Yazoo; or, On the Picket Line of Freedom in the South: A Personal Narrative

By Albert T. Morgan and Joseph Logsdon

A grassroots history unmatched in Reconstruction literature

Yazoo is a rare and revealing firsthand account of Reconstruction told by a Wisconsin carpetbagger and devout abolitionist who moved to Mississippi in pursuit of wealth and social reform. Seeking economic opportunity for himself as well as a chance to bring about a new social order in the defeated South, Albert T. Morgan leased a cotton plantation in Yazoo County, Mississippi, in1865. His farming venture failed —as did his efforts to secure interracial democracy—but his decade spent in Yazoo County brought opportunities to serve in elected office as a constitutional delegate, state senator, and county sheriff and supervisor. The decade also gave him an intimate understanding of the trials and tribulations associated with the African American freedmen's struggle for equality. In 1884, nine years after fleeing the state under threat of death, Morgan published Yazoo at his own expense to explain the difficulties he and his compatriots faced in Mississippi.

An absorbing story made all the more poignant by Joseph Logsdon's new introduction, Yazoo offers a sustained narrative about the social and political dynamics of Reconstruction on the plantations, in the local courthouse, on the deserted roads and byways, and even in the bedrooms of leading planters and politicians. In this unparalleled text Morgan documents the creation of the Mississippi Plan, which became the model for former Confederates' "redemption" of the South, and traces the orchestration of interracial democracy's failure to the manipulations of the former slaveholding elite.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
• Release date: Nov 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781643362779

Book preview

PREFACE TO THE 1884 EDITION

And they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha; and when the man was let down he revived and stood upon his feet.

In these pages the reader will find faithfully set out a simple and truthful narrative of the principal incidents and events in the public and private life of the author during his residence in Yazoo County, Mississippi, together with occasional pictures* illustrative of the social condition of the people of that State. The characters are real persons, whose true names are given only in cases where it was found impossible to disguise their identity. The conversations quoted, of course, are not verbatim. They are, nevertheless, strictly within the line of truth.

Both in gathering the material and preparing for the public, the author has encountered certain obstacles which many never will be able adequately to appreciate, because it will be impossible for them to stand in his place. Nothing is asked or expected, however, more than an honest judgment upon his motive and his work.

* The illustrations from the first edition are not included in the Southern Classics edition.

Y A Z O O;

OR,

ON THE PICKET LINE OF FREEDOM.

CHAPTER I.

THE WAR IS OVER—SOUTHWARD HO !—A WONDERFUL COUNTRY.

CHARLES and I were strangers in Mississippi. Although born in New York, we were raised in Wisconsin on a farm of what, in that State, is called openings and prairie land. Therefore we knew something about farming. I had had some experience in my father’s store and wheat warehouse. Perfectly familiar with the crops and the soils of Wisconsin, we knew nothing about those of the Mississippi lowlands, and until we went South with the Union armies neither of us had seen a cotton boll. During the last two years of the war many Union soldiers, tempted by the large returns on the capital invested in cultivating cotton, remained behind when their commands returned home to be mustered out, and engaged in that business.

Charles’ service had been in the army which occupied the cotton territory, and it was what he had seen, as well as the information that be had gained from these Yankee planters during his three years with the armies of Thomas and Sherman, that tempted him, when the last armed rebel had surrendered, to seek a permanent home in the far South.

To me, brother Charles always seemed possessed of a wonderful power of self-control. He never lost his head. My affection for him was only less than my love for father, and I know that his love for me was very great. I had an abiding faith in him; in his clear head, sound judgment and good heart. Therefore, he did not have to persuade me to accompany him. I was only too glad of his offer to take me along as an equal partner with himself.

Father only said: Boys, you’ll rue the day.

Mother—they are both dead now—Children, I don’t feel. exactly right about it.

But we were both of age, and had wills of our own. Of course we went.

It was early autumn when we landed at Vicksburg, 1865. Nearly every steamer from above brought large quantities of freight and many prospectors like ourselves. The town was astir with young life, and new vigor everywhere manifested itself. New stores and new residences were building, the levees were being repaired, and, though the works of the two armies had been dismantled, they had not yet been leveled down.

The caves in which the citizens had taken refuge during the siege and the point where Pemberton met Grant and arranged the terms of surrender were objects of great interest to all strangers. The hotels were full ; they overflowed, and we had been obliged .to seek accommodation in a. private family, known to our agent to be highly respectable, but so reduced in circumstances by the war that they were willing to accept such means of gaining a livelihood.

Several days were spent in doing the town and surrounding country. Thus we became acquainted with several old and new settlers, and with the general business and commercial interests of the place.

Land agents were numerous. Each one had lengthy lists of plantations for sale, and plantations for rent. These varied in size from a hundred to ten thousand acres. Nearly. all were amply described, their varied attractions set forth with great apparent exactness, and owners or agents were always only too glad to show their premises to whomsoever might come along.

We had spent about a month examining such as we could hope, from the description of them in the hands of the agent, might meet our requirements, without success, when one day Mrs.——, the only other guest of our hostess, received a letter from a dear old friend of hers, living up the Yazoo, at Yazoo City, announcing that she had been utterly ruined by the war—all her slaves had run off with the first Yankee troops that came into that section.

This was true of most of her neighbors. She had not been able to educate her daughters as she had hoped. Indeed, they did not know how they were to live, unless it could be made off Tokeba. How to do that was the question now confronting her. Her husband was not suited to the task of organizing a new force for the plantation under the free system, and if he were, where was the money coming from ? It could not he borrowed on the plantation for security. It was not to be had of any one in that region; for they all were as good as bankrupt. She had racked her brain for weeks, ay, months, for some way out of the dilemma.

For a time she had hoped that the terms granted by the Yankee General Sherman to General Johnston might be interpreted as fairly indicative of the purposes of their conquerors toward the South. But not only had there been no serious resistance, anywhere, to the annullment of Sherman’s generous terms, the assassination of Abe Lincoln had apparently given the Yankees a pretext for still more radical measures, which she believed would be certain to follow, than even the Bureau for the Freedmen,* and she had come to the conclusion there was no use trying to hold out any longer.

The negroes were free, and the sooner the fact was recognized by them the better. They might talk if they pleased, but she was going to look out for herself and her children. If she could find some suitable Northern gentleman of means to take it, she would lease Tokeba. It might seem like vandalism almost to the merely sentimental, but she had passed that stage. It was purely a question of bread. Would not Mrs. —— look around and see if she could not find some one among the new-comers, of whom there were a great many, as she had been told, with the requisite capital for so large a place as Tokeba ?

This Mrs. —— was a relict of one of the best-known families of the South. Her husband had held high places in the councils of the nation. He was dead now. Her only son bad been killed while aiding in the defense of Richmond. Her only daughter had entered a convent. She herself was a Catholic—a lady of rare accomplishments, and her afflictions had ennobled her.

She went directly to Charles with the letter. So anxious was she to serve her old friend she read the whole of it to us both, that we might know something of her character, she said.

She knew the place well; had spent some of the happiest moments of her life there as the guest of her correspondent, and she felt certain we should be delighted with it and with the family of her friend, about all of whom she had many pleasant things to say. We had been under the same roof for only a little over a month; had met each other at the table, in the parlor, and had mingled with the family and their guests in their homes, but beyond this, Mrs. —— knew no more of us than of any other travelers who might come along, yet she frankly avowed that she already knew us well enough to justify her in commending us to her dear old friend as the very persons she would choose for herself to become the new masters of the dear old home place. The upshot of it all was that the next day, armed with a letter from Mrs. —— to her old friend, Mrs. Charlotte Black, Yazoo City, Miss., Charles took the Yazoo River packet, bound for that town, while I remained to take a steamboat the day following for a point about two hundred miles up the Mississippi River, where I was to examine a plantation which, our agent had recommended to us.

I landed there in the night. The only shelter I could find was a plain board shanty with two rooms, occupied by a freedman and his wife. He was absent in New Orleans for supplies. After great persuasion I succeeded in getting shelter and a bed on the floor before the high fire-place.

On returning next day from my visit to the plantation, I observed there were a good many men in and about an old barn-like structure some distance back from the river bank. A shed at the landing, this structure, and my shelter were the only buildings I could see. My landlady told me they were holding co’t there that day.

She had already spread a table for fifteen or twenty guests, who soon after began to gather around it. I thought they returned my salutations gruffly, and that they appeared curious about me. At each end of the table was a large bottle of whisky, which was offered to me, but I declined, saying I never drank anything.

This resulted in a request, which was more like a demand, for my name. One who appeared to be the leader, asked me where I came from, and what my business there was. This I frankly made known to them, and then the late war became the only topic of conversation. Finally, the spokesman announced that no Yankee radical could ever come into that county, make a crop and get away with it, and the crowd joined in abusive personal epithets.

It occurred to me that I ought to get away from them; but how ? There was no boat, nor would there be until the following morning, perhaps not then. I resolved to try and shame them. So rising, I said I had indeed been in the Federal army, and had never yet been ashamed of the fact. I was there for the purpose of engaging in a legitimate business enterprise, as I had a right to do, and concluded by saying, that if they really possessed any of that chivalry they claimed as peculiar to the Southern character, they would not have treated an utter stranger as they had done me. Then I left the table, and passed into the only other room in the building. A thin board partition divided me from them, and, although their talk was in a much lower key than before, I could hear most of it.

When they had finished their meal, the leader, whom they called Major, came in, apologized to me and quite warmly urged me to accept the hospitalities of my home, sir, such as it is, etc., assuring me of his personal protection, and concluded with a hint that he might, after all, determine to lease his own plantation, or, we might find one in his neighborhood that would suit me.

It was agreed that he should send his boy, with the Major’s own saddle horse, for me in the morning, and we separated; he for his home, while I took the steamer, which happened to be on time early next morning, for Vicksburg.

The fact is, after they had all gone I had a brief consultation with my landlady, and concluded that would be the safer course for me. For, while so much of their talk as I had been able to hear was about me, she assured me their plan was to decoy me to the country, where they would be in waiting, and hang me to a tree by the roadside. During the presence of her guests this woman had been in full sympathy with them, so far as I could see. But no sooner were we alone than she manifested great concern for my safety.

I related this experience to different Southern men, whom I saw on my return to Vicksburg, and each one declared they were some irresponsible, worthless fellows who had, probably, never been in the Confederate army, and I ought not to heed anything they said or did.

Nevertheless they were in attendance at court, some of them as jurymen. Nearly all wore the Confederate gray, and carried pistols.

Two days afterward Charles returned. He took occasion to see Mrs. —— at once, and inform her that he had rented Tokeba for three years, subject to my approval.

She was perfectly delighted.

That evening Charles and I sat up until after midnight talking over the matter. He gave me a detailed account of his trip, beginning with incidents of the journey to Yazoo City, in the course of which he had met several Northern men en route to different points on the Yazoo River, and with a purpose similar to his own.

He had also met and conversed with several citizens of Yazoo City returning from Vicksburg with supplies for their plantations or stores.

All seemed to vie with each other in expressions of welcome to him, on learning the object of his visit. As to Tokeba, it offered greater advantages for the development of our plans than he had seen anywhere else, and he gave me a minute description of it.

Formerly, if for nothing else than to tease him, it had been a sort of habit with me to oppose all manner of criticisms to his premises or conclusions.

On this occasion I began by relating my experience with Major —— and his friends. He indignantly replied that I ought not to class the denizens of such a region with a civilized community like Yazoo, and reminded me that there was neither city nor town of any importance nearer than a hundred miles, if so near ; that it was an out of the way place, anyway, where the influences of civilization had doubtless been excluded since the war began, while Yazoo City, on the contrary, was quite a commercial centre. Then, unfolding his map, he proceeded to trace out the numerous advantages possessed by Yazoo City geographically, from a commercial point of view, with results that astonished me.

We had already been able to form pretty accurate notions of the fertility of the region, but my mind had not taken it all in before. Under the light shed upon it by my brother, I was now able to see that the intersection of the great slopes from the South and East, with those from the North and West, near the confluence of the Missouri, Mississippi and Ohio rivers, formed the geographical centre of a territory equal in area to the whole of Europe; leaving out Russia, Norway and Sweden ; that debouching from this centre, the Mississippi River was the only water outlet for that vast region, and drained nineteen States of our Union; fully one and a quarter million square miles ; that the average width of this river from Cape Girardeau to the Gulf of Mexico was more than three thousand feet, and that it flowed for a distance of more than twelve hundred miles, through a deposit of alluvium sufficient in area and capacity of productiveness to feed and clothe the populations of the United States, Great Britain and Ireland, France, Italy, and Spain ; that the Yazoo, one of the feeders of this central channel, drained fifteen thousand square miles; that Yazoo City was situated at the base of the range of tertiary hills which bound this alluvial region along its whole extent on the east, was one hundred and twelve miles from Vicksburg, on the Yazoo River; and that the Great Northern Railroad, running from New Orleans and connecting with Louisville, passed through the county on the east of the town only twenty-six miles away ! Prior to coming South, to give me the benefit of a comparison, we had, upon my brother’s motion, taken a trip through Missouri into Kansas, as far as we could go by rail. Not far beyond Sedalia we spent three days, prospecting upon the prairie lands of that region. While there, we learned that a tract of ten thousand acres, belonging to a rebel general, who had expatriated himself upon the surrender of Lee, was for sale, and could be had for ten dollars per acre. We rode over portions of this tract. It was rich prairie loam, with some stretches of oak, and the railroad ran through the centre of it.

Charles was strongly tempted to stop there. But anxious to know more of the wonderful soils of the Mississippi bottoms, after going on into Kansas, we concluded to postpone purchase until after we had made a close personal inspection of the cotton territory.

For some months the influential newspapers North had contained glowing descriptions of parts of the South, and editorials encouraging immigration into that region. The former cry, Go West, young man, had undergone just enough variation by the substitution of South for West, to effect a change, already quite apparent, in the purposes of those of the North who were seeking new homes, and as Charles touched this point, he grew eloquent indeed.

In his view he saw such a tide of thrifty emigrants and others with capital setting southward, as within twenty-five years would make the two million people of the Mississippi lowlands twenty millions, and in a century a hundred millions. Thanks to the overthrow of slavery, my brother ex-claimed; these great natural advantages can no longer be hidden from the home-seekers of the world.

In his opinion we were fortunate beyond measure in having presented to us an opportunity to precede, if we could not lead, this vast host, in the work of laying the foundations of this new empire by building canals, railroads, and other facilities for its development.

One of the first of his plans, after our three years of planting, embraced the constructing of a railroad from Yazoo City east, connecting with the Great Northern at some convenient point, so as to give the inhabitants of the Yazoo Delta a competing line of transportation for their commerce. Situated as Yazoo City was there was nothing in the way of its becoming a great commercial centre.

As to the people, nothing could exceed their desire for oblivion of the past, and for a recognition by Northern gentlemen and capitalists of the natural advantages of their town and section for the profitable investment of their money, their labor, and their brains.

At last, and as a clincher, my brother related how the price at first demanded was ten dollars an acre for the open or ploughed lands, being the same as that asked by other owners. But as our plans embraced a permanent residence in the community where we should -determine to locate as renters, and as the lease was to be for three years instead of one, Mrs. Black had been the first to consent to a reduction to seven dollars per acre: Charles’ offer. She had even thrown in a cypress brake of several thousand trees, with permission to cut from it all the timber for our purposes we might wish, including the manufacture of all kinds of lumber for the market. This, to Charles, was one of the best features of his bargain. For, as he declared, should the crop from any cause fail, the profits from this branch of the business could be relied upon to save us from any very great losses. He would make one hand wash the other, whatever might come. And a flush of honest pride came over his face, while he continued : Besides, my dear boy, you know I neither chew, smoke, drink, nor use profane language, and when they inquired whether you were the same sort of fellow, I was able to say that I knew you pretty well, and the only bad habit you had, to my knowledge, was smoking.

Well, said I, for my curiosity was aroused to know what sort of people they were, anyway, What said they to that ?

"The mother said it was a pity, for she believed the tobacco habit was a hurtful one. She knew it to be a filthy one. Then one of the young ladies inquired whether it was a pipe or cigar you smoked On my telling them I never knew you to smoke a pipe, she seemed pleased, for she said: ‘Oh ! well, ma, that is not so bad, I am sure.’ She pronounced ma, as if it were spelled maw ; and sure, as if spelled shooah. Ha ! ha!"

You know my only introduction was a letter from Mrs. ——, to whom we are strangers, who introduced me as one whom she had known for only about a month. But when I was ready to come away, one of Mrs. Black’s guests placed nearly a thousand dollars in cash in my band to expend for him in the purchase of supplies for his plantation. I tell you, Albert, it does make a difference in our relations with the world, what sort of people one is dealing with. I mean as to personal habits. I am sure it has had .great weight with Mrs. Black. She is quite refined and cultivated, but a shrewd business woman with it all. In fact she is the ‘man of the house ;’ the old Colonel is somewhat dissipated. Why, she as good as told me she would rather rent her place to gentlemen—you know they always say gentlemen—of correct habits and high principles, at seven dollars per acre, than to others at double the money. In fact she made many pleasant speeches to me, and never once appeared to hesitate to accord me perfect social intercourse in her family. She rather encouraged me, I fancied, to pay some attention to the eldest of her two daughters. To be sure, they were all rank, fire-eating rebels, except, possibly, Mrs. Black; yet every evening she managed to have one or more of her lady friends to dinner or in the parlor, and allowed me to see that she felt gratified by my presence in her house and my courteous manner toward her friends.

My brother’s pleasure at finding the women of Yazoo so accomplished and agreeable was, I am sure, solely from the human desire for agreeable social companionship, and his representations in that particular helped to banish my doubts as to the place he had selected for our new home. The next day we separated, he to the North for supplies, and the evening following I took the good steamer Martin Walt for Tokeba, via Yazoo City, where I was to remain at least over the Sunday following.

I was then twenty-three. Charles was ten years older. Neither of us had ever married. If I had ever thought upon the subject, certainly it then was the one thought farthest from my mind. Charles, I am certain, never once thought of seeking a wife there. My faith in him was limitless. He was the successful boy of our family. He never made mistakes. I cannot now recall any undertaking of his life, up to that time, in which he had not succeeded according to his plans, and his confidence in the future of Yazoo City amounted to enthusiasm. I had been but illy able to disguise my own as he advanced from point to point in the unfolding of his plans as to Tokeba, Yazoo, and the great Delta.

Alas, my brother ! He has been dead now five years, and these events occurred eighteen years ago. But the perfect figure of this man of perfect health, perfect honor, and perfect faith in our enterprise and in mankind, as he appeared to me on that last evening of our stay together in Vicksburg, is as fresh and as accurately imaged before me this moment as then.

* Bureau Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands.

CHAPTER II.

FIRST LESSONS—COLONEL J. J. U. BLACK AS TEACHER.

TOKEBA

* PLANTATION, in 1865, contained nine hundred acres open land, more or less, for so it was described in the contract, which the lawyers of Mrs. Charlotte Black, wife of Colonel J. J. U. Black, wrote out, and which, having been signed by the Colonel as agent in fact for Mrs. Black, of the first part, and by Charles, one of the parties of the second part, lay in their hands awaiting my signature. In that instrument we promised to pay to Mrs. Black, for Tokeba, seven dollars per acre per annum for a term of three years, one-half of the annual rental to be paid in advance. It was upon the west bank of the Yazoo River, and lay in a compact body, bounded on the north by a bayou, from which it derived its name, and upon the south by the cypress brake. It was two and a half miles above Yazoo City, which nestled at the foot of the bluffs that crowded to the water’s edge at that point, on the east bank of the river.

From my station on Peak Tenariffe, the very day of my arrival, I was able to see where the plantation lay from a small opening in the vast forest of gum and cypress that covered the alluvium, which stretched away toward the west, far beyond the Mississippi River, eighty miles distant, as the crow flies.

I had been heartily welcomed by the Black family. They would not allow me to remain at the hotel, where I had taken lodgings upon leaving the Martin Walt that glorious Sabbath morning, but insisted I should make their home mine for the present.

My first impression of them was favorable. The next morning, bright and early, the Colonel, mounted on a little, old gray horse, and myself, mounted on a smart, mouse-colored mule, were off for the plantation. Our route lay over the alluvion fringing the east bank of the river for many miles, along the point of land formed by a bend which the river makes for the accommodation of