Chapter 10

I rested and enjoyed my family for two weeks. I left for Charlottesville at first light and stopped at Ivy. I stopped to see Cara, a classy and proud lady. I enjoyed playing with my daughter and being with Cara. I hoped I could give her a son. We had a nice midmorning hookup. The Freedmen's Bureau had given her a lot of trouble and attempted to seize her land for carpetbaggers and ex-slaves. They claimed it was abandoned.

Fortunately, I prevailed with General Schofield. He appreciated my efforts in the valley and was the best of the military district commanders. I had been among the first to receive a full Presidential Pardon from President Andrew Johnson. From time to time, I had the honor to meet with General Lee in Lexington. That association helped as General Schofield admired the General and his stabilizing influence on former confederates. "Randolph, I could really use a man like you, but your accent would be a problem."

I answered the general in my Lancaster-German accent. He said, "By damn. I'm going to appoint you a Colonel in the Virginia Militia. You will be the Deputy Commander." He did and I accepted the commission. I wore a regular Army uniform.

As early as 1862, President Lincoln appointed military governors, who were civilians functioning with military support, in Tennessee, Louisiana, and North Carolina. Near the end of the war, Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands-the Freedmen's Bureau-and put it under the Army. Its 900 agents' primary purpose was to protect and help the former slaves. In late 1865 most of the governmental functions of the provost marshals were transferred to this bureau, which was headed by Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard, a professional officer with antislavery convictions of long standing.

With Reconstruction Act of March 1867, Congress, ignored the governments that had been established in the Southern states, divided the South into five districts and placed them under military rule. Each of the five military districts had a U.S. Army general in charge. Virginia, the first district, was commanded by Gen. John Schofield. The second district brought North and South Carolina under the command of Gen. Daniel E. Sickles, and Gen. John Pope oversaw the reconstruction of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida in the third district. The fourth district, comprising Mississippi and Arkansas, was commanded by Gen. Edward Ord, and in the fifth, Texas and Louisiana came under the control of Gen. Philip H. Sheridan. Some 200,000 U.S. soldiers were stationed throughout the South to preserve order and carry out the dictates of Congress.

These first military commanders had virtually unlimited power. They removed thousands of civil officials from their jobs and actively cultivated the registration of negro voters, thereby placing former slaves in position to dominate their former masters and to wring from the South what little was left after four years of devastating war. The restoration of state militia forces under the reconstruction governments was a means of relieving some of the burden on the Regular troops, which were spread thin. Since many of these new militia forces consisted of negroes, they were neither popular or competent. These militia forces mainly performed general police duty and watched over elections and voting. To many southerners, they protected the corrupt carpetbaggers and scallywags that were in league with newly enfranchised negro voters. Many preyed upon defenseless southern women. Sickles was the worst. He confiscated large plantations and gave them to freedmen.

I stopped at the Miche farm on the way from Ivy to Charlottesville. Francis, who was had selected the physician track over the surgeon track, became interested in cultivating pharmaceuticals. The Miche farm became our pharmaceutical farm. She was especially interested in the plants that the doctors of the south used when the Yankees blockaded medicines during the War Between the States. One of her professors from North Carolina collected Cherokee herbal remedies. Francis attempted to cultivate those too. Francis was talented at growing herbs and other plants. She took a special interest in the gardens that we established in the different climatic areas. She trained the Pantops and Miche farmers to spot and collect the wild plants used in medicines. Then she worked out how to cultivate the others. Imported medicines were very expensive for the cash strapped South.

Barks were best gathered while the sap was running, and when gathered the outer and rougher portion had to be shaved off and the bark cut thinly and put in a good position in the shade to dry. Roots were gathered after the leaves are dead in the fall, or better, before the sap rises. Seeds and flowers must be gathered only when fully ripe, and put in a nice dry place. And medicinal plants to be at their greatest perfection had to be obtained when in bloom and carefully dried in the shade.

At the end of their second year of college at UVA the women would receive their MD degrees. Danielle was going to train at Boston's Lying In Hospital, the foremost obstetrics hospital. Three women were going to work two years with area physicians and three with surgeons. I stopped in Charlottesville and visited with the students on the way to Lily's. I had intended to spend the night with mother of one of my daughters. She lived on a farm near Lily.

Lily told me that they were having a lot of trouble. The Army wasn't controlling the carpetbaggers, militia or freed slaves in the Carolinas. "There is a lot of trouble around Margaret. Several white women have been badly mistreated. I suspect that Margaret will have her hands full with trouble makers that cross from Carolina."

I asked, "Chris are you up to going and helping out? It would be better to face them down there before they get up here."

"Yes sir colonel."

"We'll leave at first light. Saddle two horses and clean your Henry."

I spent the night with my daughter and her mother. Chris and I rode for Farmville at first light. The innkeeper in Farmville told me a carpetbagger was agitating in hopes of taking over more land. We rode hard and made Margaret's before night fall.

Margaret and her husband didn't know too much about what was going on. Mabel, the negro overseer, didn't know much either. I left Chris and took a fresh horse and went to the Prospect Inn. I stayed the night with Martha and Harvey. The reports of the violence just to the south frightened them. They did have better information on the carpetbagger. His name was Michael Birkner, a man from New Hampshire. He had a group of over thirty ex-slaves aroused and they had looted several plantations and burned several inns. Travelers had told Harvey about rapes, murders and kidnapping.