Rearing Wolves to Our Own Destruction: Slavery in Richmond Virginia, 1782–1865 (44 page)

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Authors: Midori Takagi

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BOOK: Rearing Wolves to Our Own Destruction: Slavery in Richmond Virginia, 1782–1865
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out and living apart threatened to replace the paternalistic bond between slave and master with one based only on market relations. Cash payments and other financial incentives used to increase production raised expectations among factory slaves and helped them see the value of their labor. In fact, nearly all efforts to increase profits and maximize production served to strengthen slave resistance. Taking advantage of urban industrial conditions, bond men and women were able to gain a degree of control over their labor and free time, transform privileges into "rights," sharpen bargaining skills, and accumulate funds for goods or self-purchase. Furthermore, slave resistance both strengthened and drew strength from a strong community that helped educate and politicize residents and aided their efforts to become self-reliant and self-sufficient. Through strong kinship networks, segregated neighborhoods, separate churches, and secret fraternal and financial societies, slave residents maintained their own values, beliefs, and ideas and to some degree defied efforts by owners, employers, and local authorities to control their lives. The successful struggle for a separate Baptist church demonstrated slaves' determination to escape white authority. Once established, the African Baptist Church became a vehicle for slave defiance by giving emotional and financial support to members and by becoming the judicial center of the community. In the church "court," legally silenced groups had a voice and were recognized as equal citizens.
Still, urban industrial conditions, lax discipline, and strong slave resistance did not amount to a step toward freedom, nor was the line between slavery and freedom ever blurred. Though the conditions of city slave life differed greatly from those in the countryside, the oppression of slavery was always present; no urban industrial slave was shielded from the threat of being separated from his or her family, sold farther south, or beaten by an owner. But urban industrial working and living conditions did allow the Richmond slave community to severely test the boundaries of its bondage.
 
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Six
The War Years, 1861-1865
During the spring of 1861, Richmond underwent a series of rapid, sweeping changes that dramatically and irreversibly affected the character of the city, its society, and its slave system. During the early months of the new year, Richmond dissolved its bonds with the Union, established an alliance with the Confederate States of America, and became the capital of the newly established Confederate government. While some ardent secessionists such as John Moncure Daniel, the editor of the
Richmond Examiner
had long anticipated these events, most Richmonders were taken aback as the changes engulfed them during a breathtaking two-month span. Just before the firing on Fort Sumter on April 12, Richmond was largely a pro-Union city with only a few vocal residents calling for secession.
1
Even after the inauguration of Lincoln which seemed to cast a dark shadow over the city and the secession of South Carolina, members of Richmond's ruling elite continued to call for sensible thinking and less impulsive action. Virginia's Governor John Letcher, a strong Unionist, exemplified this wait and see attitude through his many efforts to calm city and state residents. In several instances Letcher encouraged Richmonders to spend a day fasting and praying, hoping that the absence of rich foods and ardent spirits, combined with pious thoughts, might diminish the emotional furor. The governor, along with the state convention's moderate majority, endorsed a Washington "Peace Conference" between federal and Virginia state delegates, hoping for an eleventh-hour sectional compromise.
2
Letcher's
 
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efforts proved futile, however, as the events of Fort Sumter unfolded. When news of the incident reached the city, white Richmonders took to the streets claiming the surrender of the fort by Federal troops as the first Southern victory. Thousands of people filled the streets and gathered at the Capitol to hear speeches by local politicians on the significance of this victory. To celebrate, a few hardy Richmonders climbed to the top of the Capitol, tore down the United States stripes and raised the Confederate flag. Although Virginia was still officially a part of the Union, the crowds that cheered the new flag seemed to believe otherwise. It appeared only Letcher remembered that the state had not yet seceded; he quietly had the flag removed and the Virginia state colors placed in its stead.
3
Letcher's action did little to dampen the pro-secessionist spirit as Richmonders continued to mill through the streets as if the entire city were an open-air market. Confederate flags acted like beacons calling forth crowds for more speeches and discussion over the next few days. One local raised the flag in front of his home on Church Hill and immediately a horde assembled at his doorstep eager for more talk.
4
Within five days talk became action. On April 17 the Virginia State Convention, which had been in session for two months, quickly became the Virginia Secession Convention and voted 88 to 55 to dissolve the state's ties to the Union.
5
Virginia voters, however, were to be the ultimate arbiters of the state's future. On May 17 voters were to decide by referendum whether the state should secede. But Jefferson Davis, president of the newly formed Southern Confederacy, did not want to risk either Virginia not seceding or Federal troops storming Richmond. Two days after the state convention vote, he dispatched Vice-President Alexander Stephens to Richmond to create a military alliance between Virginia and the Confederacy.
6
Davis believed such an alliance would both protect Richmond from Federal invasion and bring the city into the Confederacy without a voter referendum. He was right. State voters appeared to welcome the alliance and were largely unconcerned by the lack of legal procedure. By April 27 Richmond's fate became inextricably tied to that of the Confederacy as representatives of Virginia took their seats in the Confederate Congress.
Virginia contributed more than its elite sons to the new government; it also gave one of its illustrious cities Richmond to the cause. During the month of May, at the invitation of the Virginia Secession Convention, President Davis, his cabinet, and the various departments of the Confederacy moved from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond.
7
Although Montgomery's location afforded better military protection, Davis was
 
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intent on protecting the Richmond's war industries, such as the Tredegar Iron Works.
8
Rapidly the city transformed from the capital of Virginia into the capital of the Confederacy and command post for the Southern military forces. Thousands of army personnel, newly elected Confederate congressmen, and their families poured into the city, filling up hotels and boardinghouses and greatly stimulating local businesses including "restaurants, bars and bawdy houses." It had taken Richmond nearly eighty years to reach a population of 38,000, but it took only a few weeks of war to double or triple that number. The most noticeable portion of the city's new residents were the "ten to fifteen thousand troops" dressed in uniforms ranging from the "butternut of the Georgia private" to the red scarlet pants, "broad blue sash, white gaiters, a low-cut blue shirt . . . and a jaunty fez" of the Zouaves, New Orleans Tigers.
9
With the presence of the soldiers and their war departments, the city had become, in the words of one observer, "one great camp.''
10
Because Richmond possessed industries vital to the Southern military and because of the capital's proximity to enemy lines, efforts to secure the city began almost immediately. Richmond's city council and the Virginia General Assembly quickly appropriated funds to build fortifications, garrison the city, and stockpile arms.
11
Although city and county officials had toyed with the idea of building up its defenses earlier in the year, it appears little had been accomplished before the events of April and May. In fact, it was not until the Confederate capital relocated and fears of a Northern invasion mounted that Richmond made significant progress in fortifying the city defenses. The Northern battle cry "On to Richmond" proved to be a great incentive to the Virginian corps of engineers and other military and civilian personnel in charge of protecting the city.
12
Plans for city defenses were straightforward: build batteries on the outskirts of the city to repel land forces and fortifications along the bluffs of the James River to fire on Federal gunboats. Initially the Virginia and Confederate governments employed several hundred white men from the local military units to accomplish these and other war-related tasks.
13
But it soon became clear that far more workers were needed. To supplement its military workforce, the Confederate government turned to city and county residents. Over the next four years, the Confederate and Virginia state governments would become increasingly dependent on the civilian population for their labor. The armory, for example, hired as many as 300 white women and girls to make pistol and rifle cartridges, and other ammunition for the war.
14
Besides the white male population who either volunteered or were conscripted, however, the city residents
 
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most affected by the war were Richmond's black residents. Even before the Battle of Manassas in July 1861, local and military authorities strongly urged free black residents to "enroll their names as operatives on the fortifications." In return, according to the local
Dispatch,
"at the conclusion of each day's work [the laborers] could come to the city if they saw fit. If they answered promptly to the roll-call, they would get fed and paid; if they did not, they would get something else." The General Assembly acts of July 1861 and February 1862 ensured that the "something else" was no idle threat. Free black males between eighteen and fifty who did not enroll would be fined, jailed, and placed on the fortifications' workforce in chains, if necessary.
15
The Confederate cause affected city and county slave workers in even greater numbers. Thousands of slave residents performed many, if not most, of the noncombatant tasks throughout the four years. Initially many became involved in the war effort through the hiring-out system. Later, impressment laws kept them working. Like their predecessors during the American Revolution, slave workers became full-time employees of the government through the newly created Quartermaster Departments, commissaries, and various wartime projects and industries. Nearly 100 slaves manned the canalboats, bateaux, steamers, and towing barges bringing goods to Richmond for the army. More than 280 slaves worked as teamsters for the Confederate warehouses. The state-run saltworks hired 110 slaves workers and mechanics experienced in saltmaking, blacksmithing, and carpentry, as well as a handful of women "to make up clothing for the hands employed in the service of the state and to make the sacks necessary to pack salt in." Slave workers also manned local hospitals as attendants, ambulance drivers, cooks, and washers. General Hospital Number 8, for example, hired seventy-one slave workers between 1862 and 1863, most as laundresses, cooks, and nurses. Records for other army hospitals indicate equally high numbers of slave employees in similar occupations.
16
While most noncombatant workers toiled in relative safety behind the battle lines, a number were in close proximity to the fighting, and more than a few ended up among the casualties. These were the hundreds of cooks, washers, nurses, personal servants, teamsters, and general laborers who either were servants of the officers or were attached to a unit. Commissioned officers, for example, often took their slave servants with them to battle or hired a personal valet to tend to their needs while in camp. Erasmus, nicknamed "Colonel," spent two years as a hired hand at the front lines cleaning the uniforms and boots, shaving, and securing supplies for two officers, Major McClellan and Colonel Chaburnum.
 
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Since Erasmus had no choice but to follow his employers to each new camp, dodging bullets became a part of his job description.
17
Another portion of the slave community participated in the war effort but in the factory setting. The number of industrial slave employees increased as factories were refitted for military production. The Manchester Cotton and Wool Manufacturing Company, which had not employed slaves since the 1840s, suddenly hired 122 slaves in 1863 to make the cloth for uniforms and blankets. That same year Virginia Central Railroad increased its holdings of hired slave hands from 224 to 322.
18
Joseph R. Anderson steadily increased the number of slave employees at Tredegar Iron Works over the war years as well. In 1860 there were 80 slave ironworkers; by 1862 there were 175, and by 1864 more than 200.
19
In spite of the large numbers of hired slave workers and a relatively modest number of free black recruits, the Confederate government still needed more workers. As a result, the Confederacy began to commandeer slaves from nearby farms and plantations to dig trenches in key areas.
20
This proved to be an inefficient method of securing labor, however, because slave owners often refused to relinquish their field hands or demanded their slaves be returned almost immediately in order to continue farming activities. Evidence of slave owners' unhappiness with these temporary impressments is clear in this 1861 petition from Shenandoah Valley residents to Governor Letcher: "As you are advised, there are only 443 slaves in this county over twelve years of age of both sexes, and only about 150 working negro men. The labor is performed in a great measure by those who are in the militia, and if they be continued in service at this critical time, when they should be employed in preparing the land for a fall crop this vast productive agricultural region, instead of being the Egyptian granary whence our armies may be fed in the coming year, will scarcely support our own population in the aggregate."
21
Resistance from planters and a continuing shortage of laborers for the war effort prompted the Virginia assembly to enact more formal measures to guarantee a steady supply of workers. In February 1862 the assembly passed the first impressment law, requiring all free black males between eighteen and fifty to register and be prepared to enter noncombatant service for 180 days. Even this, however, failed to raise an adequate number of workers. So in the following fall the assembly made provisions to force slave laborers into service. On October 3, 1862, the state legislature ordered a census of slave males between eighteen and forty-five, from whom the Confederate government would select workers. Under the new law no more than 10,000 slave males (or 5 percent

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