Reconstruction

by Brooks D. Simpson

  I know there was two dead men there, but I did not think it was my husband at the time.

  I stood right there, and as I stood they said to me, “If you don’t go away they would make it very damned hot for me;” and I did not say anything, and walked off, and walked right over the dead man. He was right in my path where I found the body. He was lying broadside on the street. I did not know who he was. I then stooped and tried to see who he was, and they were cursing at me to get out of the town, to get out.

  Then I went up, and there was Mrs. Bates across the street, my next-door neighbor. I seed her little girl come up by us and she said, “Aunt Ann, did you see my uncle here?” I said, “I did not. I saw a dead body on the street; I did not see who he was.” She said, “What in the world is going on down town?” Says I, “I don’t know, only killing people there.” She says, “Aaron Bates’s hand is shot all to pieces, and Dr. Bangs is killed.” He was not killed, but was shot in the leg; nobody killed but my husband and brother.

  I went on over to the house, and went up stairs and back to my room and laid down a widow.

  After I had been home I reckon three-quarters of an hour, nearly an hour, Parson Nelson came up—Preacher Nelson—and he called me. I was away up-stairs. He called several times, and I heard him call each time. He called three or four times, and says: “Answer; don’t be afraid; nobody will hurt you.” He says “Don’t be afraid; answer me;” and after I had made up my mind to answer, I answered him what he wanted, and he said, “I have come to tell you the news, and it is sad news to you. Nobody told me to come, but I come up to tell you.” I didn’t say anything. “Your husband is dead,” he said; “he is killed, and your brother, too, Sam.”

  I never said anything for a good while. He told me nobody would hurt me then; and when I did speak, says I, “Mr. Nelson, why did they kill him?” He says, “I don’t know anything about it.” He said just those words: “I don’t know anything about it.” He says, after that, “Have you any men folks about the place?” I says, “No.” He says: “You shan’t be hurt; don’t be afraid of us; you shan’t be hurt.”

  I never said anything whatever. He went off.

  Sam’s wife was there at the same time with three little children. Of course it raised great excitement.

  After a length of time, Professor Hillman, of the Institute, the young ladies’ school or college, he brought the bodies to the house; brought up my husband, him and Frank Martin. Professor Hillman and Mr. Nelson had charge of the dead bodies, and they brought them to the house; and when they brought them, they carried them in the bed-room, both of them, and put them there; they seed to having them laid out, and fixed up, and all that.

  Mr. Nelson said in my presence, I listened at him, he said, “A braver life never had died than Charley Caldwell. He never saw a man died with a manlier spirit in his life.”

  He told me he had brought him out of the cellar.

  You see when they had shot Sam, his brother, it was him who was lying there on the street. They shot him right through his head, off of his horse, when he was coming in from the country, and he fell on the street. He was the man I stumbled over twice. I did not know who he was. When they shot him, they said that they shot him for fear he would go out of town and bring in other people and raise a fuss. He found out, I suppose, that they had his brother in the cellar, so he just lay there dead; he that was never known to shoot a gun or pistol in his life—never knew how.

  Mr. Nelson said that Buck Cabell carried him into the cellar; persuaded him to go out and drink; insisted upon his taking a drink with him, and him and Buck Cabell never knowed anything against each other in his life; never had no hard words. My husband told him no, he didn’t want any Christmas. He said, “You must take a drink with me,” and entreated him, and said, “You must take a drink.” He then took him by the arm and told him to drink for a Christmas treat; that he must drink, and carried him into Chilton’s cellar, and they jingled the glasses, and at the tap of the glasses, and while each one held the glass, while they were taking the glasses, somebody shot right through the back from the outside of the gate window, and he fell to the ground.

  As they struck their glasses, that was the signal to shoot. They had him in the cellar, and shot him right there, and he fell on the ground.

  When he was first shot, he called for Judge Cabinis, and called for Mr. Chilton; I don’t know who else. They were all around, and nobody went to his relief; all them men standing around with their guns. Nobody went to the cellar, and he called for Preacher Nelson, called for him, and Preacher Nelson said that when he went to the cellar door he was afraid to go in, and called to him two or three times, “Don’t shoot me,” and Charles said, “Come in,” he wouldn’t hurt him, and “take him out of the cellar;” that he wanted to die in the open air, and did not want to die like a dog closed up.

  When they taken him out, he was in a manner dead, just from that one shot; and they brings him out then, and he only asked one question, so Parson Nelson told me—to take him home and let him see his wife before he died; that he could not live long.

  It was only a few steps to my house, and they would not do it, and some said this.

  Nelson carried him to the middle of the street, and the men all hallooed, “we will save him while we’ve got him; dead men tell no tales.” Preacher Nelson told me so. That is what they all cried, “We’ll save him while we got him; dead men tell no tales.”

  Whether he stood up right there in the street while they riddled him with thirty or forty of their loads, of course, I do not know, but they shot him all that many times when he was in a manner dead. All those balls went in him.

  I understood that a young gentleman told that they shot him as he lay on the ground until they turned him over. He said so. I did not hear him.

  Mr. Nelson said when he asked them to let him see me they told him no, and he then said, taking both sides of his coat and bringing them up this way so, he said, “Remember when you kill me you kill a gentleman and a brave man. Never say you killed a coward. I want you to remember it when I am gone.”

  Nelson told me that, and he said that he never begged them, and that he never told them, but to see how a brave man could die.

  They can find no cause; but some said they killed him because he carried the militia to Edwards, and they meant to kill him for that. The time the guns were sent there he was captain under Governor Ames, and they said they killed him for that; for obeying Governor Ames.

  After the bodies were brought to my house, Professor Hillman and Martin all staid until one o’clock, and then at one o’clock the train came from Vicksburgh with the “Murdocs.” They all marched up to my house and went into where the two dead bodies laid, and they cursed them, those dead bodies, there, and they danced and threw open the window, and sung all their songs, and challenged the dead body to get up and meet them, and they carried on there like a parcel of wild Indians over those dead bodies, these Vicksburgh “Murdocs.” Just one or two colored folks were setting up in the room, and they carried on all that in my presence, danced and sung and done anything they could. Some said they even struck them; but I heard them curse and challenge them to get up and fight. The Vicksburgh Murdocs done that that night. Then they said they could not stay any longer.

  Then the day after that Judge Cabinis asked me was there anything he could do, and I told him, I said, “Judge, you have already done too much for me.” I told him he had murdered my husband, and I didn’t want any of his friendship. Those were the words I told him the next day, and he swore he did not know me that time; but I saw Judge Cabinis with this crowd that killed my husband. I saw him right in the midst, and then he made his excuse. He said he did everything he could for Charles, and that he was crazy. Well, they could not tell anything he had done.

  They said Aaron Page was shot during the fuss.

  In the league that was held here in that town, that day my husband was buried, they all said that he did not shoot him. They said that Aaron Pa
ge was shot accidentally; that my husband did not kill him. All started up from picking a fuss with his nephew.

  As for any other cause I never knew; but only they intended to kill him because for carrying the militia to Edwards; for obeying Governor Ames; and that was all they had against him.

  THE MODOCS AFTER THE CLINTON RIOT.

  At the same time, when they had the Moss Hill riot, the day of the dinner in September, when they came over that day, they telegraphed for the Vicksburgh “Murdocs” to come out, and they came out at dark, and when they did come, about fifty came out to my house that night; and they were breaking the locks open on doors and trunks; whenever they would find it closed they would break the locks. And they taken from the house what guns they could find, and plundered and robbed the house. The captain of the Vicksburgh “Murdocs,” his name is Tinney.

  Q. What day was that? —A. The day of the Moss Hill riot, in September.

  THREATS AGAINST MR. CALDWELL

  AFTER THE CLINTON RIOT.

  Q. When; the Clinton riot? —A. The 4th day of September. They came out, and Tinney staid there, and at daybreak they commenced to go, and he, among others, told me to tell my husband that the Clinton people sent for him to kill him, and he named them who they were to kill—all the leaders especially, and he says, “Tell him when I saw him”—he was gone that night; he fled to Jackson that evening with all the rest—“we are going to kill him if it is two years, or one year, or six; no difference; we are going to kill him anyhow. We have orders to kill him, and we are going to do it, because he belongs to this republican party, and sticks up for these negroes.” Says he, “We are going to have the South back in our own charge, and no man that sticks by the republican party, and any man that sticks by the republican party, and is a leader, he has got to die.” He told me that; and that the southern people are going to have the South back to ourselves, and no damned northern people and no republican party; and if your husband don’t join us he has got to die. Tell him I said so.” I told him what he said. I did not know Tinney at the time; and when I saw my husband enter I told him, and he knew him from what I said, and he saw him afterward and told him what I said. He just said that he said it for devilment. They carried on there until the next morning, one crowd after another. I had two wounded men. I brought them off the Moss Hill battle-field, and these men treated me very cruelly, and threatened to kill them, but they did not happen to kill them.

  CLINTON RIOT.

  Next morning, before sun up, they went to a house where there was an old black man, a feeble old man, named Bob Beasly, and they shot him all to pieces. And they went to Mr. Willis’s and took out a man, named Gamaliel Brown, and shot him all to pieces. It was early in the morning; and they goes out to Sam. Jackson’s, president of the club, and they shot him all to pieces. He hadn’t even time to put on his clothes. And they went out to Alfred Hasting; Alfred saw them coming. And this was before sun up.

  Q. This morning after the Clinton riot? —A. On the morning of the 5th, and they shot Alfred Hastings all to pieces, another man named Ben. Jackson, and then they goes out and shoots one or two further up on the Madison road; I don’t know exactly; the name of one was Lewis Russell. He was shot, and Moses Hill. They were around that morning killing people before breakfast. I saw a young man from Vicksburgh that I knew, and I asked him what it all meant.

  Q. Who was he? —A. Dr. Hardesty’s son; and I asked him what did it mean, their killing black people that day? He says, “You all had a big dinner yesterday, and paraded around with your drums and flags. That was impudence to the white people. You have no right to do it. You have got to leave these damned negroes; leave them and come on to our side. You have got to join the democratic party. We are going to kill all the negroes. The negro men shall not live.” And they didn’t live; for every man they found they killed that morning, and did not allow any one to escape them, so he said. So he told me all they intended to do about the colored people for having their dinner and parading there, and having their banners; and intended to kill the white republicans the same. Didn’t intend to leave any one alive they could catch, and they did try to get hold of them, and went down on Monday morning to kill the school-teacher down there, Haffa, but he escaped. Jo Stevens and his son Albert Stevens, I believe, was his name—they just murdered them right on through. These people staid there at the store and plundered it, and talked that they intended to kill them until they got satisfaction for three white people that was killed in that battle here. I can show who was the first white man that started the riot; and I can show you I have got his coat and pants, and I can show you how they shot him. They blamed all on my husband; and I asked what they killed Sam for; asked Dr. Alexander. They said they killed him because they were afraid he would tell about killing his brother. They killed my husband for obeying Governor Ames’s orders, and they cannot find anything he did. He didn’t do anything to be killed for. Then they have got his pistols there and they won’t give them to me. I have asked I don’t know how many times.

  June 21, 1876

  THE FAILURE OF RECONSTRUCTION:

  NORTH CAROLINA, 1876

  Albion W. Tourgée:

  Root, Hog, or Die

  RECONSTRUCTION has been a failure. It is useless to deny this fact. It has not only been a failure, but one of so utter and ignominious a character that people are even disinclined to go back and inquire into its causes. Of course, by failure it is not meant to be said that the physical unity of the nation has not been restored, and the lately rebellious States rehabilitated with their former rights and privileges in the Federal Union. This, however, was the smallest and simplest part of the duty which devolved on the Government at the close of the war, and which was endeavored to be performed under the name and style of Reconstruction.

  The word itself was one of ill-omen, in that it rushed back into the past for the type and model of what was to be in the future. By its very force it accustomed the people to the idea that the work which was to be done was but the patching up of an old garment; that it was an act of restoration rather than one of creation. It foreshadowed an attempt to put new wine into old bottles, which has been but too successfully carried into execution, with a result which can at present be inferred only from the rule in such cases prescribed and certain ominous events which have already appeared.

  The duty which lay before the Government was not chiefly nor primarily to restore statal relations. That was a matter which could be done in ten minutes and by a single act of five lines. Its duty was to erect in the lately rebellious regions Republican governments, in which the rights of all should be secured, protected and maintained. Such governments had never existed here. Free speech, free thought, free labor, and free ballot, were strangers to the territory which fell a victim to secession. The very basic elements of Republican government were lacking here. Reconstruction hinted at going back to these husks. The duty of the nation was to tread them under foot, and sternly set its face to secure to every man in that new domain which its arms had just conquered from slavery, not only the rights of a freeman, but the protection and security of a freeman, and an unmistakable guarantee that he might transmit them to his children, and they to theirs in endless perpetuity.

  This the nation has utterly and completely failed to do. In name, the colored man is a citizen. In theory, he has the rights of a freeman. In fact, he exercises those rights only by sufferance, and in all but two of the States he is hardly more of a citizen than when he was sold on the block, or driven a-field by those whom he served.

  In this respect reconstruction is a failure in a wider and completer sense than most of those even who are subjected to its effects, at this time appreciate.

  The cause of this failure is largely embraced in the philosophy set forth with more force than elegance by Mr. Greeley in the words of the subject of this article: “Root, hog, or die.” Soon after the war he put this forth as the quintessence of his theory in regard to the southern blacks. He was will
ing that they should be clothed with the ballot, given equal rights and privileges with the whites, among whom they lived—no more and no less—and then he would leave them to stand or fall, sink or swim, survive or perish, as they might. He would have them preside over their own future, and make or mar their destiny for themselves. In enunciating this doctrine the Tribune philosopher was by no means putting forth any new or startling hypothesis. He was announcing no theory peculiar to himself, and evolved from the depths of his own consciousness. On the contrary, he was only giving a peculiarly striking illustration of that faculty of shrewd observation which enabled him during a long life, to keep on the crest of American public opinion without once falling into the trough, which was but a little way before or behind, even when the party—of which he was one of the leaders—was dashed on the rocks, it was too blind to see and avoid. He knew that the people of the North looked upon slavery as the sole cause of rebellion and supposed that treason must die for lack of nutriment when it was destroyed. He knew that the average American citizen drew a sigh of relief when the question of emancipation was decided, not so much on account of its giving freedom to the black as because it was thought by him to settle a most vexatious and troublesome question. It was thought that it would take the “nigger” out of politics. For half a century the curly locks and ebon integument of the African had obtruded on every platform and complicated every question. Saints could not pray and senators could not legislate in peace because of the ubiquitous “nigger.” When the war was over and emancipation an accomplished fact, therefore, the average American gave a sigh of relief, and said, “Thank God, the nigger is dead! He is free now. Let him go to work and prove if he is as good as a white man.” He was willing to give him a “white man’s chance,” and let him do a white man’s work, if he could. It was, in the main, the idea of the ring and prize fighter, which we have brought from old England—“let the best man win.” Greeley chose, however, to embody it in the more forcible and less elegant vulgarism of the Northwest: “Root, hog, or die.”