Capitol Men (71 page)

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 "
The South cares for no other question": New York Times,
May 2, 1876.

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 "
Every one who rode with him":
Colonel Henry C. Lockwood, quoted in frontispiece of Ames,
Adelbert Ames.
.

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 "
Angry words": Jackson Tri-Weekly Clarion,
June 10, 1869.
At court-martial Yerger's relatives:
Current,
Those Terrible Carpetbaggers,
p. 173; Harris, pp. 59–61. Yerger moved to Maryland, edited a newspaper, and ran unsuccessfully for Congress.
Transforming him gradually from a bureaucrat:
Lemman, p. 37.
"
Harnessed revolution":
Foner,
Forever Free,
p. 139.

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The contest [here] is not between two established parties":
Adelbert Ames to John Sherman, Aug. 17, 1869, John Sherman Papers, Library of Congress; Adelbert Ames to William T. Sherman, Aug. 17, 1869, William T. Sherman Papers, Library of Congress; quoted in Current,
Those Terrible Carpetbaggers,
pp. 174–75.
Photographs taken by the famous Matthew Brady:
Lemman, p. 41.

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These she-adders of New Orleans":
Capers, p. 68.
"
This representative of Hell in garb of man": La Crosse Weekly,
Jan. 1865, undated news clipping in Clippings Scrapbook, Benjamin Butler Papers, Library of Congress.

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Multitudinous disadvantages":
Ames,
Chronicles from the Nineteenth Century,
vol. 1, p. 202; vol 2, p. 667. See also Current,
Those Terrible Carpetbaggers,
p. 195.

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By late 1874, agitated by the national debate:
Wharton, "The Race Issue in the Overthrow of Reconstruction in Mississippi,"
Phylon.
'"Vote the Negro Down or Knock Him Down'": Westville News,
undated clipping appears in Appendix to "Mississippi in 1875: Report of the Select Committee to Inquire into the Mississippi Election of 1875," GPO, Washington, 1876.
Governor Ames would point out in congressional hearings:
Testimony of Adelbert Ames, "Mississippi in 1875."

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A fugitive from justice": Jackson Weekly Clarion,
Sept. 4, 1873, and Oct. 9 and 16, 1873; see also Brock, "Thomas W. Cardozo,"
Journal of Negro History.
"
Shingled all over with indictments":
Nordhoff, p. 74; see also Foner,
Freedom's Lawmakers,
p. 40.
"
Leading Cardozo to express frustration":
Wharton, "The Race Issue in the Overthrow of Reconstruction in Mississippi"; see also Lynch,
Reminiscences of an Active Life,
pp. 131–36, and Brock, "Thomas W. Cardozo."

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A receptacle of the colored men":
Testimony of Adelbert Ames, "Mississippi in 1875."

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I and other white men have faced the bullets":
Ames,
Chronicles,
p. 336.
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Let us, with united strength": New York Times,
Dec. 17, 1874.
"
Can raise good crowd":
"Vicksburg Troubles,"
U.S. House Report No. 265,
p. xi.

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Unresisting and retreating men":
Ibid., p. viii.
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The whites who came in from the plantations": New York Times,
Dec. 18, 1874.
The blacks "were met at the city limits": New York Times,
Dec. 14, 1874.
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Not less than 200 were shot": New York Times,
Dec. 23, 1874.

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Impossible to ascertain":
"Vicksburg Troubles," p. xi.
"
Here surrendered the Confederate chieftain":
Rable, pp. 149–50.
"
Reinstalled Peter Crosby as sheriff":
Harris, pp. 646–48; Garner, pp. 335–36; Rable, pp. 147–49. Peter Crosby, having survived the Democrats' rebellion and the "second battle of Vicksburg," was wounded in early 1875 when a disgruntled employee shot him in the head. Unable to fully recover, Crosby resigned his post in October 1875. See Rable, p. 149. Vicksburg itself remained a hotbed of anti-Republican sentiment. As the town had fallen to General Grant on July 3–4, 1863, Independence Day had not been observed there since the war. When, on July 4, 1875, a black Republican rally was called to commemorate the holiday, whites were duly provoked. One of the scheduled speakers, the much-disliked Thomas Cardozo, was struck on the head with a revolver as he arrived at the train depot. Hours later a fight broke out when he and Secretary of State James Hill tried to address the gathering; shots were fired and a black deputy fell dead. White men and boys then invaded the rally, howling the rebel yell and scattering terrified black celebrants. Cardozo and Hill took refuge in the courthouse cupola.
Vicksburg Herald,
July 7, 1875.

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Mount and ride for your lives":
Twitchell,
Carpetbagger from Vermont,
pp. 146–47.

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If the soldiers choose to get mixed up in broils": New Orleans Bulletin,
Aug. 28, 1874, quoted in Dawson, pp. 162–63.
By the evening of September 15: New Orleans Times,
Sept. 16, 1874; see also Gillette, pp. 117–19.

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The happiest city in the universe": New Orleans Bulletin,
Sept. 16, 1874.
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Turbulent and disorderly persons to disperse": New Orleans Times,
Sept. 16, 1874.

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I think that the terrorism now existing":
Sheridan's telegrams and Belknap's replies appear in "Affairs in Louisiana,"
U.S. Senate Executive Documents,
43rd Cong., 2nd sess., Mar. 1875, serial 1629.
"
It is surprising that a very able graduate": New York Times,
Jan. 6, 1875.

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The Sheridan-Belknap
'banditti'
telegrams were reprinted:
Gillette, p. 124.
"
Manufacturing sensational protests":
Philip Sheridan to William Belknap, Jan. 7, 1875, quoted in Gillette, p. 124.
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It was no riot; it was an absolute massacre":
Philip Sheridan to Ulysses'S. Grant, Aug. 2, 1866; see also Hollandsworth, frontispiece.
More surprising were the sympathetic public meetings:
At Faneuil Hall, where abolitionist oratory had shaken the rafters, where the Fugitive Slave Act and
Dred Scott
had been denounced, now resolutions of censure condemning Grant, Sheridan,
and the government's actions in Louisiana were drawn up. On January 15, Wendell Phillips, the "Golden Trumpet" of the abolitionist movement, defended the legality of the federal government's acts in the South, warning that Southern blacks were the true victims of any Northern resolution against Grant and Sheridan. His words were greeted by
boos
and remarks such as "Sit down!" and "That's played out!" The meeting's resolutions were passed over Phillips's objections. See
New York Times,
Jan. 16, 1875; see also Korngold,
Two Friends,
pp. 328–29.
The vehemence of the national reaction:
See Tunnell,
Edge of the Sword,
pp. 184–231.
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The men ofVicksburg would not submit":
Nordhoff, pp. 74–75.

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Every true woman":
Wharton, p. 183.
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Returned to the fold of the Democracy in sackcloth and ashes":
Lynch,
Reminiscences of an Active Life,
p. 148.

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Moreover, Morgan's résumé:
Lemman, p. 101.

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I did not believe that they intended":
Testimony of A. T. Morgan, "Mississippi in 1875."
"
You can have no objection":
An account of the Yazoo riot appears in the
Yazoo City Democrat,
Sept. 7, 1875.
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My friend, I fought four years":
Albert Morgan to Adelbert Ames, Sept. 9, 1875, quoted in Ames,
Adelbert Ames,
pp. 420–21.

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These white liners will do anything":
Adelbert Ames to Blanche Butler Ames, Sept. 2, 1876, quoted in Ames,
Chronicles,
pp. 156–57.
"
This house does not seem a natural place":
Adelbert Ames to Blanche Butler Ames, Aug. 7, 1874; Adelbert Ames to Blanche Butler Ames, Aug. 2, 1874; Adelbert Ames to Blanche Butler Ames, Aug. 12, 1874; quoted in Ames,
Adelbert Ames,
pp. 399, 396–97, 401.
"
Trimmed fantastically and patriotically":
Brough, "The Clinton Riot,"
Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society.
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There is no doubt [the riot] had its origin":
Undated clippings from
Cincinnati Commercial,
early to mid Sept. 1875, Blanche Kelso Bruce Papers, Library of Congress.

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The thing opened just like lightning":
Testimony of E. B. Welbourne, "Mississippi in 1875."
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[Whites] ... chased [the blacks] for miles and miles":
Undated clippings from
Cincinnati Commercial,
early to mid Sept. 1875, Blanche Kelso Bruce Papers.
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What can we do? ... It looks like Judgment":
Testimony of D. C. Crawford, "Mississippi in 1875".
The death toll included:
Undated clippings from
Cincinnati Commercial,
early to mid Sept. 1875, Blanche Kelso Bruce Papers; see also Testimony of D. C. Crawford, "Mississippi in 1875".
Two of the whites killed:
Rable, pp. 155–56.

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Oh, we didn't do much":
Undated clippings from
Cincinnati Commercial,
early to mid Sept. 1875, Blanche Kelso Bruce Papers.
"
They went to a house where there was an old black man":
Margaret Ann Caldwell, quoted in
New York Times,
Aug. 7, 1876.
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You all had a big dinner yesterday":
Testimony of Margaret Ann Caldwell, "Mississippi in 1875."
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I beg you most fulley [sic] to send": Senate Reports,
44th Cong., 1st sess., "Documentary Evidence," quoted in Wharton, "The Race Issue in the Overthrow of Reconstruction in Mississippi,"
Phylon.

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Domestic violence prevails in various parts of this State":
Adelbert Ames to President Grant, Sept. 8, 1875, quoted in Harris, pp. 663–64.
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As the Governor of a State, I made a demand":
Quoted in St. Clair, p. 84.
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Ames so admired Bruce":
Ames wanted Bruce to serve as his lieutenant governor because he imagined that he himself might eventually return to the U.S. Senate. He sought a man with a reputation so solid that the legislature, when the time came, would be willing to accept him as successor, freeing Ames for duty in Washington. When Bruce informed Ames he was not interested, Ames chose Alexander K. Davis, a state legislator from Noxubee County. Installing Davis as lieutenant governor would satisfy the black contingent in the state legislature, but it meant that, in all likelihood, Ames would never get to return to the Senate in Washington. As Ames's wife wrote to her mother back north, "In Mississippi the Lieut. Gov. becomes Governor as soon as the Governor leaves the state and if he is inclined to be troublesome this gives a fine opportunity to do many objectionable things." Such a crisis did occur in spring 1874 when Davis, taking advantage of Ames's absence on business in New Orleans, began making appointments and issuing pardons that lacked the governor's approval. State officials had to telegraph Ames and beg his immediate return. See Blanche Butler Ames to Sarah Butler, May 9, 1874, quoted in Ames,
Adelbert Ames,
p. 395.
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The white boy gave little heed to lessons": New York Times,
Mar. 18, 1898.

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It was his misfortune to be present:
Stiles, p. 95.
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Quantrill's band certainly would not have spared": Kansas City Times,
Oct. 17, 1886; St. Clair, pp. 263–64.

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In the midst of their vassalage": Congressional Record,
45th Cong., 2nd sess., pp. 382–83.
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The logical sequence to the freedom of the negro":
Montgomery, pp. 267–68.
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[Florey] had a big drum at his office":
Ibid., p. 272.
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He stands very straight and is very dignified": Washington Bee,
July 21, 1883, quoting
Boston Herald;
quoted in St. Clair, pp. 253–54.

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He "had outgrown the degradation and ignorance of slavery":
Bruce to the
Kansas City Times,
Oct. 17, 1886; quoted in Urofsky, "Blanche K. Bruce,"
Journal of Mississippi History.
By late 1872 Bruce had twenty-one schools:
Harris, "Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi," in Rabinowitz, pp. 8–9. In the 1880s Bruce became interested in Booker T. Washington's ideas about industrial education, and after a visit to Washington's school at Tuskegee, he joined a group of Mississippians trying to establish a similar institute to serve young blacks from Arkansas and Mississippi.

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False doctrine of despotic sovereignty": New York Times,
June 25, 1874.
"
The most responsible citizens in Mississippi":
St. Clair, p. 85.
Alcorn showed him the ultimate disrespect:
Simmons, p. 703. Bruce was rescued by Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York. "When the names of the new Senators were called out for them to go up and take the oath, all the others except myself were escorted by their colleagues," Bruce later said. "Mr. Alcorn made no motion to escort me, but was buried behind a newspaper, and I concluded I would go it alone. I had got about half way up the aisle when a tall gentleman stepped up
to me and said: 'Excuse me, Mr. Bruce, I did not until this moment see that you were without an escort. Permit me. My name is Conkling,' and he linked his arm in mine and we marched up to the desk together." Bruce so esteemed Conkling's gesture he named his only son, born in 1879, Roscoe Conkling Bruce. See Bruce's letter to Conkling, Sept. 21, 1879, in St. Clair, pp. 280–81. Senator Conkling would perform a similar service a year later for Frederick Douglass at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, when an attempt was made to keep Douglass from taking his seat on a reviewing stand.
An "excited imagination": New York Tribune,
Sept. 21, 1875.
The
New York Times
proposed that if the Republicans: New York Times,
Sept. 16, 1875.