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| Sergeant Gilbert H. Bates (February 13, 1836 - February 17, 1917). |
Perhaps there is no better story of national reconciliation and personal patriotism in the years immediately following the aftermath of the War Between The States than the story of Sergeant Gilbert Bates, a former Union veteran who carried the flag of the United States unafraid through the then unreconstructed Deep South and then across England several years later.
Gilbert Henderson Bates was born on Saturday, February 13, 1836 in the town of Springwater, Livingston County, New York. Sometime in his late teens, Bates moved to the small town of Albion, near Edgerton, Wisconsin and became a farmer.
Bates was 25 years old when the American Civil War (1861-1865) broke out on the morning of Friday, April 12, 1861. He answered the State of Wisconsin and his nation's call for volunteers and served in the Union Army as a sergeant in Company H of the 1st Wisconsin Heavy Artillery Regiment.
For most of the war, Company H was assigned to Fort Lyon outside Alexandra, Virginia as part of the defenses of Washington City (D.C.) guarding against possible Confederate attack against the capitol. He returned home following the end of the war and resumed his civilian occupation.
Bates married his wife, Ann E. Noe, on Wednesday, December 23, 1863 and the couple would raise four children: Hattie, Nellie, Frank, and Addie.
The First Bet
In November of 1867, a Radical Republican neighbor of Bates was telling stories about rumors that the South would be rising once more in rebellion and that any Northerner was not safe down there. This neighbor told Bates that anti-Union feeling was so strong in the South that no representative of the United States was safe in the former Confederate States, and declared that disloyalty to the Union was still rampant in the deep South and that a man could not take the Stars and Stripes onto Southern soil without being murdered.
Sergeant Bates, who was a staunch Democrat, completely disagreed and made a wager with his Republican neighbor that he could walk the entire length of the Southern States completely unscathed while carrying the flag of the United States. He wagered a dollar a day from his neighbor for his family that he would start in Vicksburg, Mississippi and march without money and unarmed, and arrive safely in Washington City with himself unscathed and his flag unmolested on, or before the 4th of July, Independence Day. The neighbor took up his wager, thinking Bates was a complete fool.
Bates' Wisconsin neighbor was far from alone in his belief that it was not safe for anyone who supported the occupied former Confederate States. His wife was concerned for the safety of her husband as he prepared to leave home for his journey, though she offered him her full support.
Sergeant Bates feat of courage was soon the talk of the country. He took photographs of himself in his old uniform with a U.S. flag, which he autographed and offered to sell for a quarter a piece with the proceeds to be donated to charity.
Sergeant Bates' March Begins
Bates arrived in Vicksburg, Mississippi on the evening of Friday, January 24, 1868, wearing coarse, heavy garments, cowhide boots, and a slouch hat. The city along the Mississippi River had been the scene on a great siege by Union forces in 1863, and it was thought that anti-Union sentiment would be very strong here despite several years of Union occupation.
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| Sergeant Bates in uniform with the U.S. Flag he carried from Vicksburg, Mississippi, to Washington D.C. in 1868. Photo courtesy National Archives. |
News of his plans spread quickly throughout the city. Next morning there was a stream of visitors and well-wishers, among them the town’s most prominent citizens and a number of Union soldiers stationed in the city. The representatives of a women’s organization called on him to announce that a U.S. flag was being made for him.
On Bates’ fourth and last day, in a ceremony at the Prentiss House, a "neat silk flag," five feet long and three wide, attached to a regulation staff was presented to him. Bates was also presented with a velvet uniform bearing his regimental insignia. The clothes and uniform, Bates would later note, had been sewn by the same hands that only years before sewn Rebel uniforms and flags.
Thus began Bates' march on Tuesday, January 28th, which would be widely reported at the time in numerous local and national newspapers. Sergeant Bates' march through Dixie received so much notoriety at the time that it became a national news story, some of which was scornful and predicted that the brave Union veteran was setting himself up for a very rough time, or worse.
On Thursday, February 27, 1868, author and humorist Samuel Clemens (writing under his famous pen name, Mark Twain) published the following about Bates in his Territorial Enterprise:
Sergeant Gilbert H. Bates of Wisconsin is the last candidate for pedestrian notoriety. He has made a bet that he will walk, alone, unarmed, and without a cent in his pocket, and bearing aloft the American flag, through the late Southern Confederacy, from Vicksburg to Washington. He is already on his way, and the telegraph is noting his progress. The Mayor and a large portion of the population of Vicksburg ushered him out of that city with a grand demonstration. He proposes to sell photographs of himself at 25 cent apiece, all along his route, and convert the proceeds into a fund to be devoted to the aid and comfort of widows and orphans of soldiers who fought in the late war, irrespective of flag or politics.
And then, I suppose, when he gets a good round sum together for the widows and orphans, he will hang up his flag and go and have a champagne blow-out. I don't believe in people who collect money for benevolent purposes and don't charge for it. I don't have full confidence in people who walk a thousand miles for the benefit of widows and orphans and don't get a cent for it. I question the uprightness of people who peddle their own photographs, anyhow, whether they carry flags or not. In my opinion a man might as well start his name with an initial and spell his middle name out and hope to be virtuous. But this fellow will get more black eyes, down there among those unreconstructed rebels than he can ever carry along with him without breaking his back. I expect to see him coming into Washington some day on one leg and with one eye out and an arm gone. He won't amount to more than an interesting relic by the time he gets here and then he will have to hire out for a sign for the Anatomical Museum. Those fellows down there have no sentiment in them. They won't buy his picture. They will be more likely to take his scalp.
The path that Sergeant Bates in his blue uniform and carrying his U.S. Flag was taking in his solo march would take him through places that had seen the most brutal and destructive effects of the Union invasion of the Deep South in the final years of the war.
Bates would literally be walking through a land physically devastated by the hardships of war. Through towns full of defeated surviving Confederate veterans, many of them still bearing the scars and missing limbs of their experience. Past graveyards full of the sons, fathers, and husbands of many men who'd stood opposite Bates in the war and didn't survive. Not to mention the surviving families of those same men and boys who would no doubt be less than pleased at the sight of him and his flag waving in the breeze.
During the three-month march Sergeant Bates would walk 1,400 miles across the Southern States of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, carrying his Stars and Stripes. He was granted a great deal of hospitality and goodwill all along the way. People offered him food, places to stay for the night, church bells rang at his arrival and departure for towns, and several major cities even allowed the brave Union sergeant to actually hoist his flag over important official buildings where the Confederate Stars and Bars and the Stainless Banner once flew earlier that same decade!
Sergeant Bates recorded his journey in a 35 page pamphlet which he had published in June 1868 titled: The Triumphal March of Sergeant Bates from Vicksburg to Washington. Many of the stories in his telling of his experiences are very moving.
In Tuskegee, Alabama, an eight-year-old girl named Hattie, upon hearing that Sergeant Bates also had a little daughter called Hattie, gave him her newest doll and asked him to send it home to her. At the State capital of Montgomery he was presented with a pink silk sash for his uniform which he described as: "heavily fringed with gold bullion and beautifully inscribed in gilt letters, 'Presented by the Ladies of Montgomery, Ala., Mrs. Vernon Vaughn, president, Mrs. A. L. O’Brien, secretary.'"
One story in particular stands out, an encounter while walking through the State of Georgia that touched Bates most profoundly.
While walking on a lonely stretch of dirt road between Sparta and Augusta, he came upon a young farmer who was chopping wood. The farmer said he’d been watching for Bates and wished to extend the hospitality of his home, two miles away. On their way to the house, the men stopped at a roadside mound where the farmer’s brother, a Confederate soldier killed during the war, lay buried under a plain wooden head board marked with his name since granite headstones were hard to come by for poor people during the Reconstruction Era. The farmer stood upon one side of the grave and Bates on the other. Unconsciously both men removed their hats and bowed their heads in respect for the dead, then the farmer reached his hand over the grave of his brother and clasped Bates' hand.
Sergeant Bates and his flag were both well received throughout the so-called "unreconstructed South" where towns and communities treated him with more than generous hospitality. School children were recessed to meet him as he walked by. Women prepared him meals and people offered him the hospitality of their spare rooms, or barns to sleep for the night. Confederate veterans would travel as far as forth miles just to meet with him and shake his hand as he went by. Government officials including: judges, mayors, and even governors, greeted him and even held short speeches commending the sergeant for his efforts at fostering national goodwill.
His only real difficulties on his journey would be rainy weather and muddy roads. Throughout his journey, Sergeant Bates would encounter several more profound moments of humanity and mutual respect from his former Southern enemies and fellow Americans.
Sergeant Bates in South Carolina and Charlotte
When he crossed the Savannah River into South Carolina on Monday, March 16th, Sergeant Bates was met with good wishes from the people of the town of Hamburg (near modern-day North Augusta). He briefly stopped to shake hands with people before continuing east.
Two days later on Wednesday, March 18th, Sergeant Bates crossed the Congraee River by ferry boat and was again welcomed warmly by the mayor and people of the State capital of Columbia -- which at the time was still largely burned out (allegedly) by General William T. Sherman's invading Union soldiers only three years before. He remained there for four days before resuming his march north towards Washington City. The South Carolina State House building in Columbia still bears the marks where Sherman's cannons struck it.
In the town of Winnsboro, he was greeted by the whole town, including about 75 former Confederate soldiers who took him to the bedside of a former Confederate officer that was dying and wanted to meet and talk with Bates before he passed on. Bates would learn that the officer passed away a short time after speaking to him.
When he reached the town of Fort Mill on the border between the two Carolinas (and where Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his cabinet held one of the last full meetings as they fled south in 1865) on Wednesday, March 25th, he was greeted by 25 Confederate veterans who had assembled in their ragged gray uniforms to give Sergeant Bates and his flag an "escort of honor" as he passed from South Carolina into North Carolina. The Confederate honor guard cheered him the way fellow soldiers cheer as the Union veteran waved them goodbye at the border.
He arrived in Charlotte later that same day where he was greeted by the city's major and town council who offered Bates their city's hospitality. Sergeant Bates remained in Charlotte for a couple of days while he was getting new shoes made as his old ones were worn out. While there he was also called on by more Confederate veterans, including some former Southern officers.
Another rather interesting event occurred during Sergeant Bates' stay in Charlotte.
On Friday, March 27th, he was visited by a young man named James Orr, another Confederate veterans who'd served in General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Mr. Orr presented Sergeant Bates a bundle which held a Union army flag that had previously been captured during the war and which the young man had obtained from the Confederate archives during the fall of Richmond in April, 1865. Mr. Orr told Bates that its capture by the Confederates had cost a good many lives; but that Bates had "recaptured it without firing a gun" and presented it to the sergeant in peaceful triumph.
Richmond and Washington City
Less than two weeks later, at 4 P.M. EST on the afternoon of Wednesday, April 8th, Sergeant Bates and his flag crossed the Richmond and Danville Railroad bridge into the former capital of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia. An increasingly large crowd gathered to meet him and cheer him on as he made his way to the Exchange Hotel where he rested briefly and had dinner.
Afterwards he made his way to the Virginia State Capitol building and ascended to the rotunda where he waved his flag over the capital of what had been an enemy nation only a few years before and almost three years to the day of General Robert E. Lee's surrender of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House while people cheered him and city church bells rang.
He remained in Richmond for two days before making the final length of his trek north.
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| A sketch of Sergeant Bates arrival at the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond. |
At 9 A.M. on
the morning of Tuesday, April 14th -- seven years to the day that Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina surrendered and the War Between The States began -- Sergeant Bates descended Arlington Heights to the Long Bridge and crossed the Potomac River and entered Washington City.
After a walk of 1,400 miles and crossing through six Southern States, Bates won his bet with his Radical Republican neighbor, arriving at the nation's capital completely unscathed from his journey through the still unreconstructed Southland. He
accomplished his walk three months ahead of schedule in and had been met throughout by
former Confederates who saluted his flag, provided hospitality, and
more than demonstrated a desire for national reconciliation.
Again Bates was met by cheering crowds, as well as the Washington City Brass Band in full uniform played patriotic music. He proceeded through the city making his way though the crowds down Pennsylvania Avenue and Fourteenth Street, flanked by two military officers detailed to escort him to the White House where Sergeant Bates was greeted by U.S. President Andrew Johnson.
President Johnson is reported to have said to Sergeant Bates and the gathered throngs: "I merely desire to sincerely and cordially welcome you and your flag, with which you have traveled so many miles. I have no address or speech to make, but wish to testify my gratification at seeing you in Washington."
The president then invited him into the Executive Mansion and conducted him to the East Room where they conversed for a few moments. Johnson's daughter presented Bates with a magnificent bouquet of flowers. Three years before (again almost to the day) U.S. President Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated and had lain in state in the same room. Bates now stood in that same room after his incredible journey as a testament to the spirit of union and reconciliation.
Upon leaving the White House, Sergeant Bates made his way though the procession to the nearby Metropolitan Hotel where he would stay during his six-day visit to the capitol. There was a brief ceremony, where Bates stood on the front balcony and U.S. Representative Charles A. Eldredge of Bates' home State of Wisconsin delivering the main speech in his honor.
The following was the conclusion to that speech:
"My friends, I cannot forget the fact that it is just seven years
this day since the flag of the Republic was lowered in humility and
sorrow from the battlements of Sumter. The flag that Major Anderson was
then forced to take down now floats proudly over every foot of our land, respected and honored by all. And this young man, who, without money and alone, and on foot, has
carried it for more than fourteen hundred miles will now plant it in
glory and triumph upon the dome of the National Capitol."
Great applause followed from the crowd,
after which Sergeant Bates and the members of the procession trudged eastward in the now pouring rain. The Superintendent of Public Buildings had
granted permission for Bates to unfurl his flag from the dome of the
Capitol, but on the east steps of that Capitol Building, he was not allowed to enter or fly his flag from the rotunda by the capitol police under orders from the Radical Republican members of Congress who disapproved of his message of reconciliation with the South.
Remember that, in April of 1868, the radical wing of the Republican Party which controlled congress and wished to impose harsh Reconstruction Era policies on the defeated Southern "rebels" was in the process of their three-month-long impeachment of President Johnson. An effort which would ultimately fall short of his removal from office. Sergeant Bates journey and message of reconciliation, which received widespread publicity and praise from much of the country, was looked upon by these men in high office with unveiled disgust.
Although Sergeant Bates was allowed to raise his flag
over numerous official buildings in the South at the welcoming hospitality of former Confederates -- including the former capital of the Confederacy -- he was not granted permission to fly his flag, which had been cheered on and saluted by millions
on his journey, at the Capitol of his own country.
An American flag which had not been insulted once during a walk through unreconstructed Dixie, and carried by a man who served the cause of the Union during the war; had at last been insulted in the final moments of the journey by those who held political power. If that wasn't a sign of the times, nothing else could have said it better.
Someone in the crowd suggested that Sergeant Bates should wave his flag over the nearby Washington Monument, which was still being constructed. Bates would do to more approval of the crowd and a band playing more patriotic music. It was there at the memorial to America's greatest Founding Father that Sergeant Bates first journey truly came to an end.
He returned home to his relieved wife and family, as well as to his disgruntled and completely chagrined Radical Republican neighbor, from whom he'd won a grand total of $80 dollars.
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| Photo of Sergeant Gilbert Bates with his flag taken in his full Union army uniform and war medals in 1868 just after he completed his march across the Reconstruction Era South. Photo courtesy of the National Archives. |
Four years later, in 1872, Sergeant Bates would again engage in a wager involving the flag of the United States. This time his walk would take him across the Atlantic Ocean to Great Britain.
During the War Between The States, many Englishmen supported Southern independence because almost all raw cotton, so vital to the enormous British mill industry, came from the American Southern states. When the North blockaded the Confederacy cutting off the trade routes, the resulting "cotton famine" put thousands of lower class English textile workers out of work and economic hardships for the British mill industry.
Also in August of 1872, an international arbitration tribunal ordered England to pay the United States a restitution of $15 million dollars for damages does to American merchant shipping by Confederate cruisers like the CSS Alabama and CSS Shenandoah, which had both been built, registered, and equipped in British ports.
As a result of these developments there was a widely-held general belief in the United States that dangerous anti-American feeling was rife in England.
By 1872, Sergeant Bates and his family had relocated to the town of Saybrook, Illinois. Bates made a friendly wager with a friend who was a wealthy Saybrook merchant that he could carry the Stars and Stripes through England as he had through the Southern States and that he and his flag would not be molested in any way. Bates bet the merchant $100 against his friend's $1,000 to demonstrate that Great Britain and the United States were friendly despite Britain's former support of the Confederacy and that the British people would hail him as the Southerners had in 1868 when he arrived in London.
Thus Sergeant Gilbert Bates arrived in Great Britain in November of 1872 to prove that he could walk the length of England with his flag and not even be insulted by the British people.
On Tuesday, November 5, 1872, Sergeant Bates, in his full Union Army uniform and carrying a full-sized, 6 1/2 x 6 foot United States flag on a 9 foot staff, began a 332 mile march from the Scottish border town of Gretna Green; crossing the River Sark into England to his ultimate destination: the Guildhall in London, the capital of United Kingdom.
Sergeant Bates' prediction that the English people would treat him well was again spot on. In fact it was better than even the Union war veteran could have realized as people along his march took the brave American into their hearts, and like the Southerners four years before, were welcoming in all respects. Everywhere he traveled in England he was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm and kindness of the villagers. Hoteliers refused to let him pay and people offered him meals. Newspapers across Great Britain were all unified in their praise of Sergeant Bates and his convictions.
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| Sergeant Bates obituary in the Bloomington (Illinois) Pantagraph published on Monday, February 19, 1917. |
When Sergeant Bates reached on Saturday, November 30th -- less than a month after he started out -- the City of London gave him a roaring reception. In fact the crowds were so great he had to be driven in an open carriage to the Guildhall, where he ceremoniously hung the unsullied Stars and Stripes next to the British Union Jack.
While in London he was approached by a group of British showmen who offered Sergeant Bates £60 (then the equivalent of about $300) a night for five weeks of vaudeville appearances. These and other offers to exploit his national flag were politely turned down by Bates.
Even before starting the march, he had rescinded the wager; telegramming his rich Saybook friend and refusing to take the thousand dollars he had won on the grounds that the good will he had helped engender between England and America was reward enough. Bates even donated the proceeds from his book describing his English march to the Infant Orphan Asylum at Wanstead.
Afterwards
Gilbert Bates wrote well-received books
about his walks and became a famed public speaker. He appeared in William "Buffalo Bill" Cody's
famous Wild West Show. In his later years, he authored letters to the editor
critical of what he deemed threats to America, including immigration and
labor unions.
Sergeant Bates' lone marches across the South and England
were widely reported in national newspaper articles at the time, but
are today largely forgotten outside of serious historical roundtables and war enthusiast
circles. His efforts to foster goodwill and reconciliation are a testament to the national spirit of the American people.
Sergeant Gilbert H. Bates died on Saturday, February 17, 1917 (just four days after his 71st birthday) and is buried in Cheney's Grove Township Cemetery in Saybrook, McLean County, Illinois.
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| The Union Veterans headstone of Sergeant Bates at Cheney's Grove Township Cemetery, Saybrook, Illinois, USA. |
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