Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama

by Walter L. Fleming

One of the first things to awaken the people of Alabama from the blank lethargy into which they had fallen was the question of what was to be done by the United States government with the Confederate leaders who had been arrested. President Davis and Vice-President Stephens, Senator Clay, the war governors,—Moore, Shorter, and Watts,—Admiral Semmes, several judicial officers of the state, and many minor officials were arrested and imprisoned in the North. Davis, Moore, and Clay were known to be in feeble health, and from them came accounts of harsh treatment. The arrests of lesser personages were purely arbitrary, and in most cases were probably done by the military without any higher authority. It was announced unofficially that all who had held office before the war and who had supported the Confederacy, even those who had never taken an oath to support the Constitution and laws of the United States, would be arrested and tried for treason.[806] During the spring and summer of 1865 rumor was busy. Thus, fear of arrest and imprisonment, the sympathy of the people for their leaders who were being made to suffer as scapegoats, the irritating methods of the Freedmen’s Bureau, the work of various political and religious emissaries among the negroes, and the confiscation of property served progressively to awaken the people from the stupor into which they had fallen, and they began to take an interest in affairs of such vital importance to them. The newspapers began to discuss the problems of Reconstruction and to condemn the treatment of the political prisoners from the South. This renewed interest was characterized by a section of the northern press and by prominent politicians as “disloyalty,”—a proof of a “rebellious” spirit which ought to be chastised.

“The Condition of Affairs in the South”

The President, who began with a vindictive policy, gradually modified it until it was as fair as the South could expect from him. To support his policy, he sent agents to the South to ascertain the state of feeling here and the exact condition of affairs. These agents were General Grant, the head of the army, Carl Schurz, a sentimental foreign revolutionist and politician with an implicit belief in the Rights of Man, and Benjamin C. Truman, a well-known and able journalist.

General Grant reported: “I am satisfied that the thinking men of the South accept the present condition of affairs in good faith. The questions that have heretofore divided the sentiment of the people of the two sections, slavery and state rights, or the right of a state to secede from the Union, they regard as having been settled by the highest tribunal—arms—that man can resort to.” He believed that acquiescence in the authority of the general government was universal, but that the demoralization following four years of civil war made it necessary to post small garrisons throughout the South until civil authority was fully established.[807]

The report of Carl Schurz was distinctly unfavorable to the southerners. He made a classification of the people into four divisions: (1) The business and professional men and men of wealth who were forced into secession. These, though prejudiced, were open to conviction, and accepted the results of the war. However, as a class, they were neither bold nor energetic. (2) The professional politicians who supported the policy of the President and wanted the state readmitted at once, as they hoped then to be able to arrange things to suit themselves. (3) A strong lawless element, idlers and loiterers, who persecuted negroes and “union” men, and in politics would support the second class. They appealed to the passions and prejudices of the masses and commanded the admiration of the women. (4) The mass of the people, who were of weak intellect, with no definite ideas about anything; who were ruled by those who appealed to their impulses and prejudices. He stated, however, that all were agreed that further resistance to the government was useless and that all submitted to its authority. The people, he said, were hostile toward the soldiers, northern men, unionists, and negroes; their loyalty was only submission to necessity; and they still honored their old political leaders.[808]

B. C. Truman, the journalist, after a long stay in the South, of which about two months were spent in Alabama, reported to the President that the southerners were loyal to the government and were cheerfully submissive and obedient to the law. The fates were against them, the people thought, and it was the will of God that they should lose; the dream of independence was over, and secession would never be thought of again; the war had decided this question, and the decision was accepted. The Confederate soldier, the backbone and sinew of the South, who must be the real basis of reconstruction and worthy citizenship, was exerting his influence for peace and reconciliation; there were few more potent influences at work in promoting real and lasting reconciliation and reconstruction than that of the Confederate soldier. The fear that in case of foreign war the South would fight against the United States he knew to be unfounded; the soldiers hated England, and would fight for the United States; this, Hardee, McLaws, and Forrest had told him; but, he added, the soldiers preferred to have no war at all, they had had all that they wanted. At the collapse of the Confederacy, there had been a general feeling of despair. The people at home, especially, had expected the worst; and the reaction was wrongly called “disloyal.” The people were gradually returning to old attachments, but that they would repudiate their old leaders was not to be expected; neither would they acknowledge any wrong in their former belief in slavery and the right of secession, though ready to grant that those no longer existed. They were better friends to the negro than the northern men who came South; and the courts, magistrates, and lawyers would see that justice was done the negro.[809]

In order to produce a report which would justify the action of Congress in opposing the President’s plan,[810] a committee of Congress for several months held an inquest at Washington and examined selected witnesses who gave the desired testimony relative to the condition of affairs in the South. The committee consisted of six senators and nine representatives. Only three Democrats were on this committee, and not one of them was on the sub-committee that took testimony relating to affairs in Alabama.[811] All sessions of the subcommittees were held in Washington, far removed from the state under inquisition. Care was exercised in calling as witnesses only Republicans, and these usually were not citizens of the state. No citizens of Alabama testified except two deserters,[812] one tory,[813] and one man who, during the war, had been an agent of the Confederate government “to examine political prisoners,”[814] but who told the committee that during the war he had been a “union” man. A witness from Ohio claimed to be a citizen of Alabama.[815] Another witness was a cotton speculator from Massachusetts, and still another, a land office man from the North. Three hailed from Illinois, three from Iowa, one each from California and Minnesota, and the remainder were from the North, with the exception of General George H. Thomas, who had been a Virginian and who had not been allowed to remain in ignorance of what the Virginians called his “treasonable” conduct toward his native state. Three were connected with the Freedmen’s Bureau, already fiercely criticised in all sections of the country, and twelve were, or had been, connected with the army, and for short periods had served in some part of Alabama.[816]

Of the five men who resided in the state, each was bitter in denunciation of existing conditions and tendencies in Alabama. The course they had taken during the war made it impossible for them to attain to any position of honor or profit so long as the Confederate sympathizers were not proscribed. Existing institutions must be overthrown before they could hope for political preferment.[817]

The conflicting stories of most of the witnesses neutralized one another, and the remainder corroborated the testimony of General Wager Swayne, the head in Alabama of that much-hated institution, the Freedmen’s Bureau. General Swayne stated that he had been agreeably disappointed in the temper of the people. In most of his conclusions he agreed with Truman. He said that he had observed a gradual cessation of disorder, the opening of courts to the negro, and favorable legislation for him; but a marked increase of political animosity. He thought the northerner was well treated except socially. He thought the people were determined to make it honorable to have been engaged in “rebellion” and dishonorable to have been a “unionist” among them during the war.[818] The statements of General Swayne were probably as near to the truth as the average human being could attain to.[819] His account was from the northern standpoint, but was as impartial as any one could make at that time.[820] A few weeks later he said that the bluster of a few irreconcilables should not be exaggerated into the threatening voice of a whole people.[821] This he repeatedly asserted.

Ex-Governor Andrew B. Moore spoke for the people when he said: “Slavery and the right of secession are settled forever. The people will stand by it.” Rev. Thomas O. Summers, who lived in the heart of the Black Belt, said, “I have not found a planter who does not think the abolition of slavery a great misfortune to both races; but all recognize abolition to be an accomplished fact.”[822]