November 1870: A Brutal Election Day

On November 8, 1870, Jackson County witnessed perhaps the most violent election day in its history. After ambivalent, almost disbelieving, responses to previous elections won by Republicans candidates, the Conservative-Democrat whites were determined to win back control. James Coker and Dr. Alexander Tennille set the example for several white men brandishing sticks who intermittently harassed black men lined up at the polls to cast ballots and taunted that there would now be a "white man's government." Several black men were beaten and a riot seemed ready to explode at any moment. At one decisive moment, Jim Baker, a white man, grabbed Coker's pistol to prevent the Regulator's leader from shooting a black voter.  Republicans alleged that Judge William Anderson improperly closed the polls before sunset, preventing many men from voting. 

These tactics helped eliminate the large Republican majority. While Charles Hamilton had carried the county by 831 votes two years earlier, now the Republican candidate for congress, Josiah Walls, led by only 4 votes.  Conservative attorney James C. McLean, a rising leader in Jackson County, took an assembly seat, breaking the Republican hold over Jackson County's seats in the state legislature. John Barfield, a "scalawag" farmer, won a place in the assembly as a Republican, but resigned under pressure soon afterwards.  Ben Livingston, an African American grocer, whose son had been murdered at the picnic shootings a year earlier, gained the remaining assembly seat.

These mixed results seemed to infuriate the Regulators even more and frustration at their failure to win back control of the county government through the ballot led to the resumption of more extreme measures.  

Black Confederates: A Different Viewpoint

The debate over African Americans having served in the Confederate Army is raging across the internet.  Much of the discussion focuses on nuance (e.g., did African Americans serve as "soldiers" as opposed to camp attendants, did they serve as slaves or of their volition, etc.) and many of the participants are speaking past each other. I found the following excerpt from Congressional testimony taken in early 1866 fascinating in offering the viewpoint of some Tallahassee blacks that suggests much of this debate is moot or misplaced. It must be considered, however, that this passage is retold by a white, Yankee interlocutor.  Rev. L. M. Hobbs toured much of Florida in 1864 and 1865 and became associated with the Freedmen's Bureau's education efforts. Sometime in late 1865, he spoke to some African American young men at a school in the Tallahassee area. The discussion eventually turned to service in the Confederate army, or maybe Florida's militia. Hobbs told his Congressional interviewers the following: 

 “I asked the boys what they understood freedom to mean. They said that to be free was to be their own; that is, that they were not under the control of another person to be bought and sold. I asked them if they could do as they pleased now that they were free. They said they could not break the law – could not do wrong without being punished. I asked them how they knew they had been made free. They said that when the Union soldiers came and hoisted the United States flag over the capitol, that meant freedom; they knew they were free then. Just before the surrender the rebels were organizing colored troops for their service, and on two or three occasions a large number had been taken to Tallahassee to be drilled. I have frequently asked the negroes what was their opinion of that. They said they were all going into the rebel army. I asked them if they would have fought against the United States government. They said, “Not a man of us; we had our plans all laid; we knew all about it; we would never have fired a gun at the Union soldiers, but on the very first opportunity we would have turned our fire upon the rebels, or we would have gone over to the Union side.” I asked them if they had always believed that that Union cause would prove successful. They said that at times they would feel discouraged, from hearing the rebels always say that they were whipping the Yankees, but that they had always hoped and believed that the Union cause would be successful.”   [emphasis added]. Rep. of Joint Committee on Reconstruction, 39^th Cong. 1^st Session, Part IV, p. 10.