USA > Arkansas > The aftermath of the civil war, in Arkansas > Part 20
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able to state within three-quarters of a million dollars the amount of the State's indebtedness.
Without inquiring into the correctness of the figures upon which this newspaper account was based, 19 it shows the incompetency of the Democratic party to keep the ac- counts of the State. It is a remarkable acknowledgment that the State debt was nearly three-quarters of a million less than had for so many years been reported by the Democracy and charged to the Republicans as a debt of their making.
FOOTNOTES FOR CHAPTER XII
1 Arkansas House Journal Appendix, 1856, p. 375.
2 Arkansas House Journal Appendix, 1856, p. 376.
3 Arkansas House Journal Appendix, 1856, p. 376.
4 Arkansas House Journal Appendix, 1856, p. 377.
5 Arkansas House Journal Appendix, 1856, p. 379.
6 Arkansas House Journal Appendix, 1856, p. 377.
7 Arkansas House Journal Appendix, 1856, p. 383.
8 Arkansas House Journal Appendix, 1856, p. 387.
9 Report of the accountants appointed under the Act of Janu- ary 15, 1855, to investigate the affairs of the Real Estate Bank of Arkansas, p. 25.
1º Arkansas Senate Journal Appendix, 1856, p. 391.
11 Arkansas Laws, 1843, pp. 77-87.
12 Arkansas Senate Journal Appendix, 1856, p. 391.
13 Arkansas House Journal, 1868-1869, p. 22.
14 Arkansas Laws, 1868-1869, pp. 115-118.
15 Constitution of the State of Arkansas, 1868, Article 6, Sec- tion 10.
16 See pp. 259-260.
17 Arkansas House Journal, 1871, p. 26.
18 Italics are mine. P. C.
19 See pp. 272-275.
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CHAPTER XIII
WILLIAM M. FISHBACK, OR DEMOCRATIC PERVERSIONS OF HISTORY
A description of the different rôles in which William M. Fishback appeared on the political stage of Arkansas is perhaps timely.
In 1857 he went from Virginia to Illinois, where he remained only one year. He then went to Sebastian County, Ark., and located at Greenwood, where he was so pronounced in his Union sentiments as to cause the Unionists of that County to send him as their delegate to the Secession Convention, which assembled at Little Rock, March 4, 1861, to determine the attitude of the State in the impending crisis,-that is, whether it should remain in the Union or join the Southern Confederacy.
In that Convention, on the test vote for the presiding officer, the Unionists developed a majority of ten, and Mr. Fishback was among that number. However, when the Convention re-assembled on the 6th day of May, 1861, but one man voted in the negative 1 upon the adop- tion of the ordinance of Secession. His name was not W. M. Fishback, but Isaac Murphy,-the grand old patriot. Mr. Fishback voted with the Secessionists throughout the entire proceedings of the Convention.
When the war actually began he went back to Illi- nois. Early in 1863 he returned to Arkansas. Not- withstanding the fact that he had never had any military experience, his first effort was to raise an Arkansas Union
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Regiment, of which he was to be the colonel. Failing in this, not long afterward he engaged in a second ef- fort to raise a regiment, which was first known as the 3d Arkansas Infantry, then as the 4th Arkansas In- fantry, and finally as the 4th Arkansas Cavalry.2 These efforts failed.
In 1864 the Union men of Arkansas established the provisional "Murphy Government," 3 and he (being un- able to differentiate between such a government, the sole creature of the military, and the government of a co- ordinate State of the Union) at once aspired to the high- est position that he supposed was in its power to give,- a seat in the Senate of the United States.
Apparently in order to obtain favor with the Union men that predominated in the Legislature, he delivered before that body a red-hot speech, denouncing the atroci- ties of the Confederate Government in Arkansas in the execution of its Conscription Act, and in its treatment of Union men generally. As editor of the Unconditional Union, a newspaper established by him and Judge Yon- ley about that time, he used its columns for similar ut- terances. From this paper,-February 19, 1864,-I quote as follows :
"EXTRACT FROM MR. FISHBACK'S EDITORIAL, 'RALLY AROUND THE FLAG, BOYS'
"For three years a devastating and consuming civil war has raged in our State which, like the Simoon, has withered and blighted all that fell in its way. For three years the loyal men of this State have had no certain tenure of life or property; no home or abiding place, but mere aliens in the land of their birth, cast out and pro- scribed by a wicked, unpitying, and unrelenting rebel tyranny; a tyranny which delighted in blood, hungered
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and thirsted after the lives of the loyal people, and, in the consummation of its inhuman purposes and desires, arrived at a perfection in the art of torture and brutality that the thongs of India, though guided by the inspiration of the heathen goddess of murder, have failed to attain.
"The Union men of Arkansas have been hunted through wilds and mountains with bloodhounds, urged forward by the minions of the Davis oligarchy, who were not less cruel and bloodthirsty than the irresponsible ani- mals whose actions they controlled. And when the vic- tim of the chase was overtaken he was forced into the rebel service or hanged upon the nearest tree, as the whim or caprice of his captors determined; and, being hung, his body was denied the rights of sepulchre and left suspended between heaven and earth, there to be- come food for the beasts of the forest and fowls of the air. And all this, too, because he was a Union man, and for no other reason."
The result of the so-called Senatorial election was that Mr. Fishback and Elisha Baxter went to Washington with credentials from the "Murphy Government" upon which they expected to obtain seats in the United States Senate. In vain they knocked at the doors for admittance, and at length, disappointed and crestfallen, they returned to Arkansas.
In the winter of 1865 the publication of the Uncon- ditional Union ended because of lack of patronage. Mr. Fishback previously had obtained a temporary appoint- ment at six dollars a day as Assistant Special Agent of the Treasury Department,4 his duties being to take charge of confiscated and abandoned rebel property in Arkansas.
After the close of the war Mr. Fishback awaited the trend of events. Because of his uncertain attitude, the Republicans did not select him as a delegate to the first
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Republican State Convention, which assembled at Little Rock, April 2, 1867. This caused him, later on, to turn a complete somersault, landing in the bosom of the Democratic party, which was composed of the same character of men as those he had so viciously assailed in his newspaper article reproduced on pages 283-284, and thenceforward he was found among them, out-Heroding Herod.
In 1872 he was selected by that party to represent Sebastian County in the Legislature; in 1874 he was a member of the State Constitutional Convention, con- trolled by the Democratic party, which had just come into power; in 1876, 1878, and 1884 he was again the Democratic representative from Sebastian County in the Legislature, and in 1892 he became, for one term, the Democratic Governor of the State.
This completes Mr. Fishback's history until he ap- peared upon the political stage as the champion of Demo- cratic repudiation of the State's financial obligations.5
MR. FISHBACK ON RECONSTRUCTION IN ARKANSAS
In 1890 Mr. Fishback, conjointly with thirteen other Southern Democratic politicians, published and circulated far and wide, especially in the Northern States, a "copy- righted" book, entitled "Why the Solid South, or Re- construction and Its Results," 6 to which he contributed Chapter XI-"A Vivid Picture of the Carpet-bag Era in Arkansas."
His preliminary remarks are disingenuous through- out. In view of the facts that I have thus far and I shall hereafter establish, they are so misleading as to cause me to reproduce them, as follows:7
"Crimination and recrimination are as repugnant to good taste as they are to my own inclination. Between
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sections of a common country they are criminal. Under this conviction, and that all parts of our Republic might be fraternized and united in a combined effort to build up our great nationality, the Southern statesmen have abstained from replying to the many slanders against the Southern people which have been widely circulated by Republican leaders until their unanswered reiteration has led to the belief that they are true, and has produced such widespread and deep-rooted prejudices among their less informed followers as to amount, in the judgment of thinking and patriotic men, to a serious danger to our institutions.
"As evidenced by the character of the late Presiden- tial campaign in the North, that section is becoming as separate and antagonistic as if we were two distinct and hostile empires.
"Surely this is to be deplored, and surely it becomes a public duty of Southern men who know the facts to disabuse the minds of the more candid of our fellow- citizens of the North; to let them see that the antagonism of the people of the South to the Republican party is in no sense an antagonism to the Northern section of our common country; to show them that the conduct of this party in the South was such as not only to repel the patriotism and decency of the South, but was also such as should serve as a monumental warning to the American people against all attempts to seek party ad- vantage through illegitimate or doubtful legislative en- actment.
"It is under this conviction of duty that I have con- sented to write this review of reconstruction in Arkansas.
"Nor is there the slightest admixture of malice in anything I shall say. Accordingly, I shall not mention names except when absolutely necessary. I write not of persons, but of conditions, and methods, and outrages,
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which I could have hoped it might never be necessary to recall.
"Indeed, many a man who participated in these out- rages, when surrounded by the temptations thrown around him by the then conditions, has become a respected and law-abiding citizen since he has been surrounded by the better influences of Democratic supremacy. I shall re- spect his present standing, holding myself ready, however, to furnish names upon any demand entitled to respect."
The true sentiments of the party into which Mr. Fish- back fell headlong, when he turned his political coat, are in my opinion more candidly expressed in the following article from the Gazette, September 18, 1868 :
"POLITICAL OSTRACISM
"In the article under the above caption the Camden Journal complains bitterly at the social ostracism pro- posed by some of our Democratic contemporaries to be exercised toward radicals, and asks with apparent inno- cence, 'What has the Republican party done to merit this feeling?' This question would come with about as good grace from a highway-man when arraigned before the bar of justice after he had robbed a community of their property, despoiled their homes, outraged their women, beggared their children, and bound their men hand and foot while he perpetrated these hellish deeds. The ques- tion should rather be asked, 'What is it the Radical party has not done to make every decent Southern man hate, loathe, and abhor every single member of that party?' Possessed of power, with Federal bayonets at their com- mand to enforce every infamous scheme that malice could dictate or avarice suggest, they have perpetrated deeds of wrong, oppression, and insult against the downtrodden
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and helpless people of the South that would put to shame the most savage band of Comanche Indians that ever roamed the western plains. What have they done? Go to the squalid homes of those who once revelled in every luxury that heart could wish and hear their children beg for bread, and ask them who has done this? The sor- row-stricken mother, with tear-bedewed cheek and voice stifled by heartbroken sobs, will tell you, 'The Radical party.' Go to the once busy marts of trade and see the merchants, mechanics, and artisans lounging about their doors waiting for trade and work, and ask them what has caused this great change in the business aspect of their city, and they will tell you, 'The Radical party.' Go to the farmer, and ask him why his once blooming fields are lying in waste and uncultivated, and he will tell you, 'Because of the ruinous policy of the Radical party.' Go to your treasuries, state and national, look into their empty vaults, and ask their keepers what has become of the gold which once lined them, and if they would tell you truly, they would say, 'Squandered by the Radical party.' Ask the head of the treasury department who created this mountain of debt under which the govern- ment now groans, and he will tell you, 'The Radical party.' Go to the polls, see the illiterate and ignorant negroes jostling away our most worthy and intelligent white men, and ask who has done this, and the answer will be, 'The Radical party.' Go to that group of citi- zens standing on the corner of the street, with anxious countenances and 'whispering with white lips' of an an- ticipated riot with the negroes, and ask them why such fear, and they will tell you, 'The damnable teachings of the Radical party.' All these wrongs, aye! a thousand times more, have that party heaped upon the South, and yet they have the unblushing effrontery to ask us to treat them as friends and associates. As well take into our
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bosom the poisonous adder or into our houses a rabid dog as to cultivate terms of sociality and friendship with these vampires upon the body politic,-these despoilers of the rights and liberties of our people. It is too much to ask the Southern people to exercise the Godlike attribute of forgiveness toward a set of men who have perpetrated every wrong against them that cupidity or malice could invent."
The allegations of Mr. Fishback throughout his en- tire article are vague, mendacious, and unsupported. I believe the reproduction of three of his statements will be sufficient to prove this assertion. On pages 316-317 of his chapter he uses the following language:
"When I introduced to the Constitutional Convention of 1874 the resolution looking to repudiating the fraudu- lent bonds above described, a banker from New York or Boston, I forget which, was at Hot Springs, and re- marked to a distinguished citizen of the State: 'I have some of those bonds myself.' The gentleman asked him if he did not know how fraudulent they were, and that the people would not pay them. He replied: 'I don't think they ought to, but they only cost me fifteen cents on the dollar, and I believed the Republicans would hold this State for the next twenty-five years, and in that time I would get a dollar for my fifteen cents.' "
Mr. Fishback does not state the banker's name, has forgotten his place of business, fails to mention the name of the distinguished gentleman to whom he was talking. has not specified the character of the bonds, whether Railroad or Holford; and, last but not least, he does not say that the language attributed to the banker was spoken in his presence, and if not, from what source his infor- mation was obtained.
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Even if this statement were accepted without criti- cism, what bearing would it have upon the question of why the South is solid, or what color would it give to his vivid picture ?
On pages 297-299 of his article he refers to the opera- tions of Martial Law, as follows :
"Although Gen. C. H. Smith, U. S. A., commanding the district of Arkansas, wrote to his superior officer that there was no state of facts existing in Arkansas to warrant such a step, the Governor upon the flimsiest pretexts declared martial law in a number of counties where the people were most outspoken in their denuncia- tions of the government which had been thus foisted upon
them without their consent. Negro militia marched and marauded and murdered at will through these counties.
"I might fill page after page with their atrocities, but I forbear lest their detail stir up animosities which could do no good but were better suppressed.
"They grew, however, to such enormity as to shock especially the 'old citizens,' who were members of the Legislature, and who were not fully into the secrets of the conspiracy between Congress and their carpet-bag representatives, as will be seen by the following general order :
" 'LITTLE ROCK, December 4, 1868.
" 'BRIGADIER-GENERAL UPHAM,
" 'Commanding Dist. N. E. Ark.
" 'GENERAL: I am instructed by the Governor to write you as follows :
"'Although the Legislature in the first part of the session fully indorsed the action of his excellency in de- claring martial law, and putting into active service the State Guards, it is apparent now that many of them are
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"weakening"; especially are the old citizens beginning to refuse that support which should be given the executive at this time. In order to prevent the growth of this feeling and to take advantage of this faction it is de- sirable that our military operations be pushed to an end within the next thirty days. All we can do now is to show the rebels that we can march the militia through any county in the State whenever it is necessary. Use every effort to catch the desperadoes in Woodruff, Craig- head, and Greene counties.
" 'I hope you will end your operations in your sec- tion as soon as possible. You see we are likely not only to have to fight the rebels but the Legislature also. We don't propose to allow any advantage. I am, General, your obedient servant,
" 'KEYES DANFORTH, Adjutant-General.'
"In another order to Gen. S. W. Mallory, command- ing Southeast District of Arkansas, on the 25th day of December, 1868, the following sentence occurs, 'He,' the Governor, 'thinks you may safely execute many of them; it is absolutely necessary that some examples be made.
" 'Private Secretary.'
"It will be seen that he dare not sign his name to this carte blanche commission to murder."
I neither dictated nor approved any such letters, and even if they were written and transmitted by Adjutant- General Danforth or my private secretary Barton, I do not hold myself responsible for indiscreet and unofficial expressions of subordinates. Any official correspondence over my own signature would be quite a different thing.
It is a fact that at first General Smith was not in favor of my martial law policy. He had a plan of his
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own, which was to station detachments of the United States troops at the county seats of the various counties where the conditions were most disturbed. The follow- ing extract from the report 8 of General Porter to Gen- eral Grant shows that at a later period General Smith completely changed his views :
"The entire Conservative wing of the Republican party was opposed to the declaration of martial law, in- cluding General Smith, United States Army, commanding the troops. They admitted the reign of terror estab- lished by the rebels, but wanted the United States troops to make the arrests. . . . It has, however, accomplished much more than the most sanguine expected, and General Smith acknowledges that the Governor's policy was better than his, and that the result would fully justify the action of the former."
I recall to the reader that the subject of martial law and its beneficial results have been already discussed in Chapter VI and Chapter VIII.
To show Mr. Fishback's ignorance of the State Aid Law and his reckless misrepresentations, I shall briefly discuss his assertions on pages 309-310 of his article, headed "Fraudulent State Bonds," which are as follows :
"Under a law since declared unconstitutional by our Supreme Court, bonds of the State were issued during Reconstruction to the amount of $5,350,000 to certain railroad companies, all in fraud of the law, even if it had been constitutional. From two to three times as much was issued to each road as the terms of the law allowed.
"To the Memphis and Little Rock Railroad Company was issued $1,200,000, nearly three times as much as was allowed by the terms of the law.
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"To the Little Rock, Pine Bluff, and New Orleans Railroad Company were issued :
Railroad Aid Bonds. $750,000
Levee Bonds 320,000
Chicot County Bonds 100,000
This company built for all this only twelve miles of road, and then took up the iron to put it on other roads to draw bonds anew.
"To the Mississippi, Ouachita, and Red River Rail- road Company . . . were issued both railroad aid bonds and levee bonds and Chicot County Bonds,-all fraudulent. .. . And every road that received them was so much crippled that its completion was delayed for years. The State not only did not receive any benefit but injury instead."
With the exception of the total amount of bonds issued, mentioned by Mr. Fishback in the first paragraph, all these allegations are absolutely incorrect. As I issued and delivered the majority of the bonds in question, I shall depart from what is really required of me in order to show how unjustified are the assertions crowded into these four brief paragraphs.
Not a single one of the bonds issued by me was in fraud of the law, but in strict conformity therewith ; the receipts and other documentary evidences of which are in my possession and can, or should, be found where they were originally filed, in the proper Department of State.
In the first and second paragraphs of his article Mr. Fishback clearly contradicts himself by stating that aN the bonds issued by the State were in fraud of the law, -- therefore, illegally issued. Then he proceeds to say that
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the amount issued to each road, and to the Memphis and Little Rock road in particular, was from two to three times as much as the terms of the law allowed. This is an admission by Mr. Fishback that the law did provide for at least a part of the bonds issued to the various rail- roads.
In paragraph three Mr. Fishback states that to the Little Rock, Pine Bluff, and New Orleans Railroad Com- pany was issued $750,000 in bonds. If he meant that this amount was issued by me, he is correct. However, when he said that for this amount only twelve miles of road were built he was either grossly ignorant of the facts or he misrepresented them. About seventeen years before his comments were published trains were running regularly from Chicot to Pine Bluff, a distance of seventy miles.
This is substantiated by the fact that when this road and the Mississippi, Ouachita, and Red River Railroad were consolidated in the fall of 1873, in order to comply with the provisions of the law as to certain preliminary proceedings, the stockholders and directors took a special train to the eastern terminus on the Mississippi River, where the domicile of the company was then maintained. and where we found the yellow fever raging so severely that we held a hasty meeting in one of the cars and re- turned to Pine Bluff that day by the same train.
This allegation is further supported by the follow- ing extract from a letter from Mr. B. F. Bush,º President of the Missouri, Pacific Railroad Company, of which the Little Rock, Pine Bluff, and New Orleans is now a part. He says :
"At the time the Little Rock, Pine Bluff, and New Orleans Railroad and the Mississippi, Ouachita, and Red River Railroad were consolidated in the year 1873, under
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the name of the Little Rock, Mississippi River, and Texas Railroad Company, the former was constructed and in operation from Chicot to Pine Bluff, a distance of seventy miles.
Surely these statements will not be questioned by any honest man conversant with the facts.
Now I come to his charge that the company "then took up the iron to put it on other roads to draw bonds anew." It must be evident to any intelligent person that a company would not go to the expense and trouble of laying rails on one road to obtain bonds, and afterward to the additional trouble and expense of taking up and re-laying them upon another road to obtain a new issue of bonds when the law does not contain a single word that can be construed as requiring the railroad companies to lay rails as a prerequisite for the receipt of bonds, but, on the contrary, it clearly shows that after the bonds are earned by the grading, bridging, and tying of ten consecutive miles of road, and are thereupon issued, "The bonds, or the avails thereof, shall be used for the sole purpose of providing for the ironing, equipping, com- pleting, or building of the said road." 10
When the "Swamp Democracy" saw the rails being taken up and shipped to another road and re-laid, they started this foolish yarn, which was taken up by the Ga- zette, July 29, 1871, under the title of "The Grand Swindle," from which I quote as follows :
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