gives a list of those pardoned. Some of the more well-known men pardoned were: R. M. Patton, “agent for the sale of rebel bonds, and worth over $20,000”; Nicholas Davis, “member of rebel provisional Congress”; Charles Hays, worth over $20,000; Benjamin Fitzpatrick, “resigned United States Senate”; J. G. Gilchrist, “member of Secession Convention”; S. F. Rice, worth over $20,000; S. S. Scott, Indian agent; H. C. Semple, worth over $20,000; Thomas H. Watts, “member of rebel convention, voted for ordinance of secession, colonel in rebel army, attorney-general of the would-be Southern Confederacy, rebel governor of Alabama, and worth $20,000”; M. J. Saffold, “commissioner to examine political prisoners, and state printer.”
[930] The names and offences of those pardoned are given in Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 99, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; No. 16, 40th Cong., 2d Sess.; and No. 31, 39th Cong., 2d Sess.
[931] N. Y. Herald, Oct. 15, 1865.
[932] Montgomery Daily Advertiser, Oct. 1, 1865.
[933] N. Y. Herald, Sept. 26 and Oct. 15, 1865.
[934] N. Y. Herald, Sept. 26, 1865.
[935] Journal of the Convention, 1865, p. 28.
[936] Journal of the Convention, 1865, pp. 16, 57, 58; N. Y. Herald, Sept. 26 and Oct. 15, 1865.
[937] Annual Cyclopædia (1865), pp. 16, 17; Journal of the Convention, 1865, pp. 57, 58.
[938] The vote cast was 92, probably all who were present. Journal of the Convention, p. 59; N. Y. Herald, Sept. 26, 1865; Shepherd, “Constitution and Ordinances,” 1865, p. 48; Code of 1867, Ordinance No. 13, Sept. 25, 1865. Early in the session Mardis of Shelby, a “loyal” member, proposed a resolution to the effect that the ordinance of secession was “unconstitutional and therefore illegal and void, [and that] the leaders of the rebellion having been forced to lay down their arms and turn over to the conservative people of the state the reigns of the civil government by which the state has become more peaceful and loyal to the United States government. She is now entitled to all the rights as before ordinance of secession.” Journal of the Convention, 1865, p. 16. The resolutions of the “loyalists” were curiosities, and the secretary did not always expurgate bad spelling, etc.
[939] Shepherd, “Constitution and Ordinances,” 1865, p. 49; Ordinance No. 14.
[940] N. Y. Herald, Sept. 22, 1865.
[941] Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 17; N. Y. Times, Sept. 29, 1865; N. Y. Herald, Oct. 15, 1865; Shepherd, “Constitution and Ordinances,” 1865, pp. 53, 54; Ordinances Nos. 25-28, September, 1865. In spite of this ordinance certain war debts were paid. Fowler, Superintendent of Army Records, was paid $3000 for his work during the war, the legislature buying the records from him. Coleman, a Confederate judge, was paid for services during the war. See Acts 65-66 and the Journal of the Convention of 1867. The newspaper reports give summaries of the debates on the more important ordinances; the Journal of the Convention gives only the votes and resolutions.
[942] Chairman of the committee on suffrage, Convention of 1901.
[943] It seems to have been taken for granted by the convention that slavery was already abolished.
[944] The amnesty proclamation expressly excepted property in slaves.
[945] Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 14; N. Y. Times, Sept. 30, 1865.
[946] “Loyalist,” and later a “scalawag.”
[947] N. Y. Herald, Oct. 15, 1865.
[948] Journal of the Convention, 1865, p. 49.
[949] Journal of the Convention, 1865, pp. 49, 50; N. Y. Herald, Oct. 15, 1865; Shepherd, “Constitution and Ordinances,” 1865, p. 45, Ordinance No. 6. The three members who voted against the abolition ordinance were Crawford of Coosa, Cumming of Monroe, and White of Talladega. They wanted to let the Supreme Court decide. The Supreme Court of Alabama, a year later, held that, as a matter of history which the court would recognize, slavery was dead as a result of war before the passage of the ordinance of Sept. 22, 1865.
[950] That class of men called all negroes “free negroes” and “freedmen” for years after the war as a term of contempt.
[951] Afterwards second provisional governor.
[952] N. Y. Times, Sept. 30, 1865.
[953] N. Y. Herald, Oct. 15, 1865.
[954] N. Y. Times, Sept. 30, 1865.
[955] Journal of the Convention, 1865, p. 80; Shepherd, “Constitution and Ordinances,” 1865, p. 61, Ordinance No. 34.
[956] Huntsville Advocate, Sept. 28, 1865. A “Johnson reconstruction paper.”
[957] Huntsville Advocate, Oct. 12, 1865.
[958] Shepherd, p. 57, Ordinance No. 30; Journal of the Convention, 1865, pp. 67, 68. See Constitution of 1865, Article IV, Section 4.
[959] Journal of the Convention, 1865, p. 34.
[960] A member of the convention of 1861.
[961] N. Y. Herald, Oct. 15, 1865.
[962] Journal of the Convention, 1865, p. 74.
[963] Shepherd, p. 44, Ordinance No. 5.
[964] Shepherd, p. 54, Ordinance No. 26.
[965] Shepherd, p. 46, Ordinance No. 7.
[966] Shepherd, p. 63, Ordinance No. 39.
[967] Shepherd, p. 74, Ordinance No. 42. See Constitution, 1865, Article IV, Section 31.
[968] Shepherd, pp. 44, 53, 65, Ordinances Nos. 4, 23, 43.
[969] Shepherd, pp. 49, 62, 68, Ordinances Nos. 15, 37, 49.
[970] Ordinances Nos. 8, 16, 22, 33.
[971] Shepherd, p. 70.
[972] N. Y. Herald, Oct. 15, 1865; Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 26, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. (Parsons); Report Joint Committee, 1866, Pt. III, pp. 138-141.
[973] Parsons’s Proclamation, Sept. 28, 1865.
[974] Montgomery Advertiser, May 12, 1866.
[975] In Macon, Russell, and Lowndes counties.
[976] N. Y. Daily News, Sept. 7, 1865; N. Y. Tribune, Feb. 6, 1866; Swayne’s Report, Jan., 1866, in Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; Report Joint Committee of Reconstruction, 1866, Pt. III, p. 140 (Swayne).
[977] “I, A. B., do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I have never voluntarily borne arms against the United States since I have been a citizen thereof; that I have voluntarily given no aid, countenance, counsel or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility thereto; that I have never sought nor accepted nor attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever, under any authority or pretended authority, in hostility to the United States; that I have not yielded a voluntary support to any pretended government, authority, power or constitution within the United States, hostile or inimical thereto; and I do further swear (or affirm) that, to the best of my knowledge and ability, I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.” McPherson, “Reconstruction,” p. 193.
[978] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 81, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., McCulloch, Report, March 19, 1866; McCulloch, “Men and Measures,” pp. 227, 233. The Finance Committee reported in favor of paying these officials, accepting as correct the secretary’s statement. They were paid, in spite of the opposition of Sumner, who voted not to pay “those rebels.” McCulloch, p. 232.
[979] On March 17, 1866, the Postmaster-General, in a letter to the President, stated that the test oaths of July 2, 1862, and March 3, 1863, hindered the reconstruction of the postal service in the South. Of 2258 mail routes in 1861, only 757 had been restored. Before the war there were 8902 postmasters, and in 1866 there were but 2042, of whom 420 were women and 865 others could not take the oath. Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 81, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[980] N. Y. News, Dec. 8 and Oct. 23, 1865; N. Y. Times, July 2, 1866.
[981] Cox, “Three Decades,” p. 603; Reid, “After the War,” pp. 401, 402; N. Y. Daily News, Oct. 23 and Dec. 8, 1865; N. Y. Times, July 2, 1866.
[982] Selma Times, April 10, 1866. The rejection of such men as Dr. F. W. Sykes of Lawrence as tax commissioner was especially discouraging to the anti-Democratic party in the state. Sykes had been an obstructionist in the legislature during the war. Brewer, p. 309.
[983] One official who had suffered from objections made against his past record inserted the following advertisement in the Selma Times, April 11, 1866:—
“Having been elected twice, given three approved bonds, and sworn in five times, I propose opening the business of the city courts of Selma.
“E. M. Garrett,
“Clerk City Court of Selma.”
[984] There were no nominating conventions; the candidates were announced by caucuses of friends. Several other men were spoken of, but the contest narrowed down to three.
[985] N. Y. Times, Nov. 10, 1865.
[986] R. M. Patton, 21,442; M. J. Bulger, 15,234; W. R. Smith, 8194. The total vote was 44,870; the registration to Sept. 22, 1865, had been 65,825; the vote for delegates to the convention had been about 56,000; the vote for presidential electors in 1860 had been 89,579. The falling off in the vote may be explained by the death and disfranchisement of voters and by the indifference of south Alabama people to the north Alabama candidates.
[987] The convention in September had proceeded to correct the theory of the situation by conferring the powers of a civil governor upon Parsons, and authorizing him to act as governor until the elected governor should be qualified.
[988] McPherson, “Reconstruction,” p. 21. Alabama was the twenty-seventh state to ratify, and with seven other seceding states made up the necessary three-fourths of the thirty-six states. So far the Johnson state governments were recognized. Tribune Almanac, 1866. Later, when all that the “restoration” administration had done was found to be useless or worse than useless, an Alabama writer, in “The Land We Love,” complained:—
“The constitutional amendment abolishing slavery could only be passed constitutionally when the southern states were in the Union. We were then in the Union for the few weeks during which time this was being done. For this brief privilege we lost 4,000,000 of slaves valued at $1,200,000,000. We have every reason to be thankful for being wakened out of our brief dream of being in the Union. A few more weeks of such costly sleep would have stripped us entirely of houses and lands.”
[989] N. Y. Herald, Dec. 19, 1865.
[990] Inaugural Addresses, Dec. 13, 1865; Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 19.
[991] Both Parsons and Houston had been “Unionists,” but neither could have subscribed to the oath exacted from members of Congress. The representatives chosen were: (1) C. C. Langdon, Whig, Bell and Everett man, of northern birth, opposed secession, a member of the legislature of 1861; (2) George C. Freeman, Whig, Bell and Everett man, opposed secession, captain and major 47th Alabama; (3) Cullen A. Battle, Democrat, major-general C.S.A.; (4) Joseph W. Taylor, Whig, Bell and Everett man, opposed secession; (5) Burwell T. Pope, Whig, opposed secession; (6) Thomas J. Foster, Whig, Bell and Everett man, opposed secession. None of the congressmen-elect could subscribe to the test oath. The people would have voted for no man who could take the test oath.
[992] McPherson, p. 15.
[993] Cong. Globe, Dec. 4, 1865.
[994] Globe, Dec. 4, 1865. This was a distinct refusal to recognize, for the present at least, the restoration as done by the President.
[995] Cong. Globe, Dec. 18, 1865.
[996] Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 12.
[997] McPherson made a collection of extracts from various newspapers relating to his action in omitting the names of the southern members. Few of the editorials seem to indicate any belief that a grave constitutional question was to be settled. Most of the editors believed that he had exceeded his authority, but approved his action because the southern members were Democrats. The general opinion seemed to be that their politics alone was a cause of offence. See McPherson’s scrap-book, “The Roll of the 39th Congress,” in the Library of Congress.
[998] Globe, March 2, 1866.
[999] Swayne’s Report, Oct. 31, 1866, Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 6, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[1000] Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), p. 601.
[1001] Swayne’s Reports, Dec. 26, 1865, Jan. 31, 1866, and Oct. 31, 1866, in Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., and Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 6, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; Patton’s Message, Jan. 16, 1866; N. Y. Times, Jan. 18, 1866; N. Y. Evening Post, Jan. 29, 1865; McPherson, “Reconstruction,” p. 21; McPherson’s scrap-book, “Freedmen’s Bureau Bill,” 1866.
[1002] McPherson, “Reconstruction,” pp. 21, 22; Act, approved Feb. 23, 1866, Penal Code of Ala., pp. 6-8; Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), pp. 121, 124.
[1003] Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), Act of Dec. 15, 1865; Penal Code of Ala., p. 12. The compilers of the Penal Code placed this act in the Code separate from the rest, as irreconcilable with the provisions of the Code and with other legislation. That is, they refused to codify it and left it for the courts to decide. The law was meant to suppress a common practice of encouraging negroes to steal cotton, etc., for sale.
[1004] Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), p. 98; Penal Code, pp. 164, 165. In one respect the negro had a better standing in court than the white: he was a competent witness in his own behalf, and his wife might also be a witness.
[1005] Acts, Dec. 11 and 26, 1865. See below, [Ch. XII].
[1006] In an interview with General Swayne, in 1901, he informed me that he was present when the bills were drawn up. The governor and the president of the Senate in consultation decided that all measures already brought forward should be vetoed or dropped; the apprentice and contract laws as they stood on the statute book were then drawn up, and no objection was made to them by General Swayne, who was present by request. He made suggestions as to what would be acceptable to the Bureau and to northern public opinion.
[1007] Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), pp. 111, 112 (Act of Feb. 16, 1866); Penal Code, p. 13.
[1008] Penal Code, pp. 50, 51.
[1009] Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), pp. 128-131 (Act Feb. 23, 1866).
[1010] Penal Code, pp. 34, 35.
[1011] Penal Code of Ala., pp. 10-12; Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), pp. 119-121. This was another act which the compilers refused to incorporate into the Penal Code. It was an amendment to the law already on the statute books, and the constitution of the state provided that the law revised or amended must be set forth in full (Article IV, Section 2.) The next legislature repealed this and similar laws as being in conflict with the Code. Acts of Ala. (1866-1867), pp. 107, 115, 504. It was never in force, being practically repealed by the later adoption of the Penal Code, which had the old ante-bellum law of vagrancy, which provided a fine of $10 to $50 for the first offence, and for a second conviction, $50 to $100 and hard labor for not more than six months. (See Penal Code, p. 37). The laws regulating labor and vagrancy were so carelessly drawn that it would have been practically impossible to enforce them. Not only were they technically unconstitutional, but they were also in conflict with the provisions of the Code. The consequence was confusion and the suspension of both Code and statutes. Colonel Herbert, in “The Solid South” (pp. 31-36), gives a summary of similar laws of the northern states which were more stringent than the Alabama laws. As a matter of fact, all the states had similar laws, but in the South they had always been a dead letter on the statute book.
[1012] See Blaine, “Twenty Years,” Vol. II, p. 93.
[1013] It was not possible then, nor is it now, to pass any law in regard to labor contracts, vagrancy, or minor crimes, that would not affect the negroes to a much greater degree than the whites. All laws regulating society, if strictly enforced, would bear with much greater force upon blacks than upon whites.
[1014] Neither Swayne nor Howard made any objection to the apprentice and vagrancy laws, and so far as I can gather from the reports of General Swayne, they were not enforced. If so, there were no results unfavorable to the freedmen. In 1901, in an interview, Swayne stated that all measures that he considered objectionable had either failed to pass the Senate or had been vetoed by the governor. He intimated that he had a great deal to do with the suppression of such measures and the framing of new ones.
[1015] Feb. 13, 1866.
[1016] The date of the beginning of the provisional government.
[1017] General Swayne’s account.
[1018] Montgomery Advertiser, Feb. 14, 1865; Swayne’s Report, Oct. 31, 1866; Swayne’s Testimony, Report Joint Committee, Pt. III, pp. 138-141.
[1019] Truman’s Report, April 19, 1866; Mrs. Clayton, “White and Black,” p. 152 et passim; “Our Women in the War,” passim; The Nation, Oct. 5, 1865; Reid and Trowbridge.
[1020] Truman’s Report, April 19, 1865.
[1021] The Nation, Feb. 15, 1866.
[1022] Referring to the emigration movement to Mexico, Brazil, Europe, etc.
[1023] This charge was published in the general presentments of the Pike County grand jury and was immediately taken up by the northern Democratic and the conservative Republican papers and given a wide publication. Mrs. Clayton republished it in her book (pp. 156-165). Judge Clayton was disfranchised by the Reconstruction Acts, and not until 1874 was he again able to hold judicial office. The bench and bar were generally in favor of admitting the negro to the fullest standing in the courts. Under slavery, when a case turned on negro testimony, extra-legal trials were often held and the decision given by “lynch-law” jury, the court officials presiding. In 1865 the lawyers and judges were ready to admit negro testimony, according to General Swayne, but made more or less objection in order not to alienate those of the people who objected.
[1024] Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 43, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[1025] The Nation, Oct. 5, 1865.
[1026] Brooks was a cousin of Preston Brooks of South Carolina, and had been president of the convention of 1861. The measure was indorsed by Governor Patton, Judge Goldthwaite, and a respectable minority. Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 226.
[1027] McPherson’s scrap-book, “Fourteenth Amendment,” p. 55.
[1028] First Confederate Secretary of War, brigadier-general, C.S.A.
[1029] For this incident my authority is a statement of General Swayne made to me in 1901. He was much interested in the movement, and was positive that in time the native whites would have given the suffrage to the negro had not the Reconstruction Acts and other legislation so alienated the races. General Swayne gave me full explanations of his policy in Alabama. His death, a year after the interview, prevented him from verifying some details. His account, though given thirty-five years after the occurrences, was correct so far as I could compare it with the printed matter available. It agreed almost exactly with his reports as printed in the public documents, though he had not those at hand, and had not seen them for thirty years. I have several times been told by old citizens that negroes voted in 1866, in minor elections, by consent of the whites.
[1030] “Diary and Correspondence of S. P. Chase,” in the Annual Report of the Amer. Hist. Assn. (1902), Vol. II, p. 517.
[1031] Stephen B. Weeks, in Polit. Sci. Quarterly (1894), Vol. IX, pp. 683-684.
[1032] See Herbert, “Solid South,” pp. 29, 30, 37.
[1033] Resolution, Dec. 2, 1865, Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), p. 598.
[1034] Resolution, Jan. 16, 1866, Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), p. 603.
[1035] Resolution, Dec. 15, 1865, Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), p. 604.
[1036] Resolution, Feb. 22, 1866, Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), p. 607; McPherson, p. 22; Selma Times, Feb. 27, 1867.
[1037] See N. Y. Herald, April 17, 1866 (Alabama correspondence).
[1038] McPherson’s scrap-book, “The Campaign of 1866,” Vol. I, pp. 84, 122.
[1039] See Burgess, “Reconstruction,” pp. 64-67.
[1040] McPherson’s scrap-book, “Freedmen’s Bureau Bill, 1866,” pp. 47, 128.
[1041] The reconstruction laws of Congress were almost invariably referred to as “Bills” even in official documents and military orders.
[1042] McPherson’s scrap-book, “Civil Rights Bill, 1866,” pp. 136, 151.
[1043] McPherson’s scrap-book, “Civil Rights Bill, 1866,” p. 135.
[1044] McPherson’s scrap-book, “Civil Rights Bill, 1866,” p. 110.
[1045] McPherson’s scrap-book, “Civil Rights Bill, 1866,” p. 120.
[1046] McPherson’s scrap-book, “Fourteenth Amendment,” pp. 33, 34.
[1047] The cotton tax, for instance.
[1048] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 226.
[1049] N. Y. Tribune, Nov. 30, 1866. I have not been able to discover what the name of the paper was, but very likely it was the Mobile National.
[1050] McPherson’s scrap-book, “Fourteenth Amendment,” pp. 39, 55, 56.
[1051] Governor’s Message, Nov. 12, 1866, in House Journal (1866-1867), p. 35; N. Y. Tribune, Nov. 19, 1866; Annual Cyclopædia (1866), pp. 11, 12.
[1052] House Journal (1866-1867), p. 198.
[1053] McPherson, p. 194; McPherson’s scrap-book, “Fourteenth Amendment,” p. 55; N. Y. Times, Jan. 23, 1867. General Wager Swayne to S. P. Chase, Dec. 10, 1866, wrote, in substance, that—the evident intention of Congress to enforce its own plan makes it seem possible to secure from the Alabama legislature the ratification of the Amendment; that the Senate was ready to ratify in spite of the governor’s message against it, and of the certain disapproval of “the people, poor, ignorant, and without mail facilities,” but a despatch had been sent to Parsons in the North for advice, and he advised rejection; inspired, it was asserted by the President, the cry was raised, “we can’t desert our President,” and the measure was lost; but when they return (in January) they will be prepared for either course, and the governor will recommend ratification. “Diary and Correspondence of S. P. Chase,” in the Annual Rept. of the Amer. Hist. Assn. (1902), Vol. II, pp. 516-517.
[1054] N. Y. Times, Jan. 9, 1867. Patton also went to Washington during the recess.
[1055] Annual Cyclopædia (1866), pp. 11, 12.
[1056] McPherson, pp. 352, 353; McPherson’s scrap-book, “Fourteenth Amendment,” pp. 60, 66. The telegrams are in the Impeachment Testimony, Vol. I, pp. 271-272. Interview with General Swayne, 1901.
[1057] Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 15.
[1058] See McPherson, pp. 118, 240, 241.
[1059] N. Y. Herald, July 19, 1866.
[1060] According to his own report. See Nation, Feb. 15, 1866. Hart, “American History as told by Contemporaries,” Vol. IV, p. 49.
[1061] Report of B. C. Truman, April 9, 1866; Report of Joint Committee, 1866, Pt. III, passim; Report of Schurz with accompanying documents; N. Y. Times, Sept. 9 and Oct. 3, 1866; Nation, Feb. 15, et passim; World and Tribune; Herald and Tribune correspondent, 1865; Montgomery Mail and Advertiser; Selma Times; Tuscaloosa Monitor and Blade, 1865 to 1875. Of the New York papers the Nation and Tribune were especially violent at first, but changed later. The Times and the Herald had fair correspondents most of the time.
[1062] N. Y. Daily News, May 7, 1866 (Montgomery correspondent).
[1063] See N. Y. Times, Sept. 9, 1866 (Federal soldier), Oct. 3, 1866 (Ohio man); N. Y. News, May 7, 1866 (Montgomery correspondent).
[1064] Lewis E. Parsons (New York), Whig; George S. Houston; A. B. Cooper (New Jersey), Whig; John Forsyth, State Rights Democrat; R. B. Lindsay (Scotch), Douglas Democrat; James W. Taylor, Whig; Benjamin Fitzpatrick, Douglas Democrat.
[1065] Some of them were W. H. Crenshaw (Democrat), who presided,—Crenshaw was then president of the Senate; John G. Shorter (Democrat), war governor of Alabama; H. D. Clayton (Whig), Confederate general; C. C. Langdon (Whig); William S. Mudd (Whig); William Garrett (Whig); M. J. Bulger (Douglas Democrat), Confederate general; C. A. Battle (Democrat), Confederate general; A. Tyson (Whig). See Brewer and Garrett, and N. Y. Times, Aug. 3 and 9, 1866.
[1066] McPherson, pp. 240, 241.
[1067] N. Y. Times, Aug. 27, 1866. By “Union” party, Parsons evidently meant those who opposed secession.
[1068] The northern business men were on the side of the whites.
[1069] McPherson, p. 124.
[1070] McPherson, p. 242.
[1071] N. Y. Times, Sept. 8, 1866.
[1072] Davis was of good middle-class Virginia stock. A Whig in politics, Mrs. Chesnut called him “a social curiosity.” In convention of 1861 he voted against immediate secession, threatened resistance among the hills of north Alabama, and ended by signing the ordinance of secession; was chosen to succeed Dr. Fearn in the Confederate Provisional Congress; was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the 19th Alabama Infantry, but declined; commanded a battalion for a while; his “loyalty” consisted in his leaving the Confederate service and returning to Huntsville within the Federal lines. Brewer, p. 365, Garrett, pp. 341, 342; Smith’s Debates, passim. He soon fell out with the carpet-baggers and “formed a party of one.”
[1073] The disposition of some of the north Alabama leaders (even among the Conservatives) to play the childish act was one of the disgusting features of Reconstruction.
[1074] N. Y. Times, Jan. 23, 1867. Among those present were: D. C. Humphreys (Douglas Democrat), Confederate officer, who deserted to Federals (he was in the first carpet-bag legislature, and later judge of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia; see Garrett, p. 364); John B. Callis, agent of the Freedmen’s Bureau, Veteran Reserve Corps, member of Congress, 1868; C. C. Sheets, in convention of 1861, refused to sign ordinance of secession and deserted to Federals, a member of Congress, 1868; Thomas M. Peters, Whig, deserted to Federals, later judge of Supreme Court of Alabama (see Brewer, p. 309; Garrett, p. 440); F. W. Sykes, member of legislature during war, soon returned to Conservative party (Brewer, p. 309); J. J. Hinds, afterward a notorious scalawag.
[1075] One new man was S. C. Posey of Lauderdale, who had been in the convention of 1861 and refused to sign the ordinance of secession and was in the legislature during the war. Returned soon to Conservative party. Brewer, p. 299, Garrett, p. 389.
[1076] The Radical party might have done much worse than to send him to the Senate. Warren and Spencer, the senators elected, were far inferior in character and abilities to Swayne. He was too decent a man to suit the Radicals and was soon dropped.
[1077] N. Y. Herald, March 6, 1867.
[1078] The proclamation announcing that the rebellion had ended was issued April 2, 1866. McPherson, p. 15.
[1079] Van Horne, Life of Thomas, pp. 153, 399, 400, 408; Huntsville Advocate, June 9, 1866 (for copy of order relating to Department of the South that I have not found elsewhere); G. O. No. 1, Mil. Div. Tenn., June 20, 1865; G. O. No. 118, W. Dept., June 27, 1865; G. O. No. 1, Dept. Ala., July 18, 1865; G. O. No. 1, Dist. Ala., June 4, 1866; G. O. No. 1, Dept. Tenn., Aug. 13, 1866; G. O. No. 42, Dept. Tenn., Nov. 1, 1866. The general and special orders cited in this chapter are on file in the War Department at Washington.
[1080] O. R., Ser. I, Vol. XLIX, Pt. II, pp. 505, 560, 727, 826, 854, 971; Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Pt. III.
[1081] Miller, “Alabama,” p. 236; Acts of Ala. (1865-1866), pp. 598, 601.
[1082] That is, the officers had the privileges and authority of officers of a division. G. O. Nos. 1, 9, 17, 29, 54, Dept. Ala., 1865; G. O. No. 1, Mil. Div. Tenn., 1865.
[1083] The “Amnesty Oath.” The oath of allegiance had already been administered to all who would take it. See McPherson, “Reconstruction,” pp. 9, 10.
[1084] G. O. Nos. 13 and 14, Dept. Ala., 1865.
[1085] G. O. No. 3, Dept. Ala., July 21, 1865. There was complaint about the stealing of cotton by troops.
[1086] G. O. No. 6, Post of Montgomery, May 15, 1865. This order is printed on thin, blue Confederate writing paper, which seems to have been shaped with scissors to the proper size. Supplies had not followed the army.
[1087] G. O. No. 24, Dept. of Ala., Aug. 25, 1865.
[1088] G. O. No. 6, Post of Mobile, in N. Y. Daily News, June 27, 1865.
[1089] G. O. No. 48, Dept. Ala., Oct. 18, 1865.
[1090] Statement of General Woods, Sept. 4, 1865, Document No. 11, accompanying the Report of Schurz.
[1091] See statement of Woods, Sept. 4, 1865, Schurz’s Report.
[1092] G. O. No. 4, Dept. Ala., Jan. 26, 1866.
[1093] N. Y. Daily News, Sept. 7, 1865.
[1094] Statement of Gen. T. K. Smith, Sept. 14, 1865, in Schurz’s Report.
[1095] Statement of General Woods, Sept. 4, 1865.
[1096] G. O. No. 5, Sub-dist. Ala., Oct. 13, 1866.
[1097] See [Ch. VI, sec. 1].
[1098] G. O. No. 30, Dept. of Ala., Sept. 4, 1865; Statement of General Woods, Sept. 4, 1865, in Schurz’s Report.
[1099] See [Ch. VI, sec. 1].
[1100] N. Y. Herald, Nov. 26 and Dec. 15, 1865.
[1101] Document No. 19, accompanying Schurz’s Report.
[1102] G. O. No. 55, Dept. Ala., Oct. 30, 1865.
[1103] G. O. No. 8, Dept. Ala., Feb. 17, 1866.
[1104] G. O. No. 1, Dept. Ala., Jan. 5, 1866.
[1105] G. O. No. 13, Dept. Ala., 1866.
[1106] G. O. No. 17, Dept. Ala., 1866.
[1107] G. O. No. 20, Dept. Ala., 1866.
[1108] G. O. No. 23, Dept. Ala., 1866.
There were other trials, but the records are missing and the names of the parties are unknown. A large number of cases were prosecuted before military commissions convened at the instance of the Freedmen’s Bureau.
[1109] For two years after the war the Confederate sympathizers in north Alabama suffered from persecution of this kind. During the war the Confederates in north Alabama had been classed as guerillas by the Federal commanders.
[1110] G. O. No. 29, Mil. Div. Tenn., Sept. 21, 1865; G. O. No. 42, Dept. Ala., Sept. 26, 1865.
[1111] G. O. No. 3, H. Q. A., Jan. 12, 1866; G. O. No. 7, Dept. Ala., Feb. 12, 1866.
[1112] G. O. No. 48, Dept. Ala., Oct. 18, 1865.
[1113] G. O. No. 6, Mil. Div. Tenn., Feb. 21, 1866.
[1114] G. O. No. 25, Mil. Div. Tenn., Sept. 13, 1865.
[1115] G. O. No. 44, H. Q. A., July 6, 1866; G. O. No. 13, Dept. of the South, July 21, 1866.
[1116] Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 26, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[1117] P. M. Dox to Governor Parsons, Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 26, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[1119] Selma Times, Feb. 3, 1866.
[1120] There were really three governments in Alabama based on the war powers of the President: (1) the army ruling through its commanders; (2) the Freedmen’s Bureau, with its agents; (3) the provisional civil government.
[1121] Circular No. 1, Aug. —, 1865; G. O. No. 21, Dept. Ala., April 9, 1866.
[1122] De Bow’s Review, 1866. De Bow made a trip through the South. Nation, Oct. 5 and 26, 1865; Truman, Report to President, April 9, 1866. See also Grant, Letter to President, Dec. 18, 1865.
[1123] Colonel Herbert says that the relations between the soldiers and the ex-Confederates were very kindly, but the latter hoped the army would soon be removed, when civil government was established. “Solid South,” p. 30.
[1124] Miller, “Alabama,” p. 242; Resolutions of the Legislature, Jan. 16, 1866.
[1125] Testimony of Swayne, Report Joint Committee, 1866, Pt. III, p. 139; various reports of Swayne as assistant commissioner of Freedmen’s Bureau. It was noticeable that when Swayne was placed in command of the army in the state there was less interference and better order than before, though he never obtained the cavalry.
[1126] For instance: In the city of Mobile a petition of some kind might be made out in proper form and given to the commander of the Post of Mobile. The latter would indorse it with his approval or disapproval, and send it to the commander of the District of Mobile, who likewise forwarded it with his indorsement to the commander of the Department of Alabama at Mobile or Montgomery. In important cases the paper had to go on until it reached headquarters in Macon, Nashville, Louisville, Atlanta, or Washington, and it had to return the same way.
The following orders relate to the changes made so often:—
G. O. Nos. 1, 9, 10, 12, 17, 19, 20, 27, Dept. Ala., from July 18 to Sept. 1, 1865; G. O. No. 18, Dept. Ala., March 30, 1866; G. O. No. 1, Dist. Ala., June 1, 1866; G. O. No. 1, Sub-dist. Ala., Oct. —, 1866; G. O. No. 1, Mil. Div. Tenn., June 20, 1865; G. O. Nos. 1 and 42, Dept. of the Tenn., Aug. 13 and Nov. 1, 1866; G. O. No. 1, Dept. of the South, June 1, 1866; G. O. No. 1, Dept. of the Gulf, ——, 1865; G. O. No. 1, Dist. of the Chattahoochee, Aug. —, 1866.
There were numerous general orders from local headquarters of the same nature. See also Van Horne, “Life of Thomas,” pp. 153, 399, 400, 418; and Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 13, 38th Cong., 2d Sess.
[1127] G. O. No. 1, Sub-dist. Ala., March 28, 1867.
[1128] Freedmen’s Bureau Report, Oct. 20, 1869; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 143, 41st Cong., 2d Sess.
[1129] Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 28, 38th Cong., 2d Sess.
[1130] Regulations, July 9, 1864.
[1131] Stats.-at-Large, Vol. XIII, pp. 507-509. See also O. O. Howard, “The Freedmen during the War,” in the New Princeton Review, May and Sept., 1886.
[1132] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 7, 39th Cong., 2d Sess.
[1133] McPherson, “Reconstruction,” pp. 69-74, 147-151, 349, 350, 378; Burgess, “Reconstruction,” pp. 87-90.
[1134] N. Y. Times, Oct. 31, 1865.
[1135] Circular No. 16, Sept. 19, 1865 (Howard); Circular No. 6, June 13, 1865 (Howard); Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; Circular No. 1, July 14, 1865 (Conway); Circular No. 2, July 14, 1865 (Conway).
[1136] One of them—Chaplain C. W. Buckley—was guardian of the blacks at Montgomery. He afterwards played a prominent part in carpet-bag politics.
[1137] Ku Klux Rept., p. 441; N. Y. World, July 20, 1865; oral accounts and letters. It was on this theory that the Bureau was established, and at the head of the institution was placed General O. O. Howard, who was a soft-hearted, unpractical gentleman, with boundless confidence in the negro and none whatever in the old slave owner. A man of hard common sense like Sherman would have done less harm and probably much good with the Bureau.
[1138] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[1139] Circular No. 5, June 2, 1865 (Howard); Circular No. 2, July 14, 1865 (Conway); Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[1140] Freedmen’s Bureau Report, Dec., 1865.
[1141] In November, 1866, the following army officers, most of whom were members of the Veteran Reserve Corps, were made superintendents of these depots: Montgomery, Capt. J. L. Whiting, V.R.C.; Mobile, Brevet Major G. H. Tracy, 15th Infantry; Huntsville, Brevet Col. J. B. Callis, V.R.C.; Selma, Lieut. George Sharkley; Greenville, James F. McGogy, Late First Lieut. U.S.A.; Tuscaloosa, Capt. W. H. H. Peck, V.R.C.; Talladega, J. W. Burkholder, A.A.G., U.S.A.; Demopolis, Brevet Major C. W. Pierce, V.R.C. Other Bureau officials who afterward became well-known carpet-baggers were: Major C. A. Miller, 2d Maine Cavalry, A.A.G.; Major B. W. Norris, Additional Paymaster; Lieut.-Col. Edwin Beecher, Additional Paymaster; Rev. C. W. Buckley, Chaplain 47th U.S.C. Infantry. Other officers of the V.R.C. who arrived later were Capt. Roderick Theune, Lieuts. George F. Browing, G. W. Pierce, John Jones, P. E. O’Conner, and Joseph Logan. See Swayne’s Report, Oct. 31, 1866; Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 21, 40th. Cong., 2d Sess. With one exception these later assisted in Reconstruction.
[1142] Freedmen’s Bureau Report, Oct. 24, 1869.
[1143] Freedmen’s Bureau Report, Oct. 24, 1868.
[1144] McPherson’s scrap-book, “Freedmen’s Bureau Bill, 1866,” p. 128.
[1145] For examples, see Schurz’s Report and accompanying documents, Nos. 20, 21, 22, 28; Taylor, “Destruction and Reconstruction”; article by Schurz in McClure’s Magazine, Jan., 1904.
[1146] The Nation, Feb. 15, 1866.
[1147] Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Pt. III, p. 138.
[1148] G. O. No. 7, Montgomery, Aug. 4, 1865.
[1149] No one ever knew exactly how far the military commander was bound to obey the assistant commissioner and vice versa. The problem was at last solved by making Swayne military commander also.
[1150] Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Pt. III, p. 138 (testimony of General Wager Swayne).
[1151] Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Pt. III, p. 138.
[1152] Swayne did not hesitate to intimidate such men as Parsons. He would treat old men—former senators, governors, and congressmen—as if they were bad boys; he himself was under thirty.
[1153] The reason for this was that the day before several Federal drunken officers had been careering around the bay in a boat, and Forsyth, who was on this boat, did not want his party of ladies to meet them.
[1154] Statement of Swayne, 1901; N. Y. News, Aug. 21, 1865.
[1155] Circular No. 20 (Freedmen’s Bureau), War Dept., Nov. 30, 1865.
[1156] Circular No. 15, Sept. 12, 1865.
[1157] McPherson, “Reconstruction,” p. 13.
[1158] Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VI, p. 352; G. O. No. 64, Dept. Ala., Dec. 10, 1865; Swayne’s Report, Jan. 31, 1865; Freedmen’s Bureau Reports, Dec., 1865, and Nov., 1866.
[1159] Freedmen’s Bureau Report, Dec., 1895; Swayne’s Reports, Jan. 31 and Oct. 31, 1866, in Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, and Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 6, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[1160] Freedmen’s Bureau Report, Nov. 1, 1866.
[1161] Ho. Rept., No. 121, 41st Cong., 2d Sess.; Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 6, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[1162] Freedmen’s Bureau Reports, Dec., 1865, and Nov., 1866; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 142 41st Cong., 2d Sess.; Miller, “History of Alabama,” p. 240. Congress appropriated $20,000,000, and there was an immense amount of Confederate property confiscated and sold for the benefit of the Bureau. Of this no account was kept. One detailed estimate of Bureau expenses is as follows:—
| Appropriations by Congress | $20,000,000 | |
| General Bounty Fund | 8,000,000 | |
| Freedmen and Refugee Fund | 7,000,000 | |
| Retained Bounty Fund (Butler) | 2,000,000 | |
| School Fund (Confiscated Property) | 2,500,000 | |
| Total | $39,500,000 |
Edwin De Leon, “Ruin and Reconstruction of the Southern States,” in Southern Magazine, 1874. See also Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 142, 41st Cong., 2d Sess.
[1163] G. O. No. 4, July 28, 1865.
[1164] N. Y. News, Sept. 7, 1865 (Montgomery correspondent); Ku Klux Rept., p. 441; oral accounts.
[1165] Montgomery Mail, May 12, 1865.
[1166] Howard’s Circular, May 30, 1865; War Department Circular No. 11, July 12, 1865.
[1167] Huntsville Advocate, July 26, 1865. This was when the army officials were conducting the Bureau. Later the civilian agents charged $2 for making every contract, and the negroes soon wanted the Bureau abolished so far as it related to contracts. N. Y. Times, March 12, 1866 (letter from Florence, Ala.). In Madison County some of the negroes tarred and feathered a Bureau agent who had been collecting $1.50 each for drawing contracts. N. Y. Herald, Dec. 22, 1867.
[1168] Swayne’s Report, Jan. 31, 1866.
[1169] These regulations bear the approval of the other two rulers of Alabama—General Woods and Governor Parsons. See G. O. No. 12, Aug. 30, 1865.
[1170] G. O. No. 13, Sept., 1865. This order was in force until 1868. See N. Y. World, Nov. 20, 1867.
[1171] These propositions were approved by A. Humphreys, assistant superintendent at Talladega, and by General Chetlain, commanding the District of Talladega. Selma Times, Dec. 4, 1865.
[1172] Selma Messenger, Nov. 15, 1865; N. Y. World, Nov. 20, 1867.
[1173] Ku Klux Rept., p. 441; N. Y. News, Sept. 7, 1865; oral accounts.
[1174] Swayne’s Report, Jan., 1866. Rev. C. W. Buckley, in a report to Swayne (dated Jan. 5, 1866), of a tour in Lowndes County, stated that while the Bureau and the army and the “government of the Christian nation,” each had done much good, all was as nothing to what God was doing. The hand of God was seen in the stubborn and persistent reluctance of the negro to make contracts and go to work; God had taught the 8,000,000 arrogant and haughty whites that they were dependent upon the freedmen; God had ordained that “the self-interest of the former master should be the protection of the late slaves.”
[1175] Swayne’s Report, Oct. 31, 1865.
[1176] Freedmen’s Bureau Report, Oct. 24, 1868.
[1177] De Bow’s Review, 1866.
[1178] Freedmen’s Bureau Report, Dec., 1865.
[1179] Howard’s Circular Letter, Oct. 4, 1865.
[1180] Report, Oct. 31, 1866.
[1181] Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 31; N. Y. News, Sept. 3, 1865 (Selma correspondent).
[1182] In one case the agent in Montgomery sent to Troy, fifty-two miles distant, and arrested a landlord who refused to rent a house to a negro. The negro told the Bureau agent that he was being evicted.
[1183] There were several plantations near Montgomery, Selma, Mobile, and Huntsville where negroes were thus collected.
[1184] In Montgomery, the Rev. C. W. Buckley, a “hard-shell” preacher, looked after negro contracts. A negro was not allowed to make his own contract, but it must be drawn up before Buckley. When a negro broke his contract, Buckley always decided in his favor, and avowed that he would sooner believe a negro than a white man. His delight was to keep a white man waiting for a long time while he talked to the negro, turning his back to and paying no attention to the white caller. He preached to the negroes several times a week, not sermons, but political harangues. The audience was composed chiefly of negro women, who, if they had work, would leave it to attend the meetings. They would not disclose what Buckley said to them, and when questioned would reply, “It’s a secret, and we can’t tell it to white folks.” Buckley advocated confiscation, but Swayne, who had more common sense, frowned upon such theological doctrines.
[1185] Barker, a carriage-maker at Livingston, was arrested and confined in prison for some time, and finally was released without trial. He was told that a negro servant had preferred charges against him, and later denied having done so. Such occurrences were common. Ku Klux Rept. Ala. Test., pp. 357, 371, 390, 475, 487, 1132; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 27, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.; Swayne’s Reports, Dec., 1865, and Jan., 1866.
[1186] Selma Times, April 11, 1866. Busteed was a much-disliked carpet-bag Federal judge. Mr. Burns survived the Busting, and was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1901.
[1187] The Bureau courts continued to act even after the state was readmitted to the Union. In 1868, two constables arrested a negro charged with house-burning in Tuscumbia. Col. D. C. Rugg, the Bureau agent at Huntsville, raised a force of forty negroes and came to the rescue of the negro criminal. “If you attempt to put that negro on the train,” he said, “blood will be spilled. I am acting under the orders of the military department.” The officers were trying to take him to Tuscumbia for trial. Rugg thought the Bureau should try him, and said, “These men [the negroes] are not going to let you take the prisoner away, and blood will be shed if you attempt it.” N. Y. World, Oct. 23, 1868; Tuscaloosa Times.
[1188] Probably more. Freedmen’s Bureau Report, Nov. 1, 1866.
[1189] Bureau Reports, 1865-1869.
[1190] Freedmen’s Bureau Reports, 1865-1870; Hardy, “History of Selma”; N. Y. World, Nov. 13, 1865.
[1191] The Southern Famine Relief Commission of New York, which worked in Alabama until 1867, reported that there was much greater suffering from want among the whites than among the blacks. This society sent corn alone to the state,—65,958 bushels. See Final Proceedings and General Report, New York, 1867.
[1192] Freedmen’s Bureau Reports, 1865-1868.
[1193] Ho. Rept., No. 121, 41st Cong., 2d Sess.
[1194] Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 6, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[1195] Freedmen’s Bureau Report, Dec., 1865.
[1196] Swayne’s Report, Oct. 31, 1866; N. Y. Daily News, Sept. 7, 1865 (Montgomery correspondent).
[1197] Trowbridge, “The South,” p. 446.
[1198] In the convention of 1867 this teaching bore fruit in the ordinance authorizing suits by former slaves to recover wages from Jan. 1, 1863.
[1199] N. Y. World, Nov. 13, 1865 (Selma correspondent); oral accounts.
[1200] De Bow’s Review, March, 1866 (Dr. Nott); N. Y. Times, Oct. 3, 1865; Montgomery Advertiser, March 21, 1866.
[1201] Du Bois in Atlantic Monthly, March, 1901.
[1202] A Tallapoosa County farmer stated that for three years after the war the crops were very bad. Yet the whites who had negroes on their farms felt bound to support them. But if the whites tried to make the negroes work or spoke sharply to them, they would leave and go to the Bureau for rations. P. M. Dox, a Democratic member of Congress in 1870, said that in north Alabama, in 1866-1867, negro women would not milk a cow when it rained. Servants would not black boots. There was a general refusal to do menial service. Ala. Test., pp. 345, 1132. The Alabama cotton crop of 1860 was 842,729 bales; of 1865, 75,305 bales; of 1866, 429,102 bales; of 1867, 239,516 bales; of 1868, 366,193 bales. Of each crop since the war an increasingly large proportion has been raised by the whites.
[1203] Swayne’s Report, Oct. 31, 1866.
[1204] Within the last five years I have seen several old negroes who said they had been paying assessments regularly to men who claimed to be working to get the “forty acres and the mule” for the negro. They naturally have little to say to white people on the subject. From what I have been told by former slaves, I am inclined to think that the negroes have been swindled out of many hard-earned dollars, even in recent times, by the scoundrels who claim to be paying the fees of lawyers at work on the negroes’ cases.
[1205] Swayne’s Report, Oct. 31, 1866; Freedmen’s Bureau Report, Dec., 1865; Grant’s Report; Truman’s Report, April 9, 1866; DeBow’s Review, March, 1866; Montgomery Advertiser, March 1, 1866; N. Y. News, Nov. 25, 1865 (Selma correspondent); N. Y. World, Nov. 13, 1865; N. Y. Times, Oct. 31, 1865; N. Y. News, Sept., and Oct. 2, 7, 1865. B. W. Norris, a Bureau agent from Skowhegan, Maine, told the negroes the tale of “forty acres and a mule,” and they sent him to Congress in 1868 to get the land for them. He told them that they had a better right to the land than the masters had. “Your work made this country what it is, and it is yours.” Ala. Test., pp. 445, 1131.
[1206] Ala. Test., p. 314.
[1207] Ball, “Clarke County,” p. 627.
[1208] Ala. Test., p. 1133.
[1209] Ala. Test., p. 460; see Annual Cyclopædia (1867), article “Confiscation.”
[1210] Montgomery Advertiser, March, 1866. Buckley was known among the “malignants” as “the high priest of the nigger Bureau.” N. Y. World, Dec. 22, 1867.
[1211] N. Y. Herald, July 23, 1865; Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 30.
[1212] DeBow’s Review, 1866; oral accounts.
[1213] N. Y. Times, Feb. 12, 1866 (letter of northern traveller); Steedman and Fullerton’s Reports; N. Y. Herald, June 24, 1866; Columbus (Ga.) Sun, Nov. 22, 1865; N. Y. Times, Jan. 25, 1866.
[1214] Account by Col. J. W. DuBose in manuscript.
[1215] Herbert, “Solid South,” pp. 30, 31; N. Y. Times, Jan. 25, 1866.
[1216] Ho. Rept., No. 121, 41st Cong., 2d Sess.; Ku Klux Rept., p. 441. See chapter in regard to Union League.
[1217] See also DuBois, in Atlantic Monthly, March, 1901; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 241, 41st Cong., 2d Sess.
[1218] Ho. Rept., No. 121, p. 47, 41st Cong., 2d Sess.
[1219] Some of the prominent incorporators were Peter Cooper, William C. Bryant, A. A. Low, Gerritt Smith, John Jay, A. S. Barnes, J. W. Alvord, S. G. Howe, George L. Stearns, Edward Atkinson, and A. A. Lawrence. The act of incorporation was approved by the President on March 3, 1865, at the same time the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill was approved. Numbers of the incorporators and bank officials were connected with the Bureau. See Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 16, 43d Cong., 2d Sess.
[1220] A Bureau paymaster.
[1221] Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 16, 43d Cong., 2d Sess.
[1222] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[1223] See Williams, “History of the Negro Race in America,” Vol. II, p. 410. August was a month in which there was little money-making among the negroes. It was vacation time, between the “laying by” and the gathering of the crop.
[1224] Hoffman, “Race Traits and Tendencies,” p. 290, says $3,013,699.
[1225] Hoffman, p. 290; also Sen. Rept., No. 440, 46th Cong., 2d Sess. Williams, Vol. II, p. 411, states that the total deposits amounted to $57,000,000, an average of $284 for each depositor.
[1226] Dividends were declared as follows: Nov. 1, 1875, 20%; March 20, 1875-1878, 10%; Sept. 1, 1880, 10%; June 1, 1882, 15%; May 12, 1883, 7%; making 62% in all. To 1886, $1,722,549 had been paid to depositors, and there was a balance in the hands of the government receivers of $30,476.
[1227] Williams, “History of the Negro Race,” Vol. II, pp. 403-410; Fred Douglass, “Life and Times,” Ch. XIV; Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 16, 43d Cong., 2d Sess.; Du Bois, “The Souls of Black Folk”; the various reports of the Freedmen’s Bureau and of the commissioners appointed to settle the affairs of the Freedmen’s Savings and Trust Company, to 1902; Hoffman, “Race Traits and Tendencies,” pp. 289, 290; Fleming, “Documents relating to Reconstruction,” Nos. 6 and 7.
[1228] Regulations of the Treasury Dept., July 29, 1864.
[1229] McPherson, “Rebellion,” pp. 594, 595; McPherson, “Reconstruction,” pp. 147-151.
[1230] See [Ch. IV, sec. 7].
[1231] DuBois (Atlantic Monthly, March, 1901) declares that the opposition to the education of the negro was bitter, for the South believed that the educated negro was a dangerous negro. This statement is perhaps partially correct for fifteen or twenty years after 1870, but it is not correct for 1865-1869.
[1232] The Gulf States Hist. Mag., Sept., 1902; Report of General Swayne to Howard, Dec. 26, 1865. The evidence on this point that is worthy of consideration is conclusive. It is all one way. See also Chs. [XIX] and [XX], below.
[1233] Report of Swayne, Oct. 31, 1866.
[1234] “Up from Slavery,” pp. 29, 30.
[1235] Daily News, Sept. 7, 1865 (Montgomery correspondence). Oral accounts.
[1236] G. O. No. 11, July 12, 1865 (Montgomery); Freedmen’s Bureau Reports, 1865-1869.
[1237] Swayne’s Report, Oct. 31, 1866; Freedmen’s Bureau Report, 1866.
[1238] Swayne’s Report., Oct. 31, 1866.
[1239] Freedmen’s Bureau Report, Dec., 1865; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.
[1240] Daily News, Oct. 21, 1865 (Mobile correspondent); De Bow’s Review, 1866 (Dr. Nott).
[1241] Swayne’s Report, Oct. 31, 1866.
[1242] The account of this particular school was given me by Dr. O. D. Smith of Auburn, Ala., who was one of the men who chose the white teacher.
[1243] Swayne’s Report, Oct. 31, 1866.
[1244] Report, Oct. 31, 1866.
[1245] Rent was usually paid at the rate of $20 a month for thirty pupils. Ho. Rept., No. 121, pp. 47, 369, 374, 377, 41st Cong., 2d Sess. The books of the American Missionary Association showed that it had received, in 1868 and 1869, from the Freedmen’s Bureau for Alabama, the following amounts in cash, though how much it received before these dates is not known.
| December, 1867 | $4000.00 | ||
| October, 1868 | 583.86 | ||
| February, 1868 | 25.41 | (?) | |
| January, 1869 | 218.25 | ||
| April, 1869 | 683.53 | ||
| May, 1869 | 1397.49 | ||
| June, 1869 | 95.87 | ||
| July, 1869 | 527.00 | ||
| September, 1869 | 3049.59 | ||
| November, 1869 | 3469.50 | ||
| December, 1869 | 2083.78 | ||
| For building (?) | 20,000.00 |
An item in the account of the Association was “Chicago to Mobile, $20,000.” No one was able to explain what it meant unless it was the $20,000 building in Mobile used as a training school for negro teachers and on which the Bureau paid rent. In the southern states the Bureau paid to the American Missionary Association, as shown by the books of the latter, $213,753.22. Judging from the variable items not noted above, rent was evidently not included nor even all the cash. Ho. Rept., No. 121, p. 369 et seq., 41st Cong., 2d Sess. (Howard Investigation).
[1246] Buckley’s Report for March 15, 1867; Semiannual Report on Schools for Freedmen, July 4, 1867; General Clanton in Ku Klux Rept. Ala. Test.
[1247] Francis Wayland.
[1248] S. G. Greene, president of the association.
[1249] President Hill of Harvard College.
[1250] Reports, Proceedings, and Lectures of the National Teachers’ Association, 1865 to 1880; Reports of the Freedmen’s Aid Societies of the Methodist Episcopal Church. For results of the mistaken teachings of the radical instructors, see Page’s article on “Lynching” in the North American Review, Jan., 1904.
[1251] Miss Alice M. Bacon, in the Slater Fund Trustees, Occasional Papers, No. 7, p. 6. Armstrong, at Hampton, Va., was a shining exception to the kind of teachers described above.
[1252] The Reconstruction government was now in power. There were, at this time, thirty-one Bureau schools at thirty-one points in the state.
[1253] Freedmen’s Bureau Reports, 1867-1870.
[1254] Atlantic Monthly, March, 1901.
[1255] Sir George Campbell, “White and Black,” pp. 131, 383; Thomas, “The American Negro,” p. 240; Washington, “The Future of the American Negro,” pp. 25-27, 55; DeBow’s Review, 1866; Slater Fund Trustees, Occasional Papers, No. 7. Washington tells of the craze for the education in Greek, Latin, and theology. This education would make them the equal of the whites, they thought, and would free them from manual labor, and above all fit them for office-holding. Nearly all became teachers, preachers, and politicians. “Up from Slavery,” pp. 30, 80, 81; “Future of the American Negro,” p. 49.
[1256] From the surrender of the Confederate armies, to his death in 1903, Dr. Curry was a stanch believer in the work for negro education. No other man knew the whole question so thoroughly as he. And he had the advantage of a close acquaintance with the negro from his early childhood. His observations as to the effects of alien efforts to educate the black will be found in the Slater Fund Occasional Papers, and in an address delivered before the Montgomery Conference in 1900. See also [Ch. XIV].
[1257] I have talked with many who uniformly assert that they were unable to conform to the Bureau regulations. It was better to let land remain uncultivated. Wherever possible no attention was paid to the rules. The negro laborers themselves have no recollections of any real assistance in labor matters received from the Bureau. They remember it rather as an obstruction to laboring freely.
[1258] The President and the Supreme Court now being powerless.
[1259] That is, blacks and such whites as were not “disfranchised for participation in the rebellion or for felony.”
[1260] July 11, 1868, the oath was modified for those whose disabilities had been removed by Congress; Feb. 15, 1871, those not disfranchised by the Fourteenth Amendment were allowed to take the modified oath of July 11, 1868, instead of the iron-clad oath. See MacDonald, “Select Statutes.” The Alabama representatives all took the “iron-clad” oath.
[1261] Text of the Act, McPherson, “Reconstruction,” pp. 191, 192; G. O. No. 2, 3d M. D., April 3, 1867. For criticism, Burgess, “Reconstruction,” pp. 112-122; Dunning, “Civil War and Reconstruction,” pp. 123, 126-135, 143.
[1262] G. O. Nos. 10 and 18, H. Q. A., March 11 and 15, 1867; McPherson, p. 200.
[1263] Report of Secretary of War, 1867, Vol. I, p. 321.
[1264] The oath was: “I, —— ——, do solemnly swear (or affirm), in the presence of Almighty God, that I am a citizen of the State of Alabama; that I have resided in said State for —— months, next preceding this day, and now reside in the county of —— in said State; that I am twenty-one years old; that I have not been disfranchised for participation in any rebellion or civil war against the United States, nor for felony committed against the laws of any State or of the United States; that I have never been a member of any State legislature, nor held any executive or judicial office in any State and afterward engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States or given aid and comfort to the enemies thereof; that I have never taken an oath as a member of Congress of the United States, as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States and afterwards engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States or given aid and comfort to the enemies thereof; that I will faithfully support the Constitution and obey the laws of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, encourage others to do so, so help me God!” McPherson, “Reconstruction,” pp. 192, 205; G. O. No. 5, 3d M. D., April 8, 1867.
[1265] McPherson, “Reconstruction,” pp. 192-194; Burgess, “Reconstruction,” pp. 129-135; Dunning, “Civil War and Reconstruction,” pp. 124, 125.
[1266] G. O. Nos. 1 and 2, 3d M. D., April 1 and 3, 1866; N. Y. Herald, April 6, 1867; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 19; McPherson, pp. 201, 205; Report of Secretary of War, 1867, Vol. I, p. 322; Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 38.
[1267] G. O. No. 1, Dist. Ala., April 2, 1867; McPherson, p. 206.
[1268] Report of Secretary of War, 1867, Vol. I, p. 466; N. Y. Herald, April 6, 1867.
[1269] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 20, 40th Cong., 1st Sess.
[1270] G. O. No. 52, H. Q. A., April 11, 1867.
[1271] Report of Secretary of War, 1867, Vol. I, p. 353.
[1272] G. O. No. 4, 3d M. D., April 4, 1867.
[1273] G. O. No. 10, 3d M. D., April 23, 1867.
[1274] G. O. No. 48, 3d M. D., Aug. 6, 1867.
[1275] Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 17.
[1276] G. O. No. 25, 3d M. D., May 29, 1867. (This was to favor Radical meetings. There were many stump speakers sent down from the North to tell the negro how to vote, and it was feared they might excite the whites to acts of violence.) N. Y. Herald, June 4, 1867 (explanatory order).
[1277] McPherson, “Reconstruction,” pp. 335, 336; Dunning, pp. 153, 154.
[1278] As long as Pope was in command at Montgomery and Atlanta, he and Grant kept up a rapid and voluminous (on the part of Pope) correspondence. They were usually agreed on all that pertained to Reconstruction, both now being extreme in their views.
[1279] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 30, 40th Cong., 2d Sess.; No. 20, 40th Cong., 1st Sess.; McPherson, p. 312.
[1280] G. O. No. 45, 3d M. D., Aug. 2, 1867; McPherson, p. 319.
[1281] G. O. Nos. 53 and 55, 3d M. D., Aug. 19 and 23, 1867; Report of the Secretary of War, 1867, Vol. I, p. 331; McPherson, p. 319.
[1282] See Selma Messenger, Jan. 17, 1868.
[1283] See McPherson, p. 312.
[1284] Eutaw Whig and Observer, Dec. 12 and 24, 1867.
[1285] S. O. No. 2, 3d M. D., April 15, 1867; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 20; Montgomery Mail, April 30, 1867.
[1287] G. O. Nos. 35, 38, 40, Post of Mobile, 1867; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), pp. 20-23; N. Y. Times, May 21, 1867.
[1288] N. Y. World, May 28, 1867; S. O. No. 34, 3d M. D., May 31, 1867; Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 40; N. Y. Times, May 21, 1867.
[1289] S. O. No. 38, 3d M. D., June 6, 1867; S. O. No. 27, 3d M. D., May 22, 1867; N. Y. Tribune, June 12, 1867; Selma Messenger, June 18, 1867; Evening Post, May, 1867; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), pp. 20-25; Mobile Register, Oct. —, 1867.
[1290] Mobile Register, Oct. —, 1867.
[1291] Herbert, “Solid South,” pp. 40, 41; N. Y. Times, Dec. 27, 1867. See above, p. [393].
[1292] S. O. Nos. 9, 10, 16, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 31, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 3d M. D., 1867; Report of the Secretary of War, 1867, Vol. I, p. 327. (Some of the persons appointed were B. T. Pope and David P. Lewis, judges; George P. Goldthwaite, solicitor; and B. F. Saffold, mayor of Selma.)
[1293] Report of the Secretary of War, 1867, Vol. I, p. 364.
[1294] G. O. No. 77, 3d M. D., Oct. 19, 1897; McPherson, p. 319.
[1295] G. O. No. 103, 3d M. D., Dec. 21, 1867.
[1296] Report of the Secretary of War, 1877, Vol. I, p. 333; McPherson, p. 316.
[1297] S. O. 254, 3d M. D., Nov. 26, 1867; Pope to Swayne, Nov. 20, 1867; N. Y. World, Dec. 14, 1867.
[1298] G. O. No. 3, Sub-dist. Alabama, April 12, 1867; McPherson, p. 319.
[1299] McPherson, p. 319.
[1300] N. Y. Herald, April 6, 1867.
[1301] N. Y. Tribune, June 1, 1867; N. Y. Herald, June 4, 1867; G. O. No. 28, 3d M. D., June 3, 1867; Report of the Secretary of War, 1867, Vol. I, p. 326.
[1302] Aug. 12, 1867.
[1303] G. O. Nos. 1 and 10.
[1304] G. O. No. 49, 3d M. D., Aug. 12, 1867.
[1305] Report of the Secretary of War, 1867, Vol. I, p. 235.
[1306] Selma Messenger, Dec. 25, 1867.
[1307] G. O. No. 25, 3d M. D., 1867.
[1308] S. O. No. 53, 3d M. D., June 27, 1867; G. O. No. 44, 3d M. D., Aug. 1, 1867; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 30, 40th Cong., 2d Sess.
[1309] G. O. No. 94, 3d M. D., 1867.
[1310] S. O. No. 96, 3d M. D., Aug 5. 1867; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 30, 40th Cong., 2d Sess. There were other cases not referred to in general and special orders, but this was the only case in which Pope himself directly interfered.
[1311] G. O. No. 5, 3d M. D., April 8, 1867.
[1312] In this way, white majorities in ten counties were overcome by black majorities in the adjoining counties of the district.
[1313] Of the registrars who later became somewhat prominent in politics, the whites were Horton, Dimon, Dereen, Sillsby, William M. Buckley, Stanwood, Ely, Pennington, Haughey—all being northern men. Of the negro members of the boards, Royal, Finley, Williams, Alston, Turner, Rapier, and King (or Godwin) rose to some prominence, and their records were much better that those of their white colleagues.
[1314] G. O. No. 20, 3d M. D., May 21, 1867.
[1315] G. O. No. 12, 3d M. D., 1867.
[1316] Smith was later the first Reconstruction governor of Alabama.
[1317] G. O. No. 41, 3d M. D., 1867.
[1318] G. O. No. 50, 3d M. D., Aug. 15, 1867.
[1319] Governor, secretary of state, treasurer, comptroller, sheriff, judicial officers of every kind, and all court clerks and other officials, commissioners, tax assessors and collectors, county surveyors, treasurers, mayor, councilmen, justices of the peace, solicitors.
[1320] Special Instructions to Registrars in Alabama, Report of the Secretary of War, 1867, Vol. I, p. 339.
[1321] Registration Orders, June 17, 1867.
[1322] Record of Cabinet Meeting, June 18, 1867, in Ho. Ex. Doc., No, 34, 40th Cong., 1st Sess.; Burgess, p. 136; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 20, 40th Cong., 1st Sess.
[1323] Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 20, 40th Cong., 1st Sess.; McPherson, p. 311. See above, p. [479].
[1324] McPherson, pp. 335, 336; Burgess, pp. 138-142.
[1325] McPherson, pp. 335, 336.
[1326] G. O. No. 59, 3d M. D., Aug. 31, 1867; Journal of Convention of 1867, pp. 3-5; Report of the Secretary of War, 1867, Vol. I, pp. 356, 357; Tribune Almanac, 1868.
[1327] Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 53, 40th Cong., 2d Sess. Tribune Almanac, 1867, 1868; Report of Col. J. F. Meline, Inspector of Registration, Jan. 27, 1868. These figures are based on the latest reports of 1867. According to the census of 1866, there would be in 1867, 108,622 whites over twenty-one years of age, and 89,663 blacks.
[1328] Meline’s Report, Jan. 27, 1868. See also [Ch. XIII] below.
[1329] G. O. No. 76, Oct. 18, 1867; Journal of Convention of 1867, pp. 1-3.
[1330] McPherson, p. 319; Journal of Convention, 1867, pp. 110, 111, 276; N. Y. World, Dec. 14, 1867. When the convention passed a resolution indorsing the “firm and impartial, yet just and gentle,” administration of Pope, three delegates voted against it because they said Pope had not done his full duty in removing disloyal persons from office but, after being informed of their politics, had left them in office. Journal of Convention, 1867, pp. 110, 111. For account of the convention, see below, [Ch. XIV].
[1331] G. O. No. 101, Dec. 20, 1867; McPherson, p. 319; Journal of Convention, p. 267.
[1332] The 45th United States Infantry, a negro regiment.
[1333] McPherson, p. 346; G. O. No. 104, H. Q. A. (A. G. O.), Dec. 28, 1867; G. O. No. 1, 3d M. D., Jan. 1, 1868.
[1334] Herbert, “Solid South”; N. Y. Times, Jan. 24, 1868.
[1335] G. O. No. 3, 3d M. D., Jan. 6, 1868.
[1336] G. O. No. 16, 3d M. D., Jan. 27, 1868; Annual Cyclopædia (1868), p. 15; Report of Major-General Meade’s Military Operations and Administration of the 3d M. D., etc. (pamphlet); N. Y. Times, Jan. 24, 1868.
[1337] See [Ch. XV] for “convention” candidates.
[1338] Report of Meade, etc., 1868; Telegrams of Meade to Grant, Jan. 11, 12, and 18, and of Grant to Meade, Jan. 13 and 18.
[1339] Report of Meade, etc., 1868; Herbert, “Solid South,” pp. 48, 49. In his first report Meade estimated that the constitution failed of ratification by 8114 votes (Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 49). In his report at the end of the year, based on the official report of General Hayden, which was made a month after the election, he changed the number to 13,550. See also [Ch. XVI], on the rejection of the constitution.
[1340] G. O. No. 42, 3d M. D., March 12, 1868; McPherson, p. 320; Meade’s Report, 1868.
[1341] In one case he reinstated Charles R. Hubbard, Clerk of the District Court, who had been removed by Swayne. This was contrary to instructions from the War Department, which forbade the reappointment of an officer who had been removed. Annual Cyclopædia (1868), p. 15.
[1342] Report of Meade, etc., 1868; G. O. No. 10, 3d M. D., Jan. 15, 1868.
[1343] G. O. No. 7, Jan. 11, 1868, republishing G. O. No. 3, War Department, 1866.
[1344] G. O. No. 47, 3d M. D., March 21, 1868.
[1345] Pope was in feeble health, and this treatment hastened his death, which occurred shortly after being released from jail. Brewer, “Alabama,” p. 524.
[1346] G. O. No. 53, 3d M. D., April 7, 1868; N. Y. Herald, April 1, 1868. Judge Pope was arrested for violating Pope’s G. O. Nos. 53, 55, which certainly provided for mixed juries. Meade was simply putting his own interpretation on these orders.
[1347] G. O. No. 22, 3d M. D., Feb. 2, 1868; Report of Meade, etc., 1868.
[1348] Report of Meade, etc,. 1868; Independent Monitor, April and May, 1868. The Independent Monitor was a long-established and well-known weekly paper. F. A. P. Barnard, who was afterwards president of Columbia College, New York, was, when a professor at the University of Alabama, the editor of the Monitor, and under him it won a reputation for spiciness which it did not lose under Randolph. See also [Ch. XXI], for Randolph and the Ku Klux Klan.
[1349] G. O. No. 31, Feb. 28, 1868; G. O. No. 44, March 18, 1868; G. O. No. 69, April 24, 1868; McPherson, p. 320; Report of Meade, etc., 1868.
[1350] G. O. No. 6, Jan. 10, 1868; G. O. No. 79, May 20, 1868; McPherson, p. 320; Report of Meade, 1868.
[1351] Report of Meade, 1868.
[1352] G. O. No. 64, 3d M. D., April 19, 1868; Selma Times and Messenger, April 29, 1868.
[1353] This was the offence according to conservative testimony. The Radical testimony did not differ greatly, but the “hog thief” happened to be a carpet-bag politician also.
[1354] These were the “Eutaw cases,” and were tried at Selma. Meade commuted some of the sentences at once. The prisoners were sent to Dry Tortugas, and were later pardoned by Meade. The officials spoiled the effect of his leniency by putting the pardoned prisoners ashore at Galveston, Texas, without money and almost without clothes, while some of the party were ill. Annual Cyclopædia (1868), p. 17; Selma Times and Messenger, May 5, 1868; N. Y. World, May 28, 1868; G. O. No. 80, 3d M. D., May 20, 1868.
[1355] Independent Monitor, April and May, 1868; Report of Meade, 1868; G. O. No. 78, 3d M. D., May 13, 1868.
[1356] G. O. Nos. 64 and 65, 3d M. D., April 19 and 20, 1868.
During the eight months of Meade’s administration in the Third District, there were thirty-two trials by military commission in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. Only fifteen persons were convicted. The sentences in four cases were disapproved, in eight cases remitted, and two cases were referred to the President, leaving only one person confined in prison. Report of Meade, 1868.
[1357] Selma Messenger, Oct. 25, 1867.
[1358] Montgomery Mail, June 17, 1868; Independent Monitor, June 16, 1868.
[1359] Annual Cyclopædia (1868), p. 17; Montgomery Advertiser, June 5, 1868.
[1360] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 1285-1286.
[1361] McPherson, p. 337; see below, [Ch. XV].
[1362] Only the Radical candidates had been voted for.
[1363] Report of Meade, 1868.
[1364] G. O. No. 91, 3d M. D., June 28, 1868.
[1365] G. O. No. 100, July 9, 1868.
[1366] G. O. No. 101, July 14, 1868.
[1367] The volume of orders numbered 598 in the Adjutant-General’s office at Washington contains the General Orders of the Third Military District. Volume 599 relates to civil affairs in the same district.
[1368] N. Y. Herald, June 27, 1867.
[1369] Washington (in “The Future of the American Negro,” pp. 11, 112, 136) thinks it unfortunate that the native whites did not make stronger efforts to control the politics of the negro, and prevent him from falling under the control of unscrupulous aliens. But any attempt to influence the negro voters was looked upon as “obstructing reconstruction,” and, in fact, was contrary to the spirit of the reconstruction laws and rendered a person liable to arrest. This was recognized by Patton and others, who, however, never dreamed that the negroes would be so successfully exploited by political adventurers, or perhaps they would have pursued a different policy. General Clanton, the leader of the Conservatives, said that early in 1867 the whites had endeavored to keep the blacks away from Radical leaders by giving them barbecues, etc. On one occasion a Radical, who had once been kept from mistreating negroes by the military authorities at Clanton’s request, told the negroes that the whites intended to poison them at the barbecue. Two long tables had been set, one for each race, and the preachers, speakers, and the whites were present, but the blacks did not come. Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 237, 246.
[1370] N. Y. Herald, March 26, 1867.
[1371] Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 39; Herbert, “Political History” in “Memorial Record of Alabama,” Vol. I, p. 88; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 16.
[1372] Northern observers who were friendly to the South saw the danger much more clearly than the southerners themselves, who seemed unable to take negro suffrage seriously or to consider it as great a danger as it is generally believed they did. Two years of the Freedmen’s Bureau had not wholly succeeded in alienating the best of the whites and the negroes. The whites thought that the removal of outside interference would quiet the blacks. To give the negro the ballot was absurd, they thought, but they did not consider it necessarily as dangerous as it turned out to be. A remarkable prophecy of Reconstruction is found in Calhoun’s Works, Vol. VI, pp. 309-310. The behavior of the negro during and after the war, in spite of malign influences, had been such as to reassure many whites, who began to believe that to accept negro suffrage and get rid of the Freedmen’s Bureau and the army would be a good exchange. The northern friendly observers saw more clearly because, perhaps, they better understood the motives of the Radicals. The N. Y. Herald said: “Briefly, we may regard the entire ten unreconstructed southern states, with possibly one or two exceptions, as forced by a secret and overwhelming revolutionary influence to a common and inevitable fate. They are all bound to be governed by blacks, spurred on by worse than blacks—white wretches who dare not show their faces in respectable society anywhere. This is the most abominable phase barbarism has assumed since the dawn of civilization. It was all right and proper to put down the rebellion. It was all right, perhaps, to emancipate the slaves, although the right to hold them had been acknowledged before. But it is not right to make slaves of white men, even though they may have been former masters of blacks. This is but a change in a system of bondage that is rendered the more odious and intolerable because it has been inaugurated in an enlightened instead of a dark and uncivilized age.” See Annual Register, 1867.
[1373] See McPherson’s scrapbook, “The Campaign of 1876,” Vol. I, p. 105, for an account of a typical meeting.
[1374] Selma Times, March 19, 1867.
[1375] N. Y. Herald, March 27, 1869.
[1376] N. Y. Herald, April 25, 1869; Annual Cyclopædia (1869), p. 19.
[1377] Annual Cyclopædia (1869), p. 19; N. Y. Herald, April 25, 1869.
[1378] N. Y. Herald, May 17, 1869; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), pp. 18, 21. It is noticeable all through Reconstruction that most of the demands for social rights or privileges came from Mobile mulattoes.
[1379] For an estimate of the importance of the Union League, see [Ch. XVI].
[1380] McPherson, “Reconstruction,” pp. 249, 250. The last assertion refers to such statements as those of Secretary McCulloch and the Postmaster-General in regard to the character of the “loyalists.” See McCulloch, “Men and Measures,” p. 228.
[1381] See Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 41.
[1382] On March 15, 1867, Senator Wilson, in a speech in favor of negro suffrage, said that when the purpose of the act of March 2 was carried out, the “majority of these states will, within a twelvemonth, send here senators and representatives that think as we think, and speak as we speak, and vote as we vote, and will give their electoral vote for whoever we nominate as candidate for President in 1868. The power is all in our hands.” Cong. Globe, March 15, 1867.
[1383] Clanton had been a Whig, had opposed secession, made a brilliant war record, became the leader of the Democratic and Conservative party in 1866, and led the fight against the carpet-bag government until his death in 1871. He was killed in Knoxville by a hireling of one of the railroad companies which had looted the state treasury and against which he was fighting. Brewer, p. 466; Garrett, pp. 632-645.
[1384] See Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 40; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 249.
[1385] N. Y. Tribune, May 16, 1867, editorial. When the shots were fired Kelly showed the white feather, and reclined upon the platform behind and under the speaker’s chair; afterwards he ran hatless to the hotel, and told the clerk to “swear he was out.” A special boat at once took him from the city to Montgomery.
[1386] N. Y. Tribune, May 16, 1767; N. Y. Times, May 21, 1867; N. Y. World, May 28, 1867; Mobile Times, ——, 1867; Mobile Register, ——, 1867; Evening Post, ——, 1867; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), pp. 22, 23.
[1387] N. Y. Herald, May 26, 1867.
[1388] See Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 43; oral accounts, etc.
[1389] Sykes soon deserted the Radicals, and was a Seymour elector the next year. Later he was a candidate for the U. S. Senate against Spencer. Brewer, p. 309.
[1390] He was the north Alabama candidate for appointment as provisional governor in 1865, but was defeated by Parsons, the middle Alabama candidate. Parsons made him a judge, but he resigned because the lawyers who argued before him spoke in insulting phrases concerning his war record. In 1867 Pope appointed him superintendent of registration for the state. He was a prominent member of the Union League. Brewer, p. 508; N. Y. Herald, June 20, 1867; Report of Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Pt. III.
[1391] N. Y. Herald, June 20, 1867, a northern Republican account.
[1392] Nicholas Davis of Madison County and Judge Busteed were both candidates for the chairmanship. But the negroes and Union Leaguers were hostile to Davis, because he did not like negro politicians and carpet-baggers and was opposed to the Union League. Busteed was not a favorite for practically the same reasons, and because the negroes thought he was trying to “ride two horses at once.” He had spoken at a meeting of moderate reconstructionists in Mobile, had presided over the Kelly meeting where the riot occurred, and was believed to be in favor of moderate measures. He wrote a letter to the president of the convention, advising moderation and criticising certain methods of the Radicals. This letter was styled the “God save the Republic” letter, and was characterized, his enemies said, by its bad taste and malignant spirit, and was a stab at his best friends. He was chosen a member of the Lowndes County delegation, but his name was erased from the list of delegates. He then asked to have the privileges of the floor as a courtesy, but his request was denied. One cause of dislike of him was that he was believed to have senatorial aspirations, and expected the support of the moderates, or “rebel” reconstructionists. But he was very unfortunate, for the “rebels” also thought he was trying to play a double game and were dropping him. Suits were pending against him charging him with malfeasance in office, fraudulent conversion of money, and corrupt abuse of the judicial office. Ex-Governor Watts, Judges S. F. Rice and Wade Keys, John A. Elmore, H. C. Semple, D. S. Troy, and R. H. Goldthwaite were the parties prosecuting him. N. Y. Herald, June 20, 1867; Brewer, p. 365; Montgomery Mail, June 5, 1867.
[1393] Swayne, as well as Busteed, was an aspirant for senatorial honors. Busteed had succeeded in causing the rejection of Albert Griffin, the editor of the Mobile Nationalist, as register in chancery. Griffin was Swayne’s friend, and now each gave the other the benefit of his influence. N. Y. Herald, June 20, 1867; Montgomery Mail, June 5, 1867.
[1394] N. Y. Herald, June 17, 1867.
[1395] The only taxes that affected these people.
[1396] Annual Cyclopædia (1869), pp. 25, 26; Montgomery Mail, June 5, 1867; N. Y. Herald, June 19, 20, 1867.
[1397] Montgomery Advertiser, July 19, 1867.
[1398] Herbert, pp. 43, 44; N. Y. Herald, June 20 and 27, 1867. Most of the violent and radical schemes originated and were advocated by the white Radical leaders. Generally the negro leaders made moderate demands. Holland Thompson, a negro leader, in a speech at Tuskegee, advised his race not to organize a negro military company, as it would be sure to cause trouble. He said that the negro did not ask for social equality. He told the negroes to stop buying guns and whiskey and go to work. McPherson’s scrapbook, “The Campaign of 1867,” Vol. I, p. 107. In striking contrast were the speeches of such white men as B. W. Norris and A. C. Felder, who undertook to persuade the negroes that Reconstruction was the remedy for all the ills that affected humanity. McPherson’s scrapbook, “The Fourth of July” (1867), pp. 124, 125.
[1399] Herbert, p. 44.
[1400] Lawyer, colonel of 7th Alabama Cavalry, superintendent of education, 1870-1872, author of “The Cradle of the Confederacy,” “Alabama Manual and Statistical Register,” editor Montgomery Mail, Mobile Register, etc.
[1401] A reign of terror had followed the reconstruction of Tennessee under “Parson” Brownlow.
[1402] N. Y. Times, Aug. 19, 1867.
[1403] N. Y. Herald, Sept. 6, 1867; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 28; Herbert, p. 44.
[1404] Herbert, pp. 44, 45; N. Y. Herald, Sept. 6, 1867.
[1405] Montgomery Sentinel, July 3, 1867; N. Y. Herald, Aug. 5, 1867.
[1406] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 357. A frequent threat.
[1407] N. Y. World, Nov. 11, 1867; Harris, “Political Conflict in America,” p. 479.
[1408] N. Y. Herald, Oct. 13, 1867.
[1409] Accounts of negroes and whites who were at the polls.
[1410] Selma Messenger, Oct. 10 and 12, Dec. 20 and 22, 1867, and Jan. 2, 1868; Montgomery Mail, Jan. 30, 1868; Ball, “Clarke County”; oral accounts.
[1411] Freedmen’s Bureau Report, Nov. 1, 1867.
[1412] Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 53, 40th Cong., 2d Sess.; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 238, 40th Cong., 2d Sess. The N. Y. Tribune, Oct. 21, 1867, gives slightly different figures. Statements of the vote do not agree. There was much confusion in the records. For statistics, see above, pp. [491], [494].
[1413] Samuel A. Hale, a dissatisfied Radical from New Hampshire, a brother of John P. Hale, wrote to Senator Henry Wilson, on Jan. 1, 1868, concerning the character of the members of the convention. He said that many were negroes, grossly ignorant; a large proportion were northern adventurers who had manipulated the negro vote; and all were “worthless vagabonds, homeless, houseless, drunken knaves.” Hale had lived for several years in Alabama. Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 1815-1830.
[1414] There is doubt about four or five men, whether they were black or white. The lists made at the time do not agree.
[1415] N. Y. World, Nov. 11, 1867, and Feb. 22, 1868; Selma Messenger, Dec. 20 and 22, 1867; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 30; Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 45. A partial list of aliens as described by a northern correspondent: A. J. Applegate of Wisconsin; Arthur Bingham of Ohio and New York; D. H. Bingham of New York, who had lived in the state before the war, an old man, and intensely bitter in his hatred of southerners; W. H. Block of Ohio; W. T. Blackford of New York, a Bureau official, “the wearer of one of the two clean shirts visible in the whole convention”; M. D. Brainard of New York, a Bureau clerk who did not know, when elected to represent Monroe, where his county was located; Alfred E. Buck of Maine, a court clerk of Mobile appointed by Pope; Charles W. Buckley of Massachusetts, New York, and Illinois, chaplain of a negro regiment, later a Bureau official; William M. Buckley of New York, his brother; J. H. Burdick of Iowa, extremely radical; Pierce Burton of Massachusetts, who had been removed from the Bureau for writing letters to northern papers, advocating the repeal of the cotton tax, but now that the negroes desired the repeal of the tax, the breach was healed; C. M. Cabot of (unknown), member of Convention of 1865; Datus E. Coon of Iowa; Joseph H. Davis of (unknown), surgeon U.S.A., member of convention of 1865; Charles H. Dustan of Illinois; George Ely of Massachusetts and New York; S. S. Gardner of Massachusetts, of the Freedmen’s Bureau; Albert Griffin of Ohio and Illinois, Radical editor; Thomas Haughey of Scotland, surgeon U.S.A.; R. M. Johnson of Illinois, lived in Montgomery and represented Henry County; John C. Keffer of Pennsylvania, chairman of Radical Executive Committee, “known to malignants as the ‘head devil’ of the Loyal League”; David Lore of (unknown); Charles A. Miller of Maine, Bureau official, “wore the second clean shirt in the convention”; A. C. Morgan of (unknown); B. W. Norris of Maine, Commissioner of National Cemetery, 1863-1865, Commissary and Paymaster, 1864-1866, Bureau official; E. Woolsey Peck of New York; R. M. Reynolds of Iowa, six months in Alabama and “knew all about it”; J. Silsby of Massachusetts, another Bureau reverend; N. D. Stanwood of Massachusetts, a Bureau official who had caused several serious negro disturbances in Lowndes County; J. P. Stow of (unknown); Whelan of Ireland; J. W. Wilhite of (unknown), U.S. sutler; Benjamin Yordy of (unknown), a Bureau official and revenue official who never saw the county he represented; Benjamin Rolfe, a carriage painter from New York, was too drunk to sign the constitution, and was known as “the hero of two shirts,” because when he failed to pay a hotel bill in Selma his carpet-bag was seized, and was found to contain nothing but two of those useful garments. Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., passim; N. Y. World, Nov. 11, 1867; Herbert, p. 45.
[1416] Some of the better known were: R. Deal of Dale County, a Baptist preacher, one of those who, in 1865, negligently reconstructed the state, and the hope was now expressed that “he has better success in reconstructing souls than sovereignties”; W. C. Ewing of Baine County, “one of the original Moulton Leaguers who, in 1865, first organized the Radical party in Alabama,” a bitter Radical; W. R. Jones of Covington, had been barbarously murdered in “a rebel outrage,” but came to the convention notwithstanding; B. F. Saffold, an officer of the Confederate army and military mayor of Selma; Henry C. Semple, ex-Confederate, nephew of President Tyler; Joseph H. Speed, cousin of Attorney-General Speed.
[1417] The negro members were: Ben Alexander of Greene, field hand; John Caraway of Mobile, assistant editor of the Mobile Nationalist; Thomas Diggs of Barbour, field hand; Peyton Finley, formerly doorkeeper of the House; James K. Green of Hale, a carriage driver; Ovid Gregory of Mobile, a barber; Jordan Hatcher of Dallas and Washington Johnson of Russell, field hands, were the blackest negroes in the convention; L. S. Latham of Bullock; Tom Lee of Perry, field hand, who had a reputation for moderation; Alfred Strother of Dallas; J. T. Rapier of Lauderdale, educated in Canada; J. W. McLeod of Marengo; B. F. Royal of Bullock; J. H. Burdick of Wilcox; H. Stokes and Jack Hatcher of Dallas; Simon Brunson and Benjamin Inge of Sumter; Samuel Blandon of Lee; Lafeyette Robinson and Columbus Jones of Madison. Beverly, “History of Alabama,” p. 203; N. Y. World, Nov. 11, 1867; Owen, “Official and Statistical Register,” p. 125.
[1418] Journal Convention of 1867, pp. 3-5.
[1419] Journal Convention of 1867, p. 5; N. Y. Herald, Nov. 13, 1867; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 30.
[1420] Selma Messenger, Dec. 22, 1867; Journal Convention of 1867, p. 6; N. Y. World, Nov. 11, 1867.
[1421] Journal, pp. 69-71, 249, 251, 264; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 32; N. Y. Herald, March 16, 1867.
[1422] Journal, pp. 10, 12, 13; N. Y. World, Nov. 20, 1869; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 30.
[1423] Journal, pp. 13, 110, 111, 276; N. Y. Herald, Nov. 13, 1867.
[1424] Twice the pay in the convention of 1865.
[1425] Journal, pp. 79, 178, 249-251; Pope to Swayne, Nov. 20, 1867; N. Y. World, Dec. 14, 1867; G. O. No. 254, 3d M. D., Nov. 26, 1867.
[1426] Journal, p. 57.
[1427] Journal, p. 61; N. Y. Herald, Nov. 15, 1867.
[1428] Journal, p. 189; Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 46; N. Y. Herald, Nov. 13, 1867; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 33.
[1429] Journal, pp. 262, 263.
[1430] Journal, pp. 15, 212, 263; N. Y. Herald, Nov. 13, 1867.
[1431] Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 33; Selma Messenger, Dec. 22, 1867.
[1432] Journal, p. 149; N. Y. World, Dec. 14, 1867.
[1433] Dubbed “the incarnate fiend” by the whites because of his violent prejudice.
[1434] N. Y. World, Dec. 14, 1867; Montgomery Mail, Nov., 1867; N. Y. Herald, Nov. 13 and 23 and Dec. 8, 1867.
[1435] Journal, pp. 8, 12, 17; N. Y. Herald, Nov. 13, 1867.
[1436] By Griffin of Ohio, Keffer of Pennsylvania, Norris of Maine, and Davis of (?). It was said that Norris and Davis had to be influenced by Swayne to sign the majority report. N. Y. World, Nov. 20, 1867.
[1437] Journal, pp. 30-34; N. Y. World, Nov. 20, 1867.
[1438] By Speed of Virginia, Whelan of Ireland, and Lee (negro).
[1439] Journal, pp. 36, 37; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 31.
[1440] Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 32; N. Y. World, Nov. 20, 1867.
[1441] N. Y. Herald, Nov. 13, 1867; Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 31.
[1442] Journal, pp. 42, 55, 82, 100.
[1443] Journal, pp. 47, 48, 54, 83.
[1444] Journal, p. 47.
[1445] Journal, p. 47.
[1446] Journal, p. 45.
[1447] Journal, p. 53.
[1448] Selma Messenger, Dec. 22, 1867.
[1449] Journal, pp. 84, 85.
[1450] N. Y. World, Nov. 20 and Dec. 6 and 14, 1867.
[1451] Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 33.
[1452] Code of Alabama, 1876, p. 113. Griffin said that the oath required the voter never to favor a change in the new constitution so far as the suffrage was concerned; that “it was the determination of the committee to forever fasten this constitution on the people of Alabama. He wanted to tie the hands of rebels, so that complete political equality should be secured to the negro.” Annual Cyclopædia (1867), p. 32.
[1453] This was aimed at the Confederate soldiers of north Alabama, who had imprisoned and in some cases hanged the tories and outlaws of that section.
[1454] Code of Alabama, 1876; Constitution of 1868, Article VII.
[1455] Annual Cyclopædia (1867), pp. 34, 35; Journal, pp. 186, 187.
[1456] Journal, pp. 257-262; N. Y. World, Nov. 20, 1867.
[1457] Journal, pp. 265-269.
[1458] Journal, pp. 255, 571.
[1459] Journal, pp. 271, 272, 273; N. Y. World, Nov. 11, 1867.
[1460] Journal, pp. 272, 273.
[1461] Journal, p. 63. The whites had for more than two years been asking for the repeal of this unjust tax, but they were not heeded. As soon as the negroes demanded its repeal, it was repealed. That was certainly one advantage they received from the possession of political rights. One petition from the negroes asked that the tax be repealed because, in many instances, it was greater than the value of the land. If this was not done, they wanted the land taken from the owners and worked in common. N. Y. Herald, Nov. 13, 1867.
[1462] Journal, p. 244.
[1463] Journal, pp. 266, 267.
[1464] Journal, p. 240; Meade, Speed, Semple, Cabot, Graves, J. L. Alexander, Ewing, Latham, and Hurst.
[1465] Journal, p. 242; J. P. Stow of (?).
[1466] Address of Protesting Delegates to the People of Alabama, Dec. 10, 1867.
[1467] Journal, p. 243.
[1468] The Codes of Alabama for 1876 and 1896 do not recognize the validity of the constitution of 1868. It is listed as the “Constitution (so-called) of the State of Alabama, 1868.” The president of the convention of 1875 said, “What is called the present constitution of the state of Alabama is a piece of unseemly mosaic, composed of shreds and patches gathered here and there, incongruous in design, inharmonious in action, discriminating and oppressive in the burdens it imposes, reckless in the license it confers on unjust and wicked legislation, and utterly lacking in every element to inspire popular confidence and the reverence and affection of the people.” Journal, 1875, p. 5.
[1469] Ely, a delegate from Russell, was a candidate in Montgomery; Brainard, a delegate from Monroe, was a candidate in Montgomery; R. M. Johnson, a delegate from Henry, was also a candidate in Montgomery. These men, however, lived in Montgomery and had never seen the counties they represented.
[1470] N. Y. World, Feb. 13 and 22, 1868; Selma Times and Messenger, Feb. 28, 1868; Cong. Globe, March 11, 1868; Herbert, “Solid South”; Beverly, “Alabama”; Owen, p. 125.
The above list is not complete, as there were undoubtedly other candidates among those who did not sign the constitution, since a number of them fell into line later. The starred names are those of candidates who were also registrars, and who not only conducted their own elections for the convention, but also for office under the new constitution. Three members of the majority who signed the report were not eligible for office when the election came off, two being in jail,—one for stealing and the other for fraud,—while a third “had been betrayed into an act of virtue by dying.” N. Y. World, Feb. 13, 1868.
[1471] Selma Messenger, Jan. 10, 1868.
[1472] Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 47; N. Y. World, Feb. 5, 1868.
[1473] After the election, Governor Patton, who at first had supported Reconstruction, issued an address complaining that nearly all the candidates voted for were strangers to the people; that many were ignorant negroes, and that in one county all the commissioners-elect were negroes who were unable to read; that unlicensed lawyers, wholly uneducated, were chosen for state solicitors; that the strangers were too often of bad character; and that the Radical party consisted almost entirely of negroes, the native whites having forsaken the party as soon as the negroes fell under the control of the imported Radicals who ran the machine. N. Y. Times, April 23, 1868.
[1474] Herbert, p. 47.
[1475] Montgomery Mail, July 25, 1868; N. Y. World, Sept. 22, 1868.
[1476] The Radical papers in Alabama were supported almost entirely by campaign funds and by appropriations from the government for printing the session laws of the United States. They styled themselves the “Official Journals of the United States Government.” When one offended and the Washington patronage was withdrawn, it always collapsed. In 1867 the reconstructionist papers in the state were Alabama State Sentinel, The Nationalist, Elmore Standard, East Alabama Monitor, Alabama Republican, The Tallapoosian, The Reconstructionist, Huntsville Advocate, Moulton Union, Livingston Messenger. See Journal Convention of 1867, p. 242. The circulation of each paper was small and almost entirely among the negroes. Special campaign editions were printed and scattered broadcast. The constitution was printed in all of the above-named papers, and also in a Washington paper which was franked by the thousands from Congressmen through the Union League as a campaign document. N. Y. World, Feb. 22, 1868.
[1477] See, for example, The Nationalist, Feb. 4, 1868 (editorial). On Jan. 16, 1868, an “Address to the Laboring Men of Alabama” stated in part, “If you fail to vote and the constitution fails to be ratified, your right to vote hereafter closes and all participation on your part in the administration of the laws of the state is at an end.” Montgomery Mail, Jan., 1868.
[1478] Selma Messenger, Jan. 24, 1868.
[1479] Cong. Globe, March 28, 1868, p. 2195.
[1480] Not yet called Democrats, but sometimes “Democratic and Conservative.”
[1481] Popular accounts say thousands, but not as many went this time as later, in the early 70’s.
[1482] Herbert, p. 46, and Journal Convention of 1867.
[1483] Cong. Globe, March 12, 1868, p. 1824.
[1484] Selma Messenger, Dec. 20, 1867.
[1485] Selma Messenger, Dec. 22, 1867.
[1486] Both later became Radicals.
[1487] Tuskegee News, Oct. 1, 1874.
[1488] N. Y. Times, Jan. 14, 1898; Montgomery Mail, Jan. 17, 1868; Herbert, p. 48; Annual Cyclopædia (1868), p. 15.
[1489] Thirty-five white counties with a population of 393,441—282,282 whites and 111,159 blacks—had 135 representatives, or one representative to 11,241 of the population. Twenty-four black counties with a population of 580,717—252,407 whites and 328,300 blacks—had 65 representatives, or one to 8933. Three small white counties were not represented, but had to vote with others.; Selma Times and Messenger, March 10, 1868; Cong. Globe, 1867-1868, pp. 2197, 2198.
[1490] Variously estimated at from 10,000 to 40,000.
[1491] Selma Times and Messenger, March 10, 1868. The minority report, March 17, 1868, of Beck of Kentucky and Brooks of New York, on the admission of Alabama, sums up the Conservative objections to the constitution. See Cong. Globe, March 17, 1868, p. 1937.
[1492] Annual Cyclopædia (1868), p. 15; N. Y. Times, Jan. 24, 1865; Selma Times and Messenger, March 10, 1868.
[1493] Tribune Almanac, 1868. Pope reported 164,800; Meline, 165,000.
[1494] Tribune Almanac, 1868. The methods of the registrars may be imagined, since Meade had more than 15,000 names of negroes struck from the lists.
[1495] It is impossible to obtain exact figures of the registration; no one ever knew exactly what they were, and accounts never agree. Meade’s estimate was 170,734, Report, 1868. Another estimate was 170,000, Cong. Globe, March 17, 1868, p. 1904; and still another 171,378, Alabama Manual and Statistical Register, p. xxiii. It is evident that the registration was about 170,000.
[1496] In 1867 the vote on holding a convention had been more than a majority of registered voters.
[1497] Report of Meade, 1868, published in Atlanta.
[1498] For instance, William H. Smith, candidate for governor.
[1499] The Nationalist, Aug. 24, 1868; Mobile Register, Feb. 6, 1868; Report of Meade, 1868.
[1500] Report of Meade, 1868.
[1501] Montgomery Mail, Feb. 4, 5, 12, and 19, 1868; N. Y. World, March 14, 1868; Cong. Globe, March 17, 1868, p. 1937; Mobile Register, Feb. 6, 1868; Selma Times and Messenger, Feb. 29, 1868.
[1502] Selma Times and Messenger, Feb. 29, 1868.
[1503] A political adviser at the polls.
[1504] The Conservatives had challenged such voters several times and Johnson sent the following order:—
“At Office, Mobile, Feb. 5, 1868.
“The Judges of the Election at the Mississippi Hotel will receive all ballots endorsed by the voter and my signature. The certificate of voters is in my possession.
“Respectfully,
“D. G. Johnson,
“Registrar District No. 1.”
—Mobile Register, Feb. 6, 1868.
[1505] Cong. Globe, March 17, 1868, p. 1937; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 303, 40th Cong., 2d Sess.; N. Y. World, March 14, 1868.
[1506] In Henry County the registrars had all forsaken the party and resigned. On the last day the United States troops opened the polls and 29 people voted. Abbeville Register, Feb. 16, 1868. In Dale County it was much the same way. After a careful search one John Metcalf of Skipperville was found to make complaint on behalf of the reconstructionists. It was a sad story: “We had,” he said, “depended on Mr. Deal, the delegate to the convention, to bring the registration books, ‘but he fused with the destructive party’ and we couldn’t register. On the fourth day an election was held anyway, but the Conservatives would not let us hold it on the fifth. It was the almost united wish of the voters of the county to adopt the constitution. There are about 150 in the county that are opposed to it, and they united on the fifth and broke us up. We would have polled 1400 to 1500 votes for the constitution.” Ho. Mic. Doc., No. 111, 40th Cong., 2d Sess.
[1507] In Montgomery 41 whites of 4200 voted. Of these 15 were carpet-baggers and nearly all were candidates for office. The Montgomery Mail of Feb. 11 printed the entire list, with sarcastic comments on their past history and present aspirations. The list was headed, Our White Black List, The Roll of Dishonor. See Cong. Globe, March 11, 1868, p. 1827.
[1508] The storm played a very effective part in the debates in Congress later. Moving tales were told of negroes swimming the swollen streams in order to get to the polls. One instance was given where, in swimming the Alabama River, which was beyond its banks and floating with ice, a negro was drowned. Cong. Globe, 1867-1868, p. 2865. The river at this point when out of its banks is not less than a mile wide, and there was never any ice in it since the glacial epoch.
[1509] The Conservatives claimed that the Lowndes county box was stolen by the Radicals themselves as soon as they saw the constitution had failed of ratification, in order to give point to charges of fraud. In the same way the returns from Baine, Colbert, and Jones counties were so tampered with by the Radical election officials that the military canvassers were obliged to reject them. Montgomery Mail, Feb. 12, 1868; Cong. Globe, 1867-1868, p. 2139.
[1510] The Nationalist, Feb. 13 and 20, and Aug. 24, 1868; N. Y. World, March 14, 1868; Selma Times and Messenger, Feb. 28, 1868; Cong. Globe, March 11, 1868, pp. 1818, 1823. This is a statement signed by Griffin of Ohio, Keffer of Pennsylvania, Burton of Massachusetts, Hardy and Spencer of Ohio, and indorsed by Joshua Morse, who signed himself as “disfranchised rebel.”
[1511] Report of Meade, 1868. Meade made this report to Grant at the time, and at the end of the year he made practically the same, though perhaps a little stronger. The Nationalist (Albert Griffin of Ohio, editor) said, April 9, 1868, that the statements of Meade, the “military saphead,” were “false in letter and false in spirit.”
[1512] Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 111, 40th Cong., 2d Sess. The whites were complaining loudly because of the scarcity of labor, and few would discharge a negro laborer, no matter how often he might vote the Radical ticket. General Hayden sent a list of eighteen questions in regard to the election to every election official. They covered every possible point, and full answers were required. One of the questions was in regard to the proportion of white voters. A summary of the answers is here given: 1. Elmore County. Intimidation and threats of discharge; of the 1000 to 1200 whites who registered, from 12 to 15 voted. 2. Autauga. No intimidation, but threats of discharge; of the 900 whites registered, 200 voted. 3. Chambers. Fair election, with 23 white voters of the 1400 registered. 4. Russell. Threats of discharge; one-thirty-sixth of the whites voted. 5. Tallapoosa. “Persuasion and arguments” deterred the blacks from voting; 20 whites voted of the 1500 who registered. 6. Coosa. Two discharges; one-third of the whites voted. 7. Montgomery. “Ostracism,” and two discharges; 41 whites voted of the 4200 who registered. 8. Macon. Fair election and 4 whites voted of the 800 registered. 9. Lee. One discharge and threats; 30 or 40 whites voted of 1500 registered. 10. Randolph. Fair election. 11. Clay. Threats of ostracism and one discharge. 12. Crenshaw. Two discharges. 13. Lowndes. Three threats of discharge; “too much challenging;” 10 whites voted of 850 registered. 14. Barbour. Four threats of discharge; “whites afraid of social proscription.” 15. Bullock. “Needless questions” to voters, and three threats of discharge; no whites voted. 16. Pike. One threat of discharge; one-fourth of the whites voted. 17. Butler. Eight threats; 3 whites of 1400 voted. 18. Covington. “Threats;” 225 whites voted of the 900. 19. Coffee. “Threats” and “proscription.” 20-21. Dale and Henry. No election; no registrars; none would serve. In Dale County were a number of “outrageous acts committed by a Mr. Oats.” 22-27. Mobile, Washington, Baldwin, Clarke, Monroe, and Conecuh. “Threats and social ostracism;” 125 of 3750 whites voted. 28. Walker. Fair election; one negro driven away; “more whites voted than were expected.” 29-30. Winston and Jackson. More whites voted than were expected; one threat in Jackson. 31-32. Madison and Lauderdale. Fair elections; in Lauderdale 150 of 1500 whites voted. 33. Lawrence. “Persuasion;” 311 of 1400 whites voted. 34-35. Colbert and Franklin. Twenty-five per cent of the whites voted; 75 per cent “were opposed to article 7, paragraph 4, of constitution.” 36-38. Limestone, Morgan, and Cherokee. Fair elections; few whites voted. 39. Marshall. “Threats”; one-third of the whites voted. 40. De Kalb. Fair; 650 of the 900 whites. 41. Baine. “Handbills advised people not to vote;” only one-fifth voted. 42. Blount. One threat; “persuasion;” one-fourth of the whites voted. 43. St. Clair. Threats; one-third of the whites voted. 44-45. Marion and Jones. Fair; two-sevenths of the whites voted. 46. Fayette. Speeches published against the constitution, three drunken men threatened the managers at one box; liquor given to negroes to “vote against their intentions,” all of which “prevented full and free expression of opinion by ballot”; two-sevenths of the whites voted. 47. Shelby. Fair; one-fourth of the whites voted. 48. Talladega. Fair, though threats were heard; three-tenths of the whites voted. 49. Perry. Fair; 24 of the 1066 whites voted. 50. Bibb. Fair; 167 of the 1021 whites. 51. Dallas. Fair; 78 whites voted; others suffered from “want of independence.” 52. Wilcox. Ten threats; 12 whites of 800. 53. Tuscaloosa. One threat; one-fifth of the whites voted. 54. Pickens. “Threats too numerous to mention;” 60 to 70 of the 1100 whites voted. 55. Jefferson. Fair; one-fifth of the whites voted. 56. Sumter. Threats against blacks; whites to be ostracized. 57. Greene. Threats, though the “Union Men” were afraid to tell who threatened them; 446 ballots had “Constitution” torn off. 58. Marengo. Voters were refused at one box because the names were not on the list, though the parties were willing to swear they had been registered. Threats and speeches were made at the polls and one man made 16 discharges; 16 whites of the 997 voted. 59-62. No reports from Choctaw, Calhoun, Cleburne, and Hale.
Nearly all officials reported quiet elections; the assertions about threats were almost invariably hearsay. Even the few specific instances were based on hearsay. The worst complaint was that Conservatives sometimes attended and challenged the votes of certain negroes, and made speeches or used persuasion to induce the negroes not to vote. Much importance was attached to the ridicule and jeers of the white leaders. These reports were made by the election officials, who were thoroughgoing reconstructionists. General Meade denied the charges of fraud and intimidation.
It will be noticed that the heaviest white vote was cast in the counties where there were few negroes, and where the Peace Society had been strongest during the war. If the estimates given above by the registrars were correct, it is doubtful if 5000 whites voted in the election, as was asserted. The judges were supposed to mark “C” on the ballot of a negro and “W” on that of a white. Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 111, 40th Cong., 2d Sess.; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 303, 40th Cong., 2d Sess.; Report of Meade, 1868; Montgomery Mail, Feb. 19, 1868; N. Y. World, March 14, 1868.
[1513] Strobach, the Austrian, went so far off in the Northwest that after the state was admitted he could not return to the special session of the legislature. He drew his pay, however, the Speaker certifying that he was present. N. Y. World, Oct. 8, 1868; Montgomery Mail, April 14, 1869; Nationalist, Feb. 18, 1868.
[1514] In North Alabamian, 1868.
[1515] He had evidently not seen Meade’s report.
[1516] Dustan had been a candidate for major-general of militia.
[1517] Annual Cyclopædia (1868), p. 16.
[1518] Globe, Feb. 17, 1868, p. 1217.
[1519] Cong. Globe, March 10, 11, and 17, 1868, pp. 1790, 1818, 1821, 1823, 1824, 1825, 1827, 1934, 1935, 1937, 1938.
[1520] Both statements were incorrect.
[1521] Globe, March 18 and 26, 1868, pp. 1972, 2138, 2139, 2140.
[1522] McPherson, “Reconstruction,” p. 337; Globe, March 28, 1868, pp. 2193, 2216.
[1523] Globe, March 28, 1868, pp. 2203, 2209, 2214.
[1524] April 23, 1868.
[1525] Nationalist, April 9, 1868.
[1526] Independent Monitor, April 21, 1868.
[1527] Yordy, a carpet-bag Bureau agent, registrar, and senator-elect from Sumter County, was turned out of a hotel at Eutaw and told to go to the negro inn. Tuscaloosa Independent Monitor, Sept. 1, 1868.
[1528] Globe, March 28, 1868, p. 2140. Claus and Wilson were two carpet-baggers of Tuscaloosa.
[1529] Annual Cyclopædia (1868), p. 16; Cong. Globe, March 11, 1868, p. 1825.
[1530] Globe, May 11, 1868, p. 2412.
[1531] Cong. Globe, June 5 and 6, 1868, pp. 2858, 2865, 2867, 2900, 2964; McPherson, “Reconstruction,” p. 340; Foulke, “Life of Morton,” Vol. II, p. 47.
[1532] Globe, June 9 and 10, 1868, pp. 2965, 3017.
[1533] Globe, June 12, 1868, pp. 3089, 3090, 3097.
[1534] Globe, June 25, 1868, p. 3484.
[1535] Globe, June 25, 1868, pp. 3466, 3484; McPherson, p. 338.
[1536] McPherson, p. 337. The present constitution of the state, adopted in 1901, nullifies this fundamental condition. Other southern states have also disregarded this limitation.
[1537] McPherson, p. 338.
[1538] G. O. No. 101, July 14, 1868.
[1539] Warner, who was said to have gone to his own state—Ohio—and run for office, now returned.
[1540] The credentials were signed by E. W. Peck, president of the convention of 1867, who certified to their election. Globe, July 24, 1868, p. 4294.
[1541] Globe, July 17, 18, 21, and 25, 1868, pp. 4173, 4213, 4293, 4295, 4459, 4466.
[1542] President Jay’s Address, March 26, 1868; Bellows, “History Union League Club of New York,” pp. 6-9; “Chronicle of Philadelphia Union League,” pp. 5-8.
[1543] “Chronicle of Philadelphia Union League,” pp. 5-8; Bellows, “Union League Club,” p. 9.
[1544] First Annual Report of Board of Directors of Union League of Philadelphia; Bellows, pp. 9, 32; “Chronicle of Philadelphia Union League,” pp. 70, 112.
[1545] See Bellows, “History Union League Club.”
[1546] Bellows, p. 90.
[1547] There were 144 different pamphlets published by the Philadelphia League and 44 posters; 56,380 pamphlets were issued in 1865; 867,000 pamphlets were issued in 1866; 31,906 pamphlets were issued in 1867; 1,416,906 pamphlets were issued in 1868; 4,500,000 pamphlets were issued in eight years. “Chronicle of Philadelphia Union League,” pp. 106, 107, 145.
[1548] “Chronicle of Philadelphia Union League,” p. 169; Bellows, pp. 90, 99, 100, 102; Reports of the Executive Committee, Union League Club of N. Y., 1865-1866; Century Magazine, Vol. VI, pp. 404, 949; oral accounts.
[1549] I am especially indebted to Professor L. D. Miller, Jacksonville, Ala., for many details concerning the Loyal Leagues. He made inquiries for me of people who knew the facts. I have also had other oral accounts. See also Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. (Pierce), p. 305; (Lowe), p. 894; (Forney), p. 487.
[1550] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. (Sayre), p. 357; (Governor Lindsay), p. 170; (Nicholas Davis), p. 783; (Richardson), pp. 815, 855; (Ford), p. 684; (Lowe), p. 892; (Forney), p. 487; Miller, “Alabama,” p. 246; Herbert, “Solid South,” pp. 36, 41; also oral accounts.
[1551] There is a copy of the charter of a local council in the Alabama Testimony of the Ku Klux Report, p. 1017. The Montgomery Council was organized June 2, 1866, and three days later General Swayne, of the Freedmen’s Bureau, joined it. It was charged that even thus early he was desirous of representing Alabama in the Senate. Herbert, pp. 41-43.
[1552] N. Y. Herald, Aug. 5, 1867.
[1553] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. (Lowe), p. 872; (English), pp. 1437, 1438; (Lindsay), p. 170; N. Y. Herald, Aug. 5, 1869, and June 20, 1867; Professor Miller’s account; oral accounts.
[1554] In Sumter County a northern teacher of a negro school informed a planter that the Leaguers were sworn to defend one another, and that he, the planter, would be punished for striking a Leaguer whom he had caught stealing and had thrashed. Selma Times and Messenger, July 21, 1868.
[1555] The Montgomery Council, May 22, 1867, resolved “That the Union League is the right arm of the Union Republican party of the United States, and that no man should be initiated into the League who does not heartily indorse the principles and policy of the Union Republican party.” Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 41. A Confederate could not be admitted to the League unless he would acknowledge that during the war he had been guilty of treason.
[1556] Alcohol on salt burns with a peculiar flame, making the faces of those around, especially the negroes, appear ghostly.
[1557] A copy of the constitution and ritual was secured by the whites and published in the Montgomery Advertiser, July 24, 1867; printed also in Fleming, “Documents relating to Reconstruction,” No. 3.
[1558] The Montgomery Council was composed of white Radicals, and the Lincoln Council in the same city was for blacks. Most of the officers of the latter were whites. Herbert, p. 41.
[1559] This fact will partly explain why there were burnings of negro churches and schoolhouses by the Ku Klux Klan. These were political headquarters of the Radical party in each community.
[1560] See Miller, “Alabama,” pp. 246, 247; Lester and Wilson, “Ku Klux Klan,” pp. 45, 46.
[1561] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. (Lindsay), pp. 170, 179; (Nicholas Davis), p. 783; (Richardson), pp. 839, 355; (Lowe), pp. 872, 886, 907; (Pettus), p. 384; (Walker), pp. 962, 975.
[1562] Thaddeus Stevens’s speech on confiscation, through the Loyal League, had a wide circulation in Alabama. Agents were sent to the state to organize new councils and to secure the benefits of the proposed confiscation; free farms were promised the negroes. N. Y. Herald, June 20, 1867. Many whites now believed that wholesale confiscation would take place.
[1563] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. (Sanders), pp. 1803, 1811; (Dox), p. 432; (Herr), pp. 1662, 1663.
[1564] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. (Lowe), pp. 886, 887, 894, 997; (Davis), p. 783; (Cobbs), p. 1637; (Pettus), p. 6393.
[1565] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. (Ford), p. 684; (Herr), p. 1665; (Pettus), p. 381; (Jolly), pp. 283, 291; (Sayre), p. 357; (Pierce), p. 313; N. Y. Herald, Dec. 4, 1867, Oct. 2, 1868; Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 45. One Wash Austin, a Democratic negro, was attacked by a mob, pursued, and when he reached home his wife called him “a damned Conservative,” struck him on the head with a brick, and then left him. Norris V. Hanley, in Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 15, 41st Cong., 2d Sess.
[1566] N. Y. Herald, Oct. 13 and Nov. 11, 1867, Eufaula correspondence; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. (Sanders), p. 1812; (Pettus), p. 381; (Herr), p. 1663; (Pierce), p. 313; (Sayre), p. 357; Harris, “Political Conflict in America,” p. 479.
[1567] A notice posted on the door of a citizen of Dallas County was to this effect, “Irvin Hauser is the damnedest rascal in the neighborhood, and if he and three or four others don’t mind they will get a ball in them.” Selma Times and Messenger, April 21, 1868; oral accounts; see also Brown, “Lower South,” Ch. IV; Herbert, pp. 3, 8.
[1568] The Macon Telegraph, March 12, 1905.
[1569] N. Y. Herald, Dec. 5 and 22, 1867; Montgomery Advertiser, Dec. 4, 1867 (J. M. Chappell).
[1570] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. (Lyon), pp. 1422, 1423; (Abrahams), pp. 1382, 1384.
[1571] See Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. (Alston), p. 1017; (Herr), p. 1665; (Sayre), p. 357; (Pierce), p. 313.
[1572] Selma Messenger, July 19, 1867; see Fleming, “Documents relating to Reconstruction,” No. 3.
[1573] It is certain that the estimate of 18,000 white and 70,000 black members at the same time is not correct. As the latter increased in numbers the former decreased. Early in 1867 Keffer said there were 38,000 whites and 12,000 blacks in the League. N. Y. Herald, May 7, 1867. Perhaps he meant the total enrolment early in the year. In 1868 he claimed 20,000 whites, about 17,000 too many.
[1574] Lester and Wilson, “Ku Klux Klan,” p. 47; also Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., passim.
[1575] Montgomery Mail, Aug. 20, 1870.
[1576] In the Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., the Conservative and sometimes the Radical witnesses assert that the Ku Klux movement was caused partly by the workings of the Union League.
[1577] Senate Journal, 1875-1876, p. 214.
[1578] Ku Klux Rept., p. 171.
[1579] Ku Klux Rept., p. 318.
[1580] Auditor’s Report, 1902, p. 19.
[1581] Ku Klux Rept., p. 170; Census of 1860. The assessed valuation of property increased 117% from 1850 to 1860. The comptroller’s report of Nov. 12, 1858, states that the slave property of the state at that time paid nearly half the taxes. This was true of all ordinary taxes to 1865. See Senate Journal, 1866-1867, p. 291.
[1582] Journal Convention of 1867, p. 125; Patton’s Report to the Convention, Nov. 11, 1867.
| Cotton crop, 1860 | 842,729 bales | |
| Cotton crop, 1865 | 75,305 bales | |
| Cotton crop, 1866 | 429,102 bales | |
| Cotton crop, 1867 | 239,516 bales | |
| Cotton crop, 1868 | 366,193 bales |
Most of the war crop was confiscated by the United States. The crops of 1866-1868 show the effects of politics among the negro laborers rather than unfavorable seasons. Hodgson, “Alabama Manual and Statistical Register,” 1869.
[1584] The exemption laws were so framed as to release the average negroes from paying tax, and also the class of whites that supported the Radical policy. The following list will show the incidence of taxation for 1870:—
| Value | Tax | |
| Lands | $81,109,102.03 | $607,979.52 |
| Town property | 36,005,780.50 | 268,865.89 |
| Cattle | 1,180,106.00 | 8,851.36 |
| Mules | 4,845,736.00 | 36,042.68 |
| Horses | 2,214,376.00 | 16,599.83 |
| Sheep and goats | 111,001.00 | 832.50 |
| Hogs | 277,735.50 | 2,083.02 |
| Wagons, carriages, etc. | 131,235.00 | 8,480.81 |
| Tools | 237,534.50 | 1,769.96 |
| Farming implements | 235,600.00 | 1,744.71 |
| Household furniture | 1,691,807.00 | 12,731.98 |
| Cotton presses | 41,360.00 | 310.30 |
Besides these items, heavy taxes were laid on the following: wharves, toll bridges, ferries, steamboats, and all water craft, stocks of goods, libraries, jewellery, plate and silverware, musical instruments, pistols, guns, jacks and jennies, race-horses, watches, money in and out of the state, money loaned, credits, commercial paper, capital in incorporated companies in or out of the state, bonds except of United States and Alabama, incomes and gains over $1000, banks, poll tax, insurance companies, auction sales, lotteries, warehouses, distilleries, brokers, factors, express and telegraph companies, etc. See Ku Klux Report and Auditor’s Report, 1871.
[1585] Revenue Laws of Ala., 1865-1870; Report of the Debt Commission, Jan. 24, 1876; Governor Lindsay’s Message, Nov. 21, 1871; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 227, 340, 976, 1056, 1504.
[1586] See Acts of Ala., 1868-1874, passim.
[1587] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 240, 360.
[1588] Ala. Test., pp. 1303, 1304.
[1589] Ala. Test., pp. 461, 963, 964.
[1590] Taxes are paid on $307,312,000, slaves included; see Census of 1860; Census of 1870; Ku Klux Rept., pp. 170, 171, 175, 317, 318.
[1591] Includes receipts and disbursements in Confederate money.
[1592] License taxes only.
[1593] License taxes, bond issues, and temporary loans.
[1594] Interest paid on the public debt with bond issues included, and expenses of the convention of 1867. The actual expenses of the state administration were $262,627.47.
[1595] The first figures for 1868 include the receipts from taxes and the expenditures for state purposes only; the other figures include the proceeds from sale of bonds used for state purposes. The Radicals always gave the first set of figures, and the Democrats the second.
[1596] $620,000 should be added for the sale of bonds and state obligations.
[1597] Issue of bonds to railroads included.
[1598] Includes interest paid on railroad bonds.
[1599] Currency had depreciated. Many claims went unpaid. The “home debt” amounted to $823,454.64. The actual state expenses were $1,384,044.46.
[1600] State expenses only. Democrats in power. See Auditor’s Reports, 1869-1873, 1900; Ku Klux Rept., pp. 170, 174, 176, 1055, 1057; Report of the Debt Commission, 1876; Journal Convention of 1867, p. 125.
[1601] Ku Klux Rept., pp. 170, 174, 176; Auditor’s Reports, 1869-1870; Reports of the Alabama Debt Commission.
[1602] Report of Governor Patton to the Convention, Nov. 11, 1867; Journal Convention of 1867, p. 125.
[1603] See Tuskegee News, June 3, 1875; Auditor’s Reports, 1868-1874.
[1604] The average legislator in 1872-1873 was paid $904.00 and mileage. The Senate had 33 members and 44 attending officers, clerks, and secretaries; the lower house, with a membership of 100, had from 77 to 84 attending officials. Besides these there were dozens of pages, doorkeepers, firemen, assistants, etc. In 1869 there were 105 regular capitol servants who received $31,900 in wages. Auditor’s Report, 1869-1873; Montgomery Mail, Dec. 31, 1870. There were about 10 in 1900.
[1605] Journal of the “Capitol” Senate, 1872, p. 19-34; in Senate Journal, 1873.
[1606] The older and abler men were disfranchised.
[1607] Montgomery Mail, Sept. 22, 1872.
[1608] Auditor’s Reports, 1869-1873.
[1609] The purpose of the act was to liberate negro prisoners and save money for the officials to spend in other ways.
[1610] These items are taken from the accounts of Lewis’s administration.
[1611] The Investigating Committee remarked that had he chartered a parlor car and paid hotel bills at the rate of $10 a day, he would have been unable to spend $800 on that trip.
[1612] See [Ch. XXIV].
[1613] Report of the Committee to Investigate the Contingent Fund, 1875; Senate Journal, 1874-1875, pp. 581-607.
[1614] Caffey, “The Annexation of West Florida to Alabama,” p. 10; Senate Journal, 1869-1870, pp. 234-244.
[1615] Report of the Committee to examine the Offices of Auditor and Treasurer, 1875; Report of the Debt Commission, 1875, 1876.
[1616] See Edwin DeLeon, “Ruin and Reconstruction of the Southern States,” in the Southern Magazine, Jan., 1874.
[1617] Ala. Test., p. 1409.
[1618] State Journal, April 19, 1874.
[1619] Ala. Test., p. 1409. The Radical newspapers that had the public printing made money from the tax sale notices by dividing each lot into sixteenths of a section, advertising each, and charging for each division. The author of the tax sale law was Pierce Burton, a Radical editor.
[1620] Scribner’s Monthly, Aug., 1874; King, “The Great South.”
[1621] Southern Argus, Jan. 17 and Feb. 8, 1872; Scribner’s Monthly, Aug., 1874; Herbert, “Solid South,” pp. 64, 67. Colonel Herbert believes that during the six years of Reconstruction the state gained practically nothing by immigration, while it lost more by emigration than it had by the Civil War.
[1622] Auditor’s Reports, 1869-1873; Comptroller’s Reports, 1861-1865, 1866; Patton’s Report, 1867, to the Convention; Journal Convention of 1867, pp. 46, 123; Ku Klux Rept., pp. 169, 317, 1055.
[1623] The following is a partial list compiled from the session laws:—
Issues of County Bonds
| 1868. | Walker County | $14,000.00 | |
| 1868. | Dallas County | 50,000.00 | |
| 1868. | Bullock County | 40,000.00 | |
| 1868. | Limestone County | 100,000.00 | |
| 1869. | Hale County | 60,000.00 | |
| 1869. | Greene County | 80,000.00 | |
| 1869. | Pickens County | 100,000.00 | |
| 1870. | Baldwin County | 5,000.00 | |
| 1870. | Bibb County | 5,000.00 | |
| 1870. | Choctaw County | (?) unlimited | |
| 1870. | Crenshaw County | 10,000.00 | |
| 1872. | Pickens County | 30,000.00 | |
| 1873. | Butler County | 12,000.00 | |
| 1873. | Jefferson County | 50,000.00 | |
| 1873. | Montgomery County | 130,000.00 | |
| 1873. | Madison County | 130,000.00 | |
| (?) | Dallas County | 140,000.00 | |
| (?) | Chambers County | 150,000.00 | |
| (?) | Lee County | 275,000.00 | |
| (?) | Randolph County | 100,000.00 | |
| (?) | Barbour County | (?) | |
| (?) | Tallapoosa County | 125,000.00 |
Issues of Town and City Bonds
| 1868. | Troy | $75,000.00 | |
| 1869. | Eutaw | 20,000.00 | |
| 1869. | Greensboro | 15,000.00 | |
| 1871. | Mobile | 1,400,000.00 | |
| 1871. | Selma | 5 00,000.00 | |
| 1872. | Prattville | 50,000.00 | |
| 1873. | Mobile | 200,000.00 | |
| Opelika | 25,000.00 |
And in addition each county and town had a large floating debt in “scrip” or local obligations. Speculators gathered up such obligations and sold them at reduced prices to those who had local taxes, fines, and licenses to pay.
[1624] Auditor’s Reports, 1871-1872; Report of Committee on Public Debt, 1876; McClure, “The South: Industrial, Financial, and Political Condition,” p. 83.
[1625] Report of the Committee on Public Debt, 1876; Senate Journal, 1872-1873, p. 544; Auditor’s Report, 1873.
[1626] Senate Journal, 1875-1876, pp. 212, 213; Report of the Committee on the Public Debt, 1876. In his book Clews tells how he invested in the securities of the struggling southern states, being desirous of assisting them. But when the ungrateful states refused to pay the claims that he and others like him presented, he says it was because they, the creditors, were northern men. See Clews, “Twenty-eight Years in Wall Street,” pp. 550, 551.
[1627] DeLeon, “Ruin and Reconstruction,” in the Southern Magazine, Jan., 1874. The state debts of the ten southern states were then estimated at $291,626,015, while the debts of the other twenty-seven states amounted to only $293,872,552.
[1628] Houston’s Message, 1876; Senate Journal, 1874-1875, p. 7.
[1629] Act of Dec. 17, 1874.
[1630] Later increased to $1,192,000.
[1631] Report of the Debt Commission, 1876. This was nearly half the value of the farm lands of the state, which were worth $67,700,000, and was much more than the gross value of a year’s cotton crop.
[1632] Report of the Debt Commission, Jan. 24, 1876; Senate Journal, 1875-1876, pp. 203-232; Report of the Joint Committee on the Public Debt, Feb. 23, 1876; Annual Cyclopædia (1875), p. 14; “Northern Alabama,” p. 52; Final Report of the Committee of the Alabama and Chattanooga Bondholders, London, 1876; McClure, “The South,” p. 83; Second Report of the Debt Commission, Dec. 13, 1876.
[1633] Senate Journal, 1876-1876, p. 316.
[1634] Second Report, Dec. 13, 1876.
[1635] Second Report of the Debt Commission, Dec. 13, 1876.
[1636] Annual Cyclopædia (1875), p. 14; “Northern Alabama,” pp. 51, 51; Acts of 1874-1875.
[1637] Auditor’s Report, 1902, p. 14.
[1638] E.g. the State Bank.
[1639] T. H. Clark, “Railroads and Navigation,” in “Memorial Record of Alabama,” Vol. II, pp. 322-323; Martin, “Internal Improvements in Alabama,” pp. 72-77; Garrett, “Public Men,” pp. 577, 580.
[1640] Martin, “Internal Improvements,” pp. 65-68.
[1641] Martin, “Internal Improvements,” p. 42 et seq.
[1642] Martin, “Internal Improvements,” pp. 68-71; Auditor’s Report, Oct. 12, 1869.
[1643] Census, 1850, 1860.
[1644] Acts of Ala., 1866-1867, pp. 686-694.
[1645] The constitution of 1867, Art. 13, Sec. 13, provided that the credit of the state should not be given nor loaned except in aid of railways or internal improvements, and then only by a two-thirds vote of each house.
[1646] Acts of Ala., Aug. 7 and Sept. 22, 1868. The promoters of the roads claimed that the old law was useless, but that $16,000 a mile would attract northern and European capital. Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 52.
[1647] Governor’s Message, Nov. 15, 1869. The carpet-bag auditor also advocated the repeal of the law. He thought that no road should be indorsed for more than $10,000 a mile, since the average value was less than $13,000 a mile.
[1648] Act of Feb. 21, 1870, Acts of Ala., 1869-1870
[1649] Act of March 1, 1870, Acts of Ala., 1869-1870, p. 286.
[1650] Act of April 21, 1873, Acts of Ala., 1872-1873, p. 45.
[1651] Acts of Oct. 6 and Nov. 17, 1868, Acts of Ala., 1868, pp. 207, 347; Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 52; Annual Cyclopædia (1871), pp. 7, 8. The railroad must have intended to profit by the indorsement, and must have paid for it, for when, a year later, ex-Governor Patton, who for the sake of respectability was made the nominal president, was in Boston, he was reproached by the Alabama and Chattanooga officials for allowing their charter to cost them $200,000. See Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 232.
[1652] Alabama vs. Burr, 115 United States Reports, p. 418. Burr, J. C. Stanton, and D. N. Stanton had been prosecuted by the state of Alabama for the fraudulent use of indorsed bonds.
[1653] Governor Smith’s Message, Nov. 15, 1869.
[1654] Auditor’s Report, 1870.
[1655] Message in Independent Monitor, Dec. 13, 1870.
[1656] Independent Monitor, June 14, 1871; Ku Klux Rept., pp. 172, 317; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 193; Auditor’s Report, 1871.
[1657] Act of Feb. 11, 1870, Acts of Ala., 1869-1870.
[1658] Montgomery Mail, Jan. 25, 1871; Southern Argus, Feb. 2, 1872, and Feb. 28, 1873; Somers, “Southern States,” p. 157; Report of the House Railroad Investigation Committee, 1871; Herbert, “Solid South,” pp. 52, 53. Colonel Herbert says that the Alabama and Chattanooga officials demanded the $2,000,000 and received it. “Solid South,” p. 53. The legislature that voted the gift of $2,000,000 was composed as follows: Senate, 32 Radicals and 1 Democrat; House, 85 Radicals (of whom 20 were negroes) and 15 doubtful Democrats. The carpet-bag editor of the Demopolis Republican said: “Men who never paid ten dollars’ tax in their lives talk as flippantly of millions as the schoolboy of his marbles. Meanwhile, outsiders talk of buying and selling men at prices which would have been a disgrace to a slave before the war.” Montgomery Mail, Jan. 25, 1871.
[1659] Annual Cyclopædia (1870), p. 10.
[1660] Report of the House Railroad Committee, 1871; Ku Klux Rept., p. 319.
[1661] Ku Klux Rept., p. 319; House Journal, 1870-1871, p. 236; Report of the House Railroad Investigating Committee, 1871; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 232; J. P. Stow, Radical senator from Montgomery, said that when Hardy left at the end of the session, he carried away $150,000. Not all of it was his own; some of it he had collected for others. One senator is said to have held his vote at $1000 regularly.
[1662] Senate Journal, 1873; Appendix containing Journal of the Capitol Senate, 1872, pp. 19-34; Lindsay’s Message, 1872, to the Capitol Legislature. Lindsay said that all the Democrats worked hard to prevent the passage of the $2,000,000 bill; that he himself worked in the lobby until three o’clock in the morning trying to defeat the thieves. Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 199.
[1663] Ku Klux Rept., p. 318; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 196; Report of the House Investigation Committee, p. 1871. Ex-Governor Patton testified that though president of the Alabama and Chattanooga road, he had opposed the bill and in consequence had been displaced, D. N. Stanton of Boston being elected. Patton stated that none of the capital stock had at this time been paid in by the stockholders.
In 1870-1871 “another set of financiers had made up their minds to come down South and help Alabama. Their demand was for $5,000,000 with which to set furnaces and factories going. They were too late. If they had only come the session before, there was no chance for a bill containing $5,000,000, properly pressed, to have failed.” But the lower house now had a Democratic majority. Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 57.
[1664] Senate Journal, 1870-1871, p. 78; Lindsay’s Message, Nov. 21, 1871; Senate Journal, 1870-1871.
[1665] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 195, 196; Lindsay’s Messages, 1871-1872; Lindsay’s Statement of Facts, April 22, 1871; Report of Commissioners of the Public Debt, Jan. 24, 1876.
[1666] Act of Feb. 25, 1871.
[1667] Statement of Facts which influenced Governor Robert B. Lindsay in his Action in regard to the Bonds of the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad Company, April 22, 1871; Lindsay’s Message, Nov. 21, 1871. While Lindsay was in New York, Ex-Governor Smith called on him and half acknowledged the whole affair. Ala. Test., p. 199. Afterwards in a letter Smith strongly protested that some of the bonds signed and sealed by himself were fraudulent, and blamed Governor Lindsay and the legislature for recognizing them. He acknowledged that his carelessness had resulted in the present state of affairs. Somers, “Southern States,” p. 158. April 3, 1871, Smith wrote, “I admit that if I had attended strictly to the indorsement and issue of these bonds, that all this never would have occurred.” Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 53.
[1668] Statement of Facts, April 22, 1871; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 198, 199. Lindsay said that since the Alabama and Chattanooga road was indorsed under the laws of 1867 and 1868, it did not come under the laws of 1870. Consequently, when the Alabama and Chattanooga defaulted, the state was not bound to pay interest on the $2,000,000 state bonds until the legislature acted in March, 1871.
In his Statement of Facts, Lindsay relates a suggestive and illuminating incident: On Dec. 13, 1870, John Demerett, an Alabama and Chattanooga bondholder, brought suit in the Superior Court of King’s County, New York, against the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad Company, the state of Alabama, and one F. B. Loomis (of the Alabama and Chattanooga Company), alleging that the said railway company was about to place on the market 500 first mortgage bonds numbered from 4800 to 5300, indorsed by the governor of Alabama in violation of the law. Demerett prayed for an injunction to restrain the company from selling the bonds. The records showed that the state of Alabama appeared by her attorney, one William D. Vieder, who declared on affidavit that he was employed by Henry Clews & Company, financial agents of Alabama. Vieder filed an answer in behalf of Alabama, stating that the bonds numbered 4801 to 5300 were properly indorsed, and were of the same class as others issued by the company, that the indorsement was in conformity to law, and that in no case would the bonds be repudiated. The injunction was dissolved and the company permitted to sell. To the Ku Klux Committee Lindsay suggested that Smith might have signed the illegal bonds after he went out of office, as they were not placed on the market until January, 1871. (See Ala. Test., p. 197.) But the Demerett case seems to disprove this and to show that the bonds were issued while Smith was governor. The House Railroad Investigation Committee, in 1871, reported that Smith asserted that the fraudulent indorsements were secured by the active coöperation of Henry Clews & Company, Souter & Company, and Braunfels of Émile Erlanger et Cie., with the Stantons. Southern Argus, Feb. 2, 1875. Lindsay further stated that there were evidences of collusion between Stanton and Smith to secure the election of the latter in 1870 at all hazards. They wanted to gain time in order to conceal the irregularity in the issue of bonds. Stanton furnished much money to the campaign fund, and on election day marched to the registration office at the head of 900 railroad employees, who came from the entire length of the road, had them registered, gave each of them a Radical ticket, and then voted them in a body. Ala. Test., pp. 193, 197.
[1669] Acts of Alabama, 1870-1871, pp. 12, 13.
[1670] Ku Klux Rept., p. 172.
[1671] Annual Cyclopædia (1871), pp. 7, 8; Lindsay’s Message, Nov. 21, 1871; Senate Journal, 1871-1872, pp. 44, 320; Report of John H. Gindrat, Receiver of the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad, 1871.
The engineers in the employ of the state reported that to put the road in Alabama in fair condition at the time it was seized would require $507,983.74. Twenty-four miles of rails were old ones that Sherman had burned. Report of Farrand and Thom, Nov. 9, 1871; Senate Journal, 1871-1872, p. 43. To complete the road, Gindrat reported that $1,000,000 would be needed. Senate Journal, 1871-1872, p. 337.
At the time the road was seized $10,500,000 from all sources had disappeared. Part of it was spent on the road, which, with all equipment, in 1871 was valued at $6,120,995. (An estimate of its value in 1873 was $4,183,388.) The capital stock authorized was $7,500,000, of which only $2,700,000 was ever paid in. Ku Klux Rept., pp. 172, 173; Auditor’s Report, 1871 and 1873. The earnings of the road from November, 1872, to November, 1873, were $232,583.96. The expenses of the road from November, 1872, to November, 1873, were $1,083,851.90. Report of the Receiver of the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad, 1873.
[1672] Rice and Chilton, attorneys of the Alabama and Chattanooga road, gave the state much trouble. Rice was a scalawag, but several partners he had at that time and later were Democrats.
[1673] During the whole time there was a large element in favor of not recognizing the legality of the bond issues authorized by the carpet-bag legislatures. The carpet-bag government was not a government of the people, but was imposed and upheld by military force, some said, and had no right to vote away the money of the people without their consent. The Selma Times, March 5, 1874, voiced this sentiment: “Alabama must and will be ruled by whites.... We will not pay a single dollar of the infamous debt, piled upon us by fraud, bribery, and corruption, known as the ‘bond swindle’ debt. Let the bondholders take the railroads.” See Senate Journal, 1875-1876, pp. 213-221.
[1674] Annual Cyclopædia (1871), p. 8; (1872), pp. 8, 9; Lewis’s Message, Dec. 20, 1872; Senate Journal, 1872-1873, p. 43; Lewis’s Message, Nov. 1874; Senate Journal, 1874-1875; Final Report of the Committee of the Alabama and Chattanooga Bondholders, London, 1876; Acts of Ala., Dec. 21, 1872; Acts of Ala., March 20, 1875.
[1675] Lewis’s Message, Nov., 1874.
[1676] Ku Klux Rept., p. 173; Governor Houston’s Message, Dec., 1875; Senate Journal, 1875-1876.
[1677] Governor Lewis’s Message, Nov., 1874; Senate Journal, 1874-1875.
[1678] Report of House Railroad Committee; Auditor’s Report, 1873.
[1679] Auditor’s Report, 1871.
[1680] Martin, “Internal Improvements,” p. 70; Auditor’s Report, 1869; Acts of Dec. 30, 1869, Acts of Ala., 1868, pp. 487, 494. The South and North road was merely an expansion of “The Mountain Railroad Company,” an old corporation.
[1681] Acts of 1869-1880, p. 374.
[1682] Message, in Independent Monitor, Dec. 13, 1870.
[1683] Report of House Railroad Inv. Com., 1871. See also Report of Auditor, 1870, which says $1,980,000 indorsement.
[1684] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 197.
[1685] Auditor’s Report, 1871.
[1686] Ku Klux Rept., p. 318; Report of House Railroad Inv. Com., 1871.
[1687] Montgomery Mail, Feb. 24, 1870.
[1688] Message, Nov. 17, 1874.
[1689] Report of House Railroad Inv. Com., 1871; Lewis’s Message, Nov. 17, 1873; Auditor’s Report, 1869; Auditor’s Report, 1873; House Journal, 1871-1872, pp. 305, 353; Acts of 1869-1870, p. 290.
[1690] Southern Argus, Feb. 2, 1872; Governor Lewis’s Message, Nov. 17, 1873; Auditor’s Report, 1871 and 1873.
[1691] Lewis’s Message, Nov. 17, 1873; Auditor’s Report, 1873; Act of Jan. 17, 1870.
[1692] Southern Argus, Feb. 2, 1872; Auditor’s Report, 1873; Lewis’s Messages, 1873.
[1693] Southern Argus, Feb. 2, 1872; Auditor’s Reports, 1871 and 1873; Mathes, “General Forrest,” p. 362; Wyeth, “Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest,” pp. 617, 619. When Smith had indorsed this road for $720,000, he reported the amount as $640,000. Independent Monitor, Dec. 13, 1870.
[1694] Act of Dec. 30, 1868.
[1695] Senate Journal, 1872-1873, pp. 416-422; Acts of Ala., 1872-1873, p. 58; Auditor’s Reports, 1871, 1873; Governor Lewis’s Report, Nov. 17, 1873.
[1696] Act of Feb. 25, 1870.
[1697] Auditor’s Report, 1873.
[1698] $1,300,000 fraudulent indorsement; $2,000,000 in state bonds in addition.
[1699] No record of $80,000 indorsement.
[1700] Also “three per cent fund” amounting to $30,000+, and state bonds amounting to $300,000. No record of $720,000.
[1701] No record of $1,500,000.
[1702] No record of $160,000. Also a loan of $40,000.
[1703] No record of $45,000.
[1704] Including $2,200,000, of which no record was found.
[1705] Act of Dec. 31, 1868; Acts of 1868, p. 514.
[1706] Southern Argus, June 14, 1872; Miller, “Alabama,” p. 278; Acts of Ala., passim; “Northern Alabama,” p. 737; Brown, “Alabama,” p. 291; Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 53.
[1707] A commission from Mobile visited the schools in New York, Boston, and other cities of the North.
[1708] Exclusive of Mobile County, which, as the honored pioneer, has always been outside of, and a model for, the state system.
[1709] Clark, “History of Education in Alabama,” pp. 221-241; Report of the United States Commissioner of Education, 1876, p. 6.
[1710] The son of ex-Governor Watts. Clark, p. 94.
[1711] See [Ch. XI, Sec. 3].
[1712] Clark, p. 95 et passim. In 1869 N. B. Cloud, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, asked the legislature to make the loan a gift, since the destruction of the buildings was “the natural fruits of secession,” the fault of the “purblind leaders” who “pretended to secede.” Therefore he thought the state was responsible for the damage done the University.
[1713] See Journal Convention of 1867, p. 242 et passim, and above, Chs. XIV and XV.
[1714] There were four congressional districts.
[1715] The supreme court decided in regard to the Board of Education: “The new system has not only administrative, but full legislative, powers concerning all matters having reference to the common school and public educational interests of the state. It cannot be destroyed nor essentially changed by legislative authority.” Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1873, p. 5. But in 1873-1874 the legislature, however, by refusing appropriations, did manage to nullify the work of the Board.
[1716] Constitution of 1867, Art. XI.
[1717] In 1871 the legislature repealed this act, and a case that arose was carried to the United States supreme court, which, reversing a former decision of the state supreme court, held that the action of one legislature could not restrain subsequent legislatures from legislating for the public welfare by suppressing practices that tended to corrupt public morals. Besides, the court professed itself unable to find in the act any authority for a lottery. See Boyd vs. Alabama, 94 United States Reports, p. 645 (opinion by Justice Field).
[1718] Act of Dec. 31, 1868. At the same time the office of Commissioner of Lotteries was created, with a salary of $2000 a year.
[1719] This is the opinion of two subsequent members—one a Democrat and one a Radical. See also Ku Klux Report, Ala. Test., p. 426. The members were G. L. Putnam, A. B. Collins (Collins was made a professor in the University, but murdered Haughey, the Radical Congressman, and fled from the state), W. D. Miller, Jesse H. Booth, Thomas A. Cook, James Nichols, William H. Clayton, Gustavus A. Smith,—four scalawags and four carpet-baggers. The first two named resigned to accept offices created by the board. See Register of the University of Alabama, 1831-1901, p. 20.
[1720] Report, Nov. 10, 1869.
[1721] This was done at the instance of the aid societies from the North which had been doing work among the negroes.
[1722] Acts, Aug. 11, 1868. Public School Laws (pamphlet). See also Acts of Ala., 1868, pp. 147-160.
[1723] Clark, p. 98.
[1725] Nicholas Davis, a north Alabama Republican, had this to say about Lakin to the Ku Klux subcommittee: “He called on me to explain why I said unkind things about his being candidate for president of the Alabama University, and I said, ‘Mr. Lakin, you and I are near neighbors, and I don’t want to have much to do with you—not much; but I think this: didn’t you try to be president of the Alabama University?’ He said he did. I said, ‘It would have been a disgrace to the state. You don’t know an adjective from a verb, nor nothing else.’... He says, ‘... but I rather didn’t like what you said.’ I said, ‘Doctor, you will have to like it or let it alone.’ He let it alone.”—Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 784.
[1726] Clark, p. 98, is not correct on this point; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 111, 112, 113, 114; account of Dr. O. D. Smith of the second Board of Education; Independent Monitor, Aug. 9 and Sept. 1, 1868.
[1727] For the picture see Ala. Test., p. 113, or the Independent Monitor, Sept 1, 1868. Ryland Randolph, the editor of the Monitor at that time, says that the picture was made from a rough woodcut, fashioned in the Monitor office. The Cincinnati Commercial published an edition of 500,000 copies of the hanging picture for distribution as a campaign document. A Columbus, Ohio, newspaper also printed for distribution a larger edition containing the famous picture. This was during the Seymour-Grant campaign, and the Democratic newspapers and leaders of the state were furious at Randolph for furnishing such excellent campaign literature to the Radicals.
[1728] Clark, p. 98; Independent Monitor, Jan. 5 and March 23, 1869.
[1729] Selma Times and Messenger, Aug. 9, 1868.
[1730] Clark, pp. 98, 99. Monitor, Jan. 5, March 1 and 23, 1869. “The Reconstruction University,” a farce, was acted at the court-house for the benefit of the brass band. There was no hope whatever that the reconstructed faculty would have a pleasant time.
[1731] See the Monitor, March 1, 1869.
[1732] Richards was at the same time state senator from Wilcox, sheriff of the same county, contractor to feed prisoners, and professor in the University. His income from all the offices was about $12,000, the professorship paying about $2500.
[1733] Report of Cloud, Nov., 1869. Clark, p. 99.
[1734] See Monitor, April 6, 1869. The editor of the Monitor finally came to grief because of his attacks on the Radical faculty. His paper had charged Professor V. H. Vaughn with drunkenness, whipping his wife, incompetence, etc. After a year of such pleasantries, Vaughn, who was a timid man, determined to secure assistance and be revenged. In the University was a student named Smith, son of a regent and nephew of the governor, who, on account of his Union record, was given the position of steward of the mess hall, after the removal of the old steward. Smith had been in trouble about abstracting stores from the University commissary, and the Monitor had not spared him. So he and Vaughn with their guns went after Randolph, and Smith shot him “while Vaughn stood at a respectful distance.” Randolph lost his leg from the shot. Smith and Vaughn were put in jail, but through the connivance of the officials made their escape. Vaughn went to Washington and was given an office in Utah territory. See Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 1979.
[1735] He was a competent man, well educated and possessing administrative ability. In the secession convention he had led the coöperationist forces.
[1736] Clark, pp. 99-101; Monitor, Jan. 10 and 25 and March 28, 1871. The Register of the University (p. 218) gives only thirteen names for the session 1870-1871. No record was kept at the University.
[1737] See Register of the University of Alabama, p. 217.
[1738] These notices were printed in the Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 418. They were fastened to the door with a dagger. The students who were notified left at once.
[1739] See Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 426 (Speed).
[1740] The following table gives the enrolment of students during Reconstruction:—
| Session | Students | |
| 1868-9 | ||
| 1869-70 | 30 | |
| 1870-1 | 21 | |
| 1871-2 | 107 | |
| 1872-3 | 135 | |
| 1873-4 | 53 | |
| 1874-5 | 74 | |
| 1875-6 | 111 | |
| 1876-7 | 164 |
[1741] I have this account from the men who furnished the bribes.
[1742] Clark, p. 99.
[1743] Finley had been doorkeeper for the first Board (1868-1870), and in 1870 was elected to serve four years. He was a member of the convention of 1867 and of the legislature. He had no education and no ability, but he was a sensible negro and was an improvement on the white men of the preceding Board.
[1744] Journal of the Board of Education and Regents, June 20, 1871.
[1745] Act of Dec. 6, 1873, School Laws.
[1746] Clark, p. 232; Report of Cloud, Nov., 1869; Montgomery Mail, Sept. 16, 1870. In connection with the act merging the Mobile schools into the state system, the Board of Education took occasion to enlarge or complete its constitutional powers. There was no limit, according to the Constitution, to the time for the governor to retain acts of the Board. Governor Smith had pocketed several obnoxious educational bills, and the Board now resolved “that the same rules and provisions which by law govern and define the time and manner in which the governor of the state shall approve of or object to any bill or resolution of the General Assembly shall also apply to any bill or resolution having the force of law passed by this Board of Education.” The governor approved neither resolution nor the Mobile act, but they were both declared in force. Montgomery Mail, Nov. 3, 1870.
[1747] Senate Journal, 1869-1870, p. 419.
[1748] Montgomery Mail, Sept. 16, 1870.
[1749] A specimen pay-roll of Emerson Institute (“Blue College”) for the quarter ending March 31, 1869:—
| Months | Salary | Total | |
| G. L. Putnam, Supt. of Colored Schools | 3 | $333.33 | $1000.00 |
| H. S. Kelsey, Prin. Emerson Institute | 3 | 225.00 | 675.00 |
| E. I. Ethridge, Prin. Grammar School | 3 | 200.00 | 600.00 |
| Susie A. Carley, Prin. Lower School | 3 | 180.00 | 540.00 |
| A. A. Rockfellow, Prin. Intermediate School | 3 | 105.00 | 315.00 |
| Sarah A. Primey, Prin. Intermediate School | 3 | 105.00 | 315.00 |
| M. L. Harris, Prin. Intermediate School | 3 | 105.00 | 315.00 |
| M. A. Cooley, Prin. Intermediate School | 3 | 105.00 | 315.00 |
| M. E. F. Smith, Prin. Intermediate School | 3 | 105.00 | 315.00 |
| Ruth A. Allen, Primary School | 3 | 105.00 | 315.00 |
| N. G. Lincoln, Primary School | 3 | 105.00 | 315.00 |
| M. L. Theyer, Primary School | 3 | 105.00 | 315.00 |
| Judge Rapier, legal opinion | — | — | 50.00 |
| American Missionary Association, fuel | — | — | 40.00 |
| Total | $5425.00 |
At this time the average salary of the teacher in the state schools was $42 a month.
[1750] Montgomery Mail, Sept. 16, 1876. Cloud’s Report, Nov., 1869, shows that $10,447.23 had been drawn out of the treasury by Putnam, and he had also drawn $2000 for his salary as county superintendent.
[1751] Report of the Auditor, 1871; Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1871, 1876.
[1752] See Act of Dec. 2, 1869; Somers, “Southern States,” pp. 169, 170.
[1753] The law stated that the trustees were to receive $2 a day, but Cloud said that it was a mistake, as it should be the clerks who were paid, and thus it was done. There were 1485 clerks in the state; they were paid about $60,000 a year. The county superintendents received about $65,000, an average of $1000 each, which was paid from the school fund. Before the war the average salary of the county superintendent was $300 and was paid by the county. In few counties was the work of the county superintendent sufficient to keep him busy more than two days in the week. Many of the superintendents stayed in their offices only one day in the week. The expenses of the Board of Education were from $3000 to $5000 a year, not including the salary of the state superintendent. Montgomery Mail, Sept. 15 and 16, 1870.
[1754] Hodgson’s Report, 1871; Ala. Test., p. 233.
[1755] Cloud, the state superintendent, had power of attorney to act for certain county superintendents. This he sub-delegated to his son, W. B. Cloud, who drew warrants for $8551.31, which were allowed by the auditor. This amount was the school fund for the following counties: Sumter, $1,535.59; Pickens, $6,423.17; Winston, $215.89; Calhoun, $176.66; Marshall, $200.00.
A clerk in the office of C. A. Miller, the secretary of state, forged Miller’s name as attorney and drew $3,238.39 from the Etowah County fund. Miller swore that he had notified both auditor and treasurer that he would not act as attorney to draw money for any one.
John B. Cloud bought whiskey with tax stamps. See Hodgson’s Report, 1871; Ala. Test., p. 233; Montgomery Advertiser, Sept. 27, 1872.
[1756] Hodgson’s Report, 1871; Montgomery Advertiser, Sept. 27, 1872; Report of the Commission to Examine State Offices, 1871.
[1757] Somers, pp. 169, 170.
[1758] Montgomery Mail, Sept. 15, 1870.
[1759] Somers, “Southern States,” p. 170; voters only counted as polls.
[1760] Montgomery Mail, Sept. 15, 1870.
[1761] In recent years the people have demanded and obtained a different class of school histories, such as those of Derry, Lee, Jones, Thompson, Cooper, Estill, and Lemmon. Adams and Trent is an example of one of the compromise works that resulted from the demand of the southerners for books less tinctured with northern prejudices.
[1762] Cloud’s Report, Nov., 1869; Hodgson’s Report, 1871; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 426; Montgomery Conference, “Race Problems,” p. 107.
[1763] See Ala. Test., p. 236 (General Clanton).
[1764] Ku Klux Rept., p. 53; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 234, 235.
[1765] Ala. Test., p. 1123.
[1766] Montgomery Advertiser, July 30, 1866; Selma Times, June 30, 1866.
[1767] Ala. Test., p. 236.
[1768] Selma Times, Dec. 30, 1865; Gulf States Hist. Mag., Sept., 1902.
[1769] Trowbridge, “The South,” p. 431.
[1770] Marion Commonwealth; meeting held May 17, 1866.
[1771] Montgomery Advertiser, July 24, 1867; Ala. Test., p. 236.
[1772] Montgomery Advertiser, July 24, 1867; Ala. Test., pp. 236, 246.
[1774] For specimen letters written to their homes, see the various reports of the Freedmen’s Aid Society of the Methodist Church, and the reports of other aid societies.
[1775] The best-known instances of the killing of such negroes were in Tuscaloosa and Chambers counties. The Ku Klux Report gives only about half a dozen cases of outrages on teachers. See Ala. Test., pp. 52, 54, 67, 71, 140, 252, 755, 1047, 1140, 1853. Cloud in his report made no mention of violence to teachers, nor did the governor. Lakin said a great deal about it, but gave no instances that were not of the well-known few. There was much less violence than is generally supposed, even in the South.
[1776] Ala. Test., p. 252.
[1777] See Ala. Test., pp. 236, 1889; Somers, “Southern States,” p. 169; Report of the Joint Committee on Outrages, 1868. In Crenshaw, Butler, and Chambers counties some schools existed for a year or more until teachers of bad character were elected. Then the neighborhood roughs burned the school buildings. Neither Cloud nor any other official reported cases of such burnings. The legislative committee could discover but two, and in both instances the women teachers were of bad character. In the records can be found only seventeen reports of burnings, and several of these were evidently reports of the same instance; few were specific. Lakin, who spent several years in travelling over north Alabama, and who was much addicted to fabrication and exaggeration, made a vague report of “the ruins of a dozen” schoolhouses. (Ala. Test., pp. 140, 141.) There may have been more than half a dozen burnings in north Alabama, but there is no evidence that such was the case. The majority of the reports originated outside the state through pure malice. The houses burned were principally in the white counties and were, as Lakin reports, slight affairs costing from $25 to $75. It was so evident that some of the fires were caused by the carelessness of travellers and hunters who camped in them at night, that the legislature passed a law forbidding that practice. See Acts of Ala., p. 187. About as many schoolhouses for whites were destroyed as for blacks. Some were fired by negroes for revenge, others were burned by accident.
[1778] Weekly Mail, Aug. 18, 1869.
[1779] Demopolis New Era, April 1, 1868.
[1780] Hodgson’s Report, Nov. 11, 1871.
[1781] Hodgson’s Report, Nov. 15, 1871.
[1782] Hodgson’s Report, Nov. 15, 1871.
[1783] For opinions in regard to the value of the early education among the negroes, see Washington’s “Future of the American Negro” and “Up from Slavery”; W. H. Thomas’s “American Negro”; P. A. Bruce’s “Plantation Negro as a Freeman”; J. L. M. Curry, in Montgomery Conference.
[1784] Montgomery Advertiser, July 24, 1867.
[1785] Ala. Test., p. 236.
[1786] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. Dr. J. L. M. Curry, who, in 1865, began his work for the education of the negro, has thus expressed his opinion of the early attempts to educate the blacks: “The education was unsettling, demoralizing, pandered to a wild frenzy for schooling as the quick method of reversing social and political conditions. Nothing could have been better devised for deluding the poor negro, and making him the tool, the slave, of corrupt taskmasters.... With deliberate purpose to subject the southern states to negro domination and secure the states permanently for partisan ends, the education adopted was contrary to common sense, to human experience, to all noble purposes. The aptitude and capabilities and needs of the negro were wholly disregarded. Especial stress was laid on classics and liberal culture to bring the race per saltum to the same plane with their former masters, and realize the theory of social and political equality. Colleges and universities, established and conducted by the Freedmen’s Bureau and northern churches and societies, sprang up like mushrooms, and the teachers, ignorant and fanatical, without self-poise, proceeded to make all possible mischief.” Montgomery Conference, “Race Problems,” p. 109. See also the papers of Rev. D. Clay Lilly and Dr. P. B. Barringer in Montgomery Conference, “Race Problems,” p. 130; William H. Baldwin and Dr. Curry in Second Capon Springs Conference; Barringer, “The American Negro: His Past and Future”; Barringer, W. T. Harris, and J. D. Dreher in Proceedings Southern Education Association, 1900; Haygood, “Pleas for Progress” and “Our Brother in Black”; Abbott, “Rights of Man,” pp. 225-226.
[1787] The United States Commissioner of Education, in his report for that year, made before the elections, stated that in educational matters the state of Alabama was about to take a “backward step,” meaning that it was about to become Democratic. Report, 1870, p. 15. Later he made similar remarks, much to the disgust of Hodgson, who was an enthusiast in educational matters.
[1788] Journal of the Board of Education and Regents, 1870. Dr. O. D. Smith, who was one of the newly elected Democratic members of the Board, says that Cloud refused to inform the Board of the contents of Hodgson’s communications. Thereupon Hodgson addressed one to the Board directly and not to Cloud. When it came in through the mail, Cloud took possession of it, but Dr. Smith, who was on the lookout, called his attention to the fact that it was addressed to the Board and reminded him of the penalties for tampering with the mail of another person. The secretary read Hodgson’s communication, and the Board was then free to act. The Democratic members convinced the Radicals that if Cloud continued in office they would not be able to draw their per diem, so Cloud was compelled to vacate at once. When he left he had his buggy brought to the door, and into it he loaded all the government coal that was in his office and carried it away.
[1789] Hodgson’s Report, 1872.
[1790] See Hodgson’s Report, 1871.
[1791] Hodgson’s Report, 1871; Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1876, p. 7; Journal of the Board of Education and Regents, 1871; Acts of the Board of Education, pamphlet.
[1792] And this was the case notwithstanding the fact that the county superintendents were now allowed mileage at the rate of eight cents a mile in order to get them to come to Montgomery for their money and thus to decrease the chances of corrupt practices of the attorneys. Hodgson complained that many old claims which should have been settled by Cloud were presented during his administration.
[1793] Speed was a southern Radical. During the war he was a state salt agent at the salt works in Virginia. He was a member of the Board of Education from 1870 to 1872, and was far above the average Radical office-holder in both character and ability.
[1794] Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1873, 1874, 1876; Speed’s Report, 1873. Speed was ill much of the time, and his bookkeeping was little better than Cloud’s. Two clerks, who, a committee of investigation stated, were distinguished by a “total want of capacity and want of integrity,” managed the department with “such a want of system ... as most necessarily kept it involved in inextricable confusion.” Money was received and not entered on the books. A sum of money in coin was received in June, 1873, and six months later was paid into the treasury in depreciated paper. Vouchers were stolen and used again. Bradshaw, a county superintendent, died, leaving a shortage of $10,019.06 in his accounts. A large number of vouchers were abstracted from the office of Speed by some one and used again by Bradshaw’s administrator, who was no other than Dr. N. B. Cloud, who made a settlement with Speed’s clerks, and when the shortage was thus made good, the administrator still had many vouchers to spare. This seems to have been Cloud’s last raid on the treasury. Montgomery Advertiser, Dec. 18, 1873; Report of the Joint Committee on Irregularities in the Department of Education, 1873.
[1795] Under the Reconstruction administrative expenses amounted to 16 per cent, and even more.
[1796] The experiences with the American Missionary Association, etc., made this provision necessary.
[1797] The United States Commissioner of Education gave a disapproving account of these changes. It was exchanging “a certainty for an uncertainty,” he said. Speed had not found it a “certainty” by any means.
[1798] Plus the poll tax, which was not appropriated as required by the constitution, but diverted to other uses.
[1799] There was a shortage of $187,872.49, diverted to other uses.
[1800] Shortage unknown; teachers were paid in depreciated state obligations.
[1801] Shortage was $330,036.93.
[1802] Only $68,313.93 was paid, the rest diverted; shortage now was $1,260,511.92.
[1803] None was paid, all diverted; shortage nearly two millions.
[1804] All was paid (by Democrats, who were now in power).
[1805] McTyeire, “A History of Methodism,” p. 670; Smith, “Life and Times of George F. Pierce”; Southern Review, April, 1872.
[1806] Buckley, “History of Methodism in the United States,” pp. 516, 517.
[1807] Matlack, “Anti-Slavery Struggle and Triumph in the Methodist Episcopal Church,” p. 339; Smith, “Life and Times of George F. Pierce,” p. 530.
[1808] Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 552; Caldwell, “Reconstruction of Church and State in Georgia” (pamphlet).
[1809] Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 552.
[1810] “The schismatical plans of the Northern Methodists and the subtle proselytism of the Episcopalians” (Pierce). See Smith, “Life and Times of George F. Pierce,” pp. 491, 499, 505, 530; West, “History of Methodism in Alabama,” p. 717; McTyeire, “A History of Methodism,” p. 673.
[1811] A Federal official in north Alabama who had known of Lakin in the North testified that he had had a bad reputation in New York and in Illinois and had been sent South as a means of discipline. See Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 619 (L. W. Day, United States Commissioner). Governor Lindsay said that Lakin was a shrewd, cunning, strong-willed man, given to exaggeration and lying,—one who had a “jaundiced eye,” “a magnifying eye,” and who among the blacks was a power for evil. Ala. Test., p. 180.
[1812] N. Y. Herald, May 10, 1868; Buckley, “History of Methodism,” Vol. II, p. 191.
[1813] In 1871, Lakin stated that of his 15,000 members, three-fourths were whites of the poorer classes; that there were under his charge 6 presiding elders’ districts with 70 circuits and stations, and 70 ministers and 150 local preachers; and that he had been assisted in securing the “loyal” element by several ministers who had been expelled by the Southern Methodists during the war as traitors. Ala. Test., pp. 124, 130. Governor Lindsay stated that some of the whites of Lakin’s church were to be found in the counties of Walker, Winston, and Blount; that there were few such white congregations, and that some of these afterward severed their connection with the northern church, and by 1872 there were only two or three in the state. Lakin worked among the negro population almost entirely, and his statement that three-fourths of his members were whites was not correct. See Ala. Test., pp. 180, 208.
[1814] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 111, 112, 124, 180, 623, 957. Lakin secured all church property formerly used by the southern church for negro congregations.
[1815] Lakin never acknowledged the present existence of the southern church.
[1816] Ala. Test., pp. 238, 758.
[1817] One of Lakin’s relations was that while he was conducting a great revival meeting among the hills of north Alabama, Governor Smith and other prominent and sinful scalawag politicians were under conviction and were about to become converted. But in came the Klan and the congregation scattered. Smith and the others were so angry and frightened that their good feelings were dissipated, and the devil reëntered them, so that he (Lakin) was never able to get a hold on them again. Consequently, the Klan was responsible for the souls lost that night. Lakin told a dozen or more marvellous stories of his hairbreadth escapes from death by assassination,—enough, if true, to ruin the reputation of north Alabama men for marksmanship.
[1818] Shackleford, “History of the Muscle Shoals Baptist Association,” p. 84.
[1819] Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 106. In 1905 there is a much better spirit, and the churches of the two sections are on good terms, though not united.
[1820] Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 705. See p. [23] and [Ch. IV, Sec. 7], above.
[1821] Thompson, “History of the Presbyterian Churches,” p. 167.
[1822] Annual Cyclopædia (1865), p. 706.
[1823] Carroll, “Religious Forces,” p. 281; Thompson, “History of the Presbyterian Churches,” pp. 163, 171; Johnson, “History of the Southern Presbyterian Churches,” pp. 333, 339.
[1824] Perry, p. 328 et seq.
[1825] Later the northern congregations of the Methodist Protestant Church rejoined the main body, which was southern.
[1826] Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 6, 39th Cong., 2d Sess.
[1827] Riley, “History of the Baptists in Alabama,” p. 310; Montgomery Advertiser, Oct. 15, 1865; N. Y. Times, Oct. 22, 1865; George Brewer, “History of the Central Association,” pp. 46, 49.
[1828] Huntsville Advocate, May 16, 1866.
[1829] Shackleford, “History of the Muscle Shoals Baptist Association,” p. 84.
The Radical missionaries, in order to further their own plans, encouraged the negroes to assert their equality by forcing themselves into the congregations of the various denominations. Governor Lindsay related an incident of a negro woman who went alone into a white church, selected a good pew, and calmly appropriated it. No one molested her, of course. Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 208.
America Trammell, a negro preacher of east Alabama, before the war and afterward as late as 1870 preached to mixed congregations of blacks and whites. A part of the church building was set apart for the whites and a part for the blacks. Later he became affected by the work of the missionaries, and in 1871 began to preach that “Christ never died for the southern people at all; that he died only for the northern people.” A white woman teacher lived in his house, and he was killed by the Ku Klux Klan. Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 1119.
[1830] Ball, “History of Clarke County,” pp. 591, 630; Statistics of Churches, p. 171.
[1831] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 236, 1067.
[1832] “The Work of the Southern Baptists among the Negroes” (pamphlet).
[1833] See the Southern Baptist Convention Advanced Quarterly, p. 30, “Missionary Lesson, The Negroes,” March 29, 1903, which is a most interesting, artless, southern lesson. The northern Baptists also have a mission lesson on the negroes which is distinctly of the abolitionist spirit. The average student will get about the same amount of prepared information from each. See “Home Mission Lesson No. 3, The Negroes.”
[1834] Foster, “Sketch of History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church,” p. 300; Carroll, “Religious Forces,” p. 294; Thompson, “History of the Presbyterian Churches,” p. 193.
[1835] Thompson, “History of the Presbyterian Churches,” p. 193; Scouller, “History of the United Presbyterian Church of North America,” p. 246.
[1836] Montgomery Conference, “Race Problems,” p. 114.
[1837] Eighth Annual Report of the Freedmen’s Aid Society.
[1838] House Rept., No. 121, 41st Cong., 2d Sess.
[1839] See “Race Problems,” p. 139, for a statement of the work now being done among the negroes in Alabama by the Catholic Church.
[1840] Whitaker, “The Church in Alabama,” pp. 193, 205, 206-212. The work of the Episcopal Church among the negroes is more promising in later years. See “Race Problems,” pp. 126-131. It is not a sectional church, with a northern section hindering the work of a southern section among the negroes, as is the Methodist Episcopal Church.
[1841] Carroll, “Religious Forces,” p. 263.
[1842] Montgomery Advertiser, Nov. 24, 1865.
[1843] Montgomery Advertiser, Nov. 11, 1865.
[1844] Report for 1866, Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 6, 39th Cong., 2d Sess.
[1845] Lakin fomented disturbances between the races. His daughter wrote slanderous letters to northern papers, which were reprinted by the Alabama papers. Lakin told the negroes that the whites, if in power, would reëstablish slavery, and advised them, as a measure of safety, physical as well as religious, to unite with the northern church. The scalawags did not like Lakin, and one of them (Nicholas Davis) gave his opinion of him and his talks to the Ku Klux Committee as follows: “The character of his [Lakin’s] speech was this: to teach the negroes that every man that was born and raised in the southern country was their enemy, that there was no use trusting them, no matter what they said,—if they said they were for the Union or anything else. ‘No use talking, they are your enemies.’ And he made a pretty good speech, too; awful; a hell of a one; ... inflammatory and game, too, ... it was enough to provoke the devil. Did all the mischief he could.... I tell you, that old fellow is a hell of an old rascal.” Ala. Test., pp. 784, 791. One of Lakin’s negro congregations complained that they paid for their church and the lot on which it stood, and that Lakin had the deed made out in his name.
[1846] In the Black Belt and in the cities the slaveholders often erected churches or chapels for the use of the negroes, and paid the salary of the white preacher who was detailed by conference, convention, association, or presbytery to look after the religious instruction of the blacks. Nearly always the negro slaves contributed in work or money towards building these houses of worship, and the Reconstruction convention in 1867 passed an ordinance which transferred such property to the negroes whenever they made any claim to it. See Ordinance No. 25, Dec. 2, 1867. See also Acts of 1868, pp. 176-177; Governor Lindsay in Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 180; Montgomery Advertiser, Nov. 24, 1865.
[1847] Huntsville Advocate, May 5, 1865; Carroll, “Religious Forces,” p. 263.
[1848] Reports of the Freedmen’s Aid Society, 1866-1874.
[1849] The first recognition of such work, I find, is in the Report of the Freedmen’s Aid Society in 1878.
[1850] Tenth and Eleventh Reports of the Freedmen’s Aid Society.
[1851] These religious bodies were the African Methodist Episcopal and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion. The former was organized in Philadelphia in 1816, and the latter in New York in 1820. Both were secessions from the Methodist Episcopal Church. See Statistics of Churches, pp. 543, 559. At first there were bitter feuds between the blacks who wished to join the northern churches and those who wished to remain in the southern churches, but the latter were in the minority and they had to go. See Ala. Test., p. 180; Smith, “History of Methodism in Georgia and Florida”; “Life and Times of George F. Pierce,” p. 491.
The main difference between the A. M. E. and the A. M. E. Zion Church, according to a member of the latter, is that in one the dues are 25 cents a week and in the other 20 cents.
[1852] McTyeire, “History of Methodism,” pp. 670-673. A Southern Methodist negro preacher in north Alabama was trying to reorganize his church and was driven away by Lakin, who told his flock that there was a wolf in the fold. See Ala. Test, p. 430. The statements of several of the negro ministers would seem to indicate that Lakin took possession of a number of negro congregations and united them with the Cincinnati Conference without their knowledge. Few of the negroes knew of the divisions in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and most of them thought that Lakin’s course was merely some authorized reorganization after the destruction of war. One witness who knew Lakin in the North said that he was an original secessionist, since, in Peru, Indiana, he broke up a church and organized a secession congregation because he was opposed to men and women sitting together. The same person testified that once in north Alabama Lakin asked for lodging one night at a white man’s house. The host was treated to a lecture by Lakin on the equality of the races, and thereupon sent out and got a negro and put him in a bed to which Lakin was directed at bedtime. He hesitated, but slept with the negro. Ala. Test., pp. 791-794. Lakin was a strange character, and for several years was a powerful influence among the Radicals and negroes of north Alabama. See Ala. Test., p. 959. A Northern Methodist leader among the negroes of Coosa County was the Rev. —— Dorman, who had formerly belonged to the southern church, but had been expelled for immorality. He lived with the negroes and led a lewd life. He advised the negroes to arm themselves and assert their rights, and required them to go armed to church. See Ala. Test., pp. 164, 230. Rev. J. B. F. Hill of Eutaw was another ex-Southern Methodist who taught a negro school and preached to the negroes. He had been expelled from the Alabama Conference (Southern) for stealing money from the church, and it was charged that he tried to sell a coffin which had been sent him and in which he was to send to Ohio the body of a Federal soldier who had died in Eutaw. See Demopolis New Era, April 1, 1868. During the worst days of Reconstruction a number of negro churches which were used as Radical headquarters were burned by the Ku Klux Klan. The Northern Methodist Church is the weakest of the three negro churches; mountaineers and negroes do not mix well. The church is not favored by the whites, and there is opposition to the establishment of a negro university at Anniston by the Freedmen’s Aid Society of this church, on the ground that socially, commercially, and educationally the interests of the white race suffer where an institution is located by this society. See Brundidge (Ala.) News, Aug. 22, 1903.
[1853] McTyeire, “A History of Southern Methodism,” p. 670; Carroll, “Religious Forces,” p. 263; Alexander, “Methodist Episcopal Church South,” pp. 91-133.
[1854] Carroll, “Religious Forces,” p. 263; Bishop Halsey in the N. Y. Independent, March 5, 1891; Statistics of Churches, p. 604.
[1855] W. T. Harris, Richmond Meeting, Southern Educational Association (1900), p. 100.
[1856] See Washington, “Up from Slavery.” One church with two hundred members had eighteen preachers. Exhorters or “zorters” and “pot liquor” preachers were still more numerous.
[1857] “Race Problems,” pp. 114, 120, 123, 126, 130, 131, 135; Haygood, “Our Brother in Black,” passim; Statistics of Churches, p. 171.
[1858] The Nation, July 12, 1866, condensed.
[1859] Caldwell, “Reconstruction of Church and State in Georgia” (pamphlet). The circulars of advice to the blacks by the Freedmen’s Bureau officials repeatedly mention the advisability of the separation of the races in religious matters. But this was less the case in Alabama than in other southern states.
[1860] See Testimony of Minnis in Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test.; Brown, “Lower South,” Ch. IV.
[1861] See above, [Ch. VIII, Sec. 2].
[1862] Saunders, “Early Settlers”; Miller, “Alabama”; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 394 (General Pettus); Somers, “Southern States,” p. 153.
[1863] Ku Klux Rept., pp. 80-81; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 170 (Governor Lindsay).
[1864] Ala. Test., pp. 433, 459 (P. M. Dox, M. C.); p. 1749 (W. S. Mudd); p. 476 (William H. Forney); Beard, “Ku Klux Sketches.”
[1865] Somers, p. 153; Birmingham Age-Herald, May 19, 1901 (J. W. DuBose); Ala. Test., p. 487 (Gen. William H. Forney).
[1866] Ala. Test., p. 230 (General Clanton); pp. 1751, 1758, 1765 (W. S. Mudd).
[1867] Planters who before the war were able to raise their own bacon at a cost of 5 cents a pound now had to kill all the hogs to keep the negroes from stealing them, and then pay 20 to 28 cents a pound for bacon. The farmer dared not turn out his stock. Ala. Test., pp. 230, 247 (Clanton).
[1868] N. Y. World, April 11, 1868 (Montgomery Advertiser). There was a plot to burn Selma and Tuscumbia; Talladega was almost destroyed; the court-house of Greene County was burned and that of Hale set on fire. In Perry County a young man had a difficulty with a carpet-bag official and slapped his face. That night the carpet-bagger’s agents burned the young man’s barn and stables with horses in them. It was generally believed that the penalty for a dispute with a carpet-bagger was the burning of a barn, gin, or stable. See also Brown, “Lower South,” Ch. IV.
[1869] Ala. Test., p. 487 (Gen. William H. Forney).
[1870] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 377, 381, 382, 400, statement of General Pettus, the present junior Senator from Alabama. Pope and Grant continually reminded the old soldiers that their paroles were still in force. Also Beard, “Ku Klux Sketches”; testimony of John D. Minnis, a carpet-bag official, in Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 527-571.
[1871] Ala. Test., p. 224.
[1872] Ala. Test., p. 873 (William M. Lowe).
[1873] See [Ch. XXIII].
[1874] For general accounts: Lester and Wilson, “Ku Klux Klan”; Beard, “Ku Klux Sketches”; Brown, “The Lower South in American History,” Ch. IV; Nordhoff, “Cotton States in 1875”; Somers, “The Southern States.” For documents, see Fleming, “Docs. relating to Reconstruction.” For innumerable details, see the Ku Klux testimony and the testimony taken by the Coburn investigating committee.
[1875] Independent Monitor (Tuscaloosa), April 14, 1868.
[1876] The negroes called them “paterollers.”
[1877] Ala. Test., p. 490 (William H. Forney).
[1878] Ala. Test., p. 873 (William. M. Lowe); p. 443 (P. M. Dox); oral accounts. It must be remembered that, so far as numbers of whites are considered, the Black Belt has always been as a thinly populated frontier region, where every white must care for himself.
[1879] Rev. W. E. Lloyd and Mr. R. W. Burton, both of Auburn, Ala., and numerous negroes have given me accounts of the policy of the black districts soon after the war.
[1880] Ala. Test., p. 1487 (J. J. Garrett).
[1881] Birmingham Age-Herald, May 19, 1901 (J. W. DuBose).
[1882] Ala. Test., p. 592 (L. W. Day).
[1883] Saunders, “Early Settlers”; oral accounts.
[1884] Ala. Test., p. 445 (P. M. Dox); Miller, “Alabama.” The negroes still point out and avoid the trees on which these outlaws were hanged.
[1885] J. W. DuBose and accounts of other members.
[1886] Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, 1866, Pt. III, p. 140 (Swayne).
[1887] Ala. Test., pp. 1125, 1126 (Daniel Taylor); pp. 1136, 1142 (Col. John J. Holley).
[1888] Ala. Test., p. 877 (Wm. M. Lowe); p. 664 (Daniel Coleman).
[1889] “The so-called Ku Klux organizations were formed in this state (Alabama) very soon after the return of our soldiers to their homes, following the surrender. To the best of my recollection, it was during the winter of 1866 that I first heard of the Klan in Alabama.”—Ryland Randolph. The quotations from Randolph are taken from his letters, unless his paper, the Independent Monitor, is referred to.
[1890] “This fellow Jones up at Pulaski got up a piece of Greek and originated it, and then General Forrest took hold of it.”—Nicholas Davis, in Ala. Test., p. 783.
[1891] Lester and Wilson, “Ku Klux Klan,” p. 17; Ala. Test., pp. 660, 661, 1282; accounts of members.
[1892] Ala. Test., p. 660.
[1893] “It [the Klan] originated with the returned soldiers for the purpose of punishing those negroes who had become notoriously and offensively insolent to white people, and, in some cases, to chastise those white-skinned men who, at that particular time, showed a disposition to affiliate socially with negroes. The impression sought to be made was that these white-robed night prowlers were the ghosts of the Confederate dead, who had arisen from their graves in order to wreak vengeance upon an undesirable class of white and black men.”—Randolph.
[1894] Lester and Wilson, Ch. I; Ala. Test., p. 1283 (Blackford); Somers, p. 152; oral accounts.
[1895] General Forrest was the first and only Grand Wizard.
[1896] There could not be more than two Dominions in a single congressional district.
[1897] There might be two Grand Giants in a province.
[1898] The office of Grand Ensign was abolished by the Revised and Amended Prescript, adopted in 1868. The banner was in the shape of an isosceles triangle, five feet by three, of yellow cloth with a three-inch red border. Painted on it in black was a Draco volans, or Flying Dragon, and this motto, “Quod semper, quod umbique, quod ab omnibus.” This, in a note to the Prescript, was translated, “What always, what everywhere, what by all is held to be true.”
[1899] Sources of revenue: (1) sale of the Prescript to Dens for $10 a copy, of which the treasuries of Province, Dominion, and Realm each received $2 and the treasury of the Empire $4; (2) a tax levied by each division on the next lower one, amounting to 10% of the revenue of the subordinate division; (3) a special tax, unlimited, might be levied in a similar manner, when absolutely necessary; (4) the Dens raised money by initiation fees ($1 each), fines, and a poll tax levied when the Grand Cyclops saw fit.
[1900] The Revised Prescript made all officers appointive except the Grand Wizard, who was elected by the Grand Dragons,—a long step toward centralization.
[1901] It was by virtue of this authority that the order was disbanded in 1869.
[1902] The judiciary was abolished by the Revised Prescript.
[1903] “We had a regular system of by-laws, one or two of which only do I distinctly remember. One was, that should any member reveal the names or acts of the Klan, he should suffer the full penalty of the identical treatment inflicted upon our white and black enemies. Another was that in case any member of the Klan should become involved in a personal difficulty with a Radical (white or black), in the presence of any other member or members, he or they were bound to take the part of the member, even to the death, if necessary.”—Randolph.
[1904] “Terrible, horrible, furious, doleful, bloody, appalling, frightful, gloomy,” etc. The Register was changed in the Revised Prescript. It was simply a cipher code.
[1905] The Revised Prescript says “the constitutional laws.” Lester and Wilson, p. 54.
[1906] Compare with the declaration of similar illegal societies,—the “Confréries” of France in the Middle Ages,—which sprang into existence under similar conditions seven hundred years before, “pour defendre les innocents et réprimer les violences iniques.” See Lavisse et Rambaud, “Histoire Générale,” Vol. II, p. 466.
[1907] See also Lester and Wilson, pp. 55, 56.
[1908] I have before me the original Prescript, a small brown pamphlet about three inches by five, of sixteen pages. The title-page has a quotation from “Hamlet” and one from Burns. At the top and bottom of each page are single-line Latin quotations: “Damnant quod non intelligunt”; “Amici humani generis”; “Magna est Veritas, et prevalebit”; “Hic manent vestigia morientis libertatis”; “Cessante causa, cessat effectus”; “Dormitur aliquando jus, moritur nunquam”; “Deo adjuvante, non timendum”; “Nemo nos impune lacessit,” etc. This Prescript belonged to the Grand Giant of the Province of Tuscaloosa County, the late Ryland Randolph, formerly editor of the Independent Monitor, and was given to me by him. It is the only copy known to be in existence. He called it the “Ku Klux Guide Book,” and states that it was sent to him from headquarters at Memphis. An imperfect copy of the original Prescript was captured in 1868, and printed in Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 53, pp. 315-321, 41st Cong., 2d Sess., and again in the Ku Klux Rept., Vol. XIII, pp. 35-41.
There is a copy of the Revised and Amended Prescript in Columbia University Library, the only copy known to be in existence. No committee of Congress ever discovered this Prescript, and when the Klan disbanded, in March, 1869, it was strictly ordered that all papers be destroyed. A few Prescripts escaped destruction, and years afterward one of these was given to the Southern Society of New York by a Nashville lady. The Southern Society gave it to Columbia University Library. It was printed in the office of the Pulaski Citizen in 1868. The Revised and Amended Prescript is reproduced in facsimile as No. 2 of the W. Va. Univ. “Docs, relating to Reconstruction.” Lester and Wilson use it incorrectly (p. 54) as the one adopted in Nashville in 1867. At this time General Forrest is said to have assumed the leadership. See Wyeth, “Life of Forrest,” p. 619; Mathes, “General Forrest,” pp. 371-373; Ku Klux Rept., Vol. XIII, Forrest’s testimony.
[1909] Somers, p. 153.
[1910] “Breckenridge Democrats, Douglas Democrats, Watts State Rights Whigs, Langdon Consolidation Know-Nothings,” united in Ku Klux. Birmingham Age-Herald, May 19, 1901; Ala. Test., p. 323 (Busteed) et passim.
[1911] But some survivors are now inclined to remember all opposition to the Radical programme as Ku Klux, that is, to have been a Democrat then was to have been a member of Ku Klux.
[1912] General Terry, in Report of Sec. of War, 1869-1870, Vol. II, p. 88.
[1913] “The Ku Klux organizations flourished chiefly in middle and southern Alabama; notably in Montgomery, Greene, Tuscaloosa, and Pickens counties.”—Randolph.
[1914] Ku Klux Rept., p. 21; Ala. Test., pp. 67, 68 (B. W. Norris); pp. 364, 395 (Swayne); p. 443 (P. M. Dox); p. 385 (General Pettus); p. 462 (William H. Forney); p. 77 (Parsons); pp. 1282, 1283 (Blackford); p. 547 (Minnis); p. 660 (Daniel Coleman); p. 323 (Busteed).
[1915] Ala. Test., p. 785 (Nicholas Davis); pp. 79, 80 (Governor Parsons).
[1916] Ala. Test., p. 1282.
[1917] “Had these organizations confined their operations to their legitimate objects, then their performances would have effected only good. Unfortunately the Klan began to degenerate into a vile means of wreaking revenge for personal dislikes or personal animosities, and in this way many outrages were perpetrated, ultimately resulting in casting so much odium on the whole concern that about the year 1870 there was an almost universal collapse, all the good and brave men abandoning it in disgust. Many outrages were committed in the name of Ku Klux that really were done by irresponsible parties who never belonged to the Klan.”—Randolph.
[1918] It was evidently organized May 23, 1867, since the constitution directed that all orders and correspondence should be dated with “the year of the B.—computing from the 23d of May, 1867.... Thursday the 20th of July, 1868, shall be the 20th day of the 7th month of the 2d year of the B. of the ——.” Constitution, Title VIII, Article 77.
[1919] Ala. Test., pp. 1282-1283 (Blackford); p. 9 (William Miller); accounts of former members. P. J. Glover testified in the Coburn-Buckner Report, pp. 882-883 (1875), that in 1867-1868 he was a member of the order of the White Camelia in Marengo County, and that it coöperated with a similar order in Sumter County. The Ku Klux testimony relating to Alabama (p. 1338) shows that in 1871 Glover had denied any knowledge of such secret orders.
[1920] W. Va. Univ. Docs., No. 1; Brown, “Lower South,” Ch. IV.
[1921] The officers of the Supreme Council were: (1) Supreme Commander, (2) Supreme Lieutenant Commander, (3) Supreme Sentinel, (4) Supreme Corresponding Secretary, (5) Supreme Treasurer.
[1922] The officers were Grand Commander, Grand Lieutenant Commander, etc.
[1923] The officers of a Central Council were Eminent Commander, etc.; of a Subordinate Council, Commander, etc.
[1924] Dr. G. P. L. Reid, Marion, Alabama, formerly an official in the order. Mr. William Garrott Brown gives the statement of one of the leaders of the order: “The authority of the commander [this office I held] was absolute. All were sworn to obey his orders. There was an inner circle in each circle, to which was committed any particular work; its movements were not known to other members of the order. This was necessary because, in our neighborhood, almost every southern man was a member.” “Lower South,” p. 212.
[1925] It is said that the Ku Klux Klan had a number of negro members.
[1926] In making the presentation the following dialogue took place: Q. Who comes there? Ans. A son of your race. Q. What does he wish? Ans. Peace and order; the observance of the laws of God; the maintenance of the laws and Constitution as established by the Patriots of 1776. Q. To obtain this, what must be done? Ans. The cause of our race must triumph. Q. And to secure its triumph, what must we do? Ans. We must be united as are the flowers that grow on the same stem, and, under all circumstances, band ourselves together as brethren. Q. Will he join us? Ans. He is prepared to answer for himself, and under oath.
[1927] The oath: “I do solemnly swear, in the presence of these witnesses, never to reveal, without authority, the existence of this Order, its objects, its acts, and signs of recognition; never to reveal or publish, in any manner whatsoever, what I shall see or hear in this Council; never to divulge the names of the members of the Order, or their acts done in connection therewith; I swear to maintain and defend the social and political superiority of the White Race on this continent; always and in all places to observe a marked distinction between the White and African races; to vote for none but white men for any office of honor, profit, or trust; to devote my intelligence, energy, and influence to instil these principles in the minds and hearts of others; and to protect and defend persons of the White Race, in their lives, rights, and property, against the encroachments and aggressions of persons of any inferior race. I swear, moreover, to unite myself in heart, soul, and body with those who compose this Order; to aid, protect, and defend them in all places; to obey the orders of those who, by our statutes, will have the right of giving those orders; to respond at the peril of my life, to a call, sign, or cry coming from a fellow-member whose rights are violated; and to do everything in my power to assist him through life. And to the faithful performance of this Oath I pledge my life and sacred honor.”
[1928] The motto is printed in large capitals in the original text.
[1929] Large capitals in the original text.
[1930] The Constitution and the Ritual of the Knights of the White Camelia are reprinted in W. Va. Univ. Docs., No. 1. They were preserved by Dr. G. P. L. Reid of Perry County, Alabama, who buried his papers when the order was disbanded, and years afterward dug them up. The secrets of the Knights of the White Camelia were more closely kept than those of the Ku Klux Klan, and the Federal officials were unable to find out anything about the order.
[1931] Constitutional Union Guards, Sons of ’76, The ’76 Association, Pale Faces, White Boys, White Brotherhood, Regulators, White League, White Rose, etc. Sumarez de Haviland, in an article on “Ku Klux Klan” in the Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. XL, 1888 (evidently based on Lester and Wilson), gives the names of a number of secret societies, which he says were connected in some way; the first group was absorbed into Ku Klux Klan; the second consisted of opposing societies; they existed before, during, and after the Civil War. 1. The Lost Clan of Cocletz, Knights of the Golden Circle, Knights of the White Camelia, Centaurs of Caucasian Civilization, Angels of Avenging Justice, etc. 2. The Underground Railroad, The Red String Band, The Union League, The Black Avengers of Justice, etc.
“The generic name of Ku Klux was applied to all secret organizations in the South composed of white natives and having for their object the execution of the ‘first law of nature.’ There were many organizations (principally of local origin) which had no connection one with another; others, again, were more extended in their influence and operations. The one numerically the largest and which embraced the most territory was the White Camelia.”—Dr. G. P. L. Reid.
[1932] “Their robes used in these nocturnal campaigns consisted simply of sheets wrapped around their bodies and belted around the waist. The lower portion reached to the heels, whilst the upper had eyeholes through which to see, and mouth holes through which to breathe. Of course, every man so caparisoned had one or more pistols in holsters buckled to his waist.”—Randolph.
[1933] Ala. Test., pp. 149-152, 275, 452, 453, 535, 574, 579, 597, 668, 707, 919, 1048, 1553; Somers, “Southern States,” p. 152; Report of Joint Committee, Alabama Legislature, 1868; oral accounts. The Ku Klux costumes represented in Wilson’s “History of the American People,” Vol. V, Ch. I, were captured after a Ku Klux parade in Huntsville, Ala. When costumes were to be made, the materials were sometimes sent secretly to the women, who made them according to directions and returned them secretly.
[1934] Ala. Test., pp. 352, 452, 453, 490, 533, 534; Beard, “Ku Klux Sketches”; Brown, “Lower South,” Ch. IV; Lester and Wilson, Ch. III; Weir, “Old Times in Georgia,” p. 32; accounts of former members.
[1935] “Concerning any elaborate organization, I am unable to state from any personal experience. There were certain heads of departments or organizations, under heads or chiefs bearing titles intended to strike awe into the minds of the ignorant. In some instances organizers were sent to towns to establish the Klans. These latter were formed into companies officered somewhat in military style. In (1868) I was honored by being chosen leader of the Tuscaloosa Klan, and even at this late day I am gratified to be able to say that my company did good service to Tuscaloosa.”—Randolph.
[1936] “We had regular meetings about once a week, at which the conduct of certain offensive characters would be discussed, and if the majority voted to punish such, it would be done accordingly on certain prescribed nights. Sometimes it was deemed necessary only to post notices of warning, which, in some cases, were sufficient to alarm the victims and to induce them to reform in their behavior. To the best of my recollection, our company consisted of about sixty members. As soon as our object was effected, viz., got the negroes to behave themselves, we disbanded. I well remember those notices in The Monitor, for they were concocted and posted by my own hand—disguised of course.”—Randolph.
[1937] Printed in Report of Joint Committee, Alabama Legislature, 1868. The warning is not in the ordinary Ku Klux form. The purpose is clear, however. The illiteracy is probably assumed, though not necessarily.
Headquarters S. V. W.,
Ancient Commandery,
Mother Earth.
1st Quarter New Moon.
1st year of Revenge.
Special Order:
The worldly medium for the expression of
is notified to publish for the eyes of humanity the orders of the offended Ghosts. Failing to do so, let him prepare his soul for travelling beyond the limits of his corporosity.
Cyclops warns it—print it well,
Or glide instanter down to h—l!
By order of the Great
BLUFUSTIN
The Mighty Chief.
True Copy,
S. K. K. K.
—Independent Monitor, April 1, 1868.
[1939] “They [Ku Klux orders] had this meaning: the very night of the day on which said notices made their appearance, three notably offensive negro men were dragged out of their beds, escorted to the old boneyard (¾ mile from Tuscaloosa) and thrashed in the regular ante-bellum style, until their unnatural nigger pride had a tumble, and humbleness to the white man reigned supreme.”—Randolph.
[1940] Report of Meade, 1868.
[1941] Report of Joint Committee, 1868; Ala. Test., p. 876 (William M. Lowe).
[1942] In 1869-1870 there was an epidemic of resignations in the Black Belt. It was in the rich Black Belt that the carpet-bagger flourished. The departing Radical could always sell his property at a high price, the whites often uniting to purchase it. In Perry, Pickens, Choctaw, Marengo, Hale, and other Black Belt counties the carpet-baggers resigned and left. Ala. Test., pp. 103, 104.
[1943] The case of W. B. Jones of Marengo County was well known. See Ala. Test., p. 1455 et passim.
[1944] Ala. Test., p. 935 (a Bureau agent). It is more likely that this was when the Klan was dying out and the class of men composing it had no time to go on night rides while the crops were needing their attention. During the leisure seasons time would hang heavy on their hands, and they would begin their deviltry again.
[1945] I have learned of only two such cases; one was in Tuscaloosa County. The woman was a Bureau school-teacher from the North. Independent Monitor, May 24, 1871. The other was the case of America Trammell in east Alabama. Ala. Test., p. 1119.
[1946] Ala. Test., pp. 166, 433, 459, 462, 476, 1125, 1126, 1749.
[1947] Ala. Test., pp. 476, 1125, 1126.
[1948] Ala. Test., pp. 922, 923, et passim. I have been told that in one place 2000 muskets were collected, taken from negroes.
[1949] Ala. Test., p. 1179. The legal militia consisted of Major-General Dustan only.
[1950] Not nearly so many as is usually supposed. Lakin, who never underestimated anything, could think of only six in all north Alabama.
[1951] Ala. Test., 1138; Coburn-Buckner Report.
[1952] Several southern churches seized by Lakin for the northern church were burned.
[1953] Report of Joint Committee, 1868; Ala. Test., p. 1138.
[1954] Ala. Test., pp. 126, 127, 230, 418. See above, p. [612].
[1955] Ala. Test., p. 1983.
[1956] “Of the acts of this Order much has been written which is untrue; every disturbance between the races was laid at its door; every act of violence, in which the negro or the northern man was the victim, it was charged with. I do not deny that extreme measures were sometimes resorted to, but of such I have no personal knowledge.... Four hours would have been in [Perry County] ample time to secure the assembly, at any central point, of a thousand resolute men who would have done the bidding of their commander whatever it might have been, yet in this time [three years] no single act of violence was committed on the person or property of a negro or alien by its order or which received its sanction or indorsement.”—Dr. G. P. L. Reid.
[1957] However, in 1871 Governor Lindsay stated that there were in the state fewer feuds, crimes, difficulties, etc., than since 1819, when the state was admitted. This was especially the case, he said, in northern Alabama, for this reason: the people of the mountain and hill county were now prosperous; cotton was selling for $100 to $150 a bale; these white mountaineers by their own labor were doing well. Such was not the case with the planter who had to hire negro labor and pay high prices for provisions, farming implements, and mules. Meat that cost the planter 22 cents a pound was raised by the mountain people. Outrages against negroes were now very rare. Ala. Test., pp. 206-207. It is certain that the prosperity of the white counties which in 1870 got rid of the alien local officials had much to do with allaying disorder.
[1958] The estimate is Lakin’s.
[1959] Report Joint Committee of 1868; Ala. Test., p. 115 et passim. The N. Y. Tribune, Nov. 14, 1868, states that Gustavus Horton, the first Radical mayor of Mobile, was killed in this riot. After the riot was over the United States troops appeared too late, as they usually were in such cases.
[1960] Ala. Test., pp. 77, 429 et passim; Montgomery Mail, July 16, 1870. The mountain people had another grudge against Luke. He associated constantly with negroes and was said to be a miscegenationist. The mountain farmers had the greatest horror of such.
[1961] Ala. Test., pp. 257, 266, 275, et passim. Boyd had many private enemies, among them relatives of a man he had killed, and it was charged that they killed him. He was a man of low character, and his own party was not sorry to lose him.
[1962] It was a marked fact that no resistance to the United States soldiers was ever attempted. When the soldiers appeared, all violence ceased. The soldiers were as a rule in favor of the whites and sometimes took a hand in the Ku Kluxing. They usually appeared after the row was over.
[1963] Ala. Test., pp. 81, 221, et passim; Eutaw Whig, Oct. 27, 1870.
[1964] Ala. Test., p. 229 et passim. When he testified before the Ku Klux Committee, Alston swore that it was the men whom he had asked to protect him that had shot him,—such men as General Cullen A. Battle.
[1965] Ala. Test., p. 723.
[1966] “The company of K. K. K.’s which was organized in Tuscaloosa, was an independent organization, i.e. it was altogether a local affair, having no connection with any general Klan.”—Randolph.
[1967] Miss. Test., pp. 60, 223, 249; Ala. Test., pp. 213, 1822-1824; Garner, “Reconstruction in Mississippi,” pp. 345, 346.
[1968] Ala. Test., p. 942; Lester and Wilson, p. 78.
[1969] The anti-negro bands of the hills and mountains were rather of the spurious Ku Klux and were largely composed of tories and Radicals.
[1970] Ala. Test., p. 1763.
[1971] Constitution, Article 76; Brown, “Ku Klux Movement,” Atlantic Monthly, May, 1901.
[1972] Ala. Test., pp. 226-257.
[1973] Ala. Test., pp. 159-225.
[1974] With the White Camelia in south Alabama the case was somewhat different.
[1975] See Testimony of Lindsay and Clanton, cited above; also Ala. Test., p. 376 (Pettus); p. 896 (Lowe).
[1976] Somers, “Southern States,” pp. 4, 15, 21; Lester and Wilson, Chs. III, IV, V; Sanders, “Early Settlers,” p. 31. “The peaceful citizen knew that a faithful patrol had guarded his premises while he slept.”—Mrs. Stubbs. Brown, “Lower South,” Ch. IV; Ala. Test., pp. 432, 1520, 1532, 1803.
[1977] Throughout the pages of the Ku Klux Testimony are found assertions that Ku Klux was not an organization, but merely the understanding of the southern people, the spirit of the community, the concert of feeling of the whites, a state of mind in the population.
[1978] Ala. Test., pp. 165, 380, 649, 724; Somers, “Southern States,” p. 154. Governor Lindsay said that the so-called Ku Klux who went over to Mississippi were roughs and that the people were glad when they heard that one of them had been shot. In 1870-1871, while living in Alabama, General Forrest, the reputed Grand Wizard, repeatedly condemned in the strongest terms the conduct of the so-called Ku Klux. Ala. Test., pp. 212, 213.
[1979] Ala. Test., pp. 162, 376.
[1980] Ala. Test., p. 719.
[1981] Ala. Test., pp. 610, 778.
[1982] Ala. Test., pp. 559, 560, 1229.
[1983] Ala. Test., p. 679. Governor Smith, a Radical, said in regard to the motives of Senator George E. Spencer, I. D. Sibley, and J. J. Hinds, carpet-baggers: “My candid opinion is that Sibley does not want the law executed, because that would put down crime and crime is his life’s bread. He would like very much to have a Ku Klux outrage every week to assist him in keeping up strife between the whites and blacks, that he might be more certain of the votes of the latter. He would like to have a few colored men killed every week to furnish semblance of truth to Spencer’s libels upon the people of the state generally. It is but proper in this connection that I should speak in strong terms of condemnation of the conduct of two white men in Tuskegee a few days ago, in advising the colored men to resist the authority of the sheriff; these men were not Ku Klux, but Republicans.” Letter in Huntsville Advocate, June 25, 1870. See also Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 55.
[1984] See Ala. Test., p. 433.
[1985] Ala. Test., p. 230. In some communities a negro is still told that he must not let the sun go down on him before leaving.
[1986] Ala. Test., pp. 944, 947, 948.
[1987] Ala. Test., pp. 1757, 1758, 1764, 1765, 1768. Judge Mudd was by no means a representative of the old slaveholding element, but rather of the white county people.
[1988] Ala. Test., p. 492.
[1989] Ala. Test., pp. 1127, 1128, 1139.
[1990] Ala. Test., pp. 1175, 1179.
[1991] G. O. No. 11, Sub-Dist. Ala., April 4, 1868; Selma Times and Messenger, April 9, 1868; N. Y. Herald, April 7, 1868.
[1992] Report of the Secretary of War, 1869, p. 83 et seq.; Report of Meade, 1868.
[1993] Joint Resolution, Sept. 22, 1868, in Acts of Ala., p. 292. The delegation to Washington did not provide themselves with an authenticated copy of the resolution and had to wait for it. Governor Smith, who was with the delegation, spoiled everything by declaring that there was no disorder except along the Tennessee River and in southwestern Alabama and that troops were not needed. No officials had been resisted, he said, and it would be imprudent to send troops. N. Y. Herald, Sept. 27, 1868. The citizens of Montgomery held a mass-meeting and denied in toto the allegations of the memorial, denouncing it as a move of partisan politics. The strangers were sure to fall from power unless upheld by outside force. N. Y. Herald, Sept. 25, 1868.
[1994] Act of Dec. 24, 1868; Acts of Ala., p. 439.
[1995] Joint Resolutions, Nov. 14 and Dec. 8, 1868; Acts of Ala., pp. 593, 594.
[1996] J. DeF. Richards and G. R. McAfee of the Senate, and E. F. Jennings, W. R. Chisholm, and G. W. Malone of the House.
[1997] Report of Joint Committee on Outrages, 1868.
[1998] Act Dec. 26, 1868; Acts of Ala., 444-446. A supplementary act had to be passed allowing the probate judges to license for one dollar the wearing of masks or disguises at balls, theatres, and circuses and other places of amusement, public and private. Application had to be made at least three days beforehand by “three responsible persons of established character and reputation.” Act Dec. 31, 1868; Acts of Ala., p. 521.
[1999] Act of Dec. 28, 1868; Acts of Ala., pp. 452-454.
[2000] See Dunning, “Essays,” pp. 243-246.
[2001] Messages and Papers, Vol. VII, pp. 55, 56, March 30, 1871.
[2002] The Nation, Feb. 4, 1875, in regard to the “Force” legislation: “It would not have been possible for the most ingenious enemy of the blacks to draw up a code better calculated to keep up and fan the spirit of strife and contention between the races.” James L. Pugh, later United States Senator from Alabama: The people were tired of being reconstructed by President and by Congress. Now the Enforcement Laws punish all for the crime of a few. They are an insult to a whole people, assuming them incorrigible. Alabama Testimony, pp. 407, 408, 411.
[2003] See Burgess, “Reconstruction,” pp. 69-73.
[2004] Text of act in McPherson, pp. 549-550. This act was ostensibly to provide for the enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments. Its constitutionality has been criticised on these grounds: (1) the amendments were directed against states, not persons; (2) the law enacted penalties not only against state officers, but also against any person who might offend against the election laws of the state or against this act; (3) it is entirely out of the question to claim that the amendments protect the right of a person within a state against infringement by other persons, or even against the state itself unless on account of race, color, or previous condition. See Burgess, pp. 253-255.
[2005] Text of act in McPherson, “Handbook of Politics,” 1872, pp. 3-8. While only the congressional elections and all the registrations were to be guarded, the chief purpose of the act was to control state elections, which were held at the same time and place. See Burgess, “Reconstruction,” pp. 256-257. This was so clearly the purpose that after the rescue of the state government from carpet-bag rule the time of the state and local elections was changed from November to August in order to escape Federal espionage.
[2006] “Upon the basis of information which turned out to be very insufficient and unreliable.”—Burgess, p. 257.
[2007] Messages and Papers, Vol. VII, pp. 127-128.
[2008] Burgess, pp. 257, 258.
[2009] Text in McPherson, “Handbook,” 1872, pp. 85-87. For criticism, Burgess, pp. 257, 259.
[2010] Messages and Papers, Vol. VII, pp. 134, 135.
[2011] Report of the Committee, pp. 1, 2.
[2012] Some of the Conservatives who testified were Gen. Cullen A. Battle, R. H. Abercrombie, Gen. James H. Clanton, P. M. Dox, Gov. Robert B. Lindsay, Reuben Chapman, Thomas Cobbs, Daniel Coleman, Jefferson M. Falkner, William H. Forney, William M. Lowe, William Richardson, Francis S. Lyon, William S. Mudd, Gen. Edmund W. Pettus, Turner Reavis, James L. Pugh, P. T. Sayre, R. W. Walker,—all prominent men of high character.
[2013] Some of those who gave, willingly or unwillingly, Democratic testimony: W. T. Blackford (c.), Judge Busteed (c.), General Crawford, Nicholas Davis (s.), L. W. Day (c.), Samuel A. Hale (c.), J. H. Speed (s.), Senator Willard Warner (c.), N. L. Whitfield (s.). (c.) = carpet-bagger; (s.) = scalawag.
[2014] Charles Hays (s.), W. B. Jones (s.), S. F. Rice (s.), John A. Minnis (c.), A. S. Lakin (c.), B. W. Norris (c.), L. E. Parsons (s.), E. W. Peck (s.), and L. R. Smith (c.).
[2015] Day, Busteed, Van Valkenburg, General Crawford, etc.
[2016] Senate Report, No. 48, 42d Cong., 2d Sess., Pts. 8, 9, and 10, and House Report, No. 22, 42d Cong., 2d Sess., Pts. 8, 9, and 10, contain the Alabama Testimony.
[2017] Feb. 17, 1872; Report of Committee, p. 626.
[2018] McPherson, “Handbook,” 1872, pp. 89, 90.
[2019] McPherson, “Handbook,” 1872, pp. 90, 91. These provisions had to be inserted in the Sundry Civil Bill, which was approved June 10, 1872. Kellogg of Louisiana introduced the “rider.”
[2020] For instances of petty annoyances to the people from marshals, deputy marshals, and supervisors, see Sen. Ex. Doc., No. 119, 47th Cong. 1st Sess., and Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 246, 48th Cong., 2d Sess. These annoyances lasted for several years.
[2021] Ku Klux Rept., pp. 320, 330.
[2022] In his Message, Nov. 15, 1869, Smith stated: “Nowhere have the courts been interrupted. No resistance has been encountered by the officers of courts in their effort to discharge the duties imposed upon them by law.” Smith was criticised by the carpet-baggers for not calling out the negro militia to “enforce the laws.” He stood out against them, and on July 25, 1870, he replied to their criticisms, denouncing George E. Spencer (United States Senator), J. D. Sibley, J. J. Hinds, and others as systematically uttering every conceivable falsehood. “During my entire administration of the state government,” he said, “but one officer had certified to me that he was unable, on account of lawlessness, to execute his official duties. That officer was the sheriff of Morgan County. I immediately made application to General Crawford for troops. They were sent and the said sheriff refused their assistance.” “Solid South,” p. 55.
[2023] Montgomery Mail, July 3, 1872. The Black Cavalry and its spurious Ku Klux successors infested those parts of eastern Alabama where, in 1903, the existence of a system of peonage was discovered.
[2024] Tuskegee News, Sept. 3, 1874; Report of Joint Committee on Election of George Spencer. During the remainder of Reconstruction under the Enforcement Acts, the Federal government exercised supervision over all elections. Election outrages by the Democrats probably decreased, while outrages by the Radicals tended to increase. The Democrats put in their work of influence and intimidation in the summer and early fall, and when the elections came were quiet, trusting to the influence brought to bear some months previously. After the carpet-bag government collapsed, the Federal Enforcement Acts still gave supervision of elections to the Washington government. The Democrats in Congress were unable to secure the repeal of the force legislation. “We do not expect to repeal any of the recent enactments [Force Laws]. They may stand forever, but we intend by superior intelligence, stronger muscle, and greater energy, to make them dead letter upon the statute books.” Birmingham News, quoted in the State Journal, June 24, 1874. But in 1880 no appropriation was made for the pay of the deputy marshals and supervisors.
In 1875 the supreme court in the case of United States vs. Reese declared the two most important sections of the Enforcement Act of 1870 unconstitutional. In 1883, in the case of the United States vs. Harris, the Ku Klux Act of April 20, 1871, was declared unconstitutional. In 1888, when House, Senate, and President were Republican, an attempt was made by Mr. McKinley (afterward President) to pass a Force Bill to enforce the old election laws, which were still on the statute book. The measure failed to pass. It was in opposition to this Force Bill that Colonel Hilary A. Herbert of Alabama and other southern congressmen wrote the work called “Why the Solid South? or Reconstruction and its Results.” It is said that this book had some influence in causing a halt in force legislation. It was the first attempt to write the history of the Reconstruction period, and is still the best general account. In 1894, when House, Senate, and President were Democratic, the remnants of the Enforcement Acts were repealed, and thus was swept away the last of the Radical system. See Dunning, “The Undoing of Reconstruction,” in the Atlantic Monthly, Oct., 1901.
[2025] Coburn-Buckner Report, p. 238. The constitution is not in the Journal, however.
[2026] Coburn-Buckner Report, pp. 7, 12, 19, 702, 882, 883.
[2027] Cameron Report, 1876, pp. 53, 108; oral accounts.
[2028] The accounts of the wild and idle negro children of the rice and tobacco districts are not true of those in the Cotton Belt. The smallest tot could do a little in a cotton field.
[2029] See Birmingham Age-Herald, March 31 and April 7, 1901 (J. W. DuBose); Review of Reviews, Sept., 1903, on “The Cotton Crop of To-day,” by R. H. Edmonds; Ingle, “Southern Sidelights,” p. 271; Address of President Thach, Alabama Polytechnic Institute, before the American Economic Association, 1903; Tillinghast, “Negro in Africa and America,” pp. 126, 143; Mallard, “Plantation Life before Emancipation”; Washington, “Up from Slavery,” and “The Future of the American Negro,” passim. The immense cost of slave labor is seen when the value of the slaves is compared with the value of the lands cultivated by their labor. In 1859 the cash value of the lands in Alabama was $175,824,622, and that of the slaves was $215,540,000. The larger portion of this land had not a negro on it, and if cultivated, was cultivated exclusively by whites. See Census of 1860. The effect of the loss of slaves on the welfare of a planter is shown in the case of William L. Yancey. His slaves were accidentally poisoned and died. The loss ruined him, and he was forced to sell his plantation and engage in a profession. A farmer in a white county employing white labor would have been injured only temporarily by such a loss of labor.
[2030] The tenant furnished labor, supplies, and teams, and paid the landlord a fourth of the cotton and a third of the corn produced.
[2031] There was usually good feeling between the whites and blacks at work together; but the negroes, at heart, scorned the poor whites, and had to be closely watched to keep them from insulting or abusing them. The negro had little respect for the man who owned no slaves or who owned but few and worked with them in the fields. To protect the slaves against outsiders was one reason why discipline was strict, supervision close, passes required, etc. When both white and black were allowed to go at will over the plantation and community, trouble was sure to result from the impudent behavior of the negro to “white trash” and the consequent retaliation of the latter. The whites often came to the master and wanted him to whip his best slaves for impudence to them. The master, to prevent this, regulated the liberty of the slave by passes, etc., and the whites, especially strangers, were expected not to trespass on a plantation where slaves were.
[2032] The idea of the so-called “prejudice” against manual labor is perhaps due largely to abolitionist theories and arguments, which have been partially accepted since the war by some southerners who think it due to the old system to show its lofty attitude toward the common things of life. But the negro had, and still has, a contempt for a white who works as he does. And it has always been a custom of mankind,—white, yellow, or black,—to get out of doing manual labor if there was anything else to do.
[2033] Accounts from old citizens, former planters.
[2034] The agent of President Johnson.
[2035] Report to President, April 9, 1866.
[2036] Colonel Saunders, a noted slaveholder in one of the white counties in north Alabama, established a patriarchal protectorate over his former slaves. He built a church for them, and organized a monthly court, presided over by himself, in which the old negro men tried delinquents. It is said that the findings of this court were often ludicrous in the extreme, but order was preserved, and for a long while there was no resort to the Bureau. Saunders, “Early Settlers,” p. 31. Many similar protectorates were established in the remote districts, but the policy of the Bureau was to break them up.
[2037] A term of contempt.
[2038] See Sewanee Review, Jan., 1905, article on “Servant Problem in a Black Belt Village.”
[2039] N. Y. Herald, July 17, 1865; Reid, “After the War,” pp. 211, 218, 219; Tillet, in Century Magazine, Vol. XI; Reports of General Swayne, 1865, 1866; Van de Graaf, in Forum, Vol. XXI, pp. 330, 339; DeBow’s Review, Feb., 1866, p. 220; oral accounts.
[2040] For a description of the Bureau labor regulations, see [Chapter XI, Sec. 1]. Also Montgomery Mail, May 12, 1865; Howard’s Circular, May 30, 1865; Circular No. 11, War Department, July 12, 1865; Huntsville Advocate, July 26, 1865; Swayne’s Reports, 1865, 1866; G. O. No. 12, Dept. Ala., Aug. 30, 1865; G. O. No. 13, Dept. Ala., Sept., 1865; Selma Times, Dec. 4, 1865. The so-called “Black Laws” passed by the legislature in 1865-1866 to regulate labor were scarcely heard of by the people who hired negroes.
[2041] Somers, “Southern States,” 130.
[2042] Southern Magazine, Jan., 1874; Selma Messenger, Nov. 15, 1865; Harper’s Monthly Magazine, Jan., 1874; Selma Times, Dec. 4, 1865; oral accounts; DeBow’s Review, Feb., 1866.
[2043] Swayne to A. F. Perry, N. Y. Herald, Aug. 28, 1865; N. Y. Herald, July 17, 1865; Reid, “After the War,” pp. 211-219; DeBow’s Review, 1866, pp. 213, 220; Somers, “Southern States,” p. 131.
[2044] DeBow’s Review, Feb., 1866.
[2045] Many of the carpet-bag politicians were northern men who had failed at cotton planting.
[2046] Report to the President, April 9, 1866; “Ten Years in a Georgia Plantation,” by the Hon. Mrs. Leigh; oral accounts. On account of the general failure of the northern men who invested capital in the South in 1865 and 1866, there grew up in the business world an unfavorable feeling against the South, and for the remainder of Reconstruction days that section had to struggle against adverse business opinion. Harper’s Magazine, Jan., 1874.
[2047] Selma Times, Dec. 4, 1865. Nearly all the newspapers printed advertisements of the immigration societies.
[2048] “Northern Alabama Illustrated,” p. 378.
[2049] Selma Times, Dec. 4, 1865; N. Y. Times, July 2, 1866.
[2050] The great evil of slavery was its tendency to drive the whites who were in moderate circumstances away from the more fertile lands of the prairie and cane-brake and river bottoms, leaving them to the few slaveholders and the immense number of slaves. Emancipation thus left on the finest lands of the state a shiftless laboring population, which still retains possession. Now, as in slavery times, the white prefers not to work as a field hand in the Black Belt when he can get more independent work elsewhere. And besides, he does not wish to live among the negroes. Slavery kept white farmers from settling on the fertile lands; the negro keeps whites from taking possession now.
[2051] Mobile Daily Times, Oct. 21, 1860; Montgomery Advertiser, March 21, 1866; DeBow’s Review, March 18, 1866.
Several young women of Montgomery, who were once wealthy, worked in the printing-office of the Advertiser. One of them was a daughter of a former President of the United States. Many women became teachers, displacing men, who then went to the fields. Disabled soldiers generally tried teaching.
There seems to be a belief that emancipation had a good effect in driving to work a certain “gentleman of leisure” class, who had been supported by the work of slaves and who had scorned labor. (See W. B. Tillett, in the Century Magazine, Vol. XI, p. 769.) It is a mistake to regard the slaveholding, planting class as, in any degree, idle, unless from the point of view of the negro or the ignorant white, who believed that any man who did not work with his hands was a gentleman of leisure. The Alabama planter was and had to be a man of great energy, good judgment, and diligence. It was a belief that a man who could not manage a plantation or other business should not be intrusted with an official position. One of the most serious objections made by the cotton planters to Jefferson Davis as President was that he had failed to manage his plantation with success. See also Somers, “Southern States,” p. 127.
[2052] DeBow’s Review, Feb. and March, 1866; Montgomery Advertiser, March 21, 1866; N. Y. Herald, July 17, 1866. It was estimated that in the fall of 1865 the negro male population of the state was reduced by 50,000 able-bodied men, who were hanging around the cities and towns, doing nothing. At Mobile there were 10,000; at Meridian, Miss., 5000; at Montgomery, 10,000; at Selma, 5000; and at various smaller points, 20,000. Mobile Times, Oct. 21, 1865.
[2053] See also Reid, “After the War,” p. 221.
[2054] Trowbridge, “The South,” p. 431 et seq.
[2055] Trowbridge, “The South,” p. 431; Reports of General Swayne, Dec. 26, 1865, and Jan., 1866, in Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. General Swayne strongly approved the objects of these societies. He said there was not and never had been any question of the right of the negro to hold property. Free negroes had held property before the war.
[2056] DeBow’s Review, Feb., 1868.
[2057] Jan. 31, 1866.
[2058] I have this account from a planter of the district.
[2059] Somers, an English traveller, thought that the economic relations of planter and negro were startling, and that anywhere else they would be considered absurd. The tenant, he said, was sure of a support, and did not much care if the crop failed. Even his taxes, when he condescended to pay any, were paid by his master. For all work outside of his crop he had to be paid, and often he went away and worked for some one else for cash. And his privileges were innumerable. “The soul is often crushed out of labor by penury and oppression. Here a soul cannot begin to be infused into it through the sheer excess of privilege and license with which it is surrounded.” “Southern States since the War,” pp. 128, 129.
[2060] My father’s tenants, white and black, rented on all systems. The negroes usually began as wage laborers or as tenants “on halves,” for they had no supplies when they came. Then the more industrious and thrifty would save and rent farms for “third and fourth” or for “standing rent.” The whites usually obtained the highest grade, and the average white man would save enough of his earnings to purchase a team, wagon, buggy, farm implements, and a year’s supply and spend all else, though some saved enough to buy land of their own in cheaper districts or to support themselves for a year or two while opening up a homestead in the pine woods. The negro, as a rule, rented “on halves,” for he spent all his earnings and required supervision. The average negro stays only a year or two at one place before he longs for change and removes to another farm. About Christmas, or just before, the negroes and many of the whites begin to move to new homes. For a description of conditions in Mississippi, where the negro has somewhat better opportunities than in Alabama, see Mr. A. H. Stone’s article in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Feb., 1905.
[2061] In the census each person cultivating a crop is counted as a farmer and the land he cultivates as a farm. Thus a plantation might be represented in the census statistics by from five to twenty-five farms.
[2062] See also Otken, “Ills of the South”; Somers, “South since the War,” p. 281; Harper’s Monthly, Jan., 1874; DeBow’s Review, Feb., 1868.
[2063] Any stick is good enough to beat slavery with, so it is usually stated that slavery was responsible for the wasteful methods of cultivation that prevailed in the South before the war. That can be true only indirectly, for the soil always received the worst treatment in the white counties. Like frontiersmen everywhere, the Alabama white farmers found it easier to clear new land or to move West than to fertilize worn-out soils. The lack of transportation facilities in the white districts made it almost impossible to bring in commercial fertilizers or to move the crops when made. The railroads had opened up only the rich slave districts. If there had not been a negro in the state, the frontier methods would have prevailed, as they still do among the farmers in some parts of the West. On the other hand, the rich lands worked by slave labor under intelligent direction were kept in good condition. Under free negro labor they are in the worst possible condition. Experience, necessity, the disappearance of free land, and the increase of transportation facilities have caused the white county farmer to employ better methods, and to keep up and increase the fertility of the land by using fertilizers.
[2064] But it was nearly forty years before the entire cotton crop of the state was as large as in 1859.
[2065] Southern Magazine, Jan., 1874; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 206, 207; Somers, “Southern States,” p. 117. In 1860 it was estimated that of the whole cotton crop 10 to 12 per cent was produced by white labor; in 1876 the proportion of whites to blacks in the cotton fields was 30 to 51; in 1883 white labor produced 44 per cent of the cotton crop; in 1884, 48 per cent; in 1885, 50 per cent; in 1893, 70 per cent. And this was done by the whites on inferior lands. See W. B. Tillett, in Century Magazine, Vol. XI, p. 771; Hammond, “The Cotton Industry,” pp. 129, 130, 132.
[2066] DeBow estimated that the entire acreage of the cotton crop was as follows:—
| 1836. | 2,000,000 acres | |
| 1840. | 4,500,000 acres | |
| 1850. | 5,000,000 acres | |
| 1860. | 6,968,000 acres |
The Commissioner of Agriculture in 1876 estimated that the acreage in 1860 was 13,000,000. Taking this estimate, which, while probably too large, is more nearly correct, only 4 per cent of the arable land was planted in cotton—the staple crop. Hammond, “The Cotton Industry,” p. 74.
[2067] Smith, “Cotton Production in Alabama” (1884); Census, 1880; Smith in Ala. Geolog. Survey, 1881-1882; Kelsey, “The Negro Farmer”; oral accounts and personal observation.
[2068] So poor were the people after the war that, even though the value of the mineral and timber lands was well known, there was no native capital to develop them, and the lion’s share went to outsiders, who bought the lands at tax and mortgage sales during and after the carpet-bag régime.
[2069] Slavery or negroes prevented the establishment of manufactures by crowding out a white population capable of carrying on manufactures. The census shows that in 1860 the white districts had a fair proportion of manufactures for a state less than forty years old.
[2070] Address of President C. C. Thach, Dec. 29, 1903.
[2071] “Northern Alabama Illustrated,” p. 378; see article on “Immigration to the Southern States” in the Political Science Quarterly, June, 1905.
[2072] Address of President C. C. Thach, Dec. 29, 1903.
[2073] The decreasing value of the wage laborer is shown by the following table of wages:
| Year | Men | Women | Youths, 14-20 |
| 1860 | $138 | $89 | $66 |
| 1865-1866 | 150-200 | 100-150 | 75-100 |
| 1867 | 117 | 71 | 52 |
| 1868 | 87 | 50 | 40 |
| 1890 | 150 | 100 | 60-75 |
The figures of 1860 are based on the wages of an able-bodied negro. The statistics of 1865-1866 are taken from tables of wages prescribed by the Freedmen’s Bureau; those for 1867 and 1868 show the decline caused by the inefficiency of the free negro laborer. Yet the demand for labor was always greater than the supply. In 1860 clothing and rations were also given; in 1866-1868 rations and no clothing. In 1890 nothing was furnished. In 1866-1868 the currency was inflated, and the wages for 1868 were really much lower. Hammond, “The Cotton Industry,” p. 124; Montgomery Mail, May 16, 1865; Freedmen’s Bureau Reports, 1865-1870.
[2074] A convention held in Montgomery, in 1873, recommended that the share system be abolished and a contract wage system be inaugurated; wages should be secured by a lien on the employer’s crop; separate contracts should be made with each laborer, and the “squad” system abolished. In this way the laborer would not be responsible for bad crops. To aid the laborers, Congress was asked to pass the Sumner Civil Rights Bill, providing for the recognition of certain social rights for negroes, to exempt homesteads from tax action, and to increase the tax on property held by speculators. And the President was asked to supply bread and meat to the negro farmers. Annual Cyclopædia (1873), p. 19; Tuscaloosa Blade, Nov. 30, 1873.
[2075] See Willet, “Workers of the Nation,” Vol. II, pp. 701, 702.
[2076] Willet, Vol. II, p. 714.
[2077] Washington, in Atlantic Monthly, Vol. LXXVIII, pp. 324-326.
[2078] Somers, p. 166.
[2079] Southern Magazine, Jan., 1874.
[2080] Somers, p. 117.
[2081] Somers, p. 159.
[2082] Southern Magazine, March, 1874.
[2083] “Southern States,” p. 131.
[2084] The prosperity of several large commercial houses in Alabama is said to date from the corner groceries of the ’70’s.
[2085] Somers, “Southern States,” pp. 159, 272; Harper’s Monthly Magazine, Jan., 1874; King, “The Great South”; C. C. Smith, “Colonization of Negroes in Central Alabama”; Southern Magazine, Jan., 1874; The Forum, Vol. XXI, p. 341; Hoffman, p. 261; Hammond, p. 191. See also [Appendix II].
[2086] A northern traveller in the Alabama Black Belt in recent years says of it: “The white population is rapidly on the decrease and the negro population on the increase.... There are hundreds of the ‘old mansion houses’ going to decay, the glass broken in the windows, the doors off the hinges, the siding long unused to paint, the columns of the verandas rotting away, and the bramble thickets encroaching to the very doors. The people have sold their land for what little they could get and moved to the cities and towns, that they may educate their children and escape the intolerable conditions surrounding them at their old beloved homes.... These friends have largely gone from the negro’s life, and he is left alone in the wilderness, held down by crop liens and mortgages given to the alien. Land rent is half its value; the tenant must purchase from the creditor’s store and raise cotton to pay for what he has already eaten and worn.” C. C. Smith, “Colonization of Negroes in Central Alabama,” published by the Christian Women’s Board of Missions, Indianapolis, Ind.
[2087] See also Edmunds, in Review of Reviews, Sept., 1900; Dillingham, in Yale Review, Vol. V, p. 190; Stone, “The Negro in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta”; Stone, in Quarterly Journal of Economics, Feb., 1905; Gunton’s Magazine, Sept., 1902 (Dowd); Brown, in North American Review, Dec., 1904; Census 1900, Vol. VI, Pt. II, pp. 406-416; Harper’s Monthly Magazine, Jan., 1874, and Jan., 1881; Stone, in South Atlantic Quarterly, Jan., 1905; Kelsey, “The Negro Farmer”; Hammond, “The Cotton Industry.”
Another solution of the problem is often suggested, viz. the crowding out of the blacks from the Black Belt by the whites—especially northerners and Germans—who want to cultivate the Black Belt lands, who settle in colonies, and who have no place for the negro in their plans of industrial society. The Black Belt landlords are becoming weary of negro labor, and some are disposed to make special inducements to get whites to settle in the Black Belt. In Louisiana and Mississippi, Italians have replaced negroes on many sugar and cotton plantations. Georgia and Alabama, in order to make the negro work, have recently passed stringent vagrancy laws, and the planters are talking of Chinese labor. For the opinions of those who favor white immigration to the South, see the Manufacturers Record, the Atlanta Constitution, and the Montgomery Advertiser, during recent years. There is a general demand for foreigners who will perform agricultural labor.
[2088] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 879 (Lowe); N. Y. World, Dec. 14, 1867, Aug. 15, 1868.
[2089] For information in regard to the Radical congressmen: Barnes, “History of the 40th Congress,” Index; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test. (Clanton, Lowe, Lindsay); Harper’s Weekly, May 1, 1869 (picture of Spencer); Elyton Herald, ——, 1868; Montgomery Mail, July 25, 1868; N. Y. World, Feb. 15 and Sept. 22, 1868; Alabama Manual (1869), p. 32; N. Y. Herald, ——, 1868.
[2090] Pike was the only county that never fell completely into the hands of the Radicals.
[2091] “North Alabama Illustrated,” p. 50; Montgomery Advertiser, July 13, 1866; N. Y. World, April 11 and July 23, 1868; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 187, 188, 881, 1815, 1956; Acts of Ala. (1868), p. 414; (1869-1870), pp. 157, 336; Beverly, “Alabama,” p. 203. A vivid description of the first session of the reconstructed legislature was published by Capt. B. H. Screws, “The Loil Legislature.”
[2092] Tradition says that what is now known as the Davis Memorial Room was the one thus used.
[2093] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 231, 881, 1411, 1424, 1468; Weekly Mail, March 24, 1869; Independent Monitor, Jan. 11, 1870; Report of Investigating Committee; Miller, “Alabama,” p. 254; “Northern Alabama,” p. 50; oral accounts of former members.
[2094] Acts of Ala. (1868), pp. 67, 71, 79, 212, 305, 352.
[2095] Senate Journal (1868), pp. 168, 176, 297.
[2096] Acts of Ala. (1868), pp. 113, 129, 133, 350, 407, 414, 421; (1869-1870), p. 451; Montgomery Mail, Feb. 24, 1870; Annual Cyclopædia (1870), p. 12.
[2097] Annual Cyclopædia (1870), p. 13; Journal (1869-1870), passim; Brown, “Alabama,” p. 268.
[2098] Annual Cyclopædia (1870), p. 19; N. Y. Herald, Aug. 17, 1868.
[2099] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 90, 91, 187; Senate Journals (1868-1874).
[2100] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 189, 239, 240, 324, 435, 523, 962, 1421, 1590, 1816, 1819, 1820, 1957; Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 53; Coburn Report, p. 256; N. Y. World, April 11, 1868; Montgomery Mail, April 21, 1870.
[2101] Annual Cyclopædia (1870), p. 13.
[2102] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 510; Augusta Chronicle and Sentinel, June 13, 1866; Selma Times and Messenger, June 9, 1868.
[2103] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 93, 103, 104, 358, 435, 1878; N. Y. World, Nov. 3, 1868; Coburn Report, p. 512; Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 60.
[2104] Annual Cyclopædia (1870), p. 14; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 91, 1177, 1178, 1179, 1242; N. Y. Herald, Sept. 27 and Oct. 26, 1868; Report of Sec. of War, 1869, vol. I, p. 88.
[2105] McPherson’s scrap-book, “Campaign of 1868,” Vol. I, p. 156; Vol. V, pp. 43, 45, 46, 48, 49; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 95, 360, 502, 1956; N. Y. World, Sept. 12, 1868; G. O. No. 27, Dept. of the South, Oct. 8, 1868; G. O. No. 38, Dept. of the South, Nov. 10, 1868; Tuskegee News, July 29, 1876.
[2106] N. Y. Times, Sept. 7, 1868 (speech of Judge T. M. Peters).
[2107] Nordhoff, “Cotton States in 1870,” pp. 85, 86; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 185, 209, 210, 434, 435, 1879.
[2108] Miller, “Alabama,” p. 256; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 84, 182, 183, 216, 232, 311, 356, 357, 378, 379, 512, 531, 1038, 1625; McPherson’s scrap-book, “Campaign of 1870,” Vol. I, pp. 55, 61; Annual Cyclopædia (1870), pp. 16, 17; “Northern Alabama,” p. 50; Montgomery Mail, Aug. 20, 1870 (Union League Appeal).
[2109] Somers, “Southern States,” p. 132; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 225; Miller, “Alabama,” p. 256.
[2110] Somers, “Southern States,” pp. 167, 186; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., 214, 232, 381, 423, 1299, 1371, 1558-1561 (see also the whole of Lindsay’s testimony); “Northern Alabama,” p. 50; Annual Cyclopædia (1871), p. 11; Miller, “Alabama,” pp. 259-261; Beverly, “Alabama,” p. 204.
[2111] Montgomery Advertiser, Sept. 23, 1872.
[2112] Report of Joint Committee in regard to election of George E. Spencer; Taft, “Senate Election Cases,” pp. 558, 562, 574-578; Annual Cyclopædia (1872), pp. 11, 12; (1873), 16-18; Memorial of General Assembly (Radical) to President, November, 1872; Coburn Report, p. 716; Senate Journal (1872-1873), pp. 15-86 (“Court-House Senate”); Senate Journal, 1871 (“Capitol Senate”), Appendix; McPherson, “Handbook of Politics” (1874), pp. 85, 86; Acts of Ala. (1872-1873), p. 532; Acts of Ala., 1873, p. 156; Montgomery Advertiser, Nov. 12 and 24, 1872; Jan. 4, Feb. 22 and 23, 1873; Southern Argus, Nov. 22, 1872; Jan. 10, 1873; Herbert, “Solid South,” pp. 57-59; Miller, “Alabama,” p. 261.
[2113] Coburn Report, pp. 230, 262, 267, 271, 274, 280, 525, 528, 529; “Northern Alabama,” p. 51; Tuscaloosa Blade, Nov. 27, 1873; Montgomery Advertiser, Sept. 27, 1872.
[2114] See Coburn Report, pp. 154, 161.
[2115] Montgomery Advertiser, March, 1870; Report of Inspector of Penitentiary, 1873-1874; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 230, 244, 1220, 1380, 1384; Acts of Ala. (1869-1870), p. 28; Washington, “Up from Slavery,” pp. 83-90; N. Y. World, Feb. 22 and April 11, 1868; Tuscaloosa Monitor, Dec. 18, 1867; Coburn Report, pp. 108, 110, 161, 203, 204, 295; Clowes, “Black America,” pp. 131, 140; Herbert, “Solid South,” p. 59.
[2116] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 71, 233, 390, 391, 881, 1815, 1816; Coburn Report, p. 861; Huntsville Democrat, 1872; Straker, “The New South Investigated,” pp. 24, 41, 57; Ala. State Journal, May 20, 1874; McPherson’s Scrap-book, “Campaign of 1869,” Vol. I, p. 57.
[2117] International Monthly, Vol. V, p. 220; Coburn Report, p. 527; “The Land We Love,” Vol. I, p. 446; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 390, 391, 405, 411, 926; Riley, “Baptists of Alabama,” pp. 321, 322, 329; Clowes, “Black America,” pp. 53, 131, 140, 144; Murphy, “The Present South.”
[2118] See also [Ch. XXII].
[2119] Charge of Judge H. D. Clayton to Barbour County grand jury in Coburn Report, p. 839; Report of Montgomery grand jury in Advertiser, Oct. 20, 1871; Tuskegee News, March 16, 1876; Little, “History of Butler County,” p. 111; Tuscaloosa Blade, Nov. 19, 1874; Coburn Report, pp. 524, 1219; Montgomery Advertiser, Nov. 27, 1873; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 230, 1175, 1179; Scribner’s Monthly, Sept., 1874; Herbert, “Solid South,” pp. 63, 67.
[2120] Ala. State Journal, Jan. 14, 1874.
[2121] State Journal, March 10, 1874. The justice who performed the ceremony in one case gave as his excuse that the woman was so bad that nothing she could do would make her worse.
[2122] Montgomery Advertiser and other Montgomery papers of March 5, 1873.
[2123] Coburn Report on Affairs in Alabama, 1874, pp. xiv, 341, 519, 520, 521, 743; Montgomery Advertiser, Oct. 23, 1902.
[2124] See State Journal, Jan. 10 and Feb. 1, 1874.
[2125] A few years ago Strobach offered to tell me all about his political career in exchange for $50, but died before he could begin the account.
[2126] Coburn Report, pp. 225, 230, 272, 280-282; State Journal, May 20 and 27, 1874; Montgomery Advertiser, Oct. 23, 1902.
[2127] See Coburn Report, pp. 225, 282-288.
[2128] Coburn Report, pp. 118, 135, 145, 151, 279. When the Coburn Committee was in Opelika, Washington Jones, colored, appeared before it and demanded that the promises made to him be fulfilled. He wanted the mule, the land, “overflow” bacon, etc. The committee got rid of him in a hurry. See Coburn Report, p. 135.
[2129] Coburn Report, pp. 59, 63, 106, 118, 122, 142, 181, 641; State Journal, June 10, 1874.
[2130] Coburn Report, pp. 58, 59, 92, 106, 136, 275, 295, 296, 416, 641.
[2131] Coburn Report, pp. 58, 59, 106, 203, 204.
[2132] Coburn Report, pp. 59, 63, 109, 118, 119. See also Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., pp. 1072-1075.
[2133] Coburn Report, pp. 58, 59, 61, 118, 278, 280, 308, 317, 320, 446.
[2134] The State Journal of Aug. 1, 1874, has a list of extracts from Democratic papers from 1868 to 1874, showing the change of attitude in regard to the negro.
[2135] Tuskegee News, June 4, and Aug. 20, and Sept. 10, 1874; Coburn Report, pp. 120, 860, 861, 1231, 1232, et passim; Eufaula Times, July 30, 1874, quoting from the Birmingham News, Shelby Guide, and Eutaw Whig; State Journal, June 24, 1874.
[2136] Opelika Times, Aug. 22, 1874, condensed; Coburn Report, pp. 97, 100, 104.
[2137] See testimony of Dunbar and Gardner in Coburn Report, pp. 101, 209, 210, 300, 302; Opelika Daily Times, Sept. 30, 1874.
[2138] State Journal, June 16, 1874. For a typical readoption of this platform see the resolutions of the Tuscaloosa County Democrats in State Journal, June 24, 1874. “Old Whig” in the Opelika Daily Times, Sept. 30, 1874, proposed that the whites “fall back upon the old Wesleyan doctrine ‘to prefer one another in business’;” “Give the Radicals no support;” “The adder that stings should find no warmth in the bosom of the dying victim.”
[2139] Opelika Times, Oct. 14, 1874; Coburn Report, pp. 97, 103-104.
[2140] Coburn Report, p. 856; Annual Cyclopædia (1874), p. 15.
[2141] Coburn Report, pp. 99, 101, 856, 859; Opelika Daily Times, June 29 and Oct. 3, 1874; Montgomery Advertiser, Oct. 23, 1902.
[2142] State Journal, June 4 and 27, 1874; Coburn Report, p. 881; Annual Cyclopædia (1874), pp. 15, 16; Tuskegee News, July 2, 1874.
[2143] The division was as follows:—
| District | Distributing Points | Pounds |
| First | Mobile, Selma, Camden | 55,851 |
| Second | Montgomery | 44,402 |
| Third | Opelika, Talladega, Seale | 41,802 |
| Fourth | Demopolis | 53,663 |
| Fifth and sixth | Decatur | 31,278 |
[2144] Senate Journal, 1874-1875, p. 7.
[2145] For full account of the bacon question see Ho. Doc., No. 110, 43d Cong., 2d Sess.; also Tuskegee News, June 4, Aug. 27, and Sept. 24, 1874; Coburn Report, pp. 36, 50, 69, 207, 241.
The following list shows how one distribution was made in October, just before the elections:—
| County | Pounds |
| Montgomery | 14,151 |
| Lowndes | 8,283 |
| Butler | 4,235 |
| Dale (to P. King, Haw Ridge) | 2,482 |
| Barbour | 4,527 |
| Bullock | 5,169 |
| Pike (to Gardner and Wiley) | 2,066 |
| Henry | 1,036 |
| Clay | 3,000 |
| Randolph | 2,000 |
| Coosa | 3,000 |
| Elmore | 3,500 |
| Talladega | 7,500 |
| Lee (to W. H. Betts) | 9,792 |
| Russell (to W. H. Betts) | 2,390 |
| Walker | 2,178 |
| “To G. P. Plowman, by order of Charles Pelham, M. C.” | 1,000 |
[2146] Coburn Report, pp. 59, 60.
[2147] Annual Cyclopædia (1874), p. 13; Coburn Report, pp. 247-254.
[2148] The Tribune, Oct. 7, 8, and 12, 1874; The Nation, Aug. 27, and Oct. 15 and 27, 1874; Annual Cyclopædia (1874), p. 12; Foulke, “Life of O. P. Morton,” Vol. II, p. 350. The Hays-Hawley letter was first published in the Hartford Courant and in the Boston Daily Advertiser. It is also in the Coburn Report, pp. 1254-1260.
[2149] N. Y. Tribune, Oct. 7, 1874; Coburn Report, pp. 244, 245, 1221, 1226, 1241, 1247, 1264, 1266.
[2150] Coburn Report, p. 512.
[2151] Coburn Report, p. 931.
[2152] Eufaula News, Sept. 3, 1874; Coburn Report, p. 855.
[2153] Coburn Report, pp. 679, 681, 746.
[2154] Coburn Report, pp. 514, 515, 681, 1239.
[2155] Coburn Report, pp. 680, 682; “An appeal to Governor Lewis from the People of Sumter.”
[2156] Coburn Report, pp. 236, 244, 245, 289, 291, 702, 1201, 1231-1235.
[2157] Union Springs Herald and Times, quoted in State Journal, June 13, 1874.
[2158] Coburn Report, pp. 130, 948.
[2159] For information in regard to the campaign of 1874 I am indebted to several of those who took part in it, and especially to Mr. T. J. Rutledge, now state bank examiner, who was then secretary of the Democratic campaign committee.
[2160] Coburn Report, pp. 125, 530.
[2161] Coburn Report, pp. xix, 43, 80-84, 427, 434, 476, 794, 850, 851, 949, 1200-1204; Tuskegee News, Nov. 5, 1874; State Journal, Oct. and Nov., 1874.
[2162] Annual Cyclopædia (1874), p. 17; Tribune Almanac, 1875.
[2163] Coburn Report, pp. 239, 253, 701, 703; The Nation, Nov. 30, 1874; Tuskegee News, Dec. 10, 1874.
[2164] In the code of Alabama (1876), pp. 100-120, is printed the “Constitution (so-called) of the State of Alabama, 1868,” as the code terms it. The last three amendments are thus noted, “Adoption proclaimed by the Secretary of State, Dec. 18, 1865” (or July 20, 1868, or March 30, 1870). The other amendments have notes stating date of submission and date of ratification by the state. See code of 1876, pp. 27, 28; also code of 1896.
[2165] The negroes voted against it. Some of them were told that, if adopted, a war with Spain would result and that the blacks, being the “only truly loyal,” would have to do most of the fighting against the Spanish, who would land at Apalachicola, Milton, and Eufaula. See Tuskegee News, Dec. 9, 1875. See also in regard to the new constitution, Tuskegee News, June 3, 1875; “Northern Alabama Illustrated,” pp. 51, 52; Annual Cyclopædia (1875), p. 14; Ho. Ex. Doc., No. 46, 43d Cong., 2d Sess.; “Report of the Joint Committee in regard to the Amendment of the Constitution.”
[2166] Most whites believe that eliminating the negro has solved the problem of the negro in politics. It seems to me that this is a superficial view. The black counties are still represented in party conventions and legislature in proportion to population. The white counties are jealous of this undue influence and would like to reduce this representation. The party leaders have been able to repress this jealousy, but it is not forgotten. Before it will submit to loss of representation the Black Belt, it is believed, will gradually admit to the franchise those negroes who have been excluded, and they will vote with the whites. Such a course will undoubtedly cause political realignments. Notice on the maps that the Republican strongholds are now in the white counties. The “Lily Whites” are increasing in numbers.
[2167] These views are set forth most clearly by Alexander Johnston in Lalor’s “Cyclopædia of Political Science,” Vol. III, p. 556. See also McCall, “Thaddeus Stevens,” and his article in the Atlantic Monthly, June, 1901; Blaine, “Twenty Years”; Schurz, in McClure’s Magazine, Jan., 1905; Grosvenor, in Forum, Aug., 1900.
[2168] For a belated recognition of the reasons for this, see H. L. Nelson, “Three Months of Roosevelt,” in the Atlantic Monthly, Feb., 1902.