Circa1865

Raphael Semmes was captain of the Southern commerce raider Alabama, the first of its kind to be unleashed upon the shipping of a commercial nation. Under Captain Semmes she caused enormous financial loss to the northern business; his unconsummated plan for a raid into New York Harbor to destroy shipping at anchor was audacious in conception and nearly carried out.

Indispensable Servant for Dr. Galt

“On the second day after the capture of the Northern merchant ship Tonawanda, another merchant vessel Manchester of New York and bound for Liverpool was stopped and boarded. After disposing of the prizes I took on board one of the former’s passengers.

This was a likely negro lad named David of about seventeen years of age – a slave until he was twenty-one under the laws of his State, Delaware. He was on his way to Europe in company of his master. He necessarily came to me under the laws of war, and I brought him on board the Alabama where we were in want of good servants and sent him to wait on the ward-room mess.

The boy was a little alarmed at first, but when he saw kindly faces beaming upon him, and heard from his new masters and the servants of the mess, some words of encouragement, he became reassured and in the course of a few days was not only at home but congratulated himself on the exchange he had made.

He became, more especially, the servant of Dr. Galt and there at once arose, between the Virginia gentleman and the slave boy, that sympathy of master and servant, which our ruder people of the North find it so impossible to comprehend. David soon became to Galt as my own servant was to me – indispensable – and the former was really as free as the latter, except only in the circumstances that he could not change masters.

I caused his name to be entered on the books of the ship as one of our crew and allowed him the pay of his grade. In short, no difference was made between him and the white waiters of the mess. His condition was in every respect bettered; though, I doubt not, a howl went up over his capture by the pseudo-philanthropists of the North, who know as little about the negro and his nature as they do about the people of the South.”

(Memoirs of Service Afloat. Raphael Semmes, LSU Press, 1996, original 1868. pp. 464-465)

“As they walked through Fort Gregg and the surrounding Petersburg trenches following the evacuation of Southern forces in early April 1865, advancing Northern troops could not fail to notice the young beardless faces or the grey hair of many fallen defenders.

Major Washington Roebling of Pennsylvania wrote:

“Old men with silver locks lay dead, side by side with mere boys of thirteen or fourteen. It almost makes one sorry to have to fight against a people who show such devotion for their homes and their country.”

(Civil War Times, Vol. XLIV, No. 6, January 2006)

Riding Connecticut’s “Jim Crow” Railroad in 1852

“We recently noticed the statement of an occurrence on a Connecticut railroad, where a lady from the South, travelling with her child and its colored nurse, were surprised at an order to the latter to get out of the lady’s car and take her place in the ‘n****r’ car.

The Southern lady remonstrated, informed the conductor that she had paid full fare for her servant, who was there simply as a servant, and would trouble no one. She said she could not be separated from her child in such a place and was unable from habit to take proper care of her – but all was to no avail.

‘That n****r must go out or I shall put her out’ said the conductor, so the lady had no choice but to seat herself with her child and servant in the ‘Jim Crow’ car, paying double price for it! The traveler said such treatment would not be endured in Carolina or Mississippi.” The Boston Investigator.

(Source: American Historical Newspaper Database – 1850-1860)

An honest appraisal of events leading up to the national convulsion of 1860-1865 begins with understanding the American mind of that era. The literature is clear that Northerners rid themselves of slaves in their midst by selling them southward and did not want the black man among them – but restricted to the South. Northern workingmen too feared black freedmen coming northward seeking employment at wages less than that which white men would accept. But war came and the black man solved Lincoln’s dwindling enlistment problem as refugee freedmen were put in the ranks; white veterans were showered with generous bounties after 1863 to reenlist and eventually muster out – if they lived – rather wealthy men.

The Americans of 1860

“There is no evidence to show that the American people of 1860, not only those living in slaveholding States, but also the vast majority of Americans living in the former slaveholding States of the north and others, thought the Negro capable of skipping over the tendencies which the white man had derived from thousands of years of his well-developed civilization, and passing with or without a few years training, from the mental condition and inheritance of barbarians and slaves into full equality with the free citizens of a self-governing republic, whose laws, traditions, habits and customs were totally alien, far more alien than those of the Japanese and Chinese.

The Americans of that day did not feel that a mere statute law permitting the Negro to equal the white man in autonomous government could enable him to do so. The slave system was considered fundamentally not as a matter of morals, of right and wrong, but merely as an economic arrangement which was essentially the outgrowth of an inequality and difference in inheritance between the average white and black man.

It is safe to say that all of the Southerners and most of the Northerners knew that the Negroes were not a race resembling angels in ability, to pass from one extreme to the other without passing through the middle.

Therefore, it cannot be said that there was a basic antagonism between the Northern and Southern people in regard to the slavery question in the Southern States. If there was any real vital difference between the North and South, it was on what constituted a sectional control of the federal government. And Northerners in 1860 failed to realize that the Republican party of 1860 answered perfectly to Washington’s definition of a geographical party against the formation of which he solemnly warned his fellow-countrymen in his Farewell Address.”

(The Peaceable Americans of 1860-1861: A Study in Public Opinion. Mary Scrugham, Columbia University, 1921, pp. 57-60)

In the following paper historian Frank L. Owsley refutes the claim that the North fought the war to preserve democratic government in America. He asserted that on the surface the South sought to establish its independence while the North fought to deny this desire. Owsley wrote that by early 1861 the Southern people “felt it both abhorrent and dangerous to continue to live under the same government with the people of the North. And so profound was this feeling among the bulk of the Southern population that they were prepared to fight a long and devastation war to accomplish a separation. On the other hand, the North was willing to fight a war to retain their fellow citizens under the same government with themselves.”

The Timeworn Stereotype of the South

“The Civil War was not a struggle on the part of the South to destroy free government and personal liberty, nor on the part of the North to preserve them.

Looked at from the present perspective of the worldwide attempt of totalitarians to erase free governments and nations living under such governments from the face of the earth, the timeworn stereotype that the South was attempting the destruction of free government and the North was fighting to preserve it, seems very unrealistic and downright silly.

Indeed, both Northern and Southern people in 1861 were alike profoundly attached to the principles of free government which is substantiated by period newspapers, diaries, letters and speeches give irrefutable evidence in support of this assertion. Their ideology was democratic and identical.

By 1860 the northeastern section of the United States had already assumed its modern outlines of a capitalist-industrial society where the means of production were owned by a relatively few. That is to say that New England and the middle States were fast becoming in essence a plutocracy with the lower classes dependent upon those who owned the tools of production.

Turning to the South, which was primarily agricultural, we find the situation completely contradictory to what has usually been assumed. The so-called slave-oligarchy of the South owned scarcely any of the land outside the black belt and only about 25 percent of the land inside the black belt. Actually, the basic means of production in the black belt and in the South as a whole was well-distributed among all classes of the population. The overwhelming majority of Southern families in 1860 owned their farms and livestock; about 90 percent of the slaveholders and about 70 percent of the non-slaveholders owned the land on which they farmed.

And it is important to note that the bulk of slaveholders were small farmers and not oligarchs – the majority of whom owned from one to four slaves and less than three hundred acres of land.

Thus, unlike the industrial population of the East, the overwhelming majority of white families in the South, owned the means of production. In other words, the average Southerner like the average Westerner possessed economic independence and held on strongly to its democratic ideology and sound economic foundation of a free government.”

(The Fundamental Cause of the Civil War, Frank L. Owsley. Journal of Southern History, Vol. 7, No. 1, February 1941. pp. 5-6)

The following is historian Dwight Dumond’s book review of Ella Lonn’s “Foreigners in the Confederacy found in the North Carolina Historical Review, Vol. XVIII, No. 1, January 1941. pp. 85-86.

Foreigners in the Confederacy. By Ella Lonn. (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. 1940.

“This record of the services rendered to the Confederate States of America by foreigners and by foreign-born citizens will take rank as one of the foremost contributions to the mounting volume of revisionist literature in that field of American history. In it we have presented, for the first time, an adequate appraisal of the importance of a large segment of the Southern population. It might not be too much to say that, for the first time, we have been told of its existence; and the telling has shattered some venerable traditions.

Foreign immigration into the United States during the two decades preceding the Civil War did not go entirely to the free states. In 1860 the foreign-born in Mobile constituted twenty- five per cent of the white population, in Charleston thirty per cent, in Savannah thirty-three per cent, in New Orleans forty per cent, in Memphis forty-two per cent. There were 3,263 Irish in Charleston, 3,100 in Savannah, 4,100 in Memphis. In New Orleans there were 24,398 Irish, 19,752 Germans, and 10,564 French. There were 43,464 Irish and 88,487 Germans in Arkansas. Ten per cent of the people in Texas were born under a foreign flag. Many races were represented among the 250,000 foreign-born in the Confederate States with Irish, German, French, and English predominating. They were slave- holding planters, merchants, professional men, skilled craftsmen, and unskilled workers.

Having discussed the geographical distribution of the several racial groups in her first chapter, Miss Lonn then traces their relationship to every aspect of the intersectional conflict. There is an excellent chapter on their divergent and changing attitudes toward slavery and secession; there are long accounts of the prominent military and civil officials under the Confederacy; and there is a chapter on military companies of foreign-born and one on foreign-born adventurers. The array of such prominent men is imposing – cabinet members Benjamin, Memminger, and Mallory; diplomats and special commissioners Henry Hotze, Father John Bannon, Reverend Patrick N. Lynch, and John A. Quintero; officers Patrick R. Cleburne, Prince de Polignac, Heros von Borcke, and a host of others; and entire companies of French, Polish, Italian, Spanish, and Irish troops, including the famous German Fusiliers of Charleston, the Emerald Guards of Mobile, and the Louisiana Zouaves.

Finally, there are three outstanding chapters dealing with the contributions of the foreign-born in special fields of military service such as engineering, secret service, ordnance, and medicine; with foreigners of distinction as teachers in schools and colleges, as businessmen, and as manufacturers; and with Confederate legislation and diplomatic conversations respecting foreigners in particular reference to citizenship and conscription.

It is a remarkable book, excellently documented, containing a splendid bibliography, and, considering the enormous quantity of facts and statistics presented, written with a pleasing style that excites admiration.

DWIGHT L. DUMOND

The Seminole tribe of Indians is said to have originated in the 1750’s as a clan of Georgia Creeks separated from the main tribe and moved southward. They indeed held slaves as documented by Minnie Moore Wilson (Seminoles of Florida, 1910) who wrote of a Seminole chief told a traveling white abolitionist that though the white man’s slave was free, “the Injun esta lusta (negro) belong to Injun – now you go.”

Florida Indians and Bushwhackers

“Many plantation owners in Georgia and South Carolina lost slaves who escaped to the wilds of Florida and the frequent cross-border Seminole raids on plantations often killed entire families and carried off more slaves. This would eventually push the American government toward military solutions and the annexation of Florida.

The Seminole tribe initially acquired black slaves as gifts from the British after 1763 or were purchased by them in imitation of Europeans and held in “a type of democratic vassalage” to the tribe. Though not considered the equals of the Seminole and living in separate settlements, black runaways were trained to hunt, fish and fight against white settlers who lived on Seminole land.  After the tribe’s defeat in 1839, many of these “black Seminoles” accompanied the tribe to resettlement in the West. Interestingly, the name “Seminole” itself translates to “seceder” or “runaway” from the Creek nation, which occurred in 1750 under Chief Secoffee.

Only twenty-two years later the resettled Seminoles fought bravely against Northern soldiers in three Seminole Mounted Volunteer regiments of the Trans-Mississippi Department, led by Major John Jumper, whose Seminole name was “Hemha Micco.” Seminoles also fought alongside the victorious Florida and Georgia forces at the Ocean Pond (Olustee) battle on February 20, 1864.

One Northern soldier wrote a New York friend just after the engagement:

“The most desperate enemy that we have to contend with here is the Florida Indians in roving bands of bushwhackers [who] occasionally steal upon our picket lines under cover of night . . . Many Redskins are sharpshooters. During the recent battle, they took themselves to the tree-tops and picked off many of the officers of the Colored Troops.”

(Key West’s Civil War: Rather Unsafe for a Southern Man to Live Here.” John Bernhard Thuersam, Shotwell Publishing, 2022, pg. 143)

Solomon Bear and German Immigrants to Wilmington

Solomon Bear came to Wilmington with brothers Marcus and Samuel in 1853 from Bavaria, and of course immersed themselves in the growing German and Jewish population. Bavaria was the part of Germany where the largest number of Wilmington’s adult German immigrants hailed from by 1860 and subsequent chain migration brought their relatives to the area, many being those of modest income rather than poor. In 1860 Wilmington’s German-Jewish immigrants were mostly self-employed merchants who most often began as clerks in Jewish-owned stores. In that year twelve of the eighteen clothing stores in town were Jewish-owned.  Business success followed Solomon Bear’s “Sol. Bear & Brothers” wholesale and retail clothing at 20 Market Street which included hats, boots, caps, fancy dry goods as well as wine and liquor.

Wealthy Jewish immigrant Menasse Kahnweiler had arrived much earlier and involved himself in road construction, raising sheep, and real estate.  In 1811 he utilized the upper floor of his building as a small synagogue for local Jews to worship. As more German Jews arrived, they established such organizations as the Germania Lodge of the Knights of the Pythias, and the Schutzenverein Rifle Club which evolved into the German Volunteers (German Light Infantry) led by Capt. Christian Cornehlson, born in Hanover, Germany.

As was common in the American South of that era, Jewish merchants held black laborers with five at the Kahnweiler establishment in 1860 and owned by the company itself. Historian Jonathan Sarna tells us that “as a rule those Southern Jews who could afford slaves did so.” At the same time in Charlotte, 3 German-born Jewish dry goods merchants owned slaves.

By 1858 Wilmington had developed a considerable German population which began a drive to build a place of worship in the city – soon to be known as St. Paul’s Lutheran when completed in late 1858. The pastor was Rev. John H. Mengert, D.D.  The German Jewish population sought a place of worship which was not realized until after the war – the Temple of Israel.

When war began in 1861 Solomon Bear was already involved with Wilmington’s German Volunteers which soon became Company A of the Eighteenth North Carolina Regiment on June 15. Solomon first served as a hospital steward, quite possibly through fellow Wilmingtonian and wartime assistant surgeon Thomas Fanning Wood. Other German-born Hanoverians in the Volunteers were lieutenants Ackerman, Runge, Schulken and Vollers – and enlisted men with surnames such as Bachman, Henry Bear, Brahmer, Buckner, Dienstbach, Domler, Eigenbruner, Geier, Goldenschmidt, Gunther, Heins, Hoener, Jacoby, Katz, Klein, Koch, Koppel, Kordlander, Kornahreas, Kuhl, Kyhl, Linsbrink, Luhrs, Mauss, Ortman, Overbeck, Pfundt, Portwig, Rosenthal, Schlobohmm, Schoeber, Scwartz, Solomon, Steiniger, Stolter, Teller, Theis, Ulbrich, Von Glahn, Voss, Wagner, Weil and Westerman.

Jacob Blumenthal and Henry Wertheimer were among those who did not return home after the war.

As was common in the South, those with merchant and trading backgrounds were sent to Europe as purchasing agents for the Confederacy and Bear was no doubt charged with obtaining medical supplies to run through the blockade. The Kahnweiler store offered many European luxuries such as millinery, shoes and thread brought through the blockade. Nephew Simon Kahnweiler was a Southern agent in Europe and through his father in Philadelphia arranged for ships to run the blockade to Wilmington.

After the war Solomon returned home with wife Henrietta Melman whom he had met in Richmond, and their union produced eight children. Their residence was on North Fifth Street and business success enabled them to build their summer cottage “Breezeland” at Wrightsville Beach. Solomon took an active interest in religious affairs and was a driving force in the construction of the Temple of Isael at Fourth and Market Streets. A poignant photograph exists of the grey-clad veteran Solomon Bear on horseback on January 19, 1900 – Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Birthday. Solomon died in 1904 and sons Isadore and Fred managed the business. In 1912 they built the Bear Winery at Front and Marstellar Streets and through a legal loophole in the Prohibition Act, were able to manufacture their wine for medicinal purposes only.

Lastly, though he served in the Northern military during the war, postwar immigrant Solomon Fishblate acclimated himself to Wilmington as a supporter of the conservative Democratic party. He rose to mayor of the city first in 1878, then again in the early 1890s.

Notes and Sources:

Heike. Anton. Jews at the Cape Fear Coast. Southern Jewish History.

Solomon Bear. Wilmington Past, Present and Future.  1908.

In April 1878, former-President Jefferson Davis prepared a letter to be read at the laying of the cornerstone of the Macon, Georgia monument to Southern dead. He wrote “Should it be asked why, then, build this monument? The answer is, they [the veterans] do not need it, but posterity may. It is not their reward, but our debt. Let the monument teach . . . that man is born for duty, not for expediency; that when an attack is made on the community to which he belongs, by which he is protected, and to which his allegiance is due, his first obligation is to defend that community . . . Let this monument teach that heroism derives its luster from the justice of the cause in which it is displayed, and let it mark the difference between a war waged for the robber-like purpose of conquest and one to repel invasion — to defend a people’s hearths and altars, and to maintain their laws and liberties.”

“Who Owns These Monuments?”

“An address on “Who Owns These Monuments?” delivered by Dr. Joseph Grier of Chester, South Carolina at the dedication of the Richburg monument on May 7, 1939, best sums up the issue of responsibility.

“Whose monument is this? He said, “It is the United Daughters of the Confederacy’s because it is their labor of love, representing a long period of loyalty, devotion and sacrifice, culminating in the erection of the splendid memorial.

Secondly, it is the community’s, because it will stand by the roadside for centuries in the same place and all may see it and draw inspiration from it.

Thirdly, it belongs to the Confederate soldiers whose names ate inscribed on it, because it is erected in their honor.

And Fourthly, to God, because patriotism and devotion to duty and willingness to sacrifice are a vital part of religion, and as we feel the impact of these things, we are swept toward God.”

(A Guide to Confederate Monuments in South Carolina . . . Passing the Silent Cup, Robert S. Seigler, SC Department of Archives and History, 1997, pg. 21)

Antebellum North Carolina was home to an aristocracy of industrious free-black merchants, craftsmen and farmers, such as barber John Caruthers, “Barber Jack” Stanly of New Bern.  Stanly invested his profits into plantations and town property, making him one of Craven County’s most prosperous citizens with over $40,000 in personal wealth. Free-black brick mason Donom Mumford of the same community owned ten slaves.  Also, Virginia-born, free-black Thomas Day of Milton, North Carolina, owned fourteen slaves and was an acclaimed master cabinetmaker in the 1850’s with an extensive clientele.  See: The Free Negro in North Carolina, John Hope Franklin, UNC Press, 1943.

An Aristocracy of Color

“The diary which William Tiler Johnson kept from 1835 to his death in 1851 reveals the remarkable life of this exceptional free Negro in a Southern community.

In the 1830s William made profits of $15 to $20 a day from his barber shop and eventually accumulated an estate worth $25,000. He invested capital in two stores which he rented out, made loans to white residents and owned a farm, which he named “Hardscrabble.”

To work his farm William owned fifteen slaves and employed a white overseer to direct their daily work. A gun owner, he hunted regularly, enjoyed the theater where he sat in the colored gallery among friends, attended horse races, and subscribed to five or six newspapers. He took a keen interest in city affairs, politics, criminal court, militia musters as well as fireman’s parades.

Maintaining terms of friendship with several of his barber patrons, William respected the community standards of the day against dining or drinking with white people. He belonged to the aristocracy of the free people of color, avoiding “darky dances and parties.”

(The Growth of Southern Civilization: 1790-1860, Clement Eaton, Harper & Row, 1961, pg. 92-93)