Heaven and Hell (29 page)

when freedmen journey for miles to Charleston and other centers, hoping the Bureau will distribute clothes, shoes, rations of corn.

The hopeful return empty-handed if the officer in charge is short of supplies, or considers the crowd too large or "unworthy."

Three classes of people travel on draw day, the first composed mostly of elderly colored men too feeble to work and support themselves. Uncle Katanga is a good example from close by; he hobbles on two canes and is something of a figure because he can boast that he was born in Africa. A proud man, but he is starving. Black women with children, their men gone for whatever reason, form the second group. The third, the ones responsible for some Bureau officers saying "no" so often, are the kind called

"low-downs" or "poor buckras"--whites, usually trashy, inevitably embittered about emancipation of the Negro, and too worthless or lazy to find honest ways to support themselves. We have one such tribe in the district, a sorry lot named Jolly. I have seen their ragged tents and campfires in the woods near Summerton a few times when desperate necessity has driven me-to Gettys's store . . .

Captain Jack Jolly and his family settled in a grove of live oaks near the Dixie Store. The family consisted of its patriarch, young Jack, and his two married brothers, twenty and twenty-one years old but already greatly experienced in the ways of surviving without working.

The wife of the older had been a whore in Macon; the wife of the
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younger, fifteen years older than her husband, came from Bohemia, couldn't speak English, and had arms as massive as a coal miner's.

Three dirt-caked infants lived with the Jollys--none of the adults was quite sure which man had fathered which youngster--and several wild dogs hung around their trash-strewn encampment.

Their tents were made of blankets stolen at gunpoint from the homes of freedmen. They also owned a mule and mule cart gotten the same way. Supplies were obtained by the simple expedient of a trip to Gettys's store.

On his way there in the dim March twilight, Captain Jolly stepped aside and tipped his old campaign hat as a handsome, big-breasted woman driving a wagon went by, heading in the direction of Charleston.

Much taken with the tightness of the woman's dress, Jolly bowed toward the wagon's tailgate and called out, inviting her in explicit language to stop and let him pleasure her. The woman flung him a look A Winter Count 185

and drove on. Jolly was amused by her spunk, infuriated by the rejection.

At

Gettys's store, he found what he wanted, a shiny new oil lantern.

"This suits me," he said, starting out.

"Jolly, you're going to send me to bankruptcy," Randall Gettys exclaimed. "The price is four dollars."

"Not to me." He drew one of his Leech and Rigdon revolvers.

"Ain't that so?"

Gettys darted behind the counter. He'd been a fool to invite Jolly and his tatty kinfolk to settle along the Ashley. The man was as dangerous as a rabid dog, and about as sensible. He and his family survived by thieving or taking corn rations on draw day in Charleston. One of the women told fortunes, and the Bohemian lady sold herself, he'd heard.

"All right," Gettys said, sweat steaming his spectacles. "But I'm keeping an account, because my friend Des and I, we're going to want you to do that little service we discussed."

Jolly grinned, showing brown stumps of teeth. "Wish you'd say when. I'm gettin' impatient. Hell, I don't even know who I'm s'posed to get rid of.''

"She was just here, driving her wagon. Maybe you passed her on the road."

"That handsome black-haired woman? Why, my God, Gettys, I'll
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do her for free, no pay expected. Provided you let me have an hour with her, private, before I blow out her lamps."

Gettys mopped his damp face with the inevitable pocket handkerchief.

"Des insists we wait for a pretext. A good, safe one. We don't want those infernal Bureau soldiers investigating and going to Washington to testify, the way they're doing with Tom's murder."

"I don't know a damn thing about no murder," Jolly said, no longer smiling. "If you bring it up once more, acting like I do, your lamps will go out prompt."

He scratched his crotch. "As to the other matter, you all just let me know. I'll do it clean, without a trace. And have a fine time while I'm at it."

Andrew J. used his veto power to reject what Congress calls its ' 'civil rights act." As I understand it, the act gives freedmen equal access to the law and allows federal courts to hear cases of interference with all such rights. Read some of the President's objections in a Courier. He sounds as fierce about the sanctity of

"states' rights" as Jas. Huntoon before the rebellion. . . .

k^|;

186 HEAVEN AND HELL

And still the roads are crowded. Men and women, sold away from spouses years ago, rove the state in hopes of finding a loved one. Sundered families seek reunions with brothers, sisters, cousins.

The black river flows day and night.

It flooded M. R. in an unexpected and tragic way. A man named Foote appeared yesterday. He, not Nemo, is Cassandra s husband. Foote was sold to Squire Revelle, of Greenville, in '58, and Cassandra gave up hope of ever seeing him again.

But her little boy is Nemo's. When Foote discovered this, he drew a knife and tried to slash her. Andy threw him down and summoned me. I told them to settle it peaceably. This morning, Nemo is gone, Foote has established himself, and Cassandra is wretchedly upset. Is there no end to the misery caused by "the peculiar institution"?

April, 1866. History made in Washington, the papers say. President
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J.'s veto of the rights bill overridden by the Congress. Never before has major legislation been passed in this way, or a sitting President thus humiliated.

. . . We are reaping the harvest of white against black. Town of Memphis devastated by three days of rioting touched off by confrontations between federal troops--colored men--and angry white

police. At least 40 dead, many more injured, and riot not yet under control. . . .

. . . Rioting over at last. Am sure the Committee of 15 will investigate. Col. Munro gone to Washington with a local black man to testify before the committee. . . .

"I know this is difficult for you," Thaddeus Stevens said. "Please collect yourself and continue only when you're completely ready."

Representative Elihu Washburne of Illinois groaned to protest Stevens's emotional tone. The congressman from Pennsylvania could manipulate a hearing until it began to resemble a tear-laden melodrama, which was exactly what he was doing with the poorly dressed black man seated at the table facing the committee members. Sitting behind the committee in one of the chairs for observers, Senator Sam Stout made a note to speak to the leadership about Washburne's unseemly display.

The witness wiped his cheeks with pale palms and finally struggled on with his testimony:

"Ain't much more to tell, sirs. My little brother Tom, he said no n

A Winter Count 187

to Mr. Woodville's contrack. He was scared when he done it, but down in Charleston, Colonel Munro, he tol' him it was a bad contrack. The contrack say Tom mustn't ever go off the farm without old Woodville sayin' he could. And he got to be respeckful an' polite all the time or he get no pay. An' he couldn't keep dogs--Tom loved to hunt. He kep' two fine hounds."

A heavy despair pressed down on Stout as he listened. Witness after witness had reported on outrageous work contracts drawn up by Southern farmers who still wanted to be called master. Stout put some of the blame on ignorance, promoted by the South's insularity. Men such as the one who had tried to contract with the deceased had grown
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up with an agricultural system based on intimidation, fear, and bondage.

They probably couldn't imagine any other kind. So they kept writing these damned sinful contracts.

The witness was watching Stevens. "Go on, sir, if you're able,"

Stevens prompted gently.

"Well, like I say, the Colonel, he tol' Tom not to sign the contrack.

So next day Tom went back and tol' old Mr. Woodville. Tom come over to take supper that night, which was the last time I saw him.

He said Woodville got pretty mad with him. Two days later they found Tom lyin' -- " the voice of the witness broke--"lyin' dead."

From the adjacent chair, Orpha Munro put his arm around the weeping black man. To the clerk Stevens said, "Let the record clearly show that the murder occurred as a consequence of the man Tom's refusal to work under terms amounting to slavery."

"I must beg the pardon of my colleague." Snappish, Senator Reverdy Johnson of Maryland waved his pen. "I am in sympathy with this gentleman's loss. But he has brought forth no evidence to demonstrate conclusively a relationship between the unfortunate slaying and the events preceding it."

Stout glared at the Democrat, a politician of distinguished background who was nevertheless proving an obstructionist on the committee.

Stevens too looked choleric. "Do you wish the record to so state, Senator?"

"I do, sir."

"Let it be done," Stevens said.

"I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania," Johnson said, satisfied and not the least grateful.

No matter, Stout thought, controlling his anger. He and Stevens and the core group of Republican idealists in the Congress were very happy with the bulk of the testimony the committee had received. Black witnesses and Bureau officers from state after state had told stories of 188 HEAVEN AND HELL

physical and legal abuse of freedmen--while the President kept asserting that Congress had no right to intervene.

But the Tennessee tailor was on the run, while the Republican cause was blessed by accidents like the Memphis rioting. Further, to counter a possible court decision declaring the civil rights bill unconstitutional,
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there was already in preparation a Fourteenth Amendment, which would re-state the bill's essential guarantees: full citizenship for all blacks and denial of representation to any state withholding the franchise from eligible males over twenty-one.

The Joint Committee on Reconstruction would soon be ready to write its report, which no doubt would focus on the South's effort to abridge freedom by illegal means, especially by enforcement of the Black Codes. The report would offer massive evidence of this activity and once again affirm the supremacy of the Congress in setting matters right.

And if that didn't finish Johnson with the public, Stout and his fellow Radicals would write a second freedmen's bill to extend the Bureau's life. Johnson would veto it again, and be overridden again. Freedom's army was on the march, and Sam Stout was one of its commanding officers.

The elderly witness had once more broken down. He sobbed into his hands despite Munro's efforts to calm him. Stevens left the table.

Stout rose. He and Stevens exchanged glances as the latter moved down to put a sympathetic hand on the shoulder of the witness.

Senator Johnson showed disapproval of Stevens's behavior. Reporters in the back of the hearing room scribbled swiftly. Good, Stout thought as he slipped to the door. Tomorrow morning they could look forward to some favorable copy in friendly papers, commending Stevens, and hence all Republicans, for continuing to comfort the oppressed.

July,

1866. More rioting. New Orleans this time. Courier says at least 200 dead.

Andrew J. vetoed bill to continue Freedmen's Bureau. They say the veto will not stand, and so J. will seek a means to retaliate.

.

. . He has found it. J. denounced the Fourteenth Amendment, urging our state and all of Dixie not to ratify it. Tennessee immediately ratified it, and Gov. Brownlow--the "Parson"--notified Washington with the words, "Give my respects to the dead dog in the White House."

What next?

A Winter Count

189

KILLING OF A NEGRO

BY GEN. FORREST.

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A letter from Sunflower County,

Miss., says a negro employed on Gen.

Forrest's plantation, while assaulting

his (the negro's) sick wife yesterday,

was remonstrated with by forrest.

The negro drew a knife and attempted

to kill forrest who, after receiving

a wound in the hand, seized

an axe and killed the negro. Gen.

forrest then gave himself up to the

Sheriff. The negroes on the plantation

justify the homicide. . . .

20

On the winter count, Wooden Foot painted the Jackson Trading Company inside a tipi under a tiny Buffalo Hat. Outside he added two stick figures waving hatchets and a third with stick hands covering the fork of his stick legs. Whenever Boy saw that part of the picture he put his hands over his mouth, Indian fashion, and giggled.

As the snowdrifts began to melt, a white visitor rode into the Cheyenne village where the traders had wintered. Broad smiles and shouting greeted him. Mothers raised their babes to touch the black cassock visible under a buffalo robe. Wooden Foot presented Charles to the weathered, gray-haired Jesuit missionary.

Father Pierre-Jean DeSmet was sixty-five now, a legendary figure.

Born in Belgium, he'd emigrated to America as a young man. In 1823, he'd left the Catholic novitiate near St. Louis to begin his remarkable career on the Plains. He not only proselytized the Indians, he also became their partisan. Some of his journeys took him as far as the Willamette Valley. To the Sioux, the Blackfeet, the Cheyennes, and other tribes he was "Blackrobe," a confessor, a mediator, a spokesman in councils of the white men, a friend.

Over the evening fire, DeSmet displayed good humor and a broad knowledge of Indian affairs. There was no doubt of his loyalty:

"Mr. Main, I say to you that if the Indians sin against the whites, it is only because the whites have greatly sinned against them. If they become angry, it is because the whites provoked them. I accept no other
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explanation. Only when Washington abandons truculence as an official policy will peace prevail on these plains."