Statistics of the Frauds
The minority report of the Ku Klux Committee asserted, as has been said, that in 1865 there were 5,000,000 bales of cotton in the South, and that the agents seized 3,000,000 bales for themselves and for the government;[779] Dr. Curry said that there were about 250,000 bales of Confederate cotton;[780] another expert estimate placed the total number of bales of Confederate cotton at 150,000 on April 1, 1865; after April 1, many thousand bales were destroyed in Alabama, where most of the Confederate cotton was gathered; the report of A. Roane, in 1864, showed 115,000 bales in Alabama. It is not probable, after all the burnings which later took place in Alabama, that there was much government cotton left in Alabama, 20,000 bales at the most.
Secretary McCulloch, on March 2, 1867, reported that the total receipts from captured and abandoned property amounted to $34,052,809.54, netting $24,742,322.55.[781] The cotton sold for $29,518,041.17.[782] The records show that only 115,000 bales were turned over to the United States, and of these Draper received 95,840½ bales which he sold for about $15,000,000 when cotton was worth 33 cents to $1.22 a pound, and a bale weighed 400 to 450 pounds. This cotton was worth in New York $500,000,000.[783] The records of the agencies were badly kept or not kept at all, and many agents made no reports. The government never knew how many bales had been collected in its name.
The First Special Agency reported that in Alabama it had seized cotton (after June 1, 1865) in the counties of Greene, Marengo, Perry, Dallas, Pickens, Montgomery, Sumter, and Tuscaloosa, during October, November, and December, 1865, and January, 1866. This agency had, before June 1, 1866,[784] shipped 5697 bales to the government agent in New York, who sold them for $750,702.68, and had made charges of $209,338.58 for freight, fees, etc., $35 a bale. The Ninth Agency, under the notorious T. C. A. Dexter and J. M. Tomeny, gathered cotton from the counties of Dallas, Marengo, Sumter, Montgomery, Wilcox, Lowndes, Barbour, Butler, Tuscaloosa, Macon, and Mobile. This agency had thirty-six collecting agents, and turned over to the government only 9,712 bales, which sold for $1,412,335.68, with fees and charges amounting to $540,962.38.[785]
Most of the government cotton was consigned to New York agents and sold there.[786]
The army quartermasters at Mobile received 19,396 bales of cotton, of which 6149 were delivered to Dexter and 9741 were, it was claimed, destroyed by the great explosion. Dexter turned over to the government only 7469 bales and Tomeny 7732, other agents accounted for enough to bring the total up to about 30,000 bales. Dexter sold $823,947 worth of other property.[787]
The Freedmen’s Bureau in Alabama was supported for two years by the sale of confiscated property, of which no accounts were kept. The army also sold cotton and other confiscated property and used the proceeds. “Abandoned” cotton netted to the Treasury $2,682,271.69. After June 30, according to Treasury records, 33,638 bales (worth $7,650,675.93, but netting only $4,886,671) were illegally seized. It is this money which is still held because the former owners once subscribed to the Confederate Produce Loan. “Loyal” claimants, 22,298 in number in 1871, were asking damages, to the amount of $60,258,150.44. When Congress, on March 30, 1868, called into the Treasury all proceeds of captured and abandoned property, it was found that Jay Cooke and Company had $20,000,000, which they had been using in their business for years. The cotton agents and others interested lobbied persistently in Washington against legislation in behalf of claimants, fearing investigation and exposure.
The statistics given in the public documents are often those for the whole South, but usually only for Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Seldom can the figures for Alabama be separated from the others. Alabama lost more from the invasion of Treasury agents than any other state, since in 1865 she had more cotton and other property, and many more agents visited her soil. The United States Treasury received only a small fraction of the confiscated property, and most of the proceeds of that have been released to people who were willing to commit perjury in order to get it.[788]
Under the act of March 12, 1863, “loyal” owners had until two years after the war to file claims, and by February, 1888, $9,864,300.75 had been paid out to satisfy these people. Since 1888, $520,700.18 has been paid out. Under the act of May 18, 1872, providing for return of proceeds of cotton seized illegally after June 30, 1865, 1337 claims were filed, 339 of which were from Alabama. These Alabama claims called for 23,529 bales. Only a very small amount ($195,896.21) was returned to the claimants, because the records showed that most of them had once sold cotton to the Confederate government. Therefore, they now say, all cotton seized after June 30, 1865, was Confederate cotton, and the proceeds will be held. Only about four and a half millions now (1904) remain in the Treasury, as the proceeds of all the cotton seized. This is the amount for which the cotton seized after June 30, 1865, was sold. All other proceeds have either been returned to “loyal” claimants or have been absorbed by expenses. Very few, if any, claimants not able to prove “loyalty” have been able to secure restoration, since “loyalty” was in most cases a prerequisite to consideration.[789]
The confiscation policy, it may be concluded, profited the government nothing; the Treasury agents and pretended agents were enriched by their stealings and but few were punished; nearly all private cotton was lost; the people were reduced to more desperate want and exasperated against the government which, it seemed, had acted upon the assumption that the ex-Confederates had no rights whatever.