Johnson’s second proclamation directly involved North Carolina. In it Johnson named a provisional governor for North Carolina and ordered him to call a convention to organize a new state constitution. Only those men who had been eligible to vote before the state seceded and who had taken the loyalty oath would be allowed to elect the delegates to the convention. In other words, Johnson was excluding blacks from the voting process. It was a major blow for those who had hoped Johnson would support black suffrage, as Lincoln had in the weeks before he died. Johnson would soon extend the same requirements for rejoining the Union to all other Confederate states.
Johnson’s proclamations for South Carolina came on June 30 and announced that Benjamin F. Perry, a Unionist as well as a racist, was to be the provisional governor.6 “The African has been, in all ages, a savage or a slave,” Perry said. “God created him inferior to the white man in form, color, and intellect, and no legislation or culture can make him his equal.”7
When Johnson revealed his Reconstruction plan, Congress was in recess and would not reconvene until early December. The timing allowed Johnson to push through his policies unopposed.
As Smalls witnessed these national developments, he also watched in frustration as South Carolina’s Sea Islands were dramatically transformed for a second time. That spring many Union troops were being sent to Charleston from Beaufort and Hilton Head, stripping the former slaves of the protection they offered. And as the soldiers were leaving, former white residents were returning and trying to reclaim their homes and other property, just as they were in Charleston.8
For Smalls and all African Americans, locally and nationally, the future suddenly looked much more ominous than it had before Lincoln’s assassination.
* * *
When many of the former white residents of the Sea Islands returned, they were surprised by the transformation that had occurred in their absence. Thomas Elliott, a former planter, wrote, “Hilton Head is a Town, I was lost in wonder at the vast buildings, the wharf is 1,400 feet long and cost $300,000.” Despite the changes, he would not bring his family back to his home in Beaufort. “The town is not fit for a white Lady to stay in, Yankees and negroes are all the rage,” he wrote.9
Elliott and other whites were also surprised that they were not subjected to the anger and hostility they might have expected from people they had once enslaved. Elliott wrote that his former slaves had met him with “universal politeness.” His relative, Stephen Elliott, was also warmly welcomed. Yet blacks had also made it clear that the old ways were gone forever. They told Stephen Elliott, “We own this land now. Put it out of your head that it will ever be yours again.”10
Some surmised that African Americans offered to help whites, or at least were kind to them, out of fear that President Johnson would send them back to slavery.11 Or perhaps they felt compassion or even a sense of pride that they were now in a position to help someone else, particularly someone who had once held such power over them. Or they could have been more focused on their own survival than on retribution. In all likelihood, their reasoning was a complicated mix of factors that also depended on the treatment individuals had received while enslaved.
Whatever their motivation, some blacks generously offered to lend their former masters money or give them food and shelter at a time when they were facing their own struggles.
Smalls was among those who helped the family that had enslaved him. When the cousin of his former owner, Henry McKee, returned to town at the end of the war in 1865, Smalls noticed him as he sat on the front porch of a store and greeted him warmly. Smalls also noticed that the cousin, who was ill and perhaps not thinking clearly, was foolishly still wearing a Confederate gray jacket. By doing so, he was putting himself in danger. Smalls could have ignored the jacket or said something in anger, but he did neither. Instead Smalls warned McKee’s cousin that five regiments of black troops had come to town to be paid that day and that if he continued to wear the jacket, he could attract trouble. But Smalls did not stop there; he also bought him a suit to wear.12
Smalls even showed unmatched kindness and generosity to the McKee family long after the war. In around 1875 Smalls invited Jane McKee, the widow of Henry, and some of her children, all of whom were living in Charleston, to stay with him in his house on Prince Street. This was the house the McKee family had once owned and that Smalls and his mother had served in as slaves when he was a child.
The McKees accepted Smalls’ offer, and Smalls even paid their railroad fare. Yet the McKees refused to take their meals with Smalls. Apparently, McKee family pride and old traditions would allow them to accept only portions of his generosity. Smalls, however, continued to be gracious and had their meals served at a different table.13
A few years later Smalls learned that Henry McKee’s widowed daughter needed financial help. Once again, he offered assistance, giving her money and helping her sixteen-year-old son obtain an appointment as a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy.14
* * *
With the return of Beaufort’s white residents in 1865 came immediate conflicts about land. Blacks who had received land as a result of General Sherman’s Special Field Orders, No. 15 clashed with the returning whites who claimed it was still theirs. The lands in dispute did not include those purchased in the direct tax sales. Smalls’ home on Prince Street would remain his, though to keep it he eventually would have to take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court.15
To help resolve the fighting, Gen. Oliver O. Howard, a longtime abolitionist, was appointed commissioner of the new Freedmen’s Bureau in May 1865. Lincoln had approved the bureau in March, which had been created to help both former slaves and poor whites overcome the hardships they were expected to face after the war. In addition to providing food, clothing, medical care, education, and legal assistance, the bureau was charged with distributing abandoned land in the Sea Islands, including land designated under Sherman’s Special Field Orders, No. 15.16
Howard appointed Brig. Gen. Rufus Saxton, who had championed the cause of the Sea Island blacks for years, as the assistant commissioner for both South Carolina and Georgia. Both Howard and Saxton were well suited for their positions and soon were helping African Americans secure land.17
As President Johnson began handing out his numerous pardons to wealthy Confederates that summer and into the fall, Howard issued a circular on July 28 announcing that all confiscated and abandoned lands had been set aside for loyal whites and former slaves. He added that a presidential pardon did not extend to property that had been abandoned or confiscated.18
Both Howard and Saxton had hoped that the bold circular would prevail until Congress reconvened in December and Radical Republicans could legalize the lands given to blacks under Sherman’s order. President Johnson, however, would not stand for it. He ordered Howard to rescind the circular and issue a new one in its place. On September 12 a new order written by the White House stated that those who had taken the loyalty oath and had been pardoned would be eligible to reclaim their lands (again, this did not involve lands sold in the direct tax sale). With this new order, only a small amount of land would be made available to the former slaves. The long-held dream of many newly freed African Americans, to own their own property, had suddenly evaporated.19
* * *
When Smalls recovered from his illnesses and resumed transporting men and supplies on the Planter that summer, he learned with the rest of the country that his old friend Rear Adm. Samuel F. Du Pont had died unexpectedly on June 23 at the age of sixty-one. The Union officer who had called Smalls a hero for taking the Planter, hired him as a pilot, asked the Navy to give Smalls prize money, and supported Smalls’ trip to the North with Reverend French, was gone. It was a loss for Smalls as well as for the country.
Although Du Pont had taken most of the blame for the Union’s failure to capture Charleston in 1863 and had been relieved of his command, he had an honorable and successful career that spanned nearly fifty years and included his Union victory at Por
t Royal. “Admiral Du Pont was a man of rare nobleness of character as well as of rare attainments, and great genius as a commander,” the New York Tribune wrote. “He was gentle, generous, brave, always high-minded. He was the ideal of a gallant soldier and a great Admiral.”20 For Smalls, Du Pont was not only a great naval officer, he was a great man who had believed in Smalls and had done everything he could to help him.
* * *
Two other men had also played prominent roles in Smalls’ life. One was John Ferguson, the owner of the Planter. The other was Smalls’ former master, Henry McKee. Both were among the many Confederates who sought pardons from President Johnson that summer. The war had been kinder to them financially than to most in the South, so both were forced to seek a pardon as owners of taxable property worth more than $20,000.
On August 30, 1865, Ferguson filled out the necessary paperwork, which included signing papers stating that he had taken the oath of allegiance. The oath read,
I, John Ferguson, of the city of Charleston, State of South Carolina, do solemnly swear in the presence of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the Union of the States thereunder, and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all laws and proclamations which have been made during the existing rebellion with reference to the Emancipation of Slaves—so help me God.
Added to the document was a handwritten explanation of Ferguson’s role in the war. It appears to be in his writing and states that he never served in the army or navy of the Confederate states. While the statement was true, Ferguson had, of course, leased his steamers to the Confederacy and profited greatly from doing so. He had also made money as a blockade runner. Even so, Perry, South Carolina’s provisional governor, approved the pardon in September and forwarded it to Johnson, who granted it.21
McKee went a step further and attached to his amnesty application a letter addressed directly to President Johnson. McKee stated that he had once been a Sea Island cotton planter but had been “in exile from home” for years. He admitted that he had been a secessionist but had taken the loyalty oath on May 29, 1865, and asked for a “free and full pardon.” Like Ferguson’s, McKee’s pardon was also approved by Perry and forwarded to the president, who granted it.22
The pardons meant both men would be eligible to recover their property. For Ferguson, that property included the Planter, an asset he would soon try to reclaim.
* * *
In mid-September South Carolina held its constitutional convention, as required by Johnson’s proclamation, at a Baptist church in Columbia. It was hardly a surprise that the delegates consisted mostly of former Confederates, but a majority were eager to return to the Union. There was “some intemperate talk and a little of the old-fashioned South Carolina bluster and bravado” by those who did not want to accept Johnson’s requirements, but it was quickly curbed.23
To rejoin, each state convention had to nullify the Ordinance of Secession and abolish slavery. Johnson also required that the states repudiate the Confederacy’s debt. This would prevent the country from being saddled with bills incurred by the rebels, but it would also hurt those who had loaned money to the Confederacy.
South Carolina’s convention met for a little longer than two weeks, and on September 28 delegates sent a dispatch to the president that announced their achievements: they had repealed the Ordinance of Secession, abolished slavery, and “directed a commission to submit a code to the Legislature for the protection of the colored population.” The note ended by assuring the president that they were all “loyal and in good spirits.”
Despite the delegates’ reassurance that they were committed to the Union, nowhere in the dispatch did they mention repudiating the Confederate debt. They also repealed rather than nullified the Ordinance of Secession. In other words, they rescinded it rather than declaring it legally invalid. And although they agreed to abolish slavery, they attributed the repudiation of slavery to “the United States authorities” and not the state. Also troubling was the mention of a code that would be developed for African Americans; it would quickly prove to have nothing to do with protecting them.24
* * *
Following the lead of Mississippi, South Carolina’s newly formed state legislature created a separate set of laws for blacks that fall. The Black Codes, as they were called, were an obvious attempt to preserve slavery and prohibited everything from the intermarriage of blacks and whites to blacks’ owning nonhunting firearms and participating in militia service. The codes even specified that any African Americans “who make contracts for service or labor, shall be known as servants, and those with whom they contract, shall be known as masters.” The codes further required that these servants obtain their masters’ permission to leave the premises. (Other former Confederate states soon instituted their own Black Codes.)
Despite African Americans’ protests, the South Carolina legislature enacted the Black Codes in December.25 The Union had won the war but, to the horror of many, South Carolina and other Southern states were doing their best to reinstate slavery.
* * *
Although Southern states were instituting Black Codes and some, like South Carolina, had failed to meet all the terms set by Johnson, the president declared Reconstruction completed in December 1865.
Republicans in Congress vehemently disagreed. When Congress finally reconvened on December 4, the Republicans refused to recognize the new state governments. They also refused to seat the more than sixty former Confederates, including Alexander H. Stephens, the former vice president of the Confederacy, who showed up at the Capitol as a newly elected U.S. representative.
On December 6, 1865, in the midst of so much turmoil, Georgia became the twenty-seventh of thirty-six states to ratify the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery. With Georgia’s vote three-quarters of the states had approved the amendment, and it officially became part of the Constitution.26
But with the institution of Black Codes throughout the South, slavery was far from dead. As Frederick Douglass had said prophetically in the spring of 1865, “Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot. While the Legislatures of the South retain the right to pass laws making any discrimination between black and white, slavery still lives there.”27
The 15th Amendment, which extended the right to vote to African American men, was not ratified until February 3, 1870.28
* * *
As the country struggled to come together, Smalls continued to captain the Planter, which was transferred from the Quartermaster Department to the Freedmen’s Bureau under Brig. Gen. Saxton in December 1865.29
Saxton’s time with the bureau and in the Sea Islands was coming to an end. He did not want to have any part in returning to Confederates the lands that he felt were owed to the former slaves. Yet he also would not accept other offers for reassignment. With the planters complaining about his interference, General Howard, head of the Freedman’s Bureau, was forced to remove Saxton on January 9, 1866.
Just before Saxton left, he learned that Ferguson had applied to the government to reclaim the Planter. The news, which many saw as unparalleled brazenness, was reported by newspapers across the country. One New York newspaper compared Ferguson to a burglar in the city years earlier who, after being acquitted because of a lack of evidence, demanded that the police return “his jimmy, skeleton keys, brace and bit, and the other tools of his profession, which they had taken from him.”30 A Connecticut newspaper wrote, “Whatever else the gentleman may have lost during the rebellion it is evident he still possesses ‘cheek.’”31
Saxton, of course, knew that Ferguson had leased the Planter to the Confederacy and denied Ferguson’s request.32
* * *
While Ferguson searched for a way to reclaim the Planter, others were looking for a way to stop President Johnson’s racist policies against black Americans. In the early months of 1866, the military and Congress fought back.
On January 17
Maj. Gen. Daniel E. Sickles, who was in command of the newly formed Second Military District, which included North and South Carolina, nullified the Black Codes in these states.33
Congress also reacted. In February it passed a second Freedmen’s Bureau Bill. The new bill extended the agency’s life for two years and charged the U.S. Army with protecting the civil rights of black Americans in the former Confederate states.
Johnson was determined to stop these changes. He quickly vetoed the measure, saying that its provisions were “not warranted by the Constitution and are not well suited to accomplish the end in view.”34 Not willing to give up, Congress passed an amended version of the bill in July and was able to override the presidential veto that soon followed.
Congress took another step to secure the freedom of African Americans in April when it passed the Civil Rights Bill of 1866. The measure granted citizenship and equal rights to all men in the United States “without distinction of race or color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude.”
Johnson also vetoed this measure, stating he believed it violated states’ rights. His refusal to sign the bill into law only helped embolden the Radical Republicans who supported Reconstruction and harsher treatment of former Confederates in the South. Just weeks after his veto, Congress overrode it with the required two-thirds majority.
To ensure that the Civil Rights Act was upheld, Congress approved the 14th Amendment in June and sent it to the states for ratification. The amendment guaranteed the citizenship of “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.” It also prohibited any state to deny “life, liberty or property, without due process of law” and to deny “to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The states would ratify it two years later, on July 9, 1868.35
* * *
As Congress regained some control over Reconstruction and the country began to look ahead, so did Smalls. He was still working on the Planter, but by April 1866 he was also operating a steamer from Beaufort to Charleston that had been purchased by some of the former soldiers of the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops.36
Be Free or Die--The Amazing Story of Robert Smalls' Escape from Slavery to Union Hero Page 20