Your telegram of this date received.
The 3d colored artillery has been stationed here since its organization, and consequently were not under the best of discipline; large numbers of the men had what they call families living in South Memphis, contiguous to the fort in which the soldiers were stationed. These soldiers had been used as the instruments to execute the orders of government agents, such as provost marshal’s, bureau agents, &c, and consequently had been more or less brought directly into contact with the law-breaking portion of the community and the police, which is far from being composed of the best class of residents here, and composed principally of Irishmen, who consider the negro as his competitor and natural enemy. Many negro soldiers have, from time to time, been arrested by the police, and many whites, including some of the police, have been arrested by the negro soldiers, and in both cases those arrested have not unfrequently been treated with a harshness altogether unnecessary. These remarks and hints will lead you to reflections which will explain and indicate to you the state of feeling which existed between the negro soldiers and their sympathizers and the lower class of whites and their sympathizers, in which last are included agitators, demagogues, and office-seekers. The testimony before the commission which I have assembled to investigate the circumstances connected with the riot shows, that about 4 o’clock Monday afternoon, April 30, four (4) policemen were walking down Cousey street and met three or four negroes; they jostled each other on the side-walk; an altercation occurred; one of the policemen struck a negro with a pistol, and was in return struck by another negro with a cane. There was no further trouble though a good deal of excitement among the negroes during that night. Incident on this encounter, about 4 o’clock P. M., Tuesday, May 1, a crowd of from fifty to seventy-five negroes, mostly discharged soldiers, were congregated together near the corner of Main and South streets; the greater portion of these negroes were intoxicated. Six policemen approached the crowd and arrested two of the most boisterous of the negroes; the policemen proceeded to conduct these two negroes towards the station-house, being followed by the crowd of negroes, which increased as they proceeded, and who used very insulting and threatening language and accompanied their threats by firing pistols into the air; the police turned and fired upon the negroes, wounding one; one of the negro prisoners escaped, and the other was released by the police. The negroes returned the fire, wounding one of the police. The police force of the city, together with a large crowd of citizens, congregated together in the vicinity of South street, and being very much infuriated, proceeded to shoot, beat, and threaten every negro met with in that portion of the city. This was continued until about midnight on Tuesday night, when it was quelled by the interference of a small detachment of United States troops. Wednesday morning arrived, and found large crowds of people collected together in South Memphis, most of whom were armed; they remained there until about 1 o’clock P. M, when they were dispersed by a detachment of United States soldiers which had been employed during the day in keeping the discharged negro soldiers in and the white people out of the fort. During the day several negro shanties were burned down. About 10 o’clock Wednesday night a party of mounted men began to set fire to the negro school-houses, churches, and dwelling-houses. It is hoped that the investigation now being had will result in identifying the parties engaged. During Tuesday and Wednesday several inoffensive negroes were killed, and many maltreated and beaten in different parts of the city. The number killed and wounded in the riot, so far as can be ascertained by the commission, were one white man killed, shot by white man behind him; one white man wounded, shot by negroes. The number of negroes shot and beaten to death has not yet been ascertained. I will give you the information when procured. Frequent applications were made for arms and for permission to organize a militia force, all of which were refused, and Thursday I issued an order prohibiting any persons, under whatever pretext, from assembling anywhere armed or unarmed. Great fears were entertained that other buildings, such as the Freedmen’s Bureau buildings of the Memphis post, would be burned down, but if any such intentions were had, the disposition made of the small force at my disposal prevented the realization. An attempt was made by some parties to gain possession of the muskets which a few days before had been turned in by the 3d colored artillery. Every officer and man here was on duty day and night during the riot. On the 4th they were relieved by a detachment I had ordered over from Nashville.
As before stated, the rioters were composed of the police, firemen, and the rabble and negro-haters in general, with a sprinkling of Yankee-haters, all led on and encouraged by demagogues and office hunters, and most of them under the influence of whiskey. It appears in evidence before the commission that John Creighton, recorder of the city, made a speech to the rioters, in which he said: “We are not prepared, but let us prepare to clean every negro son-of-a-bitch out of town.” Very few paroled confederates were mixed up with the rioters on Tuesday and Wednesday, the large portion being registered voters. Who composed the incendiaries on Wednesday night remains to be developed.
GEORGE STONEMAN,
Major General Commanding.
May 12, 1866
SOUTHERN “RIGHTS”:
WASHINGTON, D.C., MAY 1866
The New York Times:
An Hour With Gen. Grant
HIS VIEWS UPON MEN AND MEASURES.
The editor of the Lewiston Falls Journal, now at Washington, recently spent an hour in the studio of the Maine artist SIMMONS, in conversation with Gen. GRANT, and gives an interesting statement of the opinions expressed by him upon “men and measures.” Some people will doubt whether the General would unbosom himself so fully to a stranger when he is habitually so reticent; but we give the story as we find it. The writer says:
“The General, who was dressed in a plain, black, civilian suit, had hardly removed his hat from his head before he took a cigar from his pocket, lighted it and began to puff out wreaths of smoke. ‘I am breaking off from smoking,’ remarked GRANT. ‘When I was in the field I smoked eighteen or twenty cigars a day, but now I smoke only nine or ten!’
The conversation turned to the Virginia campaigns of 1864 and 1865. ‘I notice,’ remarked Gen. GRANT, ‘that Mr. SWINTON has published a history of the campaigns in the Old Dominion, in which he takes the ground that I gained nothing, but, on the contrary, lost many valuable lives uselessly, by moving my army from the Rapidan direct toward Richmond, rather than by taking it around by water to the Peninsula, as MCCLELLAN did. This,’ observed the General, ‘is a revival of the exploded theory [referring to the McClellan policy] of subduing the rebellion by peace measures. A half a million troops might have been kept within sight of Washington till doomsday, and the rebellion would have flourished more and more vigorously day by day. Fighting, hard knocks only, could have accomplished the work. The rebellion must be overcome, if overcome at all, by force; its resources destroyed, its fighting material obliterated, before peace could be obtained.’
‘There were but two failures in the Virginia campaign of 1864 which ought to have been successes,’ said GRANT, ‘and those were the failure to capture Petersburg when we crossed the James and afterwards at the mine explosion. But,’ added GRANT, ‘it was all for the best that we failed in those two instances, for, had we succeeded at either time, LEE would have at once been obliged to abandon Richmond, and would have been able to secure a safe retreat into the interior of the South, where he would have prolonged the contest for years. Our failures then and the determination of the rebels to hold on to their Capital gave us time to extend our left southward, to bring up SHERMAN from Georgia, and thereby made it impossible for LEE to escape.’
In reply to a question as to whether he was not surprised as to the suddenness of the collapse of the rebellion, GRANT said that he was, although he had always supposed that when it would break down it would go all at once. ‘I thought, however,’ he remarked, ‘that it would hold out another season, and I am not sure,’ he added, ‘but that it woul
d have been better for the country if it had. There were some parts of the country where our armies had never trod, particularly Texas, which needed to feel the blighting effects of war to bring their people to a realizing sense of the enormity of their crime and the necessity of a thorough repentance. I find,’ said he, ‘that those parts of the South which have not felt the war, and particularly those which have been within our lines, and have therefore escaped the rebel conscription and taxes, are much less disposed to accept the situation in good faith than those portions which have been literally overrun with fire and sword.’
Referring to the temper of the Southern people, he remarked that they are much less disposed now to bring themselves to the proper frame of mind than they were one year since. ‘A year ago,’ said he, ‘they were willing to do anything; now they regard themselves as masters of the situation. Some of the rebel generals,’ he added, ‘are behaving nobly and doing all they can to induce the people to throw aside their old prejudices and to conform their course to the changed condition of things. JOHNSTON and DICK TAYLOR particularly, are exercising a good influence; but,’ he added, ‘LEE is behaving badly. He is conducting himself very differently from what I had reason from what he said at the time of the surrender, to suppose he would. No man at the South is capable of exercising a tenth part of the influence for good that he is, but instead of using it he is setting an example of forced acquiescence so grudging and pernicious in its effects as to be hardly realized.’
‘The men who were in the rebel armies,’ said GRANT, ‘acquiesce in the result much better than those who staid at home. The women are particularly bitter against the Union and Union men. Of course,’ he added, ‘there is some bitterness of feeling among all classes, but I am satisfied it would soon die out if their leading men had not somehow got the idea that treason, after all, was not very bad, and that the ‘Southern cause,’ as they phrase it, will yet triumph, not in war, but in politics. In my judgment,’ said GRANT, ‘the tone of certain men and certain papers at the North is such as to do incalculable mischief in making the late rebels believe that they are just as much entitled to rule as ever, and that if they will only stand by what they are pleased to call their “rights,” they will have help from the North. This,’ significantly added GRANT, ‘is only playing over again the incipient stages of the rebellion.’ He was confident that the large majority of the Southern people would smother their resentments and become good citizens, if these mischief-makers at the North (the Copperheads) would only let them alone. For himself, if he had the power, the first thing he would do would be to seize the New-York News and kindred sheets, which are giving the South so dangerous an idea of their own position and “rights.”
‘Troops,’ said Gen. GRANT, ‘must be kept in all the principal points in the South for some time to come. This will be necessary to repress the turbulence of a class of the South very dangerous to all well-disposed persons, and also to protect the rights of the freedmen, who are looked upon with deep hatred by a very large proportion of the people. I am in favor, however,’ he added, ‘of not retaining our volunteers for this duty, because they very naturally think that they fulfilled their engagement one year since.’
GRANT spoke in high terms of SHERMAN, SHERIDAN, HOWARD and other Generals, and referred to our Mexican difficulties, forcibly adding that he believed the French invasion of Mexico a part of the rebellion, and he should have been glad to have seen a detachment of our army sent there one year since. He would engage that SHERIDAN, with plenty of arms, and 2,000 American troops and a goodly number of American officers, would, with the aid of the Mexicans, clean MAXIMILIAN out of Mexico in six months.”
The New York Times, May 24, 1866
“BUTCHERIES AND ATROCITIES”:
TENNESSEE, MAY 1866
Elihu B. Washburne to Thaddeus Stevens
Memphis, Tenn. May 24, 1866.
My Dear Sir,
We have got to work, and it is plain to see we have a long job before us. We are aided, however, very much by the examinations already made by Genl. Stoneman and the Freedmen’s Bureau. From the partial investigations made by these commissions, it is evident that the country has no adequate conception of the true character and extent of the riotous proceedings. It was a mob organized substantially under the auspices of the city Government, and the butcheries and atrocities perpetrated scarcely have a parallel in all history. Forty persons were killed, including some women and children fifty-three wounded and eight maltreated and beaten. Seventy-eight houses, churches, and schoolhouses were burned, & ninety-three robberies committed. As Genl. Stoneman well says, it was no “negro riot,” for the negroes had nothing to do with it but to be butchered. And yet no steps whatever have been taken to bring the murderers to justice.
The rebel spirit here is rampant, defiant, intolerant. The true Union, loyal feeling is weak, cowardly and pusillanimous. Instead of rebels being reconstructed as Union men, I find some of our late Union men re-constructed as very good rebels. So we go.
I intend to remain here till we get to the bottom of this business.
Please do not make this public in any way.
Yrs. Truly, E B Washburne
Hon. Thaddeus Stevens
P.S. Further investigation shows as follows:
Houses burned
Robberies
Killed
Wounded
Maltreated
Property destroyed
84
99
46
76
10
from $60.000 to $100.000.
“THEY ALL FIRED AT HER”:
TENNESSEE, MAY 1866
Cynthia Townsend:
Testimony to House Select Committee
CYNTHIA TOWNSEND (colored) sworn and examined.
By the CHAIRMAN:
2207. Where do you live? On Rayburn avenue, Memphis.
2208. How long have you been in Memphis? About eighteen years.
2209. Have you been a slave? Yes; but I worked and bought myself. I finished paying for myself a few days before they took this place.
2210. Were you here at the time of the riot; if so, state what you saw? Yes. It was right before my door; I do not believe I could express what I saw. On Tuesday evening, the first of May, the riot began. I saw them shooting and firing. On Wednesday morning I saw a man by the name of Roach, a policeman, shoot a negro man; he was driving a dray. Mr. Roach ran up and shot him right in the side of his head. I saw Mr. Cash on Wednesday morning when he shot a man by the name of Charley Wallace. Charley ran down to the bayou; came back; and as he turned the corner of my house, Mr. Cash shot him in the back part of the head. They went up to him, turned him over, turned his pocket inside-out, and took out his pocket-book.
2211. Where were the policemen? I do not know the policemen only by the star they wear. I know Mr. Cash. I did not see any other men killed. When the old man Pendergrast was burning up the houses there, I saw them shoot a young girl; I could not say who did it. She fell right between two houses standing close together, and the houses were burned down right over her. I saw the Pendergrasts burning and plundering until broad day-light. The colored people were trying to get out of the houses. They told them that if they came out they would kill them. They fired into one house at a woman. She said, “Please, master, let me out.” He said, “If you don’t go back I’ll blow your damned brains out.” She went back. They set the house on fire. She just broke right out, and they all fired at her as fast as they could. I saw Mr. Pendergrast’s son Pat fire at her as soon as she came in sight. This girl Rachael who was shot and burned was a nice, smart girl; I could not tell you how old she was; she was quite a young woman.
2212. How many shots did they fire at this woman when she came out? I could not tell how many shots—a great many.
2213. Did you see them firing at other people who were coming out of the houses? Be sure and state only what you saw. Yes, sir; I am telling you the truth, and I know I have
got to give an account of it. There were little children coming out of the houses, and they fired at them. I saw four or five come out at one time. Little children, old people, and women seemed to be all coming out together, and they just fired right at them. I did not see it, but they said they shot one little child’s arm off.
2214. Where did these people go when they came out of the house? Some of them ran into my house. I do not know what has become of them since.
2215. Have you a husband? Yes. My husband and son are about seven miles in the country at work. I sent word to them not to come back until this fuss was over.
2216. Do you know the names of the family you saw come out of this house? No, sir; I do not. One woman came running up and said she liked to have been burned in her house. Mr. Pendergrast had shot at her. She said she got down on her knees and prayed the man to let her out; that she had a little son in there with her. He told her if she did not go back he would kill her. This man McGinn was in the crowd. He seemed to know this woman, and said, “That is a very good woman; it is a pity to burn her up; let her come out.” She came out and her little boy with her. The boy had blue clothes on. They pushed him back, and said, “Go back, you damned son of a bitch.” She fell on her knees and begged them to let the child out; that it was the only child she had. McGinn told her that she might take some of her things out, which she did; and I saw them take the things from her and burn them up. They let her little boy out afterwards. There was a man broke into my yard while they were shooting. They followed him and shot him down, right in my yard. His name is Dickerson. They did not kill him then. He was just as clever a man as ever I saw.
2217. Are you a member of the church? Yes; a member of the Baptist church. I saw Mr. Pendergrast go into his grocery, and give ammunition to a policeman to load his pistols with. Then they started out again, firing and shooting. They started a negro man, who ran up the bayou. They told him to come up to them. He came up, and one of them put his pistol to the man’s mouth, and shot his tongue out, and killed him dead. His name was Lewis Robertson.
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