Fall/Winter 2020
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
The The The TheTheThe Journal Journal Journal JJoJoouuurrrnnnaaalll TheThe The ofof of JJooJuuorurnnranallal of of of ofof of MISSISSIPPIMISSISSIPPIMISSISSIPPI MISSISSIPPI MISSISSIPPI MISSISSIPPI MISSISSIPPIMISSISSIPPIMISSISSIPPI HHHISTORISTORISTORYYY uu u VolumeVolumeVolume LXXXII, LXXXII, LXXXII, Nº3 Nº3 and and Nº3 Nº4 Nº4 and Fall/Winter Nº4Fall/Winter Fall/Winter 2020 2020 2020 HHHISTORISTORISTORYYY uuu HISTORY HISTORY HISTORY VolumeVolumeVolume LXXXII, LXXXII, LXXXII, Nº3 Nº3 Nº3 and and and Nº4 Nº4 Nº4 Fall/Winter Fall/Winter Fall/Winter 2020 2020 2020 u u u VolumeVolume Volume LXXXII, LXXXII, LXXXII, Nº3 and Nº4 Fall/Winter 2020 Nº3 and Nº4 Fall/Winter 2020 Nº3 and Nº4 Fall/Winter 2020 Nº3 and Nº4 Fall/Winter MississippiMississippiMississippi Historical Historical Historical Society Society Society www.mississippihistory.orgwww.mississippihistory.orgwww.mississippihistory.org TITLE e Mississippi 1 Historical Society Founded November 9, 1858 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 2020-2021 OFFICERS K B M D A H PRESIDENT Marshall Bennett, Jackson EDITOR D J. M VICE PRESIDENT P E, M S U-M Stephanie R. Rolph, Jackson EDITOR-IN-CHIEF EMERITUS SECRETARY–TREASURER E R. H William “Brother” Rogers, Brandon M H S IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT MANAGING EDITOR Charles Westmoreland, Delta State University W “B” R M D A H EX-OFFICIO BIBLIOGRAPHICAL EDITOR Katie Blount, Jackson M V-A Columbus-Lowndes Public Library 2020-2021 BOARD OF DIRECTORS BOOK REVIEW EDITOR LA SHON F. BROOKS DIERDRE S. PAYNE C W Mississippi Valley State University Ridgeland Delta State University CARTER BURNS CHRISTIAN PINNEN Natchez Mississippi College BOARD OF PUBLICATIONS KELLY CANTRELL JAMES L. JIMMY ROBERTSON J F. B, J. W H M J East Mississippi Community College Jackson Natchez Clinton M C WILMA E. MOSLEY CLOPTON RYAN SCHILLING J L J L W P Jackson Mississippi Gulf Coast Community Jackson Jackson Starkville College ANGELA COCKERHAM Magnolia ANGELA D. STEWART Jackson State University SHENNETTE M. GARRETT SCOTT REBECCA A. TUURI University of Mississippi University of Southern Mississippi MISSY JONES JEN WALLER Mississippi Department of Archives and History Mississippi College Clarksdale www.mdah.ms.gov JENNIFER MCGILLAN MARCUS D. WARD Mississippi State University Alcorn State University Mississippi Historical Society LATOYA NORMAN www.mississippihistory.org Hattiesburg www.mississippihistory.org The Journal of Mississippi History Volume LXXXII Fall/Winter 2020 No. 3 and No. 4 CONTENTS Photographic Documentation of Brierfield: “The House Jeff Built” 103 By Gary McQuarrie and Brooks C. Place Beeson Academy/Hattiesburg Prep: A History in Context 117 By Stuart Levin The Design and Dating of the Thomas Batchelor House at Beech Grove Plantation in Amite County 143 By Douglas Lewis 2020 Mississippi Historical Society Award Winners 187 Program of the 2020 Mississippi Historical Society Annual Meeting 193 By Stephanie Rolph COVER IMAGE — J. Mack Moore, from the photograph collection of the Old Court House Museum, Vicksburg, Mississippi. Original photographer not known. Minutes of the 2020 Mississippi Historical Society Business Meeting 197 Recent Manuscript Accessions to Repositories at Mississippi Universities and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History 205 By Mona Vance-Ali Book Reviews Bristow, Steeped in the Blood of Racism: Black Power, Law and Order, and the 1970 Shootings at Jackson State College 231 By David J. Garrow Rolph, Resisting Equality: The Citizens’ Council, 1954-1989 232 By Joseph Bagley Welch, Black Litigants in the Antebellum South 234 By Elias J. Baker Broomall, Private Confederacies: The Emotional Worlds of Southern Men as Citizens and Soldiers 236 By Tracy L. Barnett Pratt, Sowing the Wind: The Mississippi Constitutional Convention of 1890 237 By Stephen Cresswell Gusso, Beyond the Crossroads: The Devil and the Blues Tradition 239 By Kevin D. Greene The Journal of Mississippi History (ISSN 0022-2771) is published by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 200 North St., Jackson, MS 39201, in cooperation with the Mississippi Historical Society as a benefit of Mississippi Historical Society membership. Annual memberships begin at $35. Back issues of the Journal sell for $7.50 and up through the Mississippi Museum Store; call 601-576-6921 to check availability. The Journal of Mississippi History is a juried journal. Each article is reviewed by a specialist scholar before publication. Periodicals paid at Jackson, Mississippi. Postmaster: Send address changes to the Mississippi Historical Society, P.O. Box 571, Jackson, MS 39205-0571. Email [email protected]. © 2020 Mississippi Historical Society, Jackson, Miss. The Mississippi Department of Archives and History and the Mississippi Historical Society disclaim any responsibility for statements made by contributors. 4 THE JOURNAL OF MISSISSIPPI HISTORY Photographic Documentation of Brierfield: “The House Jeff Built” by Gary McQuarrie and Brooks C. Place Brierfield was the plantation home of Jefferson Davis located on Davis Bend in Warren County, Mississippi.1 The eldest brother of Jefferson Davis, Joseph E. Davis, acquired approximately 6,900 acres in the choice western and southern portions of the 11,000-acre peninsula, including the river frontage, in 1818. The river-encircled area of fine cotton land became known to locals as “Davis Bend.” The elder Davis sold part of the land to friends such as General John A. Quitman, but reserved to himself 5,280 acres on which to raise cotton. Joseph Davis supposedly “gifted” to his brother approximately 2,320 acres in 1835, probably to settle an indebtedness related to Jefferson’s interest in their father’s estate. But Joseph never gave Jefferson a deed, which later caused legal problems. Much of the property, which had about two and one-half miles of river frontage, was covered in woods and brambles that required clearing in order to allow eventual cultivation. Jefferson and his new wife, Varina Howell Davis, laughingly referred to it as the “Brierfield,” when they first saw it and the name stuck. Enslaved people cleared the property, constructed a home and other buildings, and cultivated cotton over the coming years. On June 24, 1862, Union soldiers advancing toward Vicksburg made a night landing on Davis Bend, and General Peter J. Osterhaus ordered the burning of Joseph Davis’s Hurricane plantation home, destroying the mansion and its contents. Although the Union forces visited Brierfield, they did not set fire to it. The plantation had become disorganized due to flooding and the war. Prior to the raid, Jefferson Davis’s parlor furniture, books, and family correspondence had been taken to Joseph Davis’s inland farms for safekeeping. During General Ulysses S. Grant’s initial thrust for Vicksburg from Memphis early in 1863, Rear Admiral David G. Farragut 1 Frank Edgar Everett, Jr., Brierfield: Plantation Home of Jefferson Davis(Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1971), 7, 8, 18, 19, 23-27, 75-78, 91, 118, 119. GARY MCQUARRIE is retired and is managing editor of Civil War Navy—e Magazine. BROOKS C. PLACE, a native of Francestown, New Hampshire, and a former computer programmer, is the great-great nephew of Dr. George Holmes Bixby. He is an avid history enthusiast of Francestown and the Bixby family. 103103 104 THE JOURNAL OF MISSISSIPPI HISTORY Illustrated map of Davis Bend 1818-1861 showing Joseph Davis’s plantation and home (Hurricane) opposite Hurricane Island and Jefferson Davis’s plantation and home (Brierfield). Inside front cover illustration fromFrank E. Everett, Jr. Brierfield: Plantation Home of Jefferson Davis (Hattiesburg, MS: University and College Press of Mississippi, 1971). Design by Jules B. McKee. Courtesy of University Press of Mississippi (www.upress.state.ms.us). had assisted Grant by steaming upriver from the south. On Farragut’s approach, the fleet made a landing at David Bend in May, and “. sailors from the fleet were allowed on shore and despoiled the plantations of most of their beauty. Everything of value was either carried away or destroyed, and the plantation presented the appearance of having suffered a deluge and tornado at the same time . The place will be securely garrisoned by negro troops. Guerillas will not find it to their interest to pay a visit, especially as it is the design to establish there a station for a gunboat to cover our troops in case of an emergency . .”2 2 Thomas W. Knox, “What Has Become of Jeff. Davis’ Plantation,”New York Herald (New York, NY), 2, col 2-3, December 28, 1863. THE HOUSE JEFF BUILT 105 A Vicksburg newspaper reported on July 1, 1863, that Yankees had rifled Brierfield, destroyed all farming implements, as well as household and kitchen furniture, and had defaced the premises. After the fall of Vicksburg on July 4, the Union Army took control of Brierfield and Hurricane for use by the Freedmen’s Bureau. George Holmes Bixby, M.D.: Photographer on the Western Rivers Along with several staff members from the Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield Museum in Missouri, the authors recently confirmed that Dr. George Holmes Bixby (great-great uncle of Brooks C. Place), who served as the chief medical officer aboard the USS Red Rover, was an amateur photographer of significant skill who took many photographs of gunboats and other vessels of the Mississippi River Squadron while aboard the Navy’s “first hospital ship” from June 1862 until the end of his service in the fall of 1865.3 Bixby was one of a small group of physicians who were also amateur photographers of the Civil War, the