Ballots and Fence Rails: Reconstruction on the Lower Cape Fear (review)

BOOK REVIEWS87 Sefton writes, "are not so much failures on the part of the military administrators as they are failures of the policy itself." In Sefton's view that policy was at best ambiguous, and at worst it was a wrongheaded design to use military compulsion to effect a change in southern customs. Thus Sefton's interpretation is at variance with current trends in reconstruction historiography, which point increasingly toward the conclusion that Radicalism was too timid in its approach rather than the reverse. Heroes of the book are moderate generals such as William Tecumseh Sherman , Edward Canby, Alfred Howe Terry, Thomas John Wood, and George A. Custer, all of whom questioned the necessity and wisdom of special legislation on behalf of the Negro. The recipient of Sefton's special ire is General John Pope, commander of the Georgia-Florida-Alabama District, whom he regards as a failure in statesmanship. Instead of creating new districts when delegates were elected for the 1867 constitutional conventions , Pope simply retained the existing state senatorial districts. Drawn by the legislature chosen during presidential reconstruction, when Negroes were not part of the electorate, over half of the Georgia districts contained Negro majorities. Sefton expresses sympathy for "the white Georgians who denounced Pope as a partisan zealot," and he contends that the general should have redistricted in a manner that would have prevented Negroes and their "white allies" from controlling Georgia. Pope is further censured for interference in the judicial process. The interference took the form of an order forbidding racial discrimination in the selection of juries. There is, of course, the possibility that Sefton's book merits praise for its independence of the bonds of conventional writing on the reconstruction period. This reviewer thinks not. Rather than offering original answers to the questions posed by the modem revisionists, Sefton ignores their questions . The book's underlying value judgment is that military power in normally civilian spheres is inherently undesirable. There is no explicit stand for or against Negro equality. Undoubtedly military government is un-American as well as unpleasant; but by failing to stress that the status of Negroes was inextricably linked with the status of the Army, Sefton evades the main issue. What Sefton does demonstrate is that most generals were unenthusiastic about Radical reconstruction. Whether this exemplifies their sagacity or furnishes one more example of the nation's lack of commitment to racial justice is another matter. John V. Mering University of North Dakota Ballots and Fence Rails: Reconstruction on the Lower Cape Fear. By W. McKee Evans. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966. Pp. x, 314. $7.50.) This work, which won the American Association of State and Local History Manuscript Award for 1966, is provocative and enlightening. Al- 88CIVIL WAR HISTORY though it is too close to the doctoral dissertation stage to be a definitive book, it shows that the pace of reconstruction varied from place to place and it presents some new concepts which merit close examination. Moreover , it is interesting and well written. According to Professor Evans, Radical military reconstruction in the Cape Fear region of North Carolina began with General Joseph R. Hawley, the first military commander of the District of Wilmington. Hawley's work was cut short by President Johnson, who replaced him with a conservative officer. Thereafter, Union military officers developed conservative views, thanks to the diplomacy of like-minded whites. Under Presidential reconstruction, conservative whites were permitted to restore, in the guise of county militia, county courts, and a Black Code, the antebellum power structure which kept the Negro in his place. This Presidential-Conservative regime experienced, however, considerable difficulty in preserving order. Negroes refused the "terms for coexistence" offered by the Conservative "strong men." Northerners were repelled by the treatment which Negroes received at the hands of local police and the courts, and even the complaisant military offered occasional half-hearted opposition. Negroes began to develop workable, if crude, local and state political organizations which had beneficial advice to offer to those who would not hear. The Reconstruction Acts enabled dissident whites and Negroes to bring tiiis sorry regime to an end. For good measure, Negro patrolling bands smashed the Klan in...