The new county officers were William H. Gray, presiding justice of the court; Charles P. Janney, clerk of the county; Samuel C. Luckett, sheriff; William B. Downey, commonwealth's attorney; Samuel Ball, commissioner of revenue.
On the 11th July, 1865, there appears the following:
"George K. Fox Jr., as Clerk of this Court having removed from the County the records of this Court, under an order of Court heretofore made, he is now ordered to return the said records to the Clerks office as soon as possible."[181]
These instructions were carried out by Mr. Fox. For over three years he had guarded his trust, without opportunity to return to Leesburg or see a member of his family during that time. He now found himself disfranchised; but between him and Charles P. Janney the new county clerk, who before the war had worked in his office, there was a strong friendship so that Mr. Janney appointed Mr. Fox his assistant, in which position he served until his reëlection as county clerk, which occurred as soon as the civil disabilities of the former Confederates were removed. He continued as county clerk until his death on the 14th of December, 1872, at the early age of forty years. How truly valued was he in Loudoun was shown at his funeral which is said to have been the largest the county had known to that time.
On the 2nd March, 1867, the Congress passed that indefensible Reconstruction Act which was to leave more bitterness in the South than the war itself, but, in all that followed, Virginia suffered less than other States of the old Confederacy. Under that act Virginia became Military District Number One and General John M. Schofield, formerly the head of the Potomac Division of the Federal Army, was given command. His choice was a most fortunate one for Virginia. Of him Richard L. Morton writes:
"He was conservative, just and wise; and it was due to his moral courage that Virginia was spared the reign of terror that existed in most of the Southern States during the Reconstruction period. His policy was to gain the confidence and support of the people of the State and to interfere as little as possible with civil authorities."[182]
General Eppa Hunton came to know him well and between the two men there developed mutual respect and friendship. Hunton, in his biography, has this to say of conditions under Schofield's rule:
"Fortunately for us the commanders in this district were good men—not disposed to oppress us—and we had for several years a fairly good military government in Virginia—our judges were military appointees; our Sheriff and all the officers in this State owed their appointment to the military Governor of Virginia. Our military judge was Lysander Hill. We had great apprehensions of him as our circuit judge when he took the place of Judge Henry W. Thomas, of Fairfax, but Hill turned out to be a first rate man and a fine judge. He was the best listener I ever addressed on the bench. His decisions were able and generally satisfactory. He certainly was not influenced in the slightest degree by politics on the bench—(Schofield) tried in every way to mitigate the hardships of our situation and gave us the best government that was possible under the circumstances."[183]
But even Schofield could not protect Virginia from the more vicious legislation of the unscrupulous radicals then in control in Washington. At the close of the war the necessities of the situation were working out, in Virginia at least, a reasonable and moderate readjustment of relations between the white people and the former slaves. The negroes looked to their old masters for employment and the whites, in their own great poverty, gave to them what they could; and while wages were very low, the negro was assured of shelter and food. The enfranchisement of the negroes in March, 1865, the establishment of the Freedman's Bureau in the following June but more particularly the organization of the Union League late in 1866 broke down the friendly relations between the races. The representatives of those politically begotten organizations taught the ignorant and always credulous negroes that the whites were their enemies and oppressors, discouraged them from working and persuaded them to ally themselves with the disreputable "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags" who were perniciously active in their efforts to foment trouble, for their own profit, between white and black. The worst results were registered in the eastern and southern parts of the State where the more extensive of the old plantations and consequently the densest negro population existed; in Loudoun, most fortunately, there was little or no racial animosity and the negroes appear to have been more content and appreciative, as well as dependable in their work, than in many of the other counties.
To meet the confusion and turmoil in the State and the threatened complete overthrow of white supremacy, the best and most representative men in Virginia formed, in December, 1867, the Conservative Party, drawing its membership from former Whigs and Democrats alike. In the election of 1869, to accept or reject a new Constitution, the Conservatives were successful, the proposed Constitution adopted and the State rescued from fast developing chaos. It is remembered that in this election John Janney made what was practically his last public appearance. He had been an outstanding leader of the Whigs in Virginia, had opposed secession but, at the end, stood with Lee and many other Virginians in the belief that coercion of the States by the Federal Government was the worse evil of the two. Before this decisive election of 1869, he had suffered a stroke of paralysis; but to set an example to his former Whig associates, he had himself driven in his carriage to the polls to vote the Conservative ticket. It was a last and effective act of patriotism. He died in January, 1872.[184]