A Cog in the Slave Economy Wheel

Just how much was slavery a part of Southern society? Often the extent of its influence depended on geographical location. However, the institution's tentacles reached far and wide in each and every state where slavery was legal--and way beyond those states' borders. Individuals who did not own slaves could rent them. And people who owned and rented them needed to feed them, shelter them, and clothe them. While much of the material resources for enslaved people's food, shelter, and clothing came from their own labor on rural plantations, town workshops, and urban factories, owners had other options as well.

The above advertisements ran in the Petersburg Daily Express on December 15, 1860. It was probably not a coincidence that ads like this ran in anticipation of slave hiring season. Merchants Emanuel and Davis offered apparel items for slaves. They sold blankets, socks, and clothing. From what I was able to find in census records, neither retailer owned slaves. But, not owning slaves did not preclude someone from benefiting from the system. Emanuel and Davis obviously attempted to fill a need in the commercial system and tried to earn revenue from the sale of goods specifically marketed to owners for their slaves.

Did Emanuel and Davis have a stake in the institution of slavery? Would they lose a potentially significant stake in the market economy if slavery ended? I would say yes to both questions, without a doubt.

Thomas C. Chandler's Fairfield Plantation

A couple of weeks ago I stopped in at the Stonewall Jackson Shrine on my way down I-95 back to Petersburg. It was a Monday morning and I was the only one on the grounds of what used to be Thomas Coleman Chandler's large "Fairfield" plantation. A kind National Park Service volunteer greeted me and provided an account of Jackson's wounding, his travel to Guinea Station, stay at the Fairfield plantation office building, and ultimate death. Being already quite familiar with Jackson's history, I was more interested in learning about the Chandler family.

When I asked the volunteer how many slaves the Chandler family owned, he said "dozens." He went on to explain that a couple of Chandler's sons served in the Confederate army and had nearby plantations too. When I got home curiosity got the better of me, so I searched out Thomas C. Chandler in the 1860 census. Remembering that I had crossed into Caroline County to get to the Shrine, I located him on that county's lists.

Chandler is noted as a sixty-two year old farmer worth $14,000 in real estate and $39,500 in personal property. Also in the Chandler household were Mary E., who was Chandler's much younger forty-three year old wife, two twenty-one year old (daughters?) Mary T. and Elizabeth P., twenty-three year old son Henry H., eleven year old son James G., nine year old daughter Lucy T., seven year old daughter Elizabeth C., and five year old daughter Nannie W. In the slave schedule census I counted sixty two slaves in Chandler's possession, who lived in thirteen slave dwellings.

Listed on the same free schedule census was Thomas Coleman Chandler's son, thirty year old farmer Thomas K. Chandler, who owned $12,000 in real estate and $10,000 in personal property. Thomas K. lived with his wife twenty-five year old Ann P. Also listed just a few households away was another Chandler son, thirty-two year old physician Joseph A. Chandler and his wife Emnella. Joseph owned $12,000 in real estate and $18,000 in personal property. Thomas K. Chandler owned fourteen slaves. It appears he hired four others, all lived in two slave houses. His brother, Joseph A. Chandler, owned twenty slaves and had four hires, who lived in six slave dwellings.

It appears that Thomas K. Chandler and a younger brother, who still lived with his father, Henry H. Chandler, served in Company B, Ninth Virginia Cavalry, which was also known as the Caroline Light Dragoons.

Thomas Jonathan Jackson had camped at Fairfield Plantation during the Fredericksburg campaign and seems to have enjoyed the hospitality provided by the Chandler family and their slaves. After Jackson was wounded at Chancellorsville, Gen. Lee suggested a return to Fairfiield at Guinea Station for Jackson's amputation recovery. The hustle and bustle of the Chandler home was deemed too noisy for the wounded general, so Jackson was provided with a room in the quieter nearby plantation office building (shown above). He arrived there on May 4, and stayed until he passed away on May 10. Jackson's wife, Anna, was there at his death and accompanied the general's body to Richmond. Along on the trip and comforting Anna was the Chandlers.

As one might imagine, the war was rough on the Thomas C. Chandler household. He is listed in the 1870 census as a seventy-two year old farmer worth $8000 in real estate ($4000 less than ten years before), and $1000 in personal property ($38,500 less than ten years before). Interestingly there are eight African Americans listed in Chandler's 1870 household. One man is listed a a "farm laborer," and three of the teenage or adult women are listed as "Domestic." It appears that the Chandler household was not able to divorce itself totally from the need for African American labor, even a decade after emancipation.

My Neighborhood History: Edge Hill

When doing battlefield tours at the park I often get asked where Gen. Lee's headquarters was located? Well, I have to explain that the answer to that question depends on what point in the Petersburg Campaign one is inquiring about. 

Lee's first headquarters was located at Violet Bank, on the north side of the Appomattox River and across from Petersburg. Lee kept tabs on the Army of Northern Virginia at Violet Bank from June to early November 1864. Then, for about three weeks, Lee kept post at or around the Beasley House on High Street in Petersburg.

At the end of November 1864, Lee accepted the offer to move his headquarters to the William Turnbull estate, which was known as Edge Hill, just west of Petersburg on Cox Road. Grant's continued threats to Lee's right flank prompted the move that fall. 

William Turnbull is listed in the 1860 census as a thirty-four year old farmer. Bettie J., which I assume was his much younger wife, is listed as nineteen years old. In addition, three Lewises lived in the household: Alpha J., forty-three, Mary P., fifteen, and Frank H., twelve. I suppose these could be Bettie's mother and sister and brother. Turnbull's occupation is listed as "farmer" and he is credited as owning $12,000 in real estate and $15,000 in personal property. He was the owner of five slaves. During the war, Turnbull worked as a Confederate government agent in Petersburg.

When the Union Sixth Corps broke through Lee's lines on the morning of April 2, 1865, the force turned away from Petersburg to clear any possible Confederate attempt at their flank and in the mid-day turned back and moved on Edge Hill. Guarding Lee's command post was artillery under the command of William T. Poague. Five of the Sixth Corps' eight brigades attacked the Turnbull House and were initially turned back by Poague's gunners. A second coordinated Union attack drove off the majority of the cannoneers. Lee and his staff made a quick getaway to the inner Petersburg defenses.

The destruction of the Turnbull House is somewhat of a historical enigma. Some Union and Confederate accounts claim that soon after Lee and his staff evacuated the premises, the house caught fire by some method. Other evidence indicates that Edge Hill survived at least until April 3rd. Regardless, not long after its capture, the Turnbull House was little more than ruins, as Alfred Waud's sketch (above) shows.

Today, little if anything exists of Edge Hill. There is part of a chimney at the location, but I am not sure that it is a nineteenth century relic. I often shop at the Walgreen's drugstore adjacent to the location, and my insurance agent and local bank branch are just a stone's throw away, too. Most people would not even know of the location's historical significance were it not for the highway marker shown at top.

"The Tired [USCT] Solider"

There was a time I could play basketball all day and then stay up watching television all night. But sadly those days seem gone. Now, on my days off, I often seek opportunities for both mental and physical rest. When I was a teenager I never thought I'd actually enjoy an occasional nap. I suppose this phenomenon has everything to do with the aging process, but in those moments when I need to push through to get something done, I try to think about those in the past whose lives were much more physically taxing than ours of the present.

Whenever I lead tours, I attempt to convey to visitors the sheer amount of physical effort it took to get things done in everyday nineteenth century life; whether that was cooking, laundry, or just getting from one location to another. Preparing a meal took hours, laundry was backbreaking, and even if a person rode a horse to get somewhere, that animal needed cared for, saddled, and harnessed. And when back home it needed additional care and fed. Today, we just park our cars and go inside.

Life as a Civil War soldier while on campaign must have been exhausting. Edwin Forbes's sketch (above) of a Union soldier after the first days of fierce fighting at Petersburg (June 15-18, 1864), illustrates the results of the taxing nature of soldier life.

When I first saw the image I wondered if Forbes just sketched a dead soldier, but the inscription plainly tells that this soldier was attempting to regain some energy by catching a few winks. Forbes wrote about this particular incident in his book Thirty Years After: An Artist's Memoir of the Civil War, and speculated that the fatigued soldier was a member of a United States Colored Troop regiment. He wrote:

"I came upon a most pathetic picture of an exhausted soldier as I was riding along a road to Petersburg during its siege, whose attitude suggested utter abandon, and whose pallid face caused me to think him dead. I dismounted and found him motionless upon his back, with bare feet and legs hanging over a bank. His old grey blanket was around his body, a gun was slung over the left shoulder, and his haversack containing untouched rations rested on his hip. I began to sketch so interesting a subject, and at first supposed him to be a white man; but as I carefully drew his lineaments I noticed the unmistakable fullness of feature and wavy black hair which showed him to be a mulatto, and probably a member of a negro regiment in the Eighteenth Corps.

As I continued my work I was suddenly startled at a trembling of the eyelids and the languid opening of his eyes. He looked at me in a dreamy fashion, the drowsily closed his eyes again as if too exhausted to interest himself in anything, and remained motionless. I finished my sketch and left him in the care of those who would look after him."

Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Slave Patrol Regulations

The other day while rummaging around online at the Duke University Digital Collections, I came across a handbill for a set of slave patrol regulations for the town of Tarboro[ugh], North Carolina, which were established in 1837. They are listed as follows:

"Rule 1st. Slaves residing in the country whose owners, masters or mistresses for the time being do not live in town, other than such as have wives in town, shall not come to town on the Sabbath day, unless to attend church, or in the night time without written permission from their owners, masters or mistresses for the time being, such permission stating the place or places such slaves shall visit
-Provided that they may at all times, come to town, or on the business of their owners, masters or mistresses for the time being without written permission
Rule 2nd. No slave after the hour of nine, P.M. (a reasonable time being allowed for him or her to go home or to the place designated in his or her written permission after the ringing of the bell,) shall be on the streets, or absent from the premises of his or her owner, master or mistress for the time being-or the premises of the owner, master or mistress for the time being of his wife-or the premises of the person, where he may be authorized by his written permission to go-unless he or she be on the business of his owner, master or mistress for the time being.
Rule 3rd. If any slave shall violate the foregoing Rules, the Patrol shall have the power and it shall be their duty (any two of their number being present) to whip the said slave, either at the time of the offense being committed or at any time within three months thereafter, the number of stripes not to exceed fifteen, unless the said slave shall be guilty of insolent behavior, or make his escape from the Patrol, in either of which cases the number of stripes not exceed thirty-nine."

More on Slave Hiring

Earlier today I finished reading "Reading Wolves to Our Own Destruction": Slavery in Richmond, Virginia, 1782-1865, by Midori Takagi (University Press of Virginia, 1999). In this well researched book, the author explores the urban landscape of slavery and how it tested the traditional sense of the "peculiar institution." With many owners allowing their slaves to find their own employment in the city's numerous factories, make their own living arrangements, and do overwork for cash payments, the city version of slavery was often markedly different than that of rural plantation slavery.

In some respect though, other qualities of urban slavery mirrored that of the countryside. Slave hiring occurred on both plantations and in cities such as Richmond. As part of her evidence of the large number of slaves rented for city work, Takagi quoted a short notice from the January 3, 1853, Richmond Daily Dispatch (shown above). I located the article via the "Chronicling America" newspaper database from the Library of Congress.

As one can see, slave hiring helped fuel Richmond's antebellum economy. These individuals provided vital labor and as the notice shows, "Thousands of dollars changed hands." Most of that money went to the slaves' owners, and depending on the master, slaves may or may not have had much say in where they went to work or what type of labor they performed.

In this particular issue of the Daily Dispatch, the claims made by this little notice were supported with numerous advertisements posted by individual citizens and hiring agents, both seeking and offering their slaves for hire. The practice of slave hiring goes to show that although slave owners were a minority in the antebellum South, many more people other than just owners had a large stake in the perpetuation of the institution.

A Robert Lumpkin Advertisement

If one reads much about Richmond's role the domestic slave trade, a specific name comes up over and over again, that of Robert Lumpkin.

The fifty-four year old Lumpkin's occupation in 1860 was listed as "Private Goal [jail]." He owned real estate worth $20,000, and personal property worth $6845. Lumpkin owned nine slaves. Lumpkin's real estate value is probably listed so high because he owned a slave complex that was known by some as "the Devil's Half-Acre." The property included Lumpkin's house, a jail in which to hold slaves waiting to be sold, a hotel where out of town slave buyers and dealers could find accommodations, and a kitchen that prepared meals for both slave inmates as well as guests at the hotel.

The property was located in Richmond's Shockoe Bottom, quite the undesirable piece of real estate due to it's placement along Shockoe Creek's steep valley banks.

Lumpkin ran the advertisement above in the Richmond Daily Dispatch on October 31, 1864. It reads: "SERVANTS WANTED - I wish to purchase, for a Southern gentleman, for his own use, one first-rate COOK, WASHER and IRONER, and one Female HOUSE SERVANT, well qualified, for which I will pay the highest market prices. Apply to Robert Lumpkin."

The trader's personal life and professional life seemed to be in conflict, but he apparently made it work. Lumpkin lived with Mary F. Lumpkin, an enslaved woman and the mother of the dealer's at least five children, all of whom were educated in the free states. Lumpkin's 1866 will left his property to Mary.

As the advertisement shows, Lumpkin traded in slaves even as Richmond was under attack by Grant's forces both north and south of the James River. In fact, Lumpkin attempted to flee Richmond as the Union army bore down on the Capital City on April 2-3, 1865. However, as he tried to board his slave coffle on the Richmond-Danville Railroad, he was refused. Apparently, he had little more choice than to let his slaves go free.

After the Civil War Lumpkin's property was transformed from slave complex to an educational facility. In 1867, Mary Lumpkin rented the buildings to a a former abolitionist who used the buildings to educate Richmond's freedmen. Later the facility relocated and changed names several times before attaining it's present designation of Virginia Union University, a historically African American institution of higher learning.

Seeking Isaac on the James River

The above advertisement ran in the July 19, 1839, issue of the Richmond Enquirer. In it slave renter, James A. Thomas, sought the rendition of Isaac, who ran away from him on the first of June. Thomas explained that he hired Isaac from Leonard Daniel, who was the executor of Mary Daniel's estate. Slave sales and rentals were often the result when an owner died.

What I found interesting about this particular advertisement was the fact that Thomas explained that Isaac was born on the James River and as he explained, Isaac was known to most of the boatmen on that thoroughfare. It seems likely then that Isaac must have experienced some freedom of movement in his previous situation. As the ad also mentions, Thomas believed that Isaac was likely working his way along the James River Canal, attempting to pass as a free man or "attempting to make his escape to some free State under cover of free papers, and some other fictitious name." Waterways were common methods of escape for fugitive slaves. Runaways had the opportunity to meet people of diverse origins on rivers, but also potentially encountered slave catchers who know rivers were often traveled by fugitives. 

James A. Thomas is listed in the 1840 census as the head of household of containing ten people. I found it intriguing that the Thomas household included three free people of color in addition to four slaves. 

An Interview with a USCT: Cornelius Garner

I completed reading Weevils in the Wheat: Interviews with Virginia Ex-Slaves yesterday and found these 1930s recorded conversations fascinating. The Virginia Writers Project employees conducted oral history interviews with about 300 elderly former slaves to get their views on life before emancipation and since. While a number of the original interviews have been lost over time, this published collection has been available since 1976.

Fortunately, a majority of the interviews were made by African Americans, so interviewees seem to have been more candid than some of the WPA Federal Writers Project interviews conducted by white interviewers. That was the case when African Americans Emmy Wilson and Claude W. Anderson spoke with former slave Cornelius Garner in Norfolk in 1937.

Garner explained to his interviewers that he was born in 1846 in St. Mary's County, Maryland. Garner said that he started working at about ten years old helping grow tobacco, wheat, corn, and oats on his owner's plantation. He described his housing as good; that it didn't leak, but had a dirt floor and straw beds. Garner also explained that he received plenty to eat. He said that a ration of meat and corn meal was supplied, and sometimes he received fish, molasses, and bread.

Garner does not go into an explanation of how, but in 1864 he arrived in Norfolk, Virginia. Being curious, I thought I'd see if I could corroborate his statement with any available service records.

Indeed, Garner's records show he enlisted in Company B of the 38th United States Colored Infantry.on February 15, 1864 in Great Mill's, Maryland. It was his army service that brought him to Norfolk, where he was officially mustered in. Garner was described as eighteen years old and five feet, five inches tall, and having a dark complexion. He is identified as being born in St. Mary's County, Maryland, as he explained to his interviewers.

Private Garner was present and accounted for with his unit until September 29, 1864, when he was wounded at New Market Heights fighting with the 38th USCT in Alonzo Draper's brigade. Garner mentioned in his interview fighting at Deep Bottom and Chaffin's Farm (aka New Market Heights) but did not cover the fact that he was wounded. His service records indicate that he spent time at Balfour General Hospital, a Union army hospital in Portsmouth in October and November and returned to duty on December 12.

Garner's records indicate that he was sent back to the hospital on February 2, 1865, for an unexplained illness. His is shown as being in the general hospital at Fort Monroe from March until about September. Then he appears to have been transferred to Fort Wood in New York harbor; most likely for a trip to Texas for border duty, where the 38th was stationed until they were mustered out in 1867. Garner explained in his interview that he returned to Virginia when he left the army that very year.

In Garner's records is an application for compensation by his former owner Ann Milburn. Milburn also supplied an affidavit of her loyalty to seek payment for Garner's service. Garner said in his interview that his master was Lewis Milburn. Looking up Ann Milburn in the 1860 census I found that she was the 50 year old wife of farmer John L. Milburn. John Milburn owned $10,000 in personal property. Their son, seventeen year old Lewis, is shown as a "farm hand." John L. Milburn also appears in the 1860 slave schedules as the owner of sixteen slaves, who lived in two slave dwellings. On that list of a slaves appears a fourteen year old black male, who would fit Garner's age and description exactly.

Being able to corroborate Garner's interview story with official documents, in my opinion lends a extra level of credence to these sometimes disregarded "memory" accounts of lives spent in slavery.

Slaves Wanted for Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad Line

Slave labor was not only instrumental to rural plantation agricultural and urban environments, it also fueled Southern industrial initiatives. Enslaved individuals toiled long hours in iron foundries and various types of factories that required large numbers of manual laborers all across the South. They also put down countless miles of railroad track.

The advertisement above ran in the Petersburg Daily Express on September 3, 1855, and sought to locate "a large number of NEGROES to labor on the Western end of the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad." The Norfolk and Petersburg connected the important Appomattox River tobacco town with the Atlantic Ocean port city. The railroad provided market competition to the shipping industry that plied the Appomattox River.

The advertiser, Nathan S. Carpenter, appears in the both the 1850 and 1860 censuses as living in Richmond. In 1850, his occupation is listed appropriately as as "carpenter." By 1860, Carpenter had apparently advanced to the position of "contractor." Interestingly, Carpenter is not shown with any real estate wealth in 1850, and no real estate or personal property wealth in 1860. In 1860, Carpenter was forty years old and was the head of large family that included his wife Maria and six children, who ranged in age from eighteen to four years old.

The Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad began construction in 1853, when William Mahone (pictured below) was hired to serve as the line's head engineer. Mahone, a southside Virginia native, had been educated at the Virginia Military Institute.

The approximately eighty-five mile line was completed in 1858 after a delay in 1855 due to a yellow fever outbreak in Norfolk and Portsmouth. Mahone became the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad's president in 1860. The 1860 census shows the thirty-three year old Mahone as living in Norfolk as a "civil engineer" and the owner of seven slaves. His worth is listed as $3,500 in real estate and $10,000 in personal property. Also in the household is his wife Otelia, eleven years Mahone's junior, and their three toddler and infant children. Also in the home was sixty-three year old Susan Voinard.

In 1861, Mahone became lieutenant colonel and then colonel of the Sixth Virginia Infantry. In 1862, he was promoted to brigadier general. Mahone must have thought it strange to fight so close to his former railroad line when he earned what was probably his greatest military laurels as his command led a counterattack against the Union attack at the Battle of the Crater on July 30, 1864. The railroad ran just a stone's throw away from where the miners tunneled under the Confederate lines.

Mahone returned to railroad work after the war as president of the combined lines of the Norfolk and Petersburg, Southside, and Virginia and Tennessee railroads. He went on to a political career by becoming mayor of Petersburg, serving as a senator in the 1880s, and running two failed attempts for the governor's seat.

Mahone died in 1895, and was buried in Blanford Cemetery in Petersburg. His nondescript mausoleum only hints at his place of rest with a "M" above its entrance door.

More Free Papers Lost

The above advertisement is the third that I have located so far in which free people of color sought to find their lost free papers. Unlike the other two, this one does not offer a reward. It ran in the September 27, 1855, edition of the Petersburg Daily Express by George Valentine.

Valentine is not listed in the 1850 census, but is in the 1860 census. George's age in 1860 was twenty six, and his occupation is shown as a "ditcher," with a personal property value of $20. He is the head of a household that included his wife Angeline, who was thirty, and their two daughters Sytney, age two, and Joanner, age one. Both George and Angeline were listed as illiterate. George was described as black, while Angeline and the children were mulatto.