Freedmen of the Mississippi Valley, 1862-1865

FREEDMEN OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY, 1862-1865 Martha Mitchell Bigelow during most of the first two years of the Civil War, the Federal government had no firm or fixed policy in relation to the Negro; actions taken were hesitant, indecisive and confused. In ostrich-like fashion, die government acted as though the Negro were not there. Yet no amount of pretense could hide the inescapable fact of his presence— and his importance to the war. Events and the Negro himself forced die government into reluctant action. The first official recognition of the problem occurred at Fortress Monroe in May, 1861, when Benjamin F. Butìer declared escaping slaves who had worked on Confederate fortifications to be contraband of war.1 From this point, step by step, the inexorable pressure of events forced the government to recognize the Negro as a responsible worker and, finally, as a participant in the fight for his freedom. Although the problem of how to handle die Negroes who everywhere flooded the Union lines was acute, in the Mississippi Valley it had to be solved if the Union Army was even to fight. Here was one of the largest concentrations of Negroes in the nation and, as Grant began his Mississippi campaign, the Negroes flocked to his lines in such numbers that they completely disrupted operations. Chaplain John Eaton of the 27th Ohio Infantry described them by writing: . . . the blacks illustrated what the history of the world has rarely seen,—a slave population, sprung from antecedent barbarism, rising up and leaving its bondage of centuries, and its ardent local traditions and associations, sundering the boasted influence and attractions of the master; in rags or silks; feet shod or bleeding; individually or in families; and pressing towards the A doctoral graduate of the University of Chicago, Mabtha M. Bigelow is now professor of history at Mississippi College, Clinton, Mississippi. She has published several artictes on the rote of the Negro in the conflict of the 186ffs. 1 U.S. War Dept. (comp.). War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington, 1880-1901), Ser. I, Vol. II, 52, 649. Hereafter citea as OR; unless otherwise stated, all references will be to Ser. I. 38 armies characterized as "Vandal Hordes." Their comings were like the arrivals of cities. Often they met prejudices against their color more bitter than that they had left behind. There was no Moses to lead, nor plan in their exodus . The decision of their instinct or unlettered reason brought them to us. They felt that their interests were identical with objects of our armies. This identity of interest, slowly but surely, comes to be perceived by our officers and soldiers, and by the loyal public.2 Since no official governmental policy existed for freed Negroes, departmental commanders decided on a day-to-day basis. General U. S. Grant, commanding the Department of the Tennessee, contacted Chaplain John Eaton in November, 1862, and appointed him Superintendent of Freedmen in that department. He thus inaugurated what was probably the most systematic and continuous effort to organize and care for the freedman conducted during the Civil War. From November, 1862, until the Freedmen's Bureau took over in the spring of 1865, John Eaton had charge of Negro affairs in the Department of the Tennessee. This superintendency eventually included Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee and parts of Louisiana. Only in this superintendency, and due largely to the tenacity of John Eaton, did the control of Negro affairs remain largely in the hands of the War Department instead ofpassinginto the jurisdiction of the Treasury . Had Eaton been able to see the years of difficulty and conflict ahead, he probably would have been even more appalled than he was at the herculean task he undertook. Years later he stated: "Never in the entire army service ... do I recall such a shock of surprise, amounting to consternation, as I experienced when reading this brief summons to undertake what seemed to me an enterprise beyond the possibility of human achievement."3 Yet if the Union Army itself was to be saved from demoralization and disease, these thousands of homeless, naked, starving, sick, and...