influence extended to only a dozen counties and three cities and,
"under the shadow of bayonets, it was the rule of a few aliens in the
midst of a generally hostile population. Men at the time and since
have laughed at its legitimist pretenses." It would have been
summarily dismissed by the people but for the protection afforded it
by the Federal armies. Thus it appears that the "Restored Government
of Virginia" was not based upon the consent and approval of the
governed. Yet, suited to a policy of expediency and aggression, it
was, with quivering and unseemly eagerness, recognized as the legal
government of the State by the Lincoln administration.
_Emancipation._
A significant event of the war was the issuance by President Lincoln
of his celebrated emancipation proclamation. This highly important
measure, promulgated on New Year's day, 1863, sounded the death-knell
of slavery, an institution that, in the South, had seemed commercially
indispensable.
The tidings spread rapidly through Loudoun producing, however, no
change in the amicable relations existing between the white and
colored races. In all sections of the South some apprehension was at
first felt lest the negroes be tempted by Federal rewards to
insurrection and the state militias be required to suppress outbreaks.
The people of Loudoun, of course, shared in these early misgivings,
but here, as elsewhere, the negroes, as a whole, manifested no outward
signs of disaffection. History must record to their credit and praise
that while actual warfare was being waged on the soil of Loudoun they
quietly awaited the final issue of the fiery struggle.
Entire communities of women and children were left in their charge,
while all able-bodied white men were away on the battlefield, and the
trust was faithfully kept. Instances of criminal acts were so rare
that at this period none are recalled, and while this fidelity is
proof of the peaceable character of the negro, it is also evidence for
their owners that slavery had produced no personal hostilities between
the two races in Loudoun County, and that the treatment of the negro
by his owner under the law had been such as to maintain between them
personal attachment and mutual confidence. Many negroes accompanied
their owners to the seat of war, not to take part in battle, but to
serve in semi-military duties without exposure to danger. Some of them
marched in Maryland and Pennsylvania with the armies of Lee,
voluntarily returning, although they might have remained in the free
States without hindrance. They are still proud of the conduct of their
race in those days of anxiety and peril.
The proclamation of President Lincoln was regarded in Virginia as a
strictly political war measure, designed to place the cause of war
distinctly upon the sole question of slavery for an effect to be
produced upon foreign countries and with the purpose of making use of
negroes as soldiers in the Federal army. The issue of negro freedom
had not been distinctly made until this proclamation created it.
Hitherto it had been understood that, at the furthest, the Federal
authorities would insist only on restriction of slavery to the limits
where it already existed and a gradual emancipation upon payment of
the value of slaves held at the beginning of the war. But now it was
settled that the United States proposed to enforce by arms an
instantaneous emancipation without compensation.
_Close of the War._
The half-clad and impoverished southern armies, after four years of
valiant fighting, were no longer able to withstand the superior
numbers that had confronted them with merciless regularity in every
important conflict of the war, and, in April, 1865, the struggle
ceased with the complete subjugation of the Southland.
All that the States-rights supporters had prophesied would be
accomplished if unresisted; all that the Unionists had indignantly
denied to be the objects of the war was accomplished: the South was
conquered, State sovereignty repudiated, the slaves were freed, and
the recognition of negro political equality forced upon the nation.
Neighborhood strifes and animosities had been engendered in every
village and hamlet, and in nearly every household mothers wept for the
lost darlings asleep in their unmarked graves. The women and children,
hearing with a shock of the surrender, experienced a terrible dread of
the incoming armies. The women had been enthusiastic for the
Confederate cause; their sacrifices had been incalculable, and to many
the disappointment and sorrow following defeat were more bitter than
death. The soldier had the satisfaction of having fought in the field
for his opinions and it was easier for him to abide by the decision of
arms.
But the terms of peace had scarcely been signed when the great popular
heart of the State swelled with generous and magnanimous rivalry in an
effort to repair the past. The soldiers who had fought and striven
under the successful banners of the Union came back with no bitterness
in their hearts, with no taunts on their lips. The war-worn exiles of
the Southern army, long before formal permission had been given by
either the State or Federal Government, were summoned home and
received with open arms and affectionate greetings by both the Union
and States-rights men. The people of the entire State seemed to
remember with sorrowful pride the noble men who had died gallantly in
the ranks of either army. Over their faults was thrown the mantle of
the sweet and soothing charities of the soldier's grave; and, on all
sides, there was manifested unstinted admiration for the valor with
which they had borne the dangers and privations of the war.
RECONSTRUCTION.
_After the Surrender._
If the era of Reconstruction which followed the tragic drama of civil
war lacked the fierce element of bloodshed, it was none the less
painful and protracted. It was a gloomy period through which the
people of Loudoun, in common with other communities of the Southland,
were compelled to pass, and there was no appeal and no alternative
save submission.
The conditions in the South in this decade were radically different
from those in the North. As a result of the war, the markets of the
South were destroyed, investments in slaves were lost, and land
improvements deteriorated. The close of the war found the planters
bankrupt, their credit destroyed, and agriculture and all business
paralyzed by lack of working capital. Vast areas of land went out of
cultivation, the reported acreage of farm land in all the Southern
States was less in 1870 than in 1860, and the total and average values
of land everywhere decreased.
The paroled Confederate soldier had returned to his ruined farm and
set to work to save his family from extreme want. For him the war had
decided two questions--the abolition of slavery, and destruction of
State sovereignty. Further than this he did not expect the political
effects of the war to extend. He knew that some delay would
necessarily attend the restoration of former relations with the
central government, but political proscription and humiliation were
not anticipated.
No one thought of further opposition to Federal authority; the results
of the war were accepted in good faith, and the people meant to abide
by the decision of arms. Naturally, there were no profuse expressions
of love for the triumphant North, but the people in general manifested
an earnest desire to leave the past behind them and to take their
places and do their duty as citizens of the new Union. Many persons
were disposed to attribute their defeat to the will of the Almighty.
Others believed that fate, destiny, or Providence had frowned upon the
South, and this state of mind made them the more ready to accept as
final the results of the war.
Such was the state of feeling in the first stage, before there was any
general understanding of the nature of the questions to be solved or
of the conflicting policies. News from the outside world filtered
through slowly; while the whole County lay prostrate, breathless,
exhausted, resting. Little interest was evinced in public questions;
the long strain had been removed, and the future was a problem too
bewildering even to be considered yet awhile. The people settled down
into a lethargy, seemingly indifferent to the events that were
crowding one upon another, and exhibiting little interest in
government and politics.
There was a woeful lack of good money in the County and industry was
paralyzed. The gold and silver that remained was carefully hoarded,
and for months none was in circulation except in the towns. The people
had no faith in paper money of any description and thought that
greenbacks would become worthless in the same way as had Confederate
currency. All sense of values had been lost, which fact may account
for the fabulous and fictitious prices obtaining in the South for
several years after the war, and the liberality of appropriations of
the first legislatures following the surrender.
With many persons there was an almost maddening desire for the things
to which they had once been accustomed, the traders and speculators
now placing them in tempting array in the long-empty store window.
People owning hundreds of acres of land often were as destitute as the
poorest negro. The majority of those having money to invest had bought
Confederate securities as a patriotic duty, and in this way much of
the specie had been drawn from the County.
Nearly all the grist-mills and manufacturing establishments had been
destroyed, mill-dams cut, ponds drained, and railroad depots, bridges,
and trestles burned. All farm animals near the track of the armies had
been carried away or killed by the soldiers, or seized after the
occupation by the troops. Horses, mules, cows, and other domestic
animals had almost disappeared except in the secluded districts. Many
farmers had to plough with oxen. Farm buildings had been dismantled or
burned, houses ruined, fences destroyed, corn, meat, and other food
products taken.
In the larger towns, where something had been saved from the wreck of
war, the looting by Federal soldiers was shameful. Pianos, curios,
pictures, curtains, and other household effects were shipped North by
the Federal officers during the early days of the occupation. Gold and
silver plate and jewelry were confiscated by the "bummers" who were
with every command. Abuses of this kind became so flagrant that the
Northern papers condemned the conduct of the soldiers, and several
ministers, among them Henry Ward Beecher, rebuked the practice from
the pulpit.
The best soldiers of the Federal army had demanded their discharge as
soon as fighting was over, and had immediately left for their homes.
Those who remained in the service in the State were, with few
exceptions, very disorderly and kept the people in terror by their
robberies and outrages.
Land was almost worthless, many of the owners having no capital, farm
animals, or implements. Labor was disorganized, and its scant product
often stolen by roving negroes and other marauders. The planters often
found themselves amid a wilderness of land without laborers.
From this general gloom and despair the young people soon partially
recovered, and among them there was much social gayety of a quiet
sort. For four years the young men and young women had seen little of
each other, and there had been comparatively few marriages. Now that
they were together again, these nuptials soon became more common than
conditions seem to have warranted.
This revival of spirits did not extend to the older people, who were
long recovering from the shock of grief, and strain of war, much that
had made life worth living being lost to them forever.
_Conduct of the Freedmen._
Nearly every slaveholder, returning home after the fall of the
Confederacy, assembled his remaining negroes and formally notified
them of their freedom, and talked with them concerning its entailed
privileges, responsibilities, and limitations. The news had, of
course, reached them through other channels, but they had loyally
awaited the home-coming of their masters, to whom they looked for a
confirmation of the reports. Steady employment at a fixed wage was
offered most of them, and, except in the vicinity of the towns and
army posts, where they were exposed to alien influences, the negroes
usually chose to remain at their work.
Many were satisfied with the old slavery quarters while others, for
the taste of freedom that was afforded, established homes of their own
at near-by points. There were two things which the negroes of the
South felt must be done before they could be entirely free: They must
discard their masters' names and leave the old plantations if only for
a few days or weeks.
Among the most contented and industrious there was much restlessness
and neglect of work. Hunting and fishing and frolics were the order of
the day. Nearly every man acquired, in some way, a dog and gun as
badges of freedom. It was quite natural that the negroes should want a
prolonged holiday for the enjoyment of their new-found freedom; and it
is really strange that any of them worked, for there obtained an
almost universal impression--the result of the teachings of the negro
soldiers and Freedmen's Bureau officials--that the Government would
support them in idleness. But in the remote districts this impression
was vague. The advice of the old plantation preachers held many to
their work, and these did not suffer as did their brothers who flocked
to the towns.
Neither master nor freedman knew exactly how to begin anew and it was
some time before affairs emerged from the chaotic state into which the
war had plunged them. The average planter had little or no faith in
free negro labor, yet all who were now able were willing to give it a
trial. The more optimistic land-owners believed that the free negro
could in time be made an efficient laborer, in which case they were
willing to admit that the change might prove beneficial to both races.
At first, however, no one knew just how to work the free negro;
innumerable plans were devised, many tried, and few adopted.
The new regime differed but little from the old until the fall of
1865, when the Freedmen's Bureau, aided by the negro soldiers and
white emissaries, had filled the minds of the credulous ex-slaves with
false impressions of the new and glorious condition that lay before
them. Then, with the extension of the Bureau and spread of the army
posts, many of the negroes became idle, neglected the crops planted in
the spring, and moved from their old homes to the towns or wandered
aimlessly from place to place.
Upon leaving their homes the blacks collected in gangs at the
cross-roads, in the villages and towns, and especially near the
military posts. To the negro these ordinary men in blue were beings
from another sphere who had brought him freedom, a something he could
not exactly comprehend, but which, he was assured, was a delightful
state.
Upon the negro women often fell the burden of supporting the children,
to which hardship were traceable the then common crimes of foeticide
and child murder. The small number of children during the decade of
Reconstruction was generally remarked. Negro women began to flock to
the towns; how they lived no one can tell; immorality was general
among them. The conditions of Reconstruction were unfavorable to
honesty and morality among the negroes, both male and female.
Their marriage relations were hardly satisfactory, judged by white
standards. The legislatures in 1865-1866 had declared slave marriages
binding. The reconstructionists denounced this as a great cruelty and
repealed the laws. Marriages were then made to date from the passage
of the Reconstruction Acts. As many negro men had had several wives
before that date they were relieved from the various penalties of
desertion, bigamy, adultery, etc. Some seized the opportunity to
desert their wives and children and acquire new help-meets. While much
suffering resulted from the desertion, as a rule, the negro mother
alone supported the children better than did the father who stayed.
Negro women accepted freedom with even greater seriousness than did
the men, and were not always, nor easily, induced to again take up the
familiar drudgery of field labor and domestic service. To approximate
the ease of their former mistresses, to wear fine clothes and go often
to church were their chief ambitions. Negro women had never been as
well-mannered, nor, on the whole, as good natured and cheerful as the
negro men. Both sexes, during Reconstruction, lost much of their
native cheerfulness; the men no longer went singing and shouting to
their work in the fields; some of the blacks, especially the women,
became impudent and insulting in their bearing toward the whites.
As a result of certain pernicious alien influences there soon
developed a tendency to insolent conduct on the part of the younger
negro men, who seemed convinced that civil behavior and freedom were
incompatible. With some there was a disposition not to submit to the
direction of their employers, and the negro's advisers warned him
against the "efforts of the white man to enslave" him. Consequently,
he very often refused to enter into contracts that called for any
assumption of responsibility on his part, and the few agreements to
which he became a party had first to be ratified by the Bureau. As he
had no knowledge of the obligation of contracts, he usually violated
them at pleasure.
The negroes, massed in the towns, lived in deserted and ruined houses
or in huts built by themselves of refuse lumber. They were very
scantily clothed and their food, often insufficient and badly cooked,
if cooked at all, was obtained by begging, stealing, or upon
application to the Bureau. Taking from the whites was not considered
stealing, but was "Spilin' de Gypshuns."
The health of the negroes was injured during the period 1865-1875. In
the towns the standard of living was low, sanitary arrangements were
bad, and disease killed large numbers and permanently injured the
negro constitution.
Following the military occupation of the State the negroes, young and
old, were seized with an overmastering desire for book learning. This
seeming thirst for education was not rightly understood at the North;
it was, in fact, more a desire to imitate the white master and obtain
formerly forbidden privileges than any real yearning due to an
understanding of the value of education. The negro hardly knew the
significance of the bare word, but the northern people gave him credit
for an appreciation not yet altogether true even of whites.
CONCLUSION.
No occurrences of extreme historic value mark the career of Loudoun
since the days of Reconstruction, and the seemingly abrupt conclusion
to which the reader has now arrived is not thought incompatible with
the plan of this work, which in no single instance has contemplated
the inclusion of any but the most momentous events. Besides, existing
conditions have received protracted mention in the preceding
descriptive and statistical departments where appear evidences of the
County's present vast wealth and resources, numberless charms and
recent marvelous development.
* * * * *