Ironic or Predictable?
Is it ironic (or predictable) that the southern states who seceded from the Union claiming "states' rights" as the rationale, immediately conceded those rights to a centralized Confederate government?
See: This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy by Matthew Karp. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press (2016).
North Carolina Civil War Refugees
It appears both Union and Confederate governments failed to anticipate the North Carolina refugee problems caused by the Civil War (estimated 250,000 to 1 million displaced people). Categories of refugees include:
1. Enslaved African Americans who fled to liberty within Union lines.
2. White Unionists who escaped to Union lines from eastern North Carolina (including the Piedmont).
3. Pro-Confederate whites who fled from the Union army into the Confederate interior.
4. Enslaved African Americans whose "owners" forcibly moved them away from Union lines and into the Confederate interior.
5. Female boarding schools where many pro-Confederate southerners sent their daughters during the Civil War.
Interesting reading: Driven from Home: North Carolina's Civil War Refugee Crisis, by David Silkenat. Athens: University of Georgia Press (2016).
Testimony of Dr. Nathaniel Moore Roan, M.D.
__________
Bench Warrant Cases Before Judge Pearson
Fourth Day, August 20, 1870
State vs. F. A. Wiley et al, charged with the murder of John W. Stephens
In Response to Questions by Prosecutor
Dr. Roan was sworn and testified; gave a description of the Court House building of Caswell, position of the various rooms and surroundings. Resides in Yanceyville, is one of the County Commissioners, was in Yanceyville on the day Stephens was said to have been murdered; went into the room with the jury of inquest on Sunday morning; saw the body; there was a small grass rope, nine feet long, doubled, drawn tightly round the neck with a noose; there were three stabs, one on each side of the windpipe and one in the breast. Saw the knife said to have been found near the body, it was nearly new, double-bladed, the largest blade about three inches long.
The body was drawn up, the knees toward the breast, placed in a gap in a pile of wood at the end of the room, as if it had been pushed down there, head resting back on the wood, the side toward the wall.
Has no doubt the murder was committed in the room; saw blood on the wood and on the wall as if it spirted on them. Saw blood on the window sill and a box under the window, and one drop which appeared brighter than the rest on the granite foundation. There was no blood on the floor except near where the body was found.
In Response to Cross Examination Questions by Defense
Am a County Commissioner, was applied to about 9 or 10 o'clock on Saturday night by Thomas Stephens and a colored man named Cook for permission to search the Court House for Stephens, gave the permission and went with them; there were a large number of persons about the Court House, especially near the room in which the body was afterwards found, mostly inside the iron fence, but some were outside.
In searching, thinks they went first to the Court room, not certain as to that; also looked through the rooms below, except the rooms of the Clark and Master [in Equity], and two others occupied as law offices.
Tom and Henry Stephens and Mr. Groom were in the company. When they came to the [room of the Clerk and Master in Equity] the Stephenses looked in at the windows by standing on a box which he had brought and placed for the purpose -- looking in at both windows by aid of candles. Saw no blood that night on the window; the box was brought some 30 or 40 feet; heard no one speak of seeing any blood; left the box under one of the windows.
Went back about 8 o'clock next morning, then saw blood on window sill and on the box, and the drop on the granite foundation; this was at the north window where the box had been left. The windows were down the night before, don't know whether they were fast, they are usually fastened by a stick over them. --- Was not present when the room was first entered on Sunday morning, went in with the jury soon after; saw no key.
Question by Defense: Have you been arrested about this affair? Objected to [and apparently not answered].
In Response to Questions by Chief Justice Pearson
The blood on the window sill seemed to have been left by the pressure of some bloody object, as a hand or foot, and the same of that on the box. Don't think the body could have been seen from the window.
In Response to Direct Examination by Prosecutor Resumed
We made no examination at the South window because of its height, some 7 or 8 feet from the ground -- it was Thomas Stephens and the negro Cook who asked permission to search the Court House, and I went with them.
In Response to Question by Justice Dick
The granite would not absorb the blood as readily as the wood, which may account for the fresh appearance of the drop of blood on the stone, but feels certain that the blood fell there in an uncongealed state; it struck the edge of the stone and divided, a part trickling down the face of the stone; thinks the action of the atmosphere would change the color of the blood more than anything else.
Source: Raleigh Sentinel (Raleigh, NC).
Bank of Yanceyville Civil War Note
For much of its history, the Bank of Yanceyville had its distinctive banknotes printed by northern companies, including in New York and Philadelphia. When the bank depleted its stock of more elaborate notes is not known. However, below is an example of what has been described as an "emergency Civil War note." It is dated May 1, 186_.
This note is rare (and expensive).
Based upon the confessions of Felix Roan in 1891 and John Green Lea in 1919, the following men participated in the 1870 killing of NC State Senator John Walter Stephens:
Denny, James G. (Jim) (born c.1847)
Fowler, Joseph Robert (Joe) (born c. 1844)
Lea, John Green (1843-1935)
Mitchell, James Thomas (1828-1898)
Morgan, Pinkney Kerr (Pink) (c.1849-1930)
Oliver, James Thomas (Tom) (c.1843-1883)
Richmond, Dr. Stephen Tribue (1824-1878)
Roan, Felix (1837-1891)
Wiley, Franklin A. (1825-1888)
All purportedly were members of the Caswell County Ku Klux Klan, which had "tried" Stephens in absentia, found him guilty, and sentenced him to death.
Here is a portion of the 1819 John Green Lea confession [paragraph breaks added]:
"Stevens was tried by the Ku Klux Klan and sentenced to death. He had a fair trial before a jury of twelve men. At a democratic convention he approached ex-sheriff Wiley and tried to get him to run on the republican ticket for sheriff. Wiley said he would let him know that day. He [Wiley] came to me and informed me of that fact and suggested that he would fool him into that room in which he was killed. He did so and ten or twelve men went into the room and he was found dead next morning. A democratic convention was in session in the court room on the second floor of the courthouse in Yanceyville, to nominate county officers and members of the Legislature. Mr. Wiley, who was in the convention, brought Stevens down to a rear room on the ground floor, then used for the storage of wood for the courthouse.
"I had ordered all the Ku Klux Klan in the county to meet at Yanceyville that day, with their uniforms under their saddles, and they were present. Mr. Wiley came to me and suggested that it would be a better plan, as Stevens had approached him to run on the republican ticket for sheriff and he had told him that he would let him know that day, to fool him down stairs, and so just before the convention closed, Wiley beckoned to Stevens and carried him down stairs, and Captain Mitchell, James Denny and Joe Fowler went into the room and Wiley came out. Mitchell proceeded to disarm him (he had three pistols on his body). He soon came out and left Jim Denny with a pistol at his head and went to Wiley and told him that he couldn't kill him himself Wiley came to me and said, "You must do something; I am exposed unless you do." Immediately I rushed into the room with eight or ten men, found him sitting flat on the floor. He arose and approached me and we went and sat down where the wood had been taken away, in an opening in the wood on the wood-pile, and he asked me not to let them kill him.
"Captain Mitchell rushed at him with a rope, drew it around his neck, put his feet against his chest and by that time about a half dozen men rushed up: Tom Oliver, Pink Morgan, Dr. Richmond and Joe Fowler. Stevens was then stabbed in the breast and also in the neck by Tom Oliver, and the knife was thrown at his feet and the rope left around his neck. We all came out, closed the door and locked it on the outside and took the key and threw it into County Line Creek."
__________
While Felix Roan purportedly confessed to participating in the killing of John Walter Stephens and was arrested in connection with the event, he is not listed as a killer by John G. Lea.
vs.
L. Fels
This 1870 lawsuit is interesting in several respects:
1. The defendant is former Yanceyville merchant and postmaster Lazarus Fels (1815-1894) of Fels Naptha Soap fame.
2. Fels no longer lived in North Carolina but apparently owned property there. He moved to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1866.
3. George Williamson and W. E. (most likely Weldon Edwards) Williamson were suing to collect $300 from Fels for slaves "hired" by Fels (and apparently owned by the Williamsons or the person the Williamsons represented).
4. The lawsuit was brought to enforce a contract with respect to people no longer enslaved. Would not such an action be against public policy under the 13th Amendment?
5. Was property owned by Lazarus Fels in North Carolina (most likely in Caswell County) seized and sold to pay the alleged $300 debt.
6. Why did Fels "hire" ("lease/rent") slaves from the Williamsons (or the person represented by them)? How many enslaved people were involved?
7. Note the debt apparently became due December 25, 1865. Why did it take over four years for the lawsuit to be brought? Presumably, the legal chaos immediately following the Civil War contributed to this delay.
__________
The Greensboro Patriot (Greensboro, NC), 24 March 1870.
,%2024%20March%201870%20(2).jpg)
