General Longstreet and Union Army Battles KKK and White League, Terror During Reconstruction

What can we learn by reflecting on the remarkable stories
of how the former Confederate General Longstreet and
the Union Major Merrill valiantly attempted to enforce the
civil rights legislation during the Reconstruction Era? How
were they able to protect the newly freed blacks from the
terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist
terrorist groups?
Why did the murderous KKK and White Leaguers have such
broad support among whites in the South, and also among
white Christians?

We reflected on the story in the book, Bloody Shirt, Terror After
the Civil War, to answer a very personal question, How can so
many of my Christian friends seem to embrace the false
narratives of Fox News and Donald Trump, valuing cruelty over
compassion?
Major Merrill showed considerable bravery both in his actions
during the Civil War and in his first posting enforcing the
Reconstruction Amendments in South Carolina after the war.

Please, we welcome interesting questions in the
comments. Let us learn and reflect together!
Feel free to follow along in the PowerPoint script we
uploaded to SlideShare.

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Bloody Shirt: Terror After the Civil War
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General James Longstreet, a former Confederate
general who had become a pariah in the South when
he changed his party affiliation to Lincoln’s
Republican Party, tried to prevent the insurrection in
New Orleans. For his second posting during
Reconstruction, Major Merrill attempted to reverse
the insurrection of parishes on the outskirts of New
Orleans.

What was James Longstreet like? Our author, Stephen
Budiansky, described him as a “messy bear of a man, six
foot two with unkempt beard and a big hairy chest,”
“born in South Carolina though reared in backwoods
Alabama. He could ride a horse better than” anyone.
“He was the best fence jumper in the whole Confederate
Army.”
During the Civil War General Longstreet was seen as a
Confederate war hero and one of Robert E Lee’s most
dependable generals. Our author writes that Lieutenant
General “Longstreet was Lee’s senior corps commander
and his stalwart companion in battle. Lee always pitched
his tent near Longstreet’s and enjoyed his good humor
and sociable instincts; Longstreet gave advice, and Lee
listened, even if he often didn’t take it. Lee called him
his ‘old war horse.’” The affection was mutual,
“Longstreet named his son Robert Lee Longstreet.”

Our author writes that
General “Longstreet
learned the hard way
what most of his
fellow commanders,
North and South,
never did, that by
standing on the
defensive an
outnumbered force
could let its attacker
bash himself to pieces
first, and then could
chew the pieces into
mincemeat with a
well-timed
counterattack.” Picket’s Charge, by Thure de Thulstrup, Restoration by Adam Cuerden, 1887

General Longstreet strongly offered this unheeded advice during the
Battle of Gettysburg when he warned General Lee that a frontal charge
against Union forces was suicide, and fifteen thousand rebels died
marching into a volley of artillery and bullets in the fatal Pickett’s charge.
Longstreet and Pickett both reluctantly followed orders and did the best
they could, and General Lee would ride among his men in the aftermath,
apologizing to his men that it was all his fault, that he was the one
responsible for this horrible decision.
After the Civil War, after General Longstreet joined the Republican Party,
after he became a Union general opposing the Ku Klux Klan, he was
blamed by many in the South for the disaster of Pickett’s Charge, he was
blamed for losing the Civil War for the South. The Southern revisionists
even tried to rob Longstreet of his close friendship with Robert E Lee.

Pickett’s Charge, Battle of Gettysburg cyclorama, by Paul Philippoteaux, painted 1883

When the Confederate forces were surrounded and cut off from their
supplies after the Battle of Appomattox, James Longstreet advised Robert
E Lee that he thought General Grant would offer fair terms if he
surrendered. Soon after the war, a grand jury indicted Generals Lee and
Longstreet and other Confederate officials for treason, a crime
punishable by hanging. General Grant objected and rode to the White
House, threatening to resign if charges were not dropped, as he saw it as
breaking the parole and surrender terms signed at Appomattox.
President Andrew Johnson backed down, and charges were dropped.
In 1867 the editor of the New Orleans Times invited prominent
Confederate leaders to share their views on the Reconstruction
Amendments and acts of Congress.

General Longstreet at Chickamauga &
Chattanooga National Military Park

General Longstreet wrote: “The surrender of the
Confederate armies in 1865 involved:
• The surrender of the CLAIM to the right of
secession.
• The surrender of the former political relations of
the negro.
• The surrender of the Southern Confederacy.”
“The political questions of the war should have been
buried upon the fields last occupied by the Southern
armies.” One of the gravest errors was the opinion
that “we cannot do wrong, and that Northerners
cannot do right.” When he made it known that he
was endorsing Lincoln’s Republican Party, his former
friends and acquaintances shunned him and his
family.

Insurrection at New Orleans
Our author writes that “on a late summer day
in 1874, General Longstreet rode his horse
through the silent French Quarter and could
see the barricades in the streets beyond.

Our author continues, “Every wall he
passed was plastered with the placards
that had suddenly sprung up across the
city,” which read: “CITIZENS OF NEW
ORLEANS: For nearly two years you
have been the silent but indignant
sufferers of outrage after outrage
heaped upon you by a usurping
government. On Monday the 14th of
September, close your places of
business” at 11 AM “and assemble at
the Henry Clay statue on Canal Street.”

Our author continues, “Five thousand citizens
responded to the call that morning in New Orleans;
doctors, bankers, lawyers, journeymen, clerks, and
laborers, all gathering there at the foot of the statue
of Henry Clay.”
Confronting this heavily armed mob, many of them
Confederate war veterans, were “five hundred white
and colored troops of the Metropolitan Brigade.”
They advanced “past shuttered shops, bringing a
Gatling gun, two twelve-pound brass cannons, and
four smaller artillery pieces with them. General
Longstreet was violating one of his oldest principles
of battle: he was taking the offensive against a
superior force.”
Equestrian statue of General Longstreet
on his horse Hero in Pitzer Woods at
Gettysburg National Military Park

Initially there was a stand-off between the two
forces, the rebels piled up more barricades in the
street. The White Leaguers demanded that the
rightful winner of the election was the
segregationist Democratic candidate, they wanted
to overthrow the Lincoln Republican regime. Our
author writes, “at around two o’clock a detachment
of the White Leaguers marched over to City Hall
and demanded the immediate surrender of the
building from the mayor.” “The governor then told
his militia commander that it was time to take
action and wait no more. So, Longstreet had
reluctantly ordered the change in plan from
defense to offense.”
General Longstreet, photo by
Matthew Brady, 1870

The federal troops opened up with the Gatling gun, cannon, and artillery,
for fifteen minutes all guns were blazing from both sides. Thirty-one men
lay dead on the streets, mostly White Leaguers, and over a hundred were
wounded, including Longstreet, who was slightly injured. It was with
difficultly that the White League leaders dissuaded their followers from
aiming at General Longstreet, which could have escalated the fighting.
That night Longstreet reviewed the stores of ammunition, he was running
low. This compelled him to surrender the State House the next morning,
he went home and was in bed for six months with a severe illness.
The next morning the train pulled into New Orleans with two passengers,
the segregationist Democratic candidate who had lost the governor’s
race, John McEnery, and the area’s commanding general of the United
States, William Emory.

New Orleans 1874,
during post-Civil War
Reconstruction
period. Clash between
the racially integrated
Police and the
segregationist White
League on Canal
Street.

"Battle at the
Customs House",
an engraving in
Frank Leslie's
Illustrated
Newspaper, 1874

Our author writes, “these two men
met formally. General Emory read a
proclamation from President Grant.
He ordered those who had combined
together with force of arms to
overthrow the state government of
Louisiana to disperse.”
“McEnery denied there had been an
‘insurrection’ and protested this act
of military interference in state
affairs, but said he had no desire to
resist the armed force of the United
States and would order his ‘state
troops’ home and turn over the State
House, but only to the Army.”
"The Louisiana Murders—Gathering The Dead and
Wounded“, Colfax Massacre, Harper's Weekly, 1873

McEnery was placated with a staged ceremony of
surrender, a few days later reinforcements of eight
hundred federal troops arrived, and the Lincoln
Republican government was restored. But the
insurrection was not quickly reversed in all the
parishes surrounding New Orleans.

Major Merrill Is Posted In Louisiana

Soon after Major Merrill is posted in Louisiana, his
dispatches to his superiors again voice his frustration
in his inability to enforce even the minimum of a
sense of justice for the colored man. When the state
government was overthrown by the White League in
New Orleans, whites in the surrounding parishes
followed suit.

Major Merrill writes his superiors, “the
legal mayor of the town had practically
abdicated, and his duties were being
discharged by another man. The local
police had been disbanded, and its place
supplied by a volunteer force, consisting of
white citizens, many of whom are no doubt
good men, but all are partisans of the so-
called white man’s party, and a very large
proportion” belong to the violent “White
League. No civil process of any kind
emanating from State authority can be
issued or enforced,” as legal officers had
been forced to quit. When blacks or whites
try to organize political meetings opposing
the regime, these are broken up by the
White League.
Worse than Slavery (1874), by Thomas Nast

By this time the Union Army was arresting White League
terrorists under the Enforcement Acts, not even bothering
to go through the local courts. In one town, one of three
men arrested was the mayor, and angry crowd gathered
and threatened to go after the troops. A few days later, a
posse of several hundred men arrived with arrest warrants
for two Union officers for a bogus contempt of court
charge. Both the posse and the troops then departed for
the courthouse in Vienna.

The champions of
the Union – 1861
lithograph by
Currier & Ives

Major Merrill sent telegrams to his
superiors and everyone who could assist in
having these cases transferred to federal
court. Our author writes that “Merrill
wanted no display of military force; he
wanted to assert the law and set a clear
precedent to discourage the White
Leaguers for pulling such tricks again. The
law was clear: officials acting under the
Enforcement Acts could not be arrested by
state authorities, they had an absolute
right to have habeas corpus cases
transferred to federal jurisdiction.”

A few days later Major Merrill learned that the court had
quickly found the Union officers guilty and had sentenced
them to ten days in jail and a hundred dollar fine. After a
flurry of insistent telegrams, the court reversed its
decision, freeing the Union officers. Later investigation
revealed that the whole proceedings had been concocted
by a White League lawyer who was conspiring with the
local judge. Just as in South Carolina, he learned that
White Leaguers in Shreveport were reading his telegrams,
everyone in town was in on the conspiracies.

Man
representing
the Freedman's
Bureau stands
between armed
groups of
whites and
blacks, by
Alfred R Waud,
circa 1868

An army colonel, Henry Morrow, was then sent
from New Orleans to report on what was
happening under Major Merrill’s watch. Our
author writes, “Morrow talked to the white
people and concluded that there was no need for
more troops and said it was unfortunate that the
army was stirring up such resentment by
assisting in carrying out such unpopular arrests;
he recommended it cease doing so. He did not
talk to any colored people since he thought ‘the
negro does not comprehend politics.’ He
concluded, ‘The present State government
cannot maintain itself in power a single hour
without the protection of Federal troops.’”
A sword-wielding Columbia protects a
black man, 1874 Thomas Nast cartoon

Major Merrill departed to New Orleans by
steamboat to testify to a Congressional
Investigating Committee. He informed them that
over two hundred men has told him that they
had been fired from their jobs for voting for
candidates from Lincoln’s Republican Party. He
said that his life had been threatened, but he
thought the White Leagues would not assassinate
a federal officers. But they then asked:
Question: Suppose you were to resign your
commission and take off your uniform and go
back to live there?
Answer by Major Merrill: “I should want to
borrow a Gatling gun, at least.”

There are ominous similarities between the insurrection in New Orleans
and the recent January 6th insurrection at the Capitol when Trump lost
the election. The core reason for both insurrections was that the wrong
party won the election, and many felt that meant the election was not
valid.
What was disheartening was the stubbornness of the former
Confederates in Louisiana and other Southern states, they eventually
wore down the Lincoln Republicans and seized control of the
government soon after when all federal troops were withdrawn from
the South after the Presidential Election of 1876, after which they
denied the vote and due process to most blacks. Since the Republicans
today are trying to deny the vote to blacks, don’t think this history
cannot repeat itself.

We also have recorded a video comparing the Big Lie that ignited the January 6th
Capitol riots to the lie by the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes that was a
factor in the unjust trial and execution of Socrates.
We puzzle over the wisdom of a son bringing charges against his own father for
killing a slave in the Platonic dialogue Euthyphro, comparing it to a son who turned
in his own father for participating in the Capitol riots, then talking about it
repeatedly on national television.
And also videos on the over ten thousand lynchings that occurred in America
during the Jim Crow era, and the similarities between Hannah Arendt’s reporting
of the trial of Adolph Eichmann, the Nazi bureaucrat who administered the Nazi
death camps, to Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, which views
the black lynching and segregation experience to the Nazi Holocaust and Race
Laws.

https://youtu.be/sLDHs0AigvY
https://youtu.be/PqFAUEXbi8k
https://youtu.be/Pn7wYntimjo
https://youtu.be/etK0eIpYPPg

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General Longstreet and Union Army Battles KKK and White League, Terror During Reconstruction

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General Longstreet and Union Army Battles KKK and White League, Terror During Reconstruction