The Arrest of James Digby Part 1: Setting the Scene

This was supposed to be a short, quick story about Union authorities arresting a southern sympathizer in Campbell County, not an unusual tale in the Commonwealth, but a topic I have not  yet explored much during my research or on this site.

I started this story and it was going well, but I decided to add context about the local situation as the war arrived. I found an approach I liked but then kept going down rabbit holes of ideas and topics relevant to the subject, finding perspectives I had not considered and information I did not know, and suddenly this grew into a much longer project, leading me to split it into two parts. I think this is the best way to tell this story. 

One other decision I made was to omit citation numbers and endnotes as I feared they would be distracting and only make this post longer. Most sources are the various Cincinnati newspapers. I have included a few links and one mention of a book that provided valuable context. I hope this arrangement works out well.

This first part will focus on Campbell County and its relationship with slavery and abolition as the war approached while part two will discuss the arrest that initiated this project.

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Kentucky, of course, was a border state in the Civil War, a slave state next to sister slave states like Virginia, Tennessee, and Missouri, while also alongside free states Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, with West Virginia soon joining that latter group. The Bluegrass State was snuggly in the middle of the separate sections, caught between two differing worlds.

Campbell County sits at the top of the state, its eastern and northern borders along the Ohio River, just a few hundred yards from Ohio. It was truly a "border county in a border state.”

From 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell_County%2C_Kentucky#/media/File%3AMap_of_Kentucky_highlighting_Campbell_County.svg

Like its home state, which famously attempted to remain neutral, Campbell County found itself in a conundrum when the Civil War came. Families of both northern and southern backgrounds had settled here, as had immigrants from Europe, especially Germany, mirroring the state’s awkward position. Its access to the Ohio River connected it to distant parts of the state - where different cultures, topography, and economies, including the reliance on slavery, existed - as well as to other states both free and slave. The Licking River on the county’s western border served as a route from further south and east all the way to the Ohio River. (I jokingly call it the Campbell County Peninsula.)

Economically, its position along the Ohio River was vital to the state, which “depended heavily on northern trade.” For instance, “ferries from Cincinnati made over 1,000 weekly crossings.” Campbell County was a natural destination for such deliveries.

On the other hand, as that link shows, Kentuckians in general “disagreed with the South’s anti-tariff policy, valuing manufacturing more than most southern states.” Despite this difference, the state did share one important trait with the Deep South - “slavery was vital” to its economy. Kentucky was like the rope in a game of tug-of-war, pulled in opposing directions by northern and southern economies and laws. That role would continue into 1861 and 1862.

The future of that peculiar economic, political, and social institution was a frequent matter of national debate over much of the nineteenth century - would it be maintained only where already allowed, banned from new lands, completely abolished everywhere, or expanded and legalized everywhere? Entire political parties formed and/or dissolved over the decades due to their stances on such contentious issues.

Slavery was, of course, legal in Campbell County, yet was far from a dominating presence. In 1860, the 115 slaves in the county were 62 fewer than at the previous census, and the 0.55 percent of the county's population of 20,909 that slaves represented was the third lowest rate of the state’s 109 counties.

By contrast, Kentucky in that same year held a population of 225,843 slaves, who made up 19.5% of the state’s total population, 35.5 times more ubiquitous than in Campbell County, a significant difference.

As those numbers show, slavery was alive but not thriving in Campbell County as the 1860s began, but the low number of slaves was not because residents disapproved of human bondage. As one local historian puts it, this county was in no way “a bastion of abolitionist sentiment.”

A series of incidents in 1859 - mostly local, but one of significant national concern - revealed the distrust and dislike many locals held towards abolition. Additional happenings in 1860 and early 1861, however, may have had led to some questions or re-thinking over slavery’s effects even on free people in free states.

This was an eventful era in Campbell County.

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William Shreve Bailey was a native Ohioan who in 1839 had moved to Newport, where he purchased a newspaper in 1850. 

He first grabbed the attention of slavery’s supporters the following year when he added an “abolitionist tone” to his writings, escalating his rhetoric, not a popular tactic in a slave state.

By October of that year, he had agitated enough locals that a group soon "burned the store and residence where Bailey was publishing.”

Bailey and his family survived this attack, then local friends and citizens raised money to enable him to resume his publication. He pressed forward with life, even as he faced other challenges in the remainder of the decade. Of course, nationwide debates about slavery also continued.

As the 1850s marched forward, and the nation’s slavery dispute unknowingly approached a cataclysmic end, Bailey named his newspaper The Free South, setting the stage for an experience reminiscent of the 1851 affair, bookending his decade with turmoil.

His journal, “the only Republican newspaper in the state at the time,” maintained its anti-slavery theme, but a violent event in Virginia shocked the nation, frightened slaveholders, and refocused local attention on Bailey and his writings.

In the middle of October 1859, radical abolitionist John Brown led a raid on Harper's Ferry, an attempt to arm slaves to fight for their freedom, resulting in the deaths of several  of Brown’s followers and his eventual execution. This failed uprising alarmed slavery’s supporters, including those in Campbell County. Bailey was an obvious target of the strong emotions Brown had stirred.  

John Brown

The Cincinnati Enquirer of October 29, 1859, described local reaction to Brown’s raid.

It can not be denied that the Captain Brown insurrection case, now being tried at Charleston, has had its affect upon the people every-where in the South. The statement made in the examination of Brown and his confederates, that an outbreak of the same kind that occurred at Harper’s Ferry would be commenced at the same time some-where in Kentucky, led some of our citizens to believe that it might occur at Newport Barracks, and they have been on the qui vive for such an outbreak ever since. 

Newport Barracks, behind the Ohio River

In connection with this matter we will state that there has been published in Newport for the past several months a paper entitled the Free South, the proclivities of which have been decidedly Black-Republican, and since the late outbreak of Harper’s Ferry, a portion of our citizens have been of the opinion that Mr. Bailey, who is publishing said paper, was in some way connected with the movement, and they have felt that some approval or disapproval should be manifested on the occasion.

Last night the fire-bell rang, and in a few minutes after a large number of our citizens assembled at County-house Square, to see what it meant. Some one suggested that they should go down to Taylor-street and “move” the press of the Free South and following that suggestion a party started down to the office. 

Arriving there, some fifteen in number, they went up into the office, took the forms on the press for the printing of to-day’s paper, and moved them into the street, all of which was done very quietly, and then made an attempt to move the press, which proved too heavy for them. Finding they could not move the press, and after distributing the “forms” of the paper, the crowd advised Mr. Bailey that he had better move his office to the opposite side of the river, and if it was not done within the course of fifteen days, they would do it for him. 

Over two days and nights, the mob eventually succeeded in destroying Bailey's press, then demanded he leave town, but he refused to do so as he gathered weapons to defend his office. He continued to print his views until authorities arrested him under the charge of publishing “incendiary” articles.

Local supporters again came to his rescue, bailing him out of jail as he awaited trial. They sent him on a tour of Europe, where he continued speaking on slavery. He was gone so long that his criminal trial was postponed until his return, but the arrival of war led to its outright cancellation, giving the anti-slavery faction a small victory in a much larger fight.

Bailey then moved his operations to Cincinnati.

—

Three weeks after the attack on Bailey’s newspaper, anti-abolition agitation was again in the news. 

In mid-November, Dr. J.R. Whittemore, a Newport Republican and candidate for Congress, received a letter in the mail and had it published in the newspapers.

Sir, the citizens of Newport have decided that they will no longer permit any person to promulgate such “principles” as you and your brethren in the cause of Abolitionism have been promulgating for the last four years in their city. Therefore, you are hereby notified to leave the city of Newport on or before the first day of December, 1859. Otherwise, you must abide the consequences of your own folly and obstinacy, which, we assure you, will be serious. DETERMINED CITIZENS  

In contrast to that letter’s insinuation, other sources described Whittemore’s reputation as that of “a good citizen” and a “quiet gentleman” who was not “one of the Abolition stripe of politicians” and had “never waged war” against slavery other than wanting to stop its expansion into new territory. Despite that gentle touch in his social and political lives, at least this one anonymous writer was convinced that he was among the group of anti-slavery zealots.

Two other dramas played out in public, bringing slavery and its potentially far-reaching effects to the forefront. 

In August of 1859, shortly before those public controversies, a young and free man named James Waggoner was kidnapped in Cincinnati (in an ostensibly free state) and brought against his will to Campbell County (in an unquestioned slave state.)

Newport officials discovered his presence, and quickly placed him in jail to investigate his status, initiating a fatiguing year-long saga.

The case dragged on, with Waggoner trying to escape his cell at least twice, and in mid-1860, Newport Mayor Edmund Hawkins, in charge of the trial, (and himself the largest slaveowner in the county, with ten pieces of  human property), ruled him a slave. The city then sold him at auction in Alexandria to Dr. John Q. A. Foster, Newport’s postmaster. The court had issued an injunction to stop the sale, but Foster had made his purchase before that ruling reached him, though what he knew and when he knew it became a point of contention. Foster hid Waggoner from pursuers trying to stop the sale, and soon thereafter tried to resell his property for a profit in Lexington, but no acceptable offer was forthcoming. 

As this was going on, newspapers claimed that "public sentiment" in favor of Waggoner was growing, and that it "demanded fair play." Once Foster learned of skepticism over the handling of the Waggoner affair, he agreed to return the man to Newport for a more thorough investigation, restarting the legal process. At least one paper speculated that the public's interest in Waggoner's welfare and treatment had influenced Foster's decision.

Brown's raid was months in the past by this time, but it remained influential. It had “made some excitement” before the arrest of the kidnappers, but after the attack on The Free South, the “slavery feeling became so excited that the Newport witnesses would not attend” the trial for the kidnappers in Ohio. Even residents not directly involved in slavery and/or abolition, were influenced by these issues that clouded the nation's future.

After more legal back-and-forth, with continuing detailed newspaper attention and commentary, another trial took place, and a second verdict arrived. On August 17, a year after the kidnapping, Judge Samuel Moore announced:

“From the proof in the case there can be no doubt, but that plaintiff is a free man, wherefore it is adjudged that the injunction be perpetuated, and that any sale of plaintiff be taken for naught; that he may be released from custody and enjoy his freedom in some other country than this Commonwealth” (emphasis added).

Even a court ruling in favor of liberty left Waggoner unwelcome in Campbell County, or Kentucky itself. Waggoner returned to Ohio, probably happy to do so, closing this difficult chapter of his life.

Even

(This is a basic summary of the main aspects of the Waggoner case. For a more detailed account, see the book I am a Free Man by Shirlene Jensen, available at that link or at the Campbell County Historical & Genealogical Society office.)

—

On January 15, 1861, an incident unrelated to slavery, but that was a result  of the political atmosphere in the county caused a local stir.

On that day, the “Union-loving portion" of Newport residents planned a ceremony to fire 100 shots in honor of Major Robert Anderson and the Union. 

A local artillery unit, using two guns Kentucky Governor Beriah Magoffin had sent, was about to begin the firing when Dr. John Foster, who had purchased Waggoner the previous summer, waited until the last second before running to the flagpole and cutting the lanyard, stopping the raising of the U.S. flag. Foster declared that this was a “Bell and Everett” pole, and that he, a proponent of those candidates in the recent Presidential election, would allow “no stars and stripes” to hang from it in his presence.

Foster moved quickly, catching onlookers by surprise, and almost immediately after he cut the cord, the cannonade started. Because of the timing and noise of it all, “no one resisted the act,” as it happened, though a few moments later, attendees realized what they had seen and “were loud in their denunciations” of the doctor, with some attendees even demanding Foster be lynched.

News of this event quickly spread. “There is no mistake but the affair has created a great sensation in the quiet city of Newport.” Days later, a jury convicted Foster of breach of the peace and fined him $20.

Compared to the violence of Brown's raid and the attack on Bailey, this was a minor incident, but it showed the potential for trouble as tension among opposing loyalties grew.

—

Three months after the disrupted ceremony and just eight months after the Waggoner drama had concluded, another episode of “Slave or Freeman?” found its way to Newport, ending just two days before the firing on Fort Sumter.

On April 4, 1861, a white man arrived in Newport, accompanied by a young African American named Chancellor Livingston.

Curious bystanders noticed the unknown duo and approached them, soon finding a chance to speak to Livingston, who insisted that he was not a slave, and that he could provide evidence of his freedom. The bystanders, perhaps recalling the Waggoner story, suspected this was a kidnapping and sent for police.

City Marshall William Bennett arrived shortly and spoke to Livingtson, leaving his companion with a deputy as he attempted to learn what the two men were doing in Newport.

Livingston, about 20 years old, again swore he was not a slave. He stated that the other man, whom he called Jones, had tricked him into leaving New York by promising him work. One account said the job was supposed to be in Ohio, a free state, but another stated the duo was going to Kentucky, which Jones had convinced his victim was also a free state.

The marshal then turned his attention to the alleged kidnapper, but he had escaped the deputy's careless watch. Local attorney Albert S. Berry (a future Confederate soldier) was nearby and said that the man was supposedly in his office. When this group arrived there, the stranger had vanished again. 

While the search for Jones proceeded, the not-so-hospitable authorities “lodged” Livingston in the Newport jail, where he awaited a court hearing.

This situation with Livingston was obviously not Newport’s first experience in the contest between servitude and liberty, and because of the previous case of “tampering with the rights of free negros,” the city found itself rather “desirous” to bring this new case to a quick end. Even a city where slavery existed was tired of such moral and legal dilemmas.

George Webster, who had worked on Waggoner’s behalf, now represented Livingston before Mayor Hawkins. He presented the key evidence, an affidavit from a Lockport, New York resident whose testimony provided a “description of a negro named Chancellor Livingston, who had recently vanished from that place, and as the description corresponded with the defendant in Court.”  

Hawkins weighed this information and on April 10, pronounced Chancellor free. He also ordered Marshall Bennett “to give him a safe transit to the opposite side of the river,” (emphasis again added) to Ohio, as, like with James Waggoner, this free African American was not welcome in Newport.

Livingston, now officially free, went “on his way rejoicing,” preferring not to stay in the slave state of Kentucky, even had the choice been his. 

As a postscript to this case, a local man had raised money “sufficient to pay his [Livingston’s] expenses home.” That some white Campbell County men were even willing to pay to remove an African American from their presence speaks loudly. Despite the sympathy felt for Waggoner and the assistance given to Livingston, the results of these cases confirm that local attitudes on race had not evolved much. Even indisputably free men were escorted out of the state.

—

Thus stood the Campbell County scene as the Civil War arrived - a cocktail of slavery’s supporters, combined with few actual slaves, blended with even fewer vocal abolitionists, all assembled among a silent majority who took no public stance, forming a fitting mixture of perspectives in this land on the border of freedom and slavery.

How would such a mash-up handle civil war, and how would civil war handle it? The story of James Digby is a fair representation of Campbell County during the early war years. 

Part two, He Could Whip any Linconite, will follow shortly.