The Mississippi Secession Convention by Timothy B. Smith

Author:Timothy B. Smith [Smith, Timothy B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Political Science, Government, Local Government, History, Americas, United States, Civil War Period (1850-1877)
ISBN: 9781626743663
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Published: 2014-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

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INTERIM

February–March, 1861

WHEN THE DELEGATES LEFT JACKSON IN LATE JANUARY, THEIR WORK was not over. The members and the many other entities they set up in the January session of the convention remained hard at work on everything from the growing military activity to their own personal and public finances. All knew they would eventually be called back together in session at the statehouse. They also knew in a larger context that many of them would be involved in the war effort, which was already heating up. Perhaps some even thought of their possessions, slaves, and land and wondered what effect the seemingly irrepressible war would have on them.

The individual delegates returned to their homes and took care of business that had piled up while they had spent three weeks in Jackson. The lawyers returned to their cases, some of a high profile. James Chalmers wrote Governor Pettus during the interim asking for leniency for a criminal in Marshall County: “he has suffered enough for the offense.” Similarly, John B. Fizer of Panola County wrote the governor asking for a pardon for a local man convicted of “assault and battery with intent to kill.” Fizer reported that he was a friend of the man and that the entire population of Tallahatchie County would look on a pardon with great applause. Oliver C. Dease of Jasper County wrote the governor asking that a friend be appointed as a land agent since the regular officials had resigned, and “there are no persons authorized to take charge of the office.” The delegates were clearly using their status and recent acquaintance with the governor and the state powers to their advantage.1

Others were involved in embryonic military activities. Charles D. Fontaine wrote Pettus in late February tendering the services of the “Pontotoc Dragoons” to the Military Board, calling it “one of the very best drilled, and most efficient Militia Companies in the State.” Hugh Miller similarly advised the governor that his militia company, the “Pontotoc Minute Men,” were ready for service but needed arms: “we are without arms and very desirous to get them of a good quality.” Miller stated that “if none better can be supplied we would be content, for the present, with the percussion musket,” and asked Pettus to send them either to Oxford on the Mississippi Central Railroad or Tupelo on the Mobile and Ohio. For his part, Pettus corresponded with convention president William Barry in Montgomery on a number of issues that should probably come before the next meeting of the convention.2

The governor also had to deal with a growing number of memorials from Northern states reacting to Mississippi’s secession. Several legislatures sent resolutions to Pettus and other governors confirming their loyalty to the Union and their willingness to fight to keep it together. Some states sent memorials agreeing to send delegates to compromise conventions, but most were of a confrontational manner, especially those from Wisconsin, Ohio, and Minnesota. Minnesota’s “Joint Resolutions on the State of the Union,” for

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