150 years ago in Vicksburg: National Park Service commemorates 1874 Vicksburg Massacre

On December 7, 150 years ago, Warren County’s Black Sheriff Peter Crosby rallied the forces of law and order to put down one of the most vicious white mobs in Mississippi’s history.

After many days, if not weeks, of bloody and deadly combat, Crosby and his supporters finally prevailed with the intervention of federal troops.

Once called “riots” or “insurrection,” the monumental conflict is rightfully called the “Vicksburg Massacre” in today’s history books, according to two influential writers on the subject. 

Under the auspices of the Vicksburg National Military Park (VNMP) and the Friends of the National Park, JSU history professor and author Albert Dorsey Jr. and Beth Kruse, Mellon Scholar for African American Experience in Vicksburg Civil War through Reconstruction, were the featured speakers at the December 6-8 150th Commemoration of the Vicksburg Massacre.

The duo spoke on the topic “Heroes and Martyrs: Warren County’s African American Men and Women Fight for Equality” in 1874 at the historic Bethel A. M. E. Church, which in 1864 was famously pastored by the Rev. Hiram R. Revels, who also served as U.S. Senator from Mississippi after his move to Natchez.

Dorsey and Kruse brought new insights into the tense drama and weeks of terror that led to both federal and state militia deployments in Warren County in late December 1874 through mid-January 1875. Dorsey is author of the soon-to-be released book “Vicksburg Massacre: Causes and Consequences of Black Participation in the Body Politic during the Age of Redeemer Violence.” 

RIOTS OR MASSACRES?

The little-known story behind the racial conflicts and deadly Black-white encounters in Vicksburg and Warren County that broke out on December 7,1874, deserves classification with the well-documented massacres that happened in Memphis in May of 1866’ in Colfax, LA, in 1873; and especially in New Orleans on July 30, 1866, Dorsey said.

In New Orleans, a mob of “unredeemed” Democrats attacked a Black constitutional convention scheduled to meet on July 30, 1866. After two hours of assaults with gunfire, knives, and heavy blunt instruments by the white men, 34 African Americans were declared dead, 119 wounded, and 200 were arrested by the racist sheriff. 

Gen. Phillip Sheridan, commander of the federal army divisions in New Orleans, was explicit in his assessment of the attack in the Crescent City, Dorsey said. Grant was still commander of the Army. Anti-reconstructionist Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor, was president. Johnson had no desire to improve the life of the newly emancipated four million former slaves. Being a product of the poor white class, Johnson was obsessed with having the formerly well-off plantation owners and political bosses of the South bow down to him as President, said Kruse. 

 “It was murder,” Sheridan messaged Grant, his commander in the War department. “It was no riot. It was an absolute massacre by the police,” Sheridan emphasized.

“And I call it massacre too,” Dorsey said. “In the 1800’s, the primary source documents – those who had the power of the pen – never called these assaults massacres. They called them ‘troubles.’ And later on in the early 20th Century, as with Rosewood and Black Wall Street, they called them riots. They put up monuments to those white men who killed Black citizens. 

“Some of us have been taught to look at Black people’s agency and not to think of them as victims,” Dorsey said. “These were victims. They were unarmed. They were shot down like animals. They were victims.”

The committee that was investigating Vicksburg had both moderate Democrats and Republicans on their staff. They called what had happened “troubles.” The second large-scale investigation by the Mississippi Joint legislative committee titled its completed study as an “Insurrection.” 

“When one side is on horseback with hundreds and hundreds of white men – both Union and Confederate veterans – along with local white men who had nothing to do with the Civil War battlefield joined forces, heavily armed with long rifles and sidearms, and attack another side that maybe had one or two rifles, and a bunch of pocket knives, and with no intent to fight these white men who were mounted on horseback while they are walking on foot, it’s a massacre,” Dorsey said. 

VICKSBURG CONNECTION

Dorsey says there was a definite connection between Vicksburg and the three massacres he named. In all three, the white mobs wantonly murdered and maimed hundreds of African Americans. In addition to 46 killed, another 75 Black citizens were seriously wounded in the Memphis assaults.

Many of the white terrorists and vigilantes from these other cities – known variously as White Leaguers, Knights of the White Camelia, and the Ku Klux Klan – flocked to Vicksburg in 1874 to add fuel to the flames and to stoke the white terror that had been unleashed against the bold and courageous Black community there, he said. 

“They put up monuments to white men who committed murder in Colfax and other towns,” Dorsey said. “The historians who studied those massacres have established the validity adequately enough for me to correctly call the Vicksburg ‘troubles’ the Vicksburg ‘massacre,’ he added. “And it was a massacre.”

The National Park commemorated 23 named individuals who were killed during the massacre. There is no known figure that offers a reliable account of the number killed. Kruse accepts the fact that the number of deaths during the Vicksburg Massacre will remain a mystery for some time.

“The problem with settling on a final number that might be different from other numbers is due to the fact that many of the victims were referred to by different names/spellings and possibly counted twice,” she said. “I tried to match names with census and other records and verify based on locations and testimonies. The white folks who created the documents were sloppy and not as focused on identifying those killed as they should have been. We will never know how many actually died. We will never know how many fled Vicksburg after this event. Both numbers were significant.”

REMEMBRANCE CEREMONY

On Saturday, December 7, a “Remembrance Ceremony and Wreath Laying” convened at the Shirley House, one of the few surviving structures from the Civil War and Reconstruction era that played a central role in the days of the massacre. And a special Sunday church service devoted to the 1874 massacre was held at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church on December 8 under the sponsorship of the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi’s Racial Reconstruction Task Force.

The Shirley House is a major landmark of the National Military Park tour. It is the second stop on the tour of the park. And it is the only house from the Civil War era that remains standing there. It was one of the focal points in the days of the massacre.

The Shirley House stands along the old Jackson Road, one of the main routes of convergence the Black supporters of Peter Crosby used as they made their way towards the Warren County Courthouse on December 7, 1874. Seven Black bodies were reported lying in the vicinity of the Shirley House on the day of the assault. 

VNMP Superintendent Carrie Mardorf called the massacre “an act of violence that shocked our nation.” 

“While the scars of the past may never fully heal,” said Mardorf, “we find strength in unity and in our shared effort to ensure that such tragedies are never repeated. 

“As we reflect on the pain of the past, we also honor the strength of those who survived, their families, and the generations that have carried the memory of this dark time. We recognize their courage,” Mardorf said

COMMEMORATION RITUALS

The Ceremony included music; a libation ceremony conducted by Jackson Municipal Court Judge June Hardwick, the great granddaughter of Civil War veteran William “Bill” Sims; and the placement of a wreath on the lawn of the Shirley House where at least seven Black men had been killed as the massacre played itself out on and after December 7, 1874.

“One of my most favorite things to do is to honor our ancestors. I do it every single day and throughout the day,” Hardwick said.

“One of the many reasons we stand strong and tall is because we stand on the backs and shoulders of our ancestors. What they did was they prayed for us. Many of our ancestors didn’t even have the words to give to the trauma they experienced. But by the grace of God, they endured. With the pouring of the libation, we will also honor and lift up the names of our actual ancestors.

“We must also lift up the names of the legions of warrior ancestors on this land that is now North America and across the water in the motherland.”

The commemorative wreath was put in place by the descendants of the Marshall family – the direct descendants of Lucy and Cyrus Marshall, who lived just down the road on Old Jackson Road, near the Logan monument. Lucy’s sister was Elisa Banks, wife of Robert Banks  Sr. and mother of Robert Banks Jr.

Florence Gilkesson and her brother, James Gilkesson, of Peoria are the descendants of Banks Sr. and Jr. Their mother, Mary Louise Marshall Gilkesson, was the youngest child of Robert Banks Marshall, who was the nephew and grandnephew of victims Robert Banks Sr. and Jr. 

“We are a reflection of everything our mother told us over the years,” said Florence Gilkesson. “We have a lot of oral history in our heads, and today’s program is documenting what we have known all along.” 

Drummer and vocalist, Bridgeet Olugbala, and Jerry Jenkins of the Hasan Drums ensemble, accompanied the Libation Ceremony.

Contributing to the three-day commemoration also was Sgt. Major (retired) Clarence Jones who recited his poem “They’ll be Passing By” in memory of the veterans who were killed in the massacre.

Songs were performed by singers from United M.B. Church and St. Mark M.B. Church. The Rev. Andy Andrew of the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi’s Racial Reconciliation Task Force gave the invocation. 

ARMED CONFLICT

When Crosby trounced incumbent Sheriff Charles E. Furlong in November 1873, the leading white men of the county were careful not to provoke the federal government to increase the military control. Crosby and the seven other Black county officials took office in January 1864 and enjoyed nearly a year of peace and decorum in the public life of both the city and county. 

Sometime in late November or early December 1874, one of the guarantors of the surety bond that Peter Crosby was required to have as sheriff and tax collector died. On December 2, a small group of white men claiming to represent the Taxpayers’ League of Warren County confronted Crosby in his office and insisted that his bond was now worthless and that he had to vacate the sheriff’s office immediately due to the insufficiency of his bond. Crosby refused to obey their demands, knowing that he had supporters, Black and white, who would sign on as the new guarantor of his bond.

Crosby said 600 white men surrounded him at the courthouse on December 2 demanding his signature of resignation or his life: “Violence was insinuated. It was threatened, if not openly avowed.”

Crosby testified before the investigating committee saying: “I was negotiating to make a bond, and could have given a good bond on Tuesday morning, if it had been so ordered by the Board of Supervisors; but during the time I was negotiating, one of my friends told me that he had a talk with Captain Cowan, in which Captain Cowan told him that any white man who would go on Peter Crosby’s bond, his life would not be as safe as Crosby’s; that they proposed to have that office.”

BLACK MEN TO ARMS

On Saturday, December 5, a card was circulated throughout Vicksburg and Warren County, signed by Crosby. 

Crosby explained the reason for the calling out of the Black men of the county: “My idea was to publish a card to my friends and the citizens in the next issue of the Plain Dealer, and, to that end, I sent to a friend of mine, telling him that I did not feel like writing, and for him to write it for me; he wrote it and read it in my hearing, and asked me whether I would sign my name to it; I said yes, and signed it.”

A.G. Packer, the state adjutant general, testified that Gov. Ames was strongly opposed to Crosby’s appeal to the men of the county to come to his aid. While he supported the use of the Black Capt. P.C. Hall, Ames did not see a good outcome if the Black men of the county armed themselves and challenged the white mob.

Packer’s effort to get Crosby to turn back the tide of Black men who had been prepared all day Sunday to begin their march on Monday morning failed. At about 8 a.m. on Monday, December 7, Packer reported hearing the first shots fired from two miles away on Grove Street near Baldwin Ferry Road. 

Kruse pointed out that only 23 of the many people slain during the massacre are known from the official hearings and records. Many of those killed were buried in church cemeteries but their locations are unknown, she said. Many were buried by their families and those grave sites are lost due to time. 

The usual newspaper accounts of death did not carry the accounts of those killed in the massacre. The government reports are the only official accounts of the people known by name to have been killed. And that number is nowhere near the real figure, she said. 

Peter Crosby died in 1884, but his grave site is unknown.