Freedmen, Crime and the Courts in the Summer of 1866

Jackson County during the Reconstruction era
The railroad was merely projected at that time.

Continuing with my discussion of the Reconstruction era in Jackson County, the summer of 1866 was a time of growing discontent among the people of all classes.
The old establishment, still embittered from the war, reacted with resentment to the arbitrary decisions of Bureau Agent Charles M. Hamilton, particularly his invalidation of all labor contracts in the county. In striking down all existing contracts, Hamilton overruled not just the local courts, but the legislature and governor of Florida. Then by requiring both landowners and freedmen to pay him for document stamps he further infuriated them and speculation grew that he was lining his pockets at the expense of the people.

The middle class and poor whites were desperate. Hard currency had all but disappeared and the number of civil suits filed in the local court soared. Financing for agriculture and small business had dried up. Many of the women of this class were war widows and many of the surviving men had come home from the war either sick or disabled or both. The terrifying spectre of hunger stalked across the land.


Col W.D. Barnes
19th century lawyer

Among the freedmen, there was a mixture of sentiments. Some had continued to believe they would be given land by the government. They had been warned against these beliefs by the governor himself, but the dream had continued. As a result, many had not entered into labor contracts and now were hungry and destitute. Others wanted nothing to do with further labor and retreated into the pine woods where they established homes for themselves and barely survived.

These tensions, along with the increasingly heavy hand of the Federal government and the all but total inability to understand what the future might hold, led to increasing violence. The local courts, then still operating as they had during and before the war, tried to deal with the situation.

Anderson Baker (left)
A freedman still living in Jackson County in the 1900s

On June 19th, a freedman named Philip Boggs assaulted Mary J. Coley with "force & arms." Initially charged with Assault & Battery, he entered a guilty plea to simple assault and was fined $100. He was found carrying a pistol and pocket knife at the time of his arrest and additionally was charged with secretly carrying weapons. He entered a guilty plea to those crimes as well and was sentenced to spend one hour in the pillory.

Despite the fact that he entered guilty pleas to both crimes, Boggs would be pardoned by the state's Reconstruction governor the next year.

The most brutal crime of the summer, however, came on July 8th.

Two young girls were walking along a road not far from where today's town of Cottondale stands. The oldest was 14 and the youngest was nine. Two freedmen named Henderson White and Lewis White approached from the other direction.

Dr. Theophilus West
Jury member during Reconstruction

According to what the girls told their father when they finally made it home, the two men grabbed the older of the two and dragged her off the road into an adjacent field. Then they took turns raping her as the younger girl watched in fear nearby. By the time the girls made it home, the 9 year old was badly frightened and the 14 year old was badly injured.

Their father went immediately to the proper authorities and swore out a complaint against Henderson and Lewis White. Before they could be arrested, however, Henderson was accused of raping another girl, this one 16 years of age.

The two eventually did stand trial and Henderson White was convicted. On October 17th he was sentenced to hang for his crimes, but the governor intervened and gave him a temporary reprieve.

(Note: I will take a closer look at the case against Henderson and Lewis White in my next post).

Many claims have been made about how freedmen were treated while the courts were still in the hands of the local people. Some have asserted that the former slaves could not obtain justice. A case that developed in July of 1866 provides interesting perspective on the matter.

Benjamin Harrison Neel
Justice of the Peace, 1866

A freedmen identified only as "Robin" was arrested on a warrant issued by Benjamin Harrison Neel, a Justice of the Peace in eastern Jackson County. The alleged crime involved default of bail in another case and Sheriff W.H. Kimbell placed Robin in the Jackson County Jail. On August 11th, however, the freedman petitioned Circuit Judge Allen H. Bush for a writ of habeas corpus.

A former member of the Marianna Home Guard, Judge Bush had been taken prisoner during the Battle of Marianna and carried away to a prison camp in Elmira, New York. He was part of the Confederate leadership of Jackson County and returned from Elmira particularly embittered against Northerners and the North in general.

Robin's petition was prepared and witnessed by Justice of the Peace Jno. F. Hughes:

The petition of Robin a freedman respectfully showith that your petitioner is confined by W.H. Kimbell unjustly (as he apprehends) in the jail of the County of Jackson in the State of Florida for some criminal or supposed criminal matter, which confinement is illegal & wrong.

Judge Bush agreed and on August 14th ruled that "said Robin [is] retained without any charge against him." The freedman was ordered to be released without delay.

The case is interesting in that it proves that freedmen such as Robin could receive fair treatment and beneficial rulings in the courts of Jackson County, where the sitting circuit judge was widely recognized for his pro-Confederate sympathies.

Emanuel Fortune
Freedman and State Representative from Jackson County

This ability by the freedmen to obtain justice in the local courts was demonstrated by other cases that summer. A freedman named William Beedy, for example, was indicted on charges of Assault & Battery and Carrying Secret Arms. Two of the men sitting on the grand jury that returned the indictment against him were not citizens of Jackson County and the case against Beedy was dismissed.

Boxes of newly discovered case files from the Reconstruction era also show that African American women began receiving justice through the courts during the time when the judicial system in Jackson County was still under local control. For the first time ever, cases were made against suspects on charges of assault, battery, rape and theft in which the victims were women who had once been held in slavery.

Freedmen were not yet allowed to serve on juries, but their testimony regularly was heard in court. In addition, the newly discovered records show that both judges and juries tried to be fair and honorable in their application of the law. Freedman convicted of Assault & Battery, for example, generally were fined between $50 and $100. White men convicted of Assault & Battery were fined the same. There were occasional exceptions, but fines, fees and jail terms were remarkably consistent.

The newly discovered files show that the courts of Jackson County made remarkable progress in the short time that former Confederates were in control during the first two years after the end of the War Between the States. A dark cloud, however, was looming on the horizon.

In my next post, I'll discuss in more detail the case that led to the hanging of Henderson White.

Reconstruction #1 - A War that Never Ended

Historic Baptist Church at Campbellton

This is part one of a continuing series on the Reconstruction War in Jackson County. I will post regularly for the next month on the violent outbreak, following it through from its beginning to its end.

According to most sources, the War Between the States in Florida came to an end on May 10, 1865. That's when Major General Samuel Jones officially surrendered Florida to Brigadier General E.M. McCook of the Union army. In Jackson County, however, the violence was far from over. In many ways here, the war never ended at all.

On May 10, 1865, the same day that  the Confederate flag was lowered over the posts at Tallahassee, Quincy and Marianna, a young woman named Angelina Hart Mercer was raped "with force and arms" by a newly freed former slave (or freedman) named Thomas Alexander. He would remain at large for more than one year before being arrested by Deputy Sheriff T.B. Bond. He would then claim that the crime had been an act of the war and was pardoned by an 1866 act of the General Assembly of Florida that forgave all acts committed during the war.

The attack on Angelina Mercer was the first act in a time of violence that would continue for years to come. In 1865 and 1866, much of this violence came at the hands of roving gangs, some allied with the Union and some with the Confederacy, that continued to operate in and around Jackson County long after the supposed end of the War Between the States.

Gen. Alexander Asboth, USA

General Alexander Asboth, who had led Union forces at the Battle of Marianna in 1864, recognized the danger posed by some of these groups on May of 1865 when he reported their continuing activities:

…There are, however, still several mounted bands of rebel desperadoes this side of the Choctawhatchee River, who, although included in Dick Taylor’s surrender, continue in arms against the United States Government, with their principal camps near Marianna, Fla., and Elba, Ala.; and to compel these rebels to lay down their arms, also to relieve the interior of West Florida from lawless bands of deserters from our army, robbing indiscriminately the people of both parties, I would respectfully renew my request for the return of the mounted portion of the Second Maine and First Florida Cavalry, or if that should be impossible, I would request that another small cavalry force be ordered here for the purpose of pacifying fully this portion of the country. - Gen. Alexander Asboth, USA, May 15, 1865.


Asboth also issued orders for the arrest of Lieutenant Joseph Sanders and a detachment of men from the First Florida Cavalry (U.S.). They had been sent out from Pensacola in the spring of 1865 to operate behind Confederate lines but had failed to return and were now engaged in robbing and looting.

Hon. George S. Hawkins of Marianna

On May 17, 1865, two days after Asboth wrote the report quoted above, his warning about the lawless raider gangs was almost realized at Campbellton:

...The raiders, under a man by the name of Pittman, who was styled a lieutenant, made a demonstration upon Campbellton on Wednesday last; numbers about 100. They were met by some forty armed citizens at the above place, but no collision. The raiders retired to their homes, learning they would be fought, with promises to be quiet. - Hon. George S. Hawkins of Marianna to Gen. Edwin McCook, USA, May 20, 1865.

The man named Pittman mentioned by George Hawkins of Marianna, a former U.S. and Confederate congressman, was Sergeant Thomas H. Pittman of Company F, First Florida Cavalry (U.S.). He was from Jackson County and had served as a lieutenant in the Confederate army (Co. I, 6th Florida Infantry) until he deserted in 1864 and joined the Union army at Pensacola. He applied for a commission as a lieutenant in the First Florida Cavalry (U.S.), but it never was granted.

While Pittman and his men withdrew when faced by armed citizens in Campbellton (probably the men of Captain A.R. Godwin's Campbellton Cavalry Home Guard), the activities of such raiders in Jackson County were far from over. 

I will continue to post on the Reconstruction War in Jackson County soon, so be sure to check back often. If you would like to learn more about the events of the just ended Civil War in the county, please consider my book: The History of Jackson County, Florida: The Civil War Years ($19.95).

It is also available as an instant download for Amazon Kindle: The History of Jackson County, Florida: The Civil War Years ($9.95).   

Another Account of the Killing of Maggie McClellan

Jackson County Courthouse, late 19th Century.

A few days ago I posted a moving account of the 1869 murder of a young woman named Maggie McClellan in Jackson County. Please click here to read that post.

She was sitting on the porch of Mrs. Caroline Attaway's boarding house with her father, Col. James F. McClellan, two of her friends and a friend of her fathers, Col. James P. Coker. The men were smoking and the group was enjoying the cool of the evening and chatting after dinner.

Two shots rang out from the dark. One struck Col. McClellan in the shoulder. The other hit Maggie in the center of her chest. She slumped into her father's arms and died just a minute or two later.

Downtown Marianna Today

The incident was one of the most notorious of the Reconstruction War in Jackson County. It was a time of violence - how much violence is debatable - and the death of the young woman sent shockwaves through a county that was already tense and on the verge of all out war against the Carpetbaggers and Scalawags then in control of virtually all aspects of life there.

It was generally believed that the county constable, Calvin Rogers, was responsible for the shooting and, in fact, he was indicted on murder charges. Rogers disappeared at the time of Maggie's killing, however, and despite a widespread search could not be found. A second man, Alex Dickens, was arrested and charged with accessory to murder after the fact for helping Rogers to escape and hide. He was put on trial in 1870 and the newly discovered records of that trial reveal much about the shooting of the young woman and subsequent events.


John Q. Dickinson
Clerk of Court, 1871

One of the more interesting pieces of testimony found in the long lost case fill is that of Col. James P. Coker, who was a few feet from Maggie when she was shot:

...Was present at the time Miss McClellan was shot - was within two or three feet of her. I saw Calvin Rogers a few minutes before the shooting occurred. He was passing the house at the time.... Rogers soon returned by the house and turned his head toward the house passing up the street and very soon after the shooting occurred, not more than two or three minutes afterwards. I am positive it was Calvin Rogers. It was after dark. He was gone some thirty seconds. I heard a word but not distinctly. There were two reports - very nearly at the same time.... It is hard to deceive me with the gait or carriage of anybody in town. I can personally tell them. I recognized him  by his appearance - his carriage and gait - No one was with him. - Col. James F. McClellan, Testimony recorded on May 21, 1870.

I will post more about the Reconstruction War in my next post. It will include an overview of what the war was about, how long it lasted and how violent the situation became. Be sure to check back soon for a look inside the legend to learn about this horrible time in Jackson County history.