From martin1965, p. xvi

Martin (b. 1813, d. 1881), sometimes referred to as “General Martin,” owned the Albermarle plantation in the Lafourche region of Louisiana and married Mary Winifred Pugh, who gave birth to Robert Campbell Martin, Jr., William Whitmell Martin, known as “Whit” and killed at Vicksburg in June 1863, James Bryan Martin, and Thomas Pugh Martin, as well as two others who died as children before the war.

Martin was elected as a delegate to the Louisiana secession convention, where he voted with Cooperationists. He also briefly commanded the Fifth state milita brigade “until August 1862,” which is what earned him the moniker “General Martin.”¹

More detailed information about the family and their plantations is in lathrop1945; this page concentrates on tracking Martin’s wartime movements.²

See also Martin slaves.

Occupied Louisiana: November 1862 to June 1863

According to lathrop1945, p. 196, Martin left Louisiana after arrival of Northern troops at end of 1862, but “returned, surrendered as a prisoner of war, and was paroled November 8. He again left the Lafourche November 19 for Alexandria and Mansfield,” before returning around December 22 against the wishes of his sons. Whit Martin, for example, wrote to Senior from his camp in Vicksburg on January 7, 1863, that

I hope my dear father that you will not attempt to return to Assumption. Lincoln has issued his proclamation freeing all slaves, and I do not think there is any probability of getting yours again, at least before the close of the war. Even if there were, your children would all prefer to lose everything than to have you risk yourself within the enemy’s lines, and we would all of us far prefer living poor all our lives to have you forced to take an oath to support our enemies.³

Because he never took oath of allegiance, he was a paroled prisoner of war, making it impossible for him to receive assistance of federal officials as A. Franklin Pugh and Ellen Boatner did, but he managed by early March 1863 to return many of Albermarle’s laborers to the plantations. He got supplies from William Pugh and tried to resume operations and sold some sugar. According to a report received from a family friend who had visited Lafourche in April:

Nearly all of his Negroes are at home. Ralph & Lewis have both returned. The Negroes were working well. Father succeeded in getting all of his mules back & most of his horses. Mr. Gros is still overseeing for him.⁴

But the provost marshal ultimately cracked down on reported abuses, including threats of violence against his laborers, and after court proceedings were begun, Martin fled again to Alexandria in June 1863.⁵

The charges against him included “allow[ing] his overseer to inhumanly treat his Negroes, by whipping them in an inhuman manner,” not allowing them to wear clothing given them by the Union army, and not allowing them to leave the plantation. According to the Provost Marshal’s indictment, “Mr. Martin has also told his Negroes if they did not obey his overseer’s orders that he would have them shot down like dogs,” and the overseer was accused of stealing away “Negroes” placed on the plantation by United States forces.⁶

On the plantation Martin left behind, Union forces tried to place some contrabands who, according to a letter from W. W. Pugh to Martin through federal lines, were dying rapidly.⁷

Flight to Texas: June 1863 to August 1863

“[R. C. Martin] was in Alexandria wondering what to do next when he heard that the Yankees had been driven from Lafourche; he hastened back to the Bayou determined to ‘run his negroes off to Texas, and ’sell them all’” (lathrop1945, p. 291), according to a letter from Maggie C. Martin to her husband, who urged that Gen. Martin not sell “Bob, Turner, Dick & Cely’s family” or Aleck “since I have taken so much pains” with him.⁸

Martin did indeed gather up slaves and head for Texas, having first gone to Mississippi to rendezvous with his sons. The journey to Texas took “five weeks” including 130 miles on foot to Alexandria. Lathrop says that both Martin and his slaves grew very ill on the trip, and he was forced to purchase some carts as well as to use one carriage (taken to Mansfield in November 1862) “to haul the little negroes and myself. Expenses of marching are excessively high and the value of negroes may be consumed in this way” (lathrop1945, p. 291). He finally “reached Alto, Cherokee County, Texas, August 23, 1863, and camped near some other Lafourche refugees” (lathrop1945, p. 291). (These quotes are from the September 2 letter mentioned below, which also mentions the Guion family as the acquaintances whom Martin settled near.)

The Cherokee County Tax Rolls for 1864 list 27 slaves valued at $13,500 in the entry for Martin.

In Texas

Cherokee County

According to a letter from Martin to Col. W. W. Pugh, September 2, 1863, via S. O. Nelson, Esq., New Iberia, LA., Martin reports on conditions in Cherokee, quoted by lathrop1945, on p. 292:

Every body here is dissatisfied. All would if they could invest elsewhere. Texas is a poor country in all things except beef. The low value of our money makes even this high. … All are anxious for peace and to return to our own land. The ladies will have much to tell of their adventures.

He adds that the area was 150 miles from navigation. Cleared land was not good but available in small tracts (no more than 20 by 60 by 100 acres) and that rents were high:

I hardly know what to do. I may have my Negroes to find out who is making salt. There is no general demand for Negro labor. Grissamour is working a salt spring some 75 miles off; and I have written to him to learn if I can hire Negroes to him. May do so to a Mr. Brooks of Smith Co. to whom Mr. W. & Richard P. have hired theirs.⁹

Martin also wrote that “I fear our people are much annoyed since I left home. I hope my Negroes may find someone to care for them. I could not stay to do so, as you know.”¹⁰

By October, Martin had erected “3 cabins and a crib and shelters,” with 300 bushels of corn and hay in the crib.¹¹ With “the Negroes housed,” he intended to make a crop for the next year, but Magruder’s orders forced him “to send 2 Negroes (Turner & Alex) to work on defenses.”¹²

A few months later, Martin remained unhappy with his situation, writing to Maggie Martin that “I am heartily tired of Texas & roaming about, and long for a fixed home, however homely it may be.” As he wrote he was planning a visit to Beaumont (“I dread the ride very much”) for unknown reasons, but presumably for business.¹³

In May, Martin was still unsatisfied in Texas and considered going to Alexandria or the Teche, but said that he did not have enough reliable currency to purchase meat. (In one letter he reported getting 164 lbs of beef after “the Negroes had been out of meat for 3 or 4 days.”)¹⁴ Sickness and lack of a crop also apparently prevented him from trying to return to the Lafourche and capture enslaved people.¹⁵ Nonetheless, he did apparently go to Alexandria sometime in May or June and stayed until at least September.¹⁶ Reports and rumors from his plantation, however, suggest that the Union military was occupying and working the land, as well as establishing some schools for freedpeople on site.¹⁷

Nacogdoches

By October 1864, Martin was back in Texas and apparently inquiring about places to hire his enslaved men, judging from a letter he received from John Williams at the saline in Larissa and from Thomas Pugh Martin about hiring rates in Tyler and Marshall.¹⁸ Around the same time, Thomas’s engagement provided Sr. with an opportunity to take stock of his financial situation. In a draft letter to his cousin, part of which was edited, Sr. explained his objections to the engagement partly on the grounds that:

the support of a wife would be upon himself … for I am permanently ruined by the war—the small number of Negroes which I have in this state not even supporting themselves and the very limited means in money. [sic] … I will frankly tell you of my pecuniary situation. The loss of my peroperty will rendered me a bankrupt. Of the few Negroes which I have escaped whereas, with about one half of the 27 are their property giving them which left them one half (9) on the property of my children. I have the utmost difficulty in procuring the small means necessary to give assistance to my children.¹⁹

Sometime around mid-November 1864, Sr. appears to have left Cherokee County and moved somewhere, though where is not clear (probably Nacogdoches, somewhere near the Young family). Judging from letters about the move from his children, however, one of the motivations appears to have been his continuing search for a place where he could hire out his slaves.²⁰

In December, for example, Robert Campbell Martin, Jr. wrote his father that if he had not yet “succeeded in hiring your Negroes,” Jr. had found a man who ran a distillery in Jefferson who wished to hire 16 Negroes at $50 per month per hire (with the hirer providing food). According to Jr., “if you wish to hire up here I do not think you will have any difficulty.”²¹

Thomas Pugh Martin also reported that Mr. G (Grissamour?) was willing to hire “4 Negro men” at $350 per year to chop wood, and also wished to hire Joe at $200 per year. “He wants an honest woman to cook for four or five hands & to carry the kegs (at the jug-shop). He says if you have not hired your hands, that he can hire the women & children to advantage.”²² A later letter suggests that Sr. may have accepted Grissamour’s offer.²³ He stayed with Grissamour in Tyler briefly in February 1865, and then left in company with “Gen. Nicholls … for Nacogdoches via [Larissa] (Mr. Williams’).”²⁴

After the War

Martin in 1865 was farming “near Nacogdoches, Texas” (lathrop1945, p. 447). After the war, one of his sons married and stayed in Tyler. The other two, followed by R. C., relocated to Lafourche and Albermarle, with all returning by October. But the fields and buildings were too far gone for sugar, and cotton market not promising, so “Albermarle was allowed to drift for several years.” An entry in A. Franklin Pugh’s diary for November 3, 1865, notes that “Gen. Martin staid here all night and left after breakfast. He is a very unhappy man. I thought I was the most wretched man in existence, but I find he is more so than I am.”²⁵

Martin traveled to Brazil briefly but decided not to relocate, and Albermarle finally resumed sugar production in 1870 with share-croppers doing the labor. No mention of what happened to the enslaved people he took to Texas. One great-grandson became president of the Marshall (Texas) National Bank, but Robert Campbell Martin, Jr. and his son Robert Martin III took over the sugar cultivation and by 1897 were debt free. The family retained possession until 1940s.

What happened to the slaves Martin had brought to Texas is unclear. In May, he seemed uncertain about what to do, as he explained to Robert Campbell Martin, Jr.: “Must await developments. If slavery is abolished here in T., I shall go to our home and see if anything can be saved for you my children.”²⁶ In June 1865, his son James advised him from Woodlawn that “it will not pay to move yr Negroes back as it will be some time before your place can be recovered and even then your Negroes will not work.”²⁷ Instead, James advised him that “if you can sell your Negroes, I think it would be advisable to do so provided that you can obtain something of a more valuable nature than the scrip now used.”²⁸

It appears that Martin was already considering this by the time he heard from his son. In April 1865, Sr. was still in Nacogdoches apparently making arrangements to have his “Negroes” clothed.²⁹ But the next month he spoke frankly with Martin, Jr., about the situation he was in:

I have nothing to write of but I can talk of much for my heart is quite full. I want this terrible thing to end and quickly. We must go to work. You speak in a manly spirit. You will have to work for your wife and children for all of our property is lost to us. Of the Negroes in T. and La. I shall immediately sell for I am tired of owning them—if I do so even.³⁰

Martin’s friend William W. Pugh, meanwhile, urged Martin to return to Louisiana and remained optimistic that even with “slavery as an institution” destroyed, “the management of ‘free labor’ will probably be controlled by State legislation and in the end if we can procure a sufficiency may be a good substitution for the late institution provided we can control the labor so as to get a quid pro quo for our investment.”³¹

Before he could leave Nacogdoches, however, many of Martin’s slaves ran away. He reported these events in an August 1865 letter:

Several of the Negroes I am rid of. Old Wilson. I told he could work his way in the world & down to La. if he could. He has set off. Alex ran off, and Ralph was told that he was seen near Logansport. He will turn up at Mansfield I reckon. Jo has also run off I presume. I ordered him to go back to my negro quarters and work in furrow filling. This he did not do. I am very willing for all to remain here if they choose, but the rest will all go to Lafourche. James writes to me not to take them down, but I shall all who conduct themselves properly.³²

According to Martin his “Free Negroes” and those of Simms “generally … desire to return to La. and are obedient in all respects.”³³ When Martin informed his son James that he would be leaving for Louisiana on September 30, he wrote that “we are all well and anxious—white and black—to reach Louis’a to quit this miserable land.”³⁴

He arrived back in Louisiana on October 28, but not without incident along the way. According to Robert Campbell Martin, Jr., somewhere near Berwick Bay, “it seems that for some misdemeanor of Henry’s,” Senior “gave him a flogging.” This was then “reported by someone to the Negro soldiers at this place, who apparently were desirous of murdering father. They came up & used numerous expressions such as ‘let’s kill him,’ ‘hang him’ etc and came towards him. Father says that they learned that he was armed & they held off,” but that the danger had not yet entirely passed and that the soldiers later broke into the camp “& were beginning to rifle the wagons when a guard came up & they desisted.”³⁵

According to martin1965, p. 9, he died on the Fourth of July, 1881, and was buried at Madewood.