SATURDAY STORY - ZACH HIGGENBOTTOM - EPISODE 8

 ZACH8

Last week, two Black men died while trying to escape in Confederate Alabama. They were on the Underground Railroad, and two white men shot them after raping a woman (the wife of one of the men.)

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General Frank Peck wanted to stop the harassment of black people in recent weeks, this new movement WOW had killed six black men, burned down houses of twelve black families, and harassed hundreds of black people.

The Union Army had come into the South to stop slavery, and this was a form of pseudo-slavery. And General Peck wasn't going to stand for it.

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Patrick Murphy was in jail. That wasn't an unusual place for Patrick. He had no significant crimes but had been incarcerated for street fighting three times. His family came from Ireland in 1844 at the height of the Irish Potato Famine. He had been seven at the time. On the streets of Boston, the Irish were treated like lepers. His mother got a job as a domestic, and his two older sisters were also domestic. The northern states didn't enslave people, but the Irish in Boston were almost like slaves. Women got hired as maids and housekeepers for wealthy families along Commonwealth Avenue. Men got jobs on the docks. And, frequently, the children (especially the boys) roamed the streets.

 The police constable offered Patrick to join the Union Army or stay in jail. That was an easy choice, and Patrick Murphy and several of his Irish friends joined the Union Army. They had basic training in Worcester, Massachusetts, and were sent to Columbus, Ohio, for the Central Union Army.  

The commander recognized the tactics of the Boston Irish and created a squadron of 25 men that would be more commandos than the regular army. They might enter a small town, break into the bank, and take all the money. Their two most significant actions were to dress as Confederate Soldiers and steal train locomotives. That prevented the Confederates from moving men and supplies.  

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General Peck had put his best trackers on the case of the two black men shot on the Underground Railroad. 

According to Zach Higgenbottom and Rufus Smith, the two men rode horses. The central tracker, Samuel Longstreet, found horse tracks leaving the scene.  One of the horses had a broken horseshoe on the left front leg. Samuel studied the bullet casings left at the scene and identified the bullets as Winchester 417 bullets. Likewise, when they examined the bodies before the funeral, they were Winchester 417 holes.

The trackers followed the horse prints east from the attack for a mile and then turned sharply south - heading towards Knoxville, Alabama. The horses crossed three streams, but with the broken horseshoe, the tracker picked up the trail on the other side. As Samuel reached Knoxville, the tracks led into town, and there were too many fresh tracks to follow.  

Not one to give up easily, Samuel carefully examined the horse tracks leaving Knoxville, and there were no similar broken horseshoe tracks. The killers were most likely still in Knoxville, or they sold or traded their horses. 

They searched through the public stables and found the horse with the broken shoe. The stable owner didn't want to tattle on the Morris brothers and denied knowing the owner. 

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Lieutenant Daniel Wheeler, Zach Higgenbottom, and Rufus Smith were appointed to root out the white supremacy group. Rufus was well known in the black community around Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It might be that he would know one or two of the other black leaders.

The farm was going well. The Southern Union Army had paired with the Union Navy and had defeated the Confederates at Mobile. The entire Southen shore was in Union control.  

(And, the Southern Union Army under General Peck was happy to get regular shipments of coffee beans, and they could have real coffee, not chicory coffee).

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The farm project was a success. The Southern Union Army was well-fed and with healthy soldiers. General Peck sent produce to the Northern Union Army under Ulysses Grant. The Central Army under William Sherman was also fit.

The citizens and Confederate Army were demoralized. States were slowly roped back into the union.

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The trio of Daniel Wheeler, Zach Higgenbottom, and Rufus Smith started in Tuscaloosa. Rufus had friends in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), and the group visited with Elijah Brown and David Johnson. 

Elijah and David named Roger Bentley as the local leader of the WOW group in Tuscaloosa. Three days later, a squad of 100 soldiers marched through the streets of Tuscaloosa. After thoroughly searching his house, the team stopped at Roger Bentley's house and took Bentley into custody. The Southern Union Army rounded up 200 WOW supporters and put them in a stockade.  

The army had a judge to preside over the trial of the WOW supporters. The army searched their houses and found white garments the men wore while harassing blacks. The men on go generally guaranteed their fate when asked if blacks were humans and if "all men are created equal," as in the Declaration of Independence. A few men thought blacks were humans, but none of them felt they were equal.

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Next, the trio of Lieutenant Daniel Wheeler, Zach Higgenbottom, and Rufus Smith went east to the town of Vance and had similar success. Unfortunately, one of the WOW supporters shot at Rufus, and immediately, there were six bullets through his head and torso. When he heard of the success, General Peck had the man's head put on a pike in the center of the town. The message flew around the area. The Union army was not allowing any harassment or slavery to exist.

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Two weeks later, the trio went to Knoxville. They took Samuel Longstreet with them. Stopping at the stable where Samuel had identified the horse, Daniel Wheeler and Samuel Longstreet put a bullet through the stable's owner's foot to help him to tell, and he indicated it was Wayne and Bubba Morris.  

Two days later, the retribution squad of 100 Union Soldiers showed up, and after a problematic interrogation, the Morris brothers confessed to killing the two black men on the Underground Railway.  

The Morris brothers were hung for the murder.  

The soldiers searched every home of a suspected WOW member. When finding the white gowns worn when harassing blacks, or anything such as books, papers, and magazines that insisted on white supremacy, that man was arrested and put in a stockade pending a trial.