Jackson, Mississippi

“ On April 1, 1850, an advertisement appeared in the Jackson Mississippian referring to California, the Southern Slave Colony and inviting citizens of slave-holding States, wishing to go to California, to send their names, number of slaves, time of contemplated departure, etc., to the Southern Slave Colony, of Jackson, Mississippi. The design was to settle in the richest parts of the State and to secure an uninterrupted enjoyment of slave property. The colony was to comprise about 5,000 white persons and 10,000 slaves. ”

“ Now, as Jackson is the capital city of this state, a great railroad junction, and on the highroad to every civilised place from this, our feelings may be imagined, but we did not believe it possible. On the other hand we were told that General Joseph Johnston had arrived and assumed the command in Mississippi. He appears to be an officer in whom every one places unbounded confidence.
We slept at a farmhouse. All the males were absent at the war, and it is impossible to exaggerate the unfortunate condition of the women left behind in these farmhouses ”

“ The significance of the Mississippi Valley in American history was first shown in the fact that it opened to various nations visions of power in the New World—visions that sweep across the horizon of historical possibility like the luminous but unsubstantial aurora of a comet's train, portentous and fleeting. ”

“ By the 1910 census Mississippi had not one city of 25,000 inhabitants. Meridian, with 23,000, was (and probably still is) her metropolis, with Jackson and Vicksburg, cities of about 20,000 each, following. The entire State has but fifteen cities having a population of 5000 or more, so that, of a total of about a million and three-quarters of people in the State (more than half of them colored) , only about one-tenth live in towns with a population of 5000 or over. ”

“ It lies about eleven or twelve miles north-west of the old town of Cape Girardeau, on the Mississippi, and is surrounded by a hilly and fertile tract of country, at this time rapidly increasing in wealth and population. Jackson is what is called a thriving village, and contains at present more than fifty houses, which, though built of logs, seem to aspire to a degree of importance unknown to the humble dwellings of the scattered and solitary settlers, assuming an appearance of consequence and superiority similar to that we immediately distinguished in the appearance and manners of the people. ”

“ Political leaders and advisers flocked to the place. Clergymen of all denominations were received with special warmth by Mrs. Jackson. Eastern men of distinction, when traveling to the West, came to pay their respects. No foreigner who penetrated as far as the Mississippi Valley would think of returning to his native land without calling upon the picturesque figure at the Hermitage. ”

“ Among the points of interest are the remains of fortifications erected at the siege of Jackson in 1863, a Confederate monument, and a statue of Jefferson Davis. The city is in a cotton-growing section, and has considerable trade, and valuable manufactures, including cottonseed products, lumber and lumber products—staves, hubs, spokes, etc.—brooms, machinery, plows, and harrows. The government is administered, under a revised charter of 1882, by a mayor, biennially elected, and a unicameral council. Settled about 1830, Jackson was incorporated ten years later. ”

“ Jackson, the capital of the State of Mississippi, is a place of great importance. Four railroads meet here, and have been destroyed in each direction for a distance of from three to five miles. All the numerous factories have been burnt down by the enemy, who were of course justified in doing so; but during the short space of thirty-six hours, in which General Grant occupied the city, his troops had wantonly pillaged nearly all the private houses. ”

“ In March, 1817, Congress passed an enabling act for the admission of Mississippi to the Union, and the State was formally admitted December 10, 1817. The most notable features of the first Constitution of Mississippi were the high property qualifications for holding office, the short tenures of offices, and the large appointing power of the Governor and Legislature. The first Governor was David Holmes, and during his administration the capital was permanently located at Jackson, near the headwaters of the Pearl River. ”

“ A new legislature was to be elected in November, 1875, and the only hope of property holders to save their lands from confiscation was to elect a legislature composed of white men pledged to economy. The Democratic State Convention met in Jackson on August 3d, 1875, and was made up of the best men in every walk of life. ”

“ His starving troops were constantly on the verge of mutiny. The command was made up of two classes,—the militia, called into service against the Indians, and the volunteers, who had first enlisted for the expedition down the Mississippi. The militia, disheartened, started for Tennessee. Jackson drew up the volunteers across their pathway, and drove them back to camp. Then the volunteers, in their turn, prepared to move northward, and he stopped them with the militia. The mounted men were permitted to go to Huntsville to get food for their horses, and most of them went on to their homes. ”

“ Jackson, although elated over the results of the initial encounter, realized that the British had come to fight, not as a striking force similar to that of the Washington foray, but as a conquering army bent upon seizing the Mississippi Valley. When, early in the morning of December 24, there was no move by the invaders, Jackson drew his army back about two miles to a point between the McCarty and Chalmette plantations and formed a line which extended from the Mississippi River on his right to a cypress swamp on the left. ”

“ His indecent reflections upon the purity of his wife drove her family, extensive and influential, to his enemies; his intemperate tirades against Jackson alienated the dominant Democratic sentiment of the State; and while he fought boldly and bitterly to sustain himself, he failed, and, at the time of the attack on Jackson by the madman at the Capitol, was so discredited in Mississippi that he was planning to leave the{382} State, with his second wife, on the expiration of his term. A man of genius whose morals failed to sustain his mentality—such the epitaph of George Poindexter. ”

“ Mississippi was in the very heart of the Confederacy. He could not expect any sympathetic farmers to help him or show him the way. More likely as he advanced toward Jackson he would find the country swarming with the friends of the Confederacy, and to pass through them would demand the last resource of skill and courage. Perhaps it would have been wiser had he put on citizens clothes and taken his chances as a spy! He did not know that Colonel Winchester would have ordered the disguise had the one who rode on this most perilous mission been any other than he. ”

“ The State executive committee met in Jackson, August 15, and organized for the campaign, and its first act was to issue the ablest and most stirring address that ever came from such a body. The address was prepared by Gen. George, the chairman of the committee, and is a masterpiece of political literature, and closes with this appeal: "In this contest Mississippi expects each of her sons to do his duty; brace up old age to one more [Pg 194] effort, nerve, manhood, to put forth all its strength, and invite youth to its noblest enthusiasm." ”

“ Twenty-four thousand five hundred and ninety-four were removed west of the Mississippi, only 744 remaining on their old hunting-grounds. At the breaking out of the civil war the western Creeks numbered less that 15,000. The tribe divided and engaged in pitched battles against each other, the Unionists suffering badly, many fleeing to Kansas. They were brought together again after the war, and in 1872 numbered 13,000, on a reservation of over 3,000,000 acres in the Indian Territory. ”

“ Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, seriously felt the migration. The majority of the "lower middle class" of negroes, twenty-five per cent of the business men and fully one-third of the professional men left the city—in all between 2,000 and 5,000. Two of the largest churches lost their pastors and about 200 of each of their memberships. Other churches suffered a decrease of forty per cent in their communicants. Two-thirds of the remaining families in Jackson are part families with relatives who have recently migrated to the North. ”

“ The struggle was begun by a well attended mass-meeting of leading men from every county in the State. Lawyers left their books, doctors their patients, preachers their sermons, merchants their stores, and farmers their fields, and formed themselves into a mighty force for the overthrow of misrule. These brave and determined men met together at the State capitol in Jackson, Jan. 4th, 1875, and organized what is known to history as the Taxpayers' Convention of Mississippi. ”

“ Summary.—Andrew Jackson of North Carolina gained a great victory over the Indians in Alabama and also in Florida. In 1815, in our second war with England, General Jackson whipped the British at New Orleans, and so prevented their getting possession of that city. A few years later we bought Florida of Spain.
After General Jackson became President of the United States the first steam-railroad was built in this country. Railroads helped to settle the west and build up states beyond the Mississippi. ”

“ Not long afterward he was sent at the head of an army, with the rank of major-general, to defend New Orleans against an attack of the British who hoped to get control of the lower Mississippi and all the southern part of what was then known as the Louisiana Territory. When Jackson went down to New Orleans he was in such extremely poor health that he was hardly able to sit on his horse. Nevertheless he worked night and day with unflagging energy, arming his men and encouraging them to meet the over-confident British foe. ”

“ The first state constitution (1817) provided a high property qualification for governor, senator and representative, and empowered the legislature to elect the judges and the more important state officials. In 1822 the capital was removed to Jackson from Columbia, Marion county. [4] The constitution of 1832 abolished the property qualification for holding office and provided for the popular election of judges and state officials. Mississippi thus became one of the first states in the Union to establish an elective judiciary. ”

“ It will place a dense and civilized population in large tracts of country now occupied by a few savage hunters. By opening the whole territory between Tennessee on the north and Louisiana on the south to the settlement of the whites it will incalculably strengthen the south west frontier and render the adjacent States strong enough to repel future invasions without remote aid. It will relieve the whole State of Mississippi and the western part of Alabama of Indian occupancy, and enable those States to advance rapidly in population, wealth, and power. ”

“ If it be their real interest to maintain a separate existence, they will there be at liberty to do so without the inconveniences and vexations to which they would unavoidably have been subject in Alabama and Mississippi. ”

“ The situation was most critical in Mississippi. General Grant's army was thrown between Jackson and Vicksburg, holding the railroad at Clinton, where McPherson's corps was encamped. Sherman's corps was between Jackson and Raymond, McClernand's in supporting distance. General Pemberton, with 17,000 men, was at Edwards depot and marching to give battle. General Johnston did not have exceeding 6,000 men in and about Jackson. The three corps of General Grant numbered about 45,000 effectives. ”

“ The open pine forests of southern Mississippi obstruct the breeze, while affording no protection from the sun, whose rays are intensified by reflection from the white, sandy soil. Jackson reached, I stopped for an hour to see the Governor of Mississippi, Clarke, an old acquaintance, and give instructions to Brigadier Wirt Adams, the local commander; then took rail to Meridian, eighty miles, where I found the records of the department left by General Polk, as well as several officers of the general staff. ”

“ The left bank of the river was opened with less formal resistance, admitting Kentucky and Tennessee before the Indian Shore was a safe habitation for whites. South of Tennessee lay the great southern confederacies, somewhat out of the line of early western progress, and hence not plunged into struggles until the War of 1812 was over. But as Wayne18 and Harrison had opened the Northwest, so Jackson cleared the way for white advance into Alabama and Mississippi. By 1821 new states touched the Mississippi River along its whole course between New Orleans and the lead mines of upper Illinois. ”

“ While the transfer of economic power from the Seaboard South to the Cotton Kingdom of the lower Mississippi Valley was in progress, the upper Mississippi Valley was leaping forward, partly under the stimulus of a market for its surplus in the plantations of the South, where almost exclusive cultivation of the great staples resulted in a lack of foodstuffs and livestock. ”

“ He was also able to assist in Missouri in raising the first colored regiment in that State, and returned to Mississippi in 1864, settling in Vicksburg, where he had charge of a church congregation, and assisted in organizing other churches, and in forming and putting into operation the school system, visiting various portions of the State on his own responsibility, and among other places, preaching in Jackson. ”