Richmond, after Six Months of Yankee Rule.
In my first visit to the Southern States, beginning in the spring of
1865, and ending in mid-summer, there were peculiar circumstances to be
taken into account, in drawing conclusions as to any of the questions
which the loyal portion of the nation was asking about the South. Our
party was constantly surrounded by men desirous of impressing their own
views. Southern politicians were endeavoring to convince the
Chief-Justice of the returning loyalty of their people. Naturally, they
suppressed unfavorable facts and expressions. Intelligent negroes were
arguing the fitness of their people for suffrage. Naturally, they did
what they could to hold the unfit ones away. Whoever approached the
Chief-Justice or his party, was likely to have some special motive for
doing so, either of courtesy or of interest. Naturally, whatever did not
comport with that motive was glossed over, or kept out of sight.
The trip had thus shown us the leaders at their best. I now wanted to
see the people, at home and out of company dress. The Secretary of the
Treasury, and other members of the Cabinet, had been kind enough to
furnish me with letters to the Provisional Governors who had been
appointed for all the Southern States; but it was rather the governed
than the governors who might be expected to reveal the actual feeling
and condition of the community. Acting on what a large mass of his
supporters thought a mistaken policy, the President had inaugurated a
system of reconstruction. State governments had been set in motion;
legislators and congressmen were being elected. It was an opportune
time, before Congress met and the ardent Southern sentiment was chilled
by the fresh breezes from the North, for a run among the reconstructed,
avoiding officials, whether Northern Generals, or Southern Governors,
candidates, or Freedmen’s Bureau Agents; moving quietly among the
people, and seeing in what temper they were carrying on the work to
which Mr. Johnson had summoned them.
* * * * *
When I had been last in Richmond—a day or two after the surrender—it was
thought to be something of a feat to make the trip in a couple of days.
In November, so rapidly had the broken ways been mended and the crooked
paths made straight, it was accomplished in a night. The traveler
southward left Washington at nine in the evening, and was aroused up
next morning at five in Richmond.
The trip naturally inspires an appetite; but among the morning papers I
found the following further appetizer from the Richmond Examiner, of
Rebel memory:
“A special dispatch to the Baltimore Sun avers that ‘it is now
pretty clear that the President has at heart the admission of
Southern Congressmen, and will make it a measure of his
Administration. Those opposing it will be regarded as hostile to the
most material points of his policy.’ It would appear from this that
the President does not agree with the learned librarian of the
House,[44] nor with the clerk of the House, who, it is said, will
not enter the names of Southern Congressmen until after the
organization, and their admission is specially granted by the
exclusive members who are to participate. The President, if this be
true, will have done a good part in shifting the burden of the
difficulty from the shoulders of the Southern members to his own.
The clerk and librarian may now have the pleasure of a dispute with
his Excellency, if they will, instead of the luxury of looking
solemn and severe at some Southern gentlemen they would like to keep
out in the cold for a short time.”
Paragraphs like this served a special use. They illustrated the temper
in which pardoned Rebels, who had sought the Attorney-General’s
office[45] as their “last ditch,” resumed their duties as loyal
citizens. “None so hard to please as a beggar.” These men abjured all
their rights under the Constitution, and did their best to overthrow it.
They were forced back. Yesterday they cringed for pardon at the feet of
“the boorish and drunken tailor” they had denounced; to-day they are
harder to satisfy than ninety and nine just men who have no need of
repentance.
An ex-colonel of a Virginia regiment was exceedingly anxious to argue
his political principles. They were talking, he heard, about keeping the
Southern members from participating in the organization of the House,
just to enable the Radicals to get all the officers. But he didn’t
believe they would dare to venture on so grossly tyrannical a course. If
it was proposed to conciliate the South, they must no longer be
subjected to such iniquitous oppression. The whole war had been of the
same sort. The North had no business to begin its attack in the first
place—no justification for it under the sun. The South was only
defending itself from Northern violations of law. Didn’t Massachusetts,
in her Legislature, threaten to secede in 1812?[46] And wasn’t there a
clause in the Constitution about importing slaves down to 1808, which
was put in for her benefit, and at her peremptory demand?
“As for your niggers, you’ve got ’em on your hands. They won’t work,
unless you force them to it, and they’ll steal rather than starve. You
even talk about giving them suffrage! There are no words to express the
infamy of such a proposition. This is a white man’s government, and must
be kept so till the end of time. It’s true, there are a great many
ignorant whites voting now; but so much the more need for stopping
further addition to the ignorant vote.” There ought to be educational
and property qualifications, he thought; but on no account would he
permit negroes to avail themselves of these. Educated or ignorant, rich
or poor, the niggers must be kept down.
In Richmond, and, as it appeared, throughout the South, there was a
general reliance upon the President to secure the immediate admission of
their Senators and Representatives. Whether all believed or not, all at
any rate claimed, that their Representatives had a perfect right to
participate in the organization of the House. The President was to see
to it that they were admitted to this right. None of these former
sticklers for a strict construction of the Constitution, hesitated for a
moment at the suggestion that the President was as powerless in the
premises as themselves. “Hasn’t he the army?” they asked. In the better
days such a question would have been denounced as treasonable. After
their four years of arbitrary rule, it seemed to them the most natural
thing in the world.
* * * * *
Richmond was fallen from its high estate, but it was a capital still.
The brains, the pluck, and the pride of the rebellion are there, and the
Rebel capital still leads the returning Rebel States. The Northern
public scarcely appreciated the amount of journalistic talent
concentrated there in the interest of the Rebel cause. The newspapers of
Richmond, throughout the war, were in many respects the ablest on the
continent. Their writing was often turgid, but it was always effective;
and it shaped the public sentiment of the whole Confederacy. Mr. Davis
himself was not above writing leaders for his organ, and Benjamin is
reported to have been a frequent contributor. In the midst of their
destitution they managed to keep up double the number of average dailies
that we had in Washington, and the editorials of each were generally the
productions of educated thinkers, as well as red-hot partisans.
Fortunately or unfortunately, a share of the old ability and fervor
clings to the revived newspapers of Richmond, and it is curious to see
with what avidity the Virginians gulp down the praises of their heroic
dead, in which they tend to indulge so freely, since it is no longer so
safe to extol the deeds of the pardoned or pardon-seeking survivors.
Yet, with all the fervid zeal of the newspapers, I doubt if the great
mass of Virginians cared very much, in November, for any active
participation in political movements. At the outset, they were disgusted
with their vulgar, drunken Governor. Then their ablest men were all
ineligible to office, because steeped in the rebellion; and they had the
haughty pride of old families, which revolts against encouraging the
aspirations of unknown or odious upstarts. And, besides, while they made
a great show of establishing civil government, the galling consciousness
remained that, whether they chose it or not, they _must_ walk in a
certain path, or be suppressed by the military. As the Enquirer itself
said:
“As long as the civil authority is subordinate to the military,
there can not and ought not to be any politics or any principles
among a people so unhappily situated. A paper that is not as free to
censure as to approve, has no virtue in its support, and no
importance attaches to its utterances. Approbation is worthless
where censure is forbid. The politics of the Enquirer, therefore,
must be deferred until the return of those good times when a free
press is the bulwark of the State.”
Even the hated “Radicals” would be apt to indorse so lucid a statement
of so sound a principle. But they might possibly make the argument prove
more than would be pleasing to Richmond. If there “ought not to be any
politics among a people so unhappily situated,” neither ought there to
be the farce of a form without the substance of State Government.
Though not making exactly this deduction, many Virginians were still
ready for almost any political arrangement that would secure them the
quiet and established order of civil government, and leave them to the
task of repairing their shattered private fortunes. Even yet they had
scarcely begun to comprehend the policy of a plot for bringing the men
who had just been trying to overturn a government into the complete
control of it. Many were still ready to accept, as final, whatever
orders the Government might issue, and to make haste to do their part in
obeying them.
“I tell you,” said a prominent man, “President Johnson can name his
Senators and they will be straightway elected. He can say what he wants,
and the Virginia Legislature, so-called, will register his edicts in
legislative enactments. What we wish is to get settled, to know where we
are and what we can depend upon, and then we want to go to work
developing our material resources. We’re all poor; we want to regain our
lost money, and we’ve got to let politics alone and go to work to do
it.”
Beneath all this lay, of course, never-abandoned hopes of regaining
political supremacy, after the social authority that comes of wealth has
been restored. But the first want of Virginians was a settlement;
something fixed on which capital could rely. They talked foolishly who
said Virginia would not stand this, and the proud Virginians would
revolt from that. The proud Virginians would stand anything, for the
best of reasons. They could not help themselves. Statesmen might decide
upon the course of statesmen for such emergencies; and whether it was
pleasant or unpleasant, Virginia would submit, make the best of it, and
go to work to improve her condition.
Meantime it was at any rate considered politic to keep the natural
leaders of the community in the back ground. A son of ex-President Tyler
had published the following significant warning:
“TO THE EDITORS OF THE REPUBLIC:
“Without assigning special reasons, I take the liberty,
respectfully, but most earnestly, to advise that no person who has
held a commission in the civil or military service of the late
Confederate Government, _shall permit himself to be a candidate for
the Legislature, either Federal or State, at the ensuing elections_.
“It is true, I believe, as a result of the recent struggle, that the
entire people of Virginia have accepted the Union and the Government
of the United States in good faith. The institution of slavery, too,
has been extinguished. As matters now stand, I can not perceive what
possible danger to the safety of the Union or the peace of the
country could arise by allowing an absolute choice of
Representatives to the whole constituent body; _but there are
circumstances in the present state of general and national politics
which make it imperatively necessary, in my opinion, that those
citizens who were prominently identified with the cause of the
Confederacy should exercise a rigid political abstinence_ AT THIS
TIME.
“Very respectfully,
“ROBERT TYLER.”
The English of all this was plain: Stand back, now, gentlemen! Your
patriotic course has made you a little odious to the Yankees, and we
must be careful about offending them till we have got our State
representation in Congress again. You’re all right personally; we’re
proud of you, and you shall have plenty of offices by and by, but just
“at this time” it isn’t expedient to embarrass our cause at Washington,
by carrying your conspicuous services in the war on our shoulders! Even
school-boys would scarcely be misled thus. They could not forget their
“Timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes.”
“I was a Rebel,” said a conspicuous Southerner, “I submit because I was
whipped, and have a great respect for the men that whipped me; but I
shall have less respect for them if they prove such simpletons as to
suppose that the Rebels of yesterday can to-day become fit men to be
intrusted with the reorganization of a loyal government, by simply
swearing an oath of allegiance.”
* * * * *
Capital already began to come in from the North. One gentleman had
purchased a large tract of woodland on the James River, with the plan of
selling the wood on it in large quantities. Others were seeking to avail
themselves of the magnificent water-power afforded by the James, just
above the city. The business men were anxious for the establishment of
cotton factories, and already saw, in imagination, the manufacture of
the great Southern staple transferred from Northern to Southern hands.
There was much talk of mineral lands in the southwestern part of the
State, and real estate agencies were springing up, to aid in bringing
these lands into the market. The papers announced, with many flourishes,
that a Mr. Black, whom they styled “a great Scotch capitalist,” had
leased the famous White House estate, on the lower James, and was about
to introduce upon it the Scotch tenantry system.
It was already considered certain that the confiscation law was to be a
dead letter, and wealthy Rebels seemed to have no fear of the loss of
their estates. But there were harassing confiscation suits, against
which there was great outcry. “Are we never to see the end of those
frightful lists of libeled property which the marshal and clerk are
advertising?” exclaimed one of the papers. “Are costs to be piled, like
Pelion upon Ossa, upon the heads of the gentlemen of Richmond and
Petersburg, who have already been pardoned? A distinguished gentleman of
this city has heard from President Johnson’s own lips, language of
strong indignation at the wholesale confiscation proceedings which have
been instituted against certain classes of our people.” Here, as always,
President Johnson’s will was to be taken as the final expression and
force of law.
An indignant correspondent of one of the newspapers[47] brought heavy
charges against the Government and one of the United States Judges:
“Major Nutt’s farm, near Alexandria, and Dr. Bowen’s farm, sold by
decree of Judge John C. Underwood, are to be delivered up to Judge
Underwood, Governor Pierpont, and Mr. Downey, the purchasers under
the confiscation sale. It now appears that the principal property
sold under Judge Underwood’s decrees, in and around Alexandria, was
purchased by himself and those connected with him in the high
position he holds, at a fractional part of its value only.
“Rumor says, and I have never heard it doubted, that Judge
Underwood, during the rebellion, obtained permission to raise a
regiment of negroes in Alexandria, which he succeeded in getting at
a low price, which regiment he turned over to one of the Northern
States, at a large advance, thereby realizing a large sum of money,
with which he has been buying up the property confiscated by
himself, under his own decree, in _fee simple_.”
The burnt district, comprising nearly all the business portion of the
city, south and east of the capitol, was beginning to rise from its
ruins. Between a fourth and a third of it would soon be better than
before the conflagration, with which the Rebels signalized their
abandonment of the city. But business was greatly overdone by Northern
speculators who had rushed down with heavy supplies of goods immediately
after the surrender. The first pressing necessities satisfied, the
Virginians were too poor to trade largely.
Thanks to Northern loans, in sums ranging as high (in one or two cases,
at least,) as a half-million dollars, the railroads were rapidly getting
into running order, and old lines of travel were reopening. Already the
Virginia Central Railroad was open to Staunton, and the Orange and
Alexandria through its whole length, over a score or more of our
battle-fields. Rival lines of steamers for Baltimore swarmed in the
James River. Southward, Wilmington could be reached by rail, and even
Charleston, a few gaps being filled by stage lines. South-westward, an
unbroken line extended through Chattanooga and Atlanta—historic names—to
Mobile.
* * * * *
As was entirely natural, a great deal of sullen bitterness was displayed
against the negro. Men did not feel kindly that their old slaves should
take time to consider the question of hiring with them, and should
presume to haggle about wages. The least manifestation of a disposition
to assert obtrusively his independence, brought the late slave into
danger. Murders of negroes were occasionally reported; and the late
masters made many wrathful promises to kill that were never fulfilled.
Half-a-dozen times, in the course of a single day, I observed quarrels
going on between negroes and white men. The latter constantly used the
most violent and domineering language; the negroes several times seemed
disposed to resent it.
Their schools were well attended, and the same good report of their
progress was continually made. No man could fail to observe that the
poor negroes were making much more earnest efforts to rise than the poor
whites.
The restoration of confiscated property was again leaving many of the
freedmen houseless. During the convulsions of the war they had left
their old homes, and the authorities had established them upon the
confiscated estates of absent Rebels. Pardoned, and resuming possession
of their property, it was not unnatural that their first step should be
to eject the vagrant negroes from their premises. The superintendent of
schools under the Freedmen’s Bureau estimated the entire number of
persons thus rendered houseless in Eastern Virginia, at the beginning of
winter, to be not less than seventy thousand.
Small-pox was also making ravages among them. They had not yet learned
to take care of themselves; the emancipation had removed them from the
care of their masters, and exposure, neglect, and disease were rapidly
thinning out the population on which the wasted State had to rely for
labor. The prevalent tone of public feeling indicated indifference to
this public calamity. Virginians had not yet learned that their
interests in laborers did not end when they ceased to own them; and many
seemed to gloat over the facts, as a proof of the wisdom of their own
opinions, and of the folly of their anti-slavery enemies. “This,”
exclaimed a newspaper, “is one of the practical results of negro
_freedom_—one of the curses that has fallen on this unfortunate race,
and one for which _somebody_ must be held responsible at the bar of God.
Who that _somebody_ is, must be determined by a higher authority than
human, though many are disposed to believe that the responsibility rests
not on the people of the South. But be that as it may, the ‘freedmen’
are dying by hundreds and thousands. Where are the philanthropists of
the North? Where are the Christian Commissions of Boston, and the
Freedmen’s Aid Societies of Philadelphia? Where are those who wanted an
anti-slavery God and an anti-slavery Bible? Yes! where are they, when
the negro is freed and is so sadly in need of their kind (?) offices?”
Where it could, the Government was still issuing rations to these poor
waifs of the war, but the suffering was beyond any governmental control.
Some of the old masters did their best to care for former slaves; but
they were themselves impoverished and destitute. November winds already
blew sharply—what might be expected before the winter was over?
-----
Footnote 44:
The “learned librarian of the House” had simply published a statement
of the laws governing the organization of the House, showing the
illegality of any attempt to have the names of the so-called Southern
members placed on the roll, prior to the organization. This statement
the Associated Press had chosen to pronounce semi-official.
Footnote 45:
Applications for pardon were first presented to the Attorney-General.
Footnote 46:
“And don’t you know—supposing your statement true—that she’d been
soundly thrashed if she had attempted it?” interjected a quiet
gentleman who had been attentively listening.
Footnote 47:
Richmond Enquirer, 7th November, 1865.