Clubbed to His Knees

As illustrations of embarrassments we had to face, I have chiefly chosen incidents showing a kindly and forbearing spirit on the part of Federal commanders, because I desire to pay tribute wherever I may to men in blue, remembering that Southern boys are now wearing the blue and that all men wearing the blue are ours. I have chiefly chosen incidents in which the Federal officers, being gentlemen and brave men—being decent and human—revolted against exercise of cruelty to a fallen foe.

Truth compels the shield’s reverse.

In Richmond, one officer in position went to a prominent citizen and demanded $600 of him, threatening to confiscate and sell his home if he did not give it. This citizen, a lawyer and man of business, knew the threat could not be executed, and refused to meet the demand. Others not so wise paid such claims. In all parts of the South, many people, among them widows and orphans, were thus impoverished beyond the pinched condition in which war left them. Some sold their remnants of furniture, the very beds they slept on, a part of their scanty raiment, and in one case on official record, “the coverlid off the baby’s bed,” to satisfy the spurious claims of men misusing authority.

An instance illustrating our helplessness is that of Captain Bayard, who came out of the war with some make-shift crutches, a brave heart, and a love affair as the sum total of his capital in life. He made his first money by clerical work for sympathetic Federal officials. This he invested in a new suit of clothes; “They are right nice-looking,” he said with modest pride when conveying the pleasing intelligence to one interested; and he bought a pair of artificial feet.

Then he set out to see his sweetheart, feeling very proud. It was the first time he had tried his feet on the street, and he was not walking with any sense of security, but had safely traversed a square or two and was crossing a street, when a Federal officer came galloping along and very nearly ran over him; he threw up his cane. The horse shied, the cavalryman jumped off and knocked him down. As fast as he struggled up, the cavalryman knocked him down again. A burly man ran to his assistance; the cavalryman struck this man such a blow that it made tears spring in his eyes; then mounted and galloped off. “He was obliged to see,” said the captain, “that I was a cripple, and that I could not get out of his way or withstand his blows.”

The worst Virginia had to bear was as nothing to what the Carolinas suffered. There was that poor boy, who was hung in Raleigh on Lovejoy’s tree—where the Governor’s Mansion now stands. He had fired off a pistol; had hurt nobody—had not attempted to hurt anybody; it was just a boy’s thoughtless, crazy deed.

Entering Rosemont Cemetery, Newberry, S. C., one perceives on a tall marble shaft “The Lone Star of Texas” and this: “Calvin S. Crozier, Born at Brandon, Mississippi, August 1840, Murdered at Newberry, S. C., September 8, 1865.”

At the close of the war, there were some 99,000 Confederates in Federal prisons, whose release, beginning in May, continued throughout the summer. Among these was Crozier, slender, boyish in appearance, brave, thin to emaciation, pitifully weak and homesick. It was a far cry to his home in sunny Galveston, but he had traversed three States when he fell ill in North Carolina. A Good Samaritan nursed him, and set him on his way again. At Orangeburg, S. C., a gentleman placed two young ladies, journeying in the same direction, under his care. To Crozier, the trust was sacred. At Newberry, the train was derailed by obstructions placed on the track by negro soldiers of the 33d U. S. Regiment, which, under command of Colonel Trowbridge, white, was on its way from Anderson to Columbia. Crozier got out with others to see what was the matter. Returning, he found the coach invaded by two half-drunk negro soldiers, cursing and using indecent language. He called upon them to desist, directing their attention to the presence of ladies. They replied that they “didn’t care a d—!” One attempted gross familiarities with one of the ladies. Crozier ejected him; the second negro interfered; there was a struggle in the dark; one negro fled unhurt; the other, with a slight cut, ran towards camp, yelling: “I’m cut by a d—d rebel!” Black soldiers came in a mob.

The narrative, as told on the monument, concludes: “The infuriated soldiers seized a citizen of Newberry, upon whom they were about to execute savage revenge, when Crozier came promptly forward and avowed his own responsibility. He was hurried in the night-time to the bivouac of the regiment to which the soldiers belonged, was kept under guard all night, was not allowed communication with any citizen, was condemned to die without even the form of a trial, and was shot to death about daylight the following morning, and his body mutilated.”He had been ordered to dig his own grave, but refused. A hole had been dug, he was made to kneel on its brink, the column fired upon him, he tumbled into it, and then the black troops jumped on it, laughing, dancing, stamping. The only mercy shown him was by one humane negro, who, eager to save his life, besought him to deny his identity as the striker of the blow. White citizens watched their moment, removed his remains, and gave them Christian burial.

There was the burning of Brenham, Texas, September 7, 1866. Federal soldiers from the post attended a negro ball, and so outraged the decencies that negro men closed the festivities. The soldiers pursued the negro managers, one of whom fled for safety to a mansion, where a party of young white people were assembled. The pursuers abused him in profane and obscene terms. The gentlemen reminded them that ladies were in hearing; they said they “didn’t care a d—!” and drew pistols on the whites. A difficulty ensued, two soldiers were wounded, their comrades carried them to camp, returned and fired the town. The incendiaries were never punished, their commander spiriting them away when investigation was begun.[11]

“Numbers of our citizens were murdered by the soldiers of the United States, and in some instances deliberately shot down by them, in the presence of their wives and children,” writes Hon. Charles Stewart, of reconstruction times, early and late, in Texas, and cites the diabolical midnight murder of W. A. Burns and Dallas, his son, giving the testimony of Sarah, daughter of one, sister of the other, and witness of the horrible deed, from the performance of which the assassins walked away “laughing.” “Let no one suppose that the instances given were isolated cases of oppression that might occur under any Government, however good,” says Mr. Stewart. “They were of such frequent occurrence as to excite the alarm of good people.”

Federal posts were a protection to the people, affording a sense of peace and security, or the reverse, according to the character of the commanders. To show how differently different men would determine the same issue, it may be cited that General Wilde confiscated the home of Mrs. Robert Toombs to the uses of the Freedmen’s Bureau, ordering her to give possession and limiting the supplies she might remove to two weeks’ provisions. General Steedman humanely revoked this order, restoring her home to Mrs. Toombs. There was no rule by which to forecast the course a military potentate, ignorant of civil law, might pursue. The mood he was in, the dinner he had eaten, the course of a flirtation on hand, motives of personal spite, gain or favoritism, might determine a decision affecting seriously a whole community, who would be powerless to appeal against it, his caprice being law.

In a previous chapter I have told a story showing General Saxton in a most attractive light. In his “Provisional Governorship of South Carolina,” Governor Perry says: “The poor refugees (of the Sea Islands) were without fortune, money or the means of living! Many had nothing to eat except bread and water, and were thankful if they could get bread. I appointed W. H. Trescott to go to Washington and represent them in trying to recover their lands. He procured an order for the restoration, but General Saxton or some of his sub-agents thwarted in some way the design and purport of this order, and I believe the negroes are still in possession.”

So, in some places you will hear Southerners say that, save for domestic and industrial upheavals resulting from emancipation and for the privations of acute poverty, they suffered no extreme trials while under the strictly martial regime—were victims of no act of tyranny from local Federal authorities; in other places, you will hear words reflecting praise on such authorities; in others, evidence is plain that inhabitants endured worse things of military satraps than Israel suffered of Pharaoh.

As the days went by, there were fresh occasions for the conclusion: “The officers who gave Captain Bayard work and the officer who knocked him down are types of two classes of our conquerors and rulers. One is ready to help the cripple to his feet, the other to knock him down again and again. Congress will club the cripple with the negro ballot.” “If that be true,” said some, “the cripple will rise no more. Let me go hence ere my eyes behold it. Spilled blood and ruin wrought I can forgive, but not this thing!”

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