Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Reconstruction, 1865–1867 469
us except through negro testimony,” which was not admissible in court, “and we
cannot therefore punish them.” Before legislatures met that fall to revise the laws,
Southern states limited severely the competence of black witnesses, if they did not
rule out their testimony altogether. 27
White Southerners had a strong aversion to federal occupiers in general and
to black soldiers in particular, for the latter represented not simply military defeat,
but the beginning of a social revolution. “The negroes congregate around the garrisons,
and are idle and perpetrate crimes,” the governor of Mississippi told General
Howard. “It is hoped the black troops will be speedily removed.” The governor anticipated
“a general revolt” of the freedmen, which he thought black troops would
support. From Clarksville, Tennessee, a state Supreme Court justice complained
to Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas about the 101st USCI stationed there. The regiment’s
commanding officer, the judge said, “regards himself as the guardian of the
negroes and this necessarily makes them insolent. . . . If the colored soldiers were
removed, the negro population would be more obedient to the laws.” It seemed
clear that the former rulers of the South intended “to accomplish by state legislation
and by covert violation of law what they . . . failed to accomplish by Rebellion,”
the assistant commissioner for Missouri and Arkansas wrote. As a Bureau
official in Tallahassee put it, white Floridians expected that after state conventions
met in the fall, “military forces will be withdrawn & the negroes will be again in
their power, to do with as they may see fit.” 28
Unfortunately for the efficacy of the military occupation and the reputation of
the black regiments, there was a kernel of truth in some of the complaints about the
troops’ conduct. Like soldiers after other wars, veterans of the Civil War tended to
become unruly with the onset of peace. In one instance, the general commanding
in Alabama during the summer of 1865 had to ask that disaffected white regiments
of the XVI Corps be mustered out quickly and replaced by “troops that can be
depended on.” Two months later, an officer at Vicksburg placed an extra guard on
railroad yards to prevent looting by homeward-bound troops. In Georgia, a Bureau
official reported that “the worst acts committed . . . upon negroes [near Augusta]
have been committed by . . . white soldiers.” 29
With time on their hands, black soldiers also misbehaved. A freedman showed
the Bureau agent at Helena his wounded scalp, cut by a brick in the hand of a soldier
of the 56th USCI during a street brawl. Along the river between Savannah and
27 Maj Gen R. Saxton to Maj Gen O. O. Howard, 4 Jun 1865 (S–14) (“guerrillas”), NA M752,
roll 17; N. M. Reeve to Brig Gen D. Tillson, 27 Nov 1865 (“are unknown”), f/w Brig Gen D. Tillson
to Maj Gen O. O. Howard, 28 Nov 1865 (G–37), NA M752, roll 20; 1st Lt J. W. Evarts to 1st Lt L. B.
Jenks, 22 Aug 1865 (f/w F–97–DL–1865), Entry 1757, pt. 1, RG 393, NA. On terrorists in blackface,
see Maj J. M. Bowler to Capt C. E. Howe, 15 Oct 1865, Entry 269, Dept of Arkansas, LR, pt. 1, RG
393, NA; Maj J. M. Bowler to Maj W. S. Sargent, 31 Oct 1865, NA M979, roll 23; Cimbala, Under
the Guardianship, p. 204.
28 W. L. Sharkey to Maj Gen O. O. Howard, 10 Oct 1865 (M–45), NA M752, roll 22; J. O.
Shackelford to Maj Gen G. H. Thomas, 18 Jul 1865 (S–18), NA T142, roll 27; Brig Gen J. W. Sprague
to Maj Gen O. O. Howard, 17 Jul 1865 (“to accomplish”), NA M979, roll 23; Col T. W. Osborn to Maj
Gen O. O. Howard, 21 Sep 1865 (F–4) (“military forces”), NA M752, roll 20.
29 Maj Gen C. R. Woods to Brig Gen W. D. Whipple, 20 Sep 1865 (A–443–MDT–1865), Entry
926, pt. 1, RG 393, NA; Maj E. B. Meatyard to 1st Lt C. W. Snyder, 10 Nov 1865, (M–394–DM–
1865), Entry 2433, pt. 1, RG 393, NA; Brig Gen E. A. Wild to Maj Gen R. Saxton, 14 Jul 1865, NA
Microfilm Pub M869, Rcds of the Asst Commissioner for the State of South Carolina, BRFAL,