Farewell to the Bloody Shirt: Northern Republicans and the Southern Negro, 1877-1893 (review)

Book Reviews447 operations at Bermuda Hundred and Fort Fisher, which led finally to his ouster; his role in the impeachment of Johnson, and as a Congressional Greenbacker and governor of Massachusetts; his defeat for the Presidency, the writing of his abusive memoirs, and his deadi in 1893. Until the mid-1950's, most previous biographies of Buder were but inaccurate apologies. Then in 1954 came a modem, well-written account by Robert S. Holzman, Stormy Ben Butler, and, in 1957, another documented study, Ben Butler: the South Called Him Beast!, by Hans L. Trefousse. Whde these two rather brief works leave something to be desired, they are at least respectable stepping-stones toward the exhaustive, objective study which must and will inevitably be written. The book under review—"Beast" Butler, by numismatist Robert Werlich—is unfortunately a step backward. Written evidently for the popular reading public , this is a brief, episodic, undocumented rehash of the more sensational events in the life of die "American Cyclops." It is a rather thin yarn, which makes for pleasant bedside reading, but is not to be taken seriously. While this reviewer personally believes Werlich is closer to reality in depicting Butler as primarily a demagogue rather than the more responsible figure that Holzman and Trefousse make him out to be, the present book pales almost into insignificance when compared with these two more scholarly works. There are no footnotes in the Werlich book, the bibliography is slim and contains no reference to manuscript sources, and the index is woefully inadequate. Perhaps the best one can say of this slender little volume is diat it is readable and contains quite a number of entertaining illustrations. But die man whom Werlich apdy terms "one of the most incompetent Generals and corrupt politicians this nation has ever seen" still awaits his day in the historian's court. Warren W. Hassler, Jr. Pennsylvania State University Farewell to the Bloody Shirt: Northern Republicans and the Southern Negro, 1877-1893. By Stanley P. Hirshson. Introduction by David Donald . ( Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1962. Pp. 334. $6.95. ) In 1892, after years of effort, frustration, and intraparty strife, the Republican party dramatically abandoned the Negro and thus its hopes of developing a two-party South. Given the fact that from its very inception the Republicans were wedded to the status of the Negro, what factors motivated this abandonment? Stanley P. Hirshson's work offers some pertinent answers to this complex question. Beginning with the post-Reconstruction days, and carrying his work to the 1890's, Hirshson traces Republican policies and attitudes regarding two terribly intricate and related problems, i.e., the Negro and Southern questions. It is the issue of the Negro which primarily concerns Hirshson, and his thesis is abundantly clear: the Negro was at first used as a vehicle witii which to build a strong Republican organization in the Soutìi, and when that policy reaped few dividends he was deserted. The humanitarianism and concern for the Negro which had been an integral part of the driving force of the Republican party—a force which produced the Emancipation Proclamation, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth Amendments , and the Freedmen's Bureau Bills—soon spent itself or else gave way to economic and political issues. By the early 1890's, the Negro was abandoned to face the power of the Bourbon Democrats and the lower-class whites. This desertion, Hirshson plausibly argues, was due in large measure to rising capitalistic forces. Businessmen, merchants, industrialists, and others either engaged in Southern trade or deeply interested in the economic expansion of the South, constantly pressured party leaders to ignore or bypass the Negro. Deeply threatened by possible revenue losses in the Southern market, these economic interests advocated the protective tariff as a means to bring about a dynamic Republican party in the South. Hirshson does not ignore the attitudes and influences of other groups who were equally antithetical to the Negro. There were Mugwumps who reasoned that the Negro was an inferior, uneducated being and hence at the prey of party machines; politicians who argued tiiat other methods were more realistic and workable if the party was to expand its base; and others who...