Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Reconstruction, 1865–1867 465
way to induce faithfulness but by a resort to there old usages—the lash,” Maj.
George D. Reynolds of the 6th USCA reported from Natchez. Near Vicksburg,
the colonel of the 64th USCI wrote, “old masters . . . would abuse and shoot their
[former] slaves on the slightest provocation.” Since black laborers no longer represented
a substantial capital investment, some plantation owners inflicted whippings
more severe than those they had laid on before emancipation. 19
Although Bureau agents tried to investigate as many reports of wrongdoing
as they could, black soldiers sometimes took matters into their own hands. Near
Columbia, Louisiana, where “the cruel punishment of all colored people [was]
indulged in to the heart’s content” of white residents, Col. Alonzo W. Webber
reported, men of the 51st USCI threatened the life of a former slaveholder who
had “shot and killed one of his negroes.” The man’s former slaves had reportedly
told the soldiers about the incident and urged them to act. White residents were
“making a great howl over” the incident, the officer reported, for although they
“believe[d] it to have been originated by their own slaves,” they wanted a documented
disturbance as a means of getting rid of a Union garrison in their midst,
especially one made up of black soldiers. 20
Incidents of fraud were also common. In North Carolina, Chaplain Henry M.
Turner of the 1st USCI told readers of the Christian Recorder that “freedmen . . .
have been kept at work until the crops were gathered, under the promise of pay or
part of the crop, but when the time for reward came, they were driven away, without
means, shelter or homes.” Many freedmen and their families gravitated to
Raleigh, the state capital, where they came under the care of Brig. Gen. Eliphalet
Whittlesey, former colonel of the 46th USCI, who was serving as assistant commissioner
of the Freedmen’s Bureau. 21
While labor relations gave rise to a great deal of violence during the months
just after the Confederate surrender, any encounter between persons of different
races could spark an incident. An Army uniform was no guarantee of immunity
from an attack; rather, it might provoke one if the soldiers were few in number.
An official inquiry into a street affray in Vicksburg elicited this statement from
one of the participants, Pvt. Berry Brown of the 5th USCA:
I was coming a cross the road . . . and three white men were going along the
road, one of them was ahead of the other two. And as I crossed the road he triped
me up. I then got up and asked him what he ment by triping a person up when
he was not medling with him. He then said you god dam black yankee son of
a bitch I will cut your dam guts out, and drew out his knife. . . . The orderly
Sergeant then came down to see what the fuss was about when he commenced
cuting at the orderly Sergeant. One of the boys then knocked him down with
19 Maj G. D. Reynolds to 1st Lt S. Eldridge, 31 Aug 1865, NA Microfilm Pub M1907, Rcds of the
Field Offices for the State of Mississippi, BRFAL, roll 34; Col S. Thomas to Maj Gen O. O. Howard,
12 Oct 1865, NA M752, roll 22; Hahn et al., Land and Labor, pp. 40–41, 80–81.
20 Col A. W. Webber to Capt S. B. Ferguson, 12 Sep 1865 (L–270–DL–1865), Entry 1757, Dept
of the Gulf, LR, pt. 1, RG 393, NA; Hahn et al., Land and Labor, p. 165 (“the cruel punishment”).
21 Christian Recorder, 2 September 1865.