Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Reconstruction, 1865–1867 495
department headquarters. A gang had been stealing mules from plantations run by
Unionists and “disarming all Negroes that come within their reach.” Some of its
members had been seen reconnoitering Yeomans’ plantation. The former colonel
also reported the murders of seven freedmen in his neighborhood since the beginning
of the year. 85
Although it made sense for a former officer of U.S. Colored Troops to buy or
lease land where discharged soldiers from his regiment offered a disciplined labor
force well acquainted with the use of firearms, the prospects of success were still
not great. Floods and insect pests combined to ruin many Northern planters before
three growing seasons had passed. Frisbie left his plantation for New Orleans,
and Yeomans returned to Ohio, where he had first joined a volunteer regiment in
1862. 86
The handful of black regiments that remained on duty in the rural South tried
to maintain order. “Many abuses to the freedmen are being perpetrated,” the colonel
of the 80th USCI complained to department headquarters from Shreveport that
September, “and the parties go free from punishment . . . , as we are powerless to
reach them with infantry troops. . . . Civil authorities will not protect the negro
when calling for justice against a white man. The people are as strongly united
here against . . . the U.S. Government as . . . [at] any time during the rebellion.”
Despite the ineffective performance of infantry, the colonel wrote, “Take away the
troops and northern men must leave or foreswear every principle of true loyalty
and manhood and truckle to the prejudices of the masses.” As if to underscore his
point, officers of the 65th USCI on the other side of Louisiana reported failures
throughout the summer to arrest mounted lawbreakers around Lake Providence,
on the Mississippi River. Officers of the regular infantry, which had necessarily
taken on an increasing share of occupation duty as black regiments mustered out
throughout the year, complained of similar unsatisfactory results. 87
While federal troops in the South struggled to control what seemed to be a
rising tide of disorder during 1866, Congress and the president became increasingly
estranged. Although the fall elections had increased Republican majorities in both
houses, Johnson continued to veto Reconstruction laws and to see his vetoes
overridden. He tried to obstruct passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, a carefully
worded measure that conferred citizenship on native-born freedmen and reduced
the congressional delegations of states that barred them from the polls because of
their race. When his opposition further excited northern editorial opinion against
85 M. Yeomans to Col M. P. Bestow, 20 Jun 1866, Entry 2433, pt. 1, RG 393, NA; Lawrence N.
Powell, New Masters: Northern Planters During the Civil War and Reconstruction (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1980), pp. xiii, 28–29, 50.
86 Currie, Enclave, pp. 151–52, 156–59; Taylor, Louisiana Reconstructed, pp. 343–45; Michael
Wayne, The Reshaping of Plantation Society: The Natchez District, 1860–80 (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1990), pp. 61–66; Roster, Surviving Members of the 95th Regiment, O.V.I. [Columbus,
Ohio: Champlin Press, 1916].
87 Col W. S. Mudgett to Maj J. S. Crosby, 6 Sep 1866, 80th USCI, and 1st Lt W. P. Wiley to 1st
Lt N. Burbank, 8 Jul 1866, 65th USCI, both in Entry 57C, RG 94, NA; Capt A. D. Bailie to AAG
[Assistant Adjutant General] Dept of the Gulf, 27 Sep 1866, Entry 1756, pt. 1, RG 393, NA. For
regular officers bemoaning the lack of cavalry in Florida, see Col J. T. Sprague to Brig Gen C.
Mundee, 31 Aug 1866, f/w Maj Gen J. G. Foster to Lt Col G. Lee, 11 Sep 1866 (F–25–DG–1866),
Entry 1756, pt. 1, RG 393, NA; in South Carolina, 1st Lt C. Snyder to Lt Col H. W. Smith, 21 Jul
1866, NA M869, roll 34.