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WILLIAM G. BROWN^{1Born in New Jersey and raised in Jamaica, William G. Brown (1832–83) was of mixed race. He settled in Louisiana after the Civil War and became a teacher. Brown soon became a political ally of P. B. S. Pinchback and edited the pro–Radical Republican New Orleans newspaper, the Louisianan. He resigned as editor in 1872 to become Louisiana’s elected state superintendent of education. Brown’s effort to desegregate New Orleans schools provoked rioting. William Preston Vaughn, Schools for All: The Blacks and Public Education in the South, 1865–1877 (Lexington, Ky., 1974), 92–96; Peter J. Breaux, “William G. Brown and the Development of Education: A Retrospective on the Career of a State Superintendent of Public Education of African Descent in Louisiana” (Ph.D. diss., Florida State University, 2006).} TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

New Orleans, [La.] 19 Dec[ember] 1872.

HON FREDERICK DOUGLAS

MY DEAR SIR

The purpose of my letter will be my excuse for intrusion on you to day.

You are aware of our “situation.”^{2Louisiana’s history during Reconstruction is perhaps the most complex and confusing of that of any former Confederate state. In 1872, as the state was trying to elect a governor, the Republican party divided into three competing camps: the first led by Governor Henry Clay Warmoth; the second headed by William Pitt Kellogg and Stephen B. Packard, who controlled the lucrative patronage of the New Orleans federal customhouse; and the final group, headed by the African American lieutenant governor, P. B. S. Pinchback. The second and third groups eventually joined forces. The Liberal Republicans, led by Warmoth, tried to bring together not only conservative white Republicans and “reformers,” but also Democrats. In the end, Warmoth used his influence as governor to support the Democratic party candidate, John McEnery, who promised Warmoth a seat in the U.S. Senate for his support; this caused the state house to impeach Warmoth in December, since he was still governor while this took place. Although Warmoth was never convicted, Pinchback acted as governor for the remainder of his term. In the meantime, the state’s Return Boards split into two committees, each declaring victory for separate candidates, Kellogg and McEnery. For all his faithful work, Pinchback had been put forward by the Republicans of Louisiana for a U.S. Senate seat. He had also been elected as the congressman-at-large for Louisiana. As acting governor, he signed his own certificate of election. But as with the gubernatorial race, the Democratic party had put forward a candidate for that seat, and the debate over who should receive the seat lasted well into the following year, as the U.S. Senate committee was evenly divided. In the end, Pinchback never took his seat in either house of Congress. James Haskins, Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback (New York, 1973), 196–222; Ted Tunnell, Crucible of Reconstruction: War, Radicalism, and Race in Louisiana, 1862–1877 (Baton Rouge, La., 1984), 168–72.} You know the distinguished services rendered all the time but especially recently by our mutual friend
Gov Pinchback.^{3Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback (1837–1921) was born a free black in Macon, Georgia, the son of William Pinchback, a white Mississippi planter, and Eliza Stewart, a slave of mixed ancestry who had been manumitted before his birth. After the death of William, Eliza, threatened with reenslavement by William’s heirs, left Mississippi with her son and settled in Cincinnati. After a few years in school, Pinchback found employment as a cabin boy on canal boats, rising to the level of steward. In 1862, Pinchback jumped ship at Yazoo City, Mississippi, and made his way to New Orleans, which was in the hands of the Union army. Determined to play a role in the Union victory, he became a recruiting officer for black volunteers. Pinchback assumed an active role in Louisiana politics in 1867 when he became a member of the Republican State Central Committee. In 1868 he joined the state Senate and three years later became president pro tempore of that body. Pinchback served as lieutenant governor and then acting governor during the impeachment proceedings against Henry Clay Warmoth. He campaigned for William P. Kellogg in the gubernatorial race of 1872, and for his loyalty was declared congressman-at-large by the Kellogg administration. During Pinchback’s term as acting governor, he was elected to the U.S. Senate; thus, for a period, he had the singular distinction of holding a seat in both houses of Congress. Realizing that a choice had to be made, Pinchback surrendered his seat in the House to his opponent in order to serve his six-year term in the Senate. There was considerable opposition within the Senate to Pinchback’s claim of membership, and after three years of debates and investigations, he lost the seat. Haskins, Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback; DANB, 493–94.} We think he ought to be sent by our Legislature when
it meets in Jany ’73 to the U. S Senate, not only because he deserves this
high recognition & endorsement, but also because our people ought to
have a representative in the higher branch of the National Legislature &
one who is competent & who can & will be a representative of the “true
& tried”^{4Perhaps an allusion to a line of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s 1849 poem In Memoriam A. H. H. Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H. (London, 1900), 132.} sort. There is a splendid opportunity for us all to rally to the support of Gov Pinchback now. There is no candidate in the field against him
that is or ever was so prominently Republican as to eclipse the Governor’s
claims. Our white republicans (of course) like him, & endorse & laud
him, but then—they must prefer one of their color for the place. They are
insidiously working on the minds of some of our colored Representatives
to keep in the lower House, & not create a vacancy there—dont claim
everything for him & all that sort of stuff. It seems to me that “now’s the
day, & now’s the hour”^{5Brown quotes from the second stanza of Robert Burns’s 1793 poem “Bannockburn.” Alexander Smith, ed., The Complete Works of Robert Burns (New York, 1884), 227.} for us to elect him to the U. S Senate. And it has
occurred to me that through your paper you could do your man service
in this matter if the thing strikes you favorably.^{6Douglass had met Pinchback—and possibly Brown—in April 1872 when he traveled to New Orleans to participate in the National Convention of Colored People. Pinchback had acted as temporary president of the convention while it awaited the arrival of its permanent president, Douglass. On 2 January 1873, Douglass’s New National Era gave the endorsement that Brown sought: “Mr Pinchback, we understand, is a man of means, we know him to be a man of extensive hospitality, of uncommon energy, and of unquestioned devotion to his race. We hope to see him in the Senate of our nation.” Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 4: 293–94; NNE, 2 May 1872, 2 January 1873.} Should you conclude to
write & advocate it, send a copy of your paper with the article to the addresses on the back [&] your bill to me for payment[.]

Respectfully

WM. G. BROWN

James F Casey—Collector N. O^{7Kentucky-born James F. Casey (c. 1830–?) was a brother of Samuel L. Casey, a former congressman from that state. In February 1861, Casey married Emma Dent, the sister of Julia Grant, and thus the sister-in-law of the future president. President Andrew Johnson appointed Casey the collector of the port of New Orleans in March 1869. By April 1870, however, sizable opposition had grown to his conduct as collector and his political activities, which seemed more suited to a Democrat. As a result, calls for his resignation were sent to Grant by New Orleans Republicans. Despite further complaints filed against Casey in 1872, he evidently held the favor and trust of his brother-in-law and retained his position until 1877. James Steedman to Andrew Johnson, 17 January 1869, Johnson, Papers of Andrew Johnson, 15: 391; Grant, Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, 22: 102, 372, 323, 339; 1870 U.S. Census, Louisiana, Orleans, 368.}
P F Herwig—Deputy do^{8Philip Felix Herwig (1839–1907) was a Louisiana state senator, a deputy collector of the port of New Orleans, and the assistant U.S. treasurer at New Orleans. He enlisted in the Confederate army in 1861 and served as a lieutenant in the Lafayette Artillery. As a state senator, Herwig was a member of Governor Henry Clay Warmoth’s conservative Republican faction in 1870. Grant, Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, 22: 339; Statutes at Large of the US of A 63rd Congress 1914 Session II, chap. 165; Althea D. Pitre, “The Collapse of the Warmoth Regime, 1870–72,” Louisiana History, 6: 164 (Spring 1965); Find a Grave (online).}
J H Ingraham—Survey in port^{9James Holt Ingraham of Louisiana (1839–76), a free black, distinguished himself with bravery during the Civil War and rose to the rank of captain with the Union army. After the war, he returned to Louisiana and became active in Reconstruction politics. He was elected to the state Senate in 1870 and retained his seat until 1874. Ingraham is said to have impressed President Grant while visiting Washington in 1872, and he was appointed surveyor of the port of customs in New Orleans. New Orleans Republican, 27 March 1872; Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States of America, from March 4, 1871, to March 3, 1873, Inclusive (Washington, D.C. 1901), 18:228–30; Charles Vincent, Black Legislators in Louisiana during Reconstruction (Baton Rouge, La., 1976), 121; 1870 U.S. Census, Louisiana, Orleans, 542.}
Thomas Ong—appraiser^{10Thomas Ong was a deputy postmaster and registrar of voters in St. Bernard Parish in New Orleans. He also owned a plantation. New Orleans Daily Picayune, 14 April 1868, 6 March 1869.}
Geo W Carter—New Orleans P. O^{11A native of Texas, George W. Carter (1826–1901) was a lawyer who defended Governor Warmoth against embezzlement charges for his business practices in that state. As governor, Warmoth appointed Carter judge of the newly created Cameron Parish of Louisiana in 1870. Carter was soon elected to the state House of Representatives and became its Speaker, though he was accused of aiding in corruption at the customhouse. He also edited the short-lived New Orleans National Republican, a newspaper aligned with Oscar Dunn’s supporters against the Warmoth-Pinchback faction of the state Republican party leadership. Carter sided against Warmoth in the struggle to impeach the governor and lost the Speaker’s office. Richard Edwards, Edwards’ Annual Directory of . . . the City of New Orleans for 1872 (New Orleans, La., 1872), 90; Pitre, “Collapse of the Warmoth Regime,” 166, 171–74.}
G W Lowell “ ” “^{12Charles Winthrop Lowell (1834–77) was a ninth-generation descendant of Perceval Lowell, the first Lowell to immigrate to America, in 1639. He was born in Farmingham, Maine, and graduated from Bowdoin College in 1859. Lowell then studied law with Charles P. Chandler, his future father-in-law. During the Civil War, Lowell served as a captain in the U.S. Colored Troops and later rose to the rank of colonel. After the war, he established himself as a lawyer in Shreveport and became involved in politics. Lowell served as Speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives (1868–69) and was later appointed postmaster of New Orleans. He broke with Governor Warmoth and sided with the African American lieutenant governor, Oscar J. Dunn, in intraparty struggles in the early 1870s. Lowell backed President Grant’s reelection against Liberal Republican–Democratic challengers in 1872 and supported the impeachment of Governor Warmoth. Tunnell, Crucible of Reconstruction, 142–43, 146, 169; Pitre, “Collapse of the Warmoth Regime,” 164, 174.}
John Ray “ ” “^{13John Ray (1816–88) was a politician and lawyer who, despite being a former slaveholder, opposed secession and was an ardent Reconstructionist. Born in Missouri, he was educated in Indiana and Kentucky before moving to Louisiana around 1835. Ray became a lawyer there in 1839 and generally supported the Whig party. He won election to the state House and Senate during the 1840s and 1850s, but was the unsuccessful Whig candidate for lieutenant governor in 1854. In 1860, Ray supported the Constitutional Union party ticket and gave only lukewarm support to secession. After the war, he was elected to the U.S. House and the Senate as a Republican, but was not seated, since Louisiana had not been officially readmitted to the Union. He served in the state Senate and then as register of the state land office. After suffering financially on account of his politics, Ray relocated from northern Louisiana to New Orleans. New Orleans Times-Picayune, 5 March 1888; Frank J. Wetta, “ ‘Bulldozing the Scalawags’: Some Examples of the Persecution of Southern White Republicans in Louisiana during Reconstruction,” Louisiana History, 21: 45, 53–54 (Winter 1980).}
J P Norton “ ” “^{14Emery Ebenezer Norton (1816–1901), a native of Albany, New York, practiced law in Louisiana and served a term in the state legislature in the 1850s. He settled in New Orleans after service as a captain in the Union army. Norton and his wife were close family friends of Edward Henry Durell, a federal judge who appointed Norton as general assignee in bankruptcy before his court. In the heavily disputed 1872 contest for the U.S. Senate in the Louisiana legislature, Norton was the candidate backed by the new Republican governor, William Pitt Kellogg. According to one account, another candidate for the Senate seat, P. B. S. Pinchback, sought the support of legislators otherwise loyal to Kellogg by distributing $10,000 among them; according to another account, Pinchback agreed to accept $10,000 from Norton to take himself out of the running. An angered Norton made sure U.S. senators in Washington were aware of this chain of events, and Pinchback ultimately submitted a petition to the Senate stating that he was owed $10,000 from the Kellogg regime for out-of-pocket expenses related to an extra state legislative session. Norton left Louisiana and settled in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, where he became a prosperous farm owner. Henry Clay Warmoth, War, Politics, and Reconstruction: Stormy Days in Louisiana (New York, 1930), 207–09, 234; Matthew Lynch, ed., Before Obama: A Reappraisal of Black Reconstruction Era Politicians, 2 vols. (Santa Barbara, Calif., 2012), 1:226–27; Dray, Capitol Men, 224–25.}
A E Barber “ ” “^{15Alexander Eusibius Barber, or Barbour, was born into slavery in Maryland around 1830. He was reputed to have taught himself to read and write “from torn leaves out of a spelling book.” In 1860, he was recorded as serving as a “steward” in New Orleans. Barber became a leader in post– Civil War New Orleans by investing in several businesses. In 1870, Barber was the harbormaster in New Orleans, a position he held until at least 1873. James Longstreet appointed him one of two brigadier generals in the state militia. James K. Hogue, “The Strange Career of James Longstreet: History and Contingency in the Civil War Era,” in The Struggle for Equality: Essays on Sectional Conflict, the Civil War, and the Long Reconstruction, edited by Orville Vernon Burton, Jerold Podair, and Jennifer L. Weber (Charlottesville, Va., 2011), 159–60, 170; John W. Blassingame, Black New Orleans, 1860–1880 (Chicago, 1973), 72, 160; David C. Rankin, “Origins of Black Leadership in New Orleans during Reconstruction,” JSH, 40: 437 (August 1974).}
H C Warmoth “ ” “^{16Henry Clay Warmoth (1842–1931) was a Reconstruction-era governor of Louisiana. He grew up in Illinois and became an attorney in Laclede County, Missouri. He served as a lieutenant colonel in a Missouri regiment in the Union army, where he had a dishonorable discharge reversed on an appeal to President Lincoln. After fighting in campaigns in Tennessee and Arkansas, he was appointed a judge of the Department of the Gulf provost court at New Orleans, but soon after returned to private practice in New Orleans. He launched his political career during the early years of Presidential Reconstruction, and was elected Louisiana’s unofficial “territorial delegate” to Congress in 1865. In April 1868, Warmoth won the governorship in an easy victory against the Democratic candidate, James G. Talliaferro. Warmoth’s win prompted conservatives around the state to launch an aggressive campaign to secure the state for the Democratic presidential candidate Horatio Seymour. The conservatives’ belligerent crusade against Republicans convinced Warmoth of the need to protect the Republican party and secure black suffrage. The legislature placed the New Orleans Metropolitan Police District and the state militia under Warmoth’s control; in this way, more local officials could be appointed by Warmoth rather than elected. Warmoth hoped to stabilize state politics by inducing Louisiana whites to join the Republican party through the awarding of patronage jobs. This strategy caused division among Republicans, since committed Republicans—especially black Republicans— needed jobs, too. Ultimately, a rivalry grew up between Warmoth and a group of carpetbaggers who were in charge of the New Orleans Custom House and backed by President Grant. The Louisiana U.S. marshal, a leader of the Custom House faction, arrested Warmoth. Following his release on bail, Warmoth used the Metropolitan Police to take control of the state House. Warmoth renounced the Republican party and joined the Liberal Republican party. The Republican-controlled legislature impeached Warmoth in December 1872. Despite his political fall from grace, Warmoth remained active in Louisiana politics, serving in the legislature in 1876, narrowly losing a campaign for governor in 1888, and receiving an appointment from President Benjamin Harrison in 1890 to be the collector of customs of New Orleans. Warmoth, War, Politics and Reconstruction; Glenn R. Conrad, Dictionary of Louisiana Biography, 2 vols. (New Orleans, 1998), 2: 223–24; ANB (online).}
H C Dibble “ ” “^{17Born in Delphi, Indiana, Henry C. Dibble (1844–?) entered the Union army at the age of seventeen and ended the war at his aunt’s residence in New Orleans, recovering from wounds. After briefly studying law at Tulane University, he began a practice in New Orleans. Appointed judge of the Sixth District Court and identifying with the Radical Republicans, Dibble regularly ruled in favor of equal rights. In an 1871 case involving an African American named C. S. Sauvinet, Dibble ruled that the plaintiff had the right to drink in any establishment open to the public. He subsequently served as Louisiana’s assistant attorney general, and he fought for school integration as president of the New Orleans Board of Education. After briefly practicing law in Arizona, Dibble moved to California and won four terms in the state Assembly as a Republican, beginning in the late 1880s. As a legislator, he worked for woman suffrage and the protection of African Americans’ civil equality. After losing his legislative seat in 1900, Dibble returned to his law practice and took many cases on behalf of Chinese immigrants. San Francisco Examiner, 14 June 1910; Henry C. Dibble, Why Reconstruction Failed: A Letter to the Vice-president of the United States from Henry C. Dibble, of Louisiana (New Orleans, 1877); Charles McClain, “California Carpetbagger: The Career of Henry Dibble,” Berkeley Law Scholarship Repository, Quinnipiac Law Review, 28: 885–967 (2009).}