Military Occupation in the Civil War

Using Military Occupation as a
Unique Window into the Civil War
Dr. Judkin Browning
Appalachian State University
For NC Council for the Social Studies
The Confederate States
Occupation of New Orleans
• New Orleans captured on
May 1, 1862, because of
battle of Shiloh
• Southern women were
defiant to Union soldiers
and mad at Southern men
• Union General Benjamin
Butler was the “beast” or
“Brute” of New Orleans
Reception of the “Brute” Butler by ladies of
the North,” Harper’s Weekly, Jan. 24, 1863
Photo at: http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1863/january/brute-butler.htm
Military Occupation shapes Emancipation Policy
• “Contrabands”
• First Confiscation
Act (August 1861)
• 2nd Confiscation Act
(July 1862)
Lincoln shows Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet
• Emancipation
Proclamation,
(Jan. 1, 1863)
Photo at: http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/art/common/image/Painting_33_00005.htm
“Flies cause disease; keep yours closed.”
• Union army legalized and
regulated prostitution in
occupied Nashville and
Memphis, TN during the
war.
• Army officials referred to
Memphis as the
“Gomorrah of the West.”
Working girls
Photo from: http://godentranced.blogspot.com/2010_03_01_archive.html
The war in North Carolina
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/media/uploads/2009/07/cwbattlemap.jpg
Occupation of North Carolina
Cities captured in spring 1862
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Roanoke Island
Elizabeth City
New Bern
Beaufort
Plymouth
Washington
General Ambrose Burnside
Black Refugees Flock to Union Lines
• The black
population of
New Bern and
Beaufort
quadrupled
during the war.
• Nearly 20,000
African Americans
escaped to Union
lines in eastern
NC
White Enlistment
• Nearly 1,500 white North
Carolinians enlisted in the
1st and 2nd North Carolina
Union Regiments
• Of those 1,500, more than
200 had previously served
in the Confederate army
• They were referred to
derisively as “Buffaloes”
Black enlistment
• Over 5,000 African
Americans enlisted in
the Union army in
eastern North Carolina
• Union soldiers were
impressed with the
blacks’ earnest desire
for enlistment
Benevolent Societies
• Many northern benevolent
societies came down to
teach former slaves
• The American Missionary
Association was the largest
organization that
established nearly 20
schools in the region
Horace James, minister and Superintendent
Resisting the occupation
• Emeline Pigott, smuggled
goods through the lines.
• When arrested in Beaufort,
she carried under her hoop
skirt a pair of pants, boots,
a shirt, a cap, a dozen linen
collars and pocket
handkerchiefs, 50 skeins of
silk, spools of cotton,
needles, toothbrushes,
combs, knives, razors,
gloves, and several letters.
A Southern civilian’s view
• James Rumley, of Beaufort,
kept a diary during the
occupation, in which he
shares his views on Union
policies.
• It is one of the only
published diaries of a
secessionist living under
Union occupation.
Mr. Rumley’s views
On black refugees
On whites enlisting:
• May 1862: “Slaves are now
deserting in scores from all parts
of the county, and our worst fears
on this subject are likely to be
realized… The soldiers go, without
hesitation, into the kitchens
among the negroes and
encourage them to leave their
owners.”
• October 1862: “Treason now
stalks abroad at noon day… a
recruiting office is opened in a
house on Front Street where
traitors are invited to enlist… The
place is indeed none other than
the house of Satan and the very
gates of hell.”
More Mr. Rumley
On black enlistments
• May 30, 1863: “The old church… has this day been desecrated by
Yankee recruiting officers, and prostituted to the most unholy and
damnable work of raising negro volunteers for the armed service of
the Yankee government!... The spectacle is deeply painful to… the
women. When these think of their husbands and brothers and
sons, who may fall at the hands of these black savages, no language
can express their horror, or the fiery indignation that burns in their
bosoms.”
Shameless Plug: Books on NC Occupation
Rumley’s published diary
Comes out March 1.
Selected Bibliography
Regulation of Prostitution
• Thomas P. Lowry, The Story the
Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell: Sex in the
Civil War (Stackpole, 1994)
• John D’Emilio and Estelle B.
Freedman, Intimate Matters: A
History of Sexuality in America
(Harper and Row, 1988)
Emancipation Policy
• Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial:
Abraham Lincoln and American
Slavery (W.W. Norton, 2010)
Occupation of New Orleans
• Benjamin Butler, Autobiography
and Personal Reminiscences of
Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler,
especially pp. 414-453. Can be
found on Google Books, and is
entertaining primary source.
• Chester G. Hearn, When the Devil
Came Down to Dixie: Ben Butler in
New Orleans (LSU, 1997).
• George Rable, Civil Wars: Women
and the Crisis of Southern
Nationalism (Illinois, 1989)
Primary Sources on NC occupation
• Excerpt from Vincent Colyer, Brief
report of the services rendered by
the freed people to the United
States Army, in North Carolina
(New York: V. Colyer, 1864), pp.
5–14
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editio
ns/nchist-civilwar/4835
• William Henry Singleton,
Recollections of my Slavery Days
(1922), found at:
http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/sin
gleton/menu.html
• Horace James, Annual Report of
the Superintendent of Negro
Affairs in North Carolina, 1864.
Available in its entirety on Google
Books.
• Judkin Browning, The Southern
Mind under Union Rule: The Diary
of James Rumley, Beaufort, North
Carolina, 1862-1865 (Florida,
2009).
• Judkin Browning and Michael
Thomas Smith, eds., Letters from
a North Carolina Unionist: John A.
Hedrick to Benjamin S. Hedrick,
1862-1865 (NC State Pubs, 2001)
Secondary Sources on NC occupation
• Judkin Browning, Shifting
Loyalties: The Occupation of
Eastern North Carolina (UNC,
2011)
• Barton A. Myers, Executing Daniel
Bright: Race, Loyalty, and
Guerrilla Violence in a Coastal
Carolina Community, 1861-1865
(LSU, 2009)
• John G. Barrett, The Civil War in
North Carolina (UNC, 1963)
• Stephen V. Ash, When the Yankees
Came: Conflict and Chaos in the
Occupied South (UNC, 1995)
• Wayne Durrill, War of Another
Kind: A Southern Community in the
Great Rebellion (Oxford, 1994)
• Gerald Thomas, Divided
Allegiances: Bertie County during
the Civil War (NC State Pubs, 1996)
• Alex Christopher Meekins,
Elizabeth City, North Carolina and
the Civil War: A History of battle
and occupation (History Press,
2007)