Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Reconstruction, 1865–1867 487
towns sorely missed “the presence of at least a few troops,” and that agents
were “powerless without them.” “In almost every case, . . . the withdrawal of
troops has been followed by outrages upon the freed people,” he wrote. “A
large number of troops is not required, but . . . unless small garrisons are kept
at many points, most unfortunate results will certainly follow.” Tillson was
right: reports of murders in Georgia during 1866, although sketchy, indicate
a sevenfold increase after the 103d USCI mustered out in April, leaving only
eight companies of regular infantry in the state. A report from South Carolina
shows a similar, although less pronounced, trend after June, when the musterout
of white volunteers there left the 128th USCI, thirteen companies of regular
infantry, and two companies of regular cavalry as the occupying force in
the state. Although South Carolina was smaller than Georgia, its garrisons included
nearly 25 percent more federal troops. While white peace officers were
reluctant to arrest white murderers of black people and white juries refused
to convict them, the increase of reported murders in both states after troop
withdrawals suggests that even an occupation force of infantry served as some
deterrent to racial violence. 68
At the beginning of 1866, some sixty-five thousand black soldiers were
still in service, representing slightly more than 53 percent of the remaining
Civil War volunteers. Two months later, after more white regiments mustered
out, the number of black troops had shrunk to fewer than forty thousand, but
their proportion of the force had grown to nearly 60 percent. By early summer,
only 17,320 black volunteers remained, constituting nearly three-quarters of
the men still in service who had volunteered “for three years or the war.” Sharing
their duties were companies of the Regular Army—more than 70 percent
of the regular infantry force, one regiment of cavalry, and one of artillery—but
some eighteen thousand regulars could hardly compensate for the mustering
out of nearly one hundred thousand volunteers, white and black, during the first
six months of the year. 69
Despite pleas and protests from commanding officers and Freedmen’s Bureau
agents, troop numbers in the South continued to dwindle. General Beecher asked
for a company of his old regiment, the 35th USCI, to escort him while he settled
labor contracts near the South Carolina coast that winter. In Kentucky and Tennessee,
the assistant commissioner for those states told General Howard, troops
had become so scarce by spring that they “could do but little else than guard the
government property and garrison the chief cities.” The Bureau agent at Hamburg,
Arkansas, an officer of the 5th USCC, had to abandon his station until “troops sufficient
to protect him from personal violence” could be sent there. In the southwest
corner of the state, a former officer of the 113th USCI acting as a Bureau agent
feared an armed conflict. “The most direct cause is the colored troops stationed
here—the feeling is very bitter, and I daily look for a conflict,” he reported. “It is
68 OR, ser. 3, 5: 13; “Freedmen’s Bureau,” p. 315 (“their duties”), p. 328 (“the presence”); Rpts
of Persons Murdered, Dists of Atlanta, Brunswick, Columbus, Griffin, Macon, Marietta, Rome,
Savannah, Thomasville, Entry 642, Georgia: Rpts of Murders and Outrages, RG 105, Rcds of the
BRFAL, NA; Rpt of Outrages, NA M869, roll 34.
69 OR, ser. 3, 5: 138–39, 932, 973; Army and Navy Journal, 28 July 1866.