"Rule or Ruin": Lessons from the Confederacy about the Fatal Arrogance of Secession

https://www.thedailybeast.com/from-the-confederacy-to-catalonia-the-arrogance-of-secession

When Whites Set Out to Show Black Lives Did Not Matter, and Make Their Version of America Great Again

Jack Hurst begins his excellent biography of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, a former slave dealer and a founder of the KKK: "A dozen years after the Civil War, the South overturned its outcome." 

This was accomplished through a reign of terror dedicated to winning "The Lost Cause" and putting the Negro, as the whites saw things, back in his place.

Lynchings were common occurrences and the Ku Klux Klan was notorious, but the racist militias that sprang up after the American Civil War had many names, including "rifle clubs." 

After a series of atrocities on the ground, matched by cynical politics in Washington, slavery eventually was replaced by its almost equally evil cousin, Jim Crow. 

The key to its power, for a century or more afterward, was the disenfranchisement of black voters — which is why the issue of voting rights, and efforts to obstruct them, is so critical now in a United States where the mind of the South, or the bigoted part of it in any case, seems to have infected the heart of America.

The most dramatic post-Civil War incidents were three stunning massacres: 

The so-called Memphis Riots of May 1-3, 1866, in which at least 46 black people were butchered, many black women were raped, four churches and 12 schools were burned. They were not "riots" at all, in fact. They were a massacre.

The New Orleans Massacre of July 30, 1866, that left 48 men dead and hundreds injured, almost all of them African Americans. (The excellent account linked here is, I am proud to say, from The Daily Beast.)

The April 13, 1873, Colfax Massacre in Louisiana, when more than 100 blacks were killed.

This is from an article in The Smithsonian magazine:


“The bloodiest single instance of racial carnage in the Reconstruction era, the Colfax massacre taught many lessons, including the lengths to which some opponents of Reconstruction would go to regain their accustomed authority,” historian Eric Foner writes in Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877. “Among blacks in Louisiana, the incident was long remembered as proof that in any large confrontation, they stood at a fatal disadvantage.”

While the massacre made headlines across the country and 97 members of the white mob were indicted, in the end only nine men were charged of violating the Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871, sometimes known as the Klu Klux Klan Acts, intended to guarantee the rights of freedmen under the 14th and 15th Amendments. Lawyers for the victims believed that they had a better chance of bringing the ringleaders to justice in a federal court citing conspiracy convictions, instead of charging them with murder, which would have been tried in the heavily Democratic state courts. But the plan backfired. The defendants appealed, and when the case eventually came before the Supreme Court in 1876, the justices overturned the lower courts’ convictions, ruling that the Enforcement Acts applied only to actions by the state, not by individuals, Decker writes.

This ruling essentially neutered the federal government’s ability to prosecute hate crimes committed against African-Americans. Without the threat of being tried for treason in federal court, white supremacists now only had to look for legal loopholes and corrupt officials to continue targeting their victims, Gates reports. Meanwhile, principles of segregation were beginning to work their ways into law, with Plessy v. Ferguson officially codifying “separate but equal” just 20 years later.

My New York Times Journey in May - Grant and the Unexpected Victory at Shiloh

I'll be on this New York Times Journey, talking about the roles of Grant and Sherman, Beauregard and Nathan Bedford Forrest, but also the tactical and strategic intelligence battles that played a vital, if largely neglected, role in this first truly bloody confrontation of the American Civil War. It was supposed to end the conflict. What it did in fact was give a taste of the horrors to come.

Civil War History and Contemporary Events: Essays by Christopher Dickey

After the publication in July 2015 of Our Man in Charleston, which, by pure coincidence, came just after the tragic murders at Emanuel A.M.E. Church, I wrote several essays drawing on the research for the book and suggesting what it might tell us about current events.

ARTICLE

Confederate Madness Then and Now

Jul 14, 2015 1:10 AM EDT

A British consul witnessed the cynical process that plunged the United States into civil war in the...MORE

ARTICLE

Confederates in the Blood

Jul 21, 2015 1:00 AM EDT

My new book looks at the raw truths of Southern history, but my family has been living that... MORE

ARTICLE

Cuba’s Star-Spangled Slavery

Aug 15, 2015 12:13 AM EDT

The Stars and Stripes, not the Confederate flag, once represented the sordid system of human...MORE

ARTICLE

Ken Burns’ ‘Civil War’ After Dylann Roof

Sep 6, 2015 12:01 AM EDT

The PBS documentary turns 25 this year, just as the Charleston murders and the Confederate flag... MORE

ARTICLE

America’s History of Guns and Slavery

Dec 6, 2015 8:31 AM EST

The grim history of gun violence in the United States goes way back, aided and abetted by the same... MORE

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Coming Up - "Our Man in Charleston" Events in South Carolina

SOUTH CAROLINA

Thursday, September 17th Charleston, SC - 12:00pm Blue Bicycle Luncheon Talk, Q&A, Signing Hall’s Chophouse

2:00pm Preservation Society of Charleston, Stock Signing Book & Gift Shop

6:00pm Barnes & Noble, Talk, Q&A, Signing 1812 Rittenberg Blvd 

Friday, September 18th Pawleys Island, SC 

11:00am – Discussion Moveable Feast Luncheon, Pawleys Plantation, book signing after.

2:00pm – 3:00pm Litchfield Books – Signing Only 

Saturday, September 19th Little River, SC 

11:00am – Discussion Moveable Feast Luncheon, 12:00pm - The Parson’s Table 

Watching Ken Burns' 'The Civil War' after Dylann Roof

The PBS documentary turns 25 this year, just as the Charleston murders and the Confederate flag debate freshly exposed a nation’s racial wounds—wounds the film mostly ignores.

In October 1862, the photographer Mathew Brady opened an exhibition in his New York studio called “The Dead of Antietam.” In it he presented nearly 100 images of the Civil War battlefield that saw what was, up to that time, the bloodiest confrontation ever fought on American soil. In one day, more than 20,000 men had been killed, wounded, or gone missing. 

Brady’s assistants, Alexander Gardner and James Gibson, arrived soon after the fighting was over and turned their lenses on the corpses of the Union and Confederate soldiers, capturing the grotesque reality of death in an age when people still imagined that war was a chivalrous affair. Here were the bodies piled on top of each other in “The Bloody Lane,” there were the bloated cadavers of Confederates, their pockets turned inside out by pillagers. One of the most memorable images was of a dead gray horse that looked as if it were resting, and only the caption informed the viewer that both the animal and the man riding it had been killed.

Eventually, most or all of these photographs were available for purchase as “stereo cards” which could be looked at through special lenses until the full depth and horror of the sepia images leaped out at the viewers. The cameras used by Brady’s team, you see, recorded the American Civil War in 3-D.

Filmmaker Ken Burns used a great many of those gruesome pictures from Antietam and the many other battles fought between 1861 and 1865 in his monumental 11-hour documentary film series, “The Civil War,” first broadcast 25 years ago. Now, to mark the silver anniversary of that momentous television event, PBS will rebroadcast it over the course of five consecutive nights, beginning on Labor Day, and in a never-before-seen high-definition version that should be almost as vivid as Brady’s stereo cards.

But if you saw the documentary a quarter-century ago, or indeed one year ago, you are likely to feel as I did, after binge-watching it once again over the last few days, that the experience is very different than it was in the past, and not because of the technology, but because of what happened in Charleston, South Carolina, in June of this year.... READ ON

Audio of my (rather passionate) interview on NPR's Here and Now

July 18, 1861 - A passing encounter with Lincoln before Bull Run begins

Our Man in Charleston: Britain's Secret Agent in the Civil War South will be published July 21. As it happens, that is also the 154th anniversary of the Battle of Bull Run or, if you will, First Manassas. While Consul Bunch in Charleston began laying the groundwork for secret talks with the Confederate government (which he loathed), his friend William Howard Russell, the great war correspondent for the Times of London, was in Washington D.C. examining preparations for the battle everyone knew would be coming soon in northern Virginia.

Rumors abound about fighting that hasn’t taken place. The battle has been postponed for two days. Amid the furor, a passing encounter with Lincoln crossing Pennsylvania Avenue. He’s had a special telegraph set up to communicate with the general in the field.

July 18. … At the War-Office, at the Department of State, at the Senate, and at the White House, messengers and orderlies running in and out, military aides, and civilians with anxious faces, betokened the activity and perturbation which reigned within. I met Senator Sumner radiant with joy. “We have obtained a great success ; the rebels are falling back in all directions. General Scott says we ought to be in Richmond by Saturday night.” Soon afterwards a United States officer, who had visited me in company with General Meigs, riding rapidly past, called out, “ You have heard we are whipped ; these confounded volunteers have run away.” I drove to the Capitol, where people said one could actually see the smoke of the cannon ; but, on arriving there, it was evident that the fire from some burning houses, and from wood cut down for cooking purposes, had been mistaken for tokens of the fight. …

On my way to dinner at the Legation I met the President crossing Pennsylvania Avenue, striding like a crane in a bulrush swamp among the great blocks of marble, dressed in an oddly cut suit of gray, with a felt hat on the back of his head, wiping his face with a red pocket-handkerchief. He was evidently in a hurry, on his way to the White House, where I believe a telegraph has been established in communication with McDowell s head-quarters. …

On my return to Captain Johnson s lodgings I received a note from the head-quarters of the Federals, stating that the serious action between the two armies would probably be postponed for some days. McDowell s original idea was to avoid forcing the enemy s position directly in front, which was defended by movable batteries commanding the fords over a stream called “ Bull s Run.” He therefore proposed to make a demonstration on some point near the centre of their line, and at the same time throw the mass of his force below their extreme right, so as to turn it and get possession of the Manassas Railway in their rear ; a movement which would separate him, by the by, from his own communications, and enable any General worth his salt to make a magnificent counter by marching on Washington, only 27 miles away, which he could take with the greatest ease, and leave the enemy in the rear to march 120 miles to Richmond, if they dared, or to make a hasty retreat upon the higher Potomac, and to cross into the hostile country of Maryland.

McDowell, however, has found the country on his left densely wooded and difficult. It is as new to him as it was to Braddock, when he cut his weary way through forest and swamp in this very district to reach, hundreds of miles away, the scene of his fatal repulse at Fort Du Quesne. And so, having moved his whole army, McDowell finds himself obliged to form a new plan of attack, and, prudently fearful of pushing his underdone and over-praised levies into a river in face of an enemy, is endeavoring to ascertain with what chance of success he can attack and turn their left.

July 17, 1861 - "No system, no order, no knowledge, no dash!" among Northern officers

Our Man in Charleston: Britain's Secret Agent in the Civil War South will be published July 21. As it happens, that is also the 154th anniversary of the Battle of Bull Run or, if you will, First Manassas. While Consul Bunch in Charleston began laying the groundwork for secret talks with the Confederate government (which he loathed), his friend William Howard Russell, the great war correspondent for the Times of London, was in Washington D.C. examining preparations for the battle everyone knew would be coming soon in northern Virginia.

In fact, the North is not prepared for this fight.

July 17th. I went up to General Scott s quarters, and saw some of his staff young men, some of whom knew nothing of soldiers, not even the enforcing of drill and found them reflecting, doubtless, the shades which cross the mind of the old chief, who was now seeking repose. McDowell is to advance to-morrow from Fairfax Court House, and will march some eight or ten miles to Centreville, directly in front of which, at a place called Manassas, stands the army of the Southern enemy. I look around me for a staff, and look in vain. There are a few plodding old pedants, with map and rules and compasses, who sit in small rooms and write memoranda ; and there are some ignorant and not very active young men, who loiter about the head-quarters halls, and strut up the street with brass spurs on their heels and kepis raked over their eyes as though they were soldiers, but I see no system, no order, no knowledge, no dash !

July 6, 1861 - W.H. Russell meets Gen. McDowell, who'll command Union forces at Bull Run

War correspondent W. H. Russell, a key contact for Our Man in Charleston, reporting from Washington, D.C.

July 6th. I breakfasted with Mr. Bigelow this morning, to meet General McDowell, who commands the army of the Potomac, now so soon to move. He came in without an aide de camp, and on foot, from his quarters in the city. He is a man about forty years of age, square and powerfully built, but with rather a stout and clumsy figure and limbs, a good head covered with close-cut thick dark hair, small light-blue eyes, short nose, large cheeks and jaw, relieved by an iron-gray tuft somewhat of the French type, and affecting in dress the style of our gallant allies. His manner is frank, simple, and agree able, and he did not hesitate to speak with great openness of the difficulties he had to contend with, and the imperfection of all the arrangements of the army.

As an officer of the regular army he has a thorough contempt for what he calls  "political generals," the men who use their influence with President and Congress to obtain military rank, which in time of war places them before the public in the front of events, and gives them an appearance of leading in the greatest of all political movements. Nor is General McDowell enamored of volunteers, for he served in Mexico, and has from what he saw there formed 

As the President pulled the halyards and the flag floated aloft, a branch of a tree caught the bunting and tore it, so that a number of the stars and stripes were detached and hung dangling beneath the rest of the flag, half detached from the staff.

rather an unfavorable opinion of their capabilities in the field. He is inclined, however, to hold the Southern troops in too little respect ; and he told me that the volunteers from the Slave States, who entered the field full of exultation and boastings, did not make good their words, and that they suffered especially from sickness and disease, in consequence of their disorderly habits and dissipation. His regard for old associations was evinced in many questions he asked me about Beauregard, with whom he had been a student at West Point, where the Confederate commander was noted for his studious and reserved habits, and his excellence in feats of strength and athletic exercises.

As proof of the low standard established in his army, he mentioned that some officers of considerable rank were more than suspected of selling rations, and of illicit connections with sutlers for purposes of pecuniary advantage. The General walked back with me as far as my lodgings, and I observed that not one of the many soldiers he passed in the streets saluted him, though his rank was indicated by his velvet collar and cuffs, and a gold star on the shoulder strap.

Having written some letters, I walked out with Captain Johnson and one of the attaches of the British Legation, to the lawn at the back of the White House, and listened to the excellent band of the United States Marines, playing on a kind of dais under the large flag recently hoisted by the President himself, in the garden. The occasion was marked by rather an ominous event. As the President pulled the halyards and the flag floated aloft, a branch of a tree caught the bunting and tore it, so that a number of the stars and stripes were detached and hung dangling beneath the rest of the flag, half detached from the staff.

Engraving of Gen. McDowell from "Harper's Weekly" courtesy of The American Library in Paris