Pineville, a historic refuge
Part 26: The Horror of Reconstruction
By Warner M.Montgomery Warner@TheColumbiaStar.com

Oliver Otis Howard graduated from West Point in 1854. During the Civil War, he lost his right arm in the Battle of Fair Oaks. General Howard successfully led the Army of Tennessee in the Atlanta Campaign and on Sherman's March to the Sea. After the Civil War, General Howard was appointed chief commissioner of the Freedman's Bureau. In 1867, he founded Howard University in Washington, D.C. to educate Afr ican- Amer icans. General Howard negotiated a peace treaty with Apache Chief Cochise in Arizona and forced Nez Perce Chief Joseph and his band to move from their homeland to a reservation in Idaho. He served as the Superintendent of West Point late in his military career.

Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Gen. U.S. Grant at Appomattox Court House April 9, 1865, and the Confederate States of America ceased to exist, and so did slavery and the economic system it supported. The South had lost the war and its basic socio- economic institution.

Homes were burned. Plantations were abandoned. Public lands were confiscated. Schools did not exist. Refugees, camp followers, and freedmen wandered around seeking food, shelter, clothing, and protection. The U.S. military was told that the South Carolina Lowcountry was to be reserved and set apart for the settlement of Negroes.

This etching depicts freedmen and women lining up at an office of the Freedmen's Bureau.

The few remaining people of Pineville awaited their fate.

Congress created within the War Department the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands - the Freedmen's Bureau. Major General O.O. Howard, who had marched with Sherman, was appointed commissioner by new President Andrew Johnson.

The Freedmen's Bureau became the agency to manage the military control of the former Confederacy. It made, executed, and interpreted laws. It laid and collected taxes, defined and punished crime, sold forfeited and appropriated land to Negroes, and established and operated schools for Negroes and refugees.

In his 1901 analysis of the Freedmen's Bureau in Atlantic Monthly, W.E.B. DuBois wrote, "The two great obstacles, which confronted the officers (of the Freedmen's Bureau) at every turn, were the tyrant and the idler: the slaveholder, who believed slavery was right, and was determined to perpetuate it under another name; and the freedman, who regarded freedom as perpetual rest. These were the Devil and the Deep Sea."

Major F.W. Liedtke, sub- assistant commissioner for the area of Pineville, wrote in his 1866 report that smallpox, sores, rheumatism, and other diseases were interfering with planting. All people were unclean, lacked food and clothing, and were forced to eat unripe fruits and vegetables. On plantations where the owners were not advancing food to the employees, there was great suffering and stealing. He asked what he should do with the crippled freed people who had been left homeless.

F.N. Montell, agent of the Freedmen's Bureau, visited Pineville a few years later to report on the "feelings of the resident whites toward the colored people." He felt he should give the planters "a good talking to."

On the train from Charleston, he saw "colored people's" bags being thrown from the train, and "sick colored people" lying around the depots. White conductors cursed the Negroes.

Once in the village, he met Lieutenant Hilliard and his infantry force who had been stationed there to regulate the Freedmen's affairs. Montell and Hilliard were told by the planters that "Everything has gone to the Devil," and "The war is not over."

Montell reported that the white people had a "general spirit of hatred toward the Negro," but if the colored were "treated with justice and kindly feelings, they will be industrious, work faithfully themselves, and show themselves the right temper and disposition."

Meanwhile, down the Santee River in Georgetown, outrages were reported. Gabriel Bryan (white) shot Mary Davis (black) and disappeared. Billy (black) assaulted J.W. Doan (white) and was being held. E.C. Easterling (white) assaulted Rinah May (black) and was being held. F.W. McCaster (white) assaulted Paul McRae (black) and was being held.

Lt. Col. C.S. Brown, in his October 1865 report, stated the U.S. Cavalry was needed to prevent assassination, robbery, burglary, assault, and battery. Soldiers and freedmen were being threatened, despised, and little respected. He said, "We are still among our enemies…and the Negroes are afraid to tell half they know and do see…The attentions of the authorities should be called more to this section than any part of the South - and that at once."

(Next week: A scientist survives)