This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
Chapter
47
: freedmen's aid societies and an act of congress creating a Bureau of refugees, freedmen and abandoned lands
Chapter
55
:
first
appropriation by congress for the bureau; the reconstruction Act,
March
2
,
1867
; increase of educational work
Chapter
60
: opposition to Bureau and reconstruction work became personal; the
Congregational Church of
Washington
Chapter
62
: life in
Washington, D. C.
,
1866
to
1874
; assigned to duty in regular army as commander,
Department of the Columbia
Chapter
63
: in the
Northwest
, among the
Indians
; trip to
Alaska
; life in
Portland, Ore.
;
1874
to
1881
Chapter
64
: superintendent of the
United States military Academy
; commanding
Department of the Platte
,
Omaha, Neb.
Chapter
68
:
French
army maneuvers,
1884
; promotion to
Major General
,
United States army
,
San Francisco
1886
-
88
[424] resistance to wrong, it became out and out an advocate of negro manhood. That was its theory; that was its practice; that was its sanguine hope. How could these Southern white people, who had not even believed in emancipation, enter heartily into sympathy with me, a commissioner, as they claimed, of a party of radical Republicans? How could the conservatives of the North, who wanted the care of the freed people left entirely to their old masters and to the Southern State governments, favor my theory? To them, even to those who had confidence in my integrity and in the distinguished officers who were my assistants, the whole system of dealing seemed wrong. It appeared to be cruelty and oppression. Their sympathetic minds always stopped with the white population. Again, the prospect of suffrage for the late slaves seemed to all such intolerable. Though my officers and myself had no responsibility for the gift of suffrage, yet we had to bear no small part in its introduction. We were at court the friends of the freedmen and had to bear that odium. I think these simple statements are enough to account for all the antagonism that occurred. An officer in charge of any district where the negroes were in considerable majority met with the distrust of the Southern whites; he was maligned by the local press the instant he differed from the prevailing opinion among them; he was ostracised; he was accused; if he favored universal suffrage and it became known, his life even was in peril. The accumulations of this odium, enveloping me in their murky cloud, soon attacked my reputation, though, of course, they could not affect my character. I defended my officers and agents and teachers with all my heart both publicly and privately, and that fact made it desirable for the
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