Portraits of Conflict: A Photographic History of Alabama in the Civil War

10. Reconstruction and Legacy

Chapter  Throughout the summer of , roads all over Alabama felt the trudge of paroled soldiers returning home. Other than the relieved tears of family members, there was little joy in the occasion—the Heart of Dixie was a defeated land. Of the , Alabamians who wore gray, upward of one-third perished in the conflict ( Alabama“Yankees”also died). Another third sustained wounds of varying sorts. All of the surviving veterans faced an uncertain future. “These men have been through tempests of shell, grape and minnie balls,”commented a Huntsville newspaperman, who then added that “those who have seen the most of war are the fastest friends of peace, and grumble the least.”1 His was a fine sentiment that proved illusory during the Reconstruction years. In addition to the human toll, Alabama’s economy lay in ruins. Most obvious was the physical destruction of all but one of the state’s blast furnaces as well as most of the railways, including depots, trestles,and rolling stock.Less apparent,but perhaps more deleterious, was the war’s ramifications on agriculture. Farm production across the state, particularly the“hogs and hominy”staple of small landholders , had dropped about  percent below prewar levels and would remain so for at least the next decade. The Tennessee Valley, which incurred the rampage of both sides’ armies since early , was especially hard hit. “In all directions,” observed Union general James Wilson in March , “there was almost absolute destitution.”2 And then there was the effect of emancipation, which at a stroke wiped out $ million worth of chattel property without any compensation. The war had impoverished planter and yeoman alike. In stark contrast to the saturnine demeanor of Alabama whites was the jubilant mood of the state’s black population. Nearly , slaves were now “freedmen,”and for them the immediate aftermath of the war was a time of excitement and hope. Blacks displayed their new freedom most noticeably through their mobility. Throughout the summer of , thousands of freedmen roamed about, in part because they could but more practically because they sought either family members taken away via the interstate slave trade or nonagrarian jobs in urban areas. Discomfited whites believed that this unregulated movement by a formerly  Reconstruction and Legacy enslaved race verged on anarchy. The daughter of a Dale County planter regarded emancipation with paternalistic skepticism. “Morally most of the negroes today are not as good as the slaves were,” she matter-of-factly explained, “they are free and can follow their own inclinations and the tendencies of their natures, not being held in restraint by the advice, discipline, and influence of their white owners and friends.”3 Overseeing the relative chaos of the early postwar years was the Federal garrison.While responsible for hunting down leftover guerrilla bands and, for a time, prosecuting cotton profiteers, the U.S. Army’s most important function was facilitating blacks’transition from slavery to freedom.Enter the Freedmen’s Bureau (officially the Bureau of Refugees , Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands). Under Maj. Gen. Wager Swayne, who served as assistant commissioner for Alabama from August  to January , the Freedmen’s Bureau established a respectable record. Among its many duties, the bureau distributed food rations to tens of thousands of displaced people,white and black; initiated a program of public education for blacks; operated a court system where freedmen could receive impartial justice; and refereed labor disputes between the two races. The last task consumed much of the bureau’s time, for Swayne insisted that blacks get back to work as field hands but that white landlords treat them with fairness. Negotiating contracts that satisfied both parties proved a challenge.In Marengo County, for instance, an impatient planter quipped, “the trouble with the freedmen is that they have not yet learned that living is expensive.” To which a former slave responded,“if we make contracts we will be branded and made slaves again.”4 Nevertheless, bureau agents persevered in what eventually became a system of sharecropping. With the cessation of hostilities, Pres. Andrew Johnson implemented his “restoration” policy, one intended to readmit the South as quickly as possible. To this end, he appointed provisional governors for all of the former Rebel states. In Alabama that role fell to Lewis Parsons of Talladega County.A longtime Democrat but also a Union sympathizer during the war, Parsons readily complied with the president’s wishes by...