The Carpet-Bagger

The test-oath was invitation to the carpet-bagger. The statements of Generals Schofield and Stoneman show how difficult it was to find in the South men capable of filling office who could swear they had “never given aid or comfort” to a Confederate. Few or no decent people could do it. In the summer of 1865, President Johnson instructed provisional governors to fill Federal offices of mail, revenue and customs service with men from other States, if proper resident citizens—that is, men who could take the test-oath—could not be found. Office-seekers from afar swarmed as bees to a hive.

The carpet-bagger was the all-important figure in Dixie after the war; he was lord of our domain; he bred discord between races, kept up war between sections, created riots and published the tale of them, laying all blame on whites. Neither he nor his running mate the scalawag or turn-coat Southerner, was received socially. Sentence fell harder upon the latter when old friends insulted him and the speaker on the hustings could say of him no word too bitter. His family suffered with him. The wife of the native Radical Governor of one Southern State said when her punishment was over: “The saddest years of my life were spent in the Executive Mansion. In a city where I had been beloved, none of my old friends, none of the best people, called on me.” In times of great poverty, temptations were great; men, after once starting in politics, were drawn further than they had dreamed possible. Again, men with State welfare at heart, urged compromises as the only way to secure benefits to the State; on being irritated, urged unwisely; on being ostracized, out-Heroded Herod. Our foreign office-holders were not all bad men or corrupt. We will not call these carpet-baggers. The carpet-bagger has been defined: “A Yankee, in a linen duster and with a carpet-bag, appearing suddenly on a political platform in the South, and calling upon the negroes to vote him into office.” I give portraits of two types.

In the wake of Sherman’s Army which passed through Brunswick, Virginia, toward Washington, came and stopped two white men, Lewis and McGiffen. They were desperadoes and outlaws, carried Winchester rifles and were fine shots; said they hailed from Maine; to intimates, the leader, Lewis, boasted that he had killed his step-father and escaped the hangman by playing crazy. They leased the farm of a “poor white,” Mrs. Parrish. Lewis opened a negro school and a bank, issuing script for sums from twenty-five cents to five dollars; he organized a Loyal League, collecting the fees and dues therefrom. He armed and drilled negroes and marched them around to the alarm of the people. Court House records show lawful efforts of whites at self-protection. August 8, 1868, Lewis was tried before William Lett, J. P., for inciting negroes to insurrection, when, under pretense of preaching the Gospel to them, he convened them at Parrish’s. He was sentenced to the penitentiary for seven years. The State was under military rule, and the decision of the civil court was set aside and Lewis left at large. John Drummond was a witness against Lewis.

Lewis soon had the negroes well organised; he established a system of signal stations from the North Carolina line to Nottoway and Dinwiddie. By the firing of signal guns, they would receive notice to congregate. Suddenly, all hands on a man’s plantation would stop work and say: “Got orders, suh, tuh go tuh de Cote House.” And all at once roads would be lined with negroes from every direction bound for the Court House. In a few hours the little town would fill with darkeys, a thousand or more on the streets. They would collect thus from time to time, and hold secret or public political meetings, Lewis, McGiffen and other speakers working them up to a state of great excitement.

At one meeting, a riot occurred in which several men were killed or wounded. Mr. Freeman Jones, later Sheriff of the County, gave me a version of it. He said: “Meade Bernard (afterwards Judge Bernard) and Sidney Jones were set upon. Negroes knocked the last-named gentleman senseless, continuing chastisement until he was rescued by the Freedmen’s Bureau officer. When Bernard was attacked, his old coloured nurse, Aunt Sally Bland, rushed into the melÉe, crying: ‘Save my chile! save my chile!’ Sticks were raining blows on his head when she interfered, pleading with them to desist until they stopped. These white men had shown all their lives, only kindness to negroes. When set upon they were doing nothing to give offense, they were simply listening to the speeches. One negro, observing their presence, cried out: ‘Kill the d—d white scoundrels!’ Others took up the cry.

“The whites, a little handful, retreated towards the village, followed by at least a thousand negroes, yelling intention to sack and fire the town. The road passed through a very narrow lane into Main Street. Here they were blocked and confronted by Mr. L. G. Wall, carrier of the United States Mail, who, as a Government official, halted them, telling them he had right of way and that they were obstructing Government service; he ordered them to move back and make room; they would not; he drew his pistol and fired five or six times. I believe every shot took effect. Several negroes were desperately wounded. The mob retired and Wall went on. In the suburbs the negroes held an angry meeting, but they had got enough of mob violence.” Which was fortunate. The normal white male population of the village did not exceed forty or fifty. White men went to the polls soon after not knowing what to expect, and found everything quiet. Negroes had come, voted early and gone. They had learned a salutary lesson.

Lewis claimed to be an officer duly commissioned, and went about making arrests, selecting some prominent men. One of his victims was William Lett, an old and wealthy citizen, and the justice before whom Lewis had been brought to trial. A complaint by Mr. Lett’s cook was the ostensible ground of Lewis’ call upon Mr. Lett; the real purpose was robbery. The outlaws had seduced into their service John Parrish, an unlettered boy who liked to hunt with them, and who, boy-like, was pleased with their daredevil ways. He composed the third in the “team” that went around arresting people. He recently gave me the next chapter in the Lewis story.

“I was jes a little boy an’ I done what I was ordered to. I was goin’ out sqir’l huntin’, an’ I see Dr. Lewis, an’ he had a paper in his han’, an’ he say: ‘Johnny, I want you to go with me this evenin’.’ I says: ‘I wants to go squir’l huntin’.’ He says: ‘I summons you to go wid me to serve a warrant on Mr. Lett.’ An’ I lef’ my dawgs at my sister’s an’ I taken my little dollar-an’-a-half gun along. He says: ‘Johnny, people tell me this ole man is mighty hot-headed. If he comes out of his house an’ I tell you to shoot, shoot.’ Dr. Lewis called Mr. Lett out to de gate, an’ read de warrant to him. An’ Mr. Lett said he wouldn’ be arrested by him, an’ Dr. Lewis grabbed at his coat collar, an’ Mr. Lett broke loose, an’ hollered for somebody to han’ him his gun outer de house. An’ he went into de house an’ got a gun an’ shot Lewis, an’ Lewis stepped behin’ de gate-pos’, an’ he called to me: ‘D— him! where is he?’ An’ I said: ‘Jes behin’ de winder.’ An’ I stepped behin’ de corner, an’ Dr. Lewis called me, an’ I stepped out, an’ I thought I see a gun or pistol pointin’ my way f’om de winder, an’ I thought I heard Lewis say ‘Shoot!’ an’ I shot. It warn’t nothin’ but a little bitter dollar-an’-a-half bird gun. But dem shot went through de weather-bo’din’. I heard Mr. Lett’s gun when it fell an’ I heard him when he fell. Lewis was standin’ behin’ de gate-pos’. The cook-woman hollered: ‘Here he is! here he is, going out at de back door!’ And thar was a little chicken-house. An’ Lett shot Lewis with bird-shot.”

Mr. Freeman Jones summed it up simply thus: “When the gang came to capture Mr. Lett, the old man attempted a defense, ordering them off his place, and barricading himself behind the nearest thing at hand, which happened to be a chicken-coop. Lewis shot and nearly killed him; the old man lingered some time between life and death.” Mr. Lett, it seems, was shot by both. “They toted Lewis away,” concludes Parrish, “to de house of a feller named Carroll, an’ he stayed thar. They sent for de military soldiers an’ they came, an’ I stated de case well as I could, an’ they discharged me.” Lewis was tried in the civil court, sentenced to a term in the penitentiary, was carried by the sheriff to that institution and pardoned next day by Governor Wells, military appointee of General Schofield; he got back to the county almost as soon as the sheriff.The people became more and more incensed at repeated outrages. Dr. Powell, whose assassination was attempted, tells me that the immediate cause of the final tragedies was that Lewis ordered Carroll to leave home. John B. Drummond, volunteering, was appointed special constable to arrest Lewis. He met Lewis and his gang in a turn of the road and halted them, telling Lewis he had a warrant for him. Lewis fired, killing him instantly. The temper of the public was now such that Lewis and McGiffen fled the State, enticing Parrish along. They sought asylum in North Carolina and sent Parrish back for some property. A reward was offered for them. In a little one-horse wagon which Parrish brought with Lewis’ pony, they travelled by night to Charleston, South Carolina. Here Lewis opened a school and Parrish hired himself out. They staid there two years. McGiffen married again. He had taken his little child from his Brunswick wife; now he concluded to carry it back to her.

“I went with him,” says Parrish. “We come near a village an’ we stopped at a man’s house. He mistrusted something wrong.” (Naturally! Dr. Powell says he saw his guests moulding bullets, ordered them out, and they defied him, declaring they would spend the night.) “He sent out an’ got two men an’ they come in thar wid thar guns an’ staid all night. When we got up in de little town nex’ mornin’, thar come out twenty men wid guns in thar han’s, an’ de Mayor he was thar, an’ McGiffen tole ’em to stop; an’ they stopped. He tole ’em thar couldn’ but one or two come near. They suspicioned about our having the little chile along. You see, thar was trouble ’bout dat time ’bout children bein’ kidnapped an’ carried off to de Dismal Swamp. I see ten or thirteen men on de railroad, an’ they comin’ pretty close. McGiffen hollered out for ’em to stop, or he would certainly shoot. An’ they stopped. Then somebody hollered ‘Close up!’

“I had de little boy in my lap. To keep him f’om gittin’ hurt, I set him down by de roadside. McGiffen an’ me had been ridin’ one horse, takin’ turns, de one ridin’ carryin’ de baby. A feller kep’ comin’ closer, an’ I hollered, ‘Stop, sir, or I’m goin’ to shoot you!’ an’ I shot him in de han’. He kep’ hollerin’ I had killed him, an’ de other fellers sorter scattered, an’ that give McGiffen chance to git away. An’ I got away. Had to leave de baby settin’ thar side de road. An’ they follered me up an’ got me, an’ they got McGiffen. After they captured us, they heard about thar bein’ three strangers down whar we had come f’om, an’ they suspicioned we was de men dat had been advertised for because of de trouble in Brunswick. An’ they sent after Lewis. It was one night. He had unbuckled his pistols an’ laid ’em on his bureau, an’ some visitors come to see him; an’ he was talkin’ to them, an’ eight or ten men stepped up behin’ him an’ that’s how they got him. An’ they had de three of us. An’ Governor Walker sent Bill Knox, de detective, an’ Dr. Powell he was sent to identify us. An’ we were carried to Richmond, an’ then we were carried to Greensville, an’ we were tried. De little boy was sent back to his mother. I was sent to de penitentiary for eight years, but I got out sooner for good behaviour; an’ I learned a good trade thar. But I don’t think they ought to ha’ sent me, because I was jes a boy an’ I done what I was ordered to do when I shot Mr. Lett—that what’s they sent me for. An’ de military soldiers had said I warn’t to blame. Lewis he played off crazy like he done befo’, an’ they sent him to de asylum, an’ he escaped like he done befo’. De superintendent was a member of de Loyal League. An’ McGiffen was hung, an’ I never thought he ought to ha’ been hung.” Military rule was at an end and Virginia was back in the Union when the fugitives were captured.

There was another flutter of the public pulse in this county when, perhaps, the one thing that saved the day was the confidence of the negroes in Sheriff Jones. Court was in session when several people ran into the court room, shouting: “Sheriff! Sheriff! they are killing the negroes out here!” Sheriff Jones ran out and saw a crowd of five or six hundred negroes, some drunk, in the street, and in their midst two drunken white men. A few other whites were lined up against a fence, their hands on their pistols, not knowing what a moment would bring forth. People cried out: “Don’t go into that crowd, Sheriff! You’re sure to get shot!” “Here, boys!” called the Sheriff to some negroes he knew, “take me into that crowd.” Two negroes made a platform of their hands, and on this the officer was carried into the mob, his bearers shouting as they went: “Lis’n to de sheriff! Hear what de sheriff say!” He called on everybody to keep the peace, had no trouble in restoring quiet, and arrested everybody he thought ought to be arrested. “But our coloured people soon became orderly and well-behaved after the carpet-baggers left us,” says Sheriff Jones.

In several Southern States at this period, such a termination to the last incident would have been almost impossible. Here, the officer was a representative native white; he understood the people and all elements trusted him; the interest of the community was his own. With an outsider in position, the case must have been quite different; the situation more difficult and the sequel probably tragic, even conceding to the officer sincere desire to prevent trouble, a disposition carpet-baggers did not usually betray. Riots in the South were breath of life to carpet-bag governments. July 25, 1870, Governor Smith, Republican, of Alabama, said over his signature, of a politician who had criticised him for not calling out negro militia to intimidate whites: “My candid opinion is that Sibley does not want the law executed, because that would put down crime, and crime is his life’s blood. He would like very much to have a Ku Klux outrage every week, to assist him in keeping up strife between whites and blacks, that he might be more certain of the latter’s votes. He would like to have a few coloured men killed weekly to furnish semblance of truth to Senator Spencer’s libels against the State.”

In quiet country places where people did not live close enough for mutual sympathy and protection, the heavy hand was often most acutely felt. Such neighbourhoods were shortened, too, of ways to make oppression known at headquarters; it cost time and money to send committees to Washington, and influence to secure a hearing. When troubles accumulated, some hitherto peaceful neighbourhood, hamlet or town would suddenly find unenviable fame thrust upon it. There was, for instance, the Colfax Riot, Grant Parish, Louisiana, where sixty-three lives were lost. Two tickets had been announced elected. Governor Kellogg, after his manner of encouraging race wars, said, “Heaven bless you, my children!” to both, commissioned the two sets of officers, and told them to “fight it out,” which they did with the result given and the destruction of the Court House by fire. Negroes had been called in, drilled, armed and taught how to make cannon out of gas-pipe.

And now for the portrait of a carpet-bagger of whom all who knew him said: “He is the most brilliant man I ever met.” I can only give fictitious names. Otherwise, innocent people might be wounded.A young lieutenant, discharged from the Federal Army, located in Roxmere, a college town. His first move was to pose as a friend to whites, and to insinuate himself into nice families. When there was trouble—which he stirred up—between the races, he would assume the authority—none was given him by the Government—to interfere and settle it. For instance, he would undertake to punish negroes for impertinence. He began to practise law. He married a young lady of the section, of means but not a daughter of the aristocracy; she had owned many negroes; he made out a list, which he kept, expecting the Government to pay for them. He said his father was an English clergyman, and he spoke beautifully and feelingly of his early life. When it became apparent that the negro was to be made a voter, Yankee Landon (as Roxmere called him), changed tactics; he organized Union Leagues, drilled negroes and made incendiary speeches.

One day, Judge Mortimer, hurrying into the Court House, said: “Yankee Landon is on the hustings making a damnable speech to the negroes!” Landon’s voice could be heard and the growls of his audience. The whites caught these words ringing clear and distinct: “We will depopulate this whole country of whites. We have got to do it with fire and sword!” Some one else, much excited, came in, saying, “A movement’s on foot to lynch Landon.” The old Judge hastened up the street. He met some stern-faced men and stopped them. “We know what Landon is saying,” they told him, “and we intend to swing him.” He tried to turn them from their purpose, but they declared: “There is no sense in waiting until that scoundrel has incited the negroes to massacre us.” Another cool-headed jurist sought to stay them. “Do you realise what you are going to do?” he asked. “We are going to hang Yankee Landon.” “That will not do!” “We’ve got to do it. The safety of our homes demands it.” The combined efforts of conservative men stayed summary action. Landon got wind of what was brewing, and for a time was more prudent of tongue; then, concluding that the people were afraid to molest him, broke forth anew.

In the Union League season, there was a tremendous negro crowd on the streets; whites had hardly room to walk; they got very sick of it all. Roxmere’s college men decided to take a hand and disposed themselves for action. “Don’t give way one inch to these old slavocrats!” Landon was shouting from a goods-box, when they sent Cobb Preston out. Cobb, in a dressing-gown trailing four feet, walked into the crowd. He placed a chip on his hat. “Will some one step on my dressing-gown or knock this chip off?” he asked loudly and suavely. Everybody gave him room to trail around in. Nobody stepped near the tail of that dressing-gown! No hand approached within yards of that chip! Any sudden turn he made was a signal for fresh scatterings which left wide swath for his processional. Did he flirt around quickly, calling on somebody to step on his gown or knock off his chip, darkeys fell over each other getting out of his way. Landon understood. He knew if the college boys succeeded in starting a row he would be killed. After that, whites could use sidewalks without being shoved off. Landon was adept in pocketing insults. Men cast fearful epithets in his teeth. “I have heard Vance McGregor call him a dog, a thief—and he would take it,” says a lawyer who practised in the same courts with him.

He and a negro “represented” the county in the Black and Tan Convention. He came back a much richer man. Nobody visited his family. One day, Rev. Dr. Godfrey encountered on the street a little girl, who asked: “Have you seen my papa?” “Who is your papa, little one?” “Yan-kee Landon!” she piped. He led her to the corner and tenderly directed her way. Rev. Dr. Godfrey did not hesitate to arraign Landon from his pulpit. One Sunday, when Landon and his wife sat in the front pew, and the conversion of Zaccheus happened to be his subject, the congregation was electrified to hear him draw comparisons between Zaccheus and carpet-baggers, to the great disparagement of the latter. He spoke of the fine horses, wines and cigars of modern Mr. Zaccheus, and of Mrs. Zaccheus’ silks and jewels. “Zaccheus of old could say,” he cried, “‘If I have taken anything from any man, I restore him fourfold!’ Not so Zaccheus of today,” and he looked straight in Landon’s face. Landon’s contribution was equal to that of all the other people in the church put together. The Landons gave up their pew, and attended worship elsewhere, but presently came back to Dr. Godfrey’s, the “swell” church. He spared them not. But he went to see Landon’s wife and sent his wife to see her. “Mrs. Landon is a young mother, my dear,” he said, “you should go.”

Twice Landon represented the district in the Legislature, first in the House, then in the Senate. While Commonwealth’s Attorney, he made a startling record; he ran a gambling saloon, a thing it was his sworn duty to ferret out and prosecute. Hazard, chuck-a-luck and other games of chance were played there. It was a new departure in a quiet, religious town; the college boys were drawn in. Judge Mortimer’s little son trotted into it at the heels of a grown-up relative, and going home innocently told his father about “the funny little things they play with; when they win, they take the money; when Mr. Landon wins, he takes it.” In modern parlance, the old judge “pulled” that saloon next evening, bagging thirty of the nicest young fellows in the community. They were indicted for gambling and Landon for keeping a gambling saloon. Landon prosecuted everybody but himself, convicting the last one; then resigned, and McGregor conducted the case against him. His sentence was $100 fine and four months in jail. While in jail he studied law and acquired more knowledge of it than in all the years of his freedom; he had known little about it, shrewdness and sharpness standing him in place of knowledge. A hog-drover was put in the cell with him one night and he won $150 out of him at poker. The Governor pardoned him out at three months. He ran for Commonwealth’s Attorney and was elected; he made an able and efficient officer. He would prosecute unswervingly his closest friend. His political ally built the new jail, Landon getting him the job. “I wonder who will be the first fool to get in here,” he said to Landon. He was; Landon convicted him. Men who despised his principles admired his intellect. In court-room repartee he could take the wind out of McGregor’s sails, and McGregor was past master in the art. He was able, brilliant, unscrupulous, without a moral conscience, but with a keen intellectual one. He was no spendthrift in rascality, economised in employment of evil means, using them no farther than self-interest required. He could show kindness gracefully; ceased to stir up negroes when it ceased to pay. A neighbour who was civil when others snubbed him, went to Washington when Landon, at his zenith, was there in a high Government position, and opened a law office. Landon threw work his way.

One day McGregor, Governor of his State, got a letter from Landon; a great foreign dignitary, visiting this country, was to be entertained at Landon’s palace; would McGregor lend the old State flag to be draped with the Stars and Stripes and the foreigner’s flag over the end of the room where Landon and the dignitary would stand while receiving? McGregor sent it. In the little town in which he tricked and won his way, court was never paid to Landon on account of his wealth and power, but people gradually came to treat him less coldly as he changed with the times. Reconstruction tried men’s souls and morals; a man who went to pieces under temptation sometimes came out a gentleman, or something like it, when temptation was over. Landon won favors of all parties. Cleveland gave him a position. A committee waited upon Mr. McKinley, asking appointment for Landon. Mr. McKinley demurred: “I understand that in the South, Mr. Landon is not considered a gentleman.” “We promised him this if he would render the party the service which he has rendered.” The President had to yield. Roosevelt, who came to the Presidency without election, turned this man down with a firm hand.

THE DEVIL ON THE SANTEE