Hessian John: 19Th Century Railroad Surgeon 1865-1875

Contents

Overview of

the Hessian John Series

Overview—Spanning the American Continent

Preface

1.   Reconstruction in Mississippi

2.   Lindenbaum, Dumbarton, and Hurricane

3.   Surgeon General Joe Barnes

4.   Joe Davis vs. Colonel Thomas

5.   Decisions

6.   New York City and Europe

7.   Impressment

8.   Die Schlact bei Königgrätz [The Battle of Koeniggratz]

9.   Medical Prisoners

10.   Back to Mississippi

11.   Farewell to Joe Davis

12.   Union Pacific Railroad Work

13.   The Superflood of ’67

14.   Union Pacific—Spring 1867

15.   Surveying

16.   Julesburg Again

17.   Visit to Sheep Mountain

18.   Across Wyoming Territory

19.   1868 Treaties

20.   Grant’s Trip to Rail’s End

21.   Rawlins and Rock Springs

22.   Grant’s 1868 Election

23.   The Wasatch Mountains

24.   The Golden Spike Ceremony

25.   Bruce McCorkle

26.   The Comstock Lode

27.   Jake Snavely

28.   Railroads and Brothers

29.   1870-’71

30.   President Grant’s Troubles

31.   Brother Christian

32.   Panic of 1873

33.   Advances in 1870s Medicine

34.   Our New York City Trip

Appendix—U.S. Indian Policy and Treaties

Special thanks go to online and archival sources, personal journals, U.S. History authors, and Wikipedia contributing authors, as well as others who provided confirmatory names and dates in the framework of

19th Century History.

This book is dedicated to my grandchildren Sara, John, Cole, and Tahlia, and to thousands of other young people who will wish to understand the history of this great nation and of the many soldiers, pioneers, and ordinary people who served to make it great.

Overview of

the Hessian John Series

My great-great uncle, Johannes Walbrecht came to America in 1841 where he later served as an army surgeon in the Mexican war, on the Oregon Trail, and in the Civil War. For readers who’ve not read books 1, 2, and 3, please read them to meet characters previously introduced. Some of those characters continue in Book 4 and into the final part of this series, Book 5.

Characters introduced earlier:

Johannes Walbrecht: Army Surgeon (Also called H.J. or Johnny)

Horst von Biebertal: Hessian Land Baron

Albert von Biebertal: Horst’s Younger Brother

Konried Vandemeer: Dutch Ship Captain

Antonio Silva: Portuguese Ship Captain

Joseph Davis: Hurricane Plantation Owner

George Turner: Neighbor and Army Surgeon

Omus McCorkle: Neighbor and H.J.’s Grandfather-in-Law

Robert and Bruce McCorkle: Omus’ Sons

Benjamin Montgomery: Hurricane Plantation Supervisor

Leone: Dumbarton Plantation Keeper

Kizzi and To-To Chapman: Lindenbaum Plantation Keepers

Jake Snavely: Oregon Trail Story Teller

Patrick and Briget Rivers: Tennessee-Irish Whiskey Maker

Shannon (Rivers) McCorkle: Wife of Bruce McCorkle

Red Sky in Morning: Arapaho Chief near Laramie

Wilhelm Stempfel: Hessian Horse Meister

Viktoria (Stempfel) Walbrecht: 2nd Wife of Johannes

Kristi and Kati: Twin Daughters of Johannes and Viktoria

Sally, Ian, and Lauralee: Wife and Children of Robert McCorkle

Isabelle, Patrick and Bridey; Children of Bruce and Shannon

Senior Officers:

General Ulysses Grant: Commander of U.S. Army

Lt. General Bill Sherman: Trans-Mississippi District Commander

Lt. General Nate Forrest: Former Confederate Cavalry Commander

Colonel Samuel Thomas: Mississippi Reconstruction Bureau Assistant Commissioner

Other Persons:

Mildred Watts; Confederate Spy Conduit in Washington

Rupert Bellows: Jupiter Manager of Rice Carter’s Plantation

Characters in Book 4

Central Characters:

H.J. (Johnny): Doctor Johannes Walbrecht

Colonel Samuel Thomas: Mississippi Reconstruction Bureau Chief

Major General Oliver Otis Howard: Reconstruction Commissioner

Kizzi and Leone: Plantation Keepers

Joe Davis: Hurricane Plantation Owner

Ben Montgomery: Hurricane Plantation Supervisor

Major General Joseph Barnes: Army Surgeon General

Robert and Sally McCorkle: Heirs to Dumbarton Plantation

Bruce and Shannon McCorkle: San Francisco Millionaire and Wife

Omus McCorkle: Aged father of Robert and Bruce

Millie: Mildred Watts; H.J.’s Lady Friend

Konried Vandemeer: Rich Clipper Ship Captain

Dr. Hanspierre (Hans) Walbrecht: H.J.’s Younger Brother in Hesse

Dr. Christian Walbrecht: H.J.’s Youngest Brother in Hesse

Viktoria, Kristi, und Kati: H.J.’s Family in Hesse

Willi Stempfel: Disabled Pferdmeister; H.J.’s Father-in-Law

General Albert von Biebertal: Kommandeur of Hessian Brigades

Augie: H.J.’s Son; Great Grandson of Omus McCorkle

New Characters:

Lieutenant Oswald Stemfel: Hessian Cavalry Officer; Willi’s Son

Major General Grenville Dodge: Managing Engineer of the Union Pacific Railroad Company Project.

Doc Thomas Durant: UPRR and Credit Mobilier President

Jack Casement: UPRR Construction Boss

Frenchie: Louis Martineau: Head Cook for Durant and Dodge

Red Sky: Chief of Arapaho Inuna-Ina Band of Sky People

Chauncey Kilpatrick: Sheep Mountain Cattle Rancher

Ruby Kilpatrick: Chauncey’s Wife

Billy Hardigan: Handyman and Store Operator at Sheep Mountain

Supporting Persons:

David Irving: Former Gold Transporter and U.S. Treasury Official

Ludwig Lippert: New York Diamond Merchant

Oberst Westermann: Wetzlar Regiments Kommandeur

Sergeant Ed Stofflebrand: Frontier Cavalryman

Colonel John Gibbon: Fort Sanders Commander

High Horse, Hungry Bear, and Strong Face: Arapaho Chiefs

William Carter: Fort Bridger Owner

Major General John Rawlins: Consumptive friend of General Grant

Warren Stanley: Bruce McCorkle’s Comstock Bank/Mine Partner

Many Tribal Chiefs and Many Army Officers, NCOs, and Soldiers

Overview—Spanning the American Continent

Soon after the first railroads began operating in the 1830s, a few visionaries foresaw the prospect of rails crossing the vast American frontier all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Rail networks had spread rapidly across the East as the nation’s transportation system took shape in the 1840s and ’50s. By 1860, the states east of the Mississippi River were linked by 30,000 miles of rails, more than in all of the nations of Europe. Even before the Civil War a continent-spanning network of railroads was being envisioned to boost trade with Asia, to shorten the long, hard trip across the frontier, and to control the native tribes resisting western settlement. Anticipating financial and political advantages, Secretary of War Jefferson Davis argued for the easier Southern Route that would tie the West with the South politically and economically.

While the Civil War was occupying the nation’s attention, surveys were undertaken to select the best route. With Southerners out of the politically charged selection process, a central route was chosen from Omaha to Sacramento in which two railroad-building companies would receive loan subsidies and land grants to pay for each mile of track to be laid. With huge profits expected, those two competing contractors (the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroad Companies) began a race toward an unknown meeting point somewhere between the Rockies and the Sierras, to link up the rails sometime in 1870.

According to National Park Service summaries of each company’s efforts, Central Pacific crews battled rugged mountains and canyons of the Sierra Nevada range, while the Union Pacific crews pushed across easier terrain, often raided by Sioux and Cheyenne war parties. Supplies became a logistical nightmare for both companies, especially the Central Pacific, which shipped every rail and locomotive 15,000 miles around Cape Horn. Despite great difficulties, both companies pushed ahead faster than expected with work teams led by soldier-engineers who pushed workers to disciplined paces, often laying two to five miles of track each day on flat land, but slowed to only yards per day, when working in rugged and dangerous regions.

The Union Pacific’s labor pool came from America’s postwar unemployed: Civil War veterans, immigrants, former slaves, and friendly native tribesmen. Because California’s labor pool was diverted by gold and silver rushes, Central Pacific officials brought thousands of Chinese laborers to America who served as the backbone of the western work force.

By mid-1868, Central Pacific crews had crossed the Sierras and the basin-and-range deserts of Nevada where they raced toward a meeting point near Ogden, Utah. At the same time, the Union Pacific crews were thrusting across Wyoming Territory, racing with added Mormon contract labor who laid rail-bed grades far ahead of the advancing rails.

As the two work forces finally neared each other in Utah, they raced even harder to claim more and more land subsidies, overshooting far beyond each other on what became unused parallel grades. When a meeting place was finally agreed upon, a ceremony (held on May 10th 1869) celebrated the linking of 1,776 miles of railroad that had crossed rivers, mountains, and deserts in the world’s biggest engineering project of the 19th century, binding America’s East and West, and leading to the end of America’s Western Frontier.

Preface

In June 1865, Johannes was among the many thousands of weary Confederate veterans returning to their ravaged lands and a ruined Southern economy. Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Virginia were hardest hit, but other states also suffered as economic and physical recovery led a long list of problems. At war’s end one great question stood out: How were our four million freed slaves to be treated? Near the end of the war, Johannes read,

President Lincoln had already started dealing with reconstruction questions by mid-war, setting up military regimes in Tennessee and Louisiana to reestablish new governments. In December ’63, he issued a gentle reconstruction plan based on the president’s pardoning power. Under his terms, all white male Southerners (except high Confederate officials) could return to full citizenship by taking a loyalty oath. After 10 percent of a state’s 1860 voters had sworn allegiance to the Union, the state could form a new government and send representatives to Congress if it recognized emancipation and the wartime acts of Congress concerning slavery.

Lincoln’s plan didn’t call for immediate black suffrage but suggested that the Southern states should allow educated ones to vote. To restore the Union, he believed leniency toward the Southern states would weaken the rebellious fighting spirit and shorten the war. However, Radical Republican congressmen fiercely opposed Lincoln’s plan.

In 1864, Senator Benjamin Wade and Representative Henry Davis argued it was Congress’s right to control readmission of states to the Union, sponsoring these far stiffer terms: (1) requiring delegates to take ironclad oaths, (2) abolishing slavery in new state constitutions, (3) baring Confederate officials from office; and (4) repudiating war debts. Lincoln’s veto of the Wade-Davis Bill infuriated its sponsors, who barred entrance to Congress the shadow members who came from Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana who’d accepted Lincoln’s plan. The Congress and the President were dealing with that fiery issue just before Lincoln was assassinated in April, leaving the South’s fate in the hands of bitter congressional radicals.

President Andrew Johnson, who resented planter aristocrats, also disappointed the radicals who demanded harsher treatment of the South. With Congress adjourned in the summer of ’65, Johnson implemented his own gentler plan, allowing all white male voters (except high Confederate civil and military leaders and large property holders) to be granted amnesty upon swearing allegiance to the Union. States could then write new constitutions, abolishing slavery and repudiating war debts. Once those conditions were met, each Southern state could form its new government and rejoin the Union. By late ’65, all but Texas had met Johnson’s requirements with senators and representatives from ten Southern states seeking admission. Despite the Radicals’ blockading efforts, 74 former Confederate army officers and the Confederacy’s former Vice President, Alexander Stephens, entered Congress, all having obtained special pardons from President Johnson.

As a result of Johnson’s maneuver, Northern radicals refused to recognize the new members from the Johnson States, created a committee to investigate conditions in the South, and framed a much tougher plan, calling it intolerable that rebellion leaders who’d cost 360,000 Northern lives could now assume seats in Congress.

Meanwhile, anti-freedman rioting over postwar conditions had begun in Memphis and New Orleans with pleas flooding Congress against black codes enacted in some states to perpetuate the prewar racial relationship. Fearing the admission of many new Southern Democrat members would end the Republican’s hard-won supremacy in both houses of Congress, hard-liner Thaddeus Stevens argued, A full-scale black vote in the South must secure perpetual ascendancy for our Northern leadership before readmitting those Southern states.

As wrangling continued, Johnson denounced the Radicals, causing them to abrogate black codes and forbid discrimination. Their proposed 14th Constitutional Amendment (1) granted full citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the U.S., (2) forbid abridgment of rights without due process of law, (3) reduced representation where blacks were denied the vote, and (4) disqualified Confederate officials from holding office. Though Johnson withheld his support, the amendment was ratified by three-fourths of the states and became law throughout the nation.

Soon after, every Southern state except Tennessee rejected the 14th Amendment. Northern opinion then hardened against the South, leading to a Republican triumph in the 1866 congressional elections. With clear wins in both houses, the Republicans moved to impose their will on the conquered Southern provinces, passing four Reconstruction Acts over presidential vetoes that divided the former Confederacy into five military districts with commanders empowered to organize new governments, control voting, and appoint and remove state officials.

The Republicans further humiliated President Johnson by passing the Tenure of Office Act, which stripped his power to fire Cabinet officers. When Johnson ousted Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, the House brought impeachment proceedings against him in 1868 that failed to convict him by one Senator’s vote.

The character of the controlling regimes was seen as progressive but corrupt symbolized by opportunists who came south to reap quick profits. The derogatory name of carpetbaggers arose from stylish luggage made from bright carpets carried by Yankees who took advantage of reconstruction policies for personal gains. Soon, those insidious outsiders meddled in local politics, bought up plantations at bargain prices, and took advantages of the planters. Carpetbaggers also included political appointees who came to loot and plunder the defeated South. Another group called Scalawags included Southern whites who cooperated with Republicans whose power rested on former slave votes and were despised by disfranchised Southern whites.

In 1867, Freedmen Bureau agents registered 703,000 black voters in the former Confederacy, outnumbering 627,000 whites, providing General Grant a winning margin in the 1868 presidential election. Close outcomes in three Southern and Border states brought 24 Negroes into Congress for the first time, some of whom were weak but hardworking and generally benign toward former masters.

Chapter 1

Reconstruction in Mississippi

In my post-war journal I wrote,

Reconstruction involved hard years of adjustment for us Mississippi planters. To the freedmen, it was a time of rising opportunities or a return to the white-dominated status quo. Rejoining the Federal Union went smoothly in the Upper South where former slaves were a minority. However, in our Deep South where blacks outnumbered the whites, reconstruction took four times as long as in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia. Mississippi and South Carolina had the most divisive period because our officials had led the rebellion.

Mississippi’s reconstruction went through two phases: The first began when General Grant marched his army down from Shiloh in the fall of 1862 with supporting works continuing through the rest of the war. The second phase lasted well beyond war’s end with aftereffects continuing until the occupying armies went home. Grant’s mid-war penetration at Corinth had driven most plantation owners from North Mississippi, leaving thousands of slaves to follow in ragged droves behind Grant’s big army from which they’d expected to get the necessities for survival. Previously his armies had met only small groups of displaced blacks that regimental commanders employed to build fortifications. As overwhelming numbers appeared, the Union generals wondered, What shall we do with these millions to whom Lincoln had promised freedom.

To help the productivity of these masses, General Grant named Chaplain Eaton to lead an effort to organize the stragglers into hundred-man companies to work cotton-fields that the owners had deserted." Eaton’s loose organization formed an inefficient workforce led by army officers, treasury officials, and benevolent associations, while Congress labored to establish an organization to supervise the bewildering array of freedmen.

In December 1864, Congress tried to establish a War Department Bureau to handle freedmen’s affairs. The proposal met opposition in the House and Senate; however, the bill’s supporters won and in March 1865 the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands was established to (1) control all refugee and freedmen issues in army-occupied districts, (2) supervise and assign abandoned lands, (3) protect recipients, and (4) issue fuel and clothing to the destitute.

Organizing the Freedmen’s Bureau

In mid-’65, General Oliver Howard (who’d lost his right arm at the Battle of Fair Oaks) was named Commissioner of that new Bureau. He established his headquarters in Washington, divided the South into ten districts, and assigned Assistant Commissioners who had military service, were familiar with the economic conditions of the South, and had direct experience in freedmen affairs.

For the Mississippi District, General Howard named Colonel Samuel Thomas as Assistant Commissioner who’d commanded a U.S. colored infantry regiment and recognized that Southern economic, social, and political disorder presented a discouraging picture for our state’s 400,000 freedmen. Despite the terrible situation, he attempted to solve those problems starting on June 20th 1865, about the time I returned home to find my riverside plantation under threat of confiscation.

Colonel Thomas divided Mississippi and eastern Louisiana into sub-districts, which he assigned to assistants who’d also commanded colored regiments. The northeastern sub-district covered two-thirds of Mississippi with 225,000 freedmen, the western sub-district held 45,500 freedmen, while the southern area held 76,100 freedmen. Those areas were further split along county lines with agents appointed to each unit. Although General Howard allowed community members to serve as County Agents, Thomas appointed none, believing they’d thwart the Bureau’s purposes by favoring their neighbors.

Freedmen’s Districts in Mississippi

I soon learned that the Army of Occupation had been ordered to uphold Bureau authority with Major General Henry Slocum responding to provisions of the Bureau’s Bill of March 3rd 1865 and to orders defining the Bureau’s relationship to the army. Slocum’s officers were ordered to support Colonel Thomas and send him all excess property held by the army. Although Commissioner Howard was the chief policy maker, he realized that problems varied sharply from district to district and had to rely on subordinates to apply his policies. By August 1865, every county had an agent who’d previously served with freedmen or in the U.S. Army. Thomas also hired surgeons, hospital stewards, printers, nurses, cooks, carpenters, teamsters, laborers, and porters who were indispensable in operating hospitals, asylums, and engineering works to be supervised by army officers.

Although white refugees also received aid, freedmen were the Bureau’s main responsibility. General Howard judged disputes, turning serious offenses over to military commissions or civil courts. Since freedmen were expected to become better educated, the bureau provided school aid with agents instructed to raise morality levels and open skill paths for individual improvement efforts. Not surprisingly, many critics began calling the bureau agents, bumbling wet nurses to the newborn freedmen. Despite growing criticism, Thomas defended his role as, Guardian to nurture and develop the freedmen so they could stand on their own. Soon, county agents were distributing self-sufficiency circulars across the districts with Bureau officers lecturing at well-attended meetings, drawing white attention and criticism.

Thomas toured Mississippi to understand operations across his district and constantly checked on his subordinates’ work with his inspector, Major Thomas Free, empowered to root out misunderstandings by traveling anywhere in the district. Thomas himself inspected bureau affairs in all major towns, talking to mayors, magistrates, influential citizens, and upper-class freedmen.

Thomas’s biggest problem was keeping experienced officers. As regiments were being discharged, valuable officers were lost, preventing planned activities. Agents at interior posts found it difficult to reach freedmen because impassable roads and high water added to travel problems. It was hard to find men to serve who were conscientious about their responsibilities. Most did acceptable work with some receiving praises from critical Mississippians. Others took bribes, drank heavily, and extorted, causing General Howard to write in February 1866, saying, Immoralities, corruption, and neglect of duty are told about our agents. If these charges are true, the guilty ones will be removed.

Uncooperative Mississippians added to Thomas’s problems. In early ’66, he heard annoying remarks while touring his district: That damned Yankee, What does he want here? He’d better not stop long. Because of favoring freedmen, it seemed impossible to please former planters. One reason for strong anti-bureau feeling was the behavior of black soldiers who aroused angry passions by boisterous appearances on public squares, believing they were there to hold the white man in subjugation, and that laws would not be enforced against them as soldiers. The swaggering troops and hordes of unemployed that gathered in public places led to the removal of those soldiers from Mississippi.

The previous fall, state courts had been made responsible for administering justice to the freedmen, reducing the Bureau’s work to benevolent actions with civil authorities administering justice from then on. In 1866 bureau officers could no longer make arrests, assess fines, collect taxes, or take part in court actions; by mid-year most confiscated property had been returned to former owners who’d sworn loyalty oaths. Thereafter agents complained, since the number of workers has decreased, we merely look after hospitals, asylums, and schools. Thomas also discharged mid-level employees, teamsters or laborers who were replaced by black troops. The sharp limitation of authority discouraged Thomas’s sub-commissioners with one saying, My position is now that of spectator. Another said, When felony and misdemeanors cases are reported, few arrests are made by the civil authorities. Out of 50 such cases, only one was acted upon.

The withdrawal of federal troops signaled more trouble for Thomas and our freedmen. From all over Mississippi agents said, Our jobs are becoming extremely difficult without armed guards. Some citizens threatened, We’ll shoot the first damned Yankee found on our premises. Occasionally agents were attacked and robbed, while some were forced to resign their appointments.

Later in 1866, Colonel Thomas