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- Oct 22, 2014
In one of the most bizarre episodes of Reconstruction, Arkansas Black Militia units fought each other at the Battle of New Gascony on April 30, 1874. They were on opposing sides of two Republican gubernatorial candidates engaged in an armed conflict known as the Brooks-Baxter War. It left as many two hundred killed on its battlefields. Like other incongruous events of the era, behind-the-scenes wrangling over money resulting from a falling out between Carpetbagger factions was to blame.
After the 1867 federal Reconstruction Acts required ten of the eleven former Confederate states to form new constitutions mandating universal black suffrage, seven of the ten had Carpetbag regimes in place in time for the 1868 presidential election. The other three remained under military rule. Arkansas was one of the seven.
Since many former Arkansas Confederates were not permitted to vote, the Republican Party gained firm control of the state government when Carpetbagger Powell Clayton was inaugurated in July 1868. In order to fortify his authority, he immediately formed a state militia. Since the force was only permitted to include voters, former Confederates could not join. As in other Southern states it was, therefore, commonly labeled a Black Militia, even though it also included whites that had not supported the Confederacy.
In 1871 the Carpetbag legislature elected Clayton to the U. S. Senate and sent former Vermonter, Stephen Dorsey, to join him in 1873. Both Clayton and Dorsey had become wealthy in Reconstruction-era Arkansas. Dorsey's path to prosperity was railroad finance manipulation. He would later become Secretary of the National Republican Committee and get implicated in a national U. S. Post Office scandal for rigged bidding of rural delivery routes, which were allocated to private companies at the time under lucrative contracts.
Clayton also profited from taxpayer-funded railroads but probably obtained most of his wealth from 40,000 acres in cotton farms. Many post-war impoverished farmers across the state lost their lands due to inability to pay property taxes. Buyers were often Northern Carpetbaggers that were politically well connected to the new Republican regime, like Powell.
Disfranchisement of former Confederates left the state's Democratic Party so weak that it did not even field a gubernatorial candidate in the 1872 election. The contest, therefore, was between two Republicans: one from the Liberal wing and the other from the regular (Stalwart) wing. Elisha Baxter represented the Stalwarts and Joseph Brooks the Liberals. Powell and Dorsey backed the Stalwarts. Since his faction controlled the election machinery, Baxter won. Brooks, nonetheless, filed a couple of lawsuits charging election fraud. He promptly lost the higher-profile suit while the second one languished in a lower county court.
After Baxter took office, however, he angered Powell and Dorsey by criticizing rail promoters for recklessly issuing too many state-guaranteed bonds to finance the construction of their railroads. Attempts by the companies to force the state to accept stock, instead of cash, for repayment of the bonds triggered Baxter's assault. Ultimately every Reconstruction-era railroad in Arkansas financed in this manner defaulted on its interest payments. Construction costs were unaccountably high as were the bond sales commissions. There can be little doubt that much of the excess went into the pockets of the promoters.
Powell and Dorsey quickly switched sides in the governor dispute. They got the obscure county court to declare Brooks the winner. Accompanied by ten armed men on April 15, 1874, Brooks physically ousted Baxter from the governor's office in a coup d'état.
From a nearby hotel, Baxter put out a call for militia to put him back in office. Brooks sent out a separate call to defend his occupation of the state house. Thousands of white and black men showed up in in the state capital of Little Rock to support their candidate. Federal troops from a nearby arsenal temporarily kept them apart. Eventually, however, the forces clashed at four sites, including New Gascony where armed black men fought on each side.
Meanwhile Baxter and Brooks each maneuvered for support from the many disfranchised white males of voting age. Each promised to promote amendments to the state constitution that would give former Confederates the right to vote. In the end, leaders for this "silent majority" lobbied President Grant to simply choose a winner. Since they expected that either candidate would return their voting privileges, they merely wanted a temporary "placeholder" in the governor's office until re-enfranchisement would permit the Democratic Party to take control of the state. Grant chose Baxter on 15 May but appointed Brooks as the Little Rock postmaster. The Democrats rose to power in the autumn 1874 elections on the strength of their new voting rights.
But before year-end Grant reneged on his choice of Baxter because as President he was more interested in sustaining Republican Party control in the Southern states than he was in the integrity of those state governments. Since the initial 1872 post-election court maneuvers favored Baxter he held office when the 1873 legislature passed an amendment to the 1868 Carpetbagger constitution that would permit most ex-Confederates to vote. Next, Baxter supported calls for a new constitutional convention in the summer of 1874 to replace the 1868 constitution. The October elections that year ratified the new constitution and chose Democrat Augustus Garland to replace Baxter as governor starting in 1875.
Not only did Grant oppose the new Garland regime, he claimed the 1874 constitution was illegal. Moreover, during his annual message in December Grant flip-flopped on his own May arbitration that made Baxter governor. In December, he implied that Baxter had no authority to call for a new constitutional convention because Brooks—not Baxter—was Arkansas's legitimate governor. Grant's true objection to the new constitution had more to do with its shift toward localism, which would hinder the Republican Party's ability to hold power by controlling all of the state's election machinery remotely from the state capital in Little Rock.
Although Grant threatened to use federal troops to force his will on the state he decided to first await the recommendations of a House investigating committee headed by Vermont Republican Luke Poland. Early in February 1875 the Committee rejected Grant's interpretation. It concluded that there was "no just reason" for the federal government to interfere in Arkansas's state elections. The House of Representatives accepted the Committee's majority report in a vote of 150-to-81. Even among Republicans, support for Grant was divided. While eighty Republicans voted to support the minority (Republican) report, sixty-five voted against it, as did eighty-five Democrats.
Grant's capricious reversal aroused suspicions, even among his own cabinet members. Secretary of State Hamilton Fish and Treasury Secretary Benjamin Bristow, for example, surmised that the President might have fallen under the influence of mammon in alliance with Arkansas's prosperous Carpetbagger senators.
Sources: Ulysses S. Grant, Sixth Annual Message to Congress, December 7, 1874; Charles Calhoun, The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, 474-76; Thomas DeBlack, With Fire and Sword, 218; William Gillette, Retreat From Reconstruction, 144-49; Allan Nevins, Hamilton Fish: Volume 2, 757-60; Carl Moneyhon, The Impact of Civil War and Reconstruction in Arkansas; Thomas DeBlack, YouTube Lecture; John Mooney, YouTube Lecture
After the 1867 federal Reconstruction Acts required ten of the eleven former Confederate states to form new constitutions mandating universal black suffrage, seven of the ten had Carpetbag regimes in place in time for the 1868 presidential election. The other three remained under military rule. Arkansas was one of the seven.
Since many former Arkansas Confederates were not permitted to vote, the Republican Party gained firm control of the state government when Carpetbagger Powell Clayton was inaugurated in July 1868. In order to fortify his authority, he immediately formed a state militia. Since the force was only permitted to include voters, former Confederates could not join. As in other Southern states it was, therefore, commonly labeled a Black Militia, even though it also included whites that had not supported the Confederacy.
In 1871 the Carpetbag legislature elected Clayton to the U. S. Senate and sent former Vermonter, Stephen Dorsey, to join him in 1873. Both Clayton and Dorsey had become wealthy in Reconstruction-era Arkansas. Dorsey's path to prosperity was railroad finance manipulation. He would later become Secretary of the National Republican Committee and get implicated in a national U. S. Post Office scandal for rigged bidding of rural delivery routes, which were allocated to private companies at the time under lucrative contracts.
Clayton also profited from taxpayer-funded railroads but probably obtained most of his wealth from 40,000 acres in cotton farms. Many post-war impoverished farmers across the state lost their lands due to inability to pay property taxes. Buyers were often Northern Carpetbaggers that were politically well connected to the new Republican regime, like Powell.
Disfranchisement of former Confederates left the state's Democratic Party so weak that it did not even field a gubernatorial candidate in the 1872 election. The contest, therefore, was between two Republicans: one from the Liberal wing and the other from the regular (Stalwart) wing. Elisha Baxter represented the Stalwarts and Joseph Brooks the Liberals. Powell and Dorsey backed the Stalwarts. Since his faction controlled the election machinery, Baxter won. Brooks, nonetheless, filed a couple of lawsuits charging election fraud. He promptly lost the higher-profile suit while the second one languished in a lower county court.
After Baxter took office, however, he angered Powell and Dorsey by criticizing rail promoters for recklessly issuing too many state-guaranteed bonds to finance the construction of their railroads. Attempts by the companies to force the state to accept stock, instead of cash, for repayment of the bonds triggered Baxter's assault. Ultimately every Reconstruction-era railroad in Arkansas financed in this manner defaulted on its interest payments. Construction costs were unaccountably high as were the bond sales commissions. There can be little doubt that much of the excess went into the pockets of the promoters.
Powell and Dorsey quickly switched sides in the governor dispute. They got the obscure county court to declare Brooks the winner. Accompanied by ten armed men on April 15, 1874, Brooks physically ousted Baxter from the governor's office in a coup d'état.
From a nearby hotel, Baxter put out a call for militia to put him back in office. Brooks sent out a separate call to defend his occupation of the state house. Thousands of white and black men showed up in in the state capital of Little Rock to support their candidate. Federal troops from a nearby arsenal temporarily kept them apart. Eventually, however, the forces clashed at four sites, including New Gascony where armed black men fought on each side.
Meanwhile Baxter and Brooks each maneuvered for support from the many disfranchised white males of voting age. Each promised to promote amendments to the state constitution that would give former Confederates the right to vote. In the end, leaders for this "silent majority" lobbied President Grant to simply choose a winner. Since they expected that either candidate would return their voting privileges, they merely wanted a temporary "placeholder" in the governor's office until re-enfranchisement would permit the Democratic Party to take control of the state. Grant chose Baxter on 15 May but appointed Brooks as the Little Rock postmaster. The Democrats rose to power in the autumn 1874 elections on the strength of their new voting rights.
But before year-end Grant reneged on his choice of Baxter because as President he was more interested in sustaining Republican Party control in the Southern states than he was in the integrity of those state governments. Since the initial 1872 post-election court maneuvers favored Baxter he held office when the 1873 legislature passed an amendment to the 1868 Carpetbagger constitution that would permit most ex-Confederates to vote. Next, Baxter supported calls for a new constitutional convention in the summer of 1874 to replace the 1868 constitution. The October elections that year ratified the new constitution and chose Democrat Augustus Garland to replace Baxter as governor starting in 1875.
Not only did Grant oppose the new Garland regime, he claimed the 1874 constitution was illegal. Moreover, during his annual message in December Grant flip-flopped on his own May arbitration that made Baxter governor. In December, he implied that Baxter had no authority to call for a new constitutional convention because Brooks—not Baxter—was Arkansas's legitimate governor. Grant's true objection to the new constitution had more to do with its shift toward localism, which would hinder the Republican Party's ability to hold power by controlling all of the state's election machinery remotely from the state capital in Little Rock.
Although Grant threatened to use federal troops to force his will on the state he decided to first await the recommendations of a House investigating committee headed by Vermont Republican Luke Poland. Early in February 1875 the Committee rejected Grant's interpretation. It concluded that there was "no just reason" for the federal government to interfere in Arkansas's state elections. The House of Representatives accepted the Committee's majority report in a vote of 150-to-81. Even among Republicans, support for Grant was divided. While eighty Republicans voted to support the minority (Republican) report, sixty-five voted against it, as did eighty-five Democrats.
Grant's capricious reversal aroused suspicions, even among his own cabinet members. Secretary of State Hamilton Fish and Treasury Secretary Benjamin Bristow, for example, surmised that the President might have fallen under the influence of mammon in alliance with Arkansas's prosperous Carpetbagger senators.
Sources: Ulysses S. Grant, Sixth Annual Message to Congress, December 7, 1874; Charles Calhoun, The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, 474-76; Thomas DeBlack, With Fire and Sword, 218; William Gillette, Retreat From Reconstruction, 144-49; Allan Nevins, Hamilton Fish: Volume 2, 757-60; Carl Moneyhon, The Impact of Civil War and Reconstruction in Arkansas; Thomas DeBlack, YouTube Lecture; John Mooney, YouTube Lecture
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