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Overview
In These Rugged Days: Alabama in the Civil War, John S. Sledge offers a riveting and readable account of Alabama’s Civil War saga. Focused on the conflict’s turning points within the state’s borders, Sledge recounts residents’ experiences from secession’s early days to its tumultuous collapse, when 75,000 blue-coated soldiers were on the move statewide. Sledge brings these tumultuous years to life in an impressive array of primary and secondary sources, including official records, diaries, newspapers, memoirs, correspondence, sketches, and photographs. He also highlights such colorful personalities as John Pelham, the youthful Jacksonville artillerist who was shipped home in an iron casket with a glass faceplate; Gus Askew, a nine-year-old Barbour County slave who vividly recalled the day the Yankees marched in; Augusta Jane Evans, the Mobile novelist who was given a gold pen by a daring blockade runner; and Emma Sansom, a plucky Gadsden teenager who acted as a scout and guide to Nathan Bedford Forrest.
These Rugged Days is an enthralling tale of action, courage, pride, and tragedy. The Civil War has left indelible marks on Alabama’s land, culture, economy, and people, and Sledge offers a refreshing take on the state's role in the conflict. His narrative is a dramatic account that will be enjoyed by lay readers as well as students and scholars of Alabama and the Civil War.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780817391423 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Alabama Press |
| Publication date: | 08/15/2017 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 296 |
| File size: | 13 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Secession
The people of Alabama will not submit.
— Resolution of Resistance
Governor Moore learned of the Crusader's arrival by telegraph the afternoon of January 2, 1861. His immediate thought was that she had been sent to reinforce Fort Morgan. Constructed during the early nineteenth century by the US Army, Fort Morgan was a pentagonal brick structure armed with heavy cannons pointed at the ship channel immediately opposite. It was by far the most formidable of the three Federal installations in the Mobile area, for whoever controlled it controlled the bay. Also under Federal authority were Fort Gaines, a smaller masonry construction on the eastern tip of Dauphin Island, and the Mount Vernon arsenal, a 35-acre post with numerous two- and three-story brick buildings and a horseshoe-shaped, 10-foot-high brick wall, situated on the western bank of the Mobile River, 30 miles north of the Port City.
Nothing in his career or actions theretofore suggested that Moore would be anything less than decisive upon receipt of this news. A native South Carolinian who had moved to the Black Belt during the 1820s, where he worked as a lawyer and served in the state House of Representatives, Moore had been elected governor in 1857 and was now serving his second term. He was a Democrat and pro states' rights, but measured on secession. Six feet tall with big ears, a resolute mouth, an aquiline nose, a broad forehead, and a healthy crop of white hair, he was easy to spot in a crowd. One legislator described him as "a clever fellow but scary," with "a good opinion of himself." Fully cognizant of the titanic forces tearing at the nation, Moore had already taken steps to prepare his state for conflict, organizing and funding the Alabama Volunteer Corps, made up of preexisting militia companies; hurrying forward construction on the Alabama and Tennessee River Railroad; promoting industrial development; sending agents North to buy arms; and asking banks to hold specie for the state. Lastly, thanks to the example and urging of Governor Joseph E. Brown of Georgia, who had just seized Federal installations in that state, Moore was considering the same when the Crusader appeared in Alabama waters. Clearly, it was time to act, and on January 3 he ordered the state militia to take the forts and arsenal.
Ironically, despite the agitated political climate, the Crusader's mission was routine. For the past several months, she had been apprehending slave ships in the Caribbean, and her commander, Lt. John Newland Maffitt, had been instructed to cash the prize-money check in Mobile. At forty-one, Maffitt cut a dashing figure. His pleasant countenance was framed by a dark chin beard and wavy black hair habitually topped by an angled captain's cap. He had been born at sea — his wife said he considered himself "a son of old Neptune" — and had spent most of his life ever since on a rolling deck. He joined the US Navy as a midshipman at age thirteen, and his prior service included a stint on the famous Constitution and decades with the US Coast Survey. He knew the South well, especially North Carolina where he spent his childhood, but he was also serious about his professional responsibilities. Shortly after arriving in Mobile Bay he got word that a band of secessionist hotheads was planning to seize his ship. Maffitt immediately prepared for action and called on the editor of the Mobile Register, informing him that if any boats threatened he would "open my broadsides and sink them in fifteen minutes with every desperado on board of them." That effectively cooled their ardor. Determined to get back into the Gulf where it was safer, Maffitt cashed his check and departed. He would return to Mobile Bay sooner than he realized, and to a very different kind of welcome.
False alarm though the Crusader had been, the die was cast, and troops were on the move. During the wee hours of January 4, men from the Mobile Rifles, the Washington Light Infantry, the German Fusiliers, and Gardes Lafayette silently trotted toward the walls of the Mount Vernon arsenal with scaling ladders held over their heads. They looked more like Napoleonic troops on parade than Southern soldiers on a secret and dangerous mission. The Rifles sported dark green coats and white-plumed shakos, while the Washington Light Infantry was resplendent in scarlet. Despite their extravagant dress and high spirits, these lads were in earnest and quickly mounted the walls, dropped inside, opened the gate, and surrounded the armory.
The garrison had not even bothered to post a sentry and was caught completely off guard. Seventeen Federal troops under the command of Capt. Jesse L. Reno stumbled sleepily and sheepishly into the gloom and gave themselves up to the grinning militia without a fight. With no more trouble than that, Governor Moore and the state of Alabama were in possession of a first-class military facility, 20,000 stand of arms, 150,000 pounds of gunpowder, 300,000 cartridges, and much else besides. For his part, Reno tried to justify his action, or rather nonaction, to his superior. "I did not make, nor could I have made, any resistance," he whined, "as they had scaled the walls and taken possession before I knew anything about the movement." Surely, he begged, "the Department will not hold me responsible for this unexpected catastrophe." The pattern was repeated at Forts Morgan and Gaines, which fell with equal ease. The state's take at Morgan was especially impressive, including almost 100 heavy guns, over half of them massive 32-pounders, so designated for the weight of their projectile, as well as robust quantities of shot and shell.
Contemplating the fall of these posts, as well as those in other Southern states, the New York Times expressed incredulity and outrage. "The military history of this second American revolution is not likely to invest the national Government with glory," it gloomily opined. "Its military and naval officers, either through cowardice or in sympathy with treason, have offered no resistance to the capture of Federal property; at the first summons of an incompetent and undisciplined rabble in uniform, they have hauled down the flag every American soldier is bound in honor to save from dishonor with his life; and have surrendered their trust to treason." But Captain Reno and his compatriots weren't the only ones who had some explaining to do. Governor Moore was faced with the delicate dilemma of having seized federal property before his state had formally seceded from the Union. In a letter to lame-duck president James Buchanan he attempted to justify his course. "Sir," he began, "In a spirit of frankness I hasten to inform you by letter that by my order Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines, and the United States Arsenal at Mount Vernon were ... peacefully occupied, and are now held by the troops of the State of Alabama." He had been compelled to do this, he continued, because he had received word that the federal government was about to reinforce the garrisons. "Having that information," he continued, "it was but an act of self-defense, and the plainest dictate of prudence, to anticipate and guard against the contemplated movement of the authorities of the General Government." All eyes now turned to Montgomery to see whether or not the State Secession Convention would indeed take Alabama out and redeem Moore's audacious gamble.
The momentous issue was to be decided not by popular referendum, but by one hundred previously elected delegates from around the state. Of these, fifty-four were known secessionists, and forty-six were cooperationists. Their preferences were dictated by their geography. The secessionists were predominantly from the Black Belt and south Alabama, while the cooperationists were north Alabamians. This division illustrated the economic split noted by DeBow's Review during the 1850s. North Alabama's interests were more closely allied to those of Tennessee, and since that state was yet doubtful about secession, most north Alabamians, whether from the hill counties or the Tennessee Valley, took their cue from there. The delegates convened on January 7 at the capitol. Initially, citizens were allowed inside to witness the debate, but their continual applause caused the delegates to go into closed-door sessions.
The secessionists were led by Montgomery lawyer William Lowndes Yancey, the proverbial fire-eater who had long agitated for separation. Among the cooperationists was Jeremiah Clemens of Huntsville, a novelist, lawyer, former US senator, and second cousin to Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain). An early resolution floated by the secessionists declared that the federal government's antislavery "acts and designs" absolved Alabama from any obligation to "support a Government of the United States, to be administered upon such principals, and that the people of Alabama will not submit to be parties to the inauguration and administration of Abraham Lincoln as President, and Hannibal Hamlin as Vice President of the United States." The cooperationists objected to this. They, too, viewed the incoming Federal administration with distaste, but still believed moderation was preferable to outright withdrawal as suggested by the resolution. Yancey pushed hard for the resolution, Clemens resisted, and ultimately a joint Committee of Thirteen, consisting of seven secessionists and six cooperationists, was appointed to chart a course of action.
Meanwhile, outside the House chamber events accelerated. Mississippi, Florida, and Georgia were all holding similar conventions, and reports indicated their imminent separation. Recognizing that a group of small, independent republics was bound to fare ill against the might and resources of the federal government, South Carolina invited her slaveholding Southern sisters to join in the formation of a confederacy. Even as the Alabama delegates tried to absorb all of this, Florida governor Madison Perry telegraphed Moore asking for troops to help seize the US Navy yard and forts at Pensacola. Situated in the panhandle, Pensacola was only 50 miles from Mobile and had a direct rail connection to Montgomery, representing a critical strategic threat to Alabama's underbelly. Secessionist delegates gave Moore the nod, and on January 9, the Montgomery True Blues, Metropolitan Guards, and Independent Rifles, better than two hundred men total, enthusiastically boarded a train south. Once arrived, the Alabamians helped bloodlessly seize the naval yard, a hospital, and two of the forts, but Fort Pickens, a brick installation on the western tip of Santa Rosa Island commanding Pensacola Bay, held out. Similarly, almost 600 miles to the east, Federal troops hunkered down at Fort Sumter, in the middle of Charleston harbor, refusing to surrender or evacuate. A shooting war looked more likely by the day.
On January 10, the Committee of Thirteen, led by Yancey, proposed an Ordinance of Secession. The document stated that because the incoming Lincoln administration was "avowedly hostile to the domestic institutions and to the peace and security of the people of the State of Alabama," separation was justified. "Be it declared and ordained by the people of the State of Alabama in Convention assembled," it boldly continued, "That the State of Alabama now withdraws, and is hereby withdrawn from the Union known as 'the United States of America,' and henceforth ceases to be one of said United States, and is, and of right ought to be a SOVEREIGN, and INDEPENDENT STATE." A vote the next day decided the matter for all. The margin was close, 61 ayes to 39 nays. It might have been closer had not a handful of cooperationists, including Clemens, crossed over at the last minute. Writing to a childhood friend in Huntsville, he explained his turn: "I resisted the passage of the Ordinance to the last moment in every form, and then, when no more was to be accomplished, I did what I had pledged myself to do on every stump, and openly placed myself on the side of the State." Clemens was sober about the future: "God knows where all this is to end. I see very plainly the storms that are gathering."
For the people awaiting a decision outside the locked chamber, the yea vote meant only jubilation. William Henry Mitchell, a Presbyterian minister, wrote to his wife in Florence about what happened after the doors were thrown open and the vote announced. "The scene that followed was perfectly thrilling," he exulted. "The galleries were crowded with ladies and gentlemen." Yancey, attired "in homespun," presented a handsome new flag on "behalf of the ladies of Montgomery" for the nascent Republic of Alabama. The blue banner featured a goddess of liberty on one side, and on the other the phrase "Noli me tangere" ("Touch me not") above a cotton plant and a coiled rattlesnake, which, Mitchell quoted Yancey as saying, is "peaceful and harmless until disturbed." Waves of applause circulated the chamber, and a Tuscaloosa delegate marveled that men "mounted the tables and desks, held up the floating end, the better thus to display its figures. The cheering was now deafening for some moments."
The Montgomery Weekly Advertiser announced the decision in its pages the following morning. "Alabama Out of the Union!" the headline shouted. "A glorious day!!" Below, a short article related that citizens were hailing the "new era with demonstrations of profoundest emotion. The Capitol grounds and streets are alive with the moving mass of the cheering throng. Cannons are booming and bells ringing." In Mobile, the reaction was equally effusive. "Immediately on the receipt of the news," one observer reported, "an immense crowd assembled at the 'secession pole' at the foot of Government Street, to witness the spreading of the Southern flag, and it was run up amid the shouts of the multitude and thunders of cannon." A lone-star flag flew over the Custom House, and the balconies of the Battle House Hotel opposite as well as the street below were packed with excited citizens and marching cadets. That night, burning tar barrels illumined the intersections along Government Street while "rockets blazed, crackers popped, and the people hurrahed and shouted as they never had before." The mayor called for "a thousand laborers" to help prepare the city's defenses — "these were at once supplied" — and the Common Council passed an ordinance changing the names of Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York Streets to Palmetto, Charleston, Augusta, and Elmira respectively. Augusta Jane Evans, a successful novelist at only twenty-six who lived in a cottage just outside of town, declared that she and her fellow Alabamians would rather "drain our veins than yield to the ignominious rule of Black Republicanism." Not surprisingly, reaction was mixed in north Alabama, where many had preferred a popular referendum on the issue. Newspapers expressed their support now that the matter was decided and asked the public to do the same. Nonetheless, the United States flag purportedly remained over the courthouses at Huntsville and Athens a bit longer than many south Alabamians thought proper. As for slave reaction around the state, it was muted and cautious. Gus Askew, born into bondage in Henry County, was a child at the time and later recalled, "dat was one time when de ban' was playin' and flags was flyin' dat us lil' niggers didn't get no joy outen it."
The independent Republic of Alabama was a short-lived creation. On February 4, per South Carolina's recommendation, delegates from the six seceded states — South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana — met in Montgomery to establish the Confederate States of America. Alabama's capital city was chosen for its central location, for its rail and river connections, and for its symbolic value as Yancey's home. During the coming weeks, the city's population would double as officials, military men, clerks, office seekers, reporters, opportunistic merchants, militia, hangers on, and curiosity seekers flooded into town. Included in the Georgia delegation was T. R. R. Cobb, a lawyer and ardent secessionist, who wrote frequent letters to his wife about the deliberations. According to Cobb, the convention's first day consisted of routine business, like settling into place and electing convention officers. Cobb was surprised at the "very much divided" Alabama delegation. "The truth is there is a very bad state of things in this State," he informed his wife, "the minority are sullen in their opposition and not disposed to yield to the fact of secession." The following day the convention went into closed-door sessions, to the vocal disappointment of onlookers, especially women, "who were out in large numbers."
Despite some differences and petty wrangling, the delegates got on with the business of making a new government remarkably quick. On February 9, they unanimously adopted a constitution. This was essentially a copy of the United States Constitution with minor tweaking to, among a few other things, recognize slavery. Jefferson Davis, a native Kentuckian but Mississippi-reared, was elected president and Alexander Stephens of Georgia, vice president. Davis had not yet arrived at Montgomery, but his choice was generally popular with both delegates and the people. A tall, spare man with "beautiful blue eyes," he was a West Point graduate, a Mexican War hero, former US senator and secretary of war, lawyer, and planter. He preferred military service to politics but accepted his nomination with a strong sense of duty and honor. The inauguration was set for February 18.
(Continues…)
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