Virginia was fortunate in having such a military dictator as General Stoneman in her most critical stage of reconstruction. He filled a large part in the military relations of that time. He was only next to General Hancock. He was born on the shores of Chautauqua Lake, in western New York, on the 8th of August, in the year 1822. He is of the Teutonic race, as his name indicates. He is the eldest of a family of ten children. His early years were passed on his father's farm, and in the lumber camp. His life is noteworthy in many regards. From the year of his West Point graduation, in 1846, to 1853, he served with his company of dragoons on the Pacific slope. He made the first government survey for a railroad across the continent. It was substantially adopted by the Southern Pacific Railroad. In 1855, he was a captain in the Second cavalry; with him in that regiment were Albert Sidney Johnston, Robert E. Lee, George H. Thomas, W. J. Hardee, Earl Van Dorn, E. K. Smith, John B. Hood, and others of lesser note. Captain Stoneman spent two years in Europe before the war. He availed himself of the opportunity to study foreign armies, and more especially their cavalry service. The Civil War found him on the Rio Grande. He was guarding the frontier of Texas against the incursions of Mexican bandits and plunderers. Refusing to recognize the authority of General Twiggs, then in command of Texas, to surrender the troops under his command, Captain Stoneman seized a steamer, and escaped with his company. He reached Washington in time to lead the cavalry advance guard across Long Bridge, on the memorable night of May 23, 1861.

Upon the assignment of General McClellan to the command of the Army of the Potomac, Captain Stoneman was appointed by the President brigadiergeneral and chief-of-cavalry. Under General Burnside, he commanded the Third Army Corps, and under General Hooker, he was promoted to majorgeneral. Unlike McClellan, Hooker appreciated the value of cavalry. He therefore assigned Stoneman the duty of organizing what soon became the famous cavalry corps of the Army of the Potomac. Stoneman's cavalry battles and raids are the most thrilling incidents of the war. Shortly after the battle of Gettysburg, the Secretary of War determined to establish a cavalry bureau in the War Department, for the purchase and distribution of all the horses for the whole army, this duty having been, up to that time, performed by the Quartermaster Department. General Stoneman was called to Washington to organize it. By his request, he was soon relieved from the duty, and assigned to the command of the Twenty-third Army Corps, then in east Tennessee. Upon the reorganization of General Sherman's army, he was assigned to the cavalry command. He held this command until the capture of Atlanta. After that, he was engaged in several successful expeditions in Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina. At the time of the surrender of Lee's army, Stoneman, with his command, was at Salisbury, North Carolina. He was in complete possession of Lee's communications with the rear. The bridges were burned and the tracks destroyed.

REMOVAL OF OFFICE-HOLDERS.

491

To the credit of General Stoneman, be it said, that during his command of the First district, he never exercised the authority with which he was clothed, when there was any law of the State of Virginia governing the case, or applicable to the question involved. He referred all such cases to the investigation and determination of the courts. His administration of the affairs of the state was eminently conservative. It was satisfactory to the people. Dissatisfaction was expressed only by the "carpet-baggers." Their principal causes for complaint were that he did not make places for them to fill; that he did not appoint negroes to offices, and that he did not make the people of Virginia sufficiently anxious to get back into the Union. To appease those creatures and satisfy their demands, President Grant found it expedient to relieve General Stoneman from the command of the district. He sent him to Arizona. It was then the Botany Bay of the army. There he served until, by his own request, he was put upon the retired list in 1872. Since then he has filled the position of Railroad Commissioner of California. At the last general election in that state, he was elected governor for four years. His majority was unprecedented. Governor Stoneman, considering the hardships and exposures he endured in the service of his country, is physically well preserved. He is six feet tall, and of proportionate weight. He has strongly-marked features. He is erect in carriage, and has that fine military presence peculiar to the beau ideal cavalry commander. No officer of the army has filled more varied, or more delicate and responsible positions. He is a soldier who has been always a citizen. He is a citizen. He is one of the very few officers of the regular army who have been elected by the people governor of a state. He well deserves to wear the civic crown.

A joint resolution passed by Congress in February, 1868, provided that the persons then holding civil offices in Virginia and Texas, who could not take the test oath, should be removed, and that the vacancies thus created should be filled by the appointment of persons who could take it. General Stoneman issued an order on the 16th of March following, announcing the removal of the civil officers banned by this joint resolution. Within a week following, he reported to the Attorney-General at Washington that, of the 5,446 civil offices in the state, 2,504 had been filled by his predecessor, General Schofield, and himself; and that, of the remainder, 329 incumbents could take the test oath, leaving still 2,613 vacancies to be filled. These facts demonstrated the impolicy of the course pursued by Congress. If any of the 5,446 office-holders in the state had refused to perform their duties, it would have been quite easy to find others ready and competent to take their places. There could be no necessity for the disfranchisement of the whole intelligent population of the state. The effect of the measures was to put a premium on political prostitution and perjury. It invited to the South a horde of hungry adventurers, who robbed and oppressed the people in the name of freedom and Union, and who ruined the public finances in the

name of philanthropy and progress. Among the removals from civil office. was that of H. H. Wells, the governor. The removal was not made on the ground of Mr. Wells' inability to take the test-oath. No such inability existed. Governor Wells was removed because, under the reconstruction laws, all the powers of the chief executive of the state devolved on the commanding officer of the First military district, by whom they were assumed, and would be performed. General Stoneman was shortly afterwards removed from the command of the First district, and General Canby was assigned to it. Until the arrival of the latter officer, Gen. Alexander S. Webb was to act as commander. General Webb's earliest official acts were to restore Mr. Wells to the office of governor, and to proceed to fill the vacancies in the civil offices by the appointment thereto of army officers. In restoring the civil governor, he violated General Grant's order of March 20, 1867.

General Canby assumed command of the First district of Virginia on the 20th of April, 1869. On the 21st of May, he issued an order for an election for the ratification or rejection of the state constitution which had been adopted by the convention in April of the preceding year. Congress had, in compliance with the earnest petitions of the more intelligent and respectable Republicans, authorized a separate vote to be taken on the disfranchising clause before referred to, and on the test oath. The election was held on the 6th of July. The total vote on the question of ratification was 215,422. There were 206,233 for, and only 9,189 against ratification. The total vote on the disfranchising clause was 208,765-84,404 being in its favor, and 124,361 against it. The test oath clause was rejected by a majority of 40,992 votes. This co-operation of the Virginia Democracy with liberal Republicanism saved the state from the misfortunes that overtook North Carolina and other states. The postponement of the election for a year was also attended with good results. It gave an opportunity for the President and Congress to see what sort of men they had installed in power in the South. It tended to relax their rigorous policy. The authority given by Congress, on the recommendation of the President, for the submission of the constitution to the popular vote, and for a separate vote on the disfranchising clauses, furnishes conclusive evidence of the growth of a more generous feeling.

An election for governor and state officers was held on the same day that the vote was taken on the constitution. Gilbert C. Walker, then a liberal Republican, was elected governor by a vote of 119,535 as against 101,204 for H. H. Wells, the provisional governor. The conservatives elected thirty of the forty-three state senators and ninety-five of the 138 members of the house of delegates. Six of the Republican senators and eighteen of the Republican delegates were colored men. The legislature met on the 5th of October. Previous to that time Mr. Wells had resigned the pro

FINANCIAL CONDITION OF VIRGINIA.

493

visional governorship, and Mr. Walker had been installed in his place. General Canby held that the members of the legislature should be required to take the test oath; but the Attorney-General of the United States gave an opinion to the contrary. It was absurd to say that the members of a state legislature should be sworn into office under an oath prescribed by an act of Congress, which they could not take without perjury. The governor and legislature, however, were still provisional, until the state should be received back into the Union under a formal act of Congress. The bill for this purpose became a law on the 26th of January, 1870, and contained the requirement that every member of the legislature, before taking his seat, should make oath either that he had never as a member of Congress, as an officer of the United States, or as a state officer or legislator, taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and afterward engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or that the disabilities imposed upon him by the Fourteenth Amendment had been removed. From that date the Virginians have enjoyed the rights and prerogatives of self-government. The white race was dominant in both branches of the legislature, and in the person of Governor Walker. He was a Northern man who had gone into the state from New-York during the war. He was afterward in Congress from Virginia, as a Democrat. He returned to New-York City a few years ago. His death has just been announced.

Although Northern men have been elected to office by the Republicans, - together with men of the African race,—still it cannot be said that Virginia, like most of the other Southern States since the era of reconstruction, has been subjected to the yoke of the carpet-baggers and negroes. Her political status, recently, has a history connected rather with her fiscal than her social order. This chapter on reconstruction, therefore, as regards Virginia, will be closed with the following statement of her financial condition. From the report of the sub-committee of the joint select committee of Congress, in 1872, the following facts are gathered:

Debt of Virginia in 1860,
Old debt in 1865,

$31,938,144 41,061,316

This is exclusive of the repudiated debt incurred in aid of the rebellion, which amounted to $7,505,724. In 1870, the "old debt," by the accruing of unpaid interest, had risen to $45,872,778. In 1872, there was a slight reduction, about $300,000, from the figures of 1870. In 1860, the state held assets, in the shape of railroad and canal aid and bank stock, amounting to about forty million dollars; but, the bank stock having been lost or squandered during the war, there remained in 1865 only about twenty-seven millions of assets, consisting of unproductive railroads and canals.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

RECONSTRUCTION IN THE SECOND MILITARY DISTRICT.

NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA - GENERAL SICKLES ASSIGNED TO COMMAND THE PRINCIPLES OF THE RECONSTRUCTION ACTS APPLIED REMOVALS OF LOCAL OFFICERS — OBJECTIONS FROM THE PRESIDENT-STATE "STAY LAWS" ENFORCED BY GENERAL SICKLES THE UNITED STATES MARSHAL OF NORTH CAROLINA DISREGARDS THE "STAY LAW"-HE IS SUSTAINED BY THE PRESIDENT - GENERAL SICKLES RESIGNS THE COMMAND-GENERAL CANBY SUCCEEDS HIM-HE APPROVES OF SICKLES' COURSE-THE REGISTRATION OF VOTERS IN THE TWO STATES - THE WHITE AND COLORED VOTES-THE CONVENTIONS-THE NEW CONSTITUTIONS-THE LEGISLATURES AND THE LEGISLATION - THE STATE OFFICERS-THE METHODS OF THE "CARPET-BAGGERS” AND THEIR NATIVE ASSOCIATES - NOT MAKING BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW-THE ISSUE OF FRAUDULENT BONDS THE TAXATION AND THE DEBTS THE PLUNDERERS DISPERSED- A JUSTIFIABLE REVOLUTION CONGRESSIONAL CONDITIONS OF REHABILITATION THEIR ACCEPTANCE THE LONG PROBATION — 1865 TO 1877.

ENERAL Daniel E. Sickles assumed the command of the Second military district, composed of North and South Carolina, with headquarters at Charleston, on the 21st of March, 1867. On the same day he issued an order announcing his assumption of authority, and the principles by which he would be governed. The latter were those of the Reconstruction acts of Congress. For the protection of the inhabitants in their persons and property, and the suppression of insurrection and disorder, the local civil tribunals were permitted to take jurisdiction of and try causes, excepting only such as might, by order of the commanding general, be referred to a commission or other military tribunal for trial. The order stated that the civil government then existing in North Carolina and South Carolina was provisional only. It was subject to the paramount authority of the United States. It might at any time be abolished, modified, or superseded. Local laws and municipal regulations, not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States or the proclamations