Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama

by Walter L. Fleming

[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.