The Avengement of South Carolina

[Alabaman]

Originally Posted by cash

I don't see anyone sweeping that under the rug. He was a slaveholder for about a year before the war. At least two of us have mentioned it, and it's in the Grant biographies. How is that being swept under the rug?

Regards,
Cash

I could be wrong. It seemed that the point of Gen. Grant and the moralistic neo-union crowd quickly brushed by the point. You also have to take in consideration that I haven't been a member of this forum as long as you; I don't remember the 2 people mentioning that Grant owned <added> "a slave" being brought forth. However, I take your word. I've tried to read all the posts but the task is very enormous.

Alabaman

[cash]

Originally Posted by Alabaman

I could be wrong. It seemed that the point of Gen. Grant and the moralistic neo-union crowd quickly brushed by the point.

I don't understand.

Originally Posted by Alabaman

You also have to take in consideration that I haven't been a member of this forum as long as you; I don't remember the 2 people mentioning that Grant owned slaves being brought forth. However, I take your word. I've tried to read all the posts but the task is very enormous.

Look at post #578 in this thread from Ole and post #583 in this thread from me, both posted today.

Regards,
Cash

[cedarstripper]

Originally Posted by Wild_Rose

Do you not also recall that Lee was bade by the will to keep the slaves until Arlington was on firm financial footing for a period up to five years? Custis was a notorious mis-manager of money and didn't leave the estate in solid financial standing. Odd that you forgot that single detail.

Not odd at all. That fact was not clear in my mind, and I attempted to qualify my remarks by writing "as I recall." I have since read GWP Custis' will, and thank you for the correction. Do I take it you mean to insinuate that I purposefully omitted the fact?

Cedarstripper

[cedarstripper]

Originally Posted by cash

The terms of the will provided for legacies to each granddaughter as well as property to each grandson.

Thanks. I have now read Custis' will and see that all is amply explained. While the Arlington website claims that Lee had the plantation on solid ground and profitability by 1859, the will demands that the legacies be paid before the slaves can be freed.

Cedarstripper

[Wild_Rose]

Originally Posted by cedarstripper

Not odd at all. That fact was not clear in my mind, and I attempted to qualify my remarks by writing "as I recall." I have since read GWP Custis' will, and thank you for the correction. Do I take it you mean to insinuate that I purposefully omitted the fact?

Cedarstripper

Not at all. I only meant that your knowledge of the will and your recall was very accurate, up to the point of why Lee kept some of the slaves for up to five years. It seemed a peculiar point for your recall to fail since it is such a pertinent part of the will.

I'm glad you took time to reread the will.

Rose

[cedarstripper]

Originally Posted by Wild_Rose

Not at all. I only meant that your knowledge of the will and your recall was very accurate, up to the point of why Lee kept some of the slaves for up to five years.

Oh, come now. Your reply still smacks of implying that I attempted to be deceptive. Following is the entirety of my first statement regarding Custis' will, and it is in fact completely incorrect. "If I recall, the terms of Custis' will gave Lee the option of immediately freeing the slaves, or keeping them for up to five years." Not only does Lee not have the option of freeing them immediately, neither has he the option of keeping them for up to five years. The will stipulates that the slaves be emancipated when the legacies are paid and the estates required to pay the legacies are free of debt, "said emancipations to be accomplished in not exceeding five years from the time of my decease."

The will also called for Smith Island to be sold, as well as all other Custis properties in Stafford, Richmond and Westmoreland counties to help pay the four legacies. Interestingly, Smith Island was not sold, but remained in the family until 1911.

My purpose for commenting on Lee's opting to keep the slaves as long as possible was to counter the notion that Lee was never a slaveholder, but in fact given the choice, he chose to keep slaves. That was my recollection of Lee's role as executor. I since discard the execution of Custis' will as offering any support of a preference of Lee to keep slaves.

Cedar

[samgrant]

Originally Posted by olerebel

Alabaman-

Grant showed common sense near the end of the war when he still had slaves, and was asked why he had not freed them. His reply was that good help was hard to find.

Would you care to document this most dubious assertion?

[marcferguson]

Originally Posted by [b

olerebel][/b]
Alabaman-

Grant showed common sense near the end of the war when he still had slaves, and was asked why he had not freed them. His reply was that good help was hard to find.

Originally Posted by samgrant

Would you care to document this most dubious assertion?

Samgrant,
He cannot document it because Grant owned no slaves "near the end of the war." Grant owned one slave in his life, William Jones, and freed him in 1859.

best,
marc

[thea_447]

I believe the answers are a bit murky concerning Grant and slaves. Although we have all heard the remark about "good help being hard to find" being attributed to Grant, here is a little something to add.

For periods of her life, Julia Dent Grant, his wife, owned four slaves: Eliza, Dan, Julia and John. Whether she held title to them or her father retained ownership is still unclear. As a teenager, her personal slave was "black Julia." When she married Grant, she went north to various army posts, and had to do without her "servants," as she euphemistically called her slaves. For the first 4 years of her marriage, her slaves remained in Missouri. From 1853-1863, Julia continued to use four slaves, whom she mentions specifically in her Memoirs. They were all house "servants," and took turns attending to Grant's children, cooking and cleaning. Mary Robinson, served Mrs. Grant for many years.

In a March 12, 1859 letter to his father, Grant made it plain that Julia was unable to do without her chattel. He wrote, "Julia and the children are well. They will not make a visit to Kentucky now. .. with four children she could not go without a servant and she was afraid that landing so often as she would have to do in free states, she might have some trouble." Yet Grant told Mary Robinson, one of the Dent slaves, that if he was the owner of White Haven, he would give freedom to all the family slaves.

When the Grant family moved to Galena, Illinois in 1860, Julia reluctantly left her property in Missouri and had to make do with one paid servant, Maggie Cavanaugh. Incredibly, Julia brought along one of her slaves on all of her visits to Grant's headquarters during the civil war. When Julia was with Grant, their youngest son, Jesse, was in the charge of "black Julia," the slave that Julia had used since her girlhood.

With the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Julia's four slaves were set free. It is claimed in the footnotes of her Memoirs that they were not freed until December, 1865, with the passage of the Thirteenth amendment, but this doesn't concur with other primary sources of the period and Missouri's slaves were freed in January, 1865. Grant himself noted that on a visit to White Haven in 1863, Julia's slaves had already scattered and were no longer on the plantation. On extended visits to Petersburg, in 1864, Julia brought along a hired German girl to tend to 6 year old Jesse.

As for Grant himself owning slaves, there is this:
For a brief period in 1858-9, Grant was the owner of a 35 year old mulatto man named William Jones. The details surrounding the ownership of Jones are still murky. We do know that Grant wrote to his father on March 21, 1858, "I have now three Negro men, two hired by the year and one of Mr. Dent's." On October 1, 1858 Grant wrote again to his father: "Mr. Dent thinks I had better take the boy he has given Julia along with me, and let him learn the farrier's business. He is a very smart, active boy, capable of making anything, but this matter I will leave entirely to you. I can leave him here and get about three dollars per month for him now, and more as he gets older."

Grant freed William Jones on March 29, 1859, though he could have sold him for approximately $1,000. At this time Grant was in significant financial straits, but was unwilling to sell another human being under the hammer.

Grant never claimed to be an abolitionist like his father. At the beginning of the war, he was still a Douglas Democrat, though his views changed as the war progressed. He was willing to live around slaves in order to placate his wife and to assist with labor he needed done around his St. Louis farm. Still he was exceedingly gentle and kind to all the Dent slaves.

Sources used: The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Volume 1 (John Y. Simon, editor, 1967), The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant Volume 2 (John Y. Simon, editor, 1969), The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Volume 3, (John Y. Simon, editor, 1970), The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Volume 4 (John Y. Simon, editor, 1982), Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-68 (Brooks D. Simpson, 1991), Grant: A Biography (William S. McFeely, 1981), Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant (U.S. Grant, 1885), The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant (1975, editor John Y. Simon).

http://www.mscomm.com/~ulysses/page160.html

[ole]

Thanks for the post, Thea.

There's something in there I hope you can clear up. Grant owned William Jones, a 35-year old mulatto and freed him early in '59. When Grant wrote to his father in March '58 he mentions three -- two hired and one of Mr. Dent's. Was the one of Mr. Dent's William Jones? Or did he pick up the man later? When he said he could get $3 per month for him and more when he get's older, it doesn't sound like he was talking about a 35 year old.

Where did he get the money to buy a slave he could have sold for $1000? He was notoriously broke. Was this a gift from Julia's father?

Do you have further information that would clear it up for me?

Thanks, Ole.