Harold Titus's Blog - Posts Tagged "jr"

In Capital Square in Richmond today stands an equestrian statue of George Washington. A tourist would notice six figures mounted at the base of the statue. Chances are he would recognize instantly the importance of three of the figures: Patrick Henry, the orator of the Revolution, Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, and John Marshall, the famous Supreme Court Justice. But the other three figures about the statue – George Mason, Thomas Nelson, and Andrew Lewis – might mean nothing to him. Seconds later he would probably walk away, intent upon seeing another historic monument in historic Richmond.

Mason, Nelson, and Lewis were important leaders. To the general public, however, they are anonymous patriots, their significance overlooked or underemphasized by the biographers of the giants of American history.

Thomas Nelson is the subject of this new series of posts. He can be taken as a test case of the importance of obscure Revolutionary War leaders. If he had not died relatively early, he would probably have been an important national political figure. Even so, his life was full and his contributions substantial.

***

In describing the seaport town of York to Sir Henry Clinton shortly before the beginning of the American Revolution, a British officer wrote: “The people in and about it, influenced by the family of Nelson, are all Rebellious” (Riley 22). If the officer had remained in the town longer and inquired about the Nelson family, he might have left contemplating just how far beyond the boundaries of foolishness this rebellious family might go. They were merchants, the first in York, one of the wealthiest families in the colony. If the existing breach between the political and economic interests of Great Britain and her colonies should expand to the point where neither antagonist could reverse course, if the ultimate solution to this clash of interests could be none other than a clash of arms, the Nelsons stood to lose economically far more than most Americans. Yet, from the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765, the family’s history is one of consistent loyalty to colonial principles. The British officer might have explained all of this with the thought that many men lose their senses in times of strife, but a crisis can also inspire the employment of rare qualities of character, one being courage.

Thomas Nelson, the founder of the wealthy Virginia family and the grandfather of the subject of this post, came to the colonies from Penriff, near the border of Scotland, shortly after the turn of the Seventeenth Century. He established himself in York as a merchant, married a Miss Reid of the neighboring county, and had two sons and one daughter.

Thomas Nelson’s two sons, William and Thomas, upon reaching their adulthood, also settled in York. Both men took an active role in Virginia politics. Thomas -- Thomas Nelson Jr.’s uncle -- was secretary of the governor’s council for over twenty years. William became a member of the House of Burgesses from York County in 1742. In 1744 he joined his brother in the council and later became its president. Due to the length of time both men held these positions in the council, they came to be called Secretary and President Nelson.

Importing goods from the merchants of Philadelphia and Baltimore, then in their commercial beginnings, William Nelson acquired a large fortune. After the death of Governor Botetourt, Nelson was acting governor of the colony from October 1770 to August 1771. While he was “the right hand of George III,” he remained loyal to colonial ideals. His letters to merchants at this time reveal his indignant opposition to onerous acts passed by the British Parliament, unwarranted impositions, he believed, legislated upon colonial rights and privileges. Bishop Meade wrote that he left “none to doubt where he would have been when the trumpet sounded to arms” (Meade 209).

William Nelson married a Miss Burnwell, a pious and conscientious woman. All of their daughters died before they reached the age of twelve. Of their six sons, one burned to death and another damaged his brain in a fall from an upper story of the Nelson house. These tragedies turned Mrs. Nelson ever closer to her religion.

She was particularly attentive to the religious training of her children. She taught them to be punctual and conscientious in their daily prayers, set for them an exemplary example, and prayed for them often. Equally concerned with their children’s religious upbringing, William took the lead in affairs of the local parish. On Sundays, generous as well as pious, he had a large dinner prepared to which both rich and poor were invited.

Thomas Nelson, Jr., the eldest son, born December 26, 1738, had the qualities of courage, generosity, honesty, and leadership – so apparent during the Revolution – instilled in him in the Nelson home.

***

At the age of fourteen Thomas Nelson, Jr., was a rather high spirited boy, energetic enough to give his father uneasy moments. The boy had become old enough for President Nelson to consider sending to England for a formal education. It was the custom of many wealthy seaboard Virginia families to send their eldest sons to London for that purpose. In a year, or perhaps two, Thomas would be ready. Then, one Sunday morning while strolling about the outskirts of York, father Nelson’s aristocratic soul was rudely shaken. He had come upon his son playing in the streets with several of the little Negro boys of the village. Realizing the delicacy of such an association and the difficulty of preventing future ones, Nelson decided quickly that it was time for Thomas to begin his English education. A vessel stood anchored in the harbor ready to sail. Thomas found himself aboard it the next day. He would not return for nine years.

President Nelson placed Thomas under the care of two friends: a Mr. Hunt of London, and Neilby Porteus, then fellow of Cambridge University, later to become a bishop. Nelson needed six years of preparation before he entered Christ’s College at Cambridge in 1758. He was then placed under the care of a Dr. Newcome at the Hackney School, in the village of the same name near the outskirts of London. He then entered Cambridge under the private tutorship of Mr. Porteus. In letters to Hunt and Porteus, President Nelson shows his pious concern for the improvement of his son – “in all things, but especially in morals and religion.” Thomas’s spirited nature yet troubled him. He had exhibited behavior unbecoming a gentleman of his station by associating with Negroes. What form might his behavior take now that he was older? Nelson requested of his friends that during the vacation seasons Thomas be placed under the supervision of an eminent scientific agriculturalist, so that “the temptations incident to young men during the vacation” resulting from “a disposition to idleness and pleasure” be avoided. Additionally, when Thomas returned to America, he would be able to make adequate use of the soils of Virginia (Meade 206).

Regardless of what President Nelson may have wished, Thomas’s activities were not devoted exclusively to the studying of books and soils. Nelson saved a man from drowning. Ironically, the man was a kinsman of Lord North, Prime Minister just prior to and during most of the Revolutionary War. In appreciation of Nelson’s heroic deed, the Lord presented the young man a gold snuff box containing a fine miniature of himself (Davis III 119).

After three years of tutorship by Mr. Porteus, Thomas was ready to return to York. However, due to his father’s great concern for his spiritual upbringing, Thomas’s departure was delayed several months. The elder Nelson had learned that two young Virginians, whose habits he feared, though they were sons of the first families of the colony, would be aboard the ship that Thomas was scheduled to take. Thomas, therefore, was ordered to remain in England until another ship sailed for Virginia.

A blue-eyed, light-haired youth of twenty-two, exhibiting a ruddy complexion, finally returned to Virginia at the close of 1761. His father was happy to find a general improvement in his son, but regretted that he had adopted the bad practice of smoking tobacco – “filthy tobacco,” he wrote his friends in England. The elder Nelson also complained that Thomas ate and drank “more than was conducive to health and long life, though not to inebriety” (Meade 217). If the reunion of father and son had given the President some cause for feeling a bit surprised, it gave Thomas far greater cause. While Thomas was still on his voyage home, his name had been entered, undoubtedly by his father, as a candidate to the House of Burgesses from York County. Thomas was greeted at the dock with the news that he had been elected a burgess.


Sources Cited:

Davis III, Edward Morris. “Historical Silver in the Commonwealth of Virginia.” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (April 1941) XLIX. Print.

Meade, Bishop. Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1891)Vol. I. Print.

Riley, Edward M. “Yorktown/During the Revolution.” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (January 1949), Vol. 57. Print.

The American victory at Saratoga was of first importance for it convinced the French that the Revolution in America could be successful. France officially entered the war against Great Britain in May 1778.

The news of General Burgoyne’s surrender October 17, 1777, was received in Williamsburg with great jubilation. A battalion was formed and reviewed by Nelson; members of the upper and lower houses of the new Assembly spoke to the congregated citizens. The Virginia Gazette reported that “joy and satisfaction … was evident in the countenance of every one; and the evening was celebrated with the ringing of bells, illuminations, &c.” (Gazette 1)

About to go into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Washington was, naturally, pleased with Burgoyne’s capture. But he had failed to keep General Howe from capturing Philadelphia, and he wrote Nelson that he now regretted not accepting Nelson’s offer to send him some of the Virginia militia. None of the joyous exuberance seen in Williamsburg following the Saratoga victory existed in Washington’s camp. Washington could only say that the victory in the north would make a winter camp against Philadelphia possible if “our ragged and half naked Soldiers could be clothed” (Fitzpatrick X, 27).

While Washington was facing the prospect of a dismal winter, Nelson was officially thanked by the two houses of the Assembly for the services he had rendered during the British fleet scare. He was thanked in such glowing phrases as, “actuated by noble principles and generous motives and exemplary diligence and alertness in performing the duty were such as became a virtuous citizen” and officer. Nelson replied that he hoped he could continue to deserve “the good opinion” and discharge his duty in any office “they may think me worthy of” (Gazette 1). Nelson would have many opportunities to do just that. But, for the present, he could only worry about the progress of the war.

The want of men and supplies was a serious handicap for the revolutionaries throughout the war. In late 1777 the Virginia House of Delegates was considering the passage of a bill that would alter how single men could be drafted into the regular Virginia army. “Each county was given a quota of men necessary to fill Virginia’s line regiments. All single men were eligible, and on a specified day they were to report to the courthouse where slips were to be prepared for all the able bodied. If the quota of the county happened to be thirty, then thirty of the slips would be marked ‘Service’ and the remainder “Clear.’ All would be put into a hat and every man would draw a slip, those getting ‘Service’ slips being obliged for duty. The term of service would be one year. Substitutes were still allowed, but on a one-to-one basis. The person obtaining the recruit was exempt from the draft for the period of time, after the discharge, that the man had actually served” (Evans 73).

Simultaneously, Nelson pushed to have included in the bill a plan to raise 5,400 volunteers to serve six months under the command of brigadier generals appointed by the governor. Nelson used in argument “Washington’s passing comment, after the defeat of Burgoyne, that he wished he had given more serious consideration to Nelson’s earlier offer to join him with militia. … as late as December 19, Nelson thought the proposal was lost because many delegates feared ‘it would interfere with compleating the Regular battalions. … by December 26 authorization to raise volunteers had been approved. … No more than fifty-four hundred volunteers could be raised, for six-months duty, they were to remain eligible for the draft until they actually marched to join the Continental army, and they would be exempt from the draft for six months after their discharge” (Evans 73-74). The entire bill would become law on January 9, 1778. To encourage enlistments, Nelson was appointed to be one of the two brigadier generals.

Rather than serve in the next session of the Continental Congress -- which Washington urged that he do -- Nelson remained in Virginia. “He had developed a near compulsion to lead troops in the field; and he felt certain that a sizable addition of troops would enable the Continental army to quickly defeat Howe, which would, in turn, bring an end to the war. In his inexperience, he did not comprehend that it was wiser to add men to Washington’s regular forces, where they would serve under seasoned officers and with battle hardened troops, than to bring in a body of untrained soldiers who would be commanded by novices. The general as much as told his friend this. … Fill up the regular regiments and provide the food to feed them, Washington was urging—then we can talk about separate forces of volunteers. … By the early spring of 1778 the volunteer plan had failed and Nelson was searching for an alternative” (Evans 76).

On March 2, 1778, the Continental Congress passed a resolution that called for the wealthy men of the states to step forward in the service of their country and raise troops of light cavalry. Each member of a cavalry group would be expected to provide his own provisions, as well as forage for his horse. All other expenses would be paid by the person who raised the cavalry.

When news of the Congressional resolution reached Virginia, Nelson published an address calling for young men of fortune to meet with him in Fredericksburg, May 25, to organize themselves into a cavalry unit. He also desired to have join with him men with less fortune, but with as much patriotism. Nelson wrote that it was a “pity that they should be deprived of the opportunity of distinguishing themselves!” To enable them to enter the service, “I propose that such should be furnished with a horse and accoutrements by subscription in their respective counties; and surely those who remain at home, enjoying all the blessings of domestic life, will not hesitate to contribute liberally for such a purpose” (Sanderson 57-58). In May the Virginia Assembly gave state support to the plan. It passed a bill authorizing the raising of a regiment of 350 horses to be commanded by Nelson. Members of the regiment “would receive the same rations and pay as members of the Continental army. Those who could not furnish their own horses and equipment would be supplied at public expense” (Evans 77). Nelson received 4,000 pounds to expend for arms and an equal amount to purchase horses. Many people believed that at best he would receive half of the 350 volunteers desired.

About 70 gentlemen appeared at Fredericksburg, including two of Thomas’s brothers, Hugh and Robert. In a letter to Washington Nelson vented his frustration.

“So great is the aversion of the Virginians to engaging in the Army that they are not to [be] induc’d by any method. I cannot say they are in apathy for view them in the mercantile way, and they are as alert as could be wish’ed, or rather more so, almost every Man being engag’d in accumulating Money. Public Virtue & Patriotism is sold down to South Quay and there shipd off in Tobacco Hogsheads, nevermore, in my opinion, to return. The number of resignations in the Virginia line is induced by officers, when they have returned, finding that every man, who remains at home is making a fortune, whilst they are spending what they have, in defense of their Country. If a stop be not put to the destructive trade that is at present carried on here, there will not be a spark of Patriotic fire left in Virginia in a few Months” (Evens 77).

Washington was happy with the prospect of being reinforced. The last campaign had greatly reduced his cavalry. As to the disappointing turnout, he wrote this:

“I am sorry to find such a backwardness in Virginia in the Service of the army. Perhaps it is fortunate for the cause, that our circumstances stand in less need of the great exertions of patriotism than heretofore, from the changes in foreign councils, and the open interposition of the French in our favor. But I am convinced you have left nothing undone, of encouragement, for the increase of your corps, …” (Fitzpatrick XII, 203).

“Through June and July, with the temperature hovering around one hundred degrees, the general tried to whip his volunteers into shape at Port Royal” (Evans 77). On the eve of the cavalry’s departure to join Washington, Nelson gathered his men about him and tried to assure them there was some hope for remuneration for expenses incurred in the country’s service. Then he asked if anyone was in need of money; he would like to have that person consult him in his quarters. A number of men did, and Nelson supplied them personally.

When Nelson and his cavalry arrived in Philadelphia during the first week of August, they learned that the cavalry was no longer needed. Howe had retired from the city and had been on his way to New York. Washington had intercepted him June 28 at Monmouth, New Jersey. Although Washington had failed to win a decisive victory, the war in the north was finished. The colonists did not know it, but they felt reasonably secure. Nelson’s cavalry had arrived in Philadelphia too late to serve a useful purpose. Nevertheless, the congressmen were appreciative of Nelson’s efforts. On August 8 they passed a resolution publicly thanking him and his men for their service. But they advised that the cavalry return to Virginia. Nelson had lost a good sum of money in this venture. Yet he made further advances of money to those who required it to enable their return to their homes.

Greatly disappointed, Nelson searched for some way to be of service to Washington. He offered a favorite horse as a gift. Washington refused, Nelson persisted, and the commander-in-chief relented. With great feeling Washington thanked his generous friend.

“In what terms can I sufficiently thank you for your polite attention to me, and agreeable present? And … with what propriety can I deprive you of a valuable and favourite horse? … as a proof of my sincere attachment to, and friendship for you, I obey with this assurance, that from none but a Gentn. for whom I have the highest regard, would I do this, notwithstanding the distressed situation I have been in for want of one” (Fitzpartick XII, 341).

Washington was angry at the dismissal of Nelson’s cavalry. He felt that since the expense of getting the cavalry to Philadelphia had already been incurred, he should have received it. The assumption that Nelson’s men would save money by disbanding rather than staying on, he felt to be “very erroneous.” He felt keenly disappointed over the resolution, but hoped he would soon see Nelson in camp.

Thomas Nelson returned to Virginia a healthier man. The physical exercise of raising and delivering his cavalry to Philadelphia seemed to have restored his health. Consequently, he accepted an appointment as delegate to the Continental Congress and took his seat February 18, 1779.

Nelson’s appointment greatly pleased Washington. His comments are worth quoting.

“I think there never was a time when cool and dispassionate reasoning; strict attention and application; great integrity, and … wisdom were more to be wished for than the present … Unanimity in our Councils, disinterestedness in our pursuits, and steady perseverance in our nation duty, are the only means to avoid misfortune” (Fitzpatrick XIV, 246). Washington believed Nelson embodied those qualities.

“Early in February, the weather turning unseasonably mild, he [Nelson] left home to assume his duties. Peach trees were beginning to blossom and others to bud, while shrubs were in full bloom. But the pleasure of an early spring contrasted starkly with the dismal prospect facing the country. The depleted ranks of the army forced Washington to remain on the defensive. Neither the necessary men nor supplies were forthcoming from the states. Inflation continued and Congress, unable to find an alternative, persisted in printing paper money. The French alliance of early 1778 had given the country hope that the war would end soon, but the events of the year that followed did nothing to encourage this hope. The best of congresses would have been severely tested, and this one was no more than mediocre. A general feeling prevailed that the members of Congress were more interested in Philadelphia’s social life than in the pressing business of the country. Such was the situation into which Nelson stepped” (Evens 79-80).


Sources Cited:

Evans, Emory G. Thomas Nelson of Yorktown: Revolutionary Virginian. Charlottesville, Virginia, The University Press of Virginia, 1975. Print.

Fitzpatrick, John C., ed. Washington to Nelson, November 8, 1777. The Writings of George Washington. Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1933, X. Print.

Fitzpatrick, John C., ed. Washington to Nelson, July 22, 1778. The Writings of George Washington. Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1933, XII. Print.

Fitzpatrick, John C., ed. Washington to Nelson, August 20, 1778. The Writings of George Washington. Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1933, XII. Print.

Fitzpatrick, John C., ed. Washington to Nelson, March 15, 1779. The Writings of George Washington. Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1933, XII. Print.

Sanderson, John. Biography of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence, Second Edition. Philadelphia, William Brown and Charles Peters, 1828). V. Print.

Virginia Gazette (Dixon and Hunter) October 31, 1777. Microfiche

Virginia Gazette (Purdie) November 14 and 21, 1777. Microfiche.

Both before and after Washington’s and Rochambeau’s arrival in Virginia, Governor Nelson sought vigorously to obtain from the citizens of his state essential food and supplies: more beef, flour, corn and vehicles of transportation specifically from the Richmond area, from the Williamsburg area, ammunition. He still needed digging equipment, but the arrival of Admiral Barras’s Rhode Island fleet provided “many implements for siege.”

On September 26, one of Nelson’s agents, David Jameson, wrote of the problems that he and Nelson’s other agents were encountering.

“We are very sorry to inform you, that in those parts of the Country where Agents are employed to purchase provisions for the French fleet and Army, our commissaries … can procure no supplies. The people withhold their wheat, in hope of receiving a present payment in specie. It is absolutely necessary something should be done, or our army will be starved” (Nelson Letters 41).

Nelson answered that he had long foreseen the consequences of such proceedings. He believed this was due “partially from the machinations of their [Virginia’s] agents,” receiving inadequate prices for their property and services in the past, “and partly from the desire of handling gold …” (Nelson Letters 44-45, 47). “He conceded that part of the trouble was due to the French [who had sent their own agents out to purchase food with gold], but he attributed it also to the ‘unwillingness of the people to assist [a] government from which former treatment gives them perhaps too little reason to expect Justice’” (Evans 116). To solve this problem Nelson authorized agents like Colonel Thomas Newton on October 3 to procure small meats and vegetables by impress if necessary, “granting certificates for what you get in this way” (Nelson Letters 50)

In addition to attempting to overcome the immense difficulty of providing food and military supplies, Nelson had to deal with hostile Loyalists. In Prince Anne County, where Norfolk was located, “there was neither civil nor military law in operation and ‘murder is committed and no notice is taken of it ….’ Nelson could not do much about the Norfolk area, but he did take vigorous action in other sections of the country” (Evans 116). On September 16, he ordered the arrest of eleven prominent Tories, including his wife’s brother, Philip Grimes, for conduct “‘which manifests Disaffection to this Government and the Interests of the United States.’” They were taken to Richmond for trial. Loyalists on the Eastern Shore were arrested. “Some of the disaffected people were released prior to Yorktown on showing the proper contriteness and giving security to furnish a soldier for the war. Even so, the Richmond jail was still crowded with Tories in December” (Evans 117).

Nelson’s militia also presented him problems. “Colonel James Barbour of Culpepper seized twenty-nine boxes of arms being transported from the north to the American army and distributed them to the militia of his county.” Nelson wrote: “‘If we were to consider the Consequences of such Conduct, nothing could appear more criminal, or meriting more severe notice.’ If every county lieutenant, he continued, acted as Barbour had, there would be no arms for the army on ‘which the immediate salvation of the state depends’” (Evans 117). In mid-September a body of Henrico County militia was ordered to patrol a section of the James River. After one trip they quit. “With the battle of Yorktown only days away one militia leader wrote asking that his men be discharged since they expected to serve only a fortnight ‘and some have urgent business in Richmond’” (Evans 118).

While Nelson labored, Washington and Rochambeau moved their soldiers in semi-circular fashion closer to Cornwallis’s fortifications at Yorktown. This involved digging trenches to establish parallel lines to the British fortifications. “The first parallel was dug six hundred yards from the besieged works, beyond the range of grape, canister, and small arms. Dirt from the excavation was thrown onto fascines [bundles of brush bound together, cut off straight at each end] in front of the parallels, forming parapets [defensive walls or elevation, as of earth or stone, raised above the main wall or rampart of a permanent fortification] while battery locations were dug out and connected to the parallels by other trenches. Saps, or smaller trenches, were dug in zigzag paths toward the fortress, while gabions [sticks in the ground in a circle, about two feet or more in diameter, interwoven with small brush in the form of baskets set down in three or more rows with dirt thrown into them to form a breastwork] were filled and covered on the side facing the enemy. … At three hundred yards a second parallel was dug … close enough so that the attackers could breach the fortress walls for an assault by infantry” (Ketchum 222-223). All of the digging was done at night, out of sight of the British, after which the artillery pieces were carried or dragged to their assigned positions.

“Preparation of the parallels was no simple matter. Twelve hundred Pennsylvania and Maryland militia were detailed to collect wicker material in the woods for making six hundred gabions. Stakes were cut—six thousand of them—and two thousand round bundles of sticks were bound together for fascines …” (Ketchum 223).

Beginning October 1 the British artillery fired steadily every day -- on one day 351 rounds between sunup and sundown -- and continued into the night. On October 4 two deserters reported that “Cornwallis’s army was very sickly—two thousand men were in the hospital, they estimated—while the other troops had scarcely enough ground to live on, the horses were desperately short of forage, and their shipping was ‘in a very naked state’” (Ketchum 224). Nearly four hundred dead horses were seen floating in the river or lying on the shore near Yorktown. Lacking forage to feed them, the British had had them shot.

Before October 9, British soldiers had been questioning why the American and French batteries had not returned artillery fire. The answer was simple. They “were holding back until all their guns were in place; if they fired from each battery once it was completed, the enemy would concentrate on that one and destroy it” (Ketchum 227). At about three o’clock in the afternoon of October 9 all of the allied artillery commenced firing. General Washington put the match to the gun that fired the first shot.

“The defenders could find no refuge in or out of the town. Residents fled to the waterfront and hid in hastily built shelters on the sand cliffs, but some eighty of them were killed and others wounded—many with arms or legs severed—while their houses were destroyed.” The following day “some thirty-six hundred shots were fired by the cannon, inflicting heavy damage on ships in the harbor, killing a great many sailors as well as soldiers, after which a number of others deserted” (Ketchum 228).

After the October 9 firing started, “down on the American right General Nelson was asked to point out a good target toward which the artillerists could direct their fire. Nelson indicated a large house, which he suggested was probably Cornwallis’s headquarters. The house was his own” (Evans 119). “Two pieces were accordingly pointed against it” (Page 151). The first shot killed two officers, “indulging in the pleasures of the table” (Sanderson 67). Other balls dislodged the other tenants.

Actually, Cornwallis had established his headquarters in the house of Nelson’s uncle, Secretary Nelson, the most prominent house in Yorktown. The October 9 cannonade continued through the night and into the next day. “At noon a flag of truce appeared on the British lines. At first the allies hoped that Cornwallis was going to ask for terms, but they soon learned that the flag was raised to allow Secretary Nelson to leave the beleaguered village. The old gentleman, suffering from an attack of gout, could not walk, and his two sons in the American army, Colonel William Nelson and Major John Nelson, went across and brought their father back to General Washington’s headquarters. There the secretary recounted that the bombardment was producing great damage and had forced Cornwallis to seek refuge in a ‘grotto’ at the foot of his garden” (Evans 119).

“By October 11 the parallel directed at Cornwallis’s works was within 360 yards. … On Sunday the 14th all the American batteries concentrated on the British strongholds—notably the Number 9 and Number 10 redoubts” (Ketchum 229, 230). On October 16 the two redoubts were attacked (Number 10 by American soldiers commanded by Alexander Hamilton) and taken. “Later that night the skies clouded over and it began to rain, a steady downpour that turned the trenches into a morass of mud, making the digging miserable for the fatigue parties, whose job it was to connect the captured redoubts to the second parallel and bring up howitzers to within three hundred years of the enemy’s works” (Ketchum 234).

Aware that defeat and surrender were only two or three days from transpiring, that night Cornwallis instructed Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton to “concentrate his troops at Gloucester [across the York River], prepare the artillery to accompany the British troops in an attack against Brigadier Choisy before daybreak, and have horses and wagons ready to retreat north through the countryside,” Tarleton agreed that a retreat “‘was the only expedient that now presented itself to avert the mortification of a surrender.’ … Before eleven o’clock the light infantry, most of the Guards brigade, and the 23rd Regiment, constituting the first wave of evacuees, shoved off for Gloucester. … Cornwallis planned to accompany the second group himself, but before doing so he had to finish writing a letter to General Washington, ‘calculated to excite the humanity of that officer towards the sick, the wounded, and the detachment that would be left to capitulate.’ The first division arrived in Gloucester before midnight, and part of the second had embarked when a rain squall came up” (Ketchum 237). The squall became a violent storm, which drove the boats down the river. It became evident that the river could not be successfully crossed. At 2 a.m. Cornwallis ordered all of his soldiers that had reached Gloucester to return to Yorktown.

The allied cannonade that began at daybreak was devastating. After observing the enemy and his works, Cornwallis sent to Washington a flag of truce. He wrote to General Clinton of his decision emphasizing that it would be “wanton and inhuman to the last degree to sacrifice the lives of this small body of gallant soldiers, who had ever behaved with such fidelity and courage” (Ketchum 239). Ironically, that same day General Clinton and six thousand troops set sail from New York to attempt a rescue. Discovering that the French fleet controlled the Chesapeake, he ordered his ships and army back to New York.

The negotiations for surrender took place in the home of Thomas Nelson’s former business partner, Augustine Moore. On October 20 Nelson wrote the following to the Virginia delegates in the Continental Congress.

On the 17th at the Request of Lord Cornwallis Hostilities ceased, and yesterday the Garrison of York amounting to upwards of two thousand nine hundred Effectives, rank and file, marched out and grounded their arms. Their sick are about seventeen hundred. The Garrison of Gloucester and the men killed during the siege are computed at near two thousand, so that the whole loss sustained by the Enemy on this occasion must be between 6 and 7000 Men. This blow, I think, must be a decisive one, it being out of the Power of G. B. to replace such a number of good troops (Evans 120).

Here is a link that provides a useful map. http://www.mountvernon.org/research-c...


Works cited:

Evans, Emory G. Thomas Nelson of Yorktown: Revolutionary Virginian. Williamsburg: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1975. Print.

Ketchum, Victory at Yorktown: The Campaign That Won the Revolution. New York, Henry Holt and Company, 2004. Print.

Page, R. C. M. Genealogy of the Page Family in Virginia. New York: Jenkins & Thomas, 1883. Print.

Publications of the Virginia Historical Society. “Letters of Thomas Nelson.” New Series, No. 1, 1874. Print.

Sanderson, John. Biography of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence. Second Edition. Philadelphia: William Brown and Charles Peters, 1828. V. Print.

Arrested December 1, 1955, for violating the Montgomery city ordinance that required black riders of city busses to give up their seats to whites when the section of seats reserved for whites was full, Rosa Parks was fined $10, plus $4 in court fees. She immediately called E. D. Nixon, who, assisted by activist lawyers Clifford and Virginia Durr, had her released on bail.

Clifford Durr wanted to get the case dismissed, but E.D. Nixon saw the opportunity to use Mrs. Parks’ case as an ideal middle class, respectable plaintiff to challenge segregation. Raymond Parks didn’t agree. After much debate, she and Raymond made the difficult, courageous choice knowing they’d probably lose everything as a result (Schmitz 7).

Mrs. Parks was “a faithful member of St. Paul AME Church in Montgomery. She taught Sunday school during the 9:30 morning hour and helped prepare the Lord’s Supper during the 10:30 hour.

According to James Farmer, founder of the Congress of Racial Equality, what set Parks apart was that she had an almost “biblical quality.” “There was,” he recalled, “a strange religious glow about Rosa — a kind of humming Christian light” (Taylor 1).

Rosa and Raymond, however, were not middle class blacks. We have this myth that she's middle-class. They're not middle class. They're living in the Cleveland Courts projects when she makes her bus stand. Their income is cut in half. … She loses her job; her husband loses his job. They never find steady work in Montgomery ever again. … In fact, it takes 11 years for the Parks to post an annual income equal to what they're making in 1955. They will move to Detroit in 1957 because things are so tough in Montgomery (NPR 2).

Questioned about Mrs. Parks’s selection to be the public face in the black citizens’ challenge to the city ordinance, Claudette Colvin said that the NAACP and all the other black organizations felt Parks would be a good icon because "she was an adult. They didn't think teenagers would be reliable."

She also says Parks had the right hair and the right look.

"Her skin texture was the kind that people associate with the middle class," says Colvin. "She fit that profile."

After Colvin's arrest, she found herself shunned by parts of her community. She experienced various difficulties and became pregnant. Civil rights leaders felt she was an inappropriate symbol for a test case (Adler 1).

Released from jail, Mrs. Parks called Fred Gray, who she had had lunch with that day, and asked him to represent her. Mr. Gray called Jo Ann Robinson, a leader of The Women’s Political Council, a group of African American women who had been calling for a bus boycott. Ms. Robinson called E.D. Nixon, and they agreed to call a bus boycott for Monday, the day of Mrs. Parks’ arraignment. Along with another staff member and two students, she [Robinson] used the mimeograph machine overnight at Alabama State College to print more than 15,000 fliers. Can you imagine doing that many fliers today, let alone on 1955 technology? This was especially risky since the university was funded by the segregationist state legislature. The Women’s Political Council members met her at dawn and fanned the community with the fliers Friday morning (Schmitz 8). The fliers read: “Don’t ride the bus to work, town, to school, or any place Monday, December 5. . . . Come to a mass meeting, Monday at 7:00 P.M. at the Holt Street Baptist Church for further instruction” (Montgomery 1).

At 6 AM, E.D. Nixon phoned Rev. Ralph Abernathy of First Baptist Church and suggested pulling the pastors together that night for a meeting. Rev. Abernathy suggested that he call the newest pastor in town Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church because he had no set alliances, enemies, and had little to lose if things didn’t work out. Dr. King was reluctant at first, but eventually agreed with prodding from Rev. Abernathy. About 50 pastors met Friday night with Mrs. Parks and Ms. Robinson. They agreed to support the boycott from their pulpits on Sunday and announce a mass meeting for Monday night.

On Saturday, Mrs. Parks went to Alabama State College where she was conducting a leadership training for the NAACP. She was discouraged when only 5 students attended. She was no longer discouraged on Monday, when she and other leaders marveled at the empty buses and the streets filled with African American citizens walking to school and work. The boycott was on.

Leaders gathered Monday afternoon before the mass meeting to plan an organization to sustain the boycott effort, The Montgomery Improvement Association. Rufus Lewis was a business man and rival of E.D. Nixon’s. He did not want Nixon to lead the new organization, so he nominated his pastor, Dr. King, to lead it, arguing that he was a neutral choice (and hoping he could pull strings from behind). That is how Dr. King was drafted into movement leadership. That night, 15,000 people attended a mass meeting and new 26 year old MIA President Dr. King’s prophetic oratory inspired them to commit to the boycott (Schmitz 9-10).

“There comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression,” King explained … “There comes a time, my friends, when people get tired of being plunged across the abyss of humiliation, where they experience the bleakness of nagging despair. There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November. There comes a time” (Taylor 2).

Mrs. Parks never spoke or was consulted on strategy. Sexism and a desire to make her sound more sympathetic converted the experienced activist into a “tired seamstress” (Schmitz 10).


Works cited:

Adler, Margot. “Before Rosa Parks, There Was Claudette Colvin.” NPR. March 15, 2009. Web. < https://www.npr.org/2009/03/15/101719...

“The Montgomery Bus Boycott.” Khan Academy. Web. < https://www.khanacademy.org/humanitie...

“No Meekness Here: Meet Rosa Parks, 'Lifelong Freedom Fighter'.” NPR Books. Web. < https://www.npr.org/2015/11/29/457627...

Schmitz, Paul. “How Change Happens: The Real Story of Mrs. Rosa Parks & The Montgomery Bus Boycott.” HUFFPOST. Web.

Taylor, Justin. “5 Myths about Rosa Parks, the woman who had almost a ‘biblical quality’.” The Washington Post. December 1, 2015. Web.

The Nashville Sit-Ins, which lasted from February 13 to May 10, 1960, were among the earliest non-violent direct action campaigns in the 1960s to end racial segregation in the South. They were the first campaigns to desegregate lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee. The sit-in campaign was coordinated by the Nashville Student Movement and Nashville Christian Leadership Council, which was made up primarily of students from Fisk University, American Baptist Theological Seminary, and Tennessee State University. Diane Nash and John Lewis, who were both students at Fisk University, emerged as the major leaders of the local movement (Momodu 1).

Diane Nash would say in an interview: You know, I heard about the Little Rock story, on the radio. … I remember the Emmett Till situation really keenly, in fact, even now I can, I have a good image of that picture that appeared in Jet magazine, of him. And they made an impression. However, I had never traveled to the south at that time. And I didn't have an emotional relationship to segregation. I had – I understood the facts, and the stories, but there was not an emotional relationship. When I actually went south, and actually saw signs that said "white" and "colored" and I actually could not drink out of that water fountain, or go to that ladies' room, I had a real emotional reaction. I remember the first time it happened, was at the Tennessee State Fair. And I had a date with this, this young man. And I started to go the ladies' room. And it said, "white and colored" and I really resented that. I was outraged. So, it, it had a really emotional effect (Interview Nash 1-2).

Diane Nash was born in 1938 and raised in Chicago, away from the strong racial divisions that saw African Americans treated as second-class citizens under Jim Crow laws in the South. It wasn’t until she enrolled at the historically black Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1959 that she came face-to-face with overt discrimination.

“There were signs that said white, white-only, colored. [The] library was segregated, the public library. Parks, swimming pools, hotels, motels,” she recalls. “I was at a period where I was interested in expanding: going new places, seeing new things, meeting new people. So that felt very confined and uncomfortable.”

Among the many facilities that weren’t available to Nash and her peers were restaurants that served black customers only on a “takeout basis,” which meant they weren’t allowed to sit and eat inside. Instead, black patrons were forced to eat along the curbs and alleys of Nashville during the lunch hour (Morgan 1).

John Lewis grew up in rural Alabama on a farm in Pike County about forty or fifty miles from Montgomery in a strictly segregated world. You had the white world and the black world. Segregated school bus [unclear]. In '57, I went to Nashville to attend the American Baptist Theological Seminary to study, with my great desire to come to Atlanta to study at Morehouse but my parents couldn't afford it. I could go to the Seminary and work and so I enrolled in it (Interview Lewis 1).

I grew up about 50 miles from Montgomery. Growing up there as a young child, I tasted the bitter fruits of racism. I saw the signs that said white men, colored men; white women, colored women; white waiting, colored waiting. And I would ask my mother, my father, my grandparents, and my great-grandparents why. They would say, “That’s the way it is. Don’t go getting in trouble.”

But in 1955, at 15 years old, I heard of Dr. King, and I heard of Rosa Parks. They inspired me to get in trouble. I remember meeting Rosa Parks as a student. In 1957, I wrote Dr. King a letter and told him that I wanted to attend a little [whites-only] college 10 miles from my home—Troy State College, known today as Troy University. I submitted my application and my high-school transcript. I never heard a word from the school, so that gave me the idea that I should write Dr. King.

In the meantime, I had been accepted to a little college in Nashville, Tennessee, so I went off to school there. King heard that I was there and got in touch with me. He told me that when I was back home for spring break, to go and see him in Montgomery.

…

A young lawyer met me at the Greyhound bus station and drove me to the First Baptist Church—pastored by Ralph Abernathy—and ushered me into the office. I saw Dr. King and Reverend Abernathy standing behind a desk and was so scared that I didn’t know what to do. Dr. King said, “Are you the boy from Troy? Are you John Lewis?” And I said, “I am John Robert Lewis”—I gave my whole name. And he still called me “the boy from Troy”! He told me to go back and have a discussion with my mother and my father. He said they could lose their land; their home could be burned or bombed. But if I got the okay from them, we would file a suit against Troy State and against the state of Alabama, and I would get admitted to the school. I had a discussion with my mother and my father, and they were terribly afraid, so I continued to study in Nashville (Newkirk II 1-2).

During the school year of '58 and '59, Lewis started attending nonviolent workshops conducted by James Lawson, a student at Vanderbilt Divinity School.

Jim Lawson [Diane Nash recalled] was a very interesting person. He had been to India, and he had studied the movement, Mohandas Gandhi, in India. He also had been a conscientious objector, and had refused to fight in the Korean War. And he really is the person that brought Gandhi's philosophy and strategies of non-violence to this country. And he conducted weekly workshops, where students in Nashville, as well as some of the people who lived in the Nashville community, were really trained and educated in these philosophies, and strategies. I remember we used to role-play, and we would do things like actually sit-in, pretending we were sitting at lunch counters, in order to prepare ourselves to do that. And we would practice things such as how to protect your head from a beating, how to protect each other, if one person was taking a severe beating, we would practice other people putting their bodies in between that person and the violence. So that the violence could be more distributed and hopefully no one would get seriously injured. We would practice not striking back, if someone struck us. There were many things that I learned in those workshops, that I not only was able to put into practice at the time that we were demonstrating and so forth, but that I have used for the rest of my life (Interview Nash 3).

Lawson’s students actually ventured out to segregated stores and restaurants to do nothing more than speak with the manager when they were refused service. “Lawson graded their interactions in each simulation and sit-in, reminding them to have love and compassion for their harassers” (Diane 2).

You know, we had, after — during the workshops, we had begun what we called testing the lunch counters. We had actually sent teams of people into department store restaurants, to attempt to be served, and we had anticipated that we'd be refused, and we were. And we established the fact that we were not able to be served, and we asked to speak to the manager, and engaged him in a conversation about, why not, the fact that it really was immoral to discriminate against people because of their skin color.

…

The first time we talked to the merchants, their attitude, well, you wanted a meeting, here, we're having it. They listened to what we had to say, they very quickly said no, we can't do it, and then their attitude was like, we're busy men, we're ready for the meeting to be over. That's it, no, we can't have desegregation.

And then Christmas break had happened. And we had intended to start the demonstrations afterwards, and we hadn't really started up again. So when the students in Greensboro sat-in on February 1, we simply made plans to join their effort by sitting-in at the same chains that — that they sat-in at (Interview Nash 3-4).

We came back after the Christmas holidays and continued to have the workshops. Right after February first, second, or third we received a telephone call from students in North Carolina saying, "What can you do to support the students in Greensboro (Interview Lewis 3).

On February 13, 1960, twelve days after the Greensboro sit-ins occurred, local college students entered S.H. Kress, Woolworth’s, and McClellan stores at 12:40 p.m. in downtown Nashville. After making their purchases at the stores, the students sat-in at the lunch counters. Store owners initially refused to serve the students and closed the counters, claiming it was their “moral right” to determine whom they would or would not serve. The students continued the sit-ins over the next three months, expanding their targets to include lunch counters at the Greyhound and Trailways bus terminals, Grant’s Variety Store, Walgreens, and major Nashville department stores, Cain-Sloan and Harvey (Momodu 6).


Works cited:

“Diane Nash.” AJC. Web. https://www.ajc.com/news/national/dia....

“Interview with Diane Nash.” Eyes on the Prize Interview. Washington University Digital Gateway Texts. November 12, 1985. Web. http://digital.wustl.edu/e/eop/eopweb...

“Interview with John Lewis.” Southern Oral History Program Collection. Documenting the American South. November 20, 1973. Web. https://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/A-0073/...

Momodu, Samuel. “Nashville Sit-Ins (1960).” BlackPast.org. Web. http://www.blackpast.org/aah/nashvill....

Morgan, Thad. “How Freedom Rider Diane Nash Risked Her Life to Desegregate the South.” History. March 8, 2018. Web. https://www.history.com/news/diane-na....

Newkirk II, Vann R. “How Martin Luther King Jr. Recruited John Lewis.” The Atlantic. King Issue. Web. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...

Governor Patterson agreed to meet with John Seigenthaler, a Justice Department aide and a native of Tennessee. In the meeting, Floyd Mann, head of the state highway patrol, agreed to protect the Freedom Riders in between Birmingham. Attorney General Robert Kennedy then pressured the Greyhound bus company, which finally agreed to carry the Riders. The Freedom Riders left Birmingham on Saturday, May 20. State police promised "that a private plane would fly over the bus, and there would be a state patrol car every fifteen or twenty miles along the highway between Birmingham and Montgomery -- about ninety miles," recalled Freedom Rider John Lewis. Police protection, however, disappeared as the Freedom Riders entered the Montgomery city limits (Cozzens 5).

Jim Zwerg would recall: After we had talked it out and I was one of those chosen to go, I went back to my room and spent a lot of time reading the bible and praying. Because of what had happened in Birmingham and in Aniston, because our phones were tapped... none of us honestly expected to live through this. I called my mother and I explained to her what I was going to be doing. My mother's comment was that this would kill my father - and he had a heart condition - and she basically hung up on me. That was very hard because these were the two people who taught me to love and when I was trying to live love, they didn't understand. Now that I'm a parent and a grandparent I can understand where they were coming from a bit more. I wrote them a letter to be mailed if I died. We had a little time to pack a suitcase and then we met to go down to the bus.

As we were going from Birmingham to Montgomery, we'd look out the windows and we were kind of overwhelmed with the show of force - police cars with sub-machine guns attached to the backseats, planes going overhead... We had a real entourage accompanying us. Then, as we hit the city limits, it all just disappeared. As we pulled into the bus station a squad car pulled out - a police squad car. The police later said they knew nothing about our coming, and they did not arrive until after 20 minutes of beatings had taken place. Later we discovered that the instigator of the violence was a police sergeant who took a day off and was a member of the Klan. They knew we were coming. It was a set-up.

The idea had been that cars from the community would meet us. We'd disperse into these cars, get out into the community, and avoid the possibility of violence. And the next morning we were to come back to the station and I would use the colored services and they would go to some of the white services -- the restroom, the water fountain, etc. And then you'd get on the bus and go to the next city. It was meant to be as non-violent as possible, to avoid confrontation as much as possible.

Well, before we got off the bus, we looked out and saw the crowd. You could see things in their hands -- hammers, chains, pipes... there was some conversation about it. As we got off the bus, there was some anxiety. We started looking for the cars. But the mob had surrounded the bus station so there was no way cars could get in and we realized at that moment that we were going to get it.

There was a fellow, a reporter, with an old boom mike and he was panning the crowd. And that's when this heavy-set fellow in a white T-shirt... he had a cigar as I remember... came out and grabbed the mike and jumped on it... just smashed it... basically telling the press, "Back off! You are not going to take any pictures of this. You better stay out or you're going to get it next." You could hear crowd yelling and of course a lot of them were, "Get the ******-lover!" I was the only white guy there.

Traditionally a white man got picked out for the violence first. That gave the rest of the folks a chance to get away. I was told that several tried to get into the bus terminal. I was knocked to the ground. I remember being kicked in the spine and hearing my back crack, and the pain. I fell on my back and a foot came down on my face. The next thing I remember is waking up in the back of a vehicle and John Lewis handing me a rag to wipe my face. I passed out again and when I woke up I was in another moving vehicle with some very southern-sounding whites. I figured I'm off to get lynched. I had no idea who they were. Again, I went unconscious and I woke up in the hospital. I was informed that I had been unconscious for a day and a half. One of the nurses told me that another little crowd were going to try and lynch me. They had come within a half block of the hospital. She said that she knocked me out in case they did make it, so that I would not be aware of what was happening. I mean, those pictures that appeared in the magazines, the interview... I don't remember them at all. I do remember a class of students -- I think they were high school age, coming to visit me one time (Simkin 8-12).

Yet in the midst of that savagery, Zwerg says he had the most beautiful experience in his life. "I bowed my head," he says. "I asked God to give me the strength to remain nonviolent and to forgive the people for what they might do. It was very brief, but in that instant, I felt an overwhelming presence. I don't know how else to describe it. A peace came over me. I knew that no matter what happened to me, it was going to be OK. Whether I lived or whether I died, I felt this incredible calm" (Blake 6).

Other Freedom Riders had their recollections recorded.

The bus terminal was quiet. "And then, all of a sudden, just like magic, white people everywhere," said Freedom Rider Frederick Leonard. The Riders considered leaving by the back of the bus in hopes that the mob would not be quite as vicious. But Jim Zwerg, a white rider, bravely marched off the bus first. The other riders slipped off while the mob focused on pummeling Zwerg (Cozzens 6).

By the time the rides came along, getting arrested for demonstrating was old hat to Catherine Burks of Birmingham. As a student at Tennessee State University, she had been participating in Nashville sit-ins at movie theaters and “pray-ins” at churches.

“We would go to white people’s church on Sunday,” she said, “and some would let us in and some wouldn’t.”

She joined up with the rides in Birmingham, and she remembers dozing off because the trip was so uneventful. The Kennedy administration had negotiated with Alabama’s governor to supply the riders with escorts on the ground and in the air. But law enforcement mysteriously dropped off when the bus made it to the Montgomery city limits, turning the riders over to an awaiting mob, which was ready with pipes, chains and baseball bats.

As they stepped off the bus, [Catherine] Burks Brooks said the image that remains with her to this day is that of the young white women in the crowd “with their babies in their arms, screaming: ‘Kill them niggers. Kill them niggers’” (Colvin 7).

In Freedom Riders, she vividly recalls the assault on fellow Freedom Rider Jim Zwerg. "Some men held him while white women clawed his face with their nails. And they held up their little children --children who couldn't have been more than a couple years old -- to claw his face. I had to turn my head back because I just couldn't watch it."

A native of Piedmont, AL, William Harbour was the oldest of eight children and the first member of his family to go to college. At age 19, while a student at Tennessee State University, he had already participated in civil disobedience, traveling to Rock Hill, SC to serve jail time in solidarity with the "Rock Hill Nine" — nine students imprisoned after a lunch counter sit-in.

One of the first to exit the bus when the Nashville Movement Freedom Ride arrived at the Montgomery Greyhound Bus Station, Harbour encountered a mob of 200 people wielding lead pipes and baseball bats. Harbour survived the riot but after the end of the Freedom Rides, still faced hostility in his native Alabama. He was also one of 14 Freedom Riders expelled from Tennessee State University.

"Be best for you not to come [home]," his mother warned him in 1961. With the exception of one brief visit, he stayed away from Piedmont for the next five years (Meet 4-6).

Frederick Leonard remembered: Jim Zwerg was a white fellow from Madison, Wisconsin. He had a lot of nerve. I think that is what saved me because Jim Zwerg walked off the bus in front of us. The crowd was possessed. They couldn't believe that there was a white man who would help us. They grabbed him and pulled him into the mob. Their attention was on him. It was as if they didn't see us (Simkin 7).

The passengers were attacked by a large mob. They were dragged from the bus and beaten by men with baseball bats and lead piping. Taylor Branch, the author of Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63 (1988) wrote: "One of the men grabbed Zwerg's suitcase and smashed him in the face with it. Others slugged him to the ground, and when he was dazed beyond resistance, one man pinned Zwerg's head between his knees so that the others could take turns hitting him. As they steadily knocked out his teeth, and his face and chest were streaming blood, a few adults on the perimeter put their children on their shoulders to view the carnage." James Zwerg later argued: "There was noting particularly heroic in what I did. If you want to talk about heroism, consider the black man who probably saved my life. This man in coveralls, just off of work, happened to walk by as my beating was going on and said 'Stop beating that kid. If you want to beat someone, beat me.' And they did. He was still unconscious when I left the hospital. I don't know if he lived or died."

According to Ann Bausum: "Zwerg was denied prompt medical attention at the end of the riot on the pretext that no white ambulances were available for transport. He remained unconscious in a Montgomery hospital for two-and-a-half days after the beating and stayed hospitalized for a total of five days. Only later did doctors diagnose that his injuries included a broken back."

Some of the Freedom Riders, including seven women, ran for safety. The women approached an African-American taxicab driver and asked him to take them to the First Baptist Church. However, he was unwilling to violate Jim Crow restrictions by taking any white women. He agreed to take the five African-Americans, but the two white women, Susan Wilbur and Susan Hermann, were left on the curb. They were then attacked by the white mob.

John Seigenthaler, who was driving past, stopped and got the two women in his car. According to Raymond Arsenault, the author of Freedom Riders (2006): "Suddenly, two rough-looking men dressed in overalls blocked his path to the car door, demanding to know who the hell he was. Seigenthaler replied that he was a federal agent and that they had better not challenge his authority. Before he could say any more, a third man struck him in the back of the head with a pipe. Unconscious, he fell to the pavement, where he was kicked in the ribs by other members of the mob. Pushed under the rear bumper of the car, his battered and motionless body remained there until discovered by a reporter twenty-five minutes later."

James Zwerg, who was badly beaten-up claimed from his hospital bed: "Segregation must be stopped. It must be broken down. Those of us on the Freedom Ride will continue. No matter what happens we are dedicated to this. We will take the beatings. We are willing to accept death. We are going to keep coming until we can ride anywhere in the South" (Simkin 4-6). Interviewed later, Zwerg could not recall speaking to a news crew.

Pictures of Jim Zwerg: https://www.google.com/search?q=Freed...

The most vocal opponent of the rides was Alabama governor John Patterson, who had won election on a strong segregationist platform but had also endorsed John F. Kennedy for president. When the Freedom Riders came to his state, and even within a few blocks of the governor’s mansion in Montgomery, Patterson stood by and watched the mayhem. “We can’t act as nursemaids to agitators,” he said at the time. “You just can’t guarantee the safety of a fool, and that’s what these folks are. Just fools” (Lifson 5).

Martin Luther King, Jr. had been on a speaking tour in Chicago. Upon learning of the violence, he returned to Montgomery, where he staged a rally at Ralph Abernathy’s First Baptist Church. In his speech, King blamed Governor Patterson for “aiding and abetting the forces of violence” and called for federal intervention, declaring that “the federal government must not stand idly by while bloodthirsty mobs beat nonviolent students with impunity” …. As King spoke, a threatening white mob gathered outside. From inside the church, King called Attorney General Kennedy, who assured him that the federal government would protect those inside the church (Freedom Stanford 6).

Again Governor Patterson failed to act - and at that point Attorney General Bobby Kennedy reluctantly sent in 400 U.S. marshals, a force that was later increased to 666. The marshals (mostly deputized Treasury agents) were led by Deputy Attorney General Byron ("Whizzer") White, who met with Patterson in a long and angry conference. White carefully explained that the U.S. was not sponsoring the Freedom Riders' movement, but that the Government was determined to protect the riders' legal rights. John Patterson was having no part of such explanations. Alabama, he cried, could maintain its own law and order, and the marshals were therefore unnecessary. He even threatened to arrest the marshals if they violated any local law.

Even as White and Patterson talked, Montgomery's radio stations broadcast the news that Negroes would hold a mass meeting that night at the First Baptist Church. All day long, carloads of grim-faced whites converged on Montgomery.

That night the church was packed with 1,200 Negroes. In the basement a group of young men and women clustered together and clasped hands like a football team about to take the field. They were the Freedom Riders. Everybody say "Freedom'" ordered one of the leaders. "Freedom," said the group. "Say it again," said the leader. "Freedom!" shouted the group. "Are we together?" asked the leader. "Yes, we are together," came the reply. With that, the young Negroes filed upstairs and reappeared behind the pulpit. "Ladies and gentlemen," cried the Rev. Ralph Abernathy as the crowd screamed to its feet, "the Freedom Riders."

"Give them a Grenade." Slowly, in twos and threes, the mob started to form outside the church. Men with shirts unbuttoned to the waist sauntered down North Ripley Street, soon were almost at the steep front steps of the church. "We want to integrate too," yelled a voice. Cried another: "We'll get those ******s." A barrage of bottles burst at the feet of some curious Negroes who peered out the church door. The worst racial battle in Montgomery's history was about to begin (Simkin 7-8).

Catherine Burks described the beginning of the siege of the First Baptist Church in Montgomery by an angry segregationist mob on the following day. "I heard a rock hit the window. Some of us got up to look out the window and we got hit by more rocks. That's when a little fear came" (Meet 4).

Despite the long and obvious buildup toward trouble, only a handful of Montgomery cops were present - and they looked the other way. Into the breach moved a squad of U.S. marshals - the men Patterson had said were not needed. Contrary to Justice Department statements, the hastily deputized marshals had no riot training. They moved uncertainly to their task until a mild-looking alcohol tax unit supervisor from Florida named William D. Behen took command. "If we're going to do it, let's do it!" he yelled. "What say, shall we give them a grenade?" Whereupon Behen lobbed a tear-gas grenade into the crowd (Simkin 9). Afterward, the Federal marshals were replaced by the Alabama National Guard, who at dawn escorted the trapped Riders and church members out of the church.

After the violence at the church, Robert Kennedy asked for a cooling-off period. James Farmer had flown in to rejoin the Riders. The Freedom Riders, however, were intent on continuing. Farmer explained, "[W]e'd been cooling off for 350 years, and . . . if we cooled off any more, we'd be in a deep freeze" (Cozzens 7).

As the violence and federal intervention propelled the freedom riders to national prominence, King became one of the major spokesmen for the rides. Some activists, however, began to criticize King for his willingness to offer only moral and financial support but not his physical presence on the rides. … In response to [Diane] Nash’s direct request that King join the rides, King replied that he was on probation and could not afford another arrest, a response many of the students found unacceptable (Freedom Stanford 7).

Years later Jim Zwerg attended a reunion at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and Museum in Alabama. During a ceremony, Zwerg was walking with a crowd of Freedom Rider colleagues when he saw the famous pictures of his battered face in a video and displayed on the museum wall.

"I looked at it, and what it brings back to me more than anything else is that I got so much notoriety because I was white," he says. "I looked at that picture and I thought of all the people that never get their names in a book, never get interviewed but literally had given their lives. Who the hell am I to have my picture up there?"

He was suddenly flooded with guilt. He started bawling during the ceremony as startled people looked on. Then another Freedom Rider veteran, a strapping black man named Jim Davis, walked over to Zwerg.

Zwerg's voice trembles with emotion as he recalls what Davis said. "He said, 'Jim, you don't realize that it was your words from that hospital bed that were the call to arms for the rest of us.' "

And then, as Davis wrapped his big arms around Zwerg in front of the startled crowd, the two men cried together (Blake 7).


Works cited:

Blake, John. “Shocking photo created a hero, but not to his family.” CNN. Web. http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/05/16/Zwer...

Colvin, Rhonda. “As Trump attacks John Lewis, here’s how freedom riders broke the chains of segregation.” The Washington Post. January 15, 2017. Web. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...

Cozzens, Lisa. “Freedom Rides.” Watson.org. Web. http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhist...

“Freedom Rides.” Stanford: The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. Web. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/en...

Lifson, Amy. “Freedom Riders.” Humanities: The Magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities. May/June 2011. Web. https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2011/m...

“Meet the Players: Freedom Riders.” American Experience. Web. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexper...

Simkin, John. “Freedom Riders.” Spartacus Educational. August 2014. Web. https://spartacus-educational.com/USA...

In 1962, when civil rights organizer Albert Turner persuaded some black residents of Marion to try and register to vote, an elderly farmer named Cager Lee was one of the first in line at the courthouse.

Standing with Lee was his daughter, Viola Lee Jackson, and her son Jimmie Lee Jackson. They were not permitted to register. When Jimmie Lee Jackson saw his frail 80-year-old grandfather rudely turned away from the registrar’s office, he became angry. He knew that he must be a part of the movement for civil rights.

Years earlier, when he was a proud high school graduate of 18, Jimmie Lee Jackson had made plans to leave rural Alabama for a better life in the North. He abandoned those dreams when his father died, leaving him to run the family farm. Determined to make the most of his life, Jackson took logging work in addition to farming, and he became active in a local fraternal lodge. At age 25, he was the youngest deacon ever elected at his church.

After the incident at the courthouse, Jackson saw the chance for real change in his hometown of Marion. He wrote a letter to a federal judge protesting the treatment of black voter applicants. He attended civil rights meetings, participated in boycotts of white businesses, and joined others in marching for the right to vote (Jimmie 1-2).

On Tuesday, February 18, [1965] carloads of Alabama State Troopers led by its commander, Al Lingo, swarm into Marion, Perry County, to suppress Black defiance. SCLC project director James Orange is spotted walking on the street and is arrested for "contributing to the delinquency of minors" (by encouraging students to march around the courthouse singing freedom songs).

James Orange is immensely popular among both young and old in Perry County's Black community, and that night tiny Zion Methodist Church is packed to overflowing as word spreads of his arrest. The lockup where Orange is being held is just a block and a half away. The plan is for a short night march so they can sing freedom songs outside his cell window and then return. If the troopers block them, they plan to kneel in prayer and then go back to the church.

Albert Turner and local minister, Rev. James Dobynes, lead 400 marchers out of the church and up Pickens Street two-by-two on the sidewalk. They are halted by Lingo's troopers. Jim Clark and some of his Selma posse are also present, along with an angry mob of local whites. As planned, Dobynes kneels and begins to pray. Suddenly, all the street lights go dark. The mob savagely attacks news reporters covering the protest. Richard Valeriani of NBC is clubbed, his head bloodied. Some of the mob have come prepared with cans of spray paint they use to sabotage camera lenses. Others smash the TV lights. No photos are taken of the troopers, deputies, and possemen wading into the line of marchers with hardwood clubs and ax-handles flailing, beating men, women, and children to the ground.

SCLC field secretary Willie Bolden described his experience.

The cameras were shooting. All of a sudden we heard cameras being broken and newsmen being hit. I saw people running out of the church. ... The troopers were in there beating folks while local police were outside beating anyone who came out the door. ... A big white fella came up to me and stuck a double-barreled shotgun, cocked, in my stomach. "You're the nigger from Atlanta, aren't you? Somebody wants to see you," he said, and he took me across the street to this guy with a badge and red suspenders and chewing tobacco. "See what you caused," he said, and he spun me around, "I want you to watch this." There were people running over each other and trying to protect themselves.

One guy was running toward us. When he saw the cops he tried to make a U-turn and he ran into a local cop. They just hit him in the head and bust his head wide open. Blood spewed all over and he fell. When I tried to go to him, the sheriff pulled me back and stuck a .38 snubnose in my mouth. He cocked the hammer back and said, "What I really need to do is blow your God damned brains out, nigger." ... I was scared to death! He said, "Take this nigger to jail." So they took me, and they hit me all over the arms and legs and thighs and chin. There were others there got beaten the same. ... There were literally puddles of blood leading all the way up the stairs to the jail cell.

Albert Turner of SCLC recalled the beating and death of Reverend Dobynes.

They started beating Reverend Dobynes who was on his knees at that point praying, and they carried him to the jail by his heels. And beat him on the way to the jail. Really the public doesn't know, but Dobynes died also as a result of the beating. He did not die immediately, but he really never did recuperate from it. He died roughly a year later, but his head was severely damaged, and he just never did survive it, but nobody says that he really was murdered or killed from that... that demonstration.

Marchers desperately try to retreat to the church; many are cut off. Some of the fleeing marchers take refuge in Mack's Cafe, a small Black-owned jook joint. Among them are Cager Lee, 82, his daughter Viola Jackson, and her son, military-veteran Jimmie Lee Jackson 26. Jimmie Lee is a church deacon who has tried to register five times and has been denied each time. Troopers follow them in, smashing out the lights, over turning tables, and beating people indiscriminately. They attack Cager in the kitchen. His daughter tries to come to his aid and they knock her to the floor. Jimmie tries to protect his mother and one trooper throws him up against the cigarette machine while another [James Bonard Fowler] shoots him twice, point-blank in the stomach. They club him again and again, driving him out into the street where he collapses.

Albert Turner narrates: After shooting him then they... then they ran him out of the door of the cafe, out of the front door of the cafe. And as he run out of the door, the remaining troopers, or some of the remaining troopers, were lined up down the sidewalk back toward the church, which he had to run through a corridor of policemans standing with billy sticks. And as he ran by them they simply kept hitting him as he kept running through. And he made it back to the door of the church, and just beyond the church he fell.

A reporter encounters Jim Clark prowling the streets with some of his possemen. When asked why he's in Marion, Clark replies, "Things got a little too quiet for me over in Selma tonight. It made me nervous."

Perry County has no hospital and the local infirmary is swamped with serious injuries. An unknown number of others lie wounded in jail. The infirmary is not equipped to care for gunshot wounds, so Jimmie Lee Jackson is rushed 30 miles by ambulance to Selma in adjacent Dallas County. Since the "white" public hospital there won't treat Black protesters, he's brought to the Catholic-run Good Samaritan Hospital (Shooting 3-6).

NEW YORK: On Sunday evening, February 21st 1965, Malcolm X is assassinated in Harlem under circumstances that remain controversial to this day. His death hits the Civil Rights Movement hard. Despite tactical differences over integration and nonviolence, he is seen as a courageous and forthright Black leader in the fight against white-supremacy. John Lewis attends his funeral and later says: "I had my differences with him, of course, but there was no question that he had come to articulate better than anyone else on the scene — including Dr. King — the bitterness and frustration of Black Americans."

ALABAMA: Governor Wallace issues an unconstitutional order barring all night-time marches everywhere in the state and assigns 75 troopers under Lingo to enforce his version of "law and order" in Selma. At a rally of the Dallas County White Citizens Council, former Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett tells some 2,000 whites that they face, "... absolute extinction of all we hold dear unless we are victorious." After the shooting of Jimmie Lee Jackson and the murder of Malcolm X, hope begins to waver and the mood of Alabama Blacks turns increasingly bleak.

SELMA: Day after day, vigils for Jimmie Lee Jackson are held outside Good Samaritan, and mass meetings in Black churches around the state condemn the shooting and pray for his recovery. Despite their anguish and sorrow, grimly determined groups continue marching to the Dallas County courthouse in Selma to add their names to the appearance book. DCVL leader Amelia Boynton calls on Blacks to expand the economic boycott to all white- owned businesses as well as the city buses that still require Blacks to sit at the rear.

…

… over in "Bloody Lowndes" to the east, where no Black in living memory has been registered to vote, James Bevel, now out of the hospital, tries to stealthily infiltrate, "like Caleb and Joshua," seeking — without success — a church that will host a voting rights meeting.

LOWNDES COUNTY: Every fourth Sunday, Rev. Lorenzo Harrison of Selma preaches to tiny Mount Carmel Baptist Church in Lowndes County a few miles from Hayneville, the county seat. Word of Bevel's effort leaks back to the white power-structure and a rumor spreads among whites that Harrison intends to speak about Black voting rights. Carloads of Klansmen armed with rifles and shotguns surround the church. Members of the little congregation recognize Tom Coleman, son of the sheriff and an unpaid "special deputy," who in 1959 was known to have murdered Richard Lee Jones at a chain-gang prison camp. (Soon he will kill again.) Another is a plantation owner with 10,000 acres who had once shot to death a Black sharecropper because he seemed too happy at the prospect of being drafted out of the fields and into the Army. Mount Carmel Church has no phone they can use to call for help — few Blacks in Lowndes have telephone service and those that do suspect their calls are monitored and reported to authorities. With quiet courage, Deacon John Hulett manages to smuggle Harrison to safety.

SELMA: On Tuesday the 23rd, Al Lingo serves an arrest warrant for "assault and battery" on Jackson (Tension 1-5).

Jimmie Lee Jackson appeared to be on the way to recovery. At 9pm, [February 25] as Dr. William Dinkins recalled, Jackson was sitting up in his bed talking and in good spirits. Thirty minutes later, Dinkins received a call from the hospital that another doctor had decided Jimmie needed to undergo further surgery. Dinkins argued against it but eventually was forced to proceed. During surgery, Jackson was under a safe dose of anesthesia. Minutes later, his blood turned dark and Dr. Dinkins stated to the other doctor that Jackson should be put on 100% oxygen. Instead the doctor decided to increase the levels of anesthesia and in minutes [February 26] Jimmie Lee stopped breathing and died. Dr. Dinkins was adamant that Jimmie Lee Jackson could have survived had this second surgery not occurred (Jones 2-3).

Three days before Jackson’s death the Alabama state legislature had passed a resolution supporting the state troopers’ actions in Marion. Dodging an indictment from a grand jury, Fowler does not suffer punishment or disciplinary action. He is allowed to continue in his job.

PERRY COUNTY: Voter registration offices will be open again on Monday, March 1, and over the weekend SCLC and SNCC organizers concentrate on mobilizing Blacks in Dallas, Perry, Wilcox, Marengo, and Hale counties to honor Jimmie Lee Jackson and demand their right to vote. At a Sunday memorial service and voter registration rally in Marion, James Bevel preaches from the Book of Esther and tells the congregation: "We must go to Montgomery and see the king! Be prepared to walk to Montgomery! Be prepared to sleep on the highway!" By this he means not a march in Montgomery, but a march on the state capitol to present to Governor Wallace a demand for justice in the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson and also their call for voting rights. Old Cager Lee and Jimmie Lee's mother, Viola Jackson, bandages still covering their injuries, are ready to join him.

…

SELMA and MARION: The rain is still coming down on Wednesday, the day of Jimmie Lee Jackson's funeral. In Selma, R.B. Hudson High is practically empty as the students boycott class for his memorial service. Two thousand mourners file past the coffin in Brown Chapel where a banner reads, "Racism killed our brother." In Marion, where 400 manage to jam themselves inside Zion church for Jackson's service and 600 wait outside in the rain, Dr. King asks: "Who killed him?"

“He was murdered by the brutality of every sheriff who practiced lawlessness in the name of law. He was murdered by the irresponsibility of every politician from governors on down who has fed his constituents the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism. He was murdered by the timidity of a federal government that is willing to spend millions of dollars a day to defend freedom in Vietnam but cannot protect the rights of its citizens at home. ... And he was murdered by the cowardice of every Negro who passively accepts the evils of segregation and stands on the sidelines in the struggle for justice” (Tension 6-7).

It wasn't until 2007, 42 years after Jackson’s death, that [James] Fowler was arrested and charged with first and second degree murder. Fowler initially maintained that he had acted to defend himself, but eventually accepted a plea bargain for misdemeanor manslaughter. He received a six-month jail sentence, but served only five months and was released in July 2011 because of health problems. In 2011, the FBI began investigating Fowler’s role in the 1966 death of Nathan Johnson, another black man, who Fowler had fatally shot after he stopped Johnson for suspicion of drunk driving. Fowler died of pancreatic cancer on July 5, 2015 at the age of 81 (Jimmie Biography 4).

ATLANTA: Dr. King endorses Bevel's proposal for a march from Selma to Montgomery. But SNCC opposes the SCLC plan. They see it as a dangerous grandstand play by King that will do nothing for the local people. John Lewis disagrees, "I knew the feelings that were out there on the streets. The people of Selma were hurting. They were angry. They needed to march. It didn't matter to me who led it. They needed to march. Lewis stands alone and is outvoted. The SNCC meeting does agree that SNCC members can participate in the march as individuals, but not as SNCC representatives. SNCC sends a letter to King stating: We strongly believe that the objectives of the march do not justify the dangers ... consequently [SNCC] will only live up to those minimal commitments ... to provide radios and cars, ... and nothing beyond that (Tension 8).


Works cited:

“Jimmie Lee Jackson.” Teaching Tolerance. Web. https://www.tolerance.org/classroom-r...

“Jimmie Lee Jackson Biography.” The Biography.com. Web. https://www.biography.com/people/jimm...

Jones, Ryan M. “Who Mourns for Jimmie Lee Jackson?” National Civil Rights Museum. Web. https://www.civilrightsmuseum.org/new...

“The Shooting of Jimmie Lee Jackson.” Selma Voting Rights Campaign (Jan-Mar). Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery. Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.h...

“Tension Escalates.” Selma Voting Rights Campaign (Jan-Mar). Civil Rights Movement History 1965: Selma & the March to Montgomery. Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline. Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis65.h...