The Role and Image of Carpetbaggers during Reconstruction in the Southern United States, Study Guides, Projects, Research of History

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WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY

CARPETBAGGERS:

A REVISIONIST MODEL EVALUATION

JOHANNES ANDERSON

SPRING 2007

ADVISOR: DR. RICHARD HUME

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS

CONTENTS

• Introduction Acknowledgements
• The Carpetbagger Identity
• Marshall Harvey Twitchell: A Case Study
  • Military Career
  • Twitchell in the Freedmen’s Bureau
  • Life as a Planter
  • Twitchell in Politics
  • Violence and Tragedy
  • Legacy
• Postscript: Carpetbagger Propaganda—A Century of Misinformation
• Bibliography

Introduction Acknowledgements

The Reconstruction of the American South following the Civil War remains a tumultuous time in American history, yet one of the most important. Carpetbaggers, white Northerners who migrated to the American South after the Civil War and became Republican politicians, are seen traditionally as scheming men taking advantage of the war-torn country to amass wealth and politically empower themselves by manipulating freedmen and native Southern whites. 1 Hundreds of these controversial Northerners profited from the agrarian and political displacement of the South, becoming politicians and often planters. Despised by disenfranchised ex-Confederates, they were often seen as the epitome of everything the South fought against in the Civil War, a sign of ultimate defeat: not only had the South unsuccessfully fought for secession from the North, but it had come under Federal military rule during Reconstruction, inundated with blue-coated soldiers and carpetbaggers. Well into the 1870s, however, carpetbaggers attempted to assimilate socially into Southern culture, taking up similar agrarian practices and experiencing the same crop failures and successes yielded by the region to Southerners. Many of these newcomers brought with them Northern ideals of rejoining the Union, moving on from the war, and supporting the enfranchisement of blacks. These Republican ideals, resisted by many white Southerners, spawned the bitterness against carpetbaggers seen in almost a century of history texts. (^1) Richard L. Hume, “Carpetbaggers in the Reconstruction South: A Group Portrait of Outside Whites in the ‘Black and Tan’ Constitutional Conventions,” Journal of American History 44 (September 1977), 315-

The enemies of carpetbaggers triumphed with the Compromise of 1877 that conceded the presidency to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes but withdrew Federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction and the enforcement of racial equality. During the years leading up to this monumental event, carpetbaggers participated in and allegedly often controlled Southern governments, rallying blacks to assert their new social and political rights. 2 From the “black and tan” constitutional conventions, named with that epithet for their inclusion of black politicians for the first time in history, to Northern individuals such as Henry Clay Warmoth, Harrison Reed, and Powell Clayton serving as governors of Louisiana, Florida, and Arkansas respectively, Republican politics angered white Southerners who later responded with the violence of the Ku Klux Klan and localized intimidation of scalawags, carpetbaggers, and freedmen. 3 This violence remained commonplace after the fall of Reconstruction, undoing much of the civil rights and economic reform contributed by carpetbaggers—contributions generally overlooked through decades of contempt until recent research reexamined the character of these men with results defying traditional views. Most Southern journalists during Reconstruction condemned the carpetbagger as corrupt and egocentric, preying on a hapless region and the enfranchisement of freedmen to gain political power. Historians to the 1960s largely embodied this prejudiced paradigm, most prominently by pioneering Reconstruction historian William Archibald Dunning and his contemporaries—known collectively as the Dunning School. Late twentieth century research, (^2) Richard Nelson Current, Those Terrible Carpetbaggers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988),

(^3) The “black and tan” conventions were conventions required by Congress to draft new constitutions for ten of the former Confederate states before they were to be restored to the Union. The resulting governments were largely controlled by Republicans. “Black and tan” was a pejorative term, often used by Southern white opponents to Reconstruction, referring to the conventions’ black and mixed-race delegates. Freedmen were former slaves and scalawags (also a pejorative term) were native Southern whites who supported Reconstruction.

blended historic studies by prominent historians including Eric Foner, Richard Nelson Current, and Ted Tunnell, this case study challenges the traditional image of carpetbaggers through analysis of Twitchell’s experiences in the South. Not all carpetbaggers shared Twitchell’s experiences, but in varying degrees their collective lives ran parallel. The Carpetbagger Identity Carpetbaggers were Northern white men who settled in the postwar South, a majority bringing Republican ideals to the regions in which they settled. Southern journalists and historians to the 1960s claimed virtually all carpetbaggers contrived to take advantage of new political opportunities under the 1867 Reconstruction Acts that enfranchised blacks and called for states of the former Confederacy to draft new constitutions and to rebuild their governments prior to readmission to the Union. The image of the carpetbagger as the conniving scoundrel toting his meager possessions in a carpet-bag southward to profit from black enfranchisement (and the disenfranchisement of ex-Confederates) typifies a small portion of the carpetbag population. This image is a product of political and social prejudice; in fact most carpetbaggers were middle class people with education and social mobility, and who settled in the South prior to the Reconstruction Acts. Most carpetbaggers arrived through the Union Army or Freedmen’s Bureau prior to 1867, when freedmen still lacked franchise and the prospects of political office were distant. Instead of seeking office, they viewed the South like the prewar West, a land for settlement and a new life. 6 The “black and tan” constitutional conventions in Southern states opened up politics to carpetbaggers in 1867, and the ensuing propaganda circus forever tainted the image of these (^6) Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863- 1877 (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1989), 294-295.

Northerners in the eyes of native Southerners. Some carpetbaggers were hungry for political opportunity, but the majority offered political experience and democratic ideals while viewing politics as an avenue for make a living. 7 Of the 159 outside white delegates to the Black and Tan constitutional conventions, only twelve are known to have arrived after 1867, thus soundly debunking historiography decrying that all carpetbaggers came southward as political opportunists—if they had, they would have come after 1867, when political positions became available due to the enfranchisement of blacks.^8 With the creation of new state governments, many carpetbaggers were elected to offices on Republican tickets, many by freedmen casting their first ballots—while disenfranchised ex-Confederates looked on from a position of impotence. Dunning historians charted this change in leadership of Southern states from the prewar Democratic to postwar Radical Republican as disastrous for Southern society, politics, and economics—overlooking the fact that carpetbaggers brought democratic ideals and a willingness to work with both whites and blacks. 9 A final accusation of carpetbaggers is their collective corruption and embezzlement of funds for personal gain. Dunning historians held that this started with taking advantage of the enfranchisement of freedmen for political election on the Republican ticket. While corruption did occur at various levels of state governments, it is important to note that there was little change in overall corruption levels from prewar to Republican administrations in the South. (^7) Planters in the South, including carpetbaggers, experienced crop failures in 1866 and 1867. Politics offered escape from agrarian hardships and employment as new offices became available. (^8) Hume, “Carpetbaggers in the Reconstruction South,” 320. (^9) Kenneth M. Stampp, The Era of Reconstruction: 1865- 1877 (New York: Vintage Books, 1965), 157-

Marshall Harvey Twitchell: A Case Study

Vermont carpetbagger Marshall Harvey Twitchell is a prominent and controversial Reconstruction figure; a case study analysis of his life and career supports the revisionist perspective. Twitchell is both a typical and unique historical individual: a carpetbagger following hundreds of fellow Northerners to profit from the agrarian and political displacement of the South yet advocating civil rights, Reconstruction, and the law before economic gain. Twitchell gained power at the cost of his family, fortune, and eventually both his arms to White League terrorism in Louisiana—his story stands as one of the most remarkable of the “Tragic Era,” and is important in embodying the revisionist view of carpetbaggers in general.^11 Examinations of Twitchell’s military career, his service as an officer of the Freedmen’s Bureau, his experience as planter, his career in Louisiana politics, and his experience with White League violence reveal him as an embodiment of the “revisionist” carpetbagger and as a man whose life strikingly paralleled the rise and fall of Reconstruction itself.

Military Career

Marshall Twitchell served a distinguished career in the Union Army during the Civil War, rising through the ranks to lead both white and black soldiers, and this experience was the catapult which propelled Twitchell into a life of serving both races after the war. He was born to a poor family in Townshed, Vermont in 1840, he worked as a teacher for several years, and then enlisted in the 4 th Vermont Regiment as war broke out in 1861. He rose (^11) Harris, 224, notes a nickname of the Reconstruction as the “Tragic Era” by historians. This term was first widely used by Claude G. Bowers, The Tragic Era: the Revolution after Lincoln , published in 1929.

through the ranks through his leadership abilities, and his virtuous character is typified by his selfless gift of his own furlough to a fellow soldier who had a wife to visit.^12 Twitchell fought in several battles and skirmishes, falling grievously wounded in the head in the Wilderness Campaign in Virginia in May 1864. Disfigured and left for dead in a hospital tent, he forced himself onto a road where he was taken by baggage train northward to better hospitals and eventually home to recover in Vermont. 13 He fully recovered from his wound and opted to return to combat, believing in the Union cause and qualifying through examination for captaincy. He achieved a commission as a captain in a black regiment, the 109 th Colored Troops—though such posting was often eschewed and ill-regarded by whites, and he embraced his commission and fought with distinction at Petersburg. Twitchell wrote that his troops were “splendid and perfect soldiers” in his autobiography, and throughout his account harbored no prejudice in commentaries on those he commanded.^14 Twitchell’s military career saw him rise to captaincy through the ranks, giving him a valuable understanding of enlisted men often misunderstood by many Northern officers, who often purchased their commissions. A lower-middle class soldier, Twitchell would later reflect this experience in his service as an officer, in which he proved both his tactical worth and his humanity toward his troops. While he fought Confederate soldiers, he refrained in his autobiography from speaking ill of them, instead summing up his service as a time of adventure. 15 Most carpetbaggers were former Union veterans like Twitchell, leaders seeing (^12) Marshall Harvey Twitchell, Carpetbagger from Vermont , ed. Ted Tunnell (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), 51. (^13) Ibid., 74. (^14) Ibid., 82. (^15) Ibid., 1.

regiment,” Twitchell wrote, conveying his trepidations in his new home, the turbulent postwar South.^18 The Freedmen’s Bureau employed a sizeable force of agents and spread them throughout the South. The commissioner, General Oliver Otis Howard, spoke of the Bureau in terms of a temporary solution and a limited fixture in the South, and cautioned his agents that “less government, consistent with assured security of life and liberty and property, the better….,” acknowledging that the postwar shift of power and social structure would not be immediately welcomed by white Southerners already embittered at the Republican administration. 19 Twitchell realized his unpopular position and strived to get to know the people he served. A member of the Masons, he attended their meetings in Sparta and used this fraternal affiliation to reach the white men of his parish, thus avoiding the need to call formal meetings to inform the population of new laws Twitchell was bound to enforce, including the abolition of master-slave contracts and the illegality of corporal punishment. 20 His first case as provost marshal involved the beating of a freedman by his former master. Twitchell found both plaintiff and planter in the wrong, offset the penalties, and punished a lying freedman witness by forcing him to return home on foot instead of on the mule provided to him by the planter.^21 Twitchell thus became known and respected for his equal treatment of both freedmen and whites in a community where he was expected to favor freedmen and to punish former Confederates. Twitchell’s fears of non-acceptance among (^18) Twitchell, 91. (^19) Howard A. White, The Freedmen’s Bureau in Louisiana (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 1970), 16. (^20) Twitchell, 92. (^21) Ibid., 93.

whites similarly abated as he later wrote that he “learned to respect them for their honesty, industry, and general law-abiding character.” In a dispute between a black soldier and a townsperson, Twitchell was defended by a citizen who fired on a deserting soldier when that soldier aimed his musket at Twitchell. 22 Controversy, however, surrounded the motives behind the black soldier’s unpopularity and the white saloon-owner shooting him to death, yet a military court failed to bring the businessman to trial. 23 This violence was not only the first against freedmen in the parish, but a harbinger of more grievous events to come. Twitchell soon found himself without troops as his detachment was ordered back to their regiment; he was also without commission as General Philip Sheridan routinely discharged Twitchell in April 1866 as military rule of Louisiana was turned over to civilian officials. 24 Twitchell had recommended Unionists to offices in Bienville Parish, however he had no control with the loss of his command and his subsequent inability to protect freedmen and their schools from racist violence. 25 He sent home two white female New Orleans teachers because he deemed the environment too dangerous for their welfare in the absence of troops, a chivalrous move given the tensions he faced. (^22) Twitchell, 95-96. (^23) Private Wallace Harris reportedly struck a black card dealer and slandered white citizens in the saloon of Robert Love, who was also deputy sheriff. Love attempted to arrest Harris, but Harris produced a revolver and left the scene. On December 18, 1865 word got out that the townspeople were planning to attack the black troops in retaliation for Harris’s actions, and Love confronted Twitchell as Harris left the barracks with his equipment. Twitchell’s attempts to arrest Harris led the trooper to aim his rifle at Twitchell, and at that point Love fired his shotgun and killed Harris. Ted Tunnell, Edge of the Sword: The Ordeal of Carpetbagger Marshall H. Twitchell in the Civil War and Reconstruction (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Press, 2001), 101-

102. Twitchell remained unsure at the time he wrote his autobiography if Love saved his life or fired out of vengeance. Love was arrested but not taken to trial, and returned soon thereafter to his business. (^24) Tunnell, Edge of the Sword , 107-8. (^25) Twitchell, 97.

family’s wishes and Southern decorum, resisting her family’s wishes and marrying Twitchell on July 24, 1866—in his blue uniform, as per her wishes.^28 Twitchell took a liking to Adele’s father, and assisted him in his finances and management of the family farmlands. He managed the Coleman properties to pay off the family’s debts, and soon was himself making money. This impressed the Coleman family and drew him, at last, into the fold. 29 He became a planter with the purchase of his own plantation adjacent to the Coleman family’s, managing both his own and Coleman family finances—in exchange the Colemans managed the crops. 30 He was extended credit in New Orleans based on his association with the Colemans, in order to purchase his plantation, further exemplifying Twitchell’s assimilation with his new countrymen. Twitchell then purchased Starlight Plantation on the nearby Red River near Coushatta Point in the spring of 1869, and there Adele gave birth to two sons: Harvy Twitchell died only some nine months later, and Marshall Coleman Twitchell remained healthy. 31 Brother Homer and brother-in-law George King arrived from Vermont and settled to work at Starlight, followed soon by the remainder of Twitchell’s Vermont family in the fall of 1870.^32 Twitchell is a rare case of a Northerner assimilated into Southern society—released from duties with the Army and Freedmen’s Bureau, he married into a prominent planter family and himself took up the Southern planter lifestyle, prospering to the extent that he lived comfortably and supported the migration of his relatives to join him in the South, (^28) Twitchell, 103. (^29) Tunnell, Edge of the Sword, 118. (^30) Twitchell, 106-7. (^31) Tunnell, Edge of the Sword , 118. “Harvy” is the way the name is documented in Adele’s Bible and not a misspelled transcription. (^32) Twitchell, 123-126.

employing laborers and embracing cotton as his economic base. This shift from government policing agent to middle-class planter was a significant chapter in Twitchell’s life. It was logical for a carpetbagger to embrace his surroundings based on economic opportunity, but in his case Twitchell had fulfilled his Freedmen’s Bureau duties before considering speculation on land and agriculture, and strove for acceptance before settling as a planter—again Twitchell defies the typical image of the greedy carpetbagger profiting from the war-torn South. However he did not reject his popularity—in his autobiography he wrote “my success seemed to give everybody a desire to deal with me; consequently, all the opportunities for making money in the country were put in my way.” 33 Twitchell had come to trust his Southern community enough to move his family there.

Twitchell in Politics

Marshall Twitchell enjoyed a short yet powerful career in Louisiana politics, and quickly became the most influential man in his parish, but as a Republican he eventually was also a threat to racist Southern white principles. In 1867 Congress adopted the Reconstruction Acts, and placed Louisiana under the military command of General Philip Sheridan, who was to oversee the drafting of a new state constitution, reorganization of the state government, and readmission to the Union. 34 Bienville Parish for the first time in its history registered all its voters, whites and freedmen, in preparation to elect a delegate to the constitutional convention. Twitchell warned freedmen of the danger of the Democrats who would “put them back in slavery if they could,” and also some Republicans, who “would crowd them (^33) Ibid., 108. (^34) Ted Tunnell, Crucible of Reconstruction: War, Radicalism and race in Louisiana, 1862- 1877 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984), 107.

disfranchisement of thousands of unrepentant ex-Confederates at the time by General Sheridan.^39 Twitchell returned to his parish in less favor than when he had departed, owing to Southern white sentiment against the outcome of the constitutional convention and to new state laws giving additional rights to freedmen and whites. He nominated Unionists for local offices in his parish, and himself became parish judge. During this time Twitchell noted the rise of white terrorism against freedmen and Republican whites—freedmen Moses Langhorne and Asa Shehea were separately brutally murdered in Bienville Parish by night riders, who also shot Republican sheriff candidate William Honneus in an attempt to sabotage the local elections, particularly the presidential election of 1868.^40 Twitchell himself then became a target for assassination attempts, and his autobiography relates a breathtaking recount of his night rides and stealthy travel tactics to avoid picketed roads and roaming assassins as he traveled on parish duties. He even once read his own obituary in the New Orleans Republican , presumptuously telegraphed by confident assassins.^41 Terrorism, however, virtually ceased after the 1868 election, and Bienville Parish settled down with Twitchell serving his office as judge and planter. It was during this time, as noted previously, that his family joined him as he purchased Starlight Plantation on Lake Bistineau. (^39) Tunnell, Crucible of Reconstruction , 134. (^40) Twitchell, 115-7. Tunnell in Edge of the Sword , 129-130, notes the Ku Klux Klan as an umbrella term for terrorist groups, and that no “official” known KKK organization was active in Louisiana at this time. One prominent group, known as the Knights of the White Camellia, however, committed a multitude of atrocities in the upper Red River parishes, including Bienville. (^41) Twitchell, 119.

Twitchell was elected to the Louisiana senate in 1870 and took office the following year in New Orleans. There, he supported the creation of a new parish due to growing population, and quickly guided a bill through the state legislature which created Red River Parish in the summer of 1871. 42 The new parish under Republican rule opened up new offices for Republicans to control—Twitchell, his relatives, and his allies quickly filled the majority of these in the rising town of Coushatta. 43 This action took advantage of Twitchell’s position as senator and Republican power at the time, and is thus an example of a commonly criticized carpetbag practice. Twitchell, however, used his positions in the local government to benefit his black constituents, as well as to serve the white community. Filling the parish with white officers instead of freedmen satisfied white Southerners, and perhaps spared would-be freedmen officials from certain death at the hands of White Camellia riders. As school board president Twitchell opened segregated schools for whites and blacks. He also threatened not to pay white school teachers if black schools were burned, and this kept all the schools open and intact. 44 Twitchell asserted in his autobiography that under his organization and direction Red River Parish “entered upon an era of prosperity unequalled in Louisiana, if not in the whole South,” and historian Ted Tunnell affirms this: “to a remarkable degree he had made (^42) Twitchell, 127. (^43) Marshall Twitchell became president of the school board and president of the police jury (county court); his brother Homer Twitchell became parish recorder and tax collector; brother-in-law George King became chief constable, sheriff, and mayor of Coushatta; and brothers in-law Monroe Willis and Clark Holland also became officials along with many other Republicans. Tunnell, Edge of the Sword , 140-42. (^44) Ibid., 147-48.