Friday, June 10, 2022

Chapter 10-- Whites, Negroes, & Indians--The Trajectory of an Innocent Texan, Jesse Wadlingon Sparks

 

COPYRIGHT 10 JUNE 2022

BY HERSHEL PARKER

 

 

         Whites, Negroes, & Indians--The Trajectory of an Innocent Texan, Jesse Wadlingon Sparks

 

         Jesse Sparks (1837-1896) was born in Nacogdoches, near the Sabine River, the Louisiana border, a grandson of the long-lived Revolutionary Matthew Sparks whose delayed pension application is quoted in my chapter on the war against the Cherokees. As a Texan, Jesse was proud that uncles and an older brother had served at San Jacinto. Indians killed his father and at least one uncle, and as “a wild boy” he fought Indians two years under General Walker in the Terry Rangers. Then a hero of San Jacinto, General Thomas Jefferson Rusk, recognized the intelligence lurking behind rough ignorance and sent him and three others (including one of his sons?) off first to Nashville, where he did not fit, and then to the college at Murfreesboro, where he stayed for four years and emerged able to write and speak persuasively. In 1861 Sparks as lieutenant power-pepped the Terry’s Rangers into unanimously volunteering in the Confederacy for the entire duration of the war. Late in 1861 he experienced a revelation at the shocking death of Frank Terry near Woodsonville, Kentucky: men could die from a reckless charge against an enemy.

         An account in the Nashville American (6 January 1889) tried a summary: Sparks “made a Major in January, 1862, and [was] ordered to report to Gen. Van Dorn, which he did, and served with him until the end of the war. He was in all the principal battles of the war in Tennessee and Mississippi, and was twice wounded.” At one point Sparks was assigned to Paul Hebért, a general in the Department of Texas. (A Louisianan in the 1950s, I knew to say the name “a bear”.) In 1863 Hebért sent him on an important mission that should have gone smoothly. Under a flag of truce he was to accompany Lewis Dent, a Southern planter, to Grant’s headquarters in Natchez, Dent being notable a brother of Grant’s wife. Yankee soldiers, Confederate soldiers, homeless white women and children, homeless newly freed negroes, all were wandering in the water and mud. It was chaotic, but Jesse got Dent to Goodrich’s Landing, only to held there by a persnickety colonel who did not understand that a brother-in-law of Grant should have been let through. The upshot is that Jesse Sparks’ name reached the desk of Grant’s assistant Loren Kent who later on casually linked it with the name of my cousin M. W. Sims, also on Hebért’s staff, in one of the many fabricated charges made by Yankees against Confederates. Rebels (said various Federal soldiers) were committing almost unimaginable atrocities to both black and white soldiers--and (this was wildest, from Kent) even ministers. I talk about this in the next chapter. Sims had indeed committed something almost like one act Kent charged him with, but one in which he was following orders of the State of Louisiana. Sims and Sparks (my cousins, not cousins to each other) never knew just what they were charged with, and as far as I can see Sparks probably never knew he was accused of anything, much less than something that in 2007 would make him and Sims suspects in an atrocity in Linda Barnickel’s Milliken’s Bend. Sparks got Dent to Grant and somehow made his way through the chaos back to Louisiana and Hebért. In the course of the war Jesse was wounded at least twice, and later on a residue of metal in his body tormented him.

         The History of Tennessee said Sparks was “captured, imprisoned and released various times by the Federals whom he encountered” on his way home to Tennessee in December 1865 and early 1866. Conquered, he was then bullied. Back in Murfreesboro he married Josephine Blevins (born around 1841) in April 1866. They had six children there, spaced the natural way, weaning of one baby followed by new pregnancy, starting with Jesse Jr. in 1867. Disenfranchised as a rebel during Reconstruction, at first Sparks was a farmer (the Chicago Tribune skeptically printed his eloquent cure for the army worm) and then, at last able to vote, for twelve years he was Clerk and Master of the Chancery Court, a lawyer and politician. He became a Tennessee state senator, by then known as a “character,” and gradually something of a respected if sometimes surprising fixture in the whole state, an “institution,” known for his foibles but loved for them and admired for unusual behavior, such his praise of Indians and his efforts to advance negroes.

         At the same time, for decades he found companionship with fellow veterans who had bonded in the war and who then had suffered together in a particularly vindictive Reconstruction. Late in life he surprised even his supporters, moving from celebration of the Confederacy to becoming vice president of a society honoring both Yankee veterans and surviving Confederate veterans. Before his death becoming a hero to the blacks in Murfreesboro, who staged their own public funeral for him. I do not want to diminish Cousin Jesse Wadlington Sparks in this chapter by calling him by his first name instead of Major Sparks but I feel very sympathetic to him and closer than our DNA would justify. Jesse was a likeable fellow, and a surprising one.

 

         Four decades on from 1868 or so (27 April 1907) the Nashville Banner printed what it thought was a delectable bit of historical gossip which complimented the old KKK and put Sparks in an unexpected context. The old University College in Murfreesboro, where Jesse went to school, served a hospital during the war, and later on was “used as headquarters of the famous Ku-Klux Klan that helped to straighten out the tangle of negro rule in the South. When it became known that this was the storehouse and meeting place of the Ku-Klux, Gov. William G. Brownlow gave secret orders for a raid, at which it was expected to capture both Ku-Klux and their equipment. But a friend behind the throne, it is said, went to the late Hon. J. W. Sparks and ‘gave him a tip’ of what was in the wind. The raid resulted in nothing more than empty rooms, and their accompanying desolation.” Nothing proves that Sparks joined or anyway assisted the KKK, but true secret stories can outlast lifetimes in a place like Tennessee. A word about Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821-1877), my 7th cousin 4x removed through the Hendersons: he failed, but he should be blessed for leading a raid on Irving Block, the Union torture chamber of a prison in Memphis. We cringe at Andersonville but be forget “Death in Chicago.”

         So Jesse Sparks may well have prevented the raid on the KKK meeting room by warning someone in the KKK or someone who could carry the warning. Blacks had been given the franchise in 1867, under Gov. Brownlow. White veterans like Jesse were treated, three years, four years after the war, as non-persons in Tennessee, not allowed to vote or hold office. Jesse was a companionable man. From early youth, if not sooner, Jesse had been surrounded by males, from Terry’s Rangers through the Confederacy. He was a man who had buddies--early (if not first) the Ochiltree and Rust boys. He was a joiner--he got his troop to shout out their determination to join the Confederacy together for the duration of the war. Later he worked with other men and if he disagreed with them he remained comfortable around them. In 1866 and 1868 in Tennessee men like Sparks were trapped, denied a voice in their own affairs. These younger veterans were trying to start families. By 1869 Jesse had a wife and two sons. He wanted to take a place in his society.

         The governor of Tennessee 1865-January 1869 was a fierce Radical, William G. Brownlow, a religious fanatic and a political zealot who was determined to keep all “rebels” suppressed. He was not an abolitionist but he pushed through voting for negro males in 1867 as a way of galling white veterans. He was elected and re-elected, like all dictators, by suppressing voting which might have been against him. Like some of the high military officials, victorious in the war, he regarded the South as a defeated enemy. There was to be no early end of their punishment: ten years for an ordinary veteran of not being allowed to vote, fifteen years for some officers. You find this hard to visualize? Just a few years ago I had to argue passionately with members of a major New York City publishing house who vindictively wanted to characterize the opponents in the Civil War as “Americans” vs. “Confederates.” By 1775 all my white ancestors (even if the families arrived in the mid-Atlantic) were in the South, and all of them were Americans, even ones like my great grandfather John Andrew Jackson Costner, who for years was a nondescript Confederate soldier. In 1868 and early in 1869 Governor Brownlow was determined to keep white veterans from voting. This was very hard for veterans who had seen their friends and family members die and had been in combat, repeatedly, and many of whom who now lived with wounds, as Sparks did with a unremoved Yankee metals.

         This Radical “Parson” Brownlow was quoted in the 30 July 1868 Little Rock Arkansas Gazette: “I have been appealed to by prominent men of both political parties to urge upon you [the legislature] the propriety of removing the political disabilities of rebels. The conduct of that class of people has been and is such that I do not feel justified in making this recommendation. They have a military organization in this state whose avowed object is to trample the laws under foot and force the party in power, to enfranchise themselves and their sympathizers. I cannot stultify myself by yielding to this request, accompanied by threats of violence. If member of the general assembly are alarmed for their personal safety and feel disposed to sue for peace upon terms proposed by an armed mob, they will of course take a different view of the subject. Any recommendation of this kind, if made at all, should be made at a regular and not at a called session of our body; and whether such recommendation and corresponding action shall deemed wise, at your adjourned meeting in November next can then be more safely determined, by strictly observing the conduct of these unreconstructed ku-klux rebels and their sympathizing supporters between this time and that.” For his rhetorical purpose Brownlow was pretending that the state militia was controlled by the KKK. All Confederate veterans, Parson Brownlow was convinced, must be treated as if they were active members of the KKK, and “strict observation” could weed them out if they showed up at a polling place where Radical Republicans were stationed. On 12 January 1869 the Memphis Evening Post, a Brownlow paper, railed at the “audacity” of proposing “to give the control of the State into the hands of these rebel assassins.” No hurry: “When they have ceased their war upon loyal men and upon the State authority, it will be time enough to talk of their enfranchisement.”  

         Over in neighboring Missouri, Henry Brockmeyer delivered a masterpiece of sarcasm (picked up by the Memphis Public Ledger on 21 July 1868). Sarcastically he explained the steps people like Jesse Sparks ought to be taking to be given the vote: “all that it is necessary for them to do is to pledge fealty to the Radical party by believing, or pretending to believe, themselves unworthy of the elective franchise by indorsing their own disfranchisement, and then to go one step further in infamy, if that be possible, and declare that while they themselves are unworthy their former chattels are worthy.” Confederate veterans who read this in Tennessee may not have appreciated the irony but they understood the fury at surviving the war (as so many had not) and then being oppressed.

         Against new opposition, in January 1869 Brownlow worked hard to keep white veterans from voting. The Memphis Avalanche on 28 January 1869 headlined:  “MARTIAL LAW IN TENNESSEE.” Brownlow was “determined to declare martial law” in some counties so the militia (which he was sure he still controlled) could challenge and reject “rebel” would-be voters. White veterans and other men in Rutherford county met in the Murfreesboro courthouse and decided to circumvent Brownlow by going directly to General Joseph A. Cooper, who was in charge of the state military forces. The Memphis Daily Appeal (30 January 1869) announced that on 28 January the “delegation from Rutherford county appointed to wait upon Gen. Cooper, commander of the Tennessee State militia, arrived in the city [Nashville] yesterday.” Jesse W. Sparks was the third of eight named.

         No pushover for the governor or for the veterans, General Cooper challenged some of the delegation: “Can the Criminal Court Judge change the Franchise, and Kuklux Laws, at the holding of your courts without personal danger? Sparks and the others assured him, “Judge Smith enforces the Ku-klux laws.” Cooper found ways of dissociating rebels like Sparks from some KKK “outrages.” The paper paraphrased: “He [Cooper] did not believe that the outrages complained of had been committed by Confederate soldiers . . . and he furthermore believed that but few of the Simon pure Confederate soldiers were to be found in the organization of the Ku-Klux Klan.” He let them know that the delegation could avoid any interference by the state if they returned to their homes, where he expected them to do their duty and denounce any mob action in the press. He had “advice to the delegation, saying that if the people wanted to get the franchise, they must not curse and abuse us. He, for one, could be folled a good ways, but was a hard man to drive.” [Folled is a misprint for tolled, a once common word Faulkner had to explain even to Virginians. You could keep your head down and lead Cooper along with sweet words, the way you would walk with a hand containing some bovine delicacy held behind you to ensure that you did not need to look back to see that a calf was still following you.] The upshot is that Cooper was not in any hurry to call out the militia to attack the “rebels.” In February 1869, Brownlow resigned. Martial law was avoided. And Jesse Sparks entered public life as Democrat, popular for the rest of his life, but not a man who blamed blacks for the sins of the white Radical Republicans: the Radicals had enfranchised blacks mainly as a way of grinding white Southerners further down, but Sparks escaped those poisonous feelings.

         In his middle years Jesse Sparks was a public figure, a state celebrity. In November 1885 he sent President Cleveland a live possum caught on the battle-field of Murfreesboro, giving instructions on slaughter and cooking, then proudly framed the thank you note from the President. On 2 April 1886 the Nashville Tennessean printed news from Murfreesboro, a “Colored Concert” in support of a very worthy cause. The writer had attended “the jolliest and most amusing amateur performance ever given in the city,” all conceived “by our noble philanthropist, Maj. J. W. Sparks.” The “participants were all colored, with the exception of Maj. Sparks, who made his appearance before the curtain rose and stated in a most happy and characteristic manner the object of the entertainment, which, in brief, was to lend aid to the old and decrepit colored men and women of the city.” The Opera House was packed. Whites were permitted: “The parquet and one side of the dress circle were reserved for the whites and there were numbers of them who could not find seats.” The concert raised money “far above the expectations of the management.”

         On 31 March 1887 a reporter from the Nashville American gave a “pencil sketch” of Sparks as one of the state senators whose names were as familiar as household words: “He is a native of Texas, and possesses all the best points of the Texan happily blended with the personal accomplishments and warm-heartedness of a Middle Tennessean.” On 5 June 1887 the Nashville Banner summarized Jesse’s long speech against Prohibition (“Prohibition “will not prohibit” and “would result in no practical good.”) Neal Dow, the author of the 1857 “Maine Law,” reproached Jesse in a long letter (3 July 1887) in the Macon, Georgia, Telegraph celebrating his now sober state: “Before the Maine law our people were shiftless, thriftless, poor; now they are active, industrious, enterprising, thrifty, rich. The liquor traffic earns nothing; its influence is to waste the wages of labor and to ruin all who come under its influence.” Jesse won.

         The American on 26 May 1888 saw Jesse as magnet for public notice: “They tell this on Senator Jesse W. Sparks, who is an officer on Gov. Taylor’s Staff: “Attired in his handsome uniform, epaulets glittering, dignified and martial Uncle Jesse was walking near the camp yesterday. A squad of soldiers approached, and, as they neared him, halted and saluted. Uncle Jesse looked hard at them, and then exclaimed: ‘Tote your guns boys.’ They did so and hurried away from the awful officer.” The same paper on 18 November 1888 proclaimed, “Uncle Jesse Heard From” and published a satirical reply to “a candidate applying for aid.” “What the thunder do you want with me?” Jesse stormed. He was a raconteur, as at a veteran’s reunion in Houston in 1888, where he “related a joke about his being appointed a committee to value saddles of the Eighth Texas regiment, which created a great deal of laughter.” The joke is lost but the idea of examining saddles remains funny. Once a ragged rough Nacogdoches kid, “Uncle Jesse” had developed a voice, recognizable all over Tennessee. Late in 1888 he assumed he would become the next Speaker of the Senate. He told the vets in Houston that he was a member of the senate of Tennessee “and will be elected speaker in two weeks from to-day if nothing unforeseen happens.” That would have been “all right,” but as the Memphis Commercial Appeal on 9 January 1889 revealed, his opponent was made Speaker “even at the sacrifice of so true and unselfish a friend as Senator Sparks, and the sacrifice was made.” The reporter added: “I have not heard Maj. Sparks bemoaning his fate, but he now has the golden opportunity of his life to sit down and coolly reflect.”

         Jesse did not pause to reflect, and he did not want to be kept standing./. The Tennessean on 17 November 1889 told a story that was copied all around, how Jesse behaved when entered a crowded railroad car where a man was spread across two seats, his luggage on a third, his feet both on the famous railroad plush. Jesse was polite: “Is this seat engaged?” Pushed too far by rudeness, Jesse “jerked the seat over, probably severely abrading the stranger’s shin-plasters.” “‘By G-d, sir,’ yelled the stranger as he violently threw the seat back to its former position and poked a revolver into the Senator’s glowing countenance, ‘I’m from New York.’

         “‘And I,’ retorted the Senator as he knocked up the New Yorker’s pistol, “am from Texas, more recently from Tennessee.” As he spoke he shot his right fist into the stranger’s left optic, and knocking him against the window-pane shattered the glass. The stranger’s head went through the opening thus made and the irate Tennessean was about to throw the Yorker out the car when friends persuaded him to desist.” Uncle Jesse was a hero, partly because he was, normally, a gentle man, whose soul had imbibed “genial warmth and constant mildness” from his years at Nacogdoches so that he was always in “good humor” around his friends, according to the sketch of his life in the Nashville American (6 January 1889).

         Sparks never went out of his way to preserve his dignity. He was not in fighting shape. He was “fat and heavy as a material body, but affable by nature, as most of corpulent men are,” said the Nashville Tennessean on 19 December 1886. The Louisville Courier (2 February 1896) recalled “not the least notable” of his career “full of daring deeds”--his celebrated foot race against Bob Taylor at the old Whig barbeque two or three years ago.” The distance set was 25 yards, 25 long strides. “Both contestants had to be carried off the field, and were laid up for repairs for several weeks.” This, declared the Courier, “is history.” (Taylor, three term Governor, starting 1887-1891) had stronger arms than legs, perhaps, being “a master of the violin” who had “often entertained his boys in camp.” He was a Union youth during the war and a cheerful political rival of his older brother Alf, Whig and Democrat, so cheerful they played fiddles together at political meetings. (“United Veterans” Galveston Daily News 23 May 1895.)

         Jesse was loyal. After twenty years in jail, Captain A. W. Tompkins was pardoned by Governor Buchanan of Tennessee. From a prominent Southern family, he had been in B. F. Terry’s regiment in the 8th Texas Rangers and had captained Company H through the war. Jesse Sparks had fought “side by side” with him and was the chief promoter of the pardon.

         More than an attention-seeker, more than a celebrity, Sparks had become a thoughtful man. Although Jesse’s father and uncle were killed by (probably) Comanches in Texas and his North Carolina ancestors battled Cherokees, he developed a respectful fascination with American Indians. On 8 December 1885, the Nashville American reported on the meeting of the Tennessee Historical in the home of Major Sparks, a gathering enriched by rarities such as newly copied photographs of Indians. Two or so months earlier, probably in October, Sparks and the former governor of Tennessee, John C. Brown (a cousin of mine through the Hill and Truman families) “had a long talk with Sitting Bull” in the Southern Hotel in St. Louis, at a time the famous Indian was sitting with his interpreter for a series of interviews. When the Tennesseans left the hotel, Brown said to Sparks, “‘There is one of the great men of this country. You can see it in his face. He is the only man that ever whipped the United States, and that is more than you and I” (Confederates both) “were able to do.”

         The Atlanta Constitution (22 November 1886) revealed that Sparks’s deep interest in Indians had caught the attention of a frivolous reporter who mocked his collection. “Major J. W. Sparks, of Murfreesboro, has at his residence quite a number of Indian relics, or rather, Indian weapons of war, such as war clubs, bow and arrows, quivers, tomahawks and all the bloody implements of death that the wily red man of the forest was wont to use and still use in their merciless ravages. In his collection is a war club used by Crazy Horse in the massacre ten years ago of the brave General Custer and his gallant band, when there was not one of the United States soldiers left to tell the melancholy tale. Another club has dangling from it a human scalp--the scalp of a woman with long, black, silken hair. This is, no doubt, the only genuine human scalp in Tennessee. Major Sparks says he would give anything to know the sad history of the woman who met her cruel fate at the hands of the ruthless savage. But it will doubtless never be known. She was slain, no doubt, while her protectors were away, without one word of mercy, by a hand as pitiless as that of Moloch. Major Sparks will present these weapons and fixtures, among others of a like historical nature, to the Tennessee Historical society when it meets again in Murfreesboro.” What shameful mockery and what a contrast with the profound respect Sparks showed.

         Sparks had commissioned Professor T. N. Schleier to photograph several “Sioux Indians of note and influence in their tribe.” Sparks now had carefully produced copies of photographs of Sitting Bull, Crow Dog, Spotted Tail, White Thunder, Red Cloud, and others. He presented to the Historical Society a group of eleven including Yellow Bear, He Dog, Little Hound, American Horse, Little Big Man, Young-man-afraid-of-his-Horse, Sword, Three Bears, and three interpreters.” Sparks considered Young Spotted Tail “a splendid-looking young Indian with a son of about six. Sparks said, “I took such a fancy to the little boy’s dress (having a little boy about his size, myself,) that Mrs. Spotted Tail made me a gift of it and sent it to my son, and he is now the proudest little fellow in Tennessee. I think every boy in Murfreesboro of his size has tried on that suit of clothes. There is not a woman in Tennessee that can do such work. So the ladies here say, although it was done by a wild Indian.”

         The Galveston Daily News on 20 December 1888 reported comically, “INVASION OF VETERANS. Houston captured by a remnant of the famous Terry Rangers.” A captain arose and demanded that Major Jesse Sparks “should be required to stand up and give an account of himself and explain the trouble he had got the regiment into thirty years ago, when he marched them into the service of the confederacy.” Elsewhere (in his 1919 Reminiscences) James K. P. Blackmun recalled just how Jesse had got the men aroused: “They were lined up on three sides of a hollow square” when Lieutenant Sparks asked: ‘Do you men wish to be sworn into service for twelve months or for three years or for during the war ?’ With a unanimity never surpassed, a shout unheard of before, that whole body of men shouted, ‘For the war,’ ‘For the war !’ not one expecting or caring to return until the war was over, long or short, and the invaders had been driven from our borders.”

         So, thirty-seven years later, Jesse gave the Houston invaders a fine speech that revealed much about the Rangers and his early life. Some of it I have mentioned already: “You may think I am not a Texan, but you are mistaken. I was born in Texas at Nacogdoches. My brother and four uncles were in the battle of San Jacinto. Before the war I was a wild boy. There were four of us . . . . We ran away and joined General Walker and fought the Indians two years.” This was the John G. Walker, later known as the “Greyhound Commander, and the General Rusk next mentioned was a hero of San Jacinto and United States Senator. “General Rusk said to us when we got back: ‘You can scarcely write your names,’ and sent us off to school in Nashville, Tenn. We were there just four weeks and were expelled. [Laughter.] General Rusk, for a son of his was of the party, wrote to us and said: ‘It was just as I expected.’ He sent us to a good school at Murfreesboro, Tenn., and we stayed there four years and did something for ourselves.”  Rusk must have sent them away shortly before his suicide in Nacogdoches at the end of July 1857. Two of his sons, one born in 1829, the other in 1841, survived the war; one son was at college with Jesse.

         So Jesse Sparks was a Terry Ranger, who knew both B. F. (Frank) Terry and David Terry. When Judge David Terry was murdered in San Francisco in 1889, having established himself there, an enterprising reporter accosted Jesse, who cautioned: “You must remember that was in 1861, ’62, ’63 and ’64, when I was nothing but a boy, and I was not associated with those gentlemen like I would have been had I been older. Still, I knew them both well,” especially B. F. Terry, who lost his life, Jesse said, by rashness. Talking to the reporter evoked powerful memories of a decisive event in his life, in mid December 1861.  B. F. was a reckless man: “‘Col. Terry espied . . . a squad and said, ‘Boys, here is a squad of them, let us charge them!’” When the men gathered at his body, Sparks remembered, “Then it was that we were impressed for the first time with the fact that war meant killing folks.” This sounds sententious, and it is--not awkwardly wordy but sonorously emphatic, for the construction “Then it was that” is from the King James Version of the Bible. Jesse was not finished with the reporter. B. F.’s son David, he said, fell on the body, weeping bitterly. “Right there occurred one of the tragedies of war that made a fearful impression on me.” Someone stupidly pointed out a prisoner, the “fine-looking young German” who had killed Terry: “The remark had scarcely been uttered before young Dave Terry whipped out his pistol and shot the prisoner dead. While war meant war, and we were engaged in killing people for a livelihood, this one act made a serious impression upon me”--the act of a grief-stricken son shooting dead the prisoner who had killed his father.

         Now, all this makes us believe that seeing Davy avenge his father was “one act” which marked Jesse Sparks’s memory. Curiously, a widow, Maris Evans Claiborne, quoted a letter from her first husband, Mark L. Evans: “Col. Terry made a desperate charge upon about a dozen, and fell dead, having received a ball in the chin and coming out in the back of his head. His horse was shot from under him about the same instant. I have the honor to know that I shot the Dutchman's brains out that killed him. I emptied my six-shooters into the crowd, and saw several fall dead.” German, said Jesse; Evans said Dutchman, by which he may have meant someone who spoke Deutsch, as in “Pennsylvania Dutch” or one of those who came directly to New Braunsfel in the 1840s. Whatever Jesse remembered, had its lasting effect on him.

         “After a Long Illness He Is Out Again,” said the Nashville American on 20 August 1890. A reporter had met Sparks the day before: “From the effects of wounds received during the war and rheumatic troubles the senator has been confined to his bed for several months. While his sufferings were great and the confinement almost unbearable for one of his temperament , he looks almost as natural as ever. Yesterday, he said, was the first time he had been out of the house for several months, and he walks now by the aid of crutches.”

         In 1890 from his sickbed Sparks had been paying attention to unsurprising news from Congress, that the Government had not “in any one instance, complied with its part of the treaty or contract, but has been quietly swindling” Indians. Sparks knew there was one consistently honorable man in Indian affairs, Nelson A. Miles, the hero of my earlier chapter on Wounded Knee. He quoted “Gen. Miles, the senior Major General of the army,” as saying that the Sioux had been “wronged from the beginning” and that Sitting Bull had been right in demanding that the Government keep its treaties. On 20 December 1890, a few days after the death of Sitting Bull, the Nashville American quoted Sparks on that “remarkable man”: His picture shows one of the strongest and saddest marked faces ever seen, and it almost bewilders one to look upon the face of a wild Indian, like Sitting Bull, and see such wonderful and plainly marked lines of strong character.” Some had seen the chief “as a lousy cowthief and an altogether superfluous laggard upon this terrestrial ball,” but Major Sparks told the reporter that he regarded Sitting Bull, St. Paul, and Andrew Jackson “as the grand triumvirate of history occupying a serene altitude on the cupola of the temple of fame.”

         On 20 December 1890 the American quoted Sparks at great length: “Sitting Bull and Red Cloud have been the great chiefs of the Ogallala Sioux for many years. These Indians owned an immense territory in our Western country, so admitted by the United States. When gold was discovered in the Black Hills, these hills belonged to Sitting Bull’s people. The citizens of the United States rushed there by the thousands and the Indians undertook to protect their property, just what any people would have done. It brought on a big Indian war, Sitting Bull was their leader, and he being a man of ability and a good General, the Indians followed his advice and leadership, which resulted in disaster to the United States forces, a terrible one, too. Poor Custer and his gallant men were sacrificed because the white men of the United States wanted to take the rich gold fields from Sitting Bull and his people without pay or compensation. Can anyone blame Sitting Bull for defending the rights of his people to these rich gold fields--gold fields that belonged to these very Indians--for the United States Government acknowledged their title to this territory by making a treaty with these very Indians wherein the Government bought these gold fields from them at a price agreed upon, and among other things it was agreed that the United States Government should feed and clothe these Indians and educate their children for a term of years, I don’t now remember how many. And it has come out within the last two months, in debates in Congress, that the Government has not, in any one instance, complied with its part of the treaty or contract, but has been quietly swindling these Indians from the date of the treaty down to this date. All this is testified to by the officers and agents of the United States Government. Gen. Miles, the senior Major General of the army, says the Government has not kept its part of the contract, but that these Indians have been wronged from the beginning up to this date by the Government, and because Sitting Bull, acting for and in behalf of his people, demanded from time to time a strict compliance with the contract or treaty, upon the part of the United States Government, (the Indians having complied strictly with their part of the treaty by surrendering enough territory to make four such States as Tennessee), then you say Sitting Bull for many years has been a thorn in the white man’s side.”

         Sparks was appalled at the tone the writer Carmack had taken in the paper: “Again: you abuse Sitting Bull because he insists on his rights and say there is nothing heroic  in his death, that he was shot down like a dog. Yes, that is true, Mr. Editor.  He was shot down like a dog. He was a prisoner, unable to do any mischief, if so he desired. The proof shows he surrendered without offering any resistance, and after being a prisoner he was shot down like a dog--this wonderful man, the only  man that ever whipped the United States, killed while a prisoner, and because he was insisting on the rights of his people, he is abused and vilified. I say it is too bad and insist on saying this much in defense of this wonderful man.

         “I insist, if the Government had carried out its part of the contract, that there would not have been any trouble. Their ghost dances are nothing more than our old-fashion camp-meetings. It is their religious ceremony, and if let alone they will soon abandon them, but if disturbed while carrying on their religious ceremony they will fight. The agents of the Government know all this, and still insist on breaking up their meetings.  Our Methodist brethren here at home would fight if one of their camp-meetings were interfered with.

         “So I say let the Indians alone in their religious ceremonies. Comply with our contract strictly, and I will guarantee no further trouble. The United States Government is to blame for all this trouble, so, friend Carmack, take back all you said about poor Sitting Bull.” He quoted “Gen. Miles, the senior Major General of the army,” as saying that the Sioux had been “wronged from the beginning” and that Sitting Bull had been right in demanding that the Government keep its treaties.”

         Not old in years, but weak, Jesse still had influential allies. Grover Cleveland, ever grateful for the Thanksgiving delicacy of possums, on 23 June 1893 appointed Sparks as consul for Piedras Negras in northern Mexico. “Sparks Gets Pie,” headlined that date in the American. The short note credited Congressman Richardson for “feeling very good,” since he had secured the appointment “through his persistent efforts.”

         More thoughtful than ever now that he had a federal post, Jesse, who had been so cruelly treated as a conquered rebel by the Radical Brownlow, realized that he no longer wanted to live as a partisan concerned only about the beloved Confederate veterans still surviving. It was time for Yankees and Rebels to unite. The Galveston Daily News on 23 May 1895 printed “Reunion Notes,” dating the piece as Houston, 22 May: “One of the most interesting organizations now here is in camp of ‘United American Veterans,’ all the way from Eagle Pass, Tex., on the extreme border of the United States, only separated from Mexico by the Rio Grande river.

         The camp is under command of Major Jesse W. Sparks, United States consul. This gentleman was a gallant officer in Texas at the beginning of the war, and mustered the famous Terry’s Texas rangers into the confederate service. He after served in the armies east of the Mississippi river. When the war was over, like a sensible man, he accepted the change of affairs in the south, and now feels proud to represent his country as consul to a foreign nation. The camp comprises men who wore the blue and the gray, and it is a pleasing sight to see men who faced each other on the field of strife over thirty years ago now messing together and touching elbows when marching under the folds of the star spangled banner. The camp is one of the largest here. This organization will certainly expand all over the south, and it will be only a few years when similar camps will be formed. The southern veteran, homeless and disabled, has no government pension to aid his declining years, but the ‘United American Veterans’ will, as their charter provides, aid all members, no matter the color of the jacket he wore over thirty years ago. . . . When the bands played ‘Dixie’ to-day the fact was noticed that a large number of members of the Grand Army of the Republic cheered heartily, and when ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ closed hundreds of confederate veterans returned the compliment.”

         The timing was such that Jesse had more than that chance at grand reconciliation. The Louisville Courier on 2 February 1896 looked back on a tragic episode: “A certain ‘professional negro’ named Ellis, representing a company of Northern capitalists operating in Mexico, by glittering representations of the glorious things awaiting the colored race in Mexico, induced a large number of negroes to abandon their homes in the South and go to that country, to work for the Northern company above alluded to. Under the climactic conditions and barbarous treatment to which they were subjected, these deluded negroes were soon reduced to a state worse than death. As fast as they could break away from their restraints they fled northward, in the hope of reaching the United States. They appealed to the American Consul for relief and protection, and got both.”

         There was news “reported on ‘Small-Pox at Eagle Pass, Tex.’: Dr. Evans reports 115 cases of small- pox at quarantine station yesterday morning. Three deaths occurred Tuesday among the batch of 65 that arrived Monday night. Jesse W. Sparks, United States consul, who has taken such an active interest in the welfare of the negro colonists, left yesterday for Murfreesboro, Tenn., and while en route will endeavor to obtain contributions of clothing and bedding, so badly needed by the negroes.” This was reprinted in many places, some after Sparks had died, as explained below.

The Galveston Daily News (27 July 1895) headlined “STRANDED COLONISTS; Consul Sparks Asks the Government to Feed the Returning Negroes.” On 26 July Sparks “wired to Assistant Secretary of State Uhl at Washington requesting that the Government furnish from San Antonio several thousand rations with which the hundreds of starving negroes . . .”      

         Sparks died on 3 August, as explained below, but editors heard erratically, rapidly or slowly. On 9 August 1895 the Boise Statesman used the headline “NAKED AS FROGS, Terrible Plight of the Stranded Negro Emigrants in Mexico.” Jesse W. Sparks, the “United States consul to Mexico” (or to Piedras Negras) wrote to Austin reporting “a deplorable condition among the negro emigrants in Mexico,” who needed money and food: “I have distressed people. . . . They need clothing badly. The majority of them are as naked as frogs. Let your people get up clothing for these poor women, men and children and send it at once.”

         On 19 September the Morning Star in Washington wrote on “Stranded Negroes / Unable to Return to Their Homes in Alabama.” This was dire: “The 400 stranded negroes at Eagle Pass will have to remain in that section unless they find means outside of the United States Government with which to return to their homes in Alabama.” Smallpox had been stopped, after many deaths, “but the negroes appear to have become panic-stricken, for they have declined offers of good homes at fair wages on large ranches near Eagle Pass.” The obituary piece in the Confederate Veteran I think was written by Jesse W. Sparks, Jr. He celebrates the Consul’s “fearless action in behalf of a large number of negroes who had been persuaded to go from the United States into Mexico. They had become diseased with smallpox, were almost literally naked and were starving then they undertook to return home. The authorities on the other side refused permission for them to cross the Rio Grande, but Consul Sparks, the Southern white man, assumed all responsibility. He got on the engine by the engineer and required him to open the throttle and run the train across despite all other authority. Then he took responsibility of supplying food until his acts were approved at Washington.”

         Not everybody appreciated Sparks’s charitable nature. The Birmingham News on 6 February 1896 looked at this annoying event of 1895: An unusual demand was made during the year on account of the large number of negroes returning from Mexico who were unceremoniously and often times without notice, dumped on this community, forcing us to provide for them in their helplessness and want.”

         The Baltimore Sun (3 August 1896) had the news of the “sudden death of consul Sparks” of heart failure, in the International Hotel. The paper knew what to emphasize: “Major Sparks was a prominent candidate for Governor of Tennessee when appointed consul by President Cleveland. He was vice-president of the United Veterans, an association Union and Confederate soldiers. He was widely known throughout the South, and had come into national prominence through his energetic action in behalf of stranded negro colonists from Mexico. His remains will be shipped tomorrow to Murfreesboro, Tenn., where his family resides.” The “United Veterans” deserved that mention, out of all that could have been said. The Confederate Veteran got other parts right: “His death at his post of duty was a great shock to his family and friends, although he had been in ill health for some years and was a dreadful sufferer at times from a bullet which never could be extricated.” Then that obituary added this striking sentence about what that wild boy from Nacogdoches had become: “Major Sparks shared liberally his income with the poor and needy of both races.” He would have shared with Indians if he could have. The 1896 Veteran (p. 286) added: “Another prominent characteristic of Major Sparks was his great interest in Indians, and he had a large collection of very fine Indian relics. Sitting Bull was to him a most interesting character.”

         The Nashville American on 2 August 1896 announced news from Eagle Pass, Texas: “MAJ. JESSE W. SPARKS Well Known Tennessean Dies Suddenly in Mexico. Was United States Consul at Piedras Negras, and Died of Heart Failure at His Hotel There-Remains to Be Shipped to Murfreesboro To-Day for Burial.” He had died on 1 August. The writer seized on two recent events, Sparks’s becoming “Vice President of the United States United Veterans, an association of Union and Confederate soldiers”--a happy reconciliation in a group formed in 1892. Movingly, a group from the Eagle Pass Camp of United Veterans (Federals and Confederates) escorted his body home to Tennessee. The reporter accurately said that Sparks “had come into national prominence through his energetic action in behalf of the stranded negro colonists from Mexico,” but his activities for uniting the blue and the grave were of more importance historically.

         Astonishingly (can you name a parallel?) black churches in Murfreesboro held services for him. The Veteran said this: “One of the most beautiful of a multitude of floral designs at his funeral was contributed by the colored people. They subsequently held a public meeting and passed resolutions, one of which reads: ‘That we deeply deplore the death of Major Jesse W. Sparks, by which we and our race have lost one of our best and truest white friends, and mankind a benefactor.’” The Nashville Tennessean on 4 August printed this notice: “Colored Citizens Will Act”: “A large meeting of the colored citizens of Murfreesboro will be held in the court-house on Wednesday, the 5th inst., at 2 o’clock, in honor of the late Hon. J. W. Sparks. Rev. J. Allen Viney, of New Orleans, and William Dickson Greer will be the principle speakers. a cordial invitation is extend to the white citizens to attend.” Sitting Bull to him was a most interesting character. As I wrote this chapter Cousin Jesse became to me a most interesting character.

 

 

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