[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.