The Life Of Confederate President Jefferson Davis (1808 - 1889)

 Jefferson Finis Davis.
(June 3, 1808 -- December 6, 1889)

Today, June 3rd, marks the birthday of President Jefferson Davis. The birthday of Jefferson Davis is commemorated in several Southern U.S. States: Kentucky (his birth state), Louisiana, Florida, and Tennessee. In the Alabama it is celebrated on the first Monday in June. In Mississippi, where Davis would spend out the last years of his life, the last Monday of May (U.S. Memorial Day) is celebrated as "National Memorial Day and Jefferson Davis's Birthday". In Texas, "Confederate Heroes Day" is celebrated on January 19, the birthday of Robert E. Lee; Jefferson Davis's birthday had been officially celebrated on June 3, but was combined with Lee's birthday in 1973.

The man today best remembered as the only president of the short-lived Confederate States of America actually had a long and somewhat productive political and military life prior to the War Between the States (1861 - 1865).

Jefferson Finus Davis was born in Fairview, Kentucky on Friday, June 3, 1808, the last child of ten of Jane Simpson Cook Davis (1759-1845) of South Carolina and Samuel Emory Davis (1756-1824) of North Carolina. Both of Davis' paternal grandparents had immigrated to North America from the region of Snowdonia in the North of Wales; the rest of his ancestry can be traced to England. Samuel served as a Major in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, along with his two older half-brothers. In 1783, after the war, he married Jane Cook (also born in Christian County, in 1759 to William Cook and his wife Sarah Simpson). Samuel died on Sunday, July 4, 1824, when Jefferson was 16 years old. Jane died on Friday, October 3, 1845.

Young Jefferson Davis and his family moved to St. Mary Parish, Louisiana in 1811, and later to Wilkinson County, Mississippi. In 1813 Davis began his education at the Wilkinson Academy, near the family cotton plantation in the small town of Woodville. Three of his older brothers would serve in the War of 1812 (1812-1815).

Two years later in 1815 Davis returned to Kentucky and entered the Roman Catholic School of Saint Thomas at St. Rose Priory in Springfield. At the time, he was the only Protestant student at the school. Davis then went on to Jefferson College at Washington, Mississippi, in 1818, and then to Transylvania University at Lexington, Kentucky, in 1821. Davis then attended and graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1828.

During his first military career, Davis was assigned to the 1st Infantry Regiment and was stationed at Fort Crawford, Prairie du Chien, Michigan Territory (current-day State of Wisconsin). There he served with the infantry until 1833 when he transferred to the dragoons. His commanding officer was future U.S. President Zachary Taylor. Davis served during the latter part of the Black Hawk War (April 6 - August 27, 1832).

On Monday, August 27, 1832, Chief Black Hawk and other Native American leaders surrendered to then Lieutenant Jefferson Davis and Zachary Taylor after hiding on an unnamed island in the Mississippi River. Colonel Taylor assigned him to escort Black Hawk to prison. Davis made an effort to shield Black Hawk from curiosity seekers, and the chief noted in his autobiography that Davis treated him "with much kindness" and showed empathy for the leader's situation as a prisoner.

Three years later, Davis resigned his commission on Monday, April 20, 1835 in order to marry his commander's daughter, Sarah Knox Taylor, on June 20th of the same year in Louisville, Kentucky. Sarah died at the age of 21 on Tuesday, September 15, 1835, after three months of marriage after both her and Jefferson contracted malaria while staying with Sarah's sister, Anne at her home in Louisiana. Davis would recover from the malaria, though he would grieve for his first wife for years afterwards. Later after a trip to Havana, Cuba, he returned to Mississippi to become a planter.

In 1840, Davis first became involved in politics when he attended a Democratic Party meeting in Vicksburg, Mississippi and, to his surprise, was chosen as a delegate to the party's state convention in Jackson, Mississippi. In 1842, he attended the Democratic convention. In 1843, became a Democratic candidate for the State House of Representatives from the Warren County-Vicksburg district, an election he lost at the time. Davis was selected as one of six presidential electors for the 1844 presidential election and campaigned effectively throughout Mississippi for the Democratic candidate James K. Polk.

In was also in 1844 that Davis met 18 year old Varina Anne Banks Howell, (1826-1906) whom his brother Joseph had invited for the Christmas season at Hurricane Plantation. She was a granddaughter of New Jersey Governor Richard Howell; her mother's family was from the South and included successful Scots-Irish planters. Within a month of their meeting, the 35-year-old widower Davis had asked Varina to marry him, and they became engaged despite her parents' initial concerns about his age and politics. The two were married on Wednesday, February 26, 1845.

Jefferson and Varina Howell Davis in 1845 not long after
their marriage.

Jefferson and Varina Davis would have seven children; three of which died before reaching adulthood, and one who was possibly adopted by the Davis family. 

Samuel Emory, born Saturday, July 30, 1852, and died Friday, June 30, 1854 from disease. 

Margaret Howell was born Sunday, February 25, 1855, and died on Sunday, July 18, 1909, at the age of 54. She was the only child to marry and raise a family. She married Joel Addison Hayes, Jr. (1848–1919), and they had five children together.

 

Jefferson Davis, Jr., was born Friday, January 16, 1857. He died at age 21 after contracting yellow fever in Wednesday, October 16, 1878, during an epidemic in the Mississippi River Valley that caused 20,000 deaths.

The Davis children (left to right): Jefferson Davis Jr.,
Margaret Howell Davis, Varina "Winnie" Davis, and
young William Howell Davis. Photo taken in 1867.

Joseph Evan, born on Monday, April 18, 1859, tragically died at the age of five due to an accidental fall on Saturday, April 30, 1864. The boy fell 15 feet from the east portico of the White House of the Confederacy. The fall fractured his skull, and he died within an hour of the fall. In one of those tragic coincidences in history, Davis' counterpart, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, also lost a young son -- William Lincoln -- two years prior in 1862 during the American Civil War.

William Howell, born on Friday, December 6, 1861, and he died of diphtheria at age 10 on Wednesday, October 16, 1872.

Varina Anne, known as "Winnie", was born on Monday, June 27, 1864, several months after her brother Joseph's death. She was known as the Daughter of the Confederacy as she was born during the war. After her parents refused to let her marry into a northern abolitionist family, she never married. She died nine years after her father, on Sunday, September 18, 1898, at age 34.

Jim Limber (sometimes referred to as Jim Limber Davis) was a bi-racial African-American child who was possibly adopted by the Davis family. 

Jim Limber Davis.

On Sunday, February 14, 1864, Davis's wife, Varina Davis, was returning home in Richmond, Virginia, when she saw the boy being beaten and abused by an angry adult. Outraged, she immediately put an end to the beating and had the boy come with her in her carriage. He was cared for by Mrs. Davis and her staff. They gave him clothes belonging to the Davis's son, Joe, since the boys were of similar age. Davis officially had the boy registered as a Free Black. A touching story told by the family told how Jim comforted Davis following the tragic death of Joe. It is unknown if Davis actually adopted him. There was no adoption law in the State of Virginia at that time, so any adoption would likely have been an "extra-legal" matter. He lived in the Confederate White House with the Davis children, was their playmate and roommate, took his meals with them, wore the same clothes and played with same toys. 

When the Davis's were later captured, the Union Army confiscated the child, literally ripping him from Varina's arms, and the Davis family never saw him again, though they did often speak fondly of him and question his whereabouts in letters to family and friends.

Davis was persuaded by the Democratic Party to become a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives and began canvassing for the election. In early October 1845 he traveled to Woodville, Mississippi to give a speech. He arrived a day early to visit his mother there, only to find that she had died the day before. After the funeral, he rode the 40 miles back to Natchez to deliver the news, then returned to Woodville again to deliver his speech. He won the election and entered the 29th U.S. Congress.

In 1846 the Mexican–American War began. Davis raised a volunteer regiment, the Mississippi Rifles, becoming its colonel under the command of his former father-in-law, General Zachary Taylor. On July 21 the regiment sailed from New Orleans for Texas. The regiment got its name because Colonel Davis armed his regiment with the M1841 Mississippi Rifle -- the first standard U.S. military rifle to use a percussion lock system and rifled barrels -- instead of the standard smoothbore flintlock muskets were still the primary infantry weapon of the U.S. Army at the time. U.S. President James Knox Polk had promised Davis the weapons if he would remain in Congress long enough for an important vote on the Walker tariff. The commanding U.S. General Winfield Scott objected on the basis that the weapons were insufficiently tested. Davis insisted and called in his promise from Polk, and his regiment was armed with the rifles, making it particularly effective in combat. The incident was the start of a lifelong feud between Davis and Scott.

During the war Davis participated in the Battle of Monterrey (September 21-24, 1846) during which he led the Mississippi Rifles in a successful charge on the El Fortin Del Teneria (Tannery Fort) along with a Tennessee regiment under Colonel William Campbell. On Wednesday, October 28,  1846, Davis formally resigned his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

On Monday, February 22, 1847, Davis fought bravely at the Battle of Buena Vista during which he was shot in the foot and then carried to safety by Robert H. Chilton, who would later serve as an aide in the Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee.

On Monday, May 17th the same year, President Polk offered Davis a federal commission as a brigadier general and command of a brigade of militia. As a firm believer and advocate of States' Rights, Davis declined the appointment, arguing that the U.S. Constitution gives the power of appointing militia officers to the individual States and not the federal government.

Following his return from the war, and in honor of his heroic service, Governor Albert G. Brown of Mississippi appointed him to the vacant position of United States Senator Jesse Speight, a Democrat, who had died on Saturday, May 1, 1847. Davis took his temporary seat on Wednesday, December 5th, and in January 1848 he was elected by the state legislature to serve the remaining two years of the term.

In December, during the 30th U.S. Congress, Davis was made a regent of the Smithsonian Institution. An enthusiastic supporter of the Smithsonian, Davis was a life-long friend of the institution's first Secretary, Joseph Henry (1797-1878) -- which would later lead to suspicions about the latter's loyalty to the Union.

The Senate made Davis chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs on Monday, December 3, 1849, during the first session of the 31st U.S. Congress. On Saturday, December 29th he was elected to a full six-year term by the Mississippi legislature. Davis had not served a year when he resigned in September 1851 to run for the governorship of Mississippi on the issue of the Compromise of 1850, which he opposed. He was defeated by fellow Senator Henry Stuart Foote. Left without political office, Davis continued his political activity. He took part in a convention on States' Rights, held at Jackson, Mississippi, in January of 1852. In the weeks leading up to the presidential election of 1852, he campaigned in numerous Southern states for Democratic candidates Franklin Pierce and William R. King.

In 1853, after winning the presidential election, U.S. President Pierce made Davis his Secretary of War. Serving in that office, Davis began the Pacific Railroad Surveys in order to determine various possible routes for the proposed Transcontinental Railroad. He promoted the Gadsden Purchase of today's southern Arizona from Mexico in part to provide an easier southern route for the new railroad. The Pierce administration agreed and the land was purchased in December 1853. Davis would also be responsible for the construction of the Washington Aqueduct and the expansion of the U.S. Capital Building, all of which he personally oversaw.

Also in 1853, Davis would be responsible for convincing President Pierce to introduce camels into U.S. military service.

The idea was originally suggested to the War Department in 1836 by then U.S. Army Lieutenant George H. Crossman who, like Davis, Crossman also served in the Black Hawk War of 1832 before being transferred from the infantry to the Quartermaster Department. He submitted an extensive study on the subject to his superiors, proposing a U.S. Camel Corps. Crossman suggested that camels might be the right service animals for the harsh conditions in the American southwest.

Sometimes referred to as "the ship of the desert" camels can run as fast as 40 miles per hour in short bursts and sustain an average speed of around 25 miles per hour over great distances. Camels can also withstand long periods of time without water -- they can drink as seldom as once every ten days even in extremely hot climates, and can safely lost up to 30 percent of their body mass from dehydration. Their feet can also provide better traction over various types of terrain and soil than horses.

However, the Crossman report was largely ignored by the U.S. War Department, which had no interest in importing camels from Arabia. Later as a major, Crossman and fellow officer Major Henry C. Wayne took up the case for camels in U.S. service once again submitting a new report in 1847. This time it caught the eye of the forward-thinking Senator Davis who could see the benefit of using camels in the harsh, arid climates of the American desert west of the Rocky Mountains.

With the support of Davis, Congress finally approved the plan. On Saturday, March 3, 1855, $30,000 was appropriated to import camels for the U.S. military. Wayne was chosen to lead an expedition to the Middle East aboard the fittingly named USS Supply commanded by then U.S. Navy Lieutenant David Dixon Porter. They then purchased thirty-three camels: three in Tunisia, nine in Egypt, and twenty-one in Turkey. One camel was born on the return trip -- a total of twenty-four camels that arrived at Indianola, Texas on Wednesday, May 14, 1856.

These camel would then be herded to Camp Verde, Texas and began experimenting with their usefulness -- with a great deal of success. It took roughly five days for six mules to make the trip from Camp Verde to San Antonio transporting wagons carrying 1,800 pounds of oats, while the camels took only two days to cover the distance carrying 3,648 pounds (double the payload). Davis was pleased with the results. A second expedition to the Middle East would bring another 70 camels to the United States.

One of the U.S. Army camels that was used in the American
Southwestern deserts in the decade prior of the American Civil
War. While these camels proved to be more efficient in the
desert climates than horses, more conservative U.S. military
attitudes and the war ended the experiment.

Unfortunately, the War Between The States (1861 - 1865) took the steam out of the experiment. During the war, camels were used to carry mail and transporting baggage. On an interesting note, at least one of these camels, named Old Douglas, would go on to serve in Company A, 43rd Mississippi Infantry Regiment C.S.A. -- which would be known as "The Camel Regiment." While some consideration was given to keeping the camels after the war, some U.S. government officials opposed the idea simply because Jefferson Davis previously supported it, and the camels eventually dispensed. Many were sold at auctions in 1864 and 1866 to work in circuses and mines, as postal carriers and pack animals and racing camels. Some even escaped, or were set free. Feral camels were occasionally spotted roaming the American Southwest for years after.

As Secretary of War, Davis also oversaw the increase of the U.S. Army and pay increase for the soldiers, which Congress agreed to and approved. Davis also introduced general usage of the rifles that he had used successfully during the Mexican-American War. As a result, both the morale and capability of the army was improved. Davis held this post for the full tenure of the Pierce presidency (4 years) and then won reelection to the Senate, returning to the body on Wednesday, March 4, 1857. 

Davis's renewed service in the Senate was interrupted in early 1858 by an illness that began as a severe cold and which threatened him with the loss of his left eye. He was forced to remain in a darkened room for four weeks due to increased sensitivity to sunlight. Davis would suffer from poor health for most of the rest of his life, including repeated bouts of malaria and trigeminal neuralgia, a nerve disorder that causes severe pain in the face.

Despite being a staunch supporter of States' Right and slavery, Davis vehemently opposed the talk of secession from the Union in the later half of the 1850s. He spent the summer of 1858 in Portland, Maine. On the Fourth of July, Davis delivered an anti-secessionist speech on board a ship near Boston. He again urged the preservation of the Union on October 11the same year in a speech at Faneuil Hall, Boston, and returned to the Senate soon after.

Jefferson Davis was a Southern plantation owner and owned about 113 African-American slaves in 1860, though for the times he lived in, he was known to be a fairly moderate slaveowner.

For example his slaves were allowed to govern themselves, they could chose their own overseer and decided their own work loads and schedules. They decided their own rules and punishments. Davis never interfered in their business unless he thought the punishments they meted out were too harsh for the infraction committed. They were well supplied, and they attended Church Services as they wished, often in the same Episcopal Church that the Davis's attended. They had free run of his vast library, and were allowed to learn to read and write if they wished -- which was technically against Mississippi State Law at the time. His first slave, James Pemberton, ran his plantation and maintained his home while he and the family were away on the business of the country.

As a U.S. Senator, Davis promoted the expansion of slavery across the American continent in order to balance political power with the industrial "free" Northern States; from proposing annexing several northern Mexico territories to the possible annexation of Cuba, none of which were supported by the Senate.

Ironically, in the summer of 1849, a group of Cuban revolutionaries led by Venezuelan adventurer Narciso Lopez wanted to capture the country from the Spanish. Lopez visited Davis and asked him to lead the expedition, offering an immediate payment of $100,000 (about 2 million dollars U.S. today), plus the same amount when Cuba was liberated. Davis declined the offer, stating that it was inconsistent with his duty as a U.S. Senator.

Like many other people at the time, Davis believed that each American state was sovereign and had an unquestionable right to secede from the federal Union. The reason he opposed secession at the time was the belief the the rest of the Union would not allow the Southern States to peacefully withdraw. He also knew that the South lacked the ability to carry on a long war.

Ultimately, both of Davis' fears would be proven correct.

Despite all of his attempts to stop it, following the 1860 election of Republican Senator Abraham Lincoln, the State of Mississippi followed South Carolina and Alabama in withdrawing from the Union on Wednesday, January 9, 1861. Davis had expected this but waited until he received official notification on Monday, January 21, the day Davis called "the saddest day of my life." He delivered a farewell address to the U.S. Senate, resigned and returned to Mississippi.

Another irony of history happened at the Democratic National Convention of 1860 where future Union general Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts nominated Davis as a presidential candidate (the ninth of ten candidates), but who received only one vote on over fifty ballots from Butler himself. Just three years later during the war, Butler as a Union general, would become so infamous in his conduct occupying the captured city of New Orleans that Davis ordered him hanged as a war criminal without trial if ever captured.

Anticipating a call for his services since Mississippi had seceded, Davis had sent a telegraph message to Governor John J. Pettus saying, "Judge what Mississippi requires of me and place me accordingly." On Wednesdya, January 23, 1861, Pettus -- in recognition of his Mexican War service -- made Davis a major general of the Army of Mississippi.

On Monday, February 4, 1861 at the constitutional convention in Montgomery, Alabama he became a compromise candidate for the provisional presidency of the Confederacy and was so elected on Saturday, February 9, 1861 to wide acclaim by most of the convention.

Davis was the first choice because of his strong political and military credentials. He never actually wanted the job, hoping to instead serve as commander-in-chief of the Confederate armies, but said he would serve wherever directed. Varina Davis later wrote that when he received word that he had been chosen as president, "Reading that telegram he looked so grieved that I feared some evil had befallen our family."

He was inaugurated on Monday, February 18, 1861. Alexander H. Stephens was chosen as Vice President, but he and Davis feuded constantly due to both men having widely different social views on many issues and personality conflicts.
 

Jefferson Davis as President of the
Confederate States of America
(1861-1865).
Photograph by Matthew Brady
courtesy of the Library of Congress.

When Virginia seceded and joined the Confederacy, Davis moved his government to Richmond in May of 1861. The new Confederate First Family took up his residence there at the White House of the Confederacy later that month. Davis would later be elected for a six-year term as President of the newly formed Confederate States of America (CSA) on Wednesday, November 6, 1861 following the ratification of a permanent Confederate Constitution and re-inaugurated on Saturday, February 22, 1862 -- George Washington's birthday.

As the only president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis proved to be something less than the revolutionary leader necessary to lead a fledgling nation to independence. As a peacetime president, Davis might have been the right man to lead a newly established republic. As a wartime president, it turned out not so much. 

  

His interest in the military defense of his new country soon became apparent. He treated his early war secretaries as little more than clerks as he himself supervised the affairs of the department. He made frequent forays into the battlefields, arriving at the First Battle of Manassas (Sunday, July 21, 1861) just as the fight was ending. Later he would arrive and be under fire at the Battle of Seven Pines (Sunday, June 1, 1862) where he placed his military adviser, General Robert E. Lee, in command of what became the Army of Northern Virginia after General Joseph E. Johnston was wounded.

Later he toured the western theater where he supported his old friend, General Braxton Bragg against the -- usually justified -- criticisms of his subordinates. His handling of the high command was extremely controversial. While his relationship with General Lee, however, was perhaps one of America's best examples of a military and civilian leadership cooperating, there were long-standing feuds with Generals P.G.T. Beauregard, Joe Johnston, and Daniel Harvey Hill. His defense of certain non-performing generals, such as Bragg, irritated many in the South.

Perhaps most ironically, Davis -- a firm believer in states' rights --   ran his country as Confederate President in a somewhat autocratic way because of his attempt to manage the war himself, placing more power in the hands of the central government authority. This in turn led to a large and well-organized anti-Davis faction in the Confederate Congress, especially in the Senate. The Confederacy had no political parties, so Davis found himself with few political allies outside of his own cabinet.

During the war, Davis would continued to enjoy less and less popularity from those in congress, especially after using the very first veto power of the Confederate Constitution to nullify an attempt by the more hard-liners on slavery in the congress from reopening the international slave trade -- a violation of Article I Section 9(1) of the Confederate Constitution.

To be completely fair to Davis, the task of defending the Confederacy against the much stronger Union would have been a great challenge for any leader under the circumstances. Could someone other than Davis have done a better job of keeping an alliance of several States together while conducting a war for independence? Probably so, but then again Davis himself didn't want the job in the first place, though felt honor bound to carry out the task given to him to the best of his limited abilities.

Despite his best efforts, and perhaps in some cases because of some of his inability to compromise with some Confederate generals previously mentioned, the Confederacy fell apart in spring of 1865. Davis was forced to abandon Richmond and flee south to escape Union cavalry in hot pursuit (see my article on the flight of Jefferson Davis HERE).

After five weeks on the run, Davis, his family, and the remainder of his cabinet were surrounded and captured by forces of the 1st Wisconsin Cavalry and the 4th Michigan Cavalry near Irwinville, Georgia in the early morning hours of Wednesday, May 10, 1865. Today a monument marks the spot of Davis' arrest located at the Jefferson Davis Memorial Historic Site.

The now former President Davis was taken to Fortress Monroe at Hampton, Virginia and held there without trial for two years, under the charges of conspiring to assassinate Lincoln and treason. Leg irons were riveted to his ankles at the order of Major General Nelson A. Miles, who was in charge of the fort. Davis was allowed no visitors, and no books except the Bible. Davis remained in a small cell in one of the fort's casemates from May 22 - October 2, 1865 with two guards that never spoke to him present inside the cell at all times, and one outside the door.

The physician attending to him, Dr. John J. Craven, objected to the willful neglect and abuse Davis suffered. In addition to his previously mentioned trigeminal neuralgia, Davis suffered from a number of ailments during his imprisonment: headaches, erysipelas, an ulcerated cornea of the eye, dyspepsia, and severe depression. Despite being a former Union soldier -- a surgeon with the Union Army of the Potomac's Tenth Corps -- Craven attended to Davis successfully and mitigated his harsh imprisonment. He was then moved to Carroll Hall inside the fort for the remainder of his stay at Fort Monroe.

In 1866, Craven would publish a book The Prison life of Jefferson Davis, which led to increased sympathy for the former Confederate President with the American public in the north.

A portrait of Jefferson Davis as a prisoner at Fort Monroe
(1865 - 1867) being tended to by Dr. John J. Craven.
Note the two armed guards in his room.

Varina and their young daughter, Winnie, were allowed to join Davis, and the family was eventually given an apartment in the officers' quarters for a time before the family moved to Canada.

Pope Pius IX after learning that Davis was a prisoner, sent him a portrait inscribed with the Latin words: "Venite ad me omnes qui laboratis, et ego reficiam vos, dicit Dominus", which correspond to Matthew 11:28 KJV, "Come to me, all you that labor, and are burdened, and I will refresh you, sayeth the Lord". A hand-woven crown of thorns associated with the portrait is often said to have been made by the Pope, though likely woven by Varina Davis.

After two years of imprisonment, Davis was released in May of 1867 on bail of $100,000, which was posted by prominent citizens including Horace Greeley, Cornelius Vanderbilt and Gerrit Smith -- the latter of which had been a member of the Secret Six who financially supported the fanatical abolitionist terrorist John Brown.

On Monday, June 11, 1866 the House of Representatives voted, 105-19, to support such a trial against Davis. Although Davis himself wanted such a trial, there would ultimately be no treason trials against anyone as it was felt they would probably not turn out in favor of the U.S. government and would impede national reconciliation

At the start of the troubles between the North and the South, Jefferson Davis had initially been against secession, and he argued in both venues trying to prevent it. In the end, when no compromise could be reached, Davis followed the Military Oath that he and all West Point Cadets took at graduation, which at the time was not an oath to the United States, but an oath to defend and protect their Home State from all enemies, both foreign and domestic. There was no 'treason', he was not a 'traitor', and he did not violate his Military Oath.

There was also a concern at the time that such action could result in a judicial decision that would validate the constitutionality of secession as they believed that the evidence would show the prosecution baseless and illegal. This fear would later removed by the Supreme Court ruling in Texas v. White (1869) declaring secession unconstitutional.

Davis remained under indictment until U.S. President Andrew Johnson issued on Christmas Day of 1868 a presidential "pardon and amnesty" for the offense of treason to "every person who directly or indirectly participated in the late insurrection or rebellion" and after a federal circuit court on Monday, February 15, 1869 dismissed the case against Davis after the government's attorney informed the court that he would no longer continue to prosecute Davis. Although he was not tried, he was stripped of his eligibility to run for public office.

Davis went to Montreal, Quebec to join his family and lived in Lennoxville, Quebec until 1868, later visiting Cuba and Europe in search of work. At one stage he stayed as a guest of James Smith, a foundry owner in Glasgow, who had struck up a friendship with Davis when he toured the Southern States promoting his foundry business.

In 1869, Davis became president of the Carolina Life Insurance Company in Memphis, Tennessee, at an annual salary of $12,000. Upon General Robert E. Lee's death, Davis agreed to preside over the Presbyterian memorial in Richmond on Thursday, November 3, 1870. That speech prompted further invitations, although he declined them until July 1871, when he was commencement speaker at the University of the South. Like many other white Southerners and former Confederates, Davis resented the military occupation of the Southern States and the radical Reconstruction policies of the ruling Republican Party.

Jefferson Davis later in his life.

By the late 1880s following the end of Reconstruction, Davis began to encourage reconciliation between the North and South, telling Southerners to be loyal citizens to the Union. According to the Meriden Daily Journal, at a reception held in New Orleans in May 1887, Davis urged southerners to be loyal to the nation, saying: "United you are now, and if the Union is ever to be broken, let the other side break it."

Davis was helped in the last decade of his life by the generosity of a wealthy widow, Miss Sarah Anne Dorsey, when she invited him to her plantation, Beauvoir, near Biloxi, Mississippi, in 1877. At a time when he was once again sick, and gave him a cottage on the land to use while working on his memoir. She gave Davis her plantation before her death in 1878, and she also gave him a fund for his family's support.

Always contentious, Davis wrote his autobiography entitled: The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. In this 1881 work he re-fought the war, including his views of those feuds with officers like Beauregard and Johnston who received much of the blame for the Confederacy's demise. In 1889, shortly before his death, he wrote his final book: A Short History of the Confederate States of America where he expressed his firmly held believed that Confederate secession was constitutional, and was optimistic concerning American prosperity and the next generation.

Davis would continue to live in some comfort with his wife until his death on Wednesday, December 6, 1889 in New Orleans, Louisiana at the home of Charles Erasmus Fenner, a former Confederate officer who became an Associate Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court after suffering from acute bronchitis complicated by the malaria he suffered off and on his whole life. He died holding his wife's hand. He was 81 years old.

Jefferson Davis' funeral procession in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1889.
Members of the United Confederate Veterans and the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR)
were honor guards in the procession.

His funeral was one of the largest in the South, and New Orleans draped itself in mourning as his body lay in state in the City Hall for several days. An Executive Committee decided to emphasize Davis's ties to the United States, so an American national flag was placed over the Confederate flag during the viewing, and many crossed American and Confederate flags nearby. Davis wore a new suit of Confederate grey fabric Confederate General Jubal Early had given him, and Varina placed a sword Davis had carried during the Black Hawk War on the bier.

Mr. James H. Jones,
President Davis' personal valet.

At the death of Davis, some of his former slaves and tenants wrote a letter of condolence to his widow, which is still in existence today. It reads: "Brierfield Miss, Dec 12, 1889; To Mrs. Jefferson Davis, Beauvoir, Miss; We, the old servants and tenants of our beloved master, Hon. Jefferson Davis, have cause to mingle our tears over his death, who was always so kind and thoughtful for our peace and happiness, we extend to you our humble sympathy. Respectfully yours, old tenants and servants, Ned Gaitor, Tom McKinney, Grant McKinney, Mary Pemberton, Mary Archer, Eliza. Norris, Grant Ketchens, Teddy Everson, Hy Garland, Louisa Nick, Wm. Grear, Guss Williams, and others." 

While in the Confederate White House in Richmond, Davis's personal valet was an African-American man, Mr. James H. Jones. He was captured with Davis and sent to prison with him at Fortress Monroe, and was held there for one month. At Davis's death, Mr. Jones drove the carriage that carried Davis's coffin, and stated he had lost his best friend. Later in life, Mr. Jones would also transport the bodies of Varina Davis and their daughter, Winnie, upon their passing. Varina Davis had given Jones a cane which had belonged to Davis, and she'd had it inscribed for Jones. Mr. Jones later gave that cane to the state of North Carolina where he lived, and was placed in the North Carolina Museum of History.

Jefferson Davis' cane given to Mr. James H. Jones, his African-
American valet after his death, is now on display at the North
Carolina Museum of History.

Although initially laid to rest in New Orleans in the Army of Northern Virginia tomb at Metairie Cemetery, in 1893 Davis was reinterred in Richmond, Virginia at Hollywood Cemetery, per Varina's request. A life sized statue of Davis was eventually erected as promised by the Jefferson Davis Monument Association, in cooperation with the Southern Press Davis Monument Association, the United Confederate Veterans and ultimately the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The monument's cornerstone was laid in an 1896 ceremony, and it was dedicated with great pomp and 125,000 spectators on Monday, June 3, 1907, the last day of a Confederate reunion. Despite his service as the only president of the Confederate States of America, his grave marker makes no mention of this, only his accomplishment as a U.S. Senator and his service in the U.S. Army in the Mexican War.

Davis and his family all rest in the plot to this day.

The grave of President Jefferson Davis and his family
at Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia, USA.

After Jefferson Davis' death in 1889, Beauvoir was passed on to Varina who sold most of the property to the Mississippi Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, to be used as home for aged Confederate veterans and widows. The SCV built a dozen barracks buildings, a hospital, and a chapel behind the main house. From 1903 to 1957, approximately 2,500 former Confederate veterans and their families lived at the home. Many of these veterans were buried in a cemetery on the property. Today the old home is the site of the Tomb of the Unknown Confederate Soldier and the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library and Museum.

Although he never received an official restoration of his citizenship during his lifetime -- nor particularly desired one -- the U.S. Senate passed Joint Resolution 16 on Tuesday, October 17, 1978 officially restoring Jefferson Davis' United States citizenship. This was signed into law by U.S. President Jimmy Carter.

The Lynchings of Jim WIlliams & Elias Hill -- Reconstruction Era Terror In York County, South Carolina

Photograph taken in downtown York, South Carolina on Thursday, July 4, 1867, showing a large
number of African-Americans citizens celebrating U.S. Independence Day along with Union soldiers
of the Reconstruction occupation forces.
Image courtesy of the Culture & Heritage Museum, York County, SC.

 
The Lynchings of Jim Williams & Elias Hill
Reconstruction Era Terror In York County, South Carolina

By C.W. Roden

 
Now as many of y'all know, this writer is a proud Southern man and a defender of the culture, heritage and history of this place I call home. Believe me there is much about the South that I'm deeply proud of will defend to my dying breath.

That being said, I will also tell y'all that there is also as much about the land of my birth, and the history of America, that I'm just as equally ashamed of too. Stories and incidents that I'm more than willing to call out and talk about.

To appreciate the good things all the more, one has to confront the bad things. The story I am going to relate to y'all today is perhaps one of the darkest moments in the local history of my little corner of South Carolina.

Just after midnight on Monday, March 6, 1871, a group of black-clad riders arrived at the cabin home of Jim and Rose Williams and demanded that Jim, a former Union soldier and local militia captain, surrender to them.

This incident in York County would be one of the most infamous crimes carried out by the first incarnation of the Ku Klux Klan and would have serious far-reaching repercussions, not just in York County in the 19th century, but across America as a whole long afterwards.

It took place during one of the most turbulent times in South Carolina's history: The Reconstruction Era (1867-1877).


Reconstruction & Occupation

Following the War Between The States (1861-1865) South Carolina was once again under military occupation. This time not by red and green-coated British soldiers and their American Loyalist collaborators, but by American men wearing the blue coats of the Union Army and their pro-Union allies. 

U.S. President Abraham Lincoln's successor, President Andrew Johnson -- a Democrat Unionist from Tennessee -- planned to restore the Union by quickly establishing state governments in the former Confederate States and readmitting their representatives to Congress.

In June 1865, he appointed Benjamin Franklin Perry of South Carolina as the provisional governor of the state. In September of the same year, an all-white constitutional convention met in the state capital in Columbia to formally repeal the 1860 Ordinance of Secession and to recognize the federal abolition of slavery. This convention also enacted so-called Black Codes, discriminatory laws that severely restricted former African-American slaves to a social and economic status that echoed antebellum slavery.

In Congress, the radical abolitionist wing of the Republican Party took control of Reconstruction. They impeached and tried President Johnson for his lenient attitude toward the defeated Southern States -- this despite the fact that President Lincoln himself intended to do much of the same thing prior to his assassination. Johnson would ultimately win the trial by a single vote, but his authority was relegated to lame-duck status for the remainder of his single term in office.

However, this did not stop Johnson from issuing a general pardon to all former Confederate soldiers who fought in that conflict on Christmas day of 1868. In his proclamation, the president unconditionally and without reservation extended to all former Confederates (including Jefferson Davis and other government officials) "....a full pardon and amnesty for the offense of treason [sic] against the United States, or of adhering to their enemies during the late Civil War, with restoration of all rights, privileges, and immunities under the Constitution and the laws."

Again this was something that Lincoln himself planned to do for the most part, although unlike Johnson, he advocated in his final public speeches for the full citizenship and right to vote for former slaves.

On Tuesday, December 8, 1863, in his annual message to Congress, Lincoln had outlined his plans for reconstruction of the South, including amnesty terms for former Confederates except for those who had held office in the Confederate government at that time, or persons who had mistreated Union prisoners. A pardon would require an oath of allegiance, but it would not restore ownership to former slaves, or restore confiscated property that involved a third party.

However, the radical Republicans, who held full control of the legislative agenda in Congress, objected to Lincoln's plans as far too lenient and refused to recognize delegates from the reconstructed governments of Louisiana and Arkansas. Congress instead passed the Wade-Davis Bill. This measure required half of any former Confederate State’s voters to swear allegiance to the United States and that they had not supported the Confederacy. While the Wade-Davis Bill also ended slavery, it did not allow former slaves to vote.

Lincoln vetoed the bill.

Even as late as 1865, with the war finally coming to a close, Lincoln planned to quickly restore the former Confederate States to the Union and full U.S. citizenship to the citizens of those states -- including the former slaves themselves.

In 1865, Union Major General William T. Sherman, under Lincoln's directive, issued Special Field Orders No. 15, seizing land from white owners in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida to settle 40,000 freed slaves and black refugees. This was the basis of the phrase "40 acres and a mule" and was revoked a year later by President Johnson.

Unlike the weaker Johnson, Lincoln had the popularity and the political clout at that point to push through his plans for a fully restored Union; plans that died with him and ultimately set the stage for the incompetent corruption and reactionary terror that would soon follow.

Following Johnston's impeachment, the radical Republicans placed ten of the former Confederate States under military occupation and dispatched Union troops to enforce civil rights and election laws.

The first of the four Federal Reconstruction Acts was passed by the U.S. Congress on Saturday, March 2, 1867 after overriding a presidential veto. It divided the former Confederate States (with the exception of Tennessee) into five military occupation districts and gave the right to vote only to black males and whites who were either loyal to the Union during the War Between The States, or those who had moved to the south after 1860.

By 1868, a second constitutional convention met in Charleston, South Carolina; this time with a black majority and white Republicans appointed by the Union occupation forces controlling the convention. The 1868 State Constitution was a somewhat more progressive document that did strengthen county government and public schools, end debtor's prisons, and also legalized divorce. It would remain in effect until 1895.

The election of 1868 also saw the election of Radical Republicans and a number of African-Americans to local public offices. This was done largely by newly enfranchised former slaves organized and registered by pro-Union voting leagues while former Confederates remained disenfranchised until Christmas of that same year. 

This election would unfortunately prove be the beginning of the end to a relatively small, but tense, peaceful relations between black and white citizens of South Carolina. Disenfranchised and suffering military occupation, some Democrats and many former Confederate veterans abandoned conventional politics to the Republicans and waged a campaign of extra-legal intimidation.

This would also lead to the rise of some of the ugliest civil violence in upstate South Carolina since 1780.

Captain Jim Williams & Reverend Elias Hill

Jim Williams was an African-American militia leader in South Carolina’s York County.

Williams (born James Rainey) had been born sometime in 1830 as a slave on the Rainey Plantation about 10 miles west of Rock Hill in York County near modern-day Brattonsville.

Williams, who worked as a cook on the plantation, ran away during the later half of the War Between the States and later fought for the Union as a member of the United States Colored Troops (USCT). Williams served for 18 months under Union General William T. Sherman's command during his march through the Carolinas in 1865.

After the war, Williams returned to York County on Friday, May 4, 1866 still wearing his blue Union uniform and organized a local black militia organization which sought to protect black rights in the area becoming its captain. This militia was backed up and supported by the local Union occupation forces.

Assisting Captain Williams was another local black civil rights activist in York County, Elias Hill.

Hill was born in 1819 to Dorcas and Elias Hill in York County at the iron works of the famous Hill family (the descendants of local Revolutionary War hero Colonel William Hill). 

In 1826 at the age of 7, young Hill was stricken with a debilitating neurological disease (possibly polio, or muscular dystrophy) which left him crippled in one arm and one leg.

In spite of his weakened body, Hill had a sharp mind and was eager to learn. No one objected to having a deformed child hanging around the local school. Because of his condition he was ridiculed by the children, but it also afforded him the opportunity to become educated. The white school children taught Elias to read and write contrary to the laws prohibiting African-Americans from being educated at the time.

One of the children who helped educate Elias Hill was a member of the white family that owned him, and future Confederate General Daniel Harvey Hill. (In another interesting and ironic twist in history, Hill's future brother-in-law and fellow Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson would also defy the laws of his own native State of Virginia and educate black children.) 

Because of his childhood illness, as an adult, his legs remained extremely skinny, his arms were withered, and his jaw was deformed. Hill also seemed to suffer from a form of dwarfism.

After the War ended in 1865, Hill worked and became an ordained Baptist minister moving from congregation to congregation throughout the South Carolina Piedmont region. He also taught former slaves reading and writing and became active in local politics. Some of his congregation would travel as far as 25 or 30 miles twice a month to hear Hill's sermons.

By 1867, Reverend Hill was the president of the York County Union League. He headed the campaign in the South Carolina upcountry to elect former Union Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant as U.S. President in 1868 and was offered a position as a trial justice by the state's Reconstruction Republican Governor Robert K. Scott, which Hill politely declined.

By 1871, Hill regularly held political meetings at his cabin in York County and was a popular preacher working closely with the Union occupation and Captain Williams militia to try and secure the rights of local former slaves.

Unfortunately for both men, their work would meet some of the most fierce opposition in Reconstruction-Era South Carolina as York County would be the site of some of the most intensive white paramilitary violence in the occupied former Confederate States.

James Rufus Bratton

James Rufus Bratton was born on Monday, November 12, 1821 in York County. He was one of fourteen children to John Bratton and Harriet Rainey, daughter of James Rainey. His paternal grandfather was Patriot Colonel William Bratton, famous for his victory over Captain Huck during the American Revolutionary War's Southern Campaign in 1780. Bratton was also the first cousin of Confederate Brigadier General John Bratton.

Bratton attended school at Mt. Zion Academy in Winnsboro, South Carolina, and attended the College of South Carolina, where he graduated in 1843. He continued his medical training and in 1845 took a full course in the hospital at the University of Pennsylvania. and graduated from Jefferson Medical College in Pennsylvania. Bratton returned to South Carolina and opened his own practice in York in 1847.

In 1850 Bratton married Rebecca Massey of Lancaster County. The pair had seven children together.
 
Bratton gained a reputation as a very talented doctor. In a famous case in the mid 1850s, he trephined a skull when the patient suffered great pressure on the brain following a kick by a horse, saving the man's life.

When the War broke out in 1861, he volunteered to be an assistant surgeon for the 5th Regiment, South Carolina Infantry Volunteers under the command of then Colonel Micah Jenkins.

He was then placed in charge of the Fourth Division of the Winder Hospital in Richmond, Virginia, where he served for three years and was promoted to the rank of surgeon. He was transferred to the 20th Regiment of Virginia surgeons under General Braxton Bragg at Milledgeville, Georgia.

After Union General William T. Sherman marched his army through Georgia to Savannah, the hospital was dismantled and Bratton was furloughed and returned to York.

On April 28 & 29, 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis was fleeing Union forces through South Carolina and stopped over in York on his way to Georgia. Bratton hosted Davis who spent the night in a guest bedroom.

After the war ended, Bratton largely resumed his medical practice in York, though he was embittered by the South's loss and Reconstruction occupation by Union soldiers. The emancipation of the slaves caused hard times to fall on his family's plantation.

By 1870 Bratton became active in anti-Reconstruction activities and a leader in the York County Ku Klux Klan.


The Ku Klux Klan In York County

The history of the first incarnation of the Ku Klux Klan has its bloody origins from its founding on Sunday December 24, 1865 at the Law Office of Judge Thomas M. Jones in Pulaski, Tennessee by six former Confederate veterans and Masons.

These men conceived the bylaws of the paramilitary group which began as a very cruel joke which began with the men dressing up in horrifying costumes and riding out to scare superstitious African-Americans into believing they were demons, or ghosts.

The group worked as individual cells, largely operating independently of one another, using various violent tactics to frighten and intimidate black Union League members to renounce the Reconstruction government, or intimidate Carpetbaggers and Union supporters from voting in local elections.

When threats didn't work, the members of the Klan would dress up in dark costumes with terrifying masks and enforce their will through incredibly violent and racist means such as whippings and beatings, to burning homes, and finally lynchings.

The KKK organized as early as 1868 in York, and both rich and poor white citizens joined in order to keep blacks from voting and also to disarm black militia companies in the region. By 1871 about 1,800 of the 2,300 adult white males in the county were members of the Klan.

York County became the hotbed of Klan violence and retribution by Union League forces in the winter of 1871.

In an effort to control the escalating violence in the state, Governor Scott officially disbanded the black militia companies in February 1871, but some units -- including William's company -- refused to surrender their arms in order to continue protecting their local communities.

On Saturday, February 11, 1871, Captain Williams, along with June Moore, a nephew of Elias Hill, and a group of Black Union League members met with a group of Klan members led by Bratton at a crossroads near Clay Hill in northern York County to seek to talk about the safety of African-Americans in the area and to deescalate tensions.

Williams suggested that he would be willing to relinquish his militia weapons, and Black Union League leaders agreed to cease nighttime meetings and a brief truce was established.

The truce was broken the next day on Sunday, February 12, 1871 when a race riot broke out involving 500 to 700 whites in neighboring Union County, resulting in the killing eight blacks by Klan members. Ultimately, any further negotiations failed. The black militia would not give up their arms without a fight. This would be followed by nightly Klan raids on black residences in York County for several more months.

Artists depiction of Klan violence (1872).
Acts of violence like this became common in the occupied
Southern States during the Reconstruction Era.

Local whites claimed that Williams threatened to kill them and also suggested that his militia was beginning to stockpile weapons. Other slurs included a rumor that Williams said he wanted to rape white women, and also that his militia was responsible for committing arson on a number of white properties.

Similar claims were made against Reverend Elias Hill as well -- which were ridiculous considering the man's disabilities.

Williams, a Union army veteran outspoken in his contempt for the Klan and in his determination to protect the African-American citizens of York County, might well have been responsible for some retaliatory violence in the form of arson of suspected Klansmen's homes. As for the alleged charges that he wanted to "rape white women" these were sensationalist statements meant to demean Williams and to turn people against him and his black militia.

His militia might well have been collecting weapons for self-defense with the growing escalation in Klan violence in the area. However contrast this with his willingness to surrender his militia's weapons in order to establish peaceful coexistence with his white neighbors and the local blacks the month before suggests that Captain Williams was not some dangerous monster, certainly not another Christian Huck.

No matter the validity of the claims made against Jim Williams and the local Black Union League members, there is no doubt whatsoever about what occurred beginning on the night of Monday, March 6, 1871 and the repercussions it would have in our nation's history.


The Lynching Of Jim Williams

It was a full moon that night when a group of about 70 Klansmen gathered at the Briar Patch muster ground about 5 miles west of York.

Led by James Rufus Bratton, the masked and robed men traveled five miles to William’s cabin. As they didn’t know where he lived initially, they beat up Andy Timons, a member of the Union League, in a desperate attempt to find the location of the intended victim.

A few hundred yards from Williams’ house, Bratton brought a smaller detachment of his men to the door. Rose Williams answered, telling them that her husband had gone out and she did not know where he was. The hooded and robed Klansmen crammed into the small cabin. Searching the house, they only found the Williams children and another man. The raiders were not satisfied that their target was gone. Bratton studied the house with his piercing dark eyes and some of the wooden flooring caught his eye.

"He might be under there," the Klan leader said and his men lowered themselves to the floorboards listening for the sounds of any rustling or breathing. Then they tore up the planks. Rose begged for them to stop as they continued to pry up the planks. They found Jim Williams crouched beneath.

Rose pleaded with them not to hurt her husband, but they ordered her to go to the bedroom with her children and marched Williams out of the house.

Andy Timons, meanwhile, scrambled to gather the militia to warn Williams, but the Klan’s head start was too great.

Bratton had brought a rope with him from town and placed it around Williams’ neck as the group selected a pine tree. Williams agreed to climb up by his own power to the branch from which they would drop him, but when they were ready to finish the job he grabbed onto a tree limb.

One of the Klansmen, a man named Bob Caldwell, hacked at Williams’ fingers with a knife until he dropped. Because of his struggling his hanging death was not instantaneous. According to accounts, Williams pleaded and cried, then cursed his murderers as he slowly choked to death. Several of the masked men reportedly fired pistol shots into William's dangling, twitching body.

After the masked men rode off into the night, Timons and Rose found him hanging by the neck with a card on the corpse that mocked the militia leader reading: Jim Williams on his big muster.

Members of William's militia cut down his body and took it to the local store near modern-day Brattonsville and guarded it while sending for the local doctor to preform an inquest. That doctor ironically was James Rufus Bratton himself. In a sick irony, the same man who put the noose around his neck preformed the autopsy of the man he helped murder.

The mob visited several other homes of men involved in the Union League militia, succeeding in gathering 23 guns but no other members. Members of the league swore vengeance, but did not act. In order to prevent any further escalation of violence, Timons reluctantly agreed to turn over the militia company's remaining weapons.

Bratton and the Klan seemingly got their way for now.


The Lynching Of Elias Hill

In spite of the lynching of Captain Williams, Reverend Elias Hill stepped in to lead the now disarrayed Union League.

On the night of Friday, May 5, 1871, a small group of Klansmen burst into the cabin of Hill's brother and demanded to know where the "uppity bastard" Hill resided. They slapped Hill's sister-in-law until she told them Reverend Hill's cabin was just next door.

Solomon Hill & June Moore, nephews of
Reverend Elias Hill. Photo taken prior to
their immigration to Liberia in October 1871.

Some of the masked men then went next door and burst into Hill's cabin and dragged him from his bed by straps they wrapped around his feeble neck. Hill was dragged by his crippled arms and legs into the yard and beaten with a horsewhip. He was charged with denouncing the KKK, inciting a riot, and "ravishing white women".

They then threw him onto the muddy ground, beat him, and forced him to admit to starting fires to white-owned properties -- again despite the fact the man was a cripple. Pointing a pistol to his head, they also forced him to renounce support for Republican politics and to swear to publish a statement to that effect in the local newspaper. He was threatened to be thrown in the river and told to stop preaching against the Ku Klux Klan.

His sister-in-law and mother were also beaten the same night. In another raid, Hill's nephews, Solomon Hill and June Moore, were attacked and forced to renounce their Republican Party affiliation in the local paper, the Yorkville Enquirer.

Unlike Captain Williams, Hill survived his encounter with the Klan.

Afraid for his life, and the life of his family, Hill contacted Congressman Alexander S. Wallace and the American Colonization Society, seeking to escape the country.

Hill, along with 135 other African-Americans from the area, boarded the Charlotte, Columbia and Augusta Railroad and traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina, and then to Portsmouth, Virginia. They sailed to Africa on the ship Edith Rose -- a trip that included 243 regular passengers and two stowaways. The group settled in Arthington, Liberia in October 1871.

Reverend Elias Hill died of malaria on March 28, 1872, after only six months in Liberia.

The Aftermath

Klan violence in upstate South Carolina became so intense that drastic measures had to be taken.

Companies B, E, and K of George Armstrong Custer's Seventh U.S. Cavalry led by Major Lewis Merrill soon arrived in the area to try to quell the violence.

Merrill, along with United States Attorney General Amos T. Akerman, traveled to York to investigate incidents of Klan violence. In York County alone they found evidence of eleven murders and more than 600 whippings, beatings and other aggravated assaults. The men where appalled by their findings and when local grand juries failed to take action, Mr. Akerman urged now U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant to intervene. 

Colonel Lewis Merrill of Custer's 7th US Cavalry.

In April 1871, President Grant signed the Enforcement Act of 1871 (also known more commonly as the Ku Klux Klan Act) which made it a federal crime to deprive American citizens of their civil rights through racial terrorism. On October 12, 1871, Grant warned nine South Carolina counties with prevalent Klan activity that martial law would be declared if the Klan did not disperse. This warning was ignored. Five days later on October 17, 1871, Grant declared martial law and suspended the writ of habeas corpus in those same nine counties, including York. Ackerman and Colonel Merrill achieved 785 indictments and Federal occupation forces were allowed to arrest and imprison Klan members and instigators of racial terrorism without bringing them before a judge, or into court.

Many affluent Klan members, including Bratton, fled the jurisdiction to avoid arrest, but by December 1871 approximately 600 Klansmen were in jail. Fifty-three pleaded guilty, and five were convicted at trial. Klan terrorism in South Carolina decreased significantly after the arrests and trials, as the Klan could not stand up to intense government intervention.

The Ku Klux Klan formally disbanded a few years before the end of Reconstruction with the organization more-or-less petering out of existence once the Union occupation of the former Confederate States ended in 1876.

Unfortunately the story of the Klan does not end there.

Scene from the film Birth of a Nation depicting
a romanticized version of the first Klan routing
Black Union League members.

Bratton's Klan activities are believed to have been the inspiration for Thomas Dixon Jr.'s 1905 novel and play The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan. Dixon had relatives in York County from which he may have learned about Bratton's activities and then wrote about them in a far more favorable light than the actual events were.

Dixon's novel was the basis of the 1915 D.W. Griffith silent film The Birth of a Nation, depicting the original Klan in an obscenely romanticized light. This mythological retelling of the Klan's history in turn, would inspire the creation of the second incarnation of the organization, which in turn serves as the basis for the current group by the same name that exists to this day -- though thankfully as a shell of its former self.

Following the end of Reconstruction, nearly all of the formerly occupied Southern States, nor formally restored to the Union, began curbing the freedoms and rights of their black populations, resulting in the Jim Crow laws and racial segregation policies that would largely remain in effect for decades until the passage of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 and U.S. Voting Rights Act of 1965 both signed into law by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Doctor James Rufus Bratton returned to South Carolina following Reconstruction and resumed his medical practice. For some period in his life, he was president of the South Carolina State Medical Association.

Bratton died on Thursday, September 2, 1897 and is buried in the graveyard of Historic Bethesda Presbyterian Church near his family, including his grandfather and local Revolutionary War hero Colonel John Bratton. His gravestone only speaks of his noble service as a Civil War surgeon. No mention is made of his Klan activities.

As for Captain Jim Williams, this blogger was unable to locate his grave site. A beautiful mural in downtown Rock Hill, South Carolina depicts him and historical markers at the site speak of his war service and actions during the Reconstruction Era.

Very recently another historical marker honoring his service was installed at the site of Historic Brattonsville near where he grew up in late 2021 -- 150 years after his murder.

Two historical markers at Allison Creek Presbyterian Church near the Carolina state line tell the story of Reverend Elias Hill and the migration of him and his followers to Liberia in October of 1871.

 

This blogger would like to offer his personal thanks to the outstanding folks at the Yorkville Historical Society, the University of South Carolina, and those who helped contribute to making this article possible.

For further reading on the Reconstruction Era in South Carolina, please check out the book Reconstruction: A Concise History by Allen C. Guelzo (Oxford University Press 2018)  ISBN:9780190865702.