CRITICAL RACE THEORY: The Civil War PART THREE

PART THREE

Excerpts From A Novel By Eugene Stovall

Oakland, California July, 2022?

Episode Seven: Kansas Vigilantes

New England bankers hire gamblers, mercenaries and slave catchers to seize land in Kansas. Vigilante committees, pledged to slaveholding interests, allow only homesteaders who are ‘sound on the goose’ to immigrate into Kansas. Vigilantes oppose the emigrant and the anti-slavery societies of Massachusetts and New York who sponsor the influx of white homesteaders into Kansas. At issue is whether Kansas will be admitted into the union as a free state for white free-soil homesteaders or as a slave state adding to the growing slave owning empire. ??

The paddle wheel riverboat, River Maiden, steams towards Leavenworth. The Kansas port city is a hub for river traffic to Lawrence, Kansas City and St. Louis. Aboard the paddlewheeler, General Ethan Allen Hitchcock escorts a party of one hundred white free state homesteaders to claim land in Kansas. Though the Massachusetts Emigrant and the New York Anti-Slavery societies do not settle ‘free’ Negroes on free soil in the west, Hitchcock’s party includes ?Ellen Collins Ingraham, Shields Green and Frank Yerby. If he is to disrupt plans to make Kansas a slave state, Hitchcock need spies that he can trust and Negroes can be depended on to serve white folks interests.

“This seems to be a roundabout way to get Lawrence,” Yerby observes. “Wouldn’t the railroad have been more direct?”

“This is the only way we can get into Kansas,” Hitchcock responds. “Vigilantes prevent anyone suspected of being a ‘free stater’ from entering Kansas, unmolested. And the railroads are always being searched.”

Ellen does not mind traveling by riverboat. After her last experience, railroad travel is the last thing that she wants. The gentle rocking of the River Maiden against the current has been therapeutic. She sleeps peacefully throughout the night for the first time in years.

?“Howdy, folks!” Shields Green joins Hitchcock and the others in the third-class section, where whites and Negroes are allowed to intermingle.?

“Hello, Shields,” Ellen replies affectionately. “Where have you been?” Ellen always feels safe when Shields is with her, the way she feels with Wes and Ruby ___ like family.

“Been talkin’ to some of the boys down at the boilers,” Shields says. “They say dat when this here boat stops at Leavenworth, men come on board and take some of de passengers off. No body ‘loud to travel up to Lawrence without permission.”

“Which passengers?” Hitchcock asks.

“Dey says that its mainly northerners. Don’t want no mo’ abolitionists in Lawrence.”

“The army officers aboard told me the same thing,” Hitchcock remarks. “This isn’t good.”

“Why?” Ellen asks.

“Because the army is now allowing vigilantes to block access to Kansas from the river.” Hitchcock’s eyebrows knot up. “Doesn’t the government protect homesteaders?”

?“The Fugitive Slave Law allows local vigilance committees to prevent ?anyone they choose from entering Kansas.” As the River Maiden paddles toward Leavenworth, Hitchcock sees that the slave masters have plugged another entry free soilers into enter Kansas. “Look there,” he whispers pointing to the shore opposite the Leavenworth docks. “A battery of artillery.”

“What does that mean?” Yerby says.

“It means that no riverboat can paddle upriver without permission from Leavenworth’s vigilance committe.” Hitchcock frowns. “It also means that we’re going to be boarded.”

?Even as Hitchcock speaks, the River Maiden’s paddle wheel begins to slow and the triple-decker angles towards Leavenworth’s docks. “I’m going up to the first-class section,” Hitchcock says. “My presence must be kept strictly confidential. Is that understood? Strictly confidential!” With that the general fairly skips up the stairs to the first-class section to join a coterie of army officers bound for Fort Leavenworth.

Even before the River Maiden completes its docking and its massive paddlewheel ceases rotating, a party of armed men, dressed in every imaginable costume, including Indian feathers, clamor up the gangway and, ignoring the upper deck’s first class section, swarm all over the lower decks.

“All second class and third class passengers on deck!” shouts the bearded vigilante in charge of the boarding party. “Ladies and gentlemen, for those traveling to Kansas City and on to St. Louis, we regret this interruption. But you are free to disembark and be on your way.” Davy Atchison slaps a short riding quirt to his side. “We understand that a group of troublemakers sent by abolitionists in Boston and New York are on this boat. As representatives of the Leavenworth Vigilance Committee, we don’t rightly intend to let them continue.” Then addressing his men, Davy Atchison shouts, “Search everyone!” The boarding party rudely handle passengers as well as their bags and rummage through cabins and sleeping areas, taking anything that belongs the homesteaders. They pitch the homesteaders’ possessions off the riverboat and onto the wharf where slaves retrieve and haul the belongings away.

“I have the names of the troublemakers on this boat,” Davy Atchison continues. “When I call your name, if you would please disembark, it will be a lot easier for all of us.” Atchison’s list includes?all of Hitchcock’s recruits.

?“…Ellen Ingraham …Shields Green …,” Atchison drawls out the last two names. Frank Yerby’s name is not on the list, but nonetheless, he follows after the others.

Episode Eight: Leavenworth Kansas

The town of Leavenworth is little more than a collection of shanties, tents and lean-tos where the dregs of humanity move from Leavenworth’s docks. In 1827, Colonel Henry Leavenworth established a fort on the Missouri River to protect white settlers passing through the Indian lands over the Santa Fe Trail. Now Fort Leavenworth houses an army regiment to protect whites flooding into the Kansas territory to steal Indian land. Atkinson marches the free soil captives up to Leavenworth’s muddy flats that serve as the town’s main street. Dilapidated and ill-kept buildings facing waterfront line Leavenworth’s main street known as Gamblers Row. However, surrounded by shanties and clapboard shacks is a spacious, well-built three story hotel with a great sign hanging above the swinging doors, A. B. MILLER.?

Like moths drawn to a flame, A.B. MILLER, hotel, saloon and casino draws everyone entering Leavenworth through its doors. Operating day and night A.B. MLLER satisfies whatever vice the degenerates flocking to Leavenworth might have. Day and night, ruffians, bushwhackers and slave catchers guzzle rotgut whiskey and gamble at crooked roulette, faro and poker tables. But at A.B. MILLER, the ‘house’ always wins. And upstairs, if they have anything left, patrons can be fleeced by ladies of the evening before being pitched out or recruited into Davy Atkinson’s vigilante gang.

Leading them up from the docks, the vigilantes force their captives to climb down into a shallow pit, sectioned off by empty packing crates and bordered by a high wooden wall in front of AB MILLER. Standing ankle-deep in mud and filth, with their bags and belongings stacked in front, Atkinson humiliates the homesteaders, confiscating their weapons and stealing everything of value. Afterwards Atkinson allows his vigilantes to pick through the leavings. Leering at the ‘free soilers’ trapped in the pit, the crowd of coarse, grubby-looking men converge on the booty. After their possessions have been rifled, Davy Atkinson bawls out. “You’all kin git outa that pit and git.” He and his gang laugh, as the free soilers, slipping and falling back into the mud struggle to get out of the pit.??“Don’t ya’ll come back this way or try to get into Kansas agin, you heah,” Atkinson warns, “else we’ll skin you’all, alive.”

Without money or weapons, the homesteaders mill about trying to decide what to do next. Tom Boone, dripping with mud, tries to recover what is left of his belongings and his pride. ?“I don’t know about you,” he announces with determination, “but I, for one, intend to continue on to Lawrence.

From her private office, in A.B. MILLER hotel, Louise Collins peers through her binoculars to examine the ‘free soilers’ crawling out of the pit in front of A.B. MILLER..Well if that don’t beat all, Louise murmurs out loud. She adjusts her binoculars to get a better look. Blinking at what cannot believe, her heart beats just a little quicker. That can’t be her, Louise tells herself. But as the muddy, bedraggled figure huddles with the others fresh off the River Maiden, Louise knows that she is staring at the woman she hates more than anyone else in the world, her mother’s killer, Ellen Collins Ingraham.?

Episode Nine: The Spy Who Loved Hate

Boston’s Brahmins own the banks, Wall Street, most of America’s industrial and agricultural capacity se masand even the government, itself. These masters of capitalism own most of Kansas and all of Leavenworth, including A.B. MILLER hotel. Through the Democratic Party, the Brahmins provide alcohol, gambling tables and prostitutes to A.B. MILLER and men and weapons to Leavenworth’s vigilance committee. The Boston Brahmins who hold the mortgages on most of the Southern plantations, keep free soil homesteaders out of Kansas to further their empire-building interests as articulated by Leavenworth’s King Solomon Masonic Lodge #10, York Rite that meets at A.B. MILLER hotel.

Attorney General of the United States, Caleb Cushing, not only oversees the Boston Brahmin’s far flung banking interests, he personally directs the Democratic Party’s effort to bring Kansas into the union as a slave state. Cushing has a telegraph office installed in Leavenworth that connects directly to the Attorney General’s office in Washington, D.C. Louise Collins is the manager of A.B. MILLER hotel, the Democratic Party representative for the Kansas territory and a member of the Attorney General’s staff.?

After her mother’s death Louise Collins, graduates from the Boston Public Schools and decides to enter politics. She writes to Chief Justice Roger Taney, praising him for his Dred Scott decision, to recount how she lost her mother to a fugitive slave. “If you wish to serve your country in a political capacity,” Taney responds, “contact Attorney General, Caleb Cushing.” Cushing and Taney are not only close friends; they are fellow masons.

Never before had Caleb Cushing met a woman like Louise Collins. From the start the precocious teenager becomes Cushing’s mistress. Utilizing the teenagers’ love for hate, the middle aged Democrat teaches Louise the dark side of Machiavellian politics. She learns to lie, betray and eliminate political rivals. Louise became Cushing’s political operative, acquiring and passing on information about the vices, gambling, drinking and sexual perversions of everyone Cushing wanted to control or destroy. When Louise was ready, Cushing sent her to Kansas.

“We want Kansas to come into the union as a slave state,” the thirty-three degree Masonic grand master tells his mistress. “Your job is to prevent free soil homesteaders from entering the Kansas territory by any means necessary, Do you think you can do that?”

“You trained me, didn’t you,” Louise teases. ?“I won’t let you down, Sugar Lamb.”

“John Quitman is sending his protégé, William Quantrill of Kentucky to Kansas,” Cushing continues. “. I’m appointing both of you federal agents with equal authority.” Cushing gives Louise a wink. “I expect that you will have no difficulty keeping young Billy Quantrill under control.”

“Bring Davy Atchison up here,” Louise calls out.

“Yes ma’m?” the bearded vigilante says pushing into Louise’s private office. ?“Who’s that woman standing in the pit with the other nigger lovers?”

?Atchison looks over his lists. “That’s Ellen Ingraham,” he announces.?

Louise’s face lights up and she grins from ear to ear. Going over to her desk, she scribbles a short note. Ellen Collins here. Please advise. Louise. “Send this message, priority and secret, to Mr. Cushing’s office,” she instructs Atchison. “Bring me his reply as soon as you receive it.”

“Yes ma’m,” Atchison replies.

Louise turns tp look at the figure slumped on the sofa in the corner. “Well, Billy boy, my prayers have been answered.”

“Honey, you ain’t never been no prayin’ lady!” the Kentuckian replies.

“I prayed to get my hands on that woman, Lover Boy. And now I’ve got her!”

“Got who, hon?”

“Ellen Ingraham, my nigger aunt,” Louise says. “She’s in that party of nigger lovin’ free soilers that Davy took off the River Maiden.”

“Ellen Ingraham?” Billy whistles, “That aunt that had your mother killed by those abolitionists?”

“The very one,” Louise hisses. “Now that I’ve got her, she’s going to pay!”

“Are you going to tell Caleb?”

“Course, doll-baby,” Louise replies. “Sent the telegraph just now. We should hear from him soon.” And the pain I suffered from losing my mother is nothing compared to what I’m gonna do to Ellen Collins, she tells herself. “If Caleb turns her over to me,” Louise muses, “I’m gonna let our boys have some fun with her awhile. Then I’m gonna have her work upstairs, until nobody wants her any more. Then I’m going to throw her out into the street until she begs me to shoot her. Before I’m finished with her that nigger gonna wish she was back on her father’s Collinswood Mississippi plantation.”

The thought of Ellen’s being raped by the scum of Leavenworth and then made to work in MILLER’s brothel arouses Louise’s passions. She goes over to Billy and starts playing with his hair. “Caleb’s smart,” she continues. “His plan to stop all them nigger lovin’ free soilers is pure genius. Not only are we turning the nigger lovers around and heading them back to where they came from, but we take enough loot off these clod-hoppers to make a profit.”

“A profit!” Quantrill laughs. “I’ll say we’re making a profit, especially since these good ole boys keep bringing everything they get right back here.” Billy looks longingly at Louise. “Let ’s go upstairs,” he says.

Louise shakes her head. “I told you. I’m waiting for Caleb’s reply. You don’t want Davy comin’ upstairs and disturbing us, do you?”

Louise drives Billy wild, but he knows that she’s right. So he decides to pump her for more information. Billy doesn’t feel right about spying on the woman he loves, but needs something. Governor Quitman likes to know everything Louise and the Attorney General are planning.So Billy says, “Davy found Sharp’s rifles on those nigger lovers, today,”.

“What are you talkin’ about, Honey Lamb?” Louise reply is coy.

“I’m saying that Caleb’s people are supplying the abolitionists with Sharp’s rifles.” Billy uses a plain spoken approach. “And cannon parts, too. And I want to know why.”

“Caleb is sending rifles?” Louise is evasive. “I don’t know anything about Caleb sending rifles to Lawrence.” Billy knows she is lying.

“We’ve been taking Sharps rifle off homesteaders from Massachusetts for some time,” Billy repeats.

“Sharp’s rifles?” Louise wrinkes her forehead. “What are they, Honey Lamb.”

“A Sharps repeating rifle is about the best rifle in the country,” Billy asserts. “The Sharp’s rifle can fire as fast as ?you can cock, insert a bullet into the breech and pull the trigger,” Billy explains, patiently. “A man armed with a Sharp’s rifle can hold off twenty men or more.”

But it wasn’t Caleb Cushing but the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s brother, who was providing Sharp’s repeating rifles to the homesteaders coming into Kansas.The Massachusetts Emigrant Society began calling the homesteader’s Sharps rifles, Beecher’s bibles.?

?“Well, doll, you said it yourself,” Louise purrs. “It’s like those nigger-lovin’ abolitionists are hand-delivering those Sharp’s rifles directly to us, except they can’t be traced.”

“So you’re saying that if the government wants to know where the Sharp’s rifles went, the records say they went to Lawrence?” Billy asks.

“That’s right, Honey Lamb,” Louise says. “Besides you can’t have a war if only one side is doing the shootin’, now can you?”

Quantrill laughs. “You got me there.” he admits. ?

“You men only think about fighting,” Louise smiles. “You need to think more about winning” Picking up the binoculars once more, she returns to the window to stare at Ellen. “Assassinations are so much more interesting than fighting,” Louise muses, remembering her first and only meeting with President Zachery Taylor. After eating poisoned cherries, the president suffered four days before he died. Just then cames a knock at the door. Davy hurries in and hands Louise a telegraph message.

“Interesting …” she muses.

“Well …” Quantrill asks.

“Caleb wants me to let Aunt Ellen and the other nigger lovers to continue on to Lawrence.”?

“He wants them to go to Lawrence!” Billy shouts. Now I’ve really something to tell Governor Quitman, he tells himself..

“And Caleb wants me to go to Lawrence with her,” Louise continues. “He wants me to report on all the free-soil activity.” Louise gives Billy a pensive look. “Go tell Davy to put all the passengers back on the River Maiden and let them continue on their way to Lawrence.”

“What about their belongings?” Quantrill asks. “The boys ain’t going to like losing their share of the loot.”

“Tell Davy to give back their money and their belongings,” Louise instructs Billy, “I’ll pay the boys their shares.” Billy slowly shakes his head.?“Besides which,” Louise reminds him, “we’ll win it all back tonight.” With that she breaks out into a merry laugh. “And when you get back, Billyboy, you come upstairs. We’ve got a lot to do before I leave for Lawrence.”

?

[to be continued]

?

??CopyrightEugeneStovallJune14,2022 all rights reserved