XXIII

A delegation of Greeks waited patiently at the Athens Depot as the two o' clock train from Corinth arrived twenty minutes late. They included Dr. Licinius Prentiss, Luke Pryor and Branse Havelock. A telegraph from that penultimate Greek, George Smith Houston, had summoned them. He was by then arriving via a long circuitous route. It took him from Montgomery, then west into and then north through Mississippi, and finally east from Corinth. It was an excruciating voyage in the heat of August, but it was the only way. As of yet, there was no railroad linking the Nickajack to the rest of the state. But all that was about to change. The train hove into the station chuffing steam from its brakes. A rather hefty man stepped off wearing a pair of polished balmorals and an ashen broadcloth suit. Most of the hair he had was hanging bosky from his chin. For the figure he cut, he was surprisingly deft on his feet.

 
George "Bourbon Smith" Houston was a tower of Alabama politics even before the war. He had been a professional Democrat politician since the 30's. He had voted for both the Mexican War and for secession, then sat out both wars at home.. He purchased a substitute to avoid conscription, and then brokered the sale of cotton to the Union Army when the Yankees occupied Limestone County. He and the Greeks grew fat off this illicit trade deep in heart of the Confederacy, which increasingly demanded corn just to feed its citizens. Just then he had been milling about the halls of power in Montgomery. He had been working over his well-aged system of patronage, which he cynically called "The Swamp." Principally, he had been whipping up furor against the Governor of Alabama, David P. Lewis, who was a Republican from Huntsville and nicknamed "Beechnut."

 
He looked for supplicants and found them grouped together near the platform, Dr. Prentiss foremost. The party chairman for the County stepped forward very formally to greet his master. George Houston brushed by him as though heading to the horizon, and spoke without greeting or shaking hands. The other Greeks fell in behind.

What the hell is going on here, Licinius, George blurted? I leave for a year in Montgomery trying to drum up support for my gubernatorial campaign, and then I find out we elect a black sheriff in my own backyard!?

Actually, he's white. But yes, he's a Republican. Its Bill Marmaduke.

Bourbon Smith sighed a breathe of relief. Thanks god he's white. But Bill Marmaduke? Goddam, he's popular. A real war hero. He could be a worse threat than Beechnut Lewis. You know what this means? I'm in danger of losing this County at the polls.

 
Indeed we are, said Dr. Prentiss. Strangetown is filling with negroes and white trash, and the Republicans are registering them like a machine. We successfully collapsed the voting precincts to a single registration point here in Athens, but they are just bussing them in from the rural precincts.

 
It was true. A black freeman and carpetbagger named Bartholomew "Barry" Hogan had assumed chairmanship of the Limestone County Republican Party. His credentials were shady, having arrived from Illinois. He was part of the powerful Republican establishment of that state, He was notable for being an influential colored delegate to the 1860 Republican Convention in Chicago that nominated Mr. Lincoln. He arrived in Strangetown and established a headquarters in a front on Strange Street. He got to work by festooning wagons with patriotic bunting. Then he would range them across the county, promising sweets and liquor to bring the formerly disenfranchised into Athens for registration. As if to reinforce the public trust, he passed out slips of paper inscribed with the Fifteenth Amendment that most of the freedman and poor whites couldn't even read.

 
Dr. Prentiss recited figures. Republicans turned out in record numbers. The Democrats got clobbered at the polls. When he had finished, he looked pale. Bourbon Smith had ceased walking and was glaring into Dr. Prentiss's face.

 
You’re the Chairman of the Democratic Party of Limestone County. I don't think you appreciate, Licinius, how critical the Nickajack has become to the future of Alabama. It has come down to me and a Huntsville scalawag - a Whig. The political compass of this state has swung North, and we are caught in this critical moment, Licinius. Do we hold onto what we have left of our way of life, or do we fold to a rabble of n*****s and illiterate crackers? Get your ship in order. Figure something out. Put your brains together, Licinius. I left you in charge for a reason!

 
The Klan sir?

 
Out of the question, barked Bourbon Smith. Jimmy Sloss is already on my ass about keeping them off the railroad he's building across the mountains from Decatur. He needs the colored labor. This is bigger than you think, Licinius. He's one of my largest donors, and he's in competition to get to Birmingham first with his railroad before the Yankees do.

 
That was also true. A Republican congressman from Pennsylvania named William "Pig Iron" Kelley was part of a cabal of Radical Republican investors who were racing Jimmy Sloss's railroad to Birmingham. Their railroad was being built from Chattanooga down the Wills Valley, which was flanked by Sand and Lookout Mountains. The A&C Railroad was backed by millions in government-backed bonds approved by the last Republican governor of Alabama, William Hugh Smith, which were corruptly solicited in excess of legal limits.

 
Sir, interjected Branse, who stepped in beside Dr. Prentiss, who was sweating visibly now. I think I may have an idea.

 
Smith warmed. Branse, I knew your father. He was a good friend of mine. He was definitely committed to the Cause. Some say more, he added cryptically. Branse nodded.

 
Mr. Houston, I don't think we need to sidestep the Klan just offhandedly. They may serve one more purpose for us yet.

 
The last thing we need is for President Grant to send in the army again to quell violence at the polls. The Radical Republicans are already lashing out at us for suppressing the vote with these registration ordinances. It's not ideal, but it is all we have. I know you'll work something out, Licinius, he said turning to the doctor again.

 
Sir, if I may, pressed Branse. You may leave it to me to handle the Klan when the time is right. We'll clean up your backyard before election.

Literary Note: James Sloss Reimagined

There is a significant character change to The Darlings of Strangetown as this series evolves. James "The Colonel" Sloss is being completely re-visioned more towards his actual historical trajectory, and will become an ally of the Democrat Greeks rather than a separate capitalist "Whig" faction. His former role is being subsumed by a new character exclusively of the Republican fold. Chapter XIX introducing Jimmy Sloss will be rewritten with this new character.

XXII

The man they called The Melungeon was a short, wiry ruffian. His skin was a leathery brown, and his long walrus mustache curled around his sunken dimples. He was one of William G. Brownlow's men, the Radical Republican governor of Tennessee. They nicknamed the governor "The Parson." Born Simon Mise, he fought as a staunch Unionist in the guerilla war that swept East Tennessee during the rebellion. He and his band ranged up and down the Cumberland Plateau from the Nickajack to the Cumberland Gap burning bridges and ambushing Confederate patrols. Towards the end of the war Bill Brownlow, probably the most hated man in the Confederacy besides Mr. Lincoln, was swept into the governorship of Tennessee. Ex-Confederates were barred from voting, so only Tennessee Unionists were polled. He replaced his political rival, the military governor and Unionist Democrat Andrew Johnson, who in three months would became President upon Mr. Lincoln's assassination.

When The Parson moved into the governor's mansion in Nashville, disenfranchised whites who fought for the Confederacy were appalled. They were unable to vote without taking the "Ironclad Oat,h" avowing they had never voluntarily aided the rebellion. They were horror stricken when The Parson began to agitate for the black suffrage, saying a "loyal negro was more deserving that a disloyal white man." That's when the Ku Klux Klan was born and exploded across war-torn Tennessee with the celebrity of that devil Nathan Bedford Forrest in its ranks. Bill Brownlow had another insurgency on his hands, albeit one against his own power. For this irascible Radical Republican governor, vengeance against disloyal didn't end at Appomattox. He welcomed the insurgency to destroy his political foes in the Democratic party, whether they had been Unionist or not.

So The Melungeon earned his reputation of busting heads at the Tennessee ballot boxes for the Republican Party, and crashing Klan rallies with a pistol whip and shillelagh. He was part of the Brownlow patronage system that dominated post-war Tennessee. But a love of Union didn't prevent this Republican from lining his own pockets in the pursuit of vendetta. The L&N Railroad, while under Yankee occupation for much of the war, was under the influence of a cabal of old Whigs investors. They all had pre-war connections between both North and South dating back to the Fillmore administration, James Withers Sloss being notable among them.

The Parson's rub was that the thousands of negroes he held in thrall with the voting franchise could not find enough opportunity in war-ravaged Tennessee. They crowded into freedman camps where they worked pitiable wages on annual plantation contracts negotiated by corrupt Republican authorities. But down south in Limestone County they'd heard up the grapevine that a place called Strangetown was bursting at the seams with work and opportunity. So they started packing up and train hopping their way south towards the Nickajack where they found work on Jimmy Sloss's railroad to Birmingham. Bill Brownlow was bleeding the black vote his party's power depended on as it migrated South to help close the last frontier of Alabama. And the Melungeon followed in their wake, chasing freedman who fled their plantation contracts in Tennessee. It landed he and his gang, the Crab Orchard Boys, in Limestone County where one of America's forgotten post-war frontiers was throbbing with opportunity, and riches. It was an irresistible temptation to the Melungeon.

James "The Colonel" Sloss, one of the founders of Birmingham

 

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.