A PHOTOGRAPHIC TALE

A PHOTOGRAPHIC TALE, by Dennis A. Wilson

We have been scanning and accessioning photographs for years now, and as the items pass by they often present a mystery.  What is this?  Why is it here?  About three years ago I came across photos of Anniston, Alabama taken in the 1890's.  I wondered what these photos had to do with Grant County history.  Later I scanned a collection of photos of Company E of the Wisconsin National Guard taken in 1889 at Camp Douglas.  A little research revealed that this was a unit formed in Milwaukee.  I found a collection of photos of the same company in the collection of the Milwaukee Public Library.  How was it that we had these?  The last item, found by Joe Sherwin in our Collection, was a souvenir album of Company E printed in about 1894. 

     This is still an incomplete investigation, but what I have discovered makes an interesting story.  Maybe someone will read this who can help piece together the entire story. 
 

The Wisconsin National Guard unit made up of local businessmen were under orders by Governor Rusk to "shoot to kill" if strikers tried to enter the mills.  As strikers stood about 200 yards from the gate the guard opened fire, killing seven.  Of those, one was a 13 year old boy who had come to watch and another a retiree who was drawing water.        On May 5, 1886 a massive demonstration occurred in Bay View, a suburb of Milwaukee, outside the Milwaukee Iron Company rolling mill.  About 14,000 strikers, many with their wives and children were demanding an eight hour day.  Most workers were then working 10 hours a day,
 six days a week for as little as 90 cents a day.

     Afterward Gov. Rusk was lionized for his “forceful action” by the businessmen and industrialists who provided him a private train for his personal use.

The Wisconsin Dells tour boat EOLAH.

     According to the short history in the Company E souvenir album: "It was shortly after the Bay View riots in 1886 that a number of school-boys, filled with profound admiration for the heroes of that campaign, came together for the purpose of forming a military company."  The aim was to form a company and become part of the National Guard.  They drilled, they bought their own full uniforms: "uniforms. The regulation cap and blouse were adopted, but the ambitious young soldiers could not submit to the unpretentious trousers of the army uniform, so it was decided to wear dark-blue trousers adorned with white stripes while the non-commissioned officers were to be decked out in chevrons of shining gold."  These “boys” of company E were from the upper class, and were led by the sons of rich industrialists.  Tasteful attire was a must. 

Members of the "Paster Club."

    They were accepted into the guard as Company E, 4th Wisconsin Infantry of the Wisconsin National Guard.  They assumed the title of “The Rusk Guards.”  In honor of the law and order governor.  In 1889 they attended exercises at the 445 acre Wisconsin Military Reservation at Camp Douglas, which had been established the year before.  The base is now much larger and encompasses The Air National Guard’s Volk Field.  The exercises consisted largely of target shooting and drilling.  The photos at GCHS date from this encampment where "the feature of the week was the Company's visit to the Dells of the Wisconsin River, on the way home."

     While in camp they formed the “Paster club”, pasters being the gummed circular black stickers used to mark hits on targets at the shooting range.  The clubs seemed for the purpose of drinking and partying.  One of our photos (above and right) shows officers and men posing for the photo with pasters stuck on their faces, horns and drinks in their hands. You can view a similar photo at http://content.mpl.org/cdm/ref/collection/horace/id/100

     Once home, the company held a number of parties popular in social circles.  The 1893 “reception and ball” was one of the highlights of the season in Milwaukee.  The party was “elegant but informal, the hall tastily decorated with flags and palms.”  The elegant military posturing and socializing apparently continued until the outbreak of the Spanish American War.

     It was a very short war, and the 4th Wisconsin wanted to get into it.  The whole war lasted only 3 ½ months (April 25, 1898 – August 12, 1898.)  The 4th Wisconsin was authorized to raise additional companies.  This was where Grant County became involved.  L.A. Dodd of Lancaster had begun raising volunteers and drilling them, but E. E. Burns, a lawyer of Platteville, was given command of Dodd's men and others he had raised in the Platteville area.  They became Company C of the 4^th Wisconsin National Guard.

      Edward  E. Burns, Captain, Platteville, WI                   Insignia of the Wisconsin National Guard                   Louis A. Dodd, 1^st Lieut., Lancaster, WI

     The 4th Wisconsin was not called into service until the President’s second call for volunteers in June 1898. Before the serious business of war could begin four infantry companies and one light battery from the 4^th were called to Oshkosh on June 24^th by Governor Edward Scofield to, as he said, “break the backbone of the strike” of the of the Amalgamated Woodworkers Union.  Since May 19, 1898 the union had been on strike against the city mills, asking their wage of an average 90 cents a day for up to 16 hours be raised to $1.50. The mill owners had promised raises three times in the past and had reneged on those promises. The strikers’ wives organized to picket and demonstrate to help the cause.  Some of them hurled eggs and threw pepper bags at police guarding strikebreakers.  Scofield used that as cause to call up the guard, insisting that threats of imminent violence required force.  The police had reported that “the women threw eggs with a great degree of accuracy.”

     The 4^th Wisconsin was mustered into service on July 18, 1898 at Camp Douglas.  In September 1898 they were ordered south, and on the 17th arrived at Fort Shipp in Anniston, Alabama.  The war was essentially over as an armistice had been reached and fighting had ceased, so the 4th Wisconsin and other units including the African-American 3^rd Alabama were held at Camp Shipp. 

     The presence of thousands of idle troops who were not going to war was not a good situation. The entire nation including its army was full of racial prejudice.  Theodore Roosevelt, the hero of San Juan Hill, did not believe that African-Americans made good soldiers, despite generations of evidence to the contrary: “the most potent evils, laziness and shiftlessness, these, and above all, vice and criminality of every kind, are evils more potent for harm to the black race than all acts of oppression of white men put together” he said.  This kind of thinking was prevalent at Camp Shipp.  In a letter home from Anniston on October 29, 1898 Company C 2^nd Lieutenant R. D. Blanchard of Boscobel wrote:

“At 6 p. m. a hunting party, consisting of Maj. Birkhanser, Capt. Rollis, Capt.  Burns, Lieut. Moses and myself started for the camp of the 3rd Alabama. This is a negro regiment with white officers. Here we were joined by Capt. Armstrong who had eight of his negro soldiers and a pack of hounds ready for an opossum hunt.  Well, we tramped about twelve miles over hills, mountains and gulches, through thick timber and occasional clearings and narry a ‘possum did we see. We reached our camp after midnight thoroughly tired out.”

 Apparently these officers considered the black soldiers on a level with hunting dogs.

      Typhoid Fever continued in the large tent camp.  Bored soldiers of both races went into town and inevitably fights broke out.  Numerous small racial incidents occurred.   Anniston, Alabama was not a racially tolerant city and would not be for at least another seven decades.  The Ku Klux Klan was well represented.  This is the city where, in 1961, a busload of “Freedom Riders was twice attacked and their bus burned by Klansmen while city police, sheriff’s deputies, and state police officers looked on. 

      According to Local histories, drunken Negro soldiers terrorized the town.  One Negro soldier was alleged to have shot up the town and attempted to stab the sheriff when he was arrested.  A large squad of Negro soldiers were said to have tried to free him but were restrained by white soldiers.  African-Americans saw things differently.  They said that they were subjected to racial taunts and assaults by both white soldiers and townspeople.  They were shot at in camp.  The 3^rd Alabama, reportedly “abandoned their forbearance in the face of overwhelming hostility.” One civilian deliveryman reported the extent of the harassment of the black soldiers: “If anyone shouted ‘Lay down!’ the negro soldiers all sought ‘close proximity to Mother Earth’ … Among the write soldiers, the call “rough house” meant that all hands should fight.”  On Thanksgiving Day, serious fighting broke out.  In what would be called “The Battle of Anniston” white and black soldiers fought viciously.  The number of fatalities reported varied from two to eleven.  Of course the black soldiers were blamed in the press: “A negro regiment with murder in their hearts.”

   The 4^th Wisconsin spent most of the winter at Camp Shipp.  They were mustered out and were back home by early March of 1899.  Secretary of State John Hay said in a letter to Roosevelt, “It has been a splendid little war,” and so it was for those who got into the quick, short fight.  It was not so for the 4^th Wisconsin.  They had not found glory in war, but they had seen the dark side of the America of those days: The oppression of the working classes and vicious racism.  It is unclear whether either bothered them much. 

     We still don’t know the source of our photographs.

SOURCES

1.     Company E Souvenir Album

2.    Milwaukee Journal, April 8, 1893, Article: “Organized by Boys”

3.    The American Carbonator and American Bottler, Nov 15, 1903, p 42 –Oscar Zwietusch , captain of Co. E was son of rich bottling products manufacturer.

4.    Credit and Financial Management, Vol 23, Oct 1921, p. 21 – Sgt Frank D. Rock of Company E worked for Zwietush

5.     Growin' Up with Men and Machines By Henry E. Beck  p. 273, Vantage Press, Inc, Dec 1, 2005 – Capt. Hiram E. Manville was the son of the founder of Johns-Manville corporation, manufacturer of pipe and asbestos, and became pres. In 1927

6.     Milwaukee Public Library Digital Collection, Horace Seaman Wisconsin Infantry Collection Photo  “The Paster Club, 1890” at http://content.mpl.org/cdm/ref/collection/horace/id/100

7.     Commemorative Biographical Record of the Counties of Rock, Green, Grant, Iowa,and LaFayette Wisconsin, 1901,  “Edward E. Burns” bio pages 610-611

8.     History of Grant County, Wisconsin: Including Its Civil, Political ...  By Castello N. Holford, Chapter 11, “The Spanish War” Pages 393 – 394, “Company C 4th Infantry”

9.    The Milwaukee Journal, June 24, 1898,  Article Titled “Troops Called To Oshkosh” online at Wisconsin State Historical Society: http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Content.aspx?dsNav=N:4294963828-4294963788&dsRecordDetails=R:BA11973

10.  A Compilation of the Messages and Speeches of Theodore Roosevelt , Volume 1 by   United States President, Theodore Roosevelt, 1901-1905, Alfred Henry Lewis, ed.,Pub 1906,  page 563 on Google Books

11. Clipping from a Letter to the Boscobel Dial – Enterprise held at the Grant County Historical Society dated October 29, 1898, titled: Letter from R. D. Blanchard.

12. Article from the Milwaukee Journal of Nov 1, 1898 “Sickness is Increasing” regarding Typhoid Fever at Camp Shipp.

13.  The Model City of the New South: Anniston, Alabama, 1872-1900 By Grace Hooten Gates,  pages 178 – 180, copyright 1978 –southern account of race riots at Camp Shipp

14.  FREEDOM STRUGGLES By Adriane Danette Lentz-Smith, 2009. Harvard Press page 20 – account of Negro “forbearance. “

15. Bloomington IL Pantagraph Nov 25 1898 p1- Article titled “War In Miniature.” – quote: “a negro regiment with murder in their hearts.”