27 chapters
16 hour read
Selected Chapters
27 chapters
CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTIONIN ALABAMA
CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTIONIN ALABAMA
CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION IN ALABAMA BY WALTER L. FLEMING, Ph.D. PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY New York THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, Agents LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 1905 All rights reserved Copyright , 1905, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1905. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. TO MY WIFE MARY BOYD FLEMING...
25 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
PREFACE
PREFACE
This work was begun some five years ago as a study of Reconstruction in Alabama. As the field opened it seemed to me that an account of ante-bellum conditions, social, economic, and political, and of the effect of the Civil War upon ante-bellum institutions would be indispensable to any just and comprehensive treatment of the later period. Consequently I have endeavored to describe briefly the society and the institutions that went down during Civil War and Reconstruction. Internal conditions in
4 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
THE PERIOD OF SECTIONAL CONTROVERSY When Alabama seceded in 1861, it had been in existence as a political organization less than half a century, but in many respects its institutions and customs were as old as European America. The white population was almost purely Anglo-American. The early settlements had been made on the coast near Mobile, and from thence had extended up the Alabama, Tombigbee, and Warrior rivers. In the northern part the Tennessee valley was early settled, and later, in the
34 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
SECESSION FROM THE UNION On November 12, 1860, a committee of prominent citizens, appointed by a convention of the people of several counties, asked the governor whether he intended to call the state convention immediately after the choice of presidential electors or to wait until the electors should have chosen the President. They also asked to be informed of the time he intended to order an election of delegates to the convention. [41] Governor Moore replied that a candidate for the presidency
3 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
MILITARY AND POLITICAL EVENTS Sec. I. Military Operations On January 4, 1861, the Alabama troops, ordered by Governor Andrew B. Moore, seized the forts which commanded the entrance to the harbor at Mobile, and also the United States arsenal at Mount Vernon, thirty miles distant. A few days later the governor, in a communication addressed to President Buchanan, explained the reason for this step. He was convinced, he said, that the convention would withdraw the state from the Union, and he deemed
2 hour read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS Sec. 1. Industrial Development during the War Early in the war the blockade of the southern ports became so effective that the southern states were shut off from their usual sources of supply by sea. Trade through the lines between the United States and the Confederate States was forbidden, and Alabama, owing to its central location, suffered more from the blockade than any other state. For three years the Federal lines touched the northern part of the state only,
2 hour read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DISORDER Sec. 1. Loss of Life and Property The Loss of Life The surviving soldiers came straggling home, worn out, broken in health, crippled, in rags, half starved, little better off, they thought, than the comrades they had left under the sod of the battle-fields on the border. In the election of 1860 about 90,000 votes were cast, nearly the entire voting population, and about this number of Alabama men enlisted in the Confederate and Union armies. Various estimates were ma
54 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
CONFISCATION AND THE COTTON TAX Sec. 1. Confiscation Frauds Restrictions on Trade in 1865 At the time of the collapse of the Confederacy trade within the state of Alabama was subject to the following regulations: gold and silver was in no case to be paid for southern produce; all trade was to be done through officers appointed by the United States Treasury Department; [732] the state was divided into districts and sub-districts called agencies, under the superintendence of these Treasury agents,
34 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
THE TEMPER OF THE PEOPLE, 1865-1866 After the Surrender The paroled Confederate soldier returned to his ruined farm and went to work to keep his family from extreme want. For him the war had decided two questions, the abolition of slavery, and the destruction of state sovereignty. Further than that he did not expect the effects of the war to extend, while punishment, as such, for the part he had taken in the war [803] was not thought of. He knew that there would be a temporary delay in restoring
38 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
FIRST PROVISIONAL ADMINISTRATION Sec. 1. Theories of Reconstruction Owing to the important bearing upon the problem of Reconstruction of the disputes between the President and Congress in regard to the status of the seceded states, it will be of interest to examine the various plans and theories for restoring the Union. From the beginning of the war the question of the status of the seceded states was discussed both in Congress and out, and with the close of the war it became of the gravest impo
2 hour read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
THE SECOND PROVISIONAL ADMINISTRATION Status of the Provisional Government It was generally understood in the state that while Congress was opposed to the presidential plan of restoration and repudiated it as soon as it convened, yet if the state conventions should abolish slavery, and the state legislatures should ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, their representatives would be admitted to Congress. This was the meaning, it seemed, of a resolution offered in the Senate December 4, 1865, by Charl
48 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
MILITARY GOVERNMENT, 1865-1866 In the account of the affairs thus far we have seen many evidences of the active participation of the military power of the United States in the conduct of government in Alabama. It will be useful at this point to examine with some care the form and scope of the authority concerned during the period of the provisional state government’s existence. The Military Division of the Tennessee (1863), under General Grant, included the Department of the Cumberland, under th
21 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
THE WARDS OF THE NATION Sec. 1. The Freedmen’s Bureau Department of Negro Affairs Any account of the causes of disturbed conditions in the South during the two years succeeding the war must include an examination of the workings of the Freedmen’s Bureau, the administration of which was uniformly hostile to the President’s policy and in favor of the Radical plans. As soon as the Federal armies reached the Black Belt, it became a serious problem to care for the negroes who stopped work and flocked
36 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
MILITARY GOVERNMENT UNDER THE RECONSTRUCTION ACTS Sec. I. The Administration of General Pope The Military Reconstruction Bills The Radicals in Congress triumphed over the moderate Republicans, the Democrats, and the President, when, on March 2, 1867, they succeeded in passing over the veto the first of the Reconstruction Acts. This act reduced the southern states to the status of military provinces and established the rule of martial law. After asserting in the preamble that no legal governments
44 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1867 Attitude of the Whites In the preceding chapter the part of the army in executing the Reconstruction Acts has been set forth. In the three succeeding chapters I shall sketch the political conditions in the state during the same period. The people of Alabama had, for several months before March, 1867, foreseen the failure of the President’s attempt at Reconstruction. The “Military Reconstruction Bill” was no worse than was expected; if liberally construed, it was even better
20 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
THE “RECONSTRUCTION” CONVENTION Character of the Convention The delegates elected to the convention were a motley crew—white, yellow, and black—of northern men, Bureau officers, “loyalists,” “rebels,” who had aided the Confederacy and now perjured themselves by taking the oath, Confederate deserters, and negroes. [1413] The Freedmen’s Bureau furnished eighteen or more of the one hundred members. There were eighteen blacks. [1414] Thirteen more of the members had certified, as registrars, to thei
20 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
THE “RECONSTRUCTION” COMPLETED “Convention” Candidates The debates in the convention over mixed schools, proscription, militia, and representation had seemingly resulted in a division between the carpet-baggers, who controlled the negroes, and the more moderate scalawags. The carpet-baggers and extreme scalawags of the convention resolved themselves into a body for the nomination of candidates for office. This body formed the state Union League convention. Of the 101 delegates to the convention,
28 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
THE UNION LEAGUE OF AMERICA Origin of the Union League In order to understand the absolute control exercised over the blacks by the alien adventurers, as shown in the elections of 1867-1868, it will be necessary to examine the workings of the secret oath-bound society popularly known as the “Loyal League.” The iron discipline of this order wielded by a few able and unscrupulous whites held together the ignorant negro masses for several years and prevented any control by the conservative whites.
25 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
TAXATION AND THE PUBLIC DEBT Taxation during Reconstruction After the war it was certain that taxation would be higher and expenditure greater, both on account of the ruin caused by the war that now had to be repaired, and because several hundred thousand negroes had been added to the civic population. Before the war the negro was no expense to the state and county treasuries; his misdemeanors were punished by his master. Yet neither the ruined court-houses, jails, bridges, roads, etc., nor the
20 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
RAILROAD LEGISLATION AND FRAUDS Federal and State Aid to Railroads before the War For forty years before the Civil War there was a feeling on the part of many thoughtful citizens that the state should extend aid to any enterprise for connecting north and south Alabama. It was an issue in political campaigns; candidates inveighed against the political evils resulting from the unnatural union of the two sections. South Alabama was afraid that the northern section wanted connections with Charleston
26 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
RECONSTRUCTION IN THE SCHOOLS School System before Reconstruction The public school system of the state of Alabama was organized in 1854, and was an expansion of the Mobile system, which was partly native and partly modelled on the New York-New England systems. [1707] By 1856 it was in good working order. The school fund for 1855 was $237,515.00; for 1856, $267,694.41, and the number of children in attendance was 100,279, which was about one-fourth of the white population. For 1857 the fund amou
43 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
RECONSTRUCTION IN THE CHURCHES Sec. 1. The “Disintegration and Absorption” Policy and its Failure The close of the war found the southern church organizations in a more or less demoralized condition. Their property was destroyed, their buildings were burned or badly in need of repair, and the church treasuries were empty. It was doubtful whether some of them could survive the terrible exhaustion that followed the war. The northern churches, “coming down to divide the spoils,” acted upon the prin
21 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
THE KU KLUX REVOLUTION The Ku Klux movement was an understanding among southern whites, brought about by the chaotic condition of social and political institutions between 1865 and 1876. It resulted in a partial destruction of the Reconstruction and a return, as near as might be, to ante-bellum conditions. This understanding or state of mind took many forms and was called by many names. The purpose was everywhere and always the same: to recover for the white race control of society, and destroy
34 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXII
REORGANIZATION OF THE INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM Break-up of the Ante-bellum System The cotton planter of the South, the master of many negro slaves, organized a very efficient slave labor system. Each plantation was an industrial community almost independent of the outside world; the division of labor was minute, each servant being assigned a task suited to his or her strength and training. Nothing but the most skilful management could save a planter from ruin, for, though the labor was efficient, it wa
36 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIII
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS DURING RECONSTRUCTION Sec. 1. Politics and Political Methods During the war the administration of the state government gradually fell into the hands of officials elected by people more or less disaffected toward the Confederacy. Provisional Governor Parsons, who had been secretly disloyal to the Confederacy, retained in office many of the old Confederate local officials, and appointed to other offices men who had not strongly supported the Confederacy. In the fall
59 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXIV
THE OVERTHROW OF RECONSTRUCTION The Republican Party in 1874 The Republican party of Alabama went into the campaign of 1874 weakened by dissensions within its own ranks and by the lessening of the sympathy of the northern Radicals. During the previous six years the opposition to the radical Reconstruction policy had gradually gained strength. The industrial expansion that followed the war, the dissatisfaction with the administration of Grant, the disclosure of serious corruption on the part of p
52 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
APPENDIX I
APPENDIX I
PRODUCTION OF COTTON IN ALABAMA. 1860-1900 ( a ) Typical black counties with boundaries unchanged. ( b ) Typical white counties....
7 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter