AFTER THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES

 

By SENATOR W. B. ROBERTS

 

 

 

Any Southerner whose ancestor was a soldier of the American Revolution has a proud heritage, but even prouder is his whose forbear followed R. E. Lee, rode with Forrest, was wounded at Shiloh, or fought at Gettysburg. Beyond that, one whose parent was a trusted member of the Ku Klux Klan during the early days of Reconstruction in the central South may be proud of his ancestry.

 

Only those who lived through those dark days can know of the horror of having one's slaves become his rulers. A proud people were governed by their servants and remnants of the Union Army, reinforced by a horde of office-seekers who came to prey upon a fallen foe like jackals and buzzards.

 

The end of the war in 1865 left the South prostrate financially and almost hopeless of the future. It is hardly possible to vision conditions as they existed at that time or even to trace the heroic efforts of our people to care for their families and restore their civil government. Our lands had grown up in bushes, our houses were burned or dilapidated beyond repair, we were without money, and we had no friends in Washington. Federal soldiers were at the election places, our women were being forced off the sidewalks by the insolent blacks, and despair was everywhere. It was in these conditions that under the secret leadership of General Bedford Forrest the Ku Klux Klan was organized for the protection of the defenseless, the preservation of law and order, and the traditions of the South. Their meeting places were secret and none but brave men, willing to risk their lives, were admitted to secret membership. I remember, as a small boy, my mother arousing me from my sleep to come to the window to see the parade of the Ku Klux Klan on some errand of mercy or, perchance, of vengeance upon some miscreant who had violated the traditions of our people. Few in number, their work was of necessity done in secret. I remember knowing, even as a boy, that if work was to be done in a town or near a town, clansmen from a neighboring town would quickly, after night, enter the town, do their work during church hours, and then quickly disappear; while all clansmen in the neighborhood were conspicuous in the church, loudly singing hymns and listening to a long sermon, with a perfect alibi.

 

There can be little doubt that there would have been many more outrages upon our people in those dark days had it not been for the restraining influence of the clansmen upon the newly enfranchised blacks, inspired to devilment by vicious white interlopers bent on keeping the defeated Southerners under the existing rule, in order that their system of plunder might be perpetuated as long as possible. With these conditions confronting them, our people determined to free themselves of the existing government of Negroes and Carpetbaggers.

 


 In 1875, the white people of the state, under the leadership of George, Walthall, Clark, Lowry, Barksdale, and others, rid the state of Negro and carpetbag officials; but it was fifteen years later before the last of them retired from office in Bolivar County. As late as 1882, the negro population of Bolivar County was so dense that the 250 white voters in the county were confronted with over four thousand negro voters; and all kinds of trades and so-called frauds were resorted to, to rid the country of this irksome condition. The state had a negro United States Senator in Washington, elected from Rosedale in Bolivar County, B. K. Bruce, by name; a negro Congressman, John R. Lynch, who, by the way, was living in Chicago a year ago when the writer enjoyed an hour's conversation with him about people of fifty years ago. Both Bruce and Lynch were able men, fairly represented the people electing them, and exerted a good influence among their race; and their influence, together with that of Isaiah Montgomery, J. H. Bufford, George Gayles, and others of the colored race, went far in creating amity among the people of the county.

 

 In 1882 and 1883 the older men called me into conference with them and in deep earnestness explained to me that to retain even a show of white supremacy, which they regarded as necessary, it- was my duty as a young lawyer and citizen to use my brains and skill to devise ways of preventing negro control by any means in my power. And so all of us worked toward that end. I regret that space and time permit me to mention only a few of the ludicrous occurrences in our efforts to control the elections.

 

On one occasion Congress had passed a law providing that the Federal judge should appoint two inspectors at each box to guarantee a fair election of Congressmen. Two inspectors at one of our large boxes were appointed, and at the close of the election, when a box had been prepared with which to change the result of the election, the two negro inspectors positively refused to leave the room even for supper. Under this stress, one of the white managers, who was a doctor, told them this was one time when the colored and white folks would eat together; and he went out and returned presently with a number of boxes of sardines and crackers. He had, with a hypodermic needle, injected croton oil, or some other violent drug, into the two boxes handed the Negroes. In a very few minutes the Negroes were sick and had to leave hurriedly, and the box showed at the count a big majority for the Democrats.

 

At the box at Bolivar where I lived at the time, there were five hundred negro voters and only about twenty-five white voters. One can imagine the difficulty of making that box show a Democratic majority. One favorite scheme was to mix bills of lading at the river and ship by mistake a ballot box to St. Louis while a coil of rope or bale of cotton was sent to the county site to be counted; or the ballot box might, accidentally, be


dropped out of the window of a train; in fact, any trick might be employed that seemed to promise a chance of success.

 

The present generation can hardly realize that even up to 1895 there were numerous negro officers in Bolivar County. We used what was known as the fusion system, and that was to agree for the Negroes to have some of the offices, and the whites, of course, the best ones. While Bolivar County had two negro sheriffs, B. K. Bruce and J. E. Ousley, we never had any but white men for chancery clerk. At one time all the officers were black except the chancery clerk. The writer has appeared in court as a lawyer with all the court officials, the twelve men on the jury, and the lawyers on the other side, as well as all witnesses, being black. In fact this condition existed in the county until the constitutional convention of 1890 disfranchised the Negroes by legal means.

 

Almost every justice of the peace of the county was a Negro, many of them very illiterate and lacking in sufficient intelligence for their position. Let it be said to their credit, however, that they never, at any time, showed any prejudice against white men in their administration of justice; and, so far as the writer can remember, they administered justice as justly and fairly as their limited ability permitted.

 

As a fair indication of conditions of the time, I recall that a newly elected negro justice came to a lawyer near him, stated that he wanted the lawyer to help him with his docket and judgments, and told the lawyer that he expected always to decide the lawyer's cases in his favor, but he wanted the lawyer "always to read the claw in the law upon which it is to base my decision." Sufficient to say the lawyer always cited the "claw" and marked it, and the justice faithfully carried out the agreement during his terms of office.

 

In those days our districts were divided by lines running east and west. The river was known as the "front," and it was. the custom of all justices to hold their courts at the levee, usually in the back of a saloon or on a porch; or, if the weather was warm, in the shade of a tree. It was the custom of the jury after hearing the evidence and arguments to proceed over the levee to consider their verdict. This recalls an amusing case, in which the writer was one of the lawyers, involving a Texas pony. One of the litigants was a big black preacher and the other a "likely looking" yellow girl, all bedecked with red ribbons and rather striking clothing. After hearing the argument, the jury retired over the levee as usual and quickly returned a verdict in the following words: "We, the jury, finds that Annie must have the horse with all our hearts."

 

In 1886, Dr. H. L. Sutherland, a real gentleman of the old school, was the mayor of the town of Bolivar, where I then resided. He was


trying a case about a pair of smoothing irons used by washerwomen. A negro lawyer by the name of Rufe Richardson from Rosedale was opposing counsel to me, and during the argument, Richardson, addressing himself to the court, exclaimed, "Have I come down here all the way from Rosedale to cast my pearls before swine!" Immediately the hand of the court began moving towards one of the irons lying on the table, and the lawyer saw the movement just in time to get out the door as the smoothing iron hurled by the court hit the door casing.

 

In the eighties it was the custom of the circuit judge to hold his courts first at old Austin on the river, the county site of Tunica County, then at Friars Point, then Rosedale, then Greenville, and on down to Mayersville. A number of lawyers went from court to court; and, during court, accommodations for visitors were limited, many of the negro litigants and witnesses sleeping in the courtroom, with several poker games in continuous session in the saloons adjacent. As facilities were limited, it was the custom to have a poker game in the grand jury room where there were a table and chairs; and I remember well hearing the negro deputy sheriff going to a poker game one morning and announcing, "Gents, the court am in session upstairs." This meant for the game to suspend and the grand jury to resume its sessions. Of the negro lawyers then in practice in the courts I can remember the names of but three, Rufus Richardson at Rosedale, one named Harris at Greenville, and A. B. Grimes at Mound Landing; the latter, I believe, is still living in the lower end of the county.

 

It was during one of these court poker games about 1883 that occurred an incident that has come to be used nationally as a joke ofttimes told and even now is worth repeating. A game was going on over a saloon in Rosedale known as the "Sky Parlor," and the luck was all going to one man who had only one eye. After a heavy loss, one of the players who had stood the losses steadily finally drew a big pistol from his hip pocket, laid it on the table by him and announced, "This game may be straight, but I want to say that if the luck don't change soon, I am going to shoot somebody's other eye out." It changed!

 

In the eighties there were twenty-three lawyers in the county, all of course living at towns along the river. A majority of them lived in towns away from the county site, Rosedale.

 

The writer, a young lawyer during this period, resided at Bolivar and practiced law somewhat like a doctor practices medicine in that he rode horseback from court to court. He carried with him in a pair of saddle bags just a code of state laws and oftentimes a Bible from which he frequently quoted with good effect to the negro juries before whom he appeared in behalf of clients.

 

In those days we traveled either on horseback or by steamboat. My business frequently called me to Rosedale from Bolivar, my home twenty miles distant, and in the spring when the river was high, it was so difficult to make the trip on horseback that I frequently took a steamboat,


and if it was night, got off the boat at Terrene, where there was a wharfboat with rooms for travelers, and walked four miles down to Rosedale the next morning.

 

However, those were happy days after all; our people were a hospitable lot of folks who shared each other's troubles and burdens: and it was quite the custom for a family to visit another family for even weeks at a time. When over-crowded, we thought nothing of sleeping on the floor or a store counter. We attended dances, arriving before dark and dancing until daylight so that we could see how to get home, as there were few roads, and they were almost, impassable in the winter. Our people cared little for money or position or fine clothes (our girls made their own clothes) and all we wanted was a comfortable place to live without ostentation, and a good horse and buggy.

 

The people of whom I write and who were the controlling influence in the county have nearly all passed to their final sleep; the cane has given way to the tractor and automobile; "the finger has writ and having writ has passed on," and just a memory is now all the few of us have left of those dark days of Reconstruction, as well as the happy days that succeeded them.

 

 

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