Been in the Storm So Long

by Leon F. Litwack

  114. Lt. James M. Johnston to Bvt. Maj. A. M. Crawford, Dec. 17, 1866, Records of the Assistant Commissioners, South Carolina (Letters Received), Freedmen’s Bureau. See also New York Times, Dec. 30, 1866; J. R. Grady (sheriff, Lillington, Harnett Co.) to Post Commander, Aug. 27, 1867, E. W. Everson to Bvt. Maj. Edward Deane, Jan. 17, 18, 1867, Everson to Lt. Crawford, June 19, 1867, Records of the Assistant Commissioners, North Carolina and South Carolina (Letters Received), Freedmen’s Bureau.

  115. [name deleted] to Gov. Jonathan Worth, Nov. 29, 1866, in Gov. Worth to Col. Bomford, Dec. 3, 1866, Records of the Assistant Commissioners, North Carolina (Letters Received), Freedmen’s Bureau.

  116. J.J. Pringle Smith to Mrs. Robert Smith, Jan. 13, 1867, in D. E. H. Smith (ed.), Mason Smith Family Letters, 273; Rogers, History of Georgetown County, 433; James DeGrey to Lt. J. M. Lee, Nov. 15, 1867, Records of the Assistant Commissioners, Louisiana (Letters Received), Freedmen’s Bureau.

  117. Reid, After the War, 546–50.

  118. Lt. Erastus Everson to Bvt. Maj. Henry W. Smith, Jan. 30, 1866, R. H. Willoughby to Bvt. Maj. A. M. Crawford, July 27, 1867, Records of the Assistant Commissioners, South Carolina (Letters Received), and J. J. Wright to Bvt. Gen. Gile, June 3, 1867, Records of the Subdivision of Beaufort, S.C., Freedmen’s Bureau.

  119. McFeely, Yankee Stepfather, 202–03; Lt. and Bvt. Brig. Gen. H. Neide to Bvt. Maj. Edward L. Deane, Feb. 9, 1867, Bvt. Maj. Gen. R. K. Scott to Maj. Gen. O. O. Howard, Feb. 14, 1867, Records of the Assistant Commissioners, South Carolina (Letters Received), Freedmen’s Bureau.

  120. Workingman’s Advocate, April 28, June 2, 1866; New York Times, April 18, May 24, Dec. 6, 1866, Feb. 10, May 15, June 15, 1867; Taylor, Negro in the Reconstruction of Virginia, 120.

  121. New Orleans Tribune, May 17, 1867; Trowbridge, The South, 405.

  122. Christian Recorder, Dec. 2, 1865; New Orleans Tribune, Dec. 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 1865.

  123. Williamson, After Slavery, 92–93. For the action of a Bureau officer in the South Carolina low country when faced with a “combination” among the blacks on several plantations, see Capt. D. Corbin to H. W. Smith, Feb. 1, 1866, Records of the Assistant Commissioners, South Carolina (Letters Received), Freedmen’s Bureau.

  124. South Carolina Leader, Dec. 16, 1865; Reid, After the War, 464. See also Dennett, The South As It Is, 247.

  125. Dennett, The South As It Is, 15, 114–15, 276–77; Colored American, Jan. 6, 1866; Moore (ed.), The Juhl Letters (July 4, 1866), 103; Bvt. Lt. Col. B. F. Smith to Bvt. Maj. H. W. Smith, Jan. 21, 1866, Records of the Assistant Commissioners, South Carolina (Letters Received), Freedmen’s Bureau.

  126. Everard Green Baker, Ms. Diary, entries for Dec. 26, 1862, May 31, 1865, Jan. 13, July 17, 1866, May 29, 1867, Univ. of North Carolina; Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll, 90.

  127. Easterby (ed.), South Carolina Rice Plantation, 18–19; Dr. Ethelred Philips to Dr. James J. Philips, Aug. 2, Oct. 24, 1865, Nov. 8, 1866, June 17, Dec. 1, 1867, James J. Philips Collection, Univ. of North Carolina.

  128. Myers (ed.), Children of Pride, 1340–41, 1366, 1369, 1374, 1376, 1403, 1429.

  129. Moore, (ed.), The Juhl Letters (Oct. 7, 1866), 125; Trowbridge, The South, 545.

  130. Lt. Erastus Eversori to Bvt. Maj. Henry W. Smith, Jan. 30, 1866, Bvt. Lt. Col. B. F. Smith to Bvt. Maj. Henry W. Smith, Jan. 21, 1866, Records of the Assistant Commissioners, South Carolina (Letters Received), Freedmen’s Bureau; Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, II, 239; Andrews, The South since the War, 212.

  131. Loring and Atkinson, Cotton Culture and the South, 4; Reid, After the War, 463; Leigh, Ten Years on a Georgia Plantation, 57–58, 78–79. For other examples of the yearning for landownership and the movement toward tenantry, see Loring and Atkinson, Cotton Culture and the South, 5, 14, 121, 145; Ravenel, Private Journal, 272; Reid, After the War, 533; Trowbridge, The South, 362; Macrae, Americans at Home, 210; Christian Recorder, Dec. 30, 1865; National Freedman, I (Nov. 15, 1865), 337.

  132. For examples of “tenantry” contracts, see Dennett, The South As It Is, 282–83. See also ibid, 108–09.

  133. Loring and Atkinson, Cotton Culture and the South, 13.

  134. Rawick (ed.), American Slave, VIII: Ark. Narr. (Part 2), 63–64.

  135. Andrews, The South since the War, 370 (also reprinted in New York Times, Jan. 7, 1866). For a similar assessment, see Botume, First Days Amongst the Contrabands, 197.

  136. Rawick (ed.), American Slave, IV: Texas Narr. (Part 2), 134.

  137. Ibid., XIV: N.C. Narr. (Part 1), 361–62.

  Chapter Nine: The Gospel and the Primer

  1. Christian Recorder, May 26, 1866.

  2. Reid, After the War, 510.

  3. Christian Recorder, Jan. 31, 1863, Feb. 25, Aug. 5, Dec. 30, 1865, Jan. 20, 1866.

  4. B. F. Randolph to Bvt. Maj. Gen. Rufus Saxton, Aug. 31, 1865, Records of the Assistant Commissioners, South Carolina (Letters Received), Freedmen’s Bureau.

  5. Christian Recorder, April 15, 1865 (editorial); Rose, Rehearsal for Reconstruction, 217; James M. McPherson, “The New Puritanism: Values and Goals of Freedmen’s Education in America,” in Lawrence Stone (ed.), The University in Society (2 vols.; Princeton, 1974), II, 615; Daniel A. Payne, Recollections of Seventy Years (Nashville, 1888; repr. New York, 1969), 163n.

  6. Swint (ed.), Dear Ones at Home, 24; American Freedman, III (April 1868), 400. On the problems missionaries encountered with black speech, see also Swint (ed.), Dear Ones at Home, 62; Pearson (ed.), Letters from Port Royal, 34–35, 90; Botume, First Days Amongst the Contrabands, 277.

  7. Christian Recorder, Sept. 29, 1866.

  8. Rawick (ed.), American Slave, V: Texas Narr. (Part 4), 184.

  9. Thomas W. Cardozo to Samuel Hunt, June 23, 1865, Thomas D. S. Tucker to “Dear Friends of the Association,” Nov. 27, 1862, Tucker to George Whipple, Dec. 24, 1862, American Missionary Assn. Archives.

  10. Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (New York, 1952), 3.

  11. Christian Recorder, Sept. 7, 1861, June 27, 1863.

  12. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll, 234; Christian Recorder, July 25, 1863.

  13. Christian Recorder, May 27, 1865.

  14. J. W. C. Pennington to “My Esteemed Friend,” May 25, 1870, American Missionary Assn. Archives; Christian Recorder, June 29, 1867. See also Amos Gerry Beman to Rev. George Whipple, Feb. 25, 1867, in “Documents,” Journal of Negro History, XXII (1937), 222–26.

  15. Christian Recorder, June 16, 1866 (H. M. Turner and A. Waddell letters).

  16. Marcia Colton to Rev. George Whipple, May 19, June 14, July 9, Oct. 7, Nov. 1, 1864, American Missionary Assn. Archives.

  17. Christian Recorder, July 1, March 18, 1865; Thomas W. Cardozo to Samuel Hunt, June 23, 1865, American Missionary Assn. Archives; Elizabeth Kilham, “Sketches in Color: IV,” in Jackson (ed.), The Negro and His Folklore, 133. For the reactions of white missionaries to black religious worship in the South, see the sources cited in notes 19 and 20.

  18. Christian Recorder, July 14, 1866 (editorial); Timothy Lyman to Rev. M. E. Strieby, Feb, 27, 1865, American Missionary Assn. Archives.

  19. Rev. Joel Grant to Prof. Henry Cowles, April 10, 1863, H. S. Beals to Rev. S. S. Jocelyn, April 28, 1863, Martha L. Kellogg to Rev. S. S. Jocelyn, Sept. 3, 1863, American Missionary Assn. Archives; National Freedman, I (Sept. 15, 1865), 264 (Rev. Henry J. Fox); New York Times, Nov. 28, 1863. See also Waterbury, Seven Years Among the Freedmen, 18–19, and Macrae, Americans at Home, 353–75.

  20. H. S. Beals to Rev. S. S. Jocelyn, April 28, Aug. 18, 1863, William G. Kephart to Lewis Tappan, May 9, 1864, Augustus C. Stickle to Jacob R. Shipherd, July 9, 1867, Timothy Lyman to Rev. M. E. Strieby, Feb. 27, 1865, Rev. W. T. Richardson to Rev. George Whipple, July 3, 1863, Mary E. Bur-dick to Rev. George Whipple, March 8, 1864, American Missionary Assn. Archives; National Freedman, I (Oct. 15, 1865), 285 (M. J. Ringler); Towne, Letters and Diary, 20; Swint (ed.), Dear Ones at Home, 21–22, 58. See also Pearson (ed.), Letters from Port Royal, 26–28; Ames, From
a New England Woman’s Diary in Dixie, 81–82; Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment, 17–18.

  21. Rawick (ed.), American Slave, III: S.C. Narr. (Part 3), 5; Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment, 253.

  22. Swint, The Northern Teacher in the South, 42; Timothy Lyman to Rev. M. E. Strieby, Feb. 27, 1865, H. S. Beals to Rev. S. S. Jocelyn, April 28, 1863, William G. Kephart to Lewis Tappan, May 9, 1864, Louise A. Woodbury to Rev. S. S. Jocelyn, Sept. 7, 1863, American Missionary Assn. Archives.

  23. Kilham, “Sketches in Color: IV,” in Jackson (ed.), The Negro and His Folklore, 125–31.

  24. Christian Recorder, Aug. 5, 1865. On the “peculiar fitness” of blacks for missionary and teaching positions in the South, see also, e.g., ibid., Nov. 28, 1863 (editorial), Feb. 6, 1864 (R. H. Cain and T. H. C. Hinton), Feb. 11 (J. Lynch), March 18 (“Junius”), April 15 (editorial), Sept. 9 (J. Lynch), Sept. 23. (A. Crummell), 1865, Feb. 24, 1866, and June 29, 1867 (R. H. Cain).

  25. Sella Martin to M. E. Strieby, March 20, 1866, American Missionary Assn. Archives; Christian Recorder, Feb. 11, 1865 (James H. Payne).

  26. Towne, Letters and Diary, 55; Christian Recorder, June 16, 1866 (A. Waddell), Dec. 30 and Aug. 5, 1865 (H. M. Turner). For commendation of the work of the white benevolent societies, especially the American Missionary Assn. and the National Freedmen’s Relief Assn., see, e.g., Christian Recorder, June 3, 1865 (Meeting of the South Carolina Conference), and Feb. 27, 1864 (J. Lynch).

  27. Edward P. Smith to M. E. Strieby, July 21, 1865, American Missionary Assn. Archives; Blassingame (ed.), Slave Testimony, 495, 420; Rawick (ed.), American Slave, IV: Texas Narr. (Part 1), 198, (Part 2), 167; Perdue et al. (eds.), Weevils in the Wheat, 322. On ex-slave recollections of white preachers, see also, e.g., Blassingame (ed.), Slave Testimony, 420, 538, 642; Rawick (ed.), American Slave, V: Texas Narr. (Part 3), 213, (Part 4), 7; VIII and X: Ark. Narr. (Part 1), 35, (Part 2), 294, (Part 5), 36–37; XVIII: Unwritten History, 45, 76, 98, 310.

  28. Blassingame (ed.), Slave Testimony, 643; Rawick (ed.), American Slave, II: S.C. Narr. (Part 1), 241; IV: Texas Narr. (Part 1), 199; Haviland, A Woman’s Life-Work, 321.

  29. Rev. L. S. Burkhead, “History of the Difficulties of the Pastorate of the Front Street Methodist Church, Wilmington, N.C., for the Year 1865,” in An Annual Publication of Historical Papers Published by the Historical Society of Trinity College, Durham, N.C., Series VIII (1906–09), 35–118. For a black view of the “difficulties,” see Christian Recorder, April 15, 1865 (“Arnold”).

  30. Christian Recorder, Feb. 24, 1866 (R. H. Cain), Jan. 21 and Feb. 4, 1865 (J. Lynch), March 24, 1866 (H. M. Turner). See also ibid., Jan. 29, 1870 (“Our Record”).

  31. Ibid., Oct. 14, 1865, Sept. 8, 1866; Rawick (ed.), American Slave, II: S.C. Narr. (Part 1), 35–36.

  32. H. Shelton Smith, In His Image, But …: Racism in Southern Religion, 1780–1910 (Durham, N.C., 1972), 229–31; Ralph E. Morrow, Northern Methodism and Reconstruction (East Lansing, Mich, 1956), 129; Wharton, Negro in Mississippi, 260–61; Williamson, After Slavery, 196–97; Kolchin, First Freedom, 111–13.

  33. Morrow, Northern Methodism and Reconstruction, 136; Christian Recorder, March 5, 1870 (“Separate Churches”), March 26, 1864 (J. D. S. Hall), June 17, 1865 (R. H. Cain). For the struggle between the AME and the Methodist Episcopal Church, including the conflicts over church property, see also Christian Recorder, March 12 (J. D. S. Hall), June 25 (J. Lynch), 1864, April 15 (“Arnold”), May 13 (H. M. Turner), June 3 (S.C. Conference), Aug. 5 and Oct. 7 (H. R. Revels), Oct. 21 (J. Lynch), 1865, Sept. 21, 1867 (“True Position of AME Church”); Coppin, Unwritten History, 117–18; Morrow, Northern Methodism and Reconstruction, 139–40; and Williamson, After Slavery, 181–91.

  34. Reid, After the War, 519–20; Rev. A. G. Smith to “Dear Sir,” Sept. 25, 1867, Records of the Assistant Commissioners, North Carolina (Letters Received), Freedmen’s Bureau.

  35. Avary, Dixie after the War, 203–04.

  36. Mobile News, reprinted in New Orleans Tribune, Sept. 9, 1865. See also Kolchin, First Freedom, 118–19.

  37. New York Times, July 1, 1867; Christian Recorder, June 16, 1866. The war had exacerbated the sectional split in the national churches, prompting some southern whites to prefer that black congregations affiliate with the independent black churches rather than with the MEC (North). Christian Recorder, Oct. 21, 1865 (J. Lynch), Sept. 21, 1867 (“True Position of the AME Church”).

  38. New York Times, Nov. 28, 1863.

  39. Missionary Record, reprinted in Semi-Weekly Louisianian, April 21, 1872; Christian Recorder, May 26, 1866 (Address of the Bishops). For criticism of ministers in politics, see Christian Recorder, Feb. 1, 1868, and Louisianian, Feb. 16, 1871.

  40. Christian Recorder, Jan. 29, 1870 (“Our Record”). On the activities of H. M. Turner, see ibid, June 9, 1866, Aug. 17, 1867, Feb. 1, 1868, March 6, 1869; on R. H. Cain, ibid., Sept. 8, 1866, and Williamson, After Slavery, 206–07; on J. C. Gibbs, Christian Recorder, Sept. 16, 1865, Sept. 8, 1866, and Richardson, Negro in the Reconstruction of Florida, 94; on J. Lynch, Christian Recorder, June 8, 22, 1867, Weekly Louisianian, Jan. 4, 1873, and Wharton, Negro in Mississippi, 154–55.

  41. Macrae, Americans at Home, 368.

  42. Blassingame (ed.), Slave Testimony, 598; Missionary Record (Charleston), July 5, 1873; J. W. Alvord, Eighth Semi-Annual Report on Schools for Freedmen, July 1, 1869 (Washington, D.C., 1869), 46.

  43. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll, 562; Reid, After the War, 145.

  44. Louis R. Harlan, Booker T. Washington: The Making of a Black Leader, 1856–1901 (New York, 1972), 14; Washington, Up from Slavery, 6–7, 26–32, 37.

  45. Botume, First Days Amongst the Contrabands, 259; Blassingame (ed.), Slave Testimony, 174.

  46. Dennett, The South As It Is, 322; Rose, Rehearsal for Reconstruction, 46. On the theme of “knowledge is power,” see also, e.g., “State Convention of the Colored People of South Carolina,” in South Carolina Leader, Nov. 25, 1865; Loyal Georgian, Jan. 20, 1866; and 39 Cong., 1 Sess., House Exec. Doc. 70, Freedmen’s Bureau, 334.

  47. National Freedman, I (Aug. 15, 1865), 217 (W. T. Briggs); (Dec. 15, 1865), 350 (S. K. Whiting); Quarles, Negro in the Civil War, 292; Waterbury, Seven Years Among the Freedmen, 81. For the intensity of the freedmen’s commitment to education, see also, e.g., Esther W. Douglass to Rev. Samuel Hunt, Dec. 27, 1865, American Missionary Assn. Archives; South Carolina Leader, Dec. 9, 1865; National Freedman, I (Dec. 15, 1865), 351–52 (H. C. Fisher); American Freedman, I (June 1866), 46 (G. H. Allan); Botume, First Days Amongst the Contrabands, 57; Trowbridge, The South, 251; 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 6, Reports of the Assistant Commissioners of Freedmen [Jan. 3, 1867], 105; Alvord, Eighth Semi-Annual Report on Schools for Freedmen, July 1, 1869, 45.

  48. Murray, Proud Shoes, 182; Mrs. William L. Coan to M. E. Strieby, Sept. 23, 1864, American Missionary Assn. Archives; Waterbury, Seven Years Among the Freedmen, 19; Asa B. Whitfield to Julia A. Shearman, April 17, 1867, American Missionary Assn. Archives. For the appeals of two black teachers for assistance, see Jonathan J. Wright to Rev. Samuel Hunt, Dec. 4, 1865, Feb. 5, 1866, and T. G. Steward to John A. Rockwell, Nov. 6, 1867, American Missionary Assn. Archives.

  49. Trowbridge, The South, 466; National Freedman, I (April 1, 1865), 93 (M. E. Jones and N. J. McCullough); Harriet B. Greeley to Rev. George Whipple, April 29, 1865, American Missionary Assn. Archives. On the difficulty of adjusting work schedules to schooling, see also Rawick (ed.), American Slave, XIII: Ga. Narr. (Part 3), 117; XIV: N.C. Narr. (Part 1), 277; XVI: Tenn. Narr., 29; American Freedman, III (June 1868), 431 (L. M. Towne); and Helen M. Jones to S. G. Wright, Jan. 13, 1866, American Missionary Assn. Archives.

  50. J. W. Alvord, Report on Schools and Finances of Freedmen for July, 1866 (Washington, D.C., 1866), 16 (Helena, Ark.); Ames, From a New England Woman’s Diary in Dixie, 108–09 (Seabrook); New York Times, Jan. 13, 19, 1862 (Lawrence); Williamson, After Slavery, 211 (Charleston); Reid, After the War, 246 (New Orlea
ns); W. T. Richardson to M. E. Strieby, Jan. 2, 1865 (Savannah), and Rev. W. F. Eaton to Rev. George Whipple, May 26, 1865 (King plantation, St. Simon’s Island), American Missionary Assn. Archives; Colored Tennessean, March 24, 1866 (Douglass school); National Freedman, I (Feb. 1, 1865), 11–12 (Savannah); Trowbridge, The South, 490 (Augusta), 509–10 (Savannah). See also Swint, Northern Teacher in the South, 79–80 (Richmond); Wiley, Southern Negroes, 271 (La.); Trowbridge, The South, 337 (Tenn.); Haviland, A Woman’s Life-Work, 321–22 (New Orleans); New York Tribune, July 7, 1865 (Richmond).

  51. Colored Tennessean, Oct. 14, 1865; J. W. Alvord, Fourth Semi-Annual Report on Schools for Freedmen, July 1, 1867 (Washington, D.C., 1867), 83, and Ninth Semi-Annual Report on Schools for Freedmen, January 1, 1870 (Washington, D.C., 1870), 46; Rawick (ed.), American Slave, IV: Texas Narr. (Part 2), 48. On the plantation schools, see also J. W. Alvord, Third Semi-Annual Report on Schools for Freedmen, January 1, 1867 (Washington, D.C., 1867), 25–26; Colored Tennessean, March 24, 1866; B. F. Randolph to Bvt. Maj. Gen. R. K. Scott, March 15, 1867, Records of the Assistant Commissioners, South Carolina (Letters Received), Freedmen’s Bureau; S. S. Ashley to Rev. Samuel Hunt, March 7, 1866, American Missionary Assn. Archives; National Freedman, II (April 1866), 118 (F. A. Fiske); Waterbury, Seven Years Among the Freedmen, 18; Stearns, Black Man of the South, and The Rebels, 196–99; Trowbridge, The South, 289; Reid, After the War, 511; New York Times, Oct. 17, 1865, May 27, 1867.

  52. Chesnut, Diary from Dixie, 199–200; Mary E. Burdick to George Whipple, March 8, 1864, American Missionary Assn. Archives.

  53. McPherson, “The New Puritanism: Values and Goals of Freedmen’s Education in America,” 624–25. On the educational work of the Freedmen’s Bureau, see, in addition to the archival records and official reports, Abbott, Freedmen’s Bureau in South Carolina, 82–98; White, Freedmen’s Bureau in Louisiana, 166–200; and Bentley, History of the Freedmen’s Bureau, 169–84.