13 - Prosperity for a Few

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Visiting Columbus was a big event for farmers who tended land destined to become Fort Benning. Sometimes, depending upon how far they had to travel, both husband and wife made the trip, as well as their children.

First the farmer had to load the cotton crop, either baled or in big baskets, onto the wagon. As he loaded his crop, the farmer no doubt wondered exactly what price the cotton would garner in the city. How much the cotton sold for would determine which supplies the family could afford, supplies important to a family's well being. Most farmers were fairly self-sufficient. They grew sweet potatoes, corn, and a few other crops for their own tables. But they needed to buy or swap for staples such as coffee, sugar, and salt, as well as farm implements to replace worn out tools. If there was any money left after buying necessities, maybe the family could afford a new bonnet, hat, or shoes, or some fabric to fashion into clothes.

There was an air of anticipation as everyone bathed and took extra time with their clothes and appearance. Once the horse was led into place and hitched to the wagon, everyone scrambled on board.

Despite their excited anticipation, the journey could be arduous and slow. Early roads were often little more than broad, dusty paths snaking through the forests and fields. Often, the roads were former Indian foot paths, and many were poorly maintained and rutted, jostling the wagon and its occupants. One report about the Federal Road indicated that it was sometimes more comfortable to walk than ride over some sections because of ruts. If it rained, the roads could dissolve into beds of slippery mud, often impassable.

The excursion to Columbus could also be a long one. Some farmers hauled their cotton from as far as 30 miles away, according to historian Lynn Willoughby.

Early settlements in the Fort Benning area, before 1840, tended to be located near major rivers and creeks, archeological studies reveal. Farmers needed fresh water for drinking, bathing, fishing, watering their livestock, and, when possible, transportation. After 1840, however, many built homesteads further from major waterways, a development made possible by wells and improved roads.

There were also other changes as the 1800^'s unfolded. The Federal Road had been bypassed as a major route through the region. Westward traffic shifted north through Columbus after 1833 when city leaders ordered a bridge built over the Chattahoochee River. John Godwin managed the construction, while Horace King, Godwin's slave, directed all the carpentry on the project.

As time passed, more small communities developed at the intersections of rural roads. A church, post office, store, and a mill often clustered at the crossroads, and this is where farmers sometimes gathered to socialize and buy supplies. Several small communities developed in Georgia on land now occupied by Fort Benning, including Roland (later Cotton Mills), Shell Creek (later Jamestown), and Halloca.

Francis Orray Ticknor, a physician, lived at Shell Creek in the l840's. He was born in Columbus and educated in Massachusetts. Ticknor loved flowers and other manifestations of nature's beauty and enjoyed studying gardening. He also liked to write about plants in great detail.

Ticknor was also a prolific letter writer unafraid to speak his mind about rural life, which he sometimes found to be tedious, depending upon his mood. He also found it stimulating living on the main thoroughfare called the Stewart Road (later Lumpkin Road) leading south from Columbus to Stewart County. Ticknor enjoyed observing the passing parade of people on the road and talking with them.

In January 1844, soon after arriving in the area, Ticknor wrote: "My room is 18 feet square and 12 [feet] high--nice, neat, clean, and sweet in every particular, as you may discover by giving the 'Prince' [a horse] a short heat on the Stewart road.

"This road is quite a thoroughfare, and life passes me here in all its phases. As mine host keeps a house for private entertainment,' I have frequent opportunities of conversing with the passers-by."

River boat landings often served as the focal points for social gatherings on plantations. When one of the big boats docked - whistling steam, clanging bells - it was often cause for celebration, or, at least a quickening of activity.

Steamboats first traveled up the Chattahoochee and reached Columbus in 1828, the year the community was officially founded. Because of the Columbus waterfall and other shoals further up river, the steamboats couldn't travel any farther north, making Columbus the last docking point.

The first steamboat to arrive was the Fanny in January 1828. In February the Steubenville steamed into Columbus. Soon, passengers were boarding the boat to take the first pleasure excursion ever launched from Columbus. The Steubenville paddled down river to the remnants of an Indian mound on land just north of what is now Fort Benning.

Apparently the trip to the mounds was pleasant, but things soured on the return voyage. A strong current slowed the steamer to a crawl, irritating many of the passengers who grew impatient with the glacial pace. Demanding to be allowed to disembark, they walked the rest of the way back to town. When the Steubenville at last reached Columbus, the crew fired a signal gun to announce they had finally arrived.

In following years, there would be many other excursions, and, again, the destinations often proved to be landings in the Fort Benning area. Steamboat operators would often arrange to have music, dancing, and bountiful food available when the boats arrived at the landings. One landing on the Alabama side of the river, called Bon Acre, was near the spot where Indians from Yuchi Town once beached their canoes.

During the long, hot summers, the Chattahoochee receded from lack of water and regularly became impassible to Columbus for the steamboats. After the cotton harvest, plantation owners and merchants always kept one eye on the river to see if the water was rising enough to be navigable. The steamboats carried cotton down river to Apalachicola, Florida on the Gulf coast for eventual shipment to English textile mills or to mills in New England. After unloading their cargo, the boats returned from Apalachicola laden with manufactured goods, household items, luxuries, and raw materials for Columbus industries.

Apalachicola bustled during autumn and winter when a flotilla of steamboats took turns unloading precious cargos of cotton, much of it from the Fort Benning area. The majority of cotton merchants in the coastal town hailed from the northern United States. They vacated Apalachicola when the stifling summer heat returned. In fact, between 1840 and 1860, 66 percent of the Apalachicola cotton merchants, whose birth places are known, were born in the North, according to historian Lynn Willoughby.

The cotton merchants, flush with cash, clustered around five downtown hotels, which catered to their expensive tastes. The hotel restaurants served fine imported wines, locally dredged oysters, and an assortment of deliciously-prepared wild game.

The excitement of the beginning of the business season was captured by an Apalachicola newspaper article: "Vessels are making their appearance in the bay.... The ringing of the auction bell-the cries of the auctioneer - the puffing and blowing of the steamers as they traverse the waters, remind us of the busy scenes that will ensue when they [the steam boats] come booming down the river with their tall chimneys just peeping over the bales of cotton.

"Horses and drays are running hither and thither as if anxious to hurry along the time when they can get a load... In a few weeks our wharves will be covered with cotton - our streets filled with people, and the places of business and amusement opened and every inducement held out to those who wish to enter the field of competition and struggle on for wealth.

"Again, and again, will the latest news be sought for; and again will the speculator rub his hands, and laugh or look sad, and put them in his breech's pockets as his anticipations again are realized - or blasted."

As the article reflects, this was a time of burgeoning commerce all along the Chattahoochee, an exciting era when fortunes were made - and lost.

Steamboats, for all their benefits to the cotton-based economy, were also perilous. Submerged trees and other dangers often lurked just beneath the river surface, obstacles that could rip open a boat hull like a can opener. Many vessels sank after just such encounters. Others ran aground on sand bars where they sat like bloated ducks out of water, sometimes for days, until they could be pulled free.

Too, the dominant cargo, cotton, was highly flammable. Sparks from the steamboat smokestacks often ignited the fibers, which quickly flamed out of control. At other times, boilers exploded, sinking boats and killing passengers and crews. Of the 43 steamboats cruising the river until 1853, at least 20 were wrecked or burned, resulting in lost lives and destruction of more than one million dollars in property, according to historian Joseph Mahan.

There were so many mishaps on the Chattahoochee that insurance rates on freight soared to as much as twice the amount charged for Mississippi River cargo. More than a few of the steamboat accidents occurred on the river as it wound through the Fort Benning area.

From the earliest days of steamboat travel, there was a concerted push to improve passages just south of Columbus. In 1839, for example, the Columbus City Council appropriated one thousand dollars for channel improvements at Woolfolk's Bar and Uchee shoals in the Fort Benning area.

Obstacles and low water and fires and explosions were only some of the serious problems for steamboats. Rampaging floods could prove hazardous as well. If the Chattahoochee rose too high, the vessels couldn't safely steer under bridges spanning the river. Harried boat pilots not only had to negotiate the fast-moving, debris-filled waters, they also had to swing around bridges into uncharted areas that only a short time before had been open fields.

Flooding also created other problems. In 1841, the Chattahoochee overflowed in an episode remembered as the Harrison Freshet because it occurred during the one month William Henry Harrison served as president of the United States before he died in office. The flood swept away the pride and joy of Columbus-the City Bridge (later called the Dillingham Street Bridge.)

Writer John Martin described what happened: "Never was there a more majestic sight than the departure of that noble bridge on its remarkable voyage. Several parties walked across it a short time before it was gone. The river was then flowing over the flooring."

The covered bridge was ripped from its piers and floated downstream to the Woolfolk Plantation, which later become part of Fort Benning. Colonel Woolfolk, the plantation owner, reportedly helped lash down the bridge remnants to keep them from being carried further by the rushing waters.

A plantation, such as Woolfolk's, was often a hive of activity. The planter's residence anchored the central complex. Nearby there were often storage sheds, corrals, and slave housing. Archeologist Marlessa Grey has demonstrated that housing on large plantations often clustered in several areas in addition to the central complex. Cotton growing so exhausted the soil that land had to be constantly cleared to open new fields, even on plantations where flooding periodically replenished the earth. An overseer and some slaves moved from the central complex to housing near the new fields. Sometimes, even the planter followed and had a new residence built for himself near the new fields.

Plantations were often largely self-sufficient, with various machines to help grind grains and corn, saw lumber, or gin and bail cotton. There were countless skilled tasks needed to keep plantations functioning, and slaves performed many of them, while others were done by independent contractors. There were blacksmiths, wagon makers, well diggers, harness makers, carpenters, and mechanics to keep the mills operating.

By far, slaves performed the majority of work. How they were treated varied depending upon their skills and the dispositions of their owners. Plantation slaves were normally divided into three classes, although categories frequently overlapped.

There were house servants, field hands, and skilled craftsmen, such as blacksmiths, carpenters, and masons. Men, women, and children as young as seven years old worked as field hands. Day after day, they spent long hours, from dawn to dusk, under a scorching sun. Overseers stood ready with whips, in many instances, to ensure maximum productivity from everyone.

Owners had a financial interest in keeping slaves fed, clothed, and housed to prevent ill-health from spreading and crippling the work force. They also had a competing goal of trying to keep costs low. The resulting compromise often meant providing the bare minimum in subsistence.

Slaves' quarters were generally flimsy wood structures with one or two rooms and a fireplace. Their clothes were made of the cheapest fabric often sewn by slave women. Food tended to be cheap and monotonous, rationed weekly. Some plantation owners allowed slaves to supplement their diets with food grown in small private plots.

Some of the rare first-person descriptions of what it was like to be a slave came from interviews given by elderly blacks to writers hired by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930's. Former slave George Womble of Columbus, born in 1843 in Georgia, remembered:

Julia Brown, another former slave in Georgia, was interviewed in Atlanta in 1939:

Regardless of the extent of the slave holders' good will, slaves were still prisoners with few, if any, opportunities for bettering their lives. In most cases, they were never allowed to leave the plantation or farm without written permission, a restriction backed by law in many Southern states.

In Georgia, for example, by 1770, the law stipulated that slaves could not leave their owners land without a ticket signed by the owner or another person in charge of the slave. According to the law, "Every slave who shall be found without a ticket, or without a white person in his or her company, shall be punished with whipping on the bare back, not exceeding twenty lashes."

Plantations depended in varying degrees on small towns and communities that sprung up nearby, though they were not nearly as reliant on the developments as small farmers. Planters, however, sometimes ventured into the small towns to conduct business and to discuss farm prices and other matters.

On the Russell County, Alabama side of Fort Benning, the community of Broken Arrow was north of Uchee Creek and shared the same name with a nearby plantation. An earlier Creek Indian village was also called Broken Arrow.

South of Uchee Creek was an area bordering the Chattahoochee known as Oswichee, another Indian name. There was no central town, but the community had schools, churches, and stores that served nearby plantations. The Oswichee Land Company of New York owned one of the largest slave holding plantations in Russell County, with 200 to 300 slaves.

Attempts to bring a railroad into Columbus began within a decade of the city's founding. These efforts collapsed because of the economic panic of 1837 that sent interest rates soaring and depressed business conditions. By the early 1850's, however, trains were steaming into the city, changing how people traveled and offering new opportunities for shipping goods. The first long-distance train ride from Savannah through Macon and on to Columbus arrived on May 19, 1853 with 200 passengers who had made the entire trip. The train had taken 13 hours to journey from the Atlantic coast, speeding along at the unheard of rate of 23 miles per hour.

An editor of the Columbus Enquirer newspaper captured the sense of startling change engendered by the railroad: "Sober minded men who have been used to traveling 35 or 40 miles a day and who have not yet realized the fearful speed of this fast generation, will scarcely believe that our friends from Savannah were whirled along by the iron horse, a distance of three hundred miles, between the rising and the setting sun."

The railroads helped accelerate the growth of Columbus as a manufacturing center. People living in rural areas, including the huge expanse that would some day become Fort Benning, now saw more opportunities to escape the day-to-day struggle of farming. The rural poor trickled into Columbus to accept low-paying jobs in the mills. Engineers and machinists were also drawn to the booming riverside city from the north. About half the skilled workers listed in the 1850 census were born outside the South, according to historian Maxine Turner.

The population of Columbus shot up by 3,000 people in just seven years after the first railroad was built in the city. The 1860 census showed a population of about 5,600 whites, 3,000 slaves, and 100 free blacks. There were also 19 manufacturing companies with an annual production valued at almost $1.5 million.

More people were also settling into places further away from Columbus in eastern and southern portions of Muscogee County. Some of these residents complained about having to travel long distances to Columbus to conduct official business. They lobbied for the creation of a new county and new county seat.

Chattahoochee County was carved out of Muscogee and Marion Counties in 1854 and included parts of what is now Fort Benning. The town of Cusseta, with a name harking back to the Creek Indians, served as the county seat.

But a dark cloud hovered over all the prosperity and growth. Politicians from the North and South continually wrangled in increasingly bitter debates over slavery, an issue that would rip the nation into two warring camps. With the election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States in 1860, there was less and less talk of compromise.

Chapter 14: Henry Benning's War

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