July 17, 1865---"Too secesh."

JULY 17, 1865:          

“Frank” writes to “Nettie” from Augusta, Georgia:

Dear Nettie,

           

 . . . I take the opportunity of a few spare moments to drop you a few lines. I have been enjoying excellent health & good spirits, although at times very homesick. I am getting tired of the service & am most anxious to get home with the folks once more.

I have had a very pleasant time since coming here & have been as well treated as man could wish for. I have become acquainted with quite a number of the citizens & have visited at most of their houses. I only visit some three or four young ladies as the majority of them are too secesh. They all treat me well to be sure, but there is something in their manner which I do not like & consequently go among them as little as possible . . .

There is a lady from New York with her two daughters . . . & they always do their best to make my stay or visit pleasant & they succeed fully . . .

I should not be surprised if I should come home before long as I understand orders have been issued for our discharge. The men are all very anxious to go home & get their pay, as they have received none now for nearly eleven months & their families are suffering for the want of it.

 . . . With love to all & hoping soon to be home . . .

                                                                                                                                                                                          

Frank

July 16, 1865---"Forty Rounds" of Reconstruction

JULY 16, 1865:                   

Orders are issued to muster out every man and to dissolve The Army of The Tennessee.

 

Despite the dissolution of the great wartime Armies, the fact is that even as the mustering out progressed, new, smaller Armies were being created by the military bureaucracy. Many of the Civil War’s United States Colored Troops were sent to the frontier to fight Indians --- they became the Buffalo Soldiers of legend.

Other troops were sent South. Even as Johnson’s “Restoration” progressed, the President refused to fully trust the Confederates he had allowed to return to power. Hundreds of Southern towns and cities were garrisoned and Martial Law remained in effect even in States supposedly “reconstructed.” This allowed the army to deal summarily with troublemakers and permitted the enforcement of Reconstruction edicts and Freedmen’s Bureau legislation without the interference of the State Courts.

In many areas, the Federal Army found itself fighting insurgents and underground groups such as the Ku Klux Klan for many years and with such consistency that some scholars argue that the Civil War had not ended but merely become the insurgent rebellion that Lincoln and Lee both feared. Indeed, as late as 1871, the Congress was still debating when to declare the Civil War at an end.

Graphical and documentary information on the “Second Civil War” can be found here.

July 15, 1865---The Southern Yankee Knights

JULY 15, 1865:           

Newton Knight, leader of the “Kingdom of Jones,” the virulently pro-Union Jones County, Mississippi, writes to William Sharkey, the Provisional Governor of his State:

We Stood firm to the union when secession Swept as an avalanche over the state. For this cause alone we have been treated as savages instead of freeman by the rebel authorities.

Though the war is, for all intents and purposes over, Newt Knight and his “Southern Yankee” Knight Company ride into Smith County to emancipate by force several hundred black children still being held in slavery.  

July 14, 1865---The final surrender of the Indian Nations

JULY 14, 1865:          

The Caddo tribe lays down its arms, becoming the last Native American “Confederate” tribe to do so.   

 

July 13, 1865---Barnum's American Museum ablaze

JULY 13, 1865:                   

The New York-born Floridian Judge William Marvin is appointed Provisional Governor of Florida.

 

Barnum’s American Museum burns to the ground. The popular attraction --- part natural history museum, part lecture hall, part zoo, part circus, part wax museum, part concert hall, part theatre and part freak show --- displayed legitimate scientific exhibits alongside bizarre grotesqueries and fakes.

During the fire, most of the animals escaped, but the fear-maddened lions, bears and elephants that reached the streets had to be shot as threats to public safety.

After the fire, P.T. Barnum chose to focus on developing his famous circus.