by Philip Dray
Readers of newspapers north and south were by now accustomed to reports of vigilante violence in which black people were put to death; the Coushatta attack was startling because this time it was six whites, Republican men of standing, who had been wantonly slaughtered. So bold an atrocity sent a tremor of fear through the entire state. In New Orleans, rumors abounded that the White League would attempt to topple the Republican government of William Pitt Kellogg and possibly kidnap or even assassinate the governor (just such an attempt had occurred on a New Orleans street once before).
In response, in early September police loyal to Kellogg seized a number of arms shipments entering the city and destined for the league, infuriating the intended recipients. On September 12, Kellogg authorized General James Longstreet and the state militia to intercept the steamer Mississippi, which had arrived, loaded with a large cargo of guns, at a dock in New Orleans. That night inflammatory White League broadsides were posted along the riverfront, and when the next day's papers reported that federal troops were en route to the city, the conservative press screeched angry defiance. "If the soldiers choose to get mixed up in broils with which they have no concern," warned the New Orleans Bulletin, "they must expect to come out with punched heads and torn uniforms. The time has passed when a blue coat stuck up on a pole can make us bow in abject submission."
On September 14, 1874, an estimated five thousand whites rallied on Canal Street, denounced the "usurper" Kellogg government, and threw up barricades of old furniture, bales of cotton, pieces of iron fences, and whatever else came to hand. When the police and Longstreet's mostly black militia, numbering about thirty-five hundred men, marched into lower Canal Street from the French Quarter, the whites opened fire from behind their rude defenses and from sniper perches in high windows. Longstreet's forces fought valiantly but were eventually pushed back with eleven dead and numerous injuries, including a wound to Longstreet himself. Witnesses said the former Confederate general had visibly blanched at hearing the rebel yell from the throats of his "enemies." As the police and militia retreated, the White League, also having lost about a dozen fighters, declared victory, seizing the state arsenals and all the city police stations—every official building but the customhouse and the federal mint—while the remnants of the Republican government, including Kellogg, retreated to the customhouse, guarded by a handful of federal troops. By the evening of September 15, the league had confiscated numerous weapons, including four cannon, and had even invaded the statehouse; there, a mob violated the sanctity of the governor's office and hurled from its windows all manner of books, documents, journals, envelopes, and sheaves of paper, which fell to the street, to the cheers of riotous citizens below. The New Orleans Times reported that dozens of police and militiamen had deserted, retired to their homes, or surrendered to the White League forces.
The league and the Democratic newspapers exulted in their success—one termed New Orleans "the happiest city in the universe"—and went to work at once to impress and reassure federal authorities that their sure-footed victory at "the Battle of Liberty Place," as a lower section of Canal Street was known, meant that the Democratic government of John D. McEnery deserved to be deemed legitimate. Some of the foremost citizens of New Orleans dispatched messages of friendship and loyalty to Washington; local bankers sent wires assuring federal authorities that they were able to provide enough cash for the new government; a consortium of bishops issued a proclamation blessing the league's actions, then rang the city's church bells in a chorus of deliverance and thanksgiving.
The revolutionists had surprised even themselves with the extent of their achievement. But as they awaited Washington's formal acknowledgment of their victory, Kellogg and his Republican cohorts were also busy working the telegraph lines, imploring the Grant administration to restore their authority. The White Leaguers had demonstrated convincingly the weakness of the present state regime, but it was Governor Kellogg, captive and isolated in the town's single fortified federal building, who over the next few days managed to win the country's sympathy. The national press scorned the seizing of a state government by armed revolt. Citing his constitutional obligation to defend Kellogg's government, Grant issued a proclamation commanding "turbulent and disorderly persons to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes ... and hereafter to submit themselves to the laws and constituted authorities of the state." He backed his words with additional troops and three federal gunboats bound for New Orleans.
The White League was momentarily caught off balance. Convinced, in the thrall of victory, that their triumph in the streets of New Orleans had earned them the right to govern, the group's leaders were chastened by the nation's disapproval and by Washington's rejection of their rebellion. However, they wisely took heart from all they had accomplished, decided to look ahead with greater confidence to the November elections, and agreed to surrender New Orleans to the Republicans.
The fall elections were relatively peaceful, although the Democrats contended that the Kellogg forces had used election trickery and fraud to gain a slight majority in the legislature. The Republican returning board had rewarded their own party with the votes of blacks who had not actually voted, claiming these citizens would have voted Republican if they had not been intimidated—a tactic of questionable legality. It was doubtful the Democrats would quietly accede to its outcome, and when the newly elected state legislature convened in January 1875, President Grant dispatched General Philip Sheridan to New Orleans to oversee the situation.
Sheridan, known as "Little Phil," had been for the past decade a ubiquitous figure in American military and civil affairs—helping to cut off Lee's army and force the surrender at Appomattox, distinguishing himself in the Indian Wars, and directing recovery efforts after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. A stern administrator, he was familiar to New Orleans residents from his tenure there earlier in Reconstruction, and local memories of him were far from pleasant. When, on January 4, Democratic legislators who insisted they had won their elections tried to physically occupy five contested seats, armed federal troops led by Colonel P. Regis de Trobriand entered the hall and removed them. In protest, all the Democrats walked out of the building. At the same time, Sheridan sent two telegrams to Secretary of War William Belknap, which were made public, offering to arrest the local leaders of the White League. The most inflammatory read:
I think that the terrorism now existing ... could be entirely removed and confidence and fair-dealing established by the arrest and trial of the ringleaders of the armed White Leagues. If Congress would pass a bill declaring them banditti they could be tried by a military commission. The ringleaders of this banditti ... should, in justice to law and order and the peace and prosperity of this southern part of the country, be punished. It is possible that if the President would issue a proclamation declaring them banditti, no further action need be taken, except that which would devolve upon me.
Sheridan's suggestion that Congress or the president declare citizens outlaws, to be hunted down by soldiers, and also the armed federal entry into the Louisiana legislature itself were poorly received. "It is surprising that a very able graduate of West Point, and a soldier who has so faithfully fought for the supremacy of the Constitution," the New York Times said of Sheridan, "should know so little of its requirements." The reported images of U.S. troops routing legislators "by bayonet," coupled with Sheridan's ill-chosen words—by using the term banditti he was not only calling white Southerners criminals, but also employing a racist term suggestive of foreign brigands—brought howls of disapproval from almost every segment of American society, in sharp contrast to the generally favorable Northern response to Grant's policy after the recent Liberty Place coup. The offense common to both instances seemed to be the unconscionable application of force to achieve political ends.
The Sheridan-Belknap banditti telegrams were reprinted in newspapers across the country, much to the administration's embarrassment, solidifying public anger and resentment toward
Reconstruction's heavy hand, even as "Little Phil" himself, ever defiant, accused his critics of "manufacturing sensational protests for northern political consumption." Ironically, after the Mechanics Institute violence of 1866 in New Orleans, a comment that Sheridan made—"It was no riot; it was an absolute massacre"—had helped galvanize Northern concern about the irreconcilable rebel spirit; now his colorful language from the same troubled city had bent public opinion the opposite way. Disapproving editorials appeared in many big city newspapers, as state legislatures across the country sent resolutions of solidarity to the Louisiana Democrats, demanding an end to federal interference. More surprising were the sympathetic public meetings held in New York's Cooper Union and Boston's Faneuil Hall, long considered reliable Republican forums, decrying both this new federal aggression and the president's failure to immediately censure Sheridan.
The vehemence of the national reaction seemed out of proportion to the specific incidents and hasty words that inspired it; the insult of federal intrusion into the Louisiana legislature resonated with a significance that quickly dwarfed the event itself. What the points of Colonel de Trobriand's bayonets had really done, it appeared, was to deflate the country's reservoir of patience.
In summer 1875, Mississippi's white Republican postmaster, Henry Roberts Pease, appointed Milton Coates, a black man, to a job at the Vicksburg post office. A local newspaper warned that "the men of Vicksburg would not submit to have a negro assigned to the duty of waiting on their wives and daughters." But what most rankled local sentiment was a widely reported encounter between Pease and "a respectable citizen." "I hear, sir, by God, that you are going to appoint a damned nigger to be a clerk in your post office," the man told Pease. When Pease acknowledged the fact, his interlocutor declared, "Then, sir, I tell you it's a damned outrage, and this community won't stand it, sir," to which Pease infamously replied, "You will have to stand it." The exchange, and the Republican's menacing words— You will have to stand it —were soon the talk of the town.
Post offices, and the federal patronage jobs that went with them, were frequently a source of contention in the Reconstruction South, as they were relatively secure from local interference. But although it was useless for native whites to rail against the arrogance of Postmaster Pease, they found numerous other outlets for their fury. Increasingly, a Republican's ability to earn a living anywhere in the state was becoming endangered, as conservatives, with the cooperation of local newspapers, initiated a form of economic and social ostracism called "the preference policy." These papers published the names of known Republicans and advised readers to avoid hiring them, patronizing their businesses, or selling or renting property to them. One paper in Canton went so far as to intrude upon their love lives, warning that the amorous attentions of "Radicals" must be shunned by "every true woman." These pressure tactics threatened social isolation and often succeeded; white Republicans were usually the first to succumb. They "returned to the fold of the Democracy in sackcloth and ashes and upon bended knees, pleading for mercy [and] forgiveness," according to John Roy Lynch, the black congressman from Natchez. "They had seen a new light; and they were ready to confess that they had made a grave mistake, [and]...hoped that they would not be rashly treated nor harshly judged."
Economic intimidation was not always as effective with black Republicans; they had less to risk in a material sense and were more loyal to their political goals. It would take deadly riots, like those at Meridian and Vicksburg, to undermine most black people's sense of security; repeated outbreaks reinforced just how vulnerable black communities were and took a cumulative toll on residents' morale. Many such disturbances occurred at political rallies where Democrats demanded what was known as "divided time," an equal exchange of Republican and Democratic views to be heard by adherents of both parties. Some divided-time events were conducted with notable fair play. At their best, they provided an irresistible source of entertainment for people of both races living in rural areas, an opportunity that might come only once in an election season to see and hear one's political favorites up close and measure them against the opposition. With a fortitude unique to the age before radio and television, audiences sat through day-long programs of speeches, each of which might last as long as two hours as orators lectured, read from official reports, and laid out searing indictments of political opponents, keeping their voices supple with drafts of whiskey and branch water.
In the turbulent Mississippi of 1875, however, these events frequently turned volatile. It became common for Democratic speakers, railing at the heavy hand of Republican rule, to use the divided-time meetings to denigrate Republican standard-bearers to their faces; their supporters often joined in with boos and catcalls. Such provocations were particularly distracting at Republican rallies with a large black turnout, for the Democrats' insults and hissing inhibited the playful call-and-response of the political "sermon" that black speakers thrived on and their listeners enjoyed. Tempers flared when men saw their leaders disrespected publicly; shoves and punches would be exchanged, a weapon shown or perhaps fired, and violence would engulf the meeting and possibly the surrounding community.
On the evening of September 1, 1875, in Yazoo City, fifty miles north of Jackson on the edge of the Mississippi Delta, Sheriff Albert Morgan, a white carpetbagger from Wisconsin and an influential state senator, was heckled by Democrats while addressing a Republican rally. Yazoo was a Republican town with a majority black population, and Sheriff Morgan was roundly disliked by the area's whites. Not only had he effectively held together a biracial Republican government and promoted racial equality, but he had also acted personally on the latter ideal by marrying a black teacher and temperance reformer, Carrie Highgate. Moreover, Morgan's résumé was stained with what many whites considered a political "murder." When he had won the election and became sheriff, the losing Democratic incumbent, Francis P. Hilliard, had refused to vacate the sheriff's office, prompting Morgan and his supporters to storm the premises in a predawn raid. Hilliard and his own men then attempted to retake the office, and in the ensuing fight Hilliard had been shot dead.
The rally, which gathered on the second floor of Wilson Hall, had drawn perhaps one hundred blacks and a small number of whites. It began peacefully, but soon a well-known Democratic antagonist, Henry M. Dixon, whose vigilantism had won him the ominous nickname "The Rope Bearer," arrived in the company of several other White Liners, Mississippi's less regimented version of Louisiana's White League. Dixon soon left the hall and, as an act of provocation, returned with a black man named Robinson, a local barber known for his eccentric outbursts. As expected, Robinson took to haranguing the meeting and would not be silenced. Some of Morgan's friends suggested adjournment, but the sheriff replied that "if we should adjourn the meeting under such pressure, we could not attempt to hold Republican meetings in the county afterward." He had been warned that Dixon was out to cause trouble and had heard that he and some other whites had earlier that day terrorized blacks by knocking dry goods boxes and other objects into their path as they walked down the street. Still, as Morgan later recalled, "I did not believe that they intended to break up the meeting by force, but to intimidate us, if possible, and I did not propose to be intimidated."
Once Robinson finished ranting and sat down, Morgan resumed the meeting by praising some recent efforts by the local Republican board of supervisors as honest and conscientious. Dixon loudly protested. In a response aimed at defusing the tension in the room, Morgan pointed out a member of the board, a Captain Bedwell, who happened to be in the audience and whose reputation was unsullied. "You can have no objection to him," Morgan offered, attempting to placate Dixon.
"Bedwell is a thief!" Dixon exclaimed. "They are all thieves!"
A voice nearby declared, "That's a lie!"
"Show me the man who said that," Dixon demanded, rising to his feet.
A chair was overturned and shots were fired as the lights in the hall were doused. Morgan, swarmed by Democrats, fought hi
s way to a window, climbed out, and dropped to the ground. Other men spilled from the building, through the windows and out the front door. On the street, the town fire bell began to clang, bringing more armed whites from their homes. As Republicans fled, White Liners calling themselves "the Dixon Scouts" roamed the city in pursuit, spreading word of a Negro insurrection. At morning's light it was found that a white deputy who worked for Morgan had been killed, along with several black men; few blacks remained in Yazoo, and the followers of "the Rope Bearer" occupied the town.
From a hiding place, Morgan smuggled a letter to Governor Ames:
My friend, I fought four years, was wounded several times, suffered in hospitals, and as a prisoner, was in 27 different engagements to free the slaves and save our glorious Union ... I know how you are situated. I do not blame you. I would not give you more pain than you already feel at your inability to help; but can't you get an officer to come here? Is there no protection for me? I am ready to die, if it is necessary ... but to be butchered here by this mob after all I have done is too cruel.
Ames, who was receiving a steady flow of bad news from Yazoo, wrote to his wife on September 2. "These white liners will do anything to carry the state ... So far has this intimidation gone that I cannot organize a single company of militia ... The old rebel armies are too much for our party, and the colored men dare not organize even though they know their liberty is at stake ... Our only hope is through the U.S. enforcement laws." Ames had met recently with President Grant and was under the impression that federal troops were available if needed, although he knew the administration had little desire to intervene.
