Geographically, "The Old South" is a sub-region of the American South, differentiated from the Deep South by being limited to those Southern states represented among the original thirteen British colonies, which became the first thirteen U.S. states.

Culturally, "The Old South" is used to describe the rural, agriculturally-based, pre-Civil War or antebellum economy and society in the Southern United States.

A Special Note For those friends of, or are members of the Hughes, Read, and Wauchope families, who are looking at this webpage, I cannot apologize for the truth of what is found here, especially in the Special 2017 and 2020 subsections page, with which you may disagree. 

I was taught to tell the truth and we will continue to do that on this page.  All aspects of the 2020 Election were examined in detail on the Old South sub-section page. 

The preponderance of evidence discovered, including how Joe Biden has lied to the American public (exposed again, as late as December 29, 2020, when the Ukraine government revealed new tape recordings of Joe Biden's dealings with their officials and the subsequent graft and corruption, and not just with his son Hunter) led to conclusions you may disagree with, but they are the truth, nevertheless.

Let me provide you a recent example of what I'm talking about.  In the first week of February, I had a phone conversation with someone who attends my church.  It came out during the conversation that they had no idea that the Black Lives Matter organization had been founded by 3 Marxists (read: Communists).  This individual was astonished.  Yet, that is the trend among those who are wed to what they have been 'spoon fed' by the 'main stream media' for over the year 2020.

Careful historical research led me past the veneer of 'main stream media' which I avoid like the plague, to the truthfulness of original documents and other source material.

Newspapers John Read "read"

By following from the early 1830s thru 1860 and beyond, you get a sense of what the people of Vicksburg, and Hinds and Yazoo Counties Mississippi thought about. These papers gave detailed information about Cotton and Sugar prices, which directly affected John Read's plantation.  One paper had an article about "King Cotton" which is discussed further down on this page.

POLITICS IN THE VICINITY OF EDWARDS DEPOT, MS

Home of John Read
The Antebellum Congressional Elections

1846 ELECTION:  Won by Patrick W Tompkins (Whig) with 52.1% of the vote.

1848 ELECTION:  Won by William Mcwillie (Democrat) with 52% of the vote.

1850 ELECTION:  Won by John D Freeman (Union) with 51.8% of the vote.

1852 ELECTION:  Won by Otho R Singleton (Democrat) with 55.6% of the vote.

1854 ELECTION:  Won by William A Lake (Opposition) with 52% of the vote.

1856 ELECTION:  Won by Otho R Singleton (Democrat) with 54.3% of the vote.

We tend to learn our history of the past as if everything worked out for the best; that there were no other real alternatives available to the participants.  At every historical juncture, there are alternative courses of action available.  It's almost impossible to argue that things work out for the best.

Defense of their homeland was the real incentive for a Southerner to volunteer, not slavery.  This is evident from reading the original source materials. 

At the beginning of the war, in the North, it was not patriotism and selfless devotion that was the real motivation for enlistment.  It was money...mercenary motivation.  Then as now, many enlistments were found, especially in the first call to the colors, in the poorer sections of the North.  There was little sympathy for Abolition; there was a hostility against it. 

Most of the Northern population were racist, even as Lincoln was. (Lincoln was an early member of an organization {documentation provided on this page} that wanted to deport black slaves out of the United States; create colonies for them in other countries).  This becomes apparent by reading the original documents forward, not reading backward in the sources.  Contemporary sources show the real story.  Many Northern soldiers' re-enlistments were also for the money.  (Professor Bill Marvel has done extensive research/statistical studies on this).

Some who read what is presented here may say this is "revisionist" history.  When someone, and especially a historian, casts around the word "revisionist" or "speculation" as epithets, they are demonstrating their hostility to innovative thought, and their ignorance of the very field they have chosen to pursue.  The reason we follow history is to see what is new in it.  And if there be no revisionism or nothing new in it, then there is no reason to pursue it.

Another newly added section on this web page will deal with the Read and Wauchope families, many of whom were members of the Presbyterian Church, and the split that occurred in that church.  We know that John and Dicey Read were members of the Methodist Church in the Edwards Depot, Mississippi area.  Charles "Savez" Read was a member of the First Baptist Church, Meridian, Mississippi prior to his death.  But John Jeremiah Read, and many of his descendants, were members of the Presbyterian Church.  It is the antebellum Presbyterian Church on this page we will examine, concerning how they perceived the coming Civil War.

What you will find on this web page represents original documentation, much of it never discussed in current 'popular' history books or in the classroom.  Too many books about the War Between the States deal with all the battles, strategy, politics, and generalship.  You can read about R.E. Lee, Grant, Sherman, Davis, and Lincoln.  But not much is available which focuses on the common soldier or the civilians.  Some books written in the late 1800s were "war stories" invented out of "whole cloth" and totally fiction.  An example of that is given further down on this page.

We will examine 6 examples of how the general reading public has been misled by individuals, either by design, or by ineptness.

"From Pulaski I moved by the most direct road to Bainbridge crossing on the Tennessee River, which was reached on the 25th, where the army crossed without interruption, completing the crossing on the 27th, including our rear guard...After crossing the river the army moved by easy marches to Tupelo, Miss."

In 1880, Hood wrote his post-war memoirs, "Advance and Retreat."  He devotes two paragraphs to describing the retreat from Nashville to Tupelo.  He DOES NOT mention the cold weather, the rain, the sleet, the lack of rations, or his barefooted and starving troops.  He does note that his retreating army "therefore continued...to march leisurely, and arrived at Bainbridge, on the 25th of December."  In the next paragraph, he launches into a multi-page explanation of his strategy and defends his handing of the Army of Tennessee during the Atlanta and Franklin-Nashville campaigns.

Perhaps General Hood was on a different retreat than that of his soldiers.  Here is how 2 Lt. Samuel Robinson of the 63rd Virginia Infantry saw it:

"we have retreated some 200 miles through the wet and cold mud half leg deep and a great many men was entirey barfooted and almost naked.  The men marched over frozen ground till their feet was worn out till they could be tracked by the blood and some of them there feet was frosted and swolen till they bursted till they could not stand on there feet."

Yes, many letters have spelling errors and problems with grammar; but as with 2Lt. Robinson, there is absolutely no problem feeling "feet (that) was fropsted and swolen till they bursted till they could not stand...?" You DON'T get the same feeling from General Hood's "easy marches to Tupelo."

(My thanks to Jeff Toalson who has done a superb job of editing many diaries and letters of Confederate soldiers, from which comes the above example).

(For a look at major re-writing of military history done by General Grant in his "Memoirs," see the "Read Family Story" web page for two articles, documentation, and video lectures).

Was Ulysses S. Grant a brilliant and unparalleled general who won the American Civil War, a magnanimous and incorruptible man, and an honest and accurate chronicler of history? Or was he remarkably untruthful, careless, persistent, indolent, aggressive, unjust, biased, impetuous, and lucky?

A stringent and detailed examination of Grant’s generalship and character in the war has long been necessary. Standard histories and biographies, founded on a lengthy succession of biased and erroneous writings, have much of it wrong.

Many of these inaccuracies originated with the General himself, in his official reports, in his Personal Memoirs, and in his other writings. While Grant possessed many positive attributes and achieved valuable objectives, his reputation as a military mastermind with a virtuous character is hopelessly exaggerated. Grant Under Fire: An Exposé of Generalship & Character in the American Civil War, thoroughly establishes this.

Below are corrections to just a few of the commonly accepted narratives:

• Contrary to his later assertion in his Personal Memoirs, Grant did receive John Frémont’s orders to occupy Paducah (if possible), before he departed Cairo.
• In a report revised years after the battle of Belmont—but falsified to look as if written just ten days later—Grant fabricated communications to cover up his insubordination in attacking. And he scapegoated Colonel Napoleon Buford, who had avoided the ensuing rout of the federal expedition by taking a separate route to the riverbank. Yet, Grant had written a day after the battle that, “I can say with gratification that every Colonel without a single exception, set an example to their commands that inspired a confidence that will always insure victory when there is the slightest possibility of gaining one.”
• Grant drank—and got drunk—with the enemy on flag-of-truce boats after the battle.
• Despite commendations for honesty, Grant engaged in corrupt practices for the benefit of friends and family, which at least indirectly helped himself. Of some fraudulent practices at Cairo, an Assistant Secretary of War wrote about Grant and his quartermaster, “It appears strange that officers, having an eye to the interests of the Government, could in such a manner countenance, much less certify to, such injustice.”
• On February 15^th, when Grant finally arrived on the battlefield at Fort Donelson after being absent all morning, he initially wanted to pull the troops back, according to Lew Wallace. This would have facilitated the enemy’s escape. John McClernand apparently advised a counterattack which Grant denied hearing. Both subordinates remarked how Grant wanted to withdraw from the positions gained in the subsequent counter-offensive. On the other flank, General Charles Smith waited for Grant to give direct orders before doing anything significant, yet Grant awarded him the honors over Wallace who insubordinately saved the day for the Union.
• When the Confederates surprised his almost completely unprepared army at Shiloh—which he denied to the end of his life—Grant did nothing to facilitate reinforcement by Don Carlos Buell’s force (pointing “Bull” Nelson’s division into the swamps without a guide doesn’t count) and he dispatched Lew Wallace to Sherman’s right (but had to backtrack as the lines had fallen back), but refused to admit it. Evidently, his only orders at the brigade or division level during the first day’s fight led to Benjamin Prentiss’ surrender. When he repeated his instructions for that officer to hold on, the enemy was outflanking the Hornets’ Nest position left and right. His Memoirs, instead, blamed Prentiss for being captured, while he kept changing his accusations in the scapegoating of Lew Wallace.
• Grant was often inebriated, although it is impossible to establish the extent to which his being so affected the war effort. While Grant was on a binge up the Yazoo River, however, several regiments of raw Black soldiers at Milliken’s Bend were fighting for their lives with their backs to the Mississippi, without artillery, and with only serendipitous reinforcement. Henry Halleck related how the General’s riding accident outside of New Orleans—where observers witnessed Grant’s intoxication—delayed his assumption of a larger command at a crucial time in the West. The General’s defenders often transform these accounts into mere “rumors.”
• Interspersed with periods of activity, Grant displayed a physical and mental laziness and confessed to a lifelong habit of indolence. He showed little interest in map making, signals, engineering, and other facets of generalship. Many of the staff chosen by Grant early in the war were not only idlers, but were hard drinkers, as well.
• Extreme partiality may have been Ulysses’ greatest character defect. His choice of officers and even the conduct of operations frequently hinged on personal feelings, as opposed to pertinent military factors. Favorites, such as William T. Sherman and Philip Sheridan, could do no wrong, as Grant raised them up to higher commands. Likewise, he held grudges against fellow officers for little or no good reason, refusing them opportunity, promotion, and justice (either in army courts of inquiry or in the courts of history). Grant’s defenders almost invariably blame everyone else and make him the victim.
• His cotton-speculating father, Jesse, is regularly accused of provoking Grant’s General Orders No. 11, which banished all Jews, as a class, from his military department. But Ulysses’ intention to discriminate against members of that religion had been repeatedly expressed. And he permitted his cotton-speculating friend and financial adviser, J. Russell Jones, to personally accompany him down the Mississippi.
• Colonel Robert Murphy was chosen to be the main scapegoat for the destruction of the Holly Spring’s supply depot, but General Grant committed a series of mistakes which made it possible. (And Grant had saved Murphy after William Rosecrans arrested him for abandoning military stores at Iuka.)
• Grant falsified the history of the Vicksburg campaign by claiming that he placed no faith in his various failed Delta schemes—which he impetuously initiated without proper preparations and with insufficient engineering resources—that his men were as healthy as could be expected, and that he always meant to pass the Vicksburg batteries. His own contemporary writings disproved these assertions.
• One of Grant’s most blatant untruths concerned the spectacular Union charge up Missionary Ridge at Chattanooga on November 25, 1863. He stole the credit from the soldiers and subordinate officers, maintaining that his orders intended them to ascend, when they actually put the men in dire jeopardy at the lower rifle-pits, sitting ducks for the Confederates. His subordinate, George H. Thomas, delayed the attack for an hour (as more brigades of Thomas’ old Army of the Cumberland and from Hooker’s mixed contingent were getting into position to assault), yet Thomas is somehow turned into a passive-aggressive incompetent by Grant’s defenders.
• Denying that his blunder-filled Overland campaign was a catastrophe, General Grant misrepresented the size of the two armies, their casualties, and the results. Grant Under Fire relates how: “Each of his four maneuvers (passing through the Wilderness into open country, reaching Spotsylvania first, crossing the North Anna, and flanking Lee around Cold Harbor) failed. Each of his three major engagements ended in defeat. The stalemating of Grant constituted a major Confederate victory, which was reflected in Lincoln’s political woes, his potential electoral defeat, and the high price of gold.”
• After the ignominious debacle of the charge at Cold Harbor on June 3, 1864, Grant refused for days to send a flag of truce to rescue his wounded men. He thought that Meade could send a flag, but didn’t want to do it himself. This repeated Grant’s failure to request a truce after the May 22^nd assault on Vicksburg a year before. He then implicitly blamed Robert E. Lee for his own callousness. As to his regretting the attack at Cold Harbor, he thought about attacking again two days afterward.
• Once the mine did not ignite when expected at the Battle of the Crater, Grant ordered the troops to charge right over the time-bomb. Here, as he did elsewhere, the General tried to keep Black troops to the rear and out of the fight.
• Grant assisted Sheridan in the dismissal of corps commander Gouverneur Warren at the Battle of Five Forks, by preemptively providing authorization to sack Warren and then supplying incorrect information which made Warren look bad. As General-in-Chief and as President, he quashed Warren’s repeated requests for a court of inquiry. Once Grant left office, President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed a court of inquiry that basically sided with Warren.
• Although often portrayed as a principled individual, Grant helped to deprive many other officers—William Kountz, Lew Wallace, Robert Murphy, John McClernand, Jacob Lauman, Winfield Hancock, and Stephen Hurlbut—of their chances to gain justice through a court of inquiry.
• Grant basically admitted to public corruption for his personal benefit (subsidizing Adam Badeau’s three-volume Military History of Ulysses S. Grant) in giving Badeau a temporary grade of Colonel, three grades beyond his actual rank; unusual access to papers and documents; the assistance of several staff officers to provide historical and military information; diplomatic office abroad during which Badeau could finish the biography; the assistance of other staff officers to furnish information while he was away; and even contravening regulations by sending national archives overseas “at the risk of their being lost,” along with a copy of Grant’s headquarters records.

Hundreds of other such examples are described in Grant Under Fire: An Exposé of Generalship & Character in the American Civil War.

Grant had few of the skills needed to organize and discipline an army. In battle after battle, he showed little tactical ability. Instructions were often meager, with little forethought or planning.

The General repeatedly threw his soldiers into impetuous frontal assaults and against fortifications. Except after crossing the Mississippi to march on Vicksburg, his operations displayed little of a much-publicized reputation for strategic genius. Neither did his expressed methods. These ranged from the simplistic (“find out where your enemy is, get at him as soon as you can, and strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on”), the merely aggressive (“the only way to whip an army is to go out and fight it”), the unthinkingly aggressive (“When in doubt, fight”), and the ham-handed (“Oh! I never manœuvre”).

Other officers and the soldiers fortunately made up for much of his strategic and tactical deficiencies. The faults of judgment, bias, and performance in the Civil War mirrored the multitude of errors in his two terms as President. Ulysses S. Grant, the man, didn’t change.  And where was his wife in all of this?  In some cases, in the theater of operations with her husband and her "slaves"!

Grant and Drinking Revisited

-Brooks D. Simpson

Professor Joan Waugh often lectures on the Civil War and she will discuss the reports of Ulysses S. Grant’s drinking.

It seems to me that too many discussions of Grant’s relationship with alcohol follow a predictable pattern.  We hear Dr. Waugh proclaim that Grant was never drunk when it counted.  That’s a claim I’ve heard for a long time.  In short, whether or not Grant drank, if he did so, no one was hurt by it, and so what’s the big fuss?

I do not concur with this line of argument.

Let’s highlight three reports of Grant’s intoxication during the American Civil War where it’s clear something happened:  the Yazoo bender of June 6, 1863; Grant’s fall from a horse at New Orleans on September 4, 1863; and a report that Grant drank and fell ill while inspecting the Petersburg lines on June 29, 1864.  In each case we can debate and even disagree on what happened in detail, but’s let’s look a bit more carefully at these incidents.

As for the Yazoo, Mississippi bender: we know that Grant had been ailing, that Sherman’s medical director had advised him to take a drink for relief, and that there had been some drinking at Grant’s headquarters on June 5, although it’s far from clear whether Grant was drinking, drinking to excess, drinking to relieve some pain, or not drinking.  However, the journey up the Yazoo the next day was not a pleasure cruise, but an effort to assess the situation in light of reports that Joseph Johnston was mounting a relief expedition to attack Grant’s rear.  Grant appears to have been ill that day, and one could conclude that he had indeed taken a drink or two for relief.  That hypothesis receives support from a draft of an manuscript by James H. Wilson in the Wilson papers at the Library of Congress.  So, is this a story of Grant as irresponsible drunk?  Probably not.  Is this an example of the intersection of illness and alcohol?  Probably.  Was Grant engaged in doing something important to the security of his command?  Yes.  So let’s dismiss the notion that the Yazoo bender, whatever happened there, was undertaken during a lull in the campaign.  That’s simply not true.

Now let’s turn to New Orleans.  Grant was on a visit to Nathaniel P. Banks to confer about possible operations.  Banks took Grant to review two corps, including the Thirteenth Corps, which was part of Grant’s own Army of the Tennessee.  There was quite a reception afterward, complete with drinks.  We don’t have any evidence that anyone saw Grant drinking at the reception, but we do have accounts by Banks and William B. Franklin that Grant was drunk.  Other witnesses did not support that claim.  On the way back, Grant’s mount, alarmed by a train whistle, threw its rider, and Grant fell hard, losing consciousness.  His left leg was seriously injured.  He was laid up for weeks, and had not recovered when he went to Chattanooga six weeks later.  Hard to conclude what exactly happened here, but one could see Grant, feeling a buzz, being a little careless in handling an unruly horse and suffering the consequences.  Putting a general out of commission with a serious injury certainly ends his usefulness in the field for a while, and it could have been worse.

Finally, on June 29, 1864, a hot day, Grant, while inspecting his command, and complaining of a headache, reportedly downed a few drinks, became sick, and vomited.  No, he was not laid up for days, and the vomiting may have resulted from a combination of the heat and the alcohol.  But we can’t say that this was a lull in campaigning, either, as Grant was busy dealing with Lee and pondering what to do next.  The fact is that when you are general-in-chief there is no lull in the fighting, because somewhere someone’s fighting.

Note that I’m setting aside reports of Grant drinking at Chattanooga because I don’t find enough to craft a compelling enough case.  Besides, highlighting these three cases should be sufficient to challenge the notion that there’s some sort of cover-up going on (although there will always be folks who insist that).  These three examples should cause us to set aside the notion that Grant drank when it didn’t matter and when nothing important was going on.  When you are a general in command of an army, something important is always going on, and it would be bad business for a general to assume a lull in the fighting to relax before being surprised.  Think Shiloh.

I’ve written before about Grant’s drinking.  Sometimes I suspect that people don’t pay careful attention to what I’ve written, because the debate seems to be carried on between admirers and antagonists.  I don’t see how that has anything to do with getting the story straight, or in trying to piece together what happened and why.

At least three times during 1863, Grant became intoxicated while in public, horrifying those concerned with preserving his position and reputation, especially his staff officers. Although historians continue to debate the extent and the effectiveness of his efforts, Grant’s adjutant general, John A. Rawlins, a zealous cold-water man from Grant’s home state of Illinois, strove to cover up his boss’s indiscretions and swear him to abstinence. Grant appears to have given in to his urge to imbibe only on those occasions when Rawlins was not on hand to ensure his sobriety. Nor did Grant drink when Julia and the children visited him in the field, rescuing him from lassitude and loneliness.

Ulysses S. Grant continued to wrestle with alcohol after 1865. Liquor never caused scandals for him like it did during the War Between the States, but his occasional relapses ultimately took their toll. Heretofore his slow, painful death from cancer of the mouth and throat had been assumed to be the consequence of heavy smoking. But a 1978 Department of Health, Education and Welfare report of alcoholism concludes that alcohol is "indisputably involved" in the cause of several types of cancer. Among these are "cancers of the mouth and pharynx, larynx . . ."  Evidently the courageous soldier who defeated the Confederates lost his longer war with the disease of alcoholism.

(A United Press International description of this HEW report, complete with Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Joseph Califano's accompanying statement, is printed in the Rocky Mountain News [Denver], October 18, 1978, 70.)

Third, we now consider a book written in the late 1800s by a Civil War Union veteran who filled his memoir with complete untruth.

Many stories have been spun about the American Civil War; some of them better than others. In the modern marketplace, everything from AK-47 wielding Confederates, to a vampire-slaying Lincoln, permeates the battlefields in search of profit. With this as a backdrop, let us re-evaluate the scorned story of one soldier of the Union in "A Load of Buell?"-- Another look at "The Cannoneer."

Park Ranger Bert Barnett leads a talk investigating the fraudulent writings of Augustus Caesar Buell.
(Ranger Barnett and the NPS hold the rights to the lecture and notes; film courtesy of the National Park Service).  

“The Lincoln Forum is an assembly of people who share a deep interest in the life and times of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War era.  Through a roster of activities and projects including symposia, tours, student essay competitions, teacher scholarships, a newsletter, and annual awards to recognize special contributions to the field of Lincoln studies, the Forum endeavors to enhance the understanding and preserve the memory of Abraham Lincoln.”

Consider the 2015 article, "PBS’s “The Civil War”: The Mythmanagement of History" by Professor Emeritus Ludwell H. Johnson, College of William and Mary:

(This piece was originally printed by Southern Partisan magazine in 1990.)

In the September issue of the American Historical Association’s newsletter, a rave review predicted that the PBS production “The Civil War” might become “the Gone With the Wind of documen­taries.” After watching almost all of it, I would suggest Uncle Tom’s Cabin as its fictional alter ego. But let us not (like “The Civil War”) be unfair. It is probably the best of the various kinds of “Civil War” tele­vision extravaganzas to appear so far. As anyone who watched the others will know, this is faint praise. When Boswell asked that arch-conservative Dr. Samuel Johnson who was worse, Rousseau or Voltaire, Johnson replied, “Sir, it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them.”

On the plus side, the pictures in Ken Burns’ documentary were excellent, as they have always been, whether seen on television or in the old "Miller Photographic History" or in the more recent "Image of War" by William C. Davis. The letters from and to soldiers were inter­esting and frequently moving. Shelby Foote’s comments often struck a note of sane moderation. The background music was well-done if repetitious. There were occasional though ineffectual attempts at im­partiality in the narration.

Now for the minus side. In the first place, a program like this is inherently incapable of explaining complex historical events. It can only illustrate the cruelty and suffering of war, the romantic naivete, the poignancy, pathos, courage, cowardice. But even with the best of intentions untrammeled by prejudice or ideological imperatives, to attempt to explain so much by such means is inevitably to distort. When bias, ideology, and sheer ignorance are loaded onto the in­herent limitations, then we have something like “The Civil War”, a caricature often reminiscent of Republican postwar “Bloody Shirt” political propaganda.

To turn to some of the larger deformities, take slavery, both as the cause of the war and as an institution. The mono-causation theo­ry—slavery as the cause—was put forward many years ago by James Ford Rhodes. That view was the received wisdom among the post­war generation, but was powerfully challenged by scholars between the two World Wars.

In the era of the civil rights movement, the importance of slavery was again strongly emphasized by what some have called the Neo-abolitionist historians. But even they never completely turned the clock back to Rhodes, as Mr. Ken Burns has tried to with his popular documentary. To pluck one factor out of a complex historical matrix and offer it, clearly but tacitly, as the cause of war is the result, one can charitably assume, of sheer ignorance.

As for slavery itself, it is likewise torn from context and held up as a uniquely Southern sin. No mention of those Africans in Africa who for generations sold their brothers into slavery; or of the New Englanders who profited for so many years by buying them in Africa and selling them in America; or of the pervasive anti-black prejudice in the Northern states so ably documented thirty years ago by Leon Litwack.

Purported mortality statistics for slaves are presented without comparison to mortality rates among free blacks or whites. There is no hint of the fact that the growth rate of the country’s black popula­tion was less for seventy years after emancipation than it was before, no awareness of the latest revisionist studies (by Northern scholars) that contradict the raw-head-and-bloody-bones vision presented by producer Ken Burns and his coadjutors.

The handling of Lincoln and the questions of race and slavery are equally unbalanced. The level of discourse here was suggested by Shelby Foote’s interviewer, who persisted in believing that Lincoln was an old-line abolitionist. Foote, who one hopes was embarrassed by a good deal of what went on during the eleven hours of the pro­gram, gently demurred, but his questioner bulled ahead anyway. In one of those rare and aberrant bows to ostensible impartiality, it is pointed out that Lincoln initially opposed only the extension of slav­ery, and that he said in his first inaugural he had no intention of in­terfering with slavery where it existed (the adjoining clause in which the Great Emancipator says that neither does he have any inclina­tion to interfere with it is delicately omitted) and that he issued or­ders for the return of runaway slaves. (Incidentally, Lincoln flatly refused to issue such an order.)

Then after the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation we are treated to an out-of-context quotation from Lincoln’s December 1, 1862, message to Congress, including the famous sentence, “we shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.” That com­ment was made at the end of the second half of his message, which is a plea by Lincoln for congressional approval of a constitutional amendment that would postpone emancipation until the year 1900, compensate slave owners and provide funds to colonize the ex-slaves somewhere outside the United States.

“I cannot make it better known that I strongly favor colonization.” And to those Northerners who feared the freed black would “swarm forth and cover the land,” he said they wouldn’t, and if they tried, “cannot the north decide for itself whether to receive them?” View­ers of “The Civil War” documentary were never told that this is the context of “nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth.” It is an excellent example of the editorial policy of the series.

Nor is the audience told that, at the Hampton Roads Conference in February 1865, when the Confederacy was collapsing, Lincoln sat silently by while his Secretary of State invited the Southern negotia­tors to bring their states back into the Union and vote down the pending Thirteenth Amendment; or that Lincoln, when visiting fallen Richmond, himself made the same offer to Calhoun’s old lieutenant, Duff Green.

As for Lincoln and race, the authors of the program are evidently wholly ignorant of the categorical white-supremacist statements Lin­coln made repeatedly and publicly during the 1850s, and do not know that in the late summer of 1862 he told a black delegation that but for the presence of their race, white men would not be killing each other, and it would be best for both blacks and whites if blacks left the country.

As another example of distortion by omission, take the attack on Fort Sumter. In the program, the Confederates suddenly fire on the Union fort, no reason being given. Nothing is said about the repeated assurances given Confederate officials by Lincoln’s Secretary of State that the fort would soon be evacuated, assurances offered even while plans to hold the fort were being devised. There is no mention of the warnings the Confederate government began to receive about an ex­pedition being secretly prepared, or of the fact that when the order to capture the fort was issued by the Davis administration, they knew that a flotilla of undetermined strength was coming down the coast, perhaps (as some informants had warned) to capture Charleston. No, nothing of that—the rebels just attacked, it is im­plied, without cause or provocation.

Other subjects are treated with a degree of unfairness that is bound to raise suspicions as to intent. Space does not permit more than a sampling. Take Fort Pillow. All we come away with is the as­sertion that the Confederates killed black soldiers after they surren­dered. Doubtless some were killed, just as black soldiers sometimes killed Confederates after they had surrendered. What is not told is that, according to the laws of war, if a fortified place refused to sur­render after being warned that otherwise an assault would take place, the attackers were entitled to kill all the defenders. Bedford Forrest’s men did not do this, even though there was never any formal surrender of the Fort and in spite of the fact that some black sol­diers surrendered and then picked up weapons and shot their cap­tors. Of the 557 men in the garrison (295 white, 262 black) 336 survived. Forrest took 226 prisoners, 168 whites and 58 blacks. That was the “massacre.”

As for the Battle of the Crater, we are told that Confederates again shot black soldiers as they attempted to surrender. Doubtless some did. But we are not told that when the black troops were sent into the battle they were also shot by Union white soldiers, even as happened in the Battle of the Bulge in the Second World War. And poor old Burnside was entirely responsible for the disaster at the Crater. Did no one tell the script writers that a black division had carefully drilled to lead the assault but was withheld by Grant and Meade at the last moment, and that this was the probable cause of the failure?

As bad as these examples are, nothing except perhaps the treat­ment of slavery approaches the handling of the subject of prisoners of war. We are transported back to the days of the “Bloody Shirt.” The horrors of Andersonville are depicted, and horrors there were, and the living skeletons (emaciated by dysentery, which killed more men than bullets) that were a staple item in Republican atrocity pro­paganda are again put on display. The viewers are not informed of conditions in Northern camps, where a deliberate policy of depriva­tion was instituted or of the mortality rate in those camps, which, despite the vastly superior resources available to the Lincoln admin­istration, was nearly as high as in the Confederacy. After all, what more can one expect of a producer (Ken Burns) who characterizes Lee as a “traitor”?

A similar one-sidedness can be found in the presentation of Sher­man’s march through Georgia and the Carolinas. Destruction of property and robbery, including robbery of the slaves, are conceded: how could they not be? But there is nothing about the disgusting desecration of churches, digging up the dead to rob the bodies, noth­ing of the murder and torture of civilians, of gang rapes, or of the mass rape of black women. No, mainly just the destruction of prop­erty to show the Southerners the war was lost and thus save lives — that’s all “Old Cump” and his boys were up to.

As for poor George B. McClellan, who certainly had his faults, he is made to look bad so that Lincoln can be made to look good. Just think what that poor man had to put up with! The savaging of Mc­Clellan has been de rigueur among the faithful, especially since Nicolay and Hay deliberately set out to destroy McClellan’s reputation in their massive biography of Lincoln. One point will have to suffice: in the winter of 1861-1862, McClellan (I think this is nearly a direct quotation from the documentary) “took to his tent with a fever rather than move his army.” It was a fever, all right, typhoid fever, said his doctors, and he was in his bed for three weeks.

When all the teachers who have been burning up their VCRs tap­ing “The Civil War” show it to their classes, one can only hope that they will linger over a vignette toward the end, one of the Gettysburg reunion of 1913. It showed those old Confederates retracing their steps up the slopes of Cemetery Ridge, held again by a handful of their old adversaries. But before the old Rebs could totter to the crest, they were met by the old Yanks who rushed down to embrace them. No doubt, to the makers of the film this was just a pleasing touch of sentimentality; but to those who know something of the war, it has far more significance.

During the conflict, soldiers from generals to privates blamed the war on the politicians, and many was the time when Rebs and Yanks, meeting along the picket line, would say: “if they would just leave it to us, we could settle it all quickly and peaceably.”

Then as now, the common soldiers were sent by others to suffer and to die, and the survivors soon began to wonder how the quarrel got started and whether it could possibly be worth the agony they saw all around them. But by that time it was too late to stop. The result is tragedy. And the tragedy is compounded by people like Ken Burns and his collaborators. Too bad they could not have been as just to the Confederate soldiers and their Cause as the old Union veterans at Gettysburg in 1913.

Contrary to standard accounts, the birthplace of American secessionist sentiment was not Charleston, South Carolina in 1860, but the heart of the New England Yankee culture -- Salem, Massachusetts -- more than half a century before the first shot was fired at Fort Sumter. From 1800 to 1815, there were three serious attempts at secession orchestrated by New England Federalists, who believed that the policies of the Jefferson and Madison administrations, especially the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, the national embargo of 1807, and the War of 1812, were so disproportionately harmful to New England that they justified secession.

John Read (seen in the next photo), Charles "Savez" Read's grandfather (whose life is discussed on the "Read Family Story" web page), was a soldier in the War of 1812, and later owned a plantation in Mississippi with slaves.  But during the War Between the States, he remained loyal to the Union cause, and when Federal forces marched through Mississippi, they occupied his house but did not burn it.  He was a Unionist, but several grandchildren put on the Confederate uniform.

John Read was well aware of the protective tariffs being enacting to protect Northern business interests.  This affected Read's profits on the export of his cotton which was used by Northern industry.  The tariffs of 1828 were called the "Tariffs of Abominations."  Designed to protect American industry from cheaper British commodities, it adversely affected the Southern planter.

By the time the fighting reached John Read's plantation in Edwards, MS, he had 3 years worth of cotton stored in a cotton gin house which had not been sold.  The Federals under General Sherman burned most of it.  Some of it was saved when some of his family and plantation workers were able to put some of it into a nearby creek.

Protective tariffs:

A Primary cause of the Civil War

Although they opposed permanent tariffs, political expedience in spite of sound economics prompted the Founding Fathers to pass the first U.S. tariff act. For 72 years, Northern special interest groups used these protective tariffs to exploit the South for their own benefit. Finally in 1861, the oppression of those import duties started the Civil War.

In addition to generating revenue, a tariff hurts the ability of foreigners to sell in domestic markets. An affordable or high-quality foreign good is dangerous competition for an expensive or low-quality domestic one. But when a tariff bumps up the price of the foreign good, it gives the domestic one a price advantage. The rate of the tariff varies by industry.

If the tariff is high enough, even an inefficient domestic company can compete with a vastly superior foreign company. It is the industry’s consumers who ultimately pay this tax and the industry’s producers who benefit in profits.

As early as the Revolutionary War, the South primarily produced cotton, rice, sugar, indigo and tobacco. The North purchased these raw materials and turned them into manufactured goods. By 1828, foreign manufactured goods faced high import taxes. Foreign raw materials, however, were free of tariffs.

Thus the domestic manufacturing industries of the North benefited twice, once as the producers enjoying the protection of high manufacturing tariffs and once as consumers with a free raw materials market. The raw materials industries of the South were left to struggle against foreign competition.

Because manufactured goods were not produced in the South, they had to either be imported or shipped down from the North. Either way, a large expense, be it shipping fees or the federal tariff, was added to the price of manufactured goods only for Southerners. Because importation was often cheaper than shipping from the North, the South paid most of the federal tariffs.

Much of the tariff revenue collected from Southern consumers was used to build railroads and canals in the North. Between 1830 and 1850, 30,000 miles of track were laid. At their best, these tracks benefited the North. Many rail lines had no economic effect at all. Many of the schemes to lay track were simply a way to get government subsidies. Fraud and corruption were rampant.

With most of the tariff revenue collected in the South and then spent in the North, the South rightly felt exploited. At the time, 90 percent of the federal government’s annual revenue came from these taxes on imports.

Historians Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffer found that a few common factors increase the likelihood of secession in a region: lower wages, an economy based on raw materials and external exploitation. Although popular movies emphasize slavery as a cause of the Civil War, the war best fits a psycho-historical model of the South rebelling against Northern exploitation.

Many Americans do not understand this fact. A non-slave-owning Southern merchant angered over yet another proposed tariff act does not make a compelling scene in a movie. However, that would be closer to the original cause of the Civil War than any scene of slaves picking cotton.

Slavery was actually on the wane. Slaves visiting England were free, according to the courts in 1569. France, Russia, Spain and Portugal had outlawed slavery. Slavery had been abolished everywhere in the British Empire 27 years earlier, thanks to William Wilberforce. In the United States, the transport of slaves had been outlawed 53 years earlier by Thomas Jefferson in the Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves (1807) and the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in England (1807). Slavery was a dying and repugnant institution.

The rewritten history of the Civil War began with Lincoln as a brilliant political tactic to rally public opinion. The issue of slavery provided sentimental leverage, whereas oppressing the South with hurtful tariffs did not. Outrage against the greater evil of slavery served to mask the economic harm the North was doing to the South.

The situation in the South could be likened to having a legitimate legal case but losing the support of the jury when testimony concerning the defendant's moral failings was admitted into the court proceedings.

Toward the end of the war, Lincoln made the conflict primarily about the continuation of slavery. By doing so, he successfully silenced the debate about economic issues and states’ rights. The main grievance of the Southern states was tariffs. Although slavery was a factor at the outset of the Civil War, it was not the sole or even primary cause.

The tariff of 1828, called the Tariff of Abominations in the South, was the worst exploitation. It passed Congress 105 to 94 but lost among Southern congressmen 50 to three. The South argued that favoring some industries over others was unconstitutional.

The South Carolina Exposition and Protest written by Vice President John Calhoun warned that if the tariff of 1828 were not repealed, South Carolina would secede. It cited Jefferson and Madison for the precedent that a state had the right to reject or nullify federal law.

In an 1832 state legislature campaign speech, Lincoln defined his position, saying, “My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance. I am in favor of a national bank ... in favor of the internal improvements system and a high protective tariff.’ He was firmly against free trade and in favor of using the power of the federal government to benefit specific industries such as Lincoln’s favorite, Pennsylvania steel.

The country experienced a period of lower tariffs and vibrant economic growth from 1846 to 1857. Then a bank failure caused the Panic of 1857. Congress used this situation to begin discussing a new tariff act, later called the Morrill Tariff of 1861. However, those debates were met with such Southern hostility that the South seceded before the act was passed.

The South did not secede primarily because of slavery. In Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, he promised he had no intention to change slavery in the South. He argued it would be unconstitutional for him to do so. But he promised he would invade any state that failed to collect tariffs in order to enforce them. The statement was received from Baltimore to Charleston as a declaration of war on the South.

Slavery was an abhorrent practice. It might have been the cause that rallied the North to win. But it was not the primary reason why the South seceded. The Civil War began because of an increasing push to place protective tariffs favoring Northern business interests and every Southern household paid the price.

Jefferson Davis Posthumously Responds to Readers’ Reactions

by David John Marotta and Megan Russell on June 27, 2013:

Lessons on Tax Effects, Inequality -

The Inherent Evil of Tariffs, and

Cascading Markups

When the Civil War began, Henry C. Carey was the nation's most widely known political economist. He had published a major three-volume work entitled Principles of Political Economy which had first established him as a serious thinker on the subject. His subsequent volume, The Harmony of Interests, set out a justification for protective tariffs, based mostly on speculative savings on transportation costs in foreign commerce. That work earned him the adulation of the men who wanted protective tariffs.

"True causes of the Uncivil War: Understanding the Morrill Tariff"

By Mike Scruggs

Most Americans believe the U. S. “Civil War” was over slavery. They have to an enormous degree been mis-educated. The means and timing of handling the slavery question were at issue, although not in the overly simplified moral sense that lives in postwar and modern propaganda. But had there been no Morrill Tariff there might never have been a war. The conflict that cost of the lives of 650,000 Union and Confederate soldiers and perhaps as many as 50,000 Southern civilians and impoverished many millions for generations might never have been.

A smoldering issue of unjust taxation that enriched Northern manufacturing states and exploited the agricultural South was fanned to a furious blaze in 1860. It was the Morrill Tariff that stirred the smoldering embers of regional mistrust and ignited the fires of Secession in the South. This precipitated a Northern reaction and call to arms that would engulf the nation in the flames of war for four years.

Prior to the U. S. “Civil War” there was no U. S. income tax. In 1860, approximately 95% of U. S. government revenue was raised by a tariff on imported goods. A tariff is a tax on selected imports, most commonly finished or manufactured products. A high tariff is usually legislated not only to raise revenue, but also to protect domestic industry from foreign competition. By placing such a high, protective tariff on imported goods it makes them more expensive to buy than the same domestic goods. This allows domestic industries to charge higher prices and make more money on sales that might otherwise be lost to foreign competition because of cheaper prices (without the tariff) or better quality. This, of course, causes domestic consumers to pay higher prices and have a lower standard of living. Tariffs on some industrial products also hurt other domestic industries that must pay higher prices for goods they need to make their products. Because the nature and products of regional economies can vary widely, high tariffs are sometimes good for one section of the country, but damaging to another section of the country. High tariffs are particularly hard on exporters since they must cope with higher domestic costs and retaliatory foreign tariffs that put them at a pricing disadvantage. This has a depressing effect on both export volume and profit margins. High tariffs have been a frequent cause of economic disruption, strife and war.

Prior to 1824 the average tariff level in the U. S. had been in the 15 to 20 % range. This was thought sufficient to meet federal revenue needs and not excessively burdensome to any section of the country. The increase of the tariff to a 20% average in 1816 was ostensibly to help pay for the War of 1812. It also represented a 26% net profit increase to Northern manufacturers.

In 1824 Northern manufacturing states and the Whig Party under the leadership of Henry Clay began to push for high, protective tariffs. These were strongly opposed by the South. The Southern economy was largely agricultural and geared to exporting a large portion of its cotton and tobacco crops to Europe. In the 1850’s the South accounted for anywhere from 72 to 82% of U. S. exports. They were largely dependent, however, on Europe or the North for the manufactured goods needed for both agricultural production and consumer needs. Northern states received about 20% of the South’s agricultural production. The vast majority of export volume went to Europe. A protective tariff was then a substantial benefit to Northern manufacturing states, but meant considerable economic hardship for the agricultural South.

Northern political dominance enabled Clay and his allies in Congress to pass a tariff averaging 35% late in 1824. This was the cause of economic boom in the North, but economic hardship and political agitation in the South. South Carolina was especially hard hit, the State’s exports falling 25% over the next two years. In 1828 in a demonstration of unabashed partisanship and unashamed greed the Northern dominated Congress raised the average tariff level to 50%. Despite strong Southern agitation for lower tariffs the Tariff of 1832 only nominally reduced the effective tariff rate and brought no relief to the South. These last two tariffs are usually termed in history as the Tariffs of Abomination.

This led to the Nullification Crisis of 1832 when South Carolina called a state convention and “nullified” the 1828 and 1832 tariffs as unjust and unconstitutional. The resulting constitutional crisis came very near provoking armed conflict at that time. Through the efforts of former U. S. Vice President and U. S. Senator from South Carolina, John C. Calhoun, a compromise was effected in 1833 which over a few years reduced the tariff back to a normal level of about 15%. Henry Clay and the Whigs were not happy, however, to have been forced into a compromise by Calhoun and South Carolina’s Nullification threat. The tariff, however, remained at a level near 15% until 1860. A lesson in economics, regional sensitivities, and simple fairness should have been learned from this confrontation, but if it was learned, it was ignored by ambitious political and business factions and personalities that would come on the scene of American history in the late 1850’s.

High protective tariffs were always the policy of the old Whig Party and had become the policy of the new Republican Party that replaced it. A recession beginning around 1857 gave the cause of protectionism an additional political boost in the Northern industrial states.

In May of 1860 the U. S. Congress passed the Morrill Tariff Bill (named for Republican Congressman and steel manufacturer, Justin S. Morrill of Vermont) raising the average tariff from about 15% to 37% with increases to 47% within three years. Although this was remarkably reminiscent of the Tariffs of Abomination which had led in 1832 to a constitutional crisis and threats of secession and armed force, the U. S. House of Representatives passed the Bill 105 to 64. Out of 40 Southern Congressmen only one Tennessee Congressman voted for it.

U. S. tariff revenues already fell disproportionately on the South, accounting for 87% of the total even before the Morrill Tariff. While the tariff protected Northern industrial interests, it raised the cost of living and commerce in the South substantially. It also reduced the trade value of their agricultural exports to Europe. These combined to place a severe economic hardship on many Southern states. Even more galling was that 80% or more of these tax revenues were expended on Northern public works and industrial subsidies, thus further enriching the North at the expense of the South.

In the 1860 election, Lincoln, a former Whig and great admirer of Henry Clay, campaigned for the high protective tariff provisions of the Morrill Tariff, which had also been incorporated into the Republican Party Platform. Thaddeus Stevens, the most powerful Republican in Congress and one of the co-sponsors of the Morrill Tariff, told an audience in New York City on September 27, 1860, that the two most important issues of the Presidential campaign were preventing the extension of slavery to new states and an increase in the tariff, but that the most important of the two was increasing the tariff. Stevens, a Pennsylvania iron manufacturer, was also one of the most radical abolitionists in Congress. He told the New York audience that the tariff would enrich the northeastern states and impoverish the southern and western states, but that it was essential for advancing national greatness and the prosperity of industrial workers. Stevens, who would become virtually the “boss’ of America after the assassination of Lincoln, advised the crowd that if Southern leaders objected, they would be rounded up and hanged.

Two days before Lincoln’s election in November of 1860, an editorial in the Charleston Mercury summed up the feeling of South Carolina on the impending national crisis:

     “The real causes of dissatisfaction in the South with the North, are in the unjust taxation and expenditure of the taxes by the Government of the United States, and in the revolution the North has effected in this government, from a confederated republic, to a national sectional despotism.”

With the election of Lincoln and strengthened Northern dominance in Congress, Southern leaders in South Carolina and the Gulf states began to call for Secession. Lincoln endorsed the Morrill Tariff in his inaugural speech and promised to enforce it even on seceding Southern states. He signed the Act into law a few days after taking office in March of 1861. The South was filled with righteous indignation.

At first Northern public opinion as reflected in Northern newspapers of both parties recognized the right of the Southern States to secede and favored peaceful separation. A November 21, 1860, editorial in the Cincinnati Daily Press said this:

     “We believe that the right of any member of this Confederacy to dissolve its political relations with the others and assume an independent position is absolute.”

The New York Times on March 21, 1861, reflecting the great majority of editorial opinion in the North summarized in an editorial:

     “There is a growing sentiment throughout the North in favor of letting the Gulf States go.”

Northern industrialists became nervous, however, when they realized a tariff dependent North would be competing against a free-trade South. They feared not only loss of tax revenue, but considerable loss of trade. Newspaper editorials began to reflect this nervousness. Events in April would engulf the nation in cataclysmic war.

Lincoln met secretly on April 4, 1861, with Colonel John Baldwin, a delegate to the Virginia Secession Convention. Baldwin, like a majority of that convention would have preferred to keep Virginia in the Union. But Baldwin learned at that meeting that Lincoln was already committed to taking some military action at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. He desperately tried to persuade Lincoln that military action against South Carolina would mean war and also result in Virginia’s secession. Baldwin tried to persuade Lincoln that if the Gulf States were allowed to secede peacefully, historical and economic ties would eventually persuade them to reunite with the North. Lincoln’s decisive response was,

     “And open Charleston, etc. as ports of entry with their ten percent tariff? What then would become of my tariff?”

Despite Colonel Baldwin’s advice, on April 12, 1861, Lincoln manipulated the South into firing on the tariff collection facility of Fort Sumter in volatile South Carolina. This achieved an important Lincoln objective. Northern opinion was now enflamed against the South for “firing on the flag.” Three days later Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the Southern “rebellion”. This caused the Border States to secede along with the Gulf States. Lincoln undoubtedly calculated that the mere threat of force backed by a now more unified Northern public opinion would quickly put down secession. His gambit, however, failed spectacularly and would erupt into a terrible and costly war for four years.

Shortly after Lincoln’s call to put down the “rebellion;” a prominent Northern politician wrote to Colonel Baldwin to inquire what Union men in Virginia would do now. His response was:

     “There are now no Union men in Virginia. But those who were Union men will stand to their arms, and make a fight which shall go down in history as an illustration of what a brave people can do in defense of their liberties, after having exhausted every means of pacification.”

The Union Army’s lack of success early in the war, the need to keep anti-slavery England from coming into the war on the side of the South, and Lincoln’s need to appease the radical abolitionists in the North led to increasing promotion of freeing the slaves as a noble cause to justify what was really a dispute over fair taxation and States Rights.

Writing in December of 1861 in a London weekly publication, the famous English author, Charles Dickens, who was a strong opponent of slavery, said these things about the war going on in America:

     “The Northern onslaught upon slavery is no more than a piece of specious humbug disguised to conceal its desire for economic control of the United States.”

Karl Marx, like most European socialists of the time favored the North. In an 1861 article published in England, he articulated very well what the major British newspapers, the Times, the Economist, and Saturday Review, had been saying:

     “The war between the North and South is a tariff war. The war, is further, not for any principle, does not touch the question of slavery, and in fact turns on the Northern lust for power.”

The Tariff question and the States Rights question were therefore strongly linked. Both are linked to the broader issues of limited government and a strong Constitution. The Morrill Tariff dealt the South a flagrant political injustice and impending economic hardship and crisis. It therefore made Secession a very compelling alternative to an exploited and unequal union with the North.

How to handle the slavery question was an underlying tension between North and South, but one of many tensions. It cannot be said to be the cause of the war. Fully understanding the slavery question and its relations to those tensions is beyond the scope of this article, but numerous historical facts demolish the propagandistic morality play that a virtuous North invaded the evil South to free the slaves. Five years after the end of the War, prominent Northern abolitionist, attorney and legal scholar, Lysander Spooner, put it this way:

     “All these cries of having ‘abolished slavery,’ of having ‘saved the country,’ of having ‘preserved the Union,’ of establishing a ‘government of consent,’ and of ‘maintaining the national honor’ are all gross, shameless, transparent cheats—so transparent that they ought to deceive no one.”

Yet apparently many today are still deceived and even prefer to be deceived.

The Southern states had seen that continued union with the North would jeopardize their liberties and economic wellbeing. Through the proper constitutional means of state conventions and referendums they sought to withdraw from the Union and establish their independence just as the American Colonies had sought their independence from Great Britain in 1776 and for very similar reasons. The Northern industrialists, however, were not willing to give up their Southern Colonies.

In addition to the devastating loss of life and leadership during the War, the South suffered considerable damage to property, livestock, and crops. The policies of “Reconstruction” and “carpetbagger” state governments further exploited and robbed the South, considerably retarding economic recovery. Further, high tariffs and discriminatory railroad shipping taxes continued to favor Northern economic interests and impoverish the South for generations after the war. It is only in relatively recent history that the political and economic fortunes of the South have begun to rise.

Unjust taxation has been the cause of many tensions and much bloodshed throughout history. The Morrill Tariff was certainly a powerful factor predisposing the South to seek its independence and determine its own destiny. As outrageous and unjust as the Morrill Tariff was, its importance has been largely ignored and even purposely obscured. It does not fit the politically correct images and myths of popular American history. Truth, however, is always the high ground. It will have the inevitable victory.

Had it not been for the Morrill Tariff there would have been no rush to Secession by Southern states, and very probably no war. The Morrill Tariff of 1860, so unabashed and unashamed in its short-sighted, partisan greed, stands as an astonishing monument to the self-centered depravity of man and to its consequences. No wonder most Americans would like to see it forgotten and covered over with a more morally satisfying but largely false version of the causes of the Uncivil War.

The Confederate leadership hoped to use Southern cotton production to assist their attempt to persuade Britain and France to recognize their newly formed government.  With huge stockpiles of cotton, the effects of the Union blockade prevented the previously predicted cotton sales that would have resulted in credits in Europe for purchases of arms, medicines, and other supplies.  Instead of being able to sell the large stockpiles of cotton, most Southern cotton was destroyed or sold to Northern speculators.

John Read, grandfather of Charles, John and Joe Read, was one who lost money on his cotton, even though he supported the Union cause.  We have documentation that Union soldiers who came through the area during the Vicksburg campaign, indiscriminately burned much of his cotton stored in his cotton gin house.

The very influential 1855 book, “Cotton Is King” by David Christy, was used by politicians to support the idea that the continued production and stockpiles of cotton would be the leverage to win the war.

We know that in 1860, the South was providing 2/3 of the entire world’s supply of cotton….and England was especially dependent

on it for its textile mills, which had a million workers employed.

So, with the above mentioned facts in mind, we find the Confederate politicians seeing an opportunity to withhold cotton

to drive prices up, thus compelling Europeans to come and help the Confederate government overcome the Union blockade. 

But the Confederacy didn’t play it’s trump card: instead of selling it’s large surplus of cotton before the Northern blockade reached it’s zenith, they encouraged an embargo of cotton shipments and, indeed, many Southerners, (not including John Read) burned many of their 1861 cotton crop to bolst3r their perceived economic leverage.  In the end, King Diplomacy had failed and the Confederate leadership missed the economic and military support they could have gained from abroad.

This collection of publications from leading members of the pro-slavery movement, provides a valuable insight into the moral and intellectual world from whence it came. The individual works are "Cotton is King: Or, Slavery in the Light of Political Economy" (David Christy), "Liberty and Slavery: Or, Slavery in the Light of Moral and Political Philosophy" (Albert Taylor Bledsoe, LL.D.), "The Bible Argument: Or, Slavery in the Light of Divine Revelation" (Thornton Stringfellow, D. D.), "Slavery in the Light of Social Ethics" (Chancellor Harper), "Slavery in the Light of Political Science" (J. H. Hammond), "Slavery in the Light of Ethnology" (S. A. Cartwright, M. D.), "Slavery in the Light of International Law" (E. N. Elliott, LL.D.), and "The Bible Argument on Slavery" (Charles Hodge, D.D.). The leading article is by Christy, who he is often listed as the author of the entire collection.. Elliott is the editor. The cover features seventh vice-president John Calhoun, who used his sharp intellect in support of slavery.

Changing of Guards May 2016 -

"King Cotton March"

"King Cotton March" -

"The President's Own" U.S. Marine Band

He knew about hospitality, the importance of religion, the importance of the family cemetery...an important reason for the love of the home-place among Southerners.

Out of the original documents I have examined in the Mississippi state and various county archives, written by the Reads and their relatives, I can state that slavery had nothing to do with their support of the Confederacy.  One such documented story appears on the "Read Family Story" web page, which concerns Bettie Read and the Union soldiers who came through the Vicksburg area; burning, robbing, and killing innocent civilians.  Slavery was not the issue for this Read family.  It is simply a historical fact and part of the Read family history.  It is not something that should be erased or ignored.  It is part of our family history and heritage. 

Thus, as we have seen so far, this web page will address "The Old South" where the Read and Wauchope families lived. They were familiar with the racial bias in the North, as well as where they lived in the Southern states.  They knew about the Black slave owners in the South, and the rising tariffs on goods coming through the ports, most of which were in the South.  Charles "Savez" Read was born in a small village located on the Yazoo River and became very familiar with the commercial trade on the Mississippi River.  He was also a personal acquaintance of Jefferson Davis in the Antebellum South.  (But, as someone has misstated on another website, he was not a part of the Davis family.) 

On this web page, you will find information on: Black slave owners; Native American Indian slave owners; Black slaves and free men of color serving in the Confederate army and navy; the fact that (according to the 1860 Census) 98.8% of people in the Northern free states were white; 96.5% if you include all the the loyal states who had slaves and were white.

And all of these, both North and South, had racist views that offend our modern sensibilities; and those in the North were not in favor of Emancipation except toward the end of the war, when they thought that it would help them defeat the South by getting rid of slavery which supported the South's economic base; the plans of Abraham Lincoln to deport slaves to other countries; and post-war Confederates who left to settle in other countries.....by the thousands; the plan of New York City to secede from the Union; the rampant slavery in the North.  One town in up-state New York actually did vote to leave the Union, and didn't rejoin the Union until President Harry Truman was president!

 
After the war, several in the Read and Porter families (a Porter married John Jeremiah Read) considered moving out of the U.S. into another country.  One (Rev. A.A. Porter and one of his children) wrote of their disappointment in seeing the desperate circumstances the Southern civilian population had been left in.  Destruction was widespread.

General R.E. Lee had been invited to join in the exiles who went to Mexico, discussed below, after the war.  He declined.  He felt it his duty to stay and influence his former comrades to work together in harmony for Union.

It is unfortunate that many in our country have not studied history and learned the facts surrounding the issue of slavery in the early days of our country, not only in the antebellum South, but in Colonial America, and, I might add, in the North.

The first slave owner in Virginia, was a Black man.  This may come to many as a surprise, but I learned this fact years ago, while studying history at Old Dominion University.

Then, it may surprise you to learn that many Native American Indians also owned Black slaves.  John Jeremiah Read was well aware of this in Indian Territory, after he became a missionary for the Presbyterian Church in that area before Oklahoma became a state.  Some of these former Black slaves were later discriminated against, by the Indians, when the 5 Civilized Tribes were re-formed under new Peace Treaties.  Some of these treaties were used by one tribe in particular, to enforce discrimination and the continuation of slavery.

A further surprise to some, may be that Abraham Lincoln, had he not been assassinated, planned to deport all Blacks and resettle them in colonies away from the United States.

And still another surprise:  all former Confederates or their widows were entitled to U.S. government pensions through the state governments!  (On the "Read Family Story" webpage, you will see actual documentation that proves that fact; in addition to samples included on this webpage).  (A fact which the website "Snopes" got wrong)! 

In addition, families of Confederate veterans can request and receive at no cost, headstones for their loved ones in a cemetery, even now in the 21st Century!!

The recent unfortunate events in New Orleans (2017) concerning the removal, under the cover of darkness, of Confederate monuments, and the removal in 2020, is representative of blatant Black racial bias.  It is an example of politicians who are caught up in the emotional moment; misunderstanding the history of our American historical memorial landscape. It is a blatant act of violence, by those who have not "read" history, of trying now to "erase" history. Those City Council members who vote for such removal in that and other cities in our nation, show their ignorance of history.

As the years of the Old South closed, how did the Veterans of North and South view each other after the war?  You may be surprised that many fought together in the Spanish-American War.  You may also be surprised that many who survived, came together in reunions.  Also, one of the major monuments to the Confederate dead in Arlington National Cemetery was put there by Union veterans.  Two videos further down on this page, represent what they thought of each other, and how they lived out their days.

This was the closing period of the Old South and the beginning of the New South.  It was in this context that John Jeremiah Read and members of the Wauchope family, would minister to various Native American tribes in Indian Territory, which later became the state of Oklahoma.  Some members of the Wauchope family were actually doing missionary work among Native Americans before the War Between the States, and had to leave once it started.  Some Census records reveal that several Wauchope families before Reconstruction had "house servants" who lived with them.   Some of these are discussed on the "Wauchope Family Story" web page.  The Wauchopes would discover, as did Rev. John J. Read, that many Indians willingly or unwillingly, as the case may be, served as soldiers and scouts in both the Union and Confederate armies.

The reader should also note, that the author/compiler of information on this particular page does not subscribe to only one "cause" which started the War Between the States.  Several issues were involved in a very radioactive mix.  It has only been in the last 10 years that more information has been discovered which proves the case of Lincoln as a confirmed racist, and his plans to deport all Blacks, both slave and free, out of the United States.  Although, much of this information was previously known, it is now getting greater publicity in new books and articles.

-J. Hughes

Gibbons v. Ogden:  a prelude to the issue of states' rights, and the issue of slavery.

GIbbons v. Ogden presents a conflict between the States and Congress over the authority to regulate commerce. In this case, which linked States' authority to license steamboats in federal waters with a seemingly unrelated issue, slavery, Chief Justice Marshall interpreted the Constitution to give the Federal Government the duty to determine the rules of commerce and established how to lay the foundation for an American common market nearly a century before Europe enjoyed it.  The following film is part of the series, "Equal Justice Under Law."

The Committee on the Bicentennial of Independence and the Constitution
The Judicial Conference of the United States

Co-Chairmen
Chief Judge Clement F. Haynsworth, Jr.
Chief Judge Edward J. Devitt

Coordinator
Chief Judge Howard T. Markey

Consultants
Professor William Swindler, College of William and Mary
Professor Anthony Penna, Carnegie-Mellon University
Professor Robert Potter, University of Pittsburgh
Professor Richard Seeburger, University of Pittsburgh
Professor Irving Bartlett, Carnegie-Mellon University

Art Direction, Sets and Costumes
In cooperation with the drama department of Carnegie-Mellon University

Metropolitan Pittsburgh Public Broadcasting, Inc.

According to studies done by Professors Fellman, Gordon, and Sutherland, defense of home was a strong motivation for Confederates, especially since Union armies were "invading" their new nation.  Proving one's manhood, too, was a powerful influence that combined with many other factors, such as duty, patriotism, and defense of home, to inspire enlistment.  Others joined because there was communal or peer pressure to do so, and staying behind would have been far too embarrassing.  Money also played a role in luring men to enlist, especially in the North, where bounties were higher.

Curiously, slavery, which was an underlying cause of the war, was not the cause for which most Civil War soldiers volunteered to serve.  To be sure, Confederate soldiers believed firmly that they had to protect their "way of life" and beat back the hated Yankee aggression, but they seldom enlisted to defend slavery per se.  For most of the Southern aristocracy who owned the slaves, it was about the right to import slavery into the new territories and states.  Similarly, Union white soldiers, especially in 1861, although convinced that they faced a "slaveocracy" that threatened their free-labor economy, were none too keen on the notion of emancipation, let alone racial equality.  There were, of course, true abolitionists in the ranks of the Union from the war's start, but their number was always a minority, even when the war became one to end slavery.

There are literally hundreds and thousands of soldiers letters and diaries located in archives. In looking over many of these one finds verification of the Union soldier's racist comments and the fact that they had not enlisted for any Abolitionist cause.

Stereotyping the Old South

As we approach the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War, the war over that conflict's meaning is less civil today than ever.  Jack Hunter explains:

Life in Old Louisiana (1830-1850)

 Native American Indian ownership of Black slaves is discussed in the documentary

"Black Slaves, Red Masters."

From the late eighteenth century through the end of the War Between the States, Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians bought, sold, and owned Africans and African Americans as slaves, a fact that persisted after the tribes' removal from the Deep South to Indian Territory.

The tribes formulated racial and gender ideologies that justified this practice and marginalized free black people in the Indian nations well after the War Between the States and slavery had ended. Through the end of the nineteenth century, ongoing conflicts among Choctaw, Chickasaw, and U.S. lawmakers left untold numbers of former slaves and their descendants in the two Indian nations without citizenship in either the Indian nations or the United States. In this groundbreaking study, Barbara Krauthamer rewrites the history of southern slavery, emancipation, race, and citizenship to reveal the centrality of Native American slaveholders and the black people they enslaved.

Krauthamer's examination of slavery and emancipation highlights the ways Indian women's gender roles changed with the arrival of slavery and changed again after emancipation and reveals complex dynamics of race that shaped the lives of black people and Indians both before and after removal.

"The role of black Indians, largely omitted from or distorted in conventional history books, is traced by William Katz with careful and committed research. . . . he integrates their general history with brief individual biographies, including leaders, army scouts and soldiers, frontiersmen and explorers, (and) dangerous outlaws".--Booklist.

Slavery existed in North America long before the first Africans arrived at Jamestown in 1619. For centuries, from the pre-Columbian era through the 1840s, Native Americans took prisoners of war and killed, adopted, or enslaved them. Christina Snyder's path-breaking book takes a familiar setting for bondage, the American South, and places Native Americans at the center of her engrossing story.

Indian warriors captured a wide range of enemies, including Africans, Europeans, and other Indians. Yet until the late eighteenth century, age and gender more than race affected the fate of captives. As economic and political crises mounted, however, Indians began to racialize slavery and target African Americans. Native people struggling to secure a separate space for themselves in America developed a shared language of race with white settlers. Although the Indians' captivity practices remained fluid long after their neighbors hardened racial lines, the Second Seminole War ultimately tore apart the inclusive communities that Native people had created through centuries of captivity.

Snyder's rich and sweeping history of Indian slavery connects figures like Andrew Jackson and Cherokee chief Dragging Canoe with little-known captives like Antonia Bonnelli, a white teenager from Spanish Florida, and David George, a black runaway from Virginia. Placing the experiences of these individuals within a complex system of captivity and Indians' relations with other peoples, Snyder demonstrates the profound role of Native American history in the American past.

In The Native Ground, Kathleen DuVal argues that it was Indians rather than European would-be colonizers who were more often able to determine the form and content of the relations between the two groups. Along the banks of the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers, far from Paris, Madrid, and London, European colonialism met neither accommodation nor resistance but incorporation. Rather than being colonized, Indians drew European empires into local patterns of land and resource allocation, sustenance, goods exchange, gender relations, diplomacy, and warfare. Placing Indians at the center of the story, DuVal shows both their diversity and our contemporary tendency to exaggerate the influence of Europeans in places far from their centers of power. Europeans were often more dependent on Indians than Indians were on them.

Now the states of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Colorado, this native ground was originally populated by indigenous peoples, became part of the French and Spanish empires, and in 1803 was bought by the United States in the Louisiana Purchase. Drawing on archaeology and oral history, as well as documents in English, French, and Spanish, DuVal chronicles the successive migrations of Indians and Europeans to the area from precolonial times through the 1820s. These myriad native groups—Mississippians, Quapaws, Osages, Chickasaws, Caddos, and Cherokees—and the waves of Europeans all competed with one another for control of the region.

Only in the nineteenth century did outsiders initiate a future in which one people would claim exclusive ownership of the mid-continent. After the War of 1812, these settlers came in numbers large enough to overwhelm the region's inhabitants and reject the early patterns of cross-cultural interdependence. As citizens of the United States, they persuaded the federal government to muster its resources on behalf of their dreams of landholding and citizenship.

With keen insight and broad vision, Kathleen DuVal retells the story of Indian and European contact in a more complex and, ultimately, more satisfactory way.

Late in April 1861, President Lincoln ordered Federal troops to evacuate forts in Indian Territory. That left the Five Civilized Tribes—Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles—essentially under Confederate jurisdiction and control. The American Indian and the End of the Confederacy, 1863–1866, spans the closing years of the War Between the States, when Southern fortunes were waning, and the immediate postwar period.

Annie Heloise Abel shows the extreme vulnerability of the Indians caught between two warring sides. "The failure of the United States government to afford to the southern Indians the protection solemnly guaranteed by treaty stipulations had been the great cause of their entering into an alliance with The Confederacy, "she writes. Her classic book, originally published in 1925 as the third volume of The Slaveholding Indians, makes clear how the Indians became the victims of uprootedness and privation, pillaging, government mismanagement, and, finally, a deceptive treaty for reconstruction.

Indian Slavery/Slaveries in early

Eastern North America

Kristofer Ray, Dartmouth College, “Constructing a Discourse of Indian Slavery, Freedom, and Sovereignty in Anglo-Virginia, 1600–1830”

Margaret Newell, Ohio State University, “‘As good if not better then Moorish Slaves’: Region and Ethnicity in slavery—the case of New England”

Hayley Negrin, New York University, “Interconnected Regimes: The Indian Slave Trade in Carolina and Plantation Slavery in Virginia after the Westo War of 1679”

Here is a picture of Puritan New England far different from the “city upon a hill” that John Winthrop hoped he and the other first settlers would leave for posterity. It opens with the kidnapping of a Patuxet Indian. It closes with one of the wealthiest men in Massachusetts justifying the enslavement and sale of Africans. In between, Wendy Warren, an assistant professor of history at Prince­ton, scatters massacres, a rape, beheadings, brandings, whippings and numerous instances of forced exile. The behavior of New England settlers differed less from that of their contemporaries who established plantation colonies in the Chesapeake and the Caribbean than might be assumed.

Warren’s theme in “New England Bound” — the place of slavery in the making of colonial New England — echoes preoccupations of the moment in the writing of American history, as the pervasive influence of slavery on the nation, its institutions and its cultures attains wider recognition. In time, perhaps, this perspective will no longer surprise, and even now, few familiar with colonial American history will be astonished by Warren’s account. She builds on and generously acknowledges more than two generations of research into the social history of New England and the economic history of the Atlantic world. But not only has she mastered that scholarship, she has also brought it together in an original way, and deepened the story with fresh research.

The economic ties between early New England and the Caribbean deserve to be better known. Prominent merchant families like the Winthrops and the Hutchinsons made their fortunes by linking New England farmers and fishermen to West Indian markets, by sending food to the sugar colonies, where, in the 17th century, the real wealth lay. Enslaved Africans came to New England through these same merchant networks, as one of several imports from the English Caribbean. These forced migrants never became more than 10 percent of the population. Still, many New England households soon kept a captive African or two.

Slave ownership reached down the social scale and into New England’s hinterland. African captives helped replace the ­Native-American communities displaced by English colonists. As enslaved Africans came in, New England merchants sent Indian captives out, banishing them to Barbados or somewhere else beyond the seas.

This economic dependence on West Indian slavery and the routine exploitation of Indian and African captives drew little comment from English colonists at the time. Warren finds some “wincing in the face of .?.?. cruelty,” but acknowledges that doubts about slavery ran no more deeply in New England at the turn of the 18th century than in any of the other European colonies in the Americas. The emergence of the antislavery North lay more than a century off.

What is most fascinating here is the detailed rendering of what individual enslaved men and women experienced in New England households. “New England Bound” conveys the disorientation, the deprivation, the vulnerability, the occasional hunger and the profound isolation that defined the life of most African exiles in Puritan New England, where there was no plantation community. Though the surviving record allows limited access to their thoughts, Warren effectively evokes their feelings. Ripped from kin on the far side of the Atlantic, “dreaming of other people and other places,” but unable to go home, the lost tried and sometimes succeeded in making meaningful connections with others suffering a similar fate. For this was the ordinary pain and sorrow of slave life in New England: Belonging to someone often meant having no one to belong to.

(Review written by Christopher L. Brown is a professor of history, director of the Society of Fellows and vice provost for faculty affairs at Columbia University.)

Colonial America Depended on the Enslavement of Indigenous People

Dr. Margaret Newell:

New England Indians, Colonists, & the Origins of American Slavery

(A discussion on Ben Franklin's World podcast)

Did you know that one of the earliest practices of slavery by English colonists originated in New England?

In fact, Massachusetts issued the very first slave code in English America in 1641. Why did New Englanders turn to slavery and become the first in English America to codify its practice?

Margaret Ellen Newell, a professor of history at The Ohio State University and the author of Brethren By Nature: New England Indians, Colonists, and the Origins of American Slavery, joins us to investigate these questions and issues.

Dr. Margaret Ellen Newell

presents a lecture on "Brethren by Nature:

New England Indians, Colonists,

and the Origins of American Slavery."

Dr. Margaret Ellen Newell presents another lecture: The Influence of the Colonists’ Relations with American Indians

Dr. Gary Gallagher, University of Virginia, in an excerpt from a lecture, "The Real Lost Cause," discusses why too many read history from the end instead of at the beginning; why the majority of people in the North were racist; why the Civil War could have ended with a victorious Union Army, and............ with slavery intact:

What countries were involved in the triangle trade?

How do scholars get information about slave trading voyages?

Forgotten History: How The New England Colonists Embraced The Slave Trade

American slavery predates the founding of the United States. Wendy Warren, author of New England Bound, says the early colonists imported African slaves and enslaved and exported Native Americans.

In 1640, five years after being freed from slavery himself, Anthony Johnson (born in Angola, Africa), acquired a black slave named John Casar (sometimes spelled Casor or Gesorroro). In 1648, Johnson, who had come to the Eastern Shore in the 1620s, purchased four head of livestock from four different planters. Two years later he was given a patent for an isolated 250-acre tract of land on the north side of Nandua, where he settled with his wife Mary (who had arrived from Africa in 1622) and proceeded to build a livestock business. A patent was a legal claim to land given by the government in exchange for bringing dependents (called "headrights") into the colony. In 1654, he acquired a second slave, Mary Gersheene. Over the next few years, the Johnson's sons, John and Richard, accumulated 650 acres adjacent to their parents' land.

The accumulation of several hundred acres of land, a herd of cattle, and a few slaves constituted a singular economic achievement for a free black family in mid-seventeenth-century Virginia. Historians have pointed to Anthony Johnson as proof that in the early and mid-1600's at least, Virginia's free blacks sometimes operated on an equal footing with whites. It is true that during the 17^th-century free black men occasionally purchased not only black slaves, but indentured white servants, and they sometimes married white women. They established profitable farms and livestock businesses, and successfully sued whites in court.

But more recent investigations into the lives of free blacks on the Eastern Shore suggest that while colonial blacks had relatively more opportunity and freedom than their descendants in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they too suffered at the hands of the white majority.

The Johnsons, for example, were harassed by two of their white neighbors, George and Robert Parker, who connived to lure John Casar away from the Johnson household in early 1655. Johnson successfully petitioned the court for Casar's return, ironically setting an early legal precedent for slavery in Virginia. A white planter attempted to defraud the Johnsons out of their land in 1653, and in 1658 another planter, Matthew Pippen, succeeded in taking land away from Richard Johnson.

Perhaps seeking an atmosphere more congenial for free blacks, the Johnson family moved north to Somerset County, Maryland in 1665, where Anthony Johnson leased 300 acres and founded a tobacco farm that he called Tories Vineyards. But their Virginia troubles were not over. In 1667, Edmund Scarburgh, the Shore's most prominent planter and politician, cheated Johnson out of more than 1,300 pounds of tobacco. And in the greatest injustice of all, in 1670 a jury of white men decided that "because he was a Negroe and by consequence an alien," the Virginia land originally held by Johnson should revert to the Crown.

Anthony Johnson died on his estate in Somerset before the 1670 decision was handed down. Mary Johnson died there 10 years later. Only one son, Richard Johnson, born about 1632, remained on the Eastern Shore, on 50 acres given to him by his father. In the next generation this property was inherited by Anthony's grandson, John Johnson Jr., who named the farm “Angola” as a tribute to his grandfather's birth country. John Johnson was unable to pay the taxes on the property and subsequently lost ownership. He died in 1721.

The Johnson family's economic success is a tribute to their hard work and resourcefulness, but the attempts by their white neighbors to ruin them are indicative of the severe obstacles to success placed in the path of blacks even during colonial times.

(Source: Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, “Site of 17th Century Estate of Anthony and Mary Johnson,” African American Historic Sites Database.)

The First Official Slave and Slave Owner in (North) America...from "Stolen History, Part 2":

William Ellison: Largest African American Slave Owner and Breeder

in South Carolina.....

and he was Black

By 1860, William “April” Ellison was South Carolina's largest Negro slave owner; and in the entire state, only five percent of the people owned as much real estate as did William Ellison. His wealth was 15 times greater than that of the state's average for whites. Ellison also owned more slaves than did 99% of the South's slaveholders.

William Holmes Ellison, Jr. "April"

a Black (mulatto) Slave Owner in South Carolina

In 1800, the South Carolina legislature had set out in detail the procedures for manumission. To end the practice of freeing unruly slaves of "bad or depraved" character and those who "from age or infirmity" were incapacitated, the state required that an owner testify under oath to the good character of the slave he sought to free. Also required was evidence of the slave's "ability to gain a livelihood in an honest way." On June 8, 1816, William Ellison of Fairfield County appeared before a magistrate (with five local freeholders as supporting witnesses) to gain permission to free his slave, April, who was at the time 26 years of age. April was William Ellison, Jr. of Sumter County.

At birth, William Ellison, Jr. was given the name of "April." It was a popular practice among slaves of the period to name a child after the day or month of his or her birth. It is known that between the years 1800 and 1802 April was owned by a white slave-owner named William Ellison, son of Robert Ellison of Fairfield County in South Carolina. It is not documented as to who his owner was before that time. It can only be assumed that William Ellison, a planter of Fairfield district was either the father or the brother of William Ellison, Jr., freedman of Sumter County. April had his name changed to William Ellison by the courts, obviously in honor of William Ellison of Fairfield.

At the age of 10, William "April" Ellison was apprenticed and he was trained as a cotton gin builder and repairer. He spent six years training as a blacksmith and carpenter and he also learned how to read, write, cipher and to do basic bookkeeping. Since there are no records showing the purchase of April (later William Ellison of Sumter) by William Ellison of Fairfield, it is unknown as to how long April was owned by William Ellison. It is known that William Ellison of Fairfield inherited a large estate from his father Robert, and that the slaves of the estate, named in the will were left to his siblings. It is possible that Robert Ellison gave several slaves to his son before his death, so they would not have needed to have been mentioned in his will. William owned several slaves according to the census records. Both Robert and William were of an age to have been able to be the father of April.

April was trained as a machinist and he became a well known cotton gin maker. Upon receiving his freedom he decided to pursue his expertise in Sumter County, South Carolina where found an eager market for his trade. He is well known for perfecting the cotton gin invented by Eli Whitney.

William Holmes "April" Ellison was born in 1790, in Fairfield, SC, which was 40 miles NW of the High Hills, to William Holmes Ellison and Mary Harrison. He married a woman named Matilda and together they had the following children: Aliza Ann, Marie, Henry, William Holmes III, and Reuben Ellison. He had an illegitimate child named Maria Ellison that he sold. "April" was a slave owner and one time slave himself. It was told that he was hard on his slaves and interestingly none of his slaves were Mulattoes, they were all black. When he was 26 he became a free man and 3 years later at the Sumter District courthouse he had his name changed to William. William was the name of his former master (William Holmes Ellison I). He changed his name from April because it was tied to slavery.

He was known for being a Cotton Gin Maker. In 1822, he built his Cotton gin shop on an acre of land that he purchased for $375 from General Thomas Sumter. This shop would be operated by William and even his grandsons for many decades. The shop was located at the NW corner of a busy intersection of the roads of Charleston-Camden and Sumterville-Columbia, SC. Now at the Holy Cross Episcopal Church were he attend services, William rose in respectability. His family became so respected that they were the only colored family allowed to worship on the main floor. William Ellison was permitted to place a Bench under the Organ Loft for the use of himself and family. William Ellison died on December 5, 1861 in Statesburg, SC, and was buried with his wife, Matilda. His tombstone was placed in the first row of the family's graveyard.
------------------------------------

Additional Bio Info provided by Art Wells:

In 1800 the South Carolina legislature had set out in detail the procedures for manumission. To end the practice of freeing unruly slaves of "bad or depraved" character and those who "from age or infirmity" were incapacitated, the state required that an owner testify under oath to the good character of the slave he sought to free. Also required was evidence of the slave's "ability to gain a livelihood in an honest way." On June 8, 1816, William Ellison of Fairfield County appeared before a magistrate (with five local freeholders as supporting witnesses) to gain permission to free his slave, April, who was at the time 26 years of age. April was William Ellison, Jr. of Sumter County.

At birth, William Ellison, Jr. was given the name of "April." It was a popular practice among slaves of the period to name a child after the day or month of his or her birth. It is known that between the years 1800 and 1802 April was owned by a white slave-owner named William Ellison, son of Robert Ellison of Fairfield County in South Carolina. It is not documented as to who his owner was before that time. It can only be assumed that William Ellison, a planter of Fairfield district was either the father or the brother of William Ellison, Jr., freedman of Sumter County. April had his name changed to William Ellison by the courts, obviously in honor of William Ellison of Fairfield.

At the age of 10, William "April" Ellison was apprenticed and he was trained as a cotton gin builder and repairer. He spent six years training as a blacksmith and carpenter and he also learned how to read, write, cipher and to do basic bookkeeping. Since there are no records showing the purchase of April (later William Ellison of Sumter) by William Ellison of Fairfield, it is unknown as to how long April was owned by William Ellison. It is known that William Ellison of Fairfield inherited a large estate from his father Robert, and that the slaves of the estate, named in the will were left to his siblings. It is possible that Robert Ellison gave several slaves to his son before his death, so they would not have needed to have been mentioned in his will. William owned several slaves according to the census records. Both Robert and William were of an age to have been able to be the father of April.

April was trained as a machinist and he became a well known cotton gin maker. Upon receiving his freedom he decided to pursue his expertise in Sumter County, South Carolina where found an eager market for his trade. He is well known for perfecting the cotton gin invented by Eli Whitney.

In 1816, April, now known as William Ellison, Jr. arrived in Stateburg where he initially hired slave workers from their local owners. By 1820 he had purchased two adult males to work in his shop. On June 20, 1820, April appeared in the Sumter District courthouse in Sumterville. Described in court papers submitted by his attorney as a “freed yellow man of about 29 years of age,” he requested a name change because it “would yet greatly advance his interest as a tradesman.” A new name would also “save him and his children from degradation and contempt which the minds of some do and will attach to the name April.” Because “of the kindness” of his former master and as a “Mark of gratitude and respect for him” April asked that his name be changed to William Ellison. His request was granted.

The Ellison family joined the Episcopalian Church of the Holy Cross in Stateburg and on August 6, 1824, William Ellis was the first black to install a family bench on the first floor of the church, among those of the other wealthy families of Stateburg. The poor whites and the other black church members, free and slave, sat in the balcony of the church.

Gradually, Ellison built up a small empire, purchasing slaves in increasing numbers as the years passed. He became one of South Carolina's major cotton gin manufacturers and sold his machines as far away as Mississippi. He regularly advertised his cotton gins in newspapers across the state. His ads may be found in historic copies of the Black River Watchman, the Sumter Southern Whig, and the Camden Gazzette.

By 1830, he owned four slaves who assisted him in his business. He then began to acquire land and even more slaves. In 1838 Ellison purchased 54.5 acres adjoining his original acreage from former South Carolina Governor Stephen Decater Miller. Ellison and his family moved into a large home on the property. (The house had been known as Miller House but became known as Ellison House.) As his business grew, so did his wealth and by 1840, Ellison owned 12 slaves. His sons, who lived in homes on the property, owned an additional nine slaves. By the early 1840s, he was one of the most prosperous men in the area. By the year 1850, he was the owner of 386 acres of land and 37 slaves. The workers on Ellison's plantation produced 35 bales of cotton that year.

In 1852, Ellison purchased Keith Hill and Hickory Hill Plantations which increased his land holdings to over 1,000 acres. By 1860 William Ellison was South Carolina's largest Negro slave owner and in the entire state, only five percent of the people owned as much real estate as did William Ellison. His wealth was 15 times greater than that of the state's average for whites. Ellison also owned more slaves than did 99% of the South's slaveholders.

When War Between the States broke out in 1861, William Ellison, Jr. was one of the staunchest supporters of the Confederacy. His grandson joined a Confederate Artillery Unit, and William turned his plantation over from cotton cash crop production to farming foodstuff for the Confederacy.

William Ellison, Jr. died on 5 December 1861, at the age of 71 and per his wishes, his family continued to actively support the Confederacy throughout the war. Aside from producing corn, fodder, bacon, corn shucks, and cotton for the Confederate Army, they contributed vast amounts of money, paid $5000 in taxes, and invested a good portion of their fortune into Confederate Bonds which were worthless at the end of the war.

William Ellison, Jr. had died with an estate appraised at $43,500, consisting of 70 slaves. His will stated that his estate should pass into the joint hands of his daughter and his two surviving sons. He bequeathed $500 to a slave daughter he had sold. At his death he was one in the top 10% of the wealthiest people in all of South Carolina, was in the top 5% of land ownership, and he was the third largest slave owner in the entire state.

In 1816, April, now known as William Ellison, Jr. (not to be confused with one of his own sons, whom he would name William Ellison, Jr.) arrived in Stateburg where he initially hired slave workers from their local owners. By 1820, he had purchased two adult males to work in his shop. On June 20, 1820, "April" appeared in the Sumter District courthouse in Sumterville. Described in court papers submitted by his attorney as a “freed yellow man of about 29 years of age,” he requested a name change because it “would yet greatly advance his interest as a tradesman.” A new name would also “save him and his children from degradation and contempt which the minds of some do and will attach to the name April.” Because “of the kindness” of his former master and as a “Mark of gratitude and respect for him” April asked that his name be changed to William Ellison. His request was granted.

The Ellison family joined the Episcopalian Church of the Holy Cross in Stateburg and on  August 6, 1824, William Ellis was the first black allowed to install a family bench on the first floor of the church, albeit in the back of the church, among those of the other wealthy  families of Stateburg. The poor whites and the other black church members, free and slave, sat in the balcony of the church.

Gradually, Ellison built up a small empire, purchasing slaves in increasing numbers as the years passed. He became one of South Carolina's major cotton gin manufacturers and sold his machines as far away as Mississippi. He regularly advertised his cotton gins in newspapers across the state. His ads may be found in historic copies of the Black River Watchman, the Sumter Southern Whig, and the Camden Gazette.

By 1830, he owned four slaves who assisted him in his business.   He then began to acquire land and even more slaves. In 1838, Ellison purchased 54.5 acres adjoining his original acreage from former South Carolina Governor Stephen Decater Miller. Ellison and his family moved into a large home on the property. (The house had been known as Miller House but became known as Ellison House.) As his business grew, so did his wealth and  by 1840, Ellison owned 12 slaves.

His sons, who lived in homes on the property, owned an additional nine slaves. By the early 1840s, he was one of the most prosperous men in the area. By the year 1850, he was the owner of 386 acres of land and 37 slaves. The workers on Ellison's plantation produced 35 bales of cotton that year. 

In 1852, Ellison purchased Keith Hill and Hickory Hill Plantations which increased his land holdings to over 1,000 acres. By 1860 William Ellison was South Carolina's largest Negro slaveowner and in the entire state, only five percent of the people owned as much real estate as did William Ellison. His wealth was 15 times greater than that of the state's average for whites. Ellison also owned more slaves than did 99% of the South's slaveholders.

And how did he treat his slaves?  The records found in "Black Masters," tell us "He had a reputation as a harsh master.  His slaves were said to be the district's worst fed and worst clothed.  Hungry for more land and slaves, Ellison and his family lived frugally, and he probably was even more tightfisted in providing food, clothing, and housing for his slaves.   Harsh treatment could have stemmed from Ellison's need to prove to whites that, despite his history and color, he was not soft on slaves.  A reputation for harshness was less dangerous than a reputation for indulgence."

Did he pay for "slave catchers" to find his runaway slaves?  Yes, the record is clear on that point. 

He was also a slave "breeder" who sold off black slave girls to help raise the large sums he needed to buy more adult slaves and more land.  To him, slaves were a source of labor, and the laborers he needed most were adult men who could work in his gin shop and cotton fields.  Rather than accumulate slaves he could not exploit, it is seen that he sold twenty or more girls, retaining only a few who could eventually have more children, and in some cases, work in his home as domestics.  If Ellison sold twenty slave girls for an average price of $400, he obtained an additional $8,000 cash, a sum large enough to have made a major contribution to the land and slave purchases that made him a planter.  Thus, Ellison's economic empire was in large part constructed by slave labor and paid for by the sale of slave girls.  And from the local records available, local tradition is silent about Ellison's slave sales, but outspoken about his reputation as a harsh master.  In summary, his slaves were said to be the district's worst fed and worst clothed. 

When War Between the States broke out in 1861, William Ellison, Jr. was one of the staunchest supporters of the Confederacy. His grandson joined a Confederate Artillery Unit, and William turned his plantation over from cotton cash crop production to farming foodstuff for the Confederacy.

William Ellison  died on 5 December 1861, at the age of 71 and per his wishes, his family continued to actively support the Confederacy throughout the war. Aside from producing corn, fodder, bacon, corn shucks, and cotton for the Confederate Army, they contributed vast amounts of money, paid $5000 in taxes, and invested a good portion of their fortune into Confederate Bonds which were worthless at the end of the war.

 William Ellison, Jr. had died with an estate under-appraised at $43,500, consisting of 70 slaves. His will stated that his estate should pass into the joint hands of his daughter and his two surviving sons. He bequeathed $500 to a slave daughter he had sold. At his death he was one in the top 10% of the  wealthiest people in all of South Carolina, was in the top 5% of land ownership, and he was the third largest slave owner in the entire state. 

Slave records show that Ellison owned by year and number:

1820: 2, 1830: 4, 1840: 30, 1850: 36, and 1860: 63.

Skilled artisans who made and repaired cotton gins and other agricultural equipment were a common feature in many communities of antebellum South Carolina.  While some enslaved craftsmen and mechanics did this type of work, this was also a business for white laborers and even free persons of color.  The 1860 census, however, listed only 21 fulltime gin makers in the state.  The above newspaper advertisements shed light on the business of making and repairing cotton gins during the mid-nineteenth century.  The ad, “Improved Cotton Gins,” comes from William Ellison of Stateburg, a successful cotton gin maker, as well as planter, slaveholder, and free person of color. 

Ellison’s remarkable story began in 1790, as a child born into slavery in Fairfield District.  At the time of his birth, the South Carolina backcountry was still very much a frontier society.  His father was likely a white man (either Robert or William Ellison), who was among those early cotton farmers that helped transform the backcountry into a plantation society.  Around 1802, he became an apprentice to a nearby gin maker in Winnsboro, helping construct cotton gins for planters in the region.  In 1816, at the age of 26, he purchased his freedom, and he legally changed his name from April to William in 1820.  Changing his name was an important step, since “April” was considered a slave name.  William Ellison, as a free person of color and entrepreneur, set up his own successful gin shop in Stateburg.

William Ellison to Henry Ellison, 26 March 1857.  Document Description:

Freedman William Ellison’s cotton gin shop in Stateburg proved to be a lucrative enterprise for him and his family.  In this letter dated March 26, 1857, Ellison wrote to his son Henry, who was clearly involved in handling the accounts of the ginning business.  By the time of this letter, William Ellison and his family were a part of an elite group of free African Americans based largely in Charleston.  Ellison maintained his wealth and financial security by purchasing land and slaves.  By 1860, Ellison owned over 900 acres of land, as well as 63 slaves.  According to the census of 1860, Ellison was one of 171 black slaveholders in South Carolina.  His home in Stateburg, which had previously belonged to former governor, Stephen Miller, still stands today.

The above letter comes from the Ellison Family Papers, which consist of letters, notices, receipts, and accounts for William Ellison.  These papers are unique, since they are perhaps the only sustained collection of papers between members of a family of free African Americans during the mid-nineteenth century (ranging in time from 1848 to 1864).  Selected Ellison Family Papers have been published in Michael P. Johnson and James L. Roark, ed., No Chariot Let Down: Charleston’s Free People of Color on the Eve of the Civil War.  (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984).

Citation:

William Ellison to Henry Ellison, 26 March 1857.  Ellison Family Papers, 1845-1870. Manuscripts Division, South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina.

Transcription:

Stateburg, March 26th 1857

Dear Henry,

Your letter of 23rd instant was duly received and I perceived by it that you had not received mine of the 22d.  John went over the river yesterday.  He saw Mr. Ledinham.  He said that he had not sold but half of his crop of cotton and had not the money but when he got the money and was working on this side of the river that he would send his son with it and rake up his account.  He also saw Mr. Van Buren and he was ready to pay but before he did so he wished his overseer to certify to it but John could not find him and as it became late he had to leave for home but left the account with Mrs. Mitchel, his wife.  You will find enclosed Mrs. Mathew Singleton’s account.  She will be found at No. 4 Akins range.  Mr. Turner said that it was his fault that the account was not paid before.  He thinks that she will get another gin.  There is one of the saws in the new gin that is worn half in two.  He says that he will send the gin over to be repair[ed] and also another old gin providing Mrs. Singleton don’t get a new gin.  As you did not get my letter in due time and for fear that you may not [have] as yet received it, I will mention a few items of importance that  I

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wish attended to at one if you have not done so.  Leave three hundred dollars in Messrs. Adams and Frost hands subject to my order.  And also the money that I have borrowed from William.  Mr. Benbow wrote to me and I sent you a copy in the letter that I wrote you.  Mr. E. Murray’s account and order was presented to him last Friday and he was to send his note when he sent to the post office but he failed to do so.  I want you to get me a half doz. weeding hoes.  No. 2 get two hand saws from Mr. Adger for the shop.  I want you to get me 8 bags of guano.  The above articles and instruction was states in the other letter.  I mention the same incase you should not have received my other letter.  We are all well as usual.  Give my respect to all my friends.

Your father,

William Ellison

Birth:            Jul. 19, 1819

Death:          Jul. 24, 1904

 Parents:

  William Holmes Ellison (1790 - 1861)

  Matilda Ellison (1764 - 1850)

 Spouses:

  Mary Thomson Mishaw Ellison (1829 - 1853)

  Gabriella Miller Ellison (1832 - 1920)*

 Children:

  William John Ellison (1845 - 1894)*

  Robert Mishaw Ellison (1851 - 1854)*

  Henry McKinzie Ellison (1852 - 1853)*

 Siblings:

  Aliza Ann Ellison Buckner Johnson (1811 - 1820)*

  William Holmes Ellison (1819 - 1904)

  Reuben Ellison (1821 - ____)*