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Browsing named entities in a specific section of Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, major general , United States army : volume 2. Search the whole document.

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Edwin M. Stanton (search for this): chapter 2.18
each. Then I carefully instructed subordinates that, touching all subjects of a military character, the agents were to be under the direction of State department commanders. The Bureau officer acted in the same manner as an officer of engineers building a fort might do, reporting on all matters of construction directly to the chief of engineers at Washington, but at the same time being the engineer officer on the staff of a local commander. Fortunately for me the Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, and General Grant, the commander of all the geographical departments and garrisons, were friendly to my work; it was, therefore, not difficult to secure in that way unity of organization and action; it was easy enough in and near all towns actually garrisoned, and in places which were reached by rail. Perhaps the needs, the hopes, the fears, the failures, and such progress as was made in the Bureau work for 1866 may be best illustrated by some of the work before the courts that year.
J. W. Sprague (search for this): chapter 2.18
oes, so that I was fearful that matters there might grow worse. But I was greatly mistaken. Davis said: The laws shall be executed at whatever cost. He settled difficulties between the negroes and white men with satisfaction to both, and punished the lawless with such promptitude that even the bloody and much-feared regulators were obliged, where he could reach their haunts, to suspend their base work of terrorism which they had undertaken among the freedmen and their teachers. General J. W. Sprague, most manly and fearless of men, in October of 1866 was no longer sanguine for Arkansas in the line of justice. The legislature did not grant the negroes their rights. He feared to give cases to State officers on account of their manifest prejudice and unfairness. He could not, he confessed, carry out his Bureau instructions without the troops. Murders of freedmen and other crimes against them were on the increase. Civil authorities utterly failed to arrest and punish offenders
William T. Sherman (search for this): chapter 2.18
's Bureau bill. On the 12th of the same month it was brought up for discussion, when he explained what he wished to accomplish with it: (1) An essential extension beyond the one year to be terminated by a future Act of Congress. (2) That it should apply to the whole country wherever were the beneficiaries; (3) That the President should give them land by reserving not exceeding 3,000,000 acres from settlement or sale in certain Southern States where public lands still remained; (4) That General Sherman's possessory titles on the sea islands be made real; and (5), more important still, that when discriminations against negroes were made Bureau officers and agents should take and hold jurisdiction of the offenses. Much feeling and bitterness were evolved in the discussion that followed the senator's statements. Yet all hindering amendments were voted down, and January 25th, the bill passed the Senate by 27 majority. In the House there was a like fiery discussion. The bill was amen
Phil H. Sheridan (search for this): chapter 2.18
hes remained uncorrected for want of military force. The perpetrators were lawless and irresponsible white men; they were the terror of both property holders and laborers. They were countenanced by the community either through sympathy or fear. Baird added that the. Civil-Rights-Law was to some extent having a good effect, restraining those who had hitherto been disposed to treat United States laws with contempt. Several magistrates were under arrest for violating its provisions. General Sheridan, following Baird in Louisiana, rather heightens the adverse picture: Homicides are frequent in some localities; sometimes they are investigated by a coroner's jury, which justifies the act and releases the perpetrator; in other instances, when the proof comes to the knowledge of an agent of the Bureau, the parties are held to bail in a nominal sum, but the trial of a white man for the killing of a freedman can, in the existing state of society in this State, be nothing more or less tha
William H. Seward (search for this): chapter 2.18
Chapter 52: President Johnson's reconstruction and further bureau legislation for 1866 President Johnson, by the inspiration and help of his Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, had succeeded before the meeting of Congress in December, 1865, in completely rehabilitating all the States that had belonged to the Southern Confederacy, so far as the form went. Apparently all the functions of Government, both State and National, were already reawakened and in operation. By taking the old State constitutions of 1861 and modifying them slightly to make them comply with the Thirteenth Amendment of the National Constitution, seemingly the problems of reconstruction were solved. Everything, for a time, to the late Confederates, was going on as they would have it. All those who had been for four years fighting against the United States were again in power at the State capitals, or so close behind those in office that they made themselves felt in every sort of legislation and act of administrat
Dred Scott (search for this): chapter 2.18
side of all proper citizenship. They had no voice directly or indirectly in the new governments over them, and soon, worse than that, vicious laws were passed that made their actual condition deplorable. They were, indeed, but for military protection, which still lingered in the South, worse off than under the old system of slavery. At this juncture, when Congress was assembling, the situation may be summarized as follows: The Southern legislators, in keeping with Judge Taney's famous Dred Scott decision, very clearly demonstrated that the negro had no rights. True, they had formally adopted the Thirteenth Amendment to the National Constitution, but had followed that action by legislation which vitiated its provisions. The smallest acts annoying to white men were raised to misdemeanors, while vagrancy, poverty, and even enforced idleness were made to constitute a crime to be punished by excessive fines or hard labor under constraint. The labor and vagrancy laws, ostensibly for
Rufus Saxton (search for this): chapter 2.18
ferred to me for examination and correction. Any agent who took the part of the freedmen against a Southern planter, especially one who had the hardihood to arrest a white man for misusing a negro, was traduced, and often, I am sorry to say, his discharge was brought about. The President was very anxious to be rid of every prominent officer who was reported to have been long the freedmen's friend. In his eyes assistant commissioners, such as Mr. Conway, Colonel Brown, Generals Whittlesey, Saxton, Samuel Thomas, and Absalom Baird, were too pronounced in behalf of those assailed; they seemed to be friends of the so-called carpet-baggers, i. e., immigrants from the North, and of Southern Unionists and negroes; and many subagents also were accused of a like attitude. They were too much the advocates of their wards to suit the situation. As I was obliged to execute the law under the direction of his Excellency, little by little his power made itself felt. To give my work the utmost o
John C. Robinson (search for this): chapter 2.18
negroes. But the agents now found another obstacle. Constables refused to serve subpoenas for such witnesses, and even when colored men did testify, the prejudice of jurymen gave little or no weight to their testimony. In North Carolina General Robinson, now in command, delayed the transfer of cases for trial to the civil courts, especially those where whites had committed fraud, injury, or violence upon persons of color. In July the governor wrote him: There now exists under the laws of tly to the civil authorities, embracing assault and battery, rape, church burning, arson, and murder. The civil courts, however, as a rule were keeping faith. The offenders had been required to give bonds and so held to answer the charges. General Robinson was sanguine of the future. He believed that after time enough had elapsed for new adjustments between the races mutual confidence would be restored. General Tillson was a conservative and harmonizer, leaning possibly to the side of the
J. R. Lewis (search for this): chapter 2.18
delicate and dangerous duties, gave rise to increased anxiety everywhere and seemed to necessitate an increase of military force. General Clinton B. Fisk had good results in Tennessee in 1866. The State legislature took liberal action in matters of vagrancy, or apprenticing and contracts which affected the freedmen; they modified the old laws to conform to the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution and to the Civil-Rights-Law. Before General Fisk, in September, was relieved by General J. R. Lewis, he took occasion by a circular, widely published, to transfer all cases to the civil officers elected by the people, to call their attention afresh to the United States laws involved, and to entreat them to lay aside all feelings of prejudice, in order that the State laws might be administered in such a manner as not to compel a return to military courts. We all believed then that greater security for the life and property of the freed people existed in Tennessee than in any other o
J. B. Kiddoo (search for this): chapter 2.18
hites toward the freedmen, but alleged weakness and neglect on the part of State officials touching heinous crimes. Murders and robberies were committed and nobody was arrested and brought to trial except through the agency of United States officers, most of them of our Bureau. In three counties it had been necessary to reestablish the Bureau courts to prevent insurrection among the freedmen, who threatened retaliation for the wrongs which they suffered from local civil courts. General J. B. Kiddoo, the Texas commander, found little respect for any law in the northeast counties. The legislature had delayed the necessary legislation; freedmen could not yet testify in spite of the advent of the Civil-Rights-Law; great distinctions were constantly made in all dealings with them. His chief troubles consisted in his efforts to protect them from violence; he entreated for more troops for those remoter districts where the greater number of outrages occurred. As in Arkansas, where t
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