Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama

by Walter L. Fleming

Sec. 2. The Interregnum; Lawlessness and Disorder

Immediately after the surrender of the armies a general demand arose from the people throughout the lower South that the governors convene the state legislatures for the purpose of calling conventions which, by repealing the ordinance of secession and abolishing slavery, could prepare the way for reunion. This, it was thought, was all that the North wanted, and it seemed to be in harmony with Lincoln’s plan of restoration. General Richard Taylor, when he surrendered at Meridian, Mississippi, advised the governors of Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi to take steps to carry out such measures; and General Canby, to whom Taylor surrendered the department, indorsed the plan, as did also the various general officers of the armies of occupation. But these generals were not in touch with politics at Washington. The Federal government outlawed the existing southern state governments, leaving them with no government at all. Governor Watts and ex-Governors Shorter and Moore were arrested and sent to northern prisons. A number of prominent leaders, among them John Gayle of Selma and ex-Senators Clay and Fitzpatrick, were also arrested. The state government went to pieces. General Canby was instructed by President Johnson to arrest any member of the Alabama legislature who might attempt to hold a meeting of the general assembly. Consequently, from the first of May until the last of the summer the state of Alabama was without any state government;[684] and it was only after several months of service as provisional governor that Parsons was able to reorganize the state administration.

For six months after the surrender there was practically no government of any kind in Alabama except in the immediate vicinity of the military posts, where the commander exercised a certain authority over the people of the community. A good commander could do little more than let affairs take their course, for the great mass of the people only wanted to be left alone for a while. They were tired of war and strife and wanted rest and an opportunity to work their crops and make bread for their suffering families. The strongest influence of the respectable people was exerted in favor of peace and order. While much lawlessness appeared in the state, it was not as much as might have been expected under the existing circumstances at the close of the great Civil War. Much of the disorder was caused by the presence of the troops, some of whom were even more troublesome than the robbers and outlaws from whom they were supposed to protect the people. The best soldiers of the Federal army had demanded their discharge as soon as fighting was over, and had gone home. Those who remained in the service in the state were, with few exceptions, very disorderly, and kept the people in terror by their robberies and outrages. Especially troublesome among the negro population, and a constant cause of irritation to the whites, were the negro troops, who were sent into the state, the people believed, in order to humiliate the whites. They were commanded by officers who had been insulted and threatened all during the war because of their connection with these troops, and this treatment had embittered them against the southern people. The negro troops were stationed in towns where Confederate spirit had been very strong, as a discipline to the people. For months and even years after the surrender the Federal troops in small detachments were accustomed to march through the country, searching for cotton and other public property and arresting citizens on charges preferred by the tories or by the negroes, many of whom spent their time confessing the sins of their white neighbors. The garrison towns suffered from the unruly behavior of the soldiers. The officers, who were only waiting to be mustered out of service, devoted themselves to drinking, women, and gambling. The men followed their example. The traffic in whiskey was enormous, and most of the sales were to the soldiers, to the lowest class of whites, and to the negroes. The streets of the towns and cities such as Montgomery, Mobile, Selma, Huntsville, Athens, and Tuscaloosa, were crowded with drunken and violent soldiers. Lewd women had followed the army and had established disreputable houses near every military post, which were the centre and cause of many lawless outbreaks. Quarrels were frequent, and at a disorderly ball in Montgomery, in the fall of 1865, a Federal officer was killed. The peaceable citizens were plundered by the camp followers, discharged soldiers, and the deserters who now crawled out of their retreats. Sometimes these marauders dressed in the Federal uniforms when on their expeditions, in order to cast suspicion on the soldiers, who were often wrongfully charged with these crimes.[685]

As one instance of the many outrages committed at this time the following may be cited: in the summer of 1865, when all was in disorder and no government existed in the state, a certain “Major” Perry, as his followers called him, went on a private raid through the country to get a part of anything that might be left. He was one of the many who thought that they deserved some share of the spoils and who were afraid that the time of their harvest would be short. So it was necessary to make the best of the disordered condition of affairs. Perry was followed by a few white soldiers, or men who dressed as soldiers, and by a crowd of negroes. At his saddle-bow was tied a bag containing his most valuable plunder. From house to house in Dallas and adjoining counties he and his men went, demanding valuables, pulling open trunks and bureau and wardrobe drawers, scattering their contents, and choosing what they wanted, tearing pictures in pieces, and scattering the contents of boxes of papers and books in a spirit of pure destructiveness. At one house they found some old shirts which the mistress had carefully mended for her husband, who had not yet returned from the army. One of the marauders suggested that they be added to their collection. “Major” Perry looked at them carefully, but, as he was rather choice in his tastes, rejected them as “damned patched things,” spat tobacco on them, and trampled them with his muddy boots. Incidents similar to this were not infrequent, nor were they calculated to soften the feelings of the women toward the victorious enemy. Their cordial hatred of Federal officers was strongly resented by the latter, who were often able to retaliate in unpleasant ways.[686]

In southeast Alabama deserters from both armies and members of the so-called First Florida Union Cavalry continued for a year after the close of the war their practice of plundering all classes of people and sometimes committing other acts of violence. Some persons were robbed of nearly all that they possessed.[687] Joseph Saunders, a millwright of Dale County, served as a Confederate lieutenant in the first part of the war. Later he resigned, and being worried by the conscript officers, allied himself with a band of deserters near the Florida line, who drew their supplies from the Federal troops on the coast. Saunders was made leader of the band and made frequent forays into Dale County, where on one occasion a company of militia on parade was captured. The band raided the town of Newton, but was defeated. After the war, Saunders with his gang returned and continued horse-stealing. Finally he killed a man and went to Georgia, where, in 1866, he himself was killed.[688] He was a type of the native white outlaw.

The burning of cotton was common. Some was probably burned because the United States cotton agents had seized it, but the heaviest loss fell on private owners. A large quantity of private cotton worth about $2,000,000, that had escaped confiscation and had been collected near Montgomery, was destroyed by the cotton burners.[689] Horse and cattle thieves infested the whole state, especially the western part. Washington and Choctaw counties especially suffered from their depredations.[690] The rivers were infested with cotton thieves, who floated down the streams in flats, landed near cotton fields, established videttes, went into the fields, stole the cotton, and carried it down the river to market.[691] A band of outlaws took passage on a steamboat on the Alabama River, overcame the crew and the honest passengers, and took possession of the boat.[692]

A secret incendiary organization composed of negroes and some discharged Federal soldiers plotted to burn Selma. The members of the band wore red ribbon badges. One of the negroes informed the authorities of the plot and of the place of meeting, and forty of the band were arrested. The others were informed and escaped. The military authorities released the prisoners, who denied the charge, though some of their society testified against them.[693] There were incendiary fires in every town in the state, it is said, and several were almost destroyed.

The bitter feeling between the tories and the Confederates of north Alabama resulted in some places in guerilla warfare. The Confederate soldiers, whose families had suffered from the depredations of the tories during the war, wanted to punish the outlaws for their misdeeds, and in many cases attempted to do so. The tories wanted revenge for having been driven from the country or into hiding by the Confederate authorities, so they raided the Confederate soldiers as they had raided their families during the war. Some of the tories were caught and hanged. In revenge, the Confederates were shot down in their houses, and in the fields while at work, or while travelling along the roads. The convention called by Governor Parsons declared that lawlessness existed in many counties of the state and authorized Parsons to call out the militia in each county to repress the disorder. They also asked the President to withdraw the Federal troops, which were only a source of disorder,[694] and gave to the mayors of Florence, Athens, and Huntsville special police powers within their respective counties in order to check the lawless element, which was especially strong in Lauderdale, Limestone, and Madison counties.[695] These counties lay north of the Tennessee River, along the Tennessee border. There was a disposition on the part of the civil and military authorities in Alabama to attribute the lawlessness in north and northwest Alabama to bands of desperadoes from Tennessee and Mississippi, but north Alabama had numbers of marauders of her own, and it is probable that Tennessee and Mississippi had little to do with it. Half a dozen men, where there was no authority to check them, could make a whole county uncomfortable for the peaceable citizens.[696]

The Federal infantry commands scattered throughout the country were of little service in capturing the marauders. General Swayne repeatedly asked for cavalry, for, as he said, the infantry was the source of as much disorder as it suppressed. The worst outrages, he added, were committed by small bands of lawless men organized under various names, and whose chief object was robbery and plunder.[697] After the establishment of the provisional government an attempt was made to bring to trial some of the outlaws who had infested the country during and after the war, and who richly deserved hanging. They were of no party, being deserters from both armies, or tories who had managed to keep out of either army. However, when arrested they raised a strong cry of being “unionists” and appealed to the military authorities for protection from “rebel” persecution, though the officials of the Johnson government in Alabama were never charged by any one else with an excess of zeal in the Confederate cause. The Federal officials released all prisoners who claimed to be “unionists.” Sheriff Snodgrass of Jackson County arrested fifteen bushwhackers charged with murder. They claimed to be “loyalists,” and General Kryzyanowski, commanding the district of north Alabama, ordered the court to stop proceedings and to discharge the prisoners. This was not done, and Kryzyanowski sent a body of negro soldiers who closed the court, released the prisoners, and sent the sheriff to jail at Nashville.[698] The military authorities allowed no one who asserted that he was a “unionist” to be tried for offences committed during the war, and any effort to bring the outlaws to trial resulted in an outcry against the “persecution of loyalists.”