XIX

James Withers Sloss of Birmingham fame was known as the "The Colonel" on account of his service with the Confederate Corps of Engineers during the war. This complicated social occasions that involved The Major, so he called him Bonwit. James Sloss was a native of Limestone County who had proven to possess all the industry of his class. Having started his bookkeeping business in Mooresville, he expanded into planting on several non-contiguous plots he steadily acquired throughout Limestone County. To farm these scattered fields, he employed various bogtrotters and other poor whites to till and harvest, though he continued to employ household slaves at his home. He was a burgher and yeoman, a Whig to the bone who had voted against secession. He was also of a class more rarified and aristocratic than even the wealthiest Greeks. He was the new breed of a bright and promising age of gilded capital.

 
Following the war The Colonel became president of the Decatur & Nashville Railroad and negotiated its merger with the larger Louisville & Nashville. This created a transportation monopoly spanning from the Ohio River to the Nickajack. It terminated near the Tennessee River in Limestone County where it junctioned with the east-west Memphis & Charleston. The L&N grew into a vital conduit of capital and goods flowing both ways to rebuild a war-torn Dixie. It thrived under long periods of Yankee occupation during the war, and grew further still under the The Colonel's vision which unfolded with the settlement of Birmingham.

 
The ridge and valley system of today's Birmingham was nearly inaccessible from the Nickajack and was sparsely settled before the war. When surveyors found deposits of iron, coal and limestone in close proximity in Jones Valley, the settlement of Birmingham was founded by investors including The Colonel. They intended to exploit these resources to build blast furnaces and coal mines under the aegis of rising post-war tariffs. Tariffs were vilified by the Greeks who believed they reduced cotton exports by strengthening the dollar. This was of no concern to James Withers Sloss, who was never a Greek and who no longer even lived in Limestone County. He had liquidated his local holdings to invest wholly in the Birmingham deal, bedding with Northern industrial and banking partners. He had gone 'national.' Limestone County's politics were mainly a provincial concern to him now.

 
But he could not wholly disregard the political ferment of his home county. The L&N Railroad was now laying tracks across the Warrior Mountains towards Birmingham, requiring enormous amounts of material and labor, much of which needed staging in Limestone County. Theft and graft was rampant along the L&N corridor. So The Colonel returned to the county of his birth to meet with The Major, Bonwit Vrooman. They met in the conference room of Sloss's agent in Athens, an obdurate and carpetbagging attorney named Rufus Lipman who never ceased glaring at The Major. The niceties were rushed. Sloss was a busy man. They had known each other through business circles.

I don't need to tell you that your little cabal here is f****d, Bonwit. The Major was taken aback. The Colonel spoke in a bizarrely neutral accent for his origins. It was the accent of money. The Colonel continued. You know what's going on in Washington? Congress is going to defund the Freedman's Bureau. The Democrats and moderate Republicans don't want negroes on the government teat, so they are shutting down your party. What will you do then? Look, I know you've got a lot invested here. I've come to offer you a deal. I need labor for the railroad. That's easy. You find me labor and I'll lease them. We are subsidized cost plus, so I can give you 20% margin. That's a generous offer. But it needs to come with extras.

Bonwit shifted uncomfortably. His hands were sweating underneath the table. Extras?

 
Look, The Colonel explained. I need protection for my investments all up and down these tracks. You know people here. I'm an outsider here now. I never had anything in common with these people, referring to the Greeks. I'm hiring colored labor from you. I need them protected. The political situation here is dicey, Bonwit. You're eaten up with the Klan, and they are growing more violent as we approach the mid-term elections. I can't be seen as getting my hands dirty here, but you? You are one dirty bastard, Bonwit. I know you can find the people to put a lid on the Klan.

 
Bonwit was stunned. He had never thought of himself as a "dirty bastard." The Colonel was assuming Bonwit had dealt in violence. How else could he have prospered in this tumultuous political environment of Reconstruction Alabama? But it was all just good old government fraud. Before he could raise a finger in objection, The Colonel continued.

You don't have to pay them. Just invoice them directly to me. Call them railway detectives. I dont give a damn. All you need to do is keep the Klan off my work crews and protect our capital here. We've got a lot invested in this railroad. I don't need a bunch of white cracker peckerwoods gumming up the works just because they won't work for less than a negro.

 
And with that said, Bonwit's mind raced. This was indeed getting his hands dirty, but he was sharing the risk with one of the most renowned industrialists of the New South. And furthermore, The Colonel was right. The Freedman's Bureau was on the chopping block in Washington. Nevermind the social progress made in Strangetown, he was facing destitution. Bonwit blurted out - 30%.

The Colonel thought a minute and then nodded. 30%. This is important to me, and your reputation for the work you've done here serves to your credit. The Colonel turned and presented his hand towards his attorney.

This is my attorney Rufus Lipman. He's Jewish. Lipman nodded. He'll be my agent here in Limestone County. He's just here to watch over my interests. He'll draft the first contracts, but this is where we shake hands.

 
And so they did, but James Withers Sloss held his grip. Leaning forward he spoke very seriously.

I have one problem now that does not involve the Klan that I'd also like for you to take care of. He and his gang have been filching my depots all up and down this railway, and my people tell me he is moving his operation to Athens. His name is The Melungeon.