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Albert A. Metzner, Henry H. Eddleson, and William H. Horton, all VRC offi
cers,
also left the Bureau under a cloud.
Disabled or not, their Bureau uniform was the “great equalizer.” Th
ose who
donned it, despite their best intentions or prudent course, could easily confl ict
with the white community. For example, Alfred T. Manning experienced one
diffi
culty aft er another in Waco. Having lost a leg at Chancellorsville in 1863
and being “inconvenienced from a defect in his artifi cial limb,” he still toured
his district regularly. Manning discovered things progressing well, with some
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employers paying hands twice the state’s going rate. His problem, however, was
white treatment of the freedpeople. He recounted stories that “make your fl esh
creep.” One involved a young freedman, who was castrated aft er being accused
of raping a white girl. Manning arrested the perpetrators of this “most atrocious
[deed] in the annals of barbarity.”
Governor Th
rockmorton soon involved himself. Aft er corresponding with
the district commander of Texas General Charles Griffi
n about the incident, the
governor and general allowed the matter to go to civil authorities. Superiors
instructed Manning to oversee the process for irregularities. Th
is angered and
insulted him. Fearing he might unnecessarily interfere in the case, superiors
transferred Manning to Cotton Gin, approximately fi ft y miles from Waco. Per-
haps frustrated with how things developed at Waco or his love for a local woman,
Manning appeared to have lost his zeal for service. His “inattention,” however,
did not shield him from white attacks. An unknown person shot him in his good
leg as he traveled one night to a friend’s house. Manning literally crawled back to
town. Offi
cials granted his request to recover in Galveston, where superiors
questioned him about accusations of bribery and fi nancial misdoings, all of
which he denied. His undoing came with intemperance and a massive bar bill,
which he tried to shirk. Tired of his shenanigans, superiors relieved Manning in
late summer 1867.
As the organization expanded into the interior, SACs experienced greater
resistance. Some looked to troops for assistance. Kiddoo could do little for sub-
ordinates than pass their requests on to military offi
cials. Entering the state with
more than fi ft y thousand soldiers in June 1865, within a year the army’s numbers
had dwindled to around fi ve thousand and continued to fall. Of those, most
served on the frontier and border with Mexico. Louis W. Stevenson at Columbus
best expressed the sentiments of many who needed troops but never received
them. “Orders without troops,” he told superiors, “are [not] better than troops
without orders.” Starting with Gregory and continuing with Kiddoo, ACs in
Texas requested help from the military only to be victims of circumstance and
bureaucracy. Even those who received troops soon discovered their limitations.
Most soldiers in the interior came from infantry units. Cavalry were necessary
to chase down the outlaws, many of whom were on horseback. Agents for the
entire time the agency operated in the state frequently requested cavalry, only to
hear they were unavailable, he “must do the best he can with the troops [infan-
try] he has,” or cavalry “cannot be broken up into small detachments without
special detriment to . . . the service.” Cavalry proved a rare commodity away
from the frontier. Field agents thus oft en had to do without military support.
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Bureau Expansion, Bureau Courts, and the Black Code
At times, U.S. soldiers could be more a hindrance than a panacea (although
this was the exception rather than the rule). Few examples better underscore
the unnecessary problems troops caused for agents than the “Brenham Fire”
in early September 1866. Only days aft er a dispute between Daniel Leonidas
McGary and agent Samuel A. Craig had been “resolved,” one of the most famous
(or infamous) incidents during Reconstruction occurred in Brenham. Details
remain sketchy, but whatever transpired left a U.S. soldier shot and portions of
Brenham in ashes. Although three diff erent inquiries found diff erent versions,
the general story went that several soldiers got into a fracas with white citizens,
who fi red shots that wounded one of the soldiers. Later that night, his fellow
soldiers exacted revenge on the alleged perpetrator and his business by burning
it, with the fi re spreading to other buildings in the city. One historian called the
soldiers’ actions “among the worst cases of misconduct by troops during Recon-
struction. . . .” Federal inquiries, nonetheless, cleared of wrongdoing the post
commander and future Bureau agent, George W. Smith. Th
e state legislature’s
inquiry disagreed. State and local offi
cials for months fruitlessly tried to bring
him to “justice.” Samuel A. Craig had an insuff erable situation on his hands
aft er the incident. Th
e situation in Brenham, coupled with Craig’s reputation as
“the Brenham burner,” undermined his ability to perform his duties eff ectively.
Headquarters thus reassigned Craig to Seguin where, as earlier noted, the prob-
lems created by William Longworth awaited him. Such problems caused by
soldiers continued throughout the Bureau’s time in Texas. Th
en Bureau chief J.
J. Reynolds, in spring 1868, even lamented to Commissioner Howard that some
soldiers detached to agents had done “more harm than good. ”
Of course, agents preferred troops to no troops. But there existed other
means to protect the freedpeople: placing alleged off enders on trial. Th
rough
Bureau courts, as they came to be called, these men protected black equality
and legal rights. Bureau offi
cials believed in the “centrality” of such color- blind
proceedings. Th
ey thus considered leaving “the Negro in the hands of Southern
courts . . . impossible.” Th
ese courts operated under Gregory, but it was not
until the second Freedmen’s Bureau bill that they were specifi cally authorized.
Varied according to the individual agent and circumstances, they normally
comprised a SAC and the freedperson’s and planter’s representatives (but plant-
ers oft en refused to appoint a representative). When this happened, agents
simply rendered decisions, dispensing with the representatives. Th
e procedures
most resembled that of a justice of the peace court, with defendants appearing
to answer charges and with the right to call witnesses and use lawyers. Punish-
ment was discretionary, resulting in an array of decisions: from dismissal to
18
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promises from and advice to the parties, from leniency with paying the fi nes
(according to the defendant’s age, ability to pay, and attitude during the hear-
ing) to threats to the accused about consequences of nonpayment. Discretion
also aff ected sentences. Some agents preferred fi nes (generally not exceeding
fi ve hundred dollars, and later one thousand), while others leaned toward jail
sentences. For example, Samuel C. Sloan, unlike many others, preferred to sen-
tence guilty parties (black or white) to jail sentences and hard labor. Bureau
men certainly had “all the diff erent powers of legislature and court . . . in one
person, who was also the judge. ”
Since Bureau headquarters at Washington and Galveston did not set down
specifi c fi nes for off enses, agents had much discretion in setting amounts. In
one case, Stanton Weaver fi ned a white man in Crockett two dollars for slapping
a freedwoman, believing she was partly at fault. He fi ned another white man
twenty dollars for striking and throwing down a freedwoman. Weaver thought
the fi ne should not be too excessive, since the woman had a reputation for being
quite quarrelsome. In another case, Weaver believed the limits set by superiors
on fi nes to be too lenient. One man, known to be a “hard master,” was angered
when a former slave left his plantation to fi nd a “better home.” Th
e former mas-
ter found the freedman and “tied him and took him back to his farm where he
gave him 150 lashes.” Appalled, Weaver questioned headquarters judgment:
“What shall I fi ne him? Would $5000 or $1000 be more than just?”
Bureau agents could not charge for adjudication. All decisions could be
appealed to headquarters. Despite an agent’s authority to “try” individuals,
Commissioner Howard, prompted by the president’s wishes, circumscribed the
Bureau’s judicial activities in 1866. Understanding the agency to be temporary,
he realized the freedpeople “would have to live under a system administered by
local whites” and “preferred” litigants to work through civil courts. He wanted
subordinates to “only interfere when injustice is done or . . . the civil authorities
refuse to recognize the right [specifi cally, black testimony, something specifi -
cally granted by congressional statute and later Constitutional amendment] of
the freedmen.” Texas civil offi
cials generally refused to acknowledge such testi-
mony because it presaged freedmen jurors, freedmen enfranchisement, and
freedmen “to be made socially and politically equal to whites. ”
According to the subassistant commissioner records, there are 6,794 extant
court cases. Most subdistricts ranged between one and fi ve hundred cases, with
some numbering in the dozens and others like Houston close to a thousand.
Austin exceeded a thousand. From the exceptional to the mundane, any dispute
could arrive before an agent. Th
ey adjudicated everything from the standard
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70
Bureau Expansion, Bureau Courts, and the Black Code
contract dispute to the extraordinary accusation of bestiality, from the danger-
ous assault to the more political gun rights argument (see Table 4- 3). Of these,
the Bureau agent ruled in the plaintiff ’s favor 41.6 percent (n=2,826) of the time.
Defendant prevailed in only 7.5 percent of the cases (n=510). Th
at disparity does
not necessarily suggest impartiality. Th
e records suggest they arrived at the
decision supported by the evidence. A more credible explanation could be the
simple fact that people tend to seek judicial redress, then as well as now, when
truly wronged. In more than half (50.9 percent; n=3,458), however, a defi nitive
winner or loser was not recorded. Th
e SAC simply noted the case settled (by the
two parties, with no other details to outcome), continued (no notation to reso-
lution), dismissed (either resolved or frivolous), referred (to civil authorities or
military for resolution), or compromised (both in and out of the Bureau offi
ce,
without details to resolution).
Not surprisingly, the overwhelming majority involved a black plaintiff against
a white defendant. Of the 6,794 cases, 4,689 were of this nature (see Appendix B).
Th
at exceeds 69 percent. More than eleven hundred cases (n=1,109) involved
black plaintiff s and defendants. Only 648 cases arose from a white plaintiff —a
paltry 9.6 percent. Including those in which the plaintiff or defendant’s race
could not be determined (348 cases, or 5.1 percent), cases involving a black plain-
tiff accounted for more than 85 percent (n=85.3) of the Bureau court trials for
Texas. Such evidence highlights the freed community’s positive attitudes and
white Confederates’ negative feelings toward these proceedings. Civil courts,
freedpeople believed, favored the old order. Bureau courts were “theirs.” Intent
on protecting the emancipated, agents meted out justice according to facts and
not skin color—evidence that only further undermines the incredulous claims
these proceedings did more to harm freedpeople than help.
Bureau courts were normally quite informal proceedings. Otto F. Steinberg,
for example, adjudicated a case in Gonzales between the brother of a deceased
woman and her former husband. Th
e brother accused Primus Dickes, the
deceased woman’s husband and children’s father, of domestic abuse and a rela-
tionship with his eldest daughter “in an unlawful and criminal manner.” Stein-
berg sent a letter to Dickes to appear in his offi
ce to answer the charges. Aft er
Dickes denied the charges, Steinberg ordered a hearing. Dickes, his accusers
(including the deceased’s mother) and the children, along with all the parties’
lawyers and witnesses were present. Steinberg allowed witnesses for the accused
and accuser (on the alleged acts of cruelty and carnality and as character wit-
nesses). Aft er their testimony, he cleared the room to personally interview the
children and examine their physical demeanor. Analyzing all the testimony
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Table 4- 3 Types of Cases Adjudicated in Texas Freedmen’s Bureau Courts
Type of Case
Number of Cases
Percentage of Cases
Settlement of Crop or Contract
.
Money Owed, Wages, or Debt
,
Assault, Th
reats, Fighting, Shooting,
.
Murder, or Robbery
Contract Violation/Contract Interference
.
Apprenticeship
.
Possession of Property, Destruction
.
of Property, or Th
eft
Domestic Issue
.
Slander or Defamation
.
Abduction of Person or Retention
.
Fraud, Blackmail, Embezzlement, Bribery,
.
or
Swindling
Combination of Types
.
Other: Nothing, False Imprisonment,
.
Disorderly Conduct, Unjust Fine, etc.
Total n=,
Note: Cases came from the Register of Complaints in each subdistrict.
and evidence, Steinberg brought all the parties back and rendered his decision
in favor of the husband. “I reminded them this offi
ce could not be considered a
court of law,” he stated,
. . . that their services in cases brought before me . . . were not essentially
necessary. . . . Th
at judicial cases brought before me would be transacted in
such a way as to bring the complaint and accused to mutual and satisfactory
understanding between the parties and that I would be guided in my deci-
sion principally by plain common sense and impartiality. [italics added]
Many dispensed with the proceedings, hoping to “bring the complainant
and accused to mutual and satisfactory understanding” and to prevent disputes
from escalating. Th
ey realized their limitations and allowed common sense and
fairness to guide them, or as agent George C. Abbott wrote, “Do as [I] would
have be done.” William H. Sinclair admitted being moved by a “sense of justice
and equity between man and man.” Mortimer H. Goddin divulged that he “must
use considerable tact . . . [to keep] both black and white confi ned to justice and
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Bureau Expansion, Bureau Courts, and the Black Code
equity in getting along. . . .” William Garretson at Matagorda followed a course
“in accordance with equity. . . .” Because many complaints were for small
amounts and minor infractions, fi eld personnel routinely “advised” or “talked