Burke County, North Carolina, has come up several times over the years here on Looking for the Confederate War. You can learn more about the county here and about the Avery brothers here. Morganton, the county seat of Burke County, served as one of the sub- districts for the Freemen’s Bureau after the war. Usually when people think of the Freedman’s Bureau, people think of schools and taking care of former slaves, which was one function of the organization. But after March 1867, it also administered foodstuffs to destitute people, both Black and White.
Many times, we reach the end of the war in April and May
1865, and we don’t really think about the condition of people for the next few
years. Those years are boiled down to Southerners, both White and Black,
suffering “untold horrors.” Untold is a large part of it. Destitution in the
South became so acute in the spring of 1867 that a joint resolution was passed
by the US Congress authorizing the use of unexpended Freedman Bureau funds to
purchase food supplies to prevent starvation and extreme want. There were an
estimated 53,945 people thought to be destitute in Tennessee, Alabama,
Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, and North Carolina.[1]
It was the various Freedmen’s Bureau agents in the sub-districts who were responsible for distributing these rations. It is not clear just how word was spread, either by circular or word of mouth maybe, but in late June and early July 1867, people came into Morganton to apply for assistance. Many of the applicants were widows of Unionist men. Margaret Lail, supporting four children, applied. She told the agent that “My husband was a Union man, [and] was shot by one of Patterson’s home guard.” She was awarded twenty-four pounds of pork and 168 pounds of corn. Nancy York, taking care of an aged father and three children, told the agent that her husband William York, possibly of Company B, 11th North Carolina State Troops, was a Union man, conscripted into Confederate service. He deserted and was “shot in Burke Co., by David Peter, a home guard, for deserting the Confederate army.” They had no land, no cow, no “creature.” She made her mark and received 28 pounds of pork and 196 pounds of corn. Myrah Cook had six children to take care of. Her husband, Edward Cook, was a Unionist, and was shot twice by the home guard. The second time, Cook “was shoot in the woods, where [Myrah] took care of him 8 days when he died.”[2]
A couple of the destitute who came in had husbands that they
claimed had served in the Union army and died during the war. Emeline Couch
claimed that her husband, name unknown, was in the Union army when he was
killed, “leaving me destitute” with one child. Likewise, Lucinda Summers, with
one child, also lost a husband in Federal service.[3]
The greatest number of applicants were rather tight-lipped
about why they were destitute. Elizabeth Simpson, Mary Smith, and Louisa Petit
were living with three dependent children. They told the agent that they were
“landless and destitute, caused by the war.” They were given 30 pounds of pork
and 252 pounds of corn. Likewise, Mary Clark, Rebecca Short, and Mary Brackett,
with ten children, were all “widows and destitute, caused by the war.” Fanny
Fraklin told the agent that her husband had been injured during the war in the
head, and that they were destitute.[4]
However, many of the destitute who came to Morganton to seek
relief were connected to the Confederate army. Huldah Lewis told the agent that
her husband was “crippled in the rebel service and [they were] destitute.” Elizabeth
Sherill and Rebecca Matthews, trying to support two children, had lost their
husbands “in the Rebel army.” Nancy Smith and Macey Bingham had husbands who
had died in northern prison camps. Polly Chrisenburg was trying to take care of
her aged father and five children. Her “husband had died in the war.” Williams
Watts, with his wife, complained that he had “lost all my sons in the
Confederate army.” Watts was over 60 years old “and destitute.”[5]
Henry Goins was one of the few Confederate soldiers to come
in. He enlisted at the age of 18 in Burke County on May 10,1861, and was
mustered in as a private in what became Company E, 16th North
Carolina Troops. Goins was wounded in the left arm and right elbow and captured
at Gettysburg in July 1863. He was paroled later in 1863 and rejoined his
regiment in time to be paroled at Appomattox. Goins told the agent that he was “a
volunteer in the Rebel army [and] lost an arm and the other [stiffened] at the
battle of Gettysburg. Can’t feed myself and am entirely destitute.” Goins was
given 16 pounds of pork and 112 pounds of corn.[6]
If there were any applicants turned away, those files have
not been made available to the public online, or they were not kept. Reconstruction
as a whole is little understood in many communities. History does not end in
the spring of 1865. In local history, the times are viewed as “untold horrors.”
Just how much of this history is lost, versus what has yet to be explored, is
another one of those horrors. Does your county or community have a history of
reconstruction? There are several volumes of Reconstruction as a whole on my
shelves. Only one, James W. Hagy’s After the War Over: Reconstruction in
Washington County, Virginia, 1865-1870, covers a county. Are there others?
These were real people, and their ordeals were real. Remembering them is important.
[1] Beth,
“The Freedmen’s Bureau in Alabama,” The Journal of Southern History
91948) 1:79.
[2] North
Carolina. Freedmen's Bureau Records 1865–1872, M1909, Morganton Sub-Assistant
Commissioner, Roll 32, Applications for rations, Jun-Jul 1867.
[3] North
Carolina. Freedmen's Bureau Records 1865–1872, M1909, Morganton Sub-Assistant
Commissioner, Roll 32, Applications for rations, Jun-Jul 1867.
[4] North
Carolina. Freedmen's Bureau Records 1865–1872, M1909, Morganton Sub-Assistant
Commissioner, Roll 32, Applications for rations, Jun-Jul 1867.
[5] North
Carolina. Freedmen's Bureau Records 1865–1872, M1909, Morganton Sub-Assistant
Commissioner, Roll 32, Applications for rations, Jun-Jul 1867.
[6] Jordan
and Manarin, North Carolina Troops, 6:51; North Carolina. Freedmen's
Bureau Records 1865–1872, M1909, Morganton Sub-Assistant Commissioner, Roll 32,
Applications for rations, Jun-Jul 1867.
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