Negroes and the Gun Read online

  Although we cannot track it through the kind of empirical assessments that are common today, black firearms ownership also generated plenty of intragroup violence in the postwar era. This included a component of domestic violence of the type illustrated in the 1866 prosecution in Mississippi of W. D. Chase. Chase lived in the Negro quarters of Vicksburg, with his wife, Phyllis. Neighbors reported that they quarreled about money, about his drinking, and about apparent visits of a white soldier to the home when Chase was gone. Witnesses heard the couple fighting about a pistol, and one neighbor reports Chase yelling, “I will shoot any woman who will take a white man and leave me.” That oath was followed by a gunshot, and neighbors gathered to find a despondent Chase crying, “Oh ma if you die I want to die too.”

  Even during the war, there were indications that the contraband camps that grew up behind Union lines suffered from prosaic black criminality involving firearms. Reporting on the camp towns around Vicksburg, Mississippi, describes frequent gunfire, theft, and other crime. One editorial, from an admittedly unsympathetic white newspaper, chided that there was money to be made by anyone who could fashion a bulletproof covering for the meager structures of the Vicksburg camp.50

  For the immediate postwar period, we are left to surmise from surrogate evidence that a significant part of the violence that affected blacks was intraracial. An unusual postslavery experiment is instructive. The venue was the imagined slave utopia of Mississippi planter Joseph Davis, brother of Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Spurred by the theories of English social reformers, Joseph Davis sought to establish a model slave community. He built sturdy cottages with plaster walls and fireplaces to quarter his 350 slaves and established a court where slave juries decided complaints about misbehavior and whether a slave should be punished. Before whipping a slave, overseers were required to get a conviction against the culprit by a jury of his peers. In April 1862, Joseph Davis fled his plantation, leaving his slaves behind as Union forces advanced.51

  Sometime around the end of the war, Davis transferred ownership of the plantation to one of his favored slaves, Benjamin Montgomery, who appropriated Davis’s vision and reconfigured the place as the town of Davis Bend. Montgomery sat as judge in a variety of disputes between the free blacks of Davis Bend. Perhaps reflecting the broader trend, roughly one third of the cases involved crimes of violence.

  A broader assessment in Warren County, Mississippi, between 1865 and 1867 confirms the hazards that blacks faced during that period from both whites and other blacks, and it helps us understand why they might seek out guns for self-defense. While court records do not always specify race, one observer claimed that not a day passed without news of some robbery or murder of a black victim.52

  The program of congressional Reconstruction initiated by radical Republicans, over the objections and vetoes of President Andrew Johnson, exacerbated simmering fears about rising black political power and looming retribution. Rumors spread of armed blacks drilling in nightly conclaves, waiting for some signal to unleash a massacre. Those fears often centered on black rifle companies that were common in the postwar era.53

  The fears and rumors provoked by the black rifle companies are easy to understand. And it is also worth pausing to consider just the existence of these groups. One longs for some detailed record of the membership, activities, sources of guns, and agenda of such groups. But, like many chapters in the black experience, the details here are thin. Still, there is enough evidence to demonstrate that many blacks during this period owned guns, knew how to use them, and saw firearms as important personal-security tools.

  Black veterans played a significant role in rifle companies like David Cooper’s group in Cape Fear, North Carolina, and John Eagles’s Wilmington Rifle Guard. The Wilmington Rifle Guard drilled every week and was a central feature in the annual Emancipation Day parade. This and other celebrations by black Wilmington were often followed by Creedmoor-style target-shooting competitions that drew hundreds of participants and spectators.54

  In the fall of 1867, two independent black militias drilled publicly in Washington, DC, displaying arms that they had purchased from the federal government. President Andrew Johnson’s order to disband sparked controversy, and the military commander of the district responded that absent a declaration of martial law, he had no authority to enforce the president’s order. The mayor of the district confirmed that the black militia had not broken any local laws. The Negroes finally did stop parading, but they kept their arms and did not disband.55

  The activities of the rifle clubs and militias were not the exclusive province of veterans. Organized practice and competition with firearms drew participation from the broader community at open public events. In 1866, for example, roughly four hundred blacks gathered at a Pitt County, North Carolina, plantation for a Fourth of July celebration that included “target practice with Springfield rifles.”56

  George Washington Albright of Mississippi further demonstrates that black rifle companies were not dependent on leadership from veterans. Albright was a carpenter and a teacher, who organized a black volunteer militia aimed “to keep the common people on top and fight off the attacks of the landlords and former slave owners.”57

  Much of the public practice of arms by Negroes in the postwar era was connected to the burgeoning political development of the freedmen. Channeling this political ambition, black chapters of the Union League formed throughout the South. Their secrecy, ritual, late-night meetings, and posting of armed sentinels fueled rumors of armed black men intent on mayhem. Despite the often-innocuous content and consequence of Union League meetings, they were, in fact, a venue where Negroes with guns assembled. And sometimes this was more than just for show.

  Fig. 3.5. “The Colored Creedmoor,” a comic depiction of postwar black gun culture. (“The Colored Creedmoor,” wood engraving by Thomas Nast, Harper’s Weekly magazine, New York, August 28, 1875.)

  In Harnett County, North Carolina, a league chapter threatened violence to secure release of colored orphans bound out to white planters. A league chapter in Brazos, Texas, under the leadership of Reverend George Brooks, battled a party of the hooded night riders in 1868, and the episode spurred blacks to acquire more guns and step up public military-style drills. Demonstrating again that arms are no guarantee of safety, league leader George Brooks was subsequently murdered.

  In Morgan County, Georgia, George Flemister reorganized a league chapter that had dissolved under Klan pressure. The reconstituted Morgan County League was instrumental in Republican electoral gains and then attempted to expand its influence to community protection. When a black man named Charles Clark was arrested on a specious rape charge, a squad of armed Union League members rallied to guard him from lynching. Believing the threat had passed, they dispersed. Later, a group of white men in “long gowns . . . and some great sharp things upon their heads” broke into the jail and killed Clark. They then ransacked Flemister’s little shoe-repair business and ran him out of town.

  In Grant, North Carolina, Union League leader Wyatt Outlaw, son of a slave mother and a white Unionist, organized league members to establish a school, a church, and a vigilance committee that patrolled the community. He actually urged blacks to rely on his patrols and avoid individual violence. Ultimately, Outlaw was unable to keep a lid on the violence. Incensed by his political activism, members of the White Brotherhood seized Wyatt Outlaw and hanged him in the town square.

  In Maury County, Tennessee, league members stood by their promise of mutual defense when night riders threatened their leader, Pleasant Hill. They rushed to the scene with “muskets and revolvers [and] in this way kept them off and defended ourselves . . . until daylight.” In Darlington County, South Carolina, a league chapter redoubled its preparations on the rumor of an impending Klan attack, and with weapons displayed, they took control of the town.

  Similar episodes were recorded in Macon, Mississippi, and Granville County, North Carolina. The show of force by the Granville County
League was enough to prompt a democratic leader to offer terms. He proposed that if the blacks would stand down, “he would stop the Ku Klux.” In Oktibbeha County, Mississippi, an entire league chapter marched with arms to the county seat, spurred by lynch rumors following the arrest of one of their members.58

  In South Carolina and Alabama, league chapters rejected the authority of the state and county courts, setting up their own judicial system and selecting a community sheriff. This led to charges of insurrection, and the Alabama movement leader was arrested.

  An 1867 conflict involving Union League activists in Hale County, Alabama, triggered an escalating cycle of violence. It started with a fight in the town of Greensboro, between a white merchant and Alex Webb, a black Union League activist who served as registrar of voters. The merchant ended up shooting Webb, who died a short while later. Suspecting some larger plot, and fearing that the murderer had been aided by townsfolk, armed Negroes flooded into town. Then they scoured the countryside in search of suspected conspirators and dragged one half-naked man back into town as evidence of their effort.

  The familiar worry about escalation was soon fulfilled. The black show of force spurred the formation of a new Klan organization in Hale County. Over the next several years, Hale County Negroes would battle the Klan in repeating cycles of violence. In one episode, Klansmen rode into Greensboro to depose a partisan Republican judge. Unable to locate him, they attacked the jail and freed one of their cohorts. Blacks responded by torching the livery stable of an apparent Klan sympathizer. Later, Klansmen fired into a Negro prayer meeting. Blacks responded with a failed retaliatory attack, resulting in another Negro dead.59

  In August 1868, in Camilla, Georgia, the threat of black electoral success triggered a violent scene reported as the “Camilla Riot.” At the heart of the controversy was the contest over who would represent the state’s Second Congressional District, where blacks outnumbered whites by almost two to one. Under Reconstruction policies, Republicans controlled the governor’s office and the legislature. Whites had already demonstrated their opposition to the Republican candidate, William Pierce, at a rally in nearby Americus, where Pierce was lucky to make it out alive.

  When Pierce scheduled a rally in Camilla, where whites were a slim majority, he was warned, “this is our Country and we intend to protect it or die.” Local blacks, still agitated about a racially motivated shooting in Camilla four months earlier, had already resolved that they would never go to Camilla unarmed.

  The political rally for Pierce started in the countryside and gathered momentum and participants as it moved toward town. By the time they reached the village of China Grove, just outside Camilla, the noisy parade, led by a wagonload of musicians, numbered perhaps three hundred. About half of the men were carrying some sort of firearm. The procession was fully in the style of the Union League and Republican clubs of the period, who often paraded this way to draw out community support on election days. But many whites viewed these processions as threatening mobs. In Camilla, the news quickly spread that an armed body of Negroes was approaching.

  Before the group reached town, the sheriff, backed by a freshly appointed citizens committee, rode out and warned them not to enter town carrying guns. The Negroes said they intended to have a peaceful rally at the courthouse. After some debate and a failed attempt to secure an alternative site, they marched into Camilla. By this time, the sheriff had deputized most of the white men in town, and they were girded for conflict.

  The Negroes marched toward the courthouse to music of drums and fifes. The sheriff later reported that they marched in military fashion, four deep, surrounded by outriders on horseback. Squads of armed whites assembled adjacent to the courthouse square. The shooting started when a drunk white man wielding a shotgun ran out and demanded that the drummers cease their racket. They refused, he fired, and the battle was on.

  As is common in these encounters, the blacks were armed with the guns of poor folk, often single-shot shotguns loaded with cheap birdshot. They were also at a tactical disadvantage, assembled in the middle of the street, while their opponents stalked the perimeter. The blacks fired and fled for cover. The whites fired with effect and pursued fleeing Negroes into the swamps. Nine blacks were killed and many others were wounded. Whites proceeded through the countryside over the next two weeks, beating and warning Negroes that they would be killed if they tried to vote in the coming election.

  Back in Albany, Negroes agitated for retaliation. Reverend Robert Crumley, pastor of the African Methodist Church, complained that the Camilla group failed to heed his advice. He had warned that them not go to Camilla with less than 150 armed men. Then he urged Albany blacks to ride to Camilla the next day and “burn the earth about the place.”

  The Albany Freedman’s Bureau agent managed to dampen the rage with the promise to send for federal troops. By Election Day, tempers had cooled, but the climate of violence had cowed many weaker souls. Low black turnout resulted in a Democratic victory in the majority black Republican congressional district.60

  Fig. 3.6. A Freedman’s Bureau agent stands between rebels and freedmen. (“The Freedmen’s Bureau,” drawn by A. R. Waud, Harper’s Weekly magazine, New York, July 25, 1868, p. 473.)

  Other political violence of the Reconstruction era centered on official Negro state militias operating under radical Republican administrations. State militias were distinct from the private militias and rifle companies, and they posed a different set of concerns. Immediately after the war, Southern state militias were an enforcement arm of the Black Codes, the muscle behind the attempt to reinstitute slavery in a different form. Membership in these militias often overlapped with budding private terrorist groups like the Klan. Congress attacked the problem by disbanding the state militias of the former Confederacy through a rider to the 1867 Reconstruction Act.61

  As Reconstruction progressed and radical Republicans took control of Southern state governments, they asked Congress to reauthorize the state militias. In 1869, Congress reauthorized state militias for North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Virginia, Texas, Mississippi, and Georgia were excluded on worries that Republicans were not sufficiently established there. As Republican tools, the reauthorized militias were disdained by most whites. Blacks, on the other hand, were more than willing to serve.

  The work of the Negro militias varied substantially, oscillating with Republican fortunes. In several states, they were barely worth mentioning. Alabama never deployed its Negro militia, even at the height of Klan violence in the state. In Florida, Republican governor Harrison Reed went through the motions of organizing a Negro militia but avoided using them for fear of white backlash. In other states, Negro militias marched mainly as a political show.62 But in some places, Negro militias fought in significant episodes of political violence, supporting the programs of Republican governors to ends that were sometimes detached from the immediate interests of black folk.

  In Texas, Governor Edmund Davis deployed Negro militia in an attempt to retain his office after being defeated by rival Richard Coke. In Louisiana, Negro militias were deployed for threat value by competing Republican factions. And in Arkansas, Negro militias fought in a full-scale military conflict, dubbed the Brooks-Baxter War.

  The Brooks-Baxter War grew out of a schism between regular Republicans (the Minstrels) and a liberal Republican faction (known as Brindle-Tails). This split fueled a contest for the governorship in 1872. Elisha Baxter was the nominal winner, but Joseph Brooks contested the results. Fifteen months after Baxter took office, a county judge ruled that Brooks actually won the election. Both sides appealed to President Ulysses S. Grant, who cautiously refused to weigh in.

  Insistent that he was the rightful governor, Brooks gathered three hundred Negro militia and set up a parallel administration. Baxter, who had nominally prevailed in the election, declared martial law also enforced by Negro militia. In the ensuing weeks, both sides vied for reinforcements and built up stores
of arms. With all the trappings of war, they fought three separate engagements. About twenty men were killed and scores were wounded. President Grant finally ended the conflict with a proclamation that Baxter was the rightful governor and with a grant of immunity to all combatants. The broader consequences for Negroes were more worrisome. The conflict weakened the Republican Party in Arkansas and contributed to the ascension of Democrats.

  White backlash against rising black political power and the specter of armed Negroes was multilayered. Confederates had lost the war of secession but now were battling for the soul of the South. Fear of Negro rule unified whites and fueled political violence in ways that nothing else could. Occupation by black troops, black suffrage, and the rise of Negroes to office generated resentment and resistance. Through rough politics, trickery, and violence, the white South would soon “redeem” its institutions and culture from the revolutionary social inversion of Reconstruction. This Southern “Redemption,” solidified by federal abdication on Reconstruction, resubordinated blacks and carried deadly lessons about the risks of political violence and the importance of private self-defense.

  Whether as police forces, private militias, or terrorist night riders, ex-Confederates pursued a ruthless campaign of political violence to disarm and disenfranchise blacks. Even in places where blacks might make a rational postwar decision to disdain political violence, in many cases, violence was unavoidable.

  Operating under the loose imprimatur of law, bands of white militia raided Negro homes, searching and seizing firearms. For blacks, the distinction between these official militias and terrorist organizations like the KKK was often thin. Sometimes there was not even a pretense of distinction. Witness Colonel Roger Moore, commander of the New Hanover County, North Carolina, militia, who also headed the Wilmington KKK.63