destroyed it without questioning who suffered by Worst of all a senator received $10,000 for securing an order from the War Department. "'* But Secretary Stanton soon made a change and comparatively little fraud was afterward unearthed, when the vast sums of money handled in the war department are taken into consideration. The paymaster-general's report for October 31, 1865, states that the amount of money disbursed by the department from July 1, 1861, to October 1, 1865, Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical was $1,029,239,000 and the total defalcations were only $541,000 for the same period. But if conditions in the North were comparatively prosperous, they were far from it in the South. The little † Pollard, Lost Cause, p. 743 (E. B. Treat & Co.), says the war closed on a spectacle of ruin, the greatest of modern times. There were eleven great States lying prostrate; their capital all absorbed; their fields desolate; their towns and cities ruined; their public works torn to pieces by armies; their system of labour overturned; the fruits of the toil of generations all swept into a chaos of destruction; their slave property taken away by a stroke of the pen; a pecuniary loss of two thousand millions of dollars *** "Sidney Andrews, in his South Since the War, p. 7, says "it is not clearly understood how thoroughly Sherman's army destroyed everything in its line of march, * and Political Science, ser. xxiii., Nos. 1-2, pp. * Some measure for relief of the debtor class was necessary. A man who had contracted debts on the basis of thousands of acres at fifteen to fifty dollars an acre, and owning a hundred or more negroes, worth a thousand dollars each, could not meet in full such obligations when his land would not bring two dollars an acre, when his negroes were set free, and hired labour, if he had wherewithal to hire, could not be relied on. Some took the Bankrupt Law for protection, then set to work and paid obligations which could not be 352 * RUIN AND DESTITUTION IN THE SOUTH. the granting of freedom to the negroes over $2,000,000,000 of capital that had been invested in slaves was completely wiped out and the slaveowner who was wealthy before the war, because of his investments in good slaves, suddenly found himself bankrupt. There were no banks and no coin money to put in them had they existed, and good labor was so difficult to procure that produce could not be raised in order to bring in coin money. Beside this those of the active white male population who had not been killed in battle were either wounded or so shattered in health as to be of little service for some time to come in restoring the prosperity of their native States. All who had in any way taken part in the "rebellion " were ignored in the work of reorganizing the State governments, and therefore the South was denied the benefits to be derived from the thought and experience of her ablest leaders and best citizens.‡ exacted by law."- Myrta L. Avary, Dixie After the War, pp. 174-175 (Doubleday, Page & Co.); Rhodes, vol. vi., p. 78; Schwab, chap. vi., pp. 106123, "The Southern Debtors." The Hinds County (Miss.) Gazette of February 2, 1866, estimated the loss in Hinds County alone at $25,926,000, dividing the amount as follows: 22,352 slaves emancipated, $11,176,000; 200 buildings burned, $600,000; growing crops destroyed, $500,000; 10,000 bales of cotton burned, $3,000,000; vehicles, furniture, etc., destroyed, $200,000; stocks, bonds, etc., $250,000; live stock carried away, $2,000,000; depreciation in value of lands, $10,000,000. See also J. W. Garner, Reconstruction in Mississippi, p. 122 et seq. (The Macmillan Co); J. S. Pike, The Prostrate State: South Carolina under Negro Government, p. 117 et seq.; W. L. Fleming, Documentary History of Reconstruction, vol. i., pp. 9-20. Schwab, pp. 124-164. Many of the war-time governors and other During the latter part of the war there was much suffering among whites and negroes from lack of food,* for in the remote counties there were no negroes to do the work in the absence of the whites. The finances of the Confederate States were in a deplorable condition long before the surrender of the armies. The Confederate government could not raise any large amount of money by internal taxation, and the revenues derived from duties on exports and imports were inconsiderable, $27,000,000 being "an outside estimate of the receipts in specie of the Confederate government during its life of four years." The Confederate government issued paper money and interest-bearing notes before the end of 1863 to the extent of $700,000,000. This amount had in another year increased to $1,000,000,000, and ultimately reached such proportions that no exact record was ever made public, and probably the government itself did not even know the amount of these notes afloat. Beside this there were officials were arrested and placed in prison and the State governments therefore collapsed. * In September, 1865, the Alabama State authorities reported 139,000 destitute whites and 200,000 in December of that year. In 1865 General Grant wrote to Mrs. Grant from Raleigh, N. C.: "The suffering that must exist in the South will be beyond conception; people who speak of further retaliation or punishment do not conceive of the suffering endured already or they are heartless and unfeeling." See also Fleming, Documentary History, vol. i., pp. 20-25. Rhodes, vol. v., p. 343. Schwab, pp. 67, 165. See also Davis, Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, vol. i., p. 493. Pollard says the total cost of the war to the Confederate government was $3.500,000,000, “according to the opinion of intelligent officers of the SUFFERING AMONG NEGROES. issues of treasury notes by the various States, banks increased their circulation, municipal treasury bills were put out by city corporations, and the various railway, insurance, industrial and other companies also added their quotas to the stock of paper money." * Together with the struggle in the government financial situation came high prices in articles of comfort and necessity. "In July, 1862, when gold was worth $1.50, beef and mutton sold in Richmond for 371⁄2 cents a pound, potatoes $6 a bushel, tea $5 a pound and boots $25 per pair. In the early part of 1864 when $1 in gold brought $22 in Confederate money the price of turkey was $60, flour $300 per barrel, and in July of that year shoes $150 per pair." Tea and coffee were luxuries, coal and wood were scarce in the winter and ice in the summer. In Columbia ice was sold only for the sick and on a physician's certificate. Salt was scarce and medicines were badly needed. Clothing of all kinds was deficient and high priced as the clothing factories had been destroyed by the Northern armies. In many cities gas lighting was dispensed with Treasury," about $2.500.000,000 of which consisted of interest-bearing bonds of long dates, of treasury notes, of unsettled accounts which had been audited, and of cancelled debt in the form of old currency. - Lost Cause, p. 420 et seq. (E. B. Treat & Co., New York). * Rhodes, vol. v., p. 334 et seq.; Schwab, pp. 124-145, 149-159. Rhodes, vol. v., p. 349, from facts presented by Mrs, Jefferson Davis; see also Schwab, pp. 171180 and table of averages opposite p. 312. cited. Rhodes, vol. v., p. 351 et seq. and authorities 353 because of the need of the fuel for heating purposes. The situation became so serious that bread riots broke out in Salisbury, N. C., Mobile, Atlanta, Richmond and other places, and provision shops were pillaged for food. The suffering among the negroes was almost as severe, for after the Northern armies had destroyed the crops and freed the slaves, the latter, chiefly from inclination but also because they thought "freedom" meant absolution from work, went in large numbers to the cities and military posts for food and shelter,* and their refusal to work in the fields soon had its effect on the crops, which in 1865 and 1866 were very poor. Finding little either of food or shelter they were forced to live out in the open air or in crowded and filthy cabins, and in the latter much disease, such as measles, smallpox and fevers, soon broke out, carrying off large numbers. It has been Negroes are already beginning to congregate here [Wilmington, N. C.] from the surrounding country. They do not wish to trust their old masters on the plantations; and, without any definite purpose or plan, they have a blind, but touching instinct, that wherever the flag is floating it is a good place for friendless negroes to go."Whitelaw Reid, After the War: A Southern Tour, p. 50. Paul S. Peirce, The Freedmen's Bureau, in Iowa State University Studies in Sociology, Economics, Politics and History, vol. iii., N. S. No. 74, chap. i. (March, 1904); Fleming, Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama, p. 269. See also P. A. Bruce, The Plantation Negro as a Freeman; F. L. Hoffman, Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro; Joseph A. Tillinghast, The Negro in Africa and America, in Publications of the American Economic Association, Series iii., No. 2 (May, 1902); Thomas Nelson Page, The Negro: The Southerner's Problem, p. 21 et seq. (Charles Scribner's Sons). 354 MILITARY ORDERS AND CONFISCATION LAWS. estimated that by the year 1867 the number of negroes who had died of disease, starvation and exposure more than equalled the number of Southern whites killed during the war. Politically and religiously the South was in the same unhappy state, for with the surrender of the Confederate armies what little civil administration there was under the Confederate government dissolved in all the States, and left the South without government of any kind, save in parts of Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee and Virginia. During this period the commanders of the armies of occupation dispensed justice to the whites and blacks in the vicinity of their posts as best they knew how, or as best suited their purpose, but for the most part order was maintained in the different States by the local committees of defense and where these had no permanent organization the people ruled themselves. license will be issued until the parties desiring to be married take an oath of allegiance to the United States; and no clergyman, magistrate, or other party authorized by State laws to perform the marriage ceremony will officiate in such capacity until himself and the parties contracting matrimony shall have taken the prescribed oath of allegiance," etc. The confiscation laws passed by Congress worked further hardships on the people, for there was no security from seizure and confiscation if the property were proven to have belonged to Confederate soldiers or to the Confederate government; and the administration of justice was in the hands of those who had no scruples about appropriating this property to their own benefit. In the path of the armies of occupation came treasury agents to seize and collect that property which was declared forfeited to the Federal government, but many of these agents proved to be nothing more or less than common thieves, for they wantonly seized private property to which they had no right, pocketed the proceeds, and beside did not turn over to the government millions of dollars of legitimate funds which they had collected. Upon investigation by Congress these frauds were unearthed and some of the most disreputable of the embezzlers were fined and imprisoned,* but The military orders issued by the authorities were at times very irritating. One of these the "Button "Button Order "-prohibited the Southerners from wearing Confederate buttons, but a provision was made that" when plain buttons cannot be procured, those formerly used can be covered with cloth." Another of these orders -the " Marriage Order," issued by General Halleck in April, 1865, under the general title of "General Orders No. 4"-attempted "to prevent as far as possible, the propagation of legitimate rebels," the fifth paragraph of that document providing that under pain of punishment "no marriage $50,000,000, most of which was private property. * In 1865 the Federal grand jury at Mobile, Ala., when investigating the confiscation frauds, found that these agents had stolen in Alabama alone 125,000 bales of cotton, at that time worth CHANGES IN RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS. as the number apprehended was inconsiderable the benefit to the South was little. What these thieves left to the starved and already overburdened South was eaten up by the tax on cotton, which had also come with the Federal armies. In the religious organizations there had also been much trouble, for at the outbreak of the war these bodies had split on the slavery question and divided into Northern and Southern branches. At the close of the war, however, the Southern bodies were turned over to the Northern church organizations and the preachers were forced to conduct "" loyal" services, and both ministers and communicants were compelled to acknowledge their guilt, declare the utter folly and unrighteousness of secession and war, to subscribe to the oath of allegiance, and finally to offer prayers for the upholding and guidance of the Federal authorities under penalty of expulsion.* Having the backing of the Only two of these cotton agents were captured, T. C. A. Dexter and T. J. Carver, and they were .fined $90,000 and $250,000 respectively. Rhodes, vol. v., pp. 275-312, in discussing these frauds says that B. F. Butler, commanding general at New Orleans, went there in 1862 "the owner of property worth $150,000. By 1868, according to the statement of one of his friends in the congressional canvass of that year, this had grown to a fortune of three millions." On the cotton transactions see also Fleming, Documentary History, vol. i., pp. 25-33 and the same author's Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama, p. 284 et seq. 355 Federal authorities and the armies, the Northern churches soon came into possession of a large portion of the Southern church property. They then attempted to absorb the organizations, but in this they were unsuccessful, as the Southerners refused to accept the proferred terms. The drastic measures adopted by the Northern bodies soon reacted upon them. The Southern bodies reorganized and united with the organizations of the border States, becoming stronger and more united. The only success with which the Northern bodies met was in securing the Unionist element among the congregations and gaining control over the negroes by separating them Standpoint, pp. 139-147, 153–165. Walter L. Fleming, in his Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama, says that a minister in Huntsville was arrested and sent North because, when ordered to pray the "loyal" prayer, he prayed "We beseech Thee, O Lord, to bless our enemies and remove them from our midst as soon as seemeth good in Thy sight." At Vicksburg General McPherson commanded the pastors to read the prescribed prayer for the President at each service. Bishop Elder, of Natchez, was banished because he refused.-- Garner, Reconstruction in Mississippi, p. 34 et seq. At Saint Paul's church, Richmond, Dr. Minnegerode had read the prayer, omitting the words "for the President of the Confederate States," simply praying "for all in authority," to which form the commanding officer had given his consent. Secretary of War Stanton rounded up this officer as follows: "If you have consented that services should be performed in the Episcopal churches of Richmond without the usual prayer said in loyal churches for the President your action is strongly condemned by this Department." The officer replied: Do you desire that I should order this form of prayer in Episcopal, Hebrew, Roman Catholic, and other churches where they have a liturgy?" to which Stanton answered: "No mark of respect must be omitted to President Lincoln which was rendered to the rebel, Jeff. Davis."Avary, Dixie After the War, pp. 131-135. |