Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama

by Walter L. Fleming

A few months later the “Peace Society” appeared among the soldiers of General Clanton’s brigade stationed at Pollard, in Conecuh County. Some of the soldiers had served in the army of Tennessee, and had there been initiated into this secret society. Clanton, who was strongly disliked by General Bragg and not loved by General Polk, had much trouble with them because he asserted that the order appeared first in Bragg’s army and spread from thence. Later developments showed that he was correct.[323] It was in December, 1863, that the operations of the order among the soldiers were exposed. A number of soldiers at Pollard determined to lay down their arms on Christmas Day, as the only means of ending the war. These troops, for the most part, were lately recruited from the poorer classes of southwest Alabama by a popular leader and had never seen active service. They were stationed near their homes and were exposed to home influences. Upon them and their families the pressure of the war had been heavy.[324] Many of them were exempt from service but had joined because of Clanton’s personal popularity, because they feared that later they might become liable to service, and because they were promised special privileges in the way of furloughs and stations near their homes. To this unpromising material had been added conscripts and substitutes in whom the fires of patriotism burned low, and who entered the service very reluctantly. With them were a few veteran soldiers, and in command were veteran officers. A secret society was formed among the discontented, with all the usual accompaniment of signs, passwords, grips, oaths, and obligations. Some bound themselves by solemn oaths never to fight the enemy, to desert, and to encourage desertion—all this in order to break down the Confederacy. General Maury, in command at Mobile, concluded after investigation that the society had originated with the enemy and had entered the southern army at Cumberland Gap.[325]

In regard to the discontent among the soldiers, Colonel Swanson of the Fifty-ninth and Sixty-first Alabama[326] regiments (consolidated) stated that there was a general disposition on the part of the poorer classes, substitutes, and foreigners to accept terms and stop the war. They had nothing anyway, so there was nothing to fight for, they said. There was no general matured plan, and no leader, Colonel Swanson thought.[327] Major Cunningham of the Fifty-seventh Alabama Regiment[328] reported that there had been considerable manifestation of revolutionary spirit on account of the tax-in-kind law and the impressment system, and that there was much reckless talk, even among good men, of protecting their families from the injustice of the government, even if they had to lay down their arms and go home.[329] General Clanton said that the society had existed in Hilliard’s Legion and Gracie’s brigade, and that few men, he was sure, joined it for treasonable purposes.[330] Before the appointed time—Christmas Day—sixty or seventy members of the order mutinied and the whole design was exposed. Seventy members were arrested and sent to Mobile for trial by court-martial.[331] There is no record of the action of the court. The purged regiments were then ordered to the front and obeyed without a single desertion. Bolling Hall’s battalion, which was sent to the Western army for having in it such a society, made a splendid record at Chickamauga and in other battles, and came out of the Chickamauga fight with eighty-two bullet-holes in its colors.[332]

During the summer and fall of 1863 and in 1864 the Confederate officials in north Alabama often reported that they had found certain traces of secret organizations which were hostile to the Confederate government. The Provost-Marshal’s Department in 1863 obtained information of the existence of a secret society between the lines in Alabama and Tennessee, the object of which was to encourage desertion.

Confederate soldiers at home on furlough joined the organization and made known its object to the Confederate authorities. The members were pledged not to assist the Confederacy in any way, to encourage desertion of the north Alabama soldiers, and to work for a revolution in the state government. Stringent oaths were taken by the members, a code of signals, and passwords was used, and a well-organized society was formed. The bulk of the membership consisted of tories and deserters, with a few discontented Confederates. Their society gave information to the Federals in north Alabama and Tennessee and had agents far within the Confederate lines, organizing discontent. General Clanton early in 1864 endeavored to break up the organization in north Alabama and made a number of arrests, but failed to crush the order.

In middle Alabama, about the same time (the spring of 1864), the workings of a treasonable secret society were brought to light. Colonel Jefferson Falkner of the Eighth Confederate Infantry overheard a conversation between two malcontents and began to investigate. He found that in the central counties a secret society was working to break down the Confederate government and bring about peace. The plans were not perfected, but some were in favor of returning to the Union on the Arkansas or Sebastian platform,[333] others wanted to send to Washington and make terms, and still others were in favor of unconditional submission. As to methods, the malcontents meant to secure control of the state administration, either by revolution or by elections in the summer of 1865, then they would negotiate with the United States and end the war. The society had agents in both the Western army and the Army of Northern Virginia, tampering with the soldiers and endeavoring to carry the organization into the Federal army. The leaders in the movement hoped to organize into one party all who were discontented with the administration. If successful in this, they would be strong enough either to overthrow the state government, which was supported only by home guards, or by obstruction to force the state government to make peace. The oaths, passwords, and signals of this society were similar to those of the north Alabama organization, with which it was in communication. Conscript officers, county officials, medical boards, and members of the legislature were members of the order. If a deserter were arrested, some member released him; the members claimed that the society caused the loss of the battle of Missionary Ridge and the surrender at Vicksburg.

The strength of the so-called Peace Society lay in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. The organizers were called Eminents. They gave the “degree” to (that is, initiated) those whom they considered proper persons. No records were kept; the members did not know one another except by recognition through signals. They received directions from the Eminents, who accommodated their instructions to the person initiated. An ignorant but loyal person was told that the object of the order was to secure a change of administration; the disloyal were told that the purpose was to encourage desertion and mutiny in the army, to injure loyal citizens, and to overthrow the state and Confederate governments. Owing to the non-intercourse between members there were many in the order who never knew the real objects of the leaders or Eminents, who intended to use the organization to further their designs in 1865. The swift collapse of the Confederacy in the spring of 1865 anticipated the work of the secret societies. The anti-Confederate element was, however, left somewhat organized through the work of the order.[334]

Reconstruction Sentiment

Besides the open obstruction of politicians, officials, and legislature, and the secret opposition of the peace societies, there was a third movement for reconstruction. This movement took place in that part of Alabama held by the Federal armies, and the reconstruction meetings were encouraged by the Union army officers. The leaders were D. C. Humphreys and Jeremiah Clemens, whose defection has been noted before. A more substantial element than the tories and deserters supported this movement—the dissatisfied property holders who were afraid of confiscation. Several Confederate officers were drawn into the movement later.[335]

Early in 1864, Humphreys[336] issued an elaborate address renouncing his errors. There was no hope, he told his fellow-citizens, that foreign powers would intervene. Slavery as a permanent institution must be given up. Law and order must be enforced and constitutional authority reëstablished. Slavery was the cause of revolution, and as an institution was at an end. With slavery abolished, there was, therefore, no reason why the war should not end. The right to regulate the labor question would be secured to the state by the United States government. At present labor was destroyed, and in order to regulate labor, there must be peace. The address was printed and distributed throughout the state with the assistance of the Federal officials. A number of the packages of these addresses was seized by some women and thrown into the Tennessee River.[337] Jeremiah Clemens, who had deserted in 1862, issued an address to the people of the South advocating the election of Lincoln as President.[338] March 5, 1864, a reconstruction meeting, thinly attended, was held in Huntsville under the protection of the Union troops. Clemens presided. Resolutions were passed denying the legality of secession because the ordinance had not been submitted to the people for their ratification or rejection. Professions of devotion and loyalty to the United States were made by Clemens, the late major-general of Alabama militia and secessionist of 1861.[339] A week later the same party met again. No young men were present, for they were in the army. All were men over forty-five, concerned for their property. Clemens spoke, denouncing the “twenty-negro” law. The Gilchrist story was here originated by Clemens and told for the first time. The story was that J. G. Gilchrist of Montgomery County went to the Secretary of War, Mr. Walker, and urged him to begin hostilities by firing on Fort Sumter, saying, “You must sprinkle blood in the face of the people of Alabama or the state will be back into the Union within ten days.” In closing, Clemens said, “Thank God, there is now no prospect of the Confederacy succeeding.”

D. C. Humphreys then proposed his plan: slavery was dead, but by submitting to Federal authority gradual emancipation could be secured, and also such guarantees as to the future status of the negro as would relieve the people from social, economic, and political dangers. He expressed entire confidence in the conservatism of the northern people, and asserted that if only the ordinance of secession were revoked, the southern people would have as long a time as they pleased to get rid of the institution of slavery. In case of return to the Union the people would have political coöperation to enable them to secure control of negro labor. “There is really no difference, in my opinion,” he said, “whether we hold them as slaves or obtain their labor by some other method. Of course, we prefer the old method. But that is not the question.” He announced the defection from the Confederacy of Vice-President Stephens, and bitterly denounced Ben Butler, Davis, and Slidell, to whose intrigues he attributed the present troubles. Resolutions were proposed by him and adopted, acknowledging the hopelessness of secession and advising a return to the Union. Longer war, it was declared, would be dangerous to the liberties of the people, and the restoration of civil government was necessary. The governor was asked to call a convention for the purpose of reuniting Alabama to the Union. It was not expected, it was stated, that the governor would do this; but his refusal would be an excuse for the independent action of north Alabama and a movement toward setting up a new state government. Busteed could then come down and hold a “bloody assize, trying traitors and bushwhackers.”[340]