The Charleston Baseball Riots of 1869

Baseball was young and a novelty across the nation in the summer of 1869. Charlestonians had only recently embraced the game, which provided a relaxing way to escape the city’s oppressively tense political climate. When sport, music, and racial politics collided on Citadel Green on July 26th, however, the innocent pastime erupted into a violent clash that spilled into the streets and threatened to overwhelm the rule of law.

The focus of today’s story is ostensibly baseball, but one can’t properly understand the events that unfolded in late July 1869 without a bit of background knowledge about post-Civil War Charleston. Most of the white men in the Southern states supported the then-conservative Democratic Party, and had argued for States Rights, the right to perpetuate the institution of slavery, and the right to secede from the United States. At the end of the Civil War in 1865, the then-liberal Republican party had stationed U.S. Army troops in Charleston to keep the peace during South Carolina’s difficult transition back into the Federal union of states. The city’s urban police force, which had traditionally carried firearms as a means of intimidating the enslaved people who formed roughly one half of Charleston’s population, resumed their duties in 1865 without arms, while U.S. army soldiers in the city carried firearms to protect the recently-freed black citizens. Racial tensions became further strained in the spring of 1867, when local black leaders organized a chapter of the Republican Party that soon dominated local and state politics. In the summer of 1869, therefore, Charleston was at once a hotbed of resentment and a hothouse for blossoming civil rights, positioned on opposite sides of a racially-defined fissure.[1]

Knowledge of the game of baseball came to Charleston during the Civil War. The sport was mentioned several times in the city’s war-time newspapers, which testified to the gradual southward spread of this Yankee invention. Confederate soldiers returning from the Northern front might have brought some first-hand baseball experience to Charleston near the end of the war, but experienced players definitely entered the city with the arrival of Union soldiers here in February, 1865. Although reports of weighty political matters dominated the local newspapers of the immediate post-war era, it’s not difficult to imagine that informal baseball pitching, catching, and batting, was taking place around the city in the relatively quiet summer of 1865 and in the months following.

Most of the Union troops present in Charleston during the post-war years were garrisoned in the old Citadel, the fortress-like structure just north of Calhoun Street, stretching between King and Meeting Streets. The large green space fronting the Citadel’s south facade, then known as Citadel Green but later renamed Marion Square, functioned as both a parade ground for resident soldiers and as a recreational space for local citizens. Whether or not Charlestonians might have witnessed Union soldiers playing baseball on this ground is a matter of speculation, but Citadel Green is definitely part of the city’s baseball heritage. The first confirmed public exhibition of a game of baseball in Charleston took place here on Saturday, May 19th, 1866. A few days later, the men who fielded that first game, led by A. W. Wardell and J. W. Denny, organized the city’s first team, the Palmetto Base Ball Club.[2]

In response to the formation of the city’s first baseball club, the editors of the Charleston Daily News expressed their firm support for the new movement. “We hope to see many such clubs formed in our city; and doubt not that before many months our ‘boys’ will be able to challenge with confidence similar clubs in other cities, and have match games.”[3] Within a year or so, there were a number white baseball clubs in the city, and at least a few black clubs as well. Sport, like most other aspects of Charleston’s cultural life at that time, was strictly segregated until the middle of the twentieth century. Organized series of inter-city match games between the all-white baseball clubs commenced on the fourth of July, 1868, when the Alert Base Ball Club of Charleston travelled to Savannah to play their Forest City Club. The Savannah team won two out of three games in that first series, which was spread over a period of six months.[4]

In mid-July, 1869, the Carolina Base Ball Club of Charleston (formed two years earlier) received a “challenge” from the Savannah Base Ball Club to commence a new series of inter-city matches.”[5] The Carolina club responded by inviting the Georgia team to Charleston for a game on Monday, July 26th. The Savannah nine, accompanied by a large contingent of hometown boosters, boarded the steamboat Nick King on Saturday, July 24th, and paddled up the coast to Charleston. The vessel docked at Boyce’s wharf, just a few yards south of Broad Street on the Cooper River waterfront, at 6:30 in the morning, and were met by a committee from the Carolina Base Ball Club. After unloading their entourage and baggage, the visitors formed a column and marched to the Charleston Hotel on Meeting Street in a lively procession headed by an African-American band of musicians—the Washington Cornet Band—playing the familiar tune, “Dixie.”[6]

The Washington Cornet Band was an African-American musical organization composed of a dozen men playing brass instruments and drums. Both Charleston and Savannah were home to a number of black bands at that time, and most of the musicians had been attached to white militia units in the years before and during the Civil War. In the post-war environment, black musicians continued this tradition by hiring themselves out to private parties, just like white musicians. These bands played a varied repertoire, ranging from pop tunes to military marches to formal concert pieces, depending on the client and the occasion.

The song “Dixie,” introduced in Northern theaters the late 1850s and adopted in the 1860s as an unofficial anthem by members of the Confederate States of America, has been the subject of great controversy for more than 150 years. Its expression of fond nostalgia for the “good ol’ days” down South has made “Dixie” a lightning rod for racial tension in recent times, just as it was in the years immediately after the Civil War. If the idea of an all-black band playing “Dixie” for an all-white audience seems sort of incongruous and disrespectful to you, imagine how black audiences might have felt about that same phenomenon during the post-war era of Reconstruction. Here in Charleston, we don’t have to imagine such a scene because it erupted right here, in living color, in the summer of 1869.

 

The Game Begins:

Game day, Monday, July 26th, began with a rain shower, but the clouds parted by ten o’clock and the bright summer sun quickly dried the ground. Around noon, the crowd began to assemble at Citadel Green, the field of play, which was at that time surrounded by a wooden picket fence, with entrance gates along the east, west, and south sides. Along the fence at the eastern edge of the square, each team pitched a tent to shade their respective players, and the Washington Cornet Band settled between the tents. Home plate was probably where the fountain now stands near Meeting Street. A series of flags, stakes, and ropes formed a border between the players and the assembled crowd, which numbered between fifteen hundred and two thousand spectators, the majority of whom were African-American. Lieutenant William Taft of the Charleston Police Department led a contingent of white and black policemen, who were armed only with small clubs and detailed to prevent the crowd from trespassing onto the playing field.

At 1:30 in the afternoon, the umpire called the game to order. Each member of the Savannah Base Ball Club took the field dressed in “a full suit of gray flannel, trimmed with blue,” while the Carolina uniform was “white flannel, and also trimmed with blue.” At about two o’clock, the men took their positions and play commenced. By the second inning, it was clear that the Savannah team was superior to the local boys. “As we stated when the Carolina Club first declined to play,” said the Charleston Daily News, “most of their best men were absent from the city, and those present were not in practice. But at the urgent request of the Savannah Club they consented not to postpone the match, and then commenced practicing, hoping to make a fair struggle, but not believing they would be successful. Under these circumstances we must say, and all who witnessed the game will agree with us, that their playing was very creditable.”

Three hours and fifteen minutes later, the ninth inning concluded with a score of 35 to 17. The crowd of visitors erupted in cheers when the umpire declared Savannah the winner, and the band once again played “Dixie.” The captain of the Savannah team led the crowd in giving “three cheers and a tiger” for Carolina Base Ball Club, and the local captain reciprocated with “three cheers and a tiger” for the visiting team. Spectators rushed onto the field, bypassing the police who had experienced “considerable difficulty” in keeping them at bay during the game. While all was a jumble of mirth and merriment, the players, or “ballists” as they were called back in the day, proposed to have a friendly post-game throwing match. Their respective captains and club organizers asked the police to clear the field again, and then returned to their relaxing sport as the police commenced that difficult work.

Some members of the crowd were not inclined to abandon the field, and soon the police grew frustrated. A request for assistance was sent to the Citadel, and Major Frederick Ogilby of the United States Army detached a squad of six unarmed soldiers to help the police push the crowd back behind the ropes and stakes. One man in particular, identified in the local newspapers as a mixed-race person named Rafe Izzard (or Ralph Izard), was especially stubborn. He was “very insolent,” the police later testified, but eventually moved off the field and behind the rope. A few minutes later, though, Rafe was back on the field and arguing with the police. One of the soldiers then ordered him to move, at which point Rafe reportedly became “very disorderly and insolent,” and “cursed the soldier.” The unarmed soldier then struck Izard, whose insolence only increased. As fists began to fly, a policeman with a club attempted to place Rafe under arrest, but he resisted with physical force. Other black men standing nearby rushed in to assist their friend, as did the policemen, both black and white. Within a matter of seconds, the scene burst into a “general melee” that quickly spread across Citadel Green.

As police batons rained down on black heads to the left and right, the unarmed soldiers seized a number of baseball bats lying nearby and ran swinging into the crowd. Some of the black spectators detached wooden pickets from the perimeter fence and commenced to duel with the men in uniform. As scores of black men joined the fight and quickly overpowered the police, Major Ogilby rushed out of the Citadel with a squad of armed soldiers who loaded their muskets and fixed bayonets as they ran across the green. The sight of the “bristling bayonets” inspired the black combatants to flee “precipitously” beyond the fence and into Meeting Street. The soldiers did not pursue them, but remained within the fence, on Citadel Green. The black men in the street began picking up cobblestones and hurling them at the soldiers. Uniformed policemen and plain-clothes detectives took to the street and advanced on the mob, which retreated to the intersection of Meeting and Calhoun Streets. The soldiers followed southward, with muskets at the ready, but remained inside the fence. After a few tense moments, members of the police force walked into the mob and singled out several  ringleaders for arrest. The crowd responded by hurling more bricks and stones, and managed to temporarily frustrate the police actions. The soldiers standing on Citadel Green with muskets raised were “most anxious to shoot,” said the Daily News, “but they were restrained by their officers—Major Ogilby at one time remarking: ‘The man who shoots without orders I will go for.’” Amidst a shower of missiles and threats, the police managed to arrest Rafe Izzard and several other men in the street, who were immediately whisked away to the guard house.

This ugly affair was over within twenty minutes of its initial spark, but news of the riot quickly spread across the peninsula. In a matter of minutes, nearly three thousand African-American citizens had crowded into the streets around Citadel Green. All thoughts of a leisurely baseball throwing match were abandoned, and the opposing teams made plans for a celebratory dinner at the engine house of the Vigilant Fire Company on State Street. The Savannah ballists departed the green and strolled southward to their hotel on Meeting Street to change before dinner. The Washington Cornet Band remained on the green for a while with the members of the Carolina club, however, and the two groups soon formed a column to parade towards the Charleston Hotel in style.[7]

 

The March to the Hotel:

After a member of the local baseball club ordered the black band to play “Dixie,” the column commenced marching towards the main gate on the south side of Citadel Green, facing Calhoun Street. At the same time, shouts, groans, epithets, and hissing arose from the black crowd gathered in the street, nearly drowning out the music. The gist of their dissatisfaction was apparently the black band’s willingness to perform that famous “Rebel” song, which they deemed to be offensive. The association between “Dixie” and the Confederacy was well-known, and the song now represented an unvarnished nostalgia for the old days when the specter of Federal civil rights did not challenge the supremacy of Southern white men. The black crowd in Calhoun Street accused the black musicians of being Democrats—that is, members of the white conservative party. Urging the band members to stand up for their own civil rights, the crowd asked them how they could play “Dixie” for “those ‘d----d rebels in grey uniforms.”[8]

In response to these taunts, the members of the Washington Cornet Band continued to pipe the jaunty tune. When the front rank of the band stepped through the gate into Calhoun Street and turned toward Meeting Street, the black crowd launched a hailstorm of flying cobblestones and brickbats. The rushing mob knocked the band members and some of the white base-ballers to the ground and pummeled them with fist and clubs. Three of the musicians were hit by projectiles and fell injured. The band’s trombonists took his instrument by the skinny end and swung it around his head, taking out seven or eight assailants in the process. Amidst the screaming and chaos, a white man drew a revolver and fired three shots in rapid succession. The mob panicked and instantly dispersed, retreating to the intersection of Calhoun and Meeting Streets.

Meanwhile, a strong detachment of armed soldiers sallied out of the Citadel and headed straight for the scene of the second riot. With the aid of the police, they succeeded in driving the African-American mob away from the green and arresting the white man with the revolver. Mayor Gilbert Pillsbury, an unpopular Republican of Northern extraction, rode by in a carriage to inspect the scene. When asked to take charge of the situation, the mayor was reported to have stated that he had already summoned the entire police force, and there were no further municipal resources available. He was “powerless” to do anything more, and so he departed. The mayor’s retreat, which was emphatically reported in Charleston’s heavily-biased, conservative white newspapers, infuriated the white citizens on hand. They concluded that the mayor was simply reluctant to use physical force against the black Republican majority that put him in office. In response to this municipal inaction, the commandant of the U.S. troops in the Citadel detached “about sixty men” with muskets and bayonets, under the command of two lieutenants, to escort the members of the Washington Cornet Band and the Carolina Base Ball Club from the field of play.[9]

The injured bandsmen were loaded into a horse-drawn omnibus, which then formed a column with soldiers positioned to the front, rear, and flanks of the ambulatory band and baseball men. Those members of the band who were fit to play, and whose instruments were not destroyed, enlivened the march by playing “Dixie,” “Bonnie Blue Flag,” and other “favorite Southern tunes” as they marched along Calhoun, King, Wentworth, and Meeting Streets to the Charleston Hotel, at the Corner of Hayne Street. This Confederate-friendly music further enraged the shouting black mob that shadowed the band’s every step along the route. On several occasions the soldiers had to halt and about-face with their bayonets to keep the crowd at bay, but there was no further violence.

 

The Departure:

At the Charleston Hotel, the white competitors enjoyed some champagne at the bar and then regrouped for a grand procession to their dinner venue. The members of the two baseball teams, the Washington Cornet Band, and a throng of more than a hundred white guests joined ranks with their armed escort and marched down Hayne Street, through the City Market to State Street, and down to the engine house of the Vigilant Fire Company (now No. 33 State Street). Along this route, they were again followed by a large crowd of angry black men who continued to curse and yell at the band and the visiting sportsmen. The armed soldiers and uniformed city police kept the irate crowd at bay while the competitors and boosters enjoyed a hearty meal inside the hall. After dinner, the competitors took turns toasting each other and cheered heartily for the army officers who had bravely protected them from violence.

At length, the captain of the Savannah steamboat sent word that the tide was right and the hour of departure had arrived. The guests emerged from the hall to find the size of the mob outside had increased during the dinner hour and their anger had not dissipated one bit. As the column of white visitors joined ranks again with their armed escort, the crowd recommenced shouting insults and occasionally hurling missiles at the band. Mayor Pillsbury, who had invited himself to the dinner, ex officio, scolded the crowd and begged them to leave, but they ignored him. Marching once again to the tune of “Dixie,” the baseballers marched down State Street to Broad Street, then to East Bay and the head of Boyce’s Wharf.

Along this entire route, said the Charleston press, “a mob of infuriated black-skinned hell-hounds still hung upon the outskirts,” throwing rocks and shouting “the vilest and most insulting cries.” Using the refrain of a popular pro-Union song to taunt the black band, the mob repeatedly yelled “Rally Round the Flag, Boys!” “This is no Savannah,” they shouted at the band and the white visitors, “the colored boys run this town.” When the black crowd moved too close to the marching column, the white soldiers would occasionally halt and face their bayonets at the mob. In response, said the Savannah Advertiser, “the negroes appeared particularly incensed against the soldiers, and shouted ‘take away those bayonets and we’ll soon clean out the d----d white sons of b-----s.” Dozens of men in the visiting party were carrying pistols, but they latter congratulated themselves for exercising such forbearance as to refrain from shooting any of the men who hurled insults and stones at them.

At Boyce’s Wharf, the visiting Savannahians boarded the steamer, Nick King, while the Charleston police force prevented the trailing mob from entering the wharf. The president of each of the baseball clubs then made short speeches in which they thanked the other for their hospitality and fellowship, while regretting in the extreme the violence that had unfortunately marred their otherwise enjoyable visit. During this brief episode of speechifying, the black mob had filed onto the adjacent wharves to the north and south of the steamboat, and continued to hurl insults and missiles at the visitors. The steamer eventually backed out of the wharf and into the stream, but the police and armed soldiers remained on duty to escort the members of the Carolina Base Ball Club back to the Charleston Hotel.[10]

 

The Aftermath:

In the days following the riotous events of Monday, July 26th, both the Charleston and Savannah newspapers were filled with descriptions of the violence and commentary about the state of affairs in the Palmetto City. From these sources we learn that the members of the Savannah Base Ball Club had convened a meeting aboard the steamboat carrying them home and adopted a series of resolutions to thank the Carolina club for their hospitality. The visitors did not blame the Charleston club for “the indignities offered us and our band,” because their hosts were “at the mercy of an ignorant, brutal mob, through the culpable and notorious inefficiency of their civil government.” They raised a collection of money for the injured band, thanked the military for “their prompt and efficient measures to quell the riot,” and resolved to continue the baseball match series with their Charleston neighbors.[11]

Back in Charleston, local businessmen also circulated a subscription list to raise money for the Washington Cornet Band. The band had lost several instruments to the violence, and at least three of the black musicians had sustained injuries. The local press reported that W. H. Woodhouse, was “wounded in the head and leg with stones—seriously”; Benjamin Morell was “wounded in the stomach and head with rocks—not seriously”; and R. H. Butler had been “cut in the head with a rock.” The Charleston men raised $160 within two days, and forwarded the cash to the band’s leader, J. J. Millen, in Savannah.[12]

At least six men were arrested on the day of the rioting, including three white men (C. H. Schwing, Philip Saxe, and R. A. McManus) and three black (Rafe Izzard, James Barron, and Benjamin Mills). On the morning of Tuesday, July 27th, these six men appeared before Mayor Pillsbury for a brief arraignment. Mr. Schwing had fired pistol shots in self defense, he claimed, while the others were implicated as leaders of the rioting. The Mayor discharged Benjamin Mills, but remanded the other five men to be arraigned before state magistrate Robert DeLarge, a well-educated man who had lived as a free person of color before the Civil War. At noon, Judge DeLarge heard the charges against these five men and ordered them to stand trial. The white men, Schwing, Saxe, and McManus, posted bail, but the less-affluent black men, Rafe Izzard and James Barron were committed to jail. 

Although Mayor Pillsbury had discharged Benjamin Mills earlier in the day, an officer of the United States Army, one Lieutenant Lynch, “sued out a warrant for the arrest of Mills, charging him with exhorting the negroes to riot.” Lynch had been one of the officers assigned to escort the baseball clubs and the band from Citadel Green to the hotel and other places. Judge DeLarge asked him to explain the nature of his accusation. Lieutenant Lynch testified that he had heard Benjamin Mills exclaim “The negroes are strong enough to rule the city; no d----d power can put us down.” To his black cohorts, Mills had shouted “stand and fight and die here if necessary; I fought before for liberty and can do so now; come, men we need not fear any balls and bayonets of these d----d Yankee soldiers.” When Lynch ordered Mills “to cease his incendiary exclamations, he became more excited and continued his exhortations in a louder tone of voice.” Lynch then ordered Charleston police Lieutenant William Taft to arrest Mills, “which he did.” After hearing this testimony, Judge DeLarge ordered Benjamin Mills to be re-arrested, and then he was bailed to appear for trial at a later date.[13]

The police investigation into the riot and the arrest of suspects demonstrated the city’s resolve to uphold the rule of law, but the spread of newspaper reports about the incident sullied Charleston’s reputation far and wide. “Negro mob law seems to be triumphant in our sister city of Charleston,” opined the editor of the Savannah Republican, “except when the United States Troops think proper to come to the assistance of the citizens. The affair on Monday . . . would be a disgrace to any city. There must be something lamentably wrong when a mob of idle negroes are allowed to attack unoffending parties and do pretty much as they please.” The fault, said the newspaper, was a want of good old fashioned physical intimidation. “A little nerve and firmness, and the killing of a few leaders, are all that is necessary to put them [i.e., riots] down and deter their repetition.”[14]

On August 3rd, a large meeting of African-American men assembled at Military Hall on Wentworth Street “to consider the late riot and adopt some resolutions thereon.” In a series of speeches and conversations, the men expressed their unanimity in disavowing the recent violence. At the same time, they condemned the local white newspaper press for depicting Charleston’s black population as the “aggressors and abettors” of the initial row. Alonzo J. Ransier, a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, told the crowd he believed the black men accused of starting the riot were acting only in self defense. In light of the distortion of the facts in the newspapers, Ransier said it was necessary to speak up. While he was eager to “advise moderation” among the black leaders, the congressman said “he wanted both Savannahians and Charlestonians to know that they represented a party who were guided by principles of justice, and who accorded equal and exact privileges to all.” Ransier then proposed a series of resolutions, which were unanimously adopted and published.

Whereas the law-abiding black citizens of Charleston were “most heartily ashamed” of the recent violence and the cloud it has cast over the reputation of their city, they resolved that it was their “deliberate opinion” the riot was not premeditated, or “prompted by a spirit of antagonism” between the races. “Our citizens of all classes looked toward the occasion as one promising much hilarity, and that but for the unwise and brutal assault of one or more individuals upon a spectator,” the game would have ended quite peacefully. Finally, the assembled crowd at Military Hall “Resolved, that in the name of law and order, and all that is valuable to Republican institutions, we assure the people of Charleston and Savannah that we deplore the occurrence to which we have referred, and brand it with the seal of our heartiest condemnation, and at the same time ask of them a fair investigation and an impartial judgment; we ask this, feeling that, if obtained, much of the blame will rest upon other than those who are held responsible.”[15]

The police investigation into the riot continued through the end of July and into the early days of August, 1869. Meanwhile, a rumor began to circulate through Charleston that the mayor had ordered the city’s police force to arm themselves with Winchester repeating rifles (Model 1866) fitted with bayonets. Several witnesses had said they heard the mayor state that he was “powerless” to quell the riot on Monday the 26th, and his alleged words had since been quoted in newspaper across the country. Charleston was being depicted as a lawless community, where the once proud white population had been thoroughly tamed by their former black slaves. In a scramble to exert power, the mayor had allegedly sought permission from the occupying army to rearm the municipal police. The rumor proved true when Alderman T. J. Mackey returned from Columbia on August 3rd with ten wooden crates, containing 125 five of the Winchester weapons for the use of the Charleston police department.[16]

While the city’s police force began to drill with their new rifles, representatives of the Carolina Base Ball Club went to Savannah in an effort to convince the Savannah team to return to the Palmetto City for the second game in their ongoing match series. The Savannahians preferred to play the next game on their home field, but the Charleston players were desperate for the opportunity to demonstrate to Savannah and the rest of the country that the Palmetto City was a safe place to visit and do business. Reluctantly, on August 5th, the Savannah club agreed to play the second match in Charleston, and both teams began making plans for their return.[17]

Three weeks after the baseball riots of July 26th, 1869, the Savannah Base Ball Club steamed back to the Palmetto City for a rematch against the Carolina Club of Charleston. Racial tensions in the city were balanced on a knife edge, and the police were drilling with rifles and bayonets in anticipation of further violence. The Washington Cornet Band had repaired and replaced their instruments, and “Dixie” would soon be in the air again. Would tempers boil over under the August sun, or would the people of Charleston simply enjoy the exhibition of a relaxing game of baseball? Tune in next week for the continuation of this dramatic  story.