The Plan to Suppress the Black Vote in South Carolina Revealed!: Election 1876

General Martin W. Gary was a Confederate brigadier general during the Civil War commanding cavalry. He had served in Hampton’s Legion and he had refused to surrender along with the rest of Lee’s army at Appomattox. After the war, Gary became a militant opponent of Reconstruction in South Carolina and of civil rights for African Americans. Gary said that he saw the 1876 Election as “a struggle for supremacy between the races and not a mere contest for honest government as has been alleged.”*

While Gary’s old commander, General Wade Hampton, campaigned for governor in 1876 promising that a return to white conservative control of the state would not erase the rights of Blacks, Gary drew up his own “Plan No. 1 of Campaign.” Plan No. 1, called the “Shotgun Policy” was written in secret and distributed to Democratic clubs in all of the counties of South Carolina in secret, but it was a proud legacy of the Gary family and the General’s widow archived it after her husband’s death. You can read the full plan here.

Gary’s plan required intelligence gathering about those whose votes were to be suppressed. He ordered that the names of all Black voters be collected throughout the state. Knowing who the enemy was would not be enough. Gary knew he needed to use the threat of violence to secure white supremacy in a state where more than half the population was black.

Gary’s plan called for an armed force organized along military lines. Here is how Gary put it:

That the Democratic Military Clubs are to be armed with rifles and pistols and such
other arms as they may command. They are divided into two companies, one of the old men the other of the young; an experienced captain or commander to be placed over each of them. That each Company is to have a 1st and 2nd Lieutenant. That the number of ten privates is to be the unit of organization. That each Captain is to see that his men are well armed and provided with at least thirty rounds of ammunition. That the Captain of the young men is to provide a Baggage
wagon, in which three days rations for the horses and three days rations for the men are to be stored on the day before the election in order that they may be prepared at a moments notice to move to any point in the County when ordered by the Chairman of the Executive Committee.

This paramilitary force was, like the later paramilitary groups in Europe, to have a uniform colored shirt:

Every club must be uniformed in a red shirt and they must be sure and wear it upon all public meetings and particularly on the day of election.

The men were henceforth called the Red Shirts. While Hampton denied that Gary was a formal part of his campaign for governor, he rode with an escort of Red Shirts whenever he processes through towns or held rallies in cities.

Even those who were not paramilitaries had a coercive role to play. Gary wrote that all Democrats were required to “control the vote of at least one negro”:

Every Democrat must feel honor bound to control the vote of at least one negro, by intimidation, purchase, keeping him away or as each individual may determine, how he may best accomplish it.

Gary ordered his men to use their weapons to intimidate state and county officials by showing up armed in large numbers at hearings and meetings, For instance, here is his order for conduct at meetings organized by African Americans:

We must attend every Radical meeting that we hear of whether they meet at night or in the day time. Democrats must go in as large numbers as they can get together, and well armed, behave at first with great courtesy and assure the ignorant negroes that you mean them no harm and so soon as their leaders or speakers begin to speak and make false statements of facts, tell them then and there to their faces, that they are liars, thieves and rascals, and are only trying to
mislead the ignorant negroes and if you get a chance get upon the platform and address the negroes.

When Gary’s men “got the platform” at a meeting, they were advised on how to speak:

In speeches to negroes you must remember that argument has no effect upon them: They can only be influenced by their fears, superstition and cupidity. Do not attempt to flatter and persuade them. Tell them plainly of our wrongs and grievances, perpetrated upon us, by their rascally leaders. Prove to them that we can carry the election without them and if they cooperate with us, it will benefit them more than it will us. Treat them so as to show them, you are the superior race, and that their natural position is that of subordination to the white man.

Repeating advice he had read from S.W. Ferguson, a leader of the Mississippi Redeemers, Gary wrote:

“Never threaten a man individually if he deserves to be threatened, the necessities of the times require that he should die. A dead Radical is very harmless-a threatened Radical or one driven off by threats from the scene of his operations is often very troublesome, sometimes dangerous, always vindictive.”

Gary’s plan also called for the formation of fake Black clubs supporting Wade Hampton to advance the claim that he had universal support. Gary wrote:

In the month of September we ought to begin to organize negro clubs, or pretend that we have organized them…

On election day the Red Shirts were to challenge the right to vote of Blacks both to disqualify them and to slow down voting so that other African Americans were frustrated and got off the line to vote:

Where the negroes are largely in the majority a corps of challengers should be organized, with appropriate questions. 

The combination of murder, violence, threats, intimidation, disruption, armed occupation of public buildings, fake Black Red Shirts, and bribery would all play a part in the Election of 1876 drama.

*Andrew Jr., Rod. Wade Hampton: Confederate Warrior to Southern Redeemer (Civil War America) (p. 373). The University of North Carolina Press. Kindle Edition.

 

Follow Reconstruction Blog on Social Media:

•