GOOD MORNING P.O.U!
We continue our series on African-American Civil War Spies.
GEORGE SCOTT
(From The New York Times)
‘To Have a Revolver’
By Adam GoodheartJune 8, 2011 9:00 pm
This landmark episode, almost completely forgotten today, came more than a year before Congress officially allowed the enlistment of African-American troops, and more than two years before the 54th Massachusetts (the famous “Glory” regiment) would win laurels on the battlefield. As the Civil War began, the idea of arming blacks still seemed highly dangerous, even harebrained, so much so that President Abraham Lincoln refused to consider it. When, just after the attack on Sumter, hundreds of free blacks in Philadelphia had rallied near Independence Hall and offered to form two regiments of colored troops “in whose hearts burns the love of country,” they were ignored by the military authorities.
Scott, a black Virginian, wore no uniform and held no official rank. Yet in a literal sense, it was he who led — although he did not command — the Union troops at the Battle of Big Bethel. Indeed, one Northern newspaper went so far as to call him “the main spring of the enterprise,” adding: “Without Scott it does not appear that the forces would have found their way to the scene of action.”
Even before his first experience of battlefield combat, Scott had led an extraordinary life — and had been accustomed to carrying firearms. Few people, black or white, knew their way around the lower Virginia Peninsula better than he did. And few had more reason to hope for the defeat of the Confederacy, and of slavery.
He had been born into bondage near the town of Hampton, along the James River. Originally the property of a local man, Scott had been sold to one A.M. Graves, a notoriously brutal master. Before Graves could take possession, he slipped away into the surrounding countryside, where he spent two years hiding in a cave, aided by a local white girl who brought him food, and occasionally working as a hired field hand for sympathetic local farmers. During his time as a fugitive he came to know almost every inch of the nearby woods and swamps.
Scott had also proven himself as a fighter. His master, aided by local slave patrollers, had persisted in efforts to recapture him. Once Graves, brandishing a pistol and bowie knife, managed to corner him. The formidable Scott wrenched both weapons out of Graves’s hands before disappearing again into the woods — now well armed against attack.
When the war began, Scott was one of the first local blacks to take refuge within the federal lines at Union-held Fort Monroe, gaining de facto freedom when Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, the post’s commander, declared them “contraband of war.” He almost immediately volunteered as a scout for Butler’s officers, then preparing their first assault against nearby Confederate troops, whose precise location was still unknown.
“I ken smell a rebel furderer dan I ken a skunk,” Scott promised. He was right. Near Big Bethel Church, about eight miles away, Scott discovered several Confederate companies, defended by an artillery battery. He concealed himself in the bushes for a full 24 hours, observing what he could. A sentry finally caught sight of Scott, but he managed to escape – a rebel bullet grazed the sleeve of his jacket as he scrambled away – and reported to Butler’s staff on what he had seen.
Apparently Scott had befriended one Union officer in particular: Maj. Theodore Winthrop, a gifted author and ardent abolitionist who had told his family upon setting out to enlist: “I go to put an end to slavery.” Scott now led Winthrop though the woods to reconnoiter the Confederate fortifications. Satisfied that the contraband’s information was correct, Winthrop relied on it for a battle plan that he drew up in consultation with General Butler.
In Butler’s final instructions to his officers was a remarkable order: “George Scott is to have a revolver.” This was apparently added at Winthrop’s urging. It marks the first recorded instance in the Civil War when a Union commander put a gun into the hands of a black man. (A different account by a Union soldier suggests that ultimately Scott was given a rifle.) And when, in the early morning hours of June 10, Winthrop rode out toward the rebel lines at the head of an infantry column, Scott was at his side. Local blacks thronged around the Northern troops to wish them well.
Winthrop’s insistence on arming Scott had, in a sense, been prophetic. “This clear-headed young man,” a Northern journalist wrote after the war, “saw what none of the statesmen had discovered, that the same law that made the slaves contraband of war for working on rebel fortifications would in like manner give them the right to bear arms. The people of the North, however, were reluctant to accept that conclusion. Not till many thousands of brave men laid down their lives would they consent to the enrolling of freed men as soldiers of the Republic.”
It is at this point that one wishes the story could have turned out differently: that Scott’s bold reconnaissance could have resulted in a glorious victory for the Union. But this was not to be. Alerted by local civilians, the Confederates were prepared for the Union troops’ would-be surprise attack. The Battle of Big Bethel — remembered as the first important clash on land in the Civil War — became a Northern rout. Scott, according to a report in The Times, was “in the thickest of the … fight.” So was Major Winthrop, who was killed after dismounting to lead one last desperate charge, while Scott held his horse’s bridle.
In a sense, however, Scott’s participation at Big Bethel — which was reported in various Northern newspapers— was still a victory. Although some tried to blame him for the debacle, he had proven that the South’s newly liberated slaves were ready to serve, and even to risk their lives for, the Union cause. And this, in turn, heralded an even larger revolution, as another former slave, Frederick Douglass, noted in an 1863 speech: “Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder, and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on earth or under the earth which can deny that he has earned the right of citizenship in the United States.”
For the time being, however, there were many more battles to be fought — and not only with the Confederates. Most Northerners remained opposed to enlisting black troops, and many Union officers were prepared to send fugitives like Scott back into slavery. In late June 1861, one Massachusetts journalist wrote: “I advise Geo. Scott to keep his shooting-iron, for protection against slave-catching Yankee colonels, as much as against his own pretended owner.”
The following month, Scott departed from Fort Monroe on an even more extraordinary mission: this one to Washington, D.C. Accompanying a Union colonel, he went “to plead with Pres. Lincoln for his liberties,” according to a contemporary letter. It is unclear if he was given an audience.