The Fate of the Confederate Governors

   As the war ground to a close, orders went out for the arrest of various political figures, including both sitting governors and former governors.

Alabama had three men who served as governors. Andrew B. Moore served from 1857 to 1861. The Alabama constitution did not allow Moore to run for a third term, although he remained active in the war effort. Moore was replaced by John G. Shorter, who served one term, and was replaced by Thomas H. Watts, then serving as Confederate Attorney General. Watts served as governor until the end of the war. US Secretary of War Edwin Stanton ordered Moore to be arrested on May 16, 1865. He was imprisoned at Fort Pulaski in Savannah until being released in August 1865. Shorter apparently avoided arrest, while Watts was arrested on May 1, 1865, and sent to Macon, but appears to have been released by mid-June 1865.

Arkansas had three men in the governor’s chair during the war years. Henry M. Rector served from November 16, 1860, until he resigned after losing an election on November 4, 1862; President of the Senate Thomas Fletcher served from November 4, 1862, until November 15, 1862, when Harris Flanagin was elected. Flanagin served until May 26, 1865, often as governor in exile. None of these men appear to have served jail or prison time after the end of the war.

Florida had two war-time governors. Madison S. Perry and John Milton. Perry could only serve two-terms, and following his second term, became colonel of the 7^th Florida Infantry. His health was poor, and he returned to Florida, dying at home in March 1865. John Milton, realizing that the war was over, took his own life on April 1, 1865.

Georgia had one war-time governor: Joseph E. Brown. He was in office from November 6, 1857 to June 17, 1865, when he resigned. Brown was arrested on May 23, 1865 and imprisoned at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C. He was released after meeting with President Andrew Johnson. (The Atlanta Constitution, August 7, 1910)

Kentucky, as a border state, is complicated. George W. Johnson was the first Confederate governor. He was serving as an aide-de-camp on Breckinridge’s staff at Shiloh when his horse was shot from under him. Johnson continued on foot, attaching himself to the 4^th Kentucky Infantry (CS). Johnson was mortally wounded in the afternoon of April 7, 1862, dying two days later. Richard Hawes was selected by the state council as Johnson’s replacement, often making his headquarters with the Army of Tennessee. Hawes returned home after the end of the war.

Louisiana had two Confederate governors: Thomas O. Moore and Henry Watkins Allen. Moore could only serve two terms. He returned to his home near Alexandria, but after Federal troops burned his plantation, he fled to Mexico, and then Cuba. He eventually returned to Louisiana. Hawes also lost his home to fire, and with Moore, also went to Mexico. Allen, who was colonel of the 4^th Louisiana infantry, was wounded at Shiloh and Baton Rouge and died of his unhealed wounds in Mexico City on April 22, 1866.

Mississippi had John Pettus and Charles Clark. At war’s end, Pettus, wanted for questioning regarding the Lincoln assassination, went into hiding. He died of pneumonia in Lonoke County, Arkansas, on January 28, 1867. Clark was arrested and imprisoned at Fort Pulaski and was held until he took and signed the Oath of Allegiance in September 1865.

Missouri’s Claiborne F. Jackson took office on January 3, 1861, and after June 1861, was basically a governor in exile. Jackson was deposed by the General Assembly in July 1861, followed various Confederate military forces around on campaign, and died in Little Rock, Arkansas, December 7, 1862. Lieutenant Governor Thomas C. Reynolds assumed the role of governor, but really did not have a large role in political affairs. At the end of the war, he also went to Mexico, but returned to St. Louis.

North Carolina had three war-time governors. John W. Ellis led the state out of the Union in May 1861, only to die in July 1861. He was replaced by Speaker of the North Carolina Senate Henry T. Clark. Clark did not pursue election and stepped down at the end of the term in September 1862. Zebulon Baird Vance, colonel of the 26^th North Carolina, was elected as governor twice during the war years. At the end of the war, he attempted to surrender and was told to go home. In Statesville, he was arrested on his birthday, May 13, 1865, and imprisoned in Old Capital Prison. Vance was released after receiving his parole on July 6, 1865.

South Carolina had three men in the role of governor: Francis W. Pickens, Milledge L. Bonham, and Andrew G. Magrath. Pickens and Bonham were limited in the number of terms they could serve. Pickens retired to his plantation, and Bonham was reappointed a Confederate general and served in the Army of Tennessee. Magrath was arrested and imprisoned at Fort Pulaski, not being released until December 1865.

Tennessee had only one Confederate governor: Isham G. Harris. After the fall of Nashville, Harris served on the staffs of several Confederate generals, including Joseph E. Johnston, Braxton Bragg, and Albert S. Johnston. The US Congress issued a $5,000 reward for the capture of Harris at the end of the war. He fled to Mexico, then England, only returning to Tennessee once the bounty was removed.

Texas had Sam Houston, who was removed in March 1861; Edward Clark, the lieutenant governor, who lost the election in November 1861; Francis Lubbock who did not run for reelection and stepped aside in November 1863; and Pendleton Murrah.  Houston died in 1863. Clark served as colonel of the 14^th Texas Infantry but fled to Mexico at the end of the war. Lubbock was commissioned lieutenant colonel on the staff of Maj. Gen. John B. Marguder, and then aide-de-camp for Jefferson Davis. Lubbock was captured with Davis in Georgia and imprisoned at Fort Delaware for eight months.

Virginia had two governors. John Letcher and William Smith. Letcher’s arrest order was issued by U.S. Grant, and he was taken into custody on May 20, 1865, and imprisoned at Old Capital Prison. He was released forty-seven days later. Likewise, Smith turned himself in on June 8, 1865, and was paroled.

More information on these governors can be found in Years, editor, The Confederate Governors. For information on biographies on each governor, check out this link.  

The other first shots of the war.

   Everyone is familiar with the bombardment of Fort Sumter in April 1861.  Confederate forces demanded the return of the property, and Federal forces declined. After word arrived that the Federals were going to reinforce the fort, Confederate forces, on April 12, opened fire. After a thirty-six-hour bombardment, Federal forces surrendered a smoking, partially burned-out fort. This event is widely heralded as the first shot of the war.

   However, what if the war actually started three months earlier, in January 1861?

Fort Barrancas (Florida Memory)

   January 8, 1861 - If Charleston Harbor was ablaze with excitement in March and April 1861, Pensacola Harbor was on fire. There were three forts in Pensacola. All three, Fort Pickens, Fort McRae, and Fort Barrancas, were unoccupied. There was a company of forty-six men at nearby Barrancas. After conferring with Commodore James Armstrong at the nearby naval yard, who promised no help, Lt. Adam Slemmer moved his men into Fort Barrancas, put the guns into working order, established a guard, and on the night of January 8, raised the draw bridge. “About midnight on the eighth a group of men approached the fort and failing to answer when challenged, were fired upon by the guard. The alarm was sounded as the group retreated in the darkness. . . Slemmer doubled the guard and they waited through the night to see if another attempt would be made to take possession of the fort.” The following day Slemmer began to move his small command from Fort Barrancas to Fort Pickens. Florida passed its ordinance of secession the following day.[1]

   January 9, 1861 - Major Robert Anderson’s forces at Fort Sumter were on short on men. When Anderson abandoned Fort Moultrie in Charleston Harbor on the evening of December 26, 1860, and moved to Fort Sumter, he had eighty men under his command. Seeking to reinforce the Fort Sumter garrison, Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott secretly boarded 200 Federal soldiers into the Star of the West. Except, it was not a secret. The Star of the West left New York Harbor on the evening of January 5. Newspapers, both North and South, were starting to carry the news the following day. Waiting for the day to get light enough to enter the harbor and head to the fort, the Star of the West was spotted by a patrol boat that alerted a masked battery on shore. The battery was manned by cadets from the Citadel. They fired several shots, two hitting the vessel. Gunners at Fort Moultrie aimed their pieces as the Star of the West came into sight, firing a few rounds but doing no damage. With no signal from Fort Sumter, and an unknown vessel heading swiftly in their direction, the Star of the West broke off and headed back out to sea and back to New York.[2]  

Marker in Vicksburg (HMdb)

   January 13, 1861 – Named for its owner, the A.O. Tyler started life as a 180-foot-long, three-side-wheeled packet steamboat that plied the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. With the secession of states bordering the Mississippi River, orders went out to gain control of the waterway to “prevent any hostile expedition from the Northern States descending the river.” Part of the Jackson Artillery was ordered to Vicksburg, and permission given to call out local militia companies. One account says that on the night of January 13 (or maybe January 11), the A.O. Tyler, heading south from Cincinnati, was fired upon, stopped, and searched. It was then allowed to continue on. Another account states that a blank charge was used and had not the A.O. Tyler stopped, a live round would have been used next. Later, the A.O. Tyler was purchased by the Federals and used as a river gunboat.[3]  

   These are just three accounts. There are undoubtedly more waiting to be discovered.

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[1] Taylor, Discovering the Civil War in Florida, 27-28; Coleman and Coleman, Guardians of the Gulf, 39.

[2] Detzer, Allegiance, 152-59.

[3] Rowland, Military History of Mississippi, 35-6; The Louisville Daily Courier, January 21, 1861.

Famous Confederate Nurses

Drew Gilpin Faust, in Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in American Civil War, writes that it was “not the Confederacy’s ladies but its African Americans who care for the South’s fallen heroes. In the domain of nursing, as in the domestic world of cooking and washing, many Confederate ladies would prove themselves less able and less effective than their supposed inferiors.”[1] If Faust has any background research that examines the numbers of White verses Black hospital workers, it is seems to have been left out of her end notes. Of course, part of the problem with Mothers of Invention is that it focuses too much on women from slaveholding families, and not the other 99% of the Southern population.

The work of those mostly silent voices of Black hospital workers I cover in a post that you can read here. They were vital members of the staffs of Southern hospitals during the war. But to say that White Southern women were “less able and less effective” is a stretch. There were undoubtedly some African-American women who balked at the sight of the wounded and sick. Their voices are just silent, unrecorded then as they are now. There were many Southern women who did answer the call to serve as nurses and matrons in hospitals, and countless others who took soldiers into their homes to care for them when the hospital system became overwhelmed.

Others have pointed out conflicting evidence regarding Faust’s assumptions. In Susan Barber’s thesis “Sisters of the Capital: White Women in Richmond, Virginia, 1860-1880,” she found “that more upper class women worked as matrons than Faust suggests in Mothers of Invention.”[2] Elise A. Allison in her thesis, “Confederate Matrons: women who served in Virginia Civil War hospitals,” argues that Faust (and others) “focus their analyses on the writings left by a few prominent matrons and draw generalizations about all matrons based on this unrepresentative sample.”[3]

The Hospital Bill, passed into law in September 1862, stated that each hospital could employ two chief matrons, two assistant matrons, and two ward matrons for each ward. The chief matrons “exercise a superintendence over the entire domestic economy of the hospital.” The assistant matrons supervised the “laundry. . . the clothing of the sick, [and] the bedding of the hospital, to see that they are kept clean and neat.” The duties of the two war matrons were “to prepare the beds and bedding of their respective wards, to see that they are kept clean and in order, that the food or diet for the sick is carefully prepared and furnished to them, the medicine administered, and that all patients requiring careful nursing are attended to.”[4]

Ada Bocot was born in South Carolina in 1832. A widow by the time of the war, she volunteered as a nurse and in December 1861, arrived in Charlottesville, Virginia, working in the Monticello Hospital. She continued nursing through 1863 when she returned to her home in South Carolina. Her diary was published in 1994 and offers glimpses of her life while in Charlottesville. Berlin, ed., A Confederate Nurse: The Diary of Ada W. Bacot, 1860-1863.

Emily Mason was born in Kentucky, but by the time of the war was living in Virginia. Mason helped establish the hospital at White Sulphur Springs, and later worked at hospitals in Charlottesville, Lynchburg, and Richmond. Her war-time accounts were also published in The Atlantic Monthly: “Memories of a Hospital Matron,” 90, No.1039 (September 1902).  

Kate Cumming, born in Scotland, came to the United States with her family, settling in Mobile, Alabama. She volunteered as a nurse in Corinth, Mississippi, in April 1862, and went on to serve in several different hospitals throughout the war, including those in Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Her diary was published in 1866: A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

Juliet Opie Hopkins was born in present-day West Virginia, and after her marriage, relocated to Mobile, Alabama. During the war, she helped establish Alabama hospitals in Richmond, Virginia, and earned the title “Florence Nightingale of the South.” She was wounded twice in the left hip while supervising the removal of wounded soldiers during the battle of Seven Pines in May 1862. Hopkins died in 1890 and was buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.[5]

Sallie Chapman Gordon Law was born in Wilkes County, North Carolina, and later moved to Georgia, and then to Tennessee. In April 1861, she helped organize a hospital in a home in Memphis. Later, Law worked at Overton Hospital in Memphis, and then Law Hospital (named for her) in La Grange, Georgia. In 1892, her story was published in Reminiscences of the War of the Sixties between the North and South.  

Ella King Newsom was born in Mississippi and, after marrying, moved to Tennessee. She worked on the Southern Mothers’ Home Hospital and the Overton Hospital, both in Memphis. Newsom also organized or worked in hospitals in Bowling Green, Kentucky, Corinth, Mississippi, the Crutchfield House Hospital in Chattanooga, and in Marietta and Atlanta. The Newsom Hospital, originally organized in Chattanooga, was named for her. Newsom was also called “The Florence Nightingale of the South.”[6]

Phoebe Yates Levy Pember was born to a Jewish family in Charleston, South Carolina. She was widowed and living in Georgia when, in December 1862, she began working at Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond, Virginia. Pember was chief matron of one of the five divisions at Chimborazo, the largest military hospital in the world, and left some remarkable and often quoted details of her experience in A Southern Woman’s Story: Life in Confederate Richmond, published in 1879.

Kate Mason Rowland was born in Detroit, Michigan, and moved to Richmond, Virginia, prior to the war. During the war, she worked in several hospitals and was matron at the Marine or Naval Hospital at the end of the war. Her diary has never been published.

Sally Tompkins, from Matthews County, Virginia, ran the Robertson Hospital in Richmond during the war. When the Confederate government began consolidating small hospitals in the summer of 1861, the Robertson Hospital, due to its efficiency, remained open. To circumnavigate the regulation requiring hospital administrators to be commissioned, Jefferson Davis appointed Tompkins a captain of cavalry. Her hospital had the lowest death rate of any hospital in Richmond, although many serious cases were sent there. Tompkins’s hospital remained open until June 1865.[7]

Joanna Fox Waddill was born in Pennsylvania and moved to Mississippi when young. When the war came, she served in hospitals in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee, eventually becoming a matron in a hospital in Lauderdale, Mississippi.

Augusta Jane Evens Wilson was born in Columbus, Georgia, and lived in Russell County, Alabama, and San Antonio, Texas, prior to the war. In 1860, she was living in Mobile, Alabama. She worked at a hospital in Mobile during the war and corresponded with Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard.[8]

These are just a few of the many women who were clearly able and effective in their roles as caregivers for the injured and sick, regardless of their stations in Southern society.  

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[1] Faust, in Mothers of Invention, 112.

[2] Barber, “Sisters of the Capital,” 103-104.

[3] Allison, “Confederate Matrons,” 7.

[4] Official Records, Series IV, Vol. II, 199.

[5] Schroeder-Lein, Civil War Medicine, 138-39.

[6] Schroeder-Lein, Civil War Medicine, 229-30.

[7] Schroeder-Lein, Civil War Medicine, 303-04.

[8] http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1072

George Washington and Jefferson Davis

   There is no doubt that George Washington, the “Father of His Country,” was an inspiration to many in the Southern Confederacy. Washington appeared in the center of the Confederate seal, the $50 note (first series and second series), and on some Confederate bonds. Jefferson Davis used Washington’s birthday – February 22 – when he was inaugurated as the first permanent president of the Confederate in Richmond in 1862.

   While Washington, who died in 1799, and Davis, born in 1808, never met, Davis was well aware of the legacy that Washington left behind. Davis spent many years while serving in the U.S. House, as Secretary of War, and in the US Senate, living in the city named for the first president. How frequently did Davis pass by Greenough’s sculpture of George Washington as Davis passed through the Capitol Rotunda? Davis actually attended the unveiling of the Washington statue in 1856.[1]

   It is not really clear when and to what extent Davis studied the life of Washington. It is clear that it was something he did throughout his life. On June 28, 1845, Davis took to the stage in Vicksburg, Mississippi, to eulogize the recently deceased Andrew Jackson. Davis compared the character of Jackson to that of “the wisest, greatest of them all, the immortal Washington.”[2] In a letter to Malcolm D. Hayes, August 18, 1849, Davis told Malcolm the “Fanatics and demagogues have inflamed popular passion; it has been fed by sectional pride, and we have to meet the evil which Washington deprecated…”[3] Of course, Washington had spoken against political parties in his Farewell Address in 1796.

   Debate arose in the U.S. Senate in January 1850 regarding buying a corrected copy of Washington’s Farewell Address. While Davis had supported the purchase of two other manuscript collections, he was not in favor of this purchase. In his opinion, the “value of the Farewell Address is twofold: first, for the opinions contained in it; and next, the authority from which they are derived.”[4]

   In a campaign speech in Fayette, Mississippi, July 11, 1851, Davis broached the subject of Washington and the right of secession. Davis, according to a newspaper editor, believed that the “Declaration of Independence recognized the right of secession under circumstances of oppression and injustice. [Davis] wanted to see the man who would come forward with arguments to show that if a country has a right to secede from an oppressive government, as did the United States did from Great Britain, why States had no right to secede from the federal government under similar circumstances. How could the colonies have greater power than the States?” Washington was a Federalist in line with Alexander Hamilton and John Adams. He supposedly told Edmund Randolph in 1795 that if the United States dissolved, he would join the North. [5] “Whilst that great and good man who always opposed State coercion, Gen. Washington,” Davis continued, “in his farewell address discountenanced the perversion of power in the sovereign acts of a State, but he left it to this degenerate race to discover that treason could be committed by a sovereignty.” Davis then explored the threat of Kentucky to secede over free navigation of the Mississippi in 1795. “Did President Washington seek to turn the sword against Kentucky[?]  No, he had used the sword on the battle field. . . He knew its value-its uses and its abuses. . . Did he. . . threaten to coerce, and to force into submission? No, he called upon a friend, Col. Ellis, and proceeded at once to give Kentucky her request, by a negotiation with Spain, which secured to Kentucky, that which made peace and gave satisfaction.”[6]

   In a report to President Franklin Pierce, regarding the condition of the various militia regiments in the various states, Davis, advocating militia reform, actually quoted Washington, who believed that militia reform was “abundantly urged by its own importance.”[7] In June of 1860 Davis learned that several Mississippians in Washington, D.C. were in the process of having a cane made from wood at Mount Vernon to present to Davis.[8] Once the Southern states broke from the Union, there were comparisons made by many people, comparing Davis to Washington. One such comparison came from Florida’s David Yulee on February 13, 1861.[9] Another came from Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, who wrote on June 26, 1861, “We require now. . . that you should appear in the position Genl. Washington occupied during the revolution.”[10] This opinion would continue through 1863. Henry S. Foote wrote Davis in August 1863 that Southern people considered Davis “a second Washington.”[11] In December 1862, Sarah E. Yancey, the wife of William L. Yancey, sent Davis George Washington’s spyglass as a gift.[12] In October 1864, as Davis was passing through Columbia, South Carolina, a group of young boys serenaded Davis with “May you live long Sir an honor to your Country and bright example to the world like Washington was.”[13]

   Davis and Alexander Stephens used the George Washington equestrian statue in Richmond as the site of their inauguration in February 1862. Since so many compared Davis to Washington, the pageantry was obvious.[14] It would be natural for Confederate leaders to adopt George Washington. He was a son of Virginia, and almost ninety years earlier, had led a group of thirteen independent colonies towards victory over the most powerful nation in the world. Henry “Light Horse” Lee, another famous Virginian, had declared Washington “First in War, First in Peace, and First in the Hearts of His Countrymen” at his death. Davis undoubtedly knew that story and wanted to follow in the steps of Washington.

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[1] Jefferson Davis Papers, 6:liii

[2] Jefferson Davis Papers, 2:272.

[3] Jefferson Davis Papers, 4:28

[4] Jefferson Davis Papers, 4:60.

[5] Wood, Revolutionary Founders, 59.

[6] Jefferson Davis Papers, 4:207-09.

[7] Jefferson Davis Papers, 6:90.

[8] Jefferson Davis Papers, 6:665

[9] Jefferson Davis Papers, 7:40.

[10] Jefferson Davis Papers, 7:213.

[11] Jefferson Davis Papers, 9:356.

[12] Jefferson Davis Papers, 10:112.

[13] Jefferson Davis Papers, 11:81.

[14] Richmond Dispatch, February 22, 1862.

Southern Lighthouses and the War

    While we view lighthouses as interesting pieces of history, they also served a vital role in commerce in the 19^th century. These lighthouses helped guide vessels in and out of ports and away from dangerous areas along the coast. Most commerce was transported by ships. Cotton grown in the South was loaded onto ships and moved to Northern ports, or ports in Europe, for the manufacture of cloth. At times, these finished products were then loaded back onto ships and shipped back to the South. Foodstuffs from foreign ports, iron products from foundries up North, coffee from South America—they were all shipped into Southern ports.

   Federal forts and armories are often mentioned in histories as being captured and surrendered to the Southern states as they withdrew from the Union. Lighthouses were also surrendered or captured. There were approximately 106 lights in the Southern states. Some of those were traditional tall lighthouses that we normally picture on the coast, while others were range lights, light ships, or beacons in rivers and harbors. For example, Fort Sumter, in Charleston, South Carolina, had a range light, completed in 1857. This was considered the front range light, while the steeple of St. Phillip’s Church was the rear light. Fort Sumter was pretty much a pile of rubble after the war ended, and the light was lost.[1]

Mobile Point (AL) Lighthouse (National Archives) 

    After various Southern states took control of the lights, and the North declared war, many of the lenses were removed from the lights and stored for safe keeping. Some lenses wound up in the interior of a state. Others were secreted away close by. The lens and machinery from the Cape Canaveral Lighthouse were buried in an orange grove nearby. The last thing Southern forces wanted to do was aid the Federals in their attempts to blockade Southern ports.[2]

   Many of these towers became observation posts for Confederates, such as the Morris Island Lighthouse in Charleston Harbor, the Sabine Pass Light (Louisiana), the Point Isabel Light (Texas), and the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse (Florida). At the latter, Confederate forces not only observed from the darkened lighthouse, but used torches to signal waiting blockade runners when no Federal vessels were around.[3]

   Some of the towers were destroyed during the war. These include the Morris Island Lighthouse (Charleston); Bald Head Lighthouse (North Carolina); Mobile Point Lighthouse at Fort Morgan (Mobile); Sand Island Lighthouse (Mobile); and Hunting Island (Georgia), (but it’s unclear if the War or erosion destroyed the tower). Bruce Roberts writes that some of the towers that were made out of metal were salvaged by Confederate forces and melted for more important war-time needs. This apparently happened to the Bolivar Point Light near Galveston, Texas.[4]

Others were simply damaged. The Tybee Lighthouse (Georgia) had its lens removed and the top of the tower burnt by state forces. Likewise, the Bayou Bon Fouca Lighthouse was burned by Confederates. Confederate soldiers placed kegs of gunpowder inside the St. Marks Lighthouse (Florida), in an attempt to blow it up, but only damaged the tower. Likewise Confederates used the same method with the Matagorda Light (Texas). While unable to actually take the tower down, they did damage it so badly that it was dismantled in 1867.[5]

Egmont Key Lighthouse (FL) 

   Once the Federals reoccupied an area, they put the lighthouses back in working order. This is true with the lights on Amelia Island (Florida); Cape Henry (Virginia); Hatteras (North Carolina); Cape Lookout (North Carolina); Cape St. George Light (Florida)– (Confederates did hit this tower with a few artillery rounds); and the Skip Island Light (Mississippi – the Federals used the lens captured in a warehouse on Lake Ponchartrain).[6]

   There were, of course, lighthouses that never fell into Confederate hands, such as those around Key West (Florida).

   An interesting comparison study would be the number of ships that grounded out near some port because they had no lights to guide them in. We’ll save that for another post in the future. Another interesting study would be a claim by Mary Clifford. She writes that “Some lights during the Civil War had women keepers paid by the Confederate government.”[7]

  

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[1] https://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=1770

[2] Carr, Cape Canaveral, 19-21.

[3] Itkin, “Operations of the East Gulf Blockading Squadron in the Blockade of Florida,” 198.

[4] Roberts, Southern Lighthouses, 90.

[5] Jones, Gulf Coast Lighthouse, 43, 86.

[6] Jones, Gulf Coast Lighthouses,  63.

[7] Clifford, Women Who Kept the Lights, 35.

Confederate judge impeached by the US – Tennessee’s West Humphreys

Impeachments of judges and justices don’t really happen all that much in our history. By 1862, only three impeachments had been successful – those of Judge John Pickering (1803), Associate Justice Samuel Chase (1804), and Judge James H. Peck (1830). It was probably with a degree of excitement that the trial of District Judge West H. Humphreys began in the US Senate in 1862.

Established by the Constitution in 1878 and the Judiciary Act of 1789, the Federal judicial system has three tiers – district, circuit, and supreme court. District courts lie (usually) within one state, and the judge for that court usually comes from that state. District courts can only hear cases that deal with federal statutes, the Constitution, or treaties. District court judges are appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and are lifetime appointments. 

 
Many Southern states were divided into more than one district. In Alabama, there was a northern and Southern District. William G. Jones was the judge (appointed by James Buchanan in 1850) of both districts within the state of Alabama. With the creation of the Confederate States of America, Jones resigned his judgeship, effective January 12, 1861, and went on to be appointed a district judge for the Confederate States by Jefferson Davis, serving until the end of the war. It seems that most of the Federal district judges resigned and were later appointed to the same post in the Confederate States by Jefferson Davis: Daniel Ringo (Arkansas); McQueen McIntosh (Florida); John C. Nicoll (Georgia); Theodore H. McCaleb and Henry Boyce (Louisiana – resigned US, neither served as Confederate judges); Samuel J. Gholson (Mississippi); Asa Biggs (North Carolina); Andrew G. Magrath (South Carolina); and James D. Halyburton and John W. Brockenbrough (Virginia). However, Judge William Marvin, Southern District of Florida, and Judge Thomas H. Duval, Texas, did not resign and continued to serve as Federal judges throughout the war years. 

 
Judge West H. Humphreys, Federal judge for both districts in Tennessee, also became a Confederate judge for the state of Tennessee. But it appears that Humphreys missed an important step. He did not actually resign his former job, and the Federal government impeached and convicted him for it.

Humphreys was born in Montgomery County, Tennessee in 1806. His father was a state judge. He attended Transylvania University and then read law. Humphreys was in private practice in Clarksville and Somerville from 1828 until 1839. In 1834, he was a member of the state constitutional convention. He was a member of the General Assembly from 1835 to 1838, Attorney General of Tennessee 1839 to 1851, and reporter for the Tennessee Supreme Court those same years. In 1853, Humphreys was nominated to fill the judge’s seat for the United States District Court for Tennessee by President Franklin Pierce.

On July 25, 1861, Jefferson Davis submitted to the Confederate senate the names of two men to be judges, including West H. Humphreys. Nothing really seems to come of Davis’s nomination of Humphreys. On March 26, 1862, Thomas Bragg again submitted the name of Humphreys to Jefferson Davis to be a district court judge. It appears that the senate confirmed Humphreys on March 29.

Word made its way back to Washington, D.C., that Humphreys had taken the position of a Confederate District Judge. The US House impeached Humphreys and appointed managers on May 7, 1862, to go to the Senate to try Humphreys for “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

On May 8, 1862, the notification of Humphrey’s impeachment reached the US Senate. The Senate convened as a jury on May 22, with Vice President Hannibal Hamlin presiding. There were seven articles of impeachment. Those articles included public speaking “to incite revolt and rebellion” in Nashville, Tennessee, December 29, 1860; that in early 1861 Humphreys “together with other evil-minded persons within said State, openly and unlawfully support, advocate, and agree to an act commonly called an ordinance of secession”; in 1862 he “unlawfully, and in conjunction with other persons, organized armed rebellion against the United States and levy war against them”; disregarded his duties as a Federal judge by refusing to hold district court; deprived Andrew Johnson and John Catron of their property; and had William G. “Parson” Brownlow arrested. The Secretary then issued a summons that Humphreys appear before the Senate to answer these charges on June 9. The Senate then moved to postpone the trial until June 26. With that, the court adjourned.

The sergeant-at-arms of the Senate, George T. Brown, made his way to Nashville, but was unable to find Humphreys. (Chicago Tribune, June 14, 1862) The Senate published ads in three Washington, D.C., and one Nashville, Tennessee, newspapers, summoning Humphreys to the US Senate. The House managers presented their case, including a list of witnesses that included Jacob McGavock, William H. Polk, Horace Maynard, and William G. Brownlow. The witnesses were examined, and the articles of impeachment were gone through. Humphreys never made an appearance, and the Senate impeached him. Humphreys was removed from office and was disqualified from ever holding an office under the United States again.

Information on Humphreys for the remainder of the war is kind of sparse. There are a few mentions in Robinson’s Justice in Grey regarding a couple of cases, but Humphreys, like most Confederate judicial personnel, slips out of the pages of history. We do know that Humphreys was indicted for conspiracy against the government of the United States. Humphreys was able to resume his law practice in 1866, and continued to practice until 1882. He died on October 16, 1882, and is buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery, Nashville, Tennessee.

Churches in the Crossfire

    Battles fought during the 1860s often encompassed great swaths of ground. Gettysburg alone comes in at almost 18 square miles. As these battles rolled back and forth, they passed by people’s homes, their farms, and their community structures, like railroad depots, schools, and churches. Churches were community spaces. Besides religious services, they often held schools during the week, and could be the place where political oratory was presented as elections drew near. As the soldiers squared off to fight, many churches could become hospitals. The following list is nowhere complete, but just an introduction to some of these historic sites and structures.

Dunker Church, Sharpsburg, MD

   Dunker Church, on the Antietam National battlefield, is probably the most recognized church of the war. One of the bloodiest battles of the war was fought around the church in September 1862, and a photograph taken by Alexander Gardner right after the battle, showing the church, has become a staple of images in many war-time histories. The Dunkers were a part of the German Baptist Brethren, and the church near Sharpsburg was built in 1852 on land given by local farmer Samuel Mumma. During the battle, Confederate artillery and infantry were posted in and around the Dunker Church. While modest in structure, the church was a focal point during the early morning fighting on September 17. During the battle, the church was struck with small arms and artillery projectiles, and then went on to serve as a makeshift hospital. The building was used as a church after the battle, but in the early 1900s, the congregation moved to town, and the building fell into disrepair. What was left of the original building was dismantled. After passing through several hands, the property was acquired by the Federal government; in the 1960s, using many of the original materials, the structure was rebuilt and re-dedicated on September 2, 1962. (You can read a more in-depth history here.)

   The Shiloh Meeting House, on the Shiloh National Battlefield in Tennessee, was a one-room log structure built by the Methodists in 1853. In April 1862, Brig. Gen. William T. Sherman posted his division on either side of the church. They considered Shiloh Church a “rude structure in which…the voices of the ‘poor white trash’ of Tennessee mingle in praise to God.” The Confederates attacked on April 6, and two hours later, succeeded in driving Sherman’s Federals from their position. Confederate general Albert Sidney Johnston’s body was carried into the church after his death, and later, Confederate Lieutenant General P.G.T. Beauregard established his headquarters at the building the next day. After the battle, the Federals reportedly tore down the structure, using the logs to build breastworks. Ironically, Shiloh means “place of peace.” A log chapel was reconstructed in 2001. (You can read more here)

Salem Church was a focal pointing of the fighting of the second battle of Fredericksburg, a part of the Chancellorsville Campaign of May 1863. Sometimes, this fighting is actually called the battle of Salem Church. The church was originally constructed in 1844 by local Baptists. The main part of the battle was a Federal flanking maneuver to the west, an action that bogged down at Chancellorsville. The second part of the action featured a Federal advance from Fredericksburg. The thin line of Confederates left behind in the trenches were unable to hold and fell back toward the west. Brigadier General Cadmus Wilcox’s Confederate brigade was reinforced by Confederates from McLaws and Anderson’s divisions, concentrated on a line around the Salem Church. Federals were able to break the line around the church, capturing Confederates from Alabama firing out of the windows of the church. A counterattack by Wilcox drove the Federals back and recaptured the area around the church. Salem Church, now a National Park Service site, is an original structure. You can learn more about the battle by following this link

Fredericksburg Baptist Church 

Fredericksburg Baptist Church likewise saw its share of the war. Built in 1855 of brick and standing two stories tall, the building was one of the most elaborate examples of the Gothic Revival architecture in the area.  There were a dozen holes in the building that had to be patched following the end of the war. The building served as a hospital during both battles of Fredericksburg. The building survives, although it has been heavily expanded over the past 150 years.

Old Bluff Presbyterian Church was host to Federal soldiers during Sherman’s march to the sea. Old Bluff Church is in Cumberland County, North Carolina. Scottish immigrants founded the church in 1758 and constructed the present building in 1853. While there was a skirmish nearby, no large battle was fought near the church. Instead, the church served as a headquarters to Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman on the night of March 15, 1865. The original church building survives. You can learn more about this church
here

Mt. Zion Christian Church in Madison County, Kentucky, was constructed in 1852. During the battle of Richmond, Kentucky, in August 1862, the building was struck by artillery fire. It was used as a Federal field hospital in one of the most overwhelming Confederate victories of the war.

There are countless churches that doubled as hospitals during the war. A sample listing would include St. Mark’s Episcopal in Raymond, Mississippi; Bethesda Presbyterian Church in Morristown, Tennessee; Blanford Church in Petersburg, Virginia; Old Stone Church in Ringgold, GA; and Old Christ Church in Pensacola, Florida, just to name a few.

There is also much research left to do on this topic, church history, and the war in general.