wasn’t popular in the South
Abolitionist Duncan Smith
By W. T. Block
great-grandpa Duncan Smith was about as popular among his slave-holding
neighbors as a skunk in church. Most Southerners expected an Abolitionist
to be from some Northern state, but Dunc Smith and each of his parents
were born in North Carolina, and Dunc was raised in Brandon, Miss.
So how could a Southern boy, accustomed to watching slaves from the
cradle, become an ardent Abolitionist? Probably he had to witness
at times such extreme brutality to slaves that he could no longer
endure it. Smith moved his family from Mississippi to Indian Bayou,
La., in 1858, and later to Cameron, La., in 1861.
Smith did not hate the Confederate States so much as he hated slavery
much more. His biographer, who knew Smith in 1870, wrote that:
|"... Duncan Smith
had opposed human slavery since long before John Brown’s raid, and
when the Civil War came on, his fiery opposition to it put him in
bad odor with those who favored it, an Abolitionist bitterly opposed
to slavery. He was ready at the drop of a hat to die for the principle
..." (Beaumont Enterprise, June 30, 1907.)
Smith and his adult sons Phineas and Jerry rode aboard the Union offshore
blockade ships at will. Smith also served as a Union spy.
On Aug. 2, 1863, a Confederate "recruiting" ship read the Confederate
Draft Declaration at Cameron. The ship operated like a British press
gang, obtaining "recruits’ at gunpoint if necessary. Although 53 years
old, Smith was rowing his skiff across the Calcasieu River, when the
recruiters," assuming he was trying to escape, shot him through the
leg. Smith’s wife got him ashore and hid him in the marsh.
In April, 1864, Smith acted as an agent for the Mermentau Jayhawkers
for the sale to the U.S. Navy of 450 stolen cattle and horses. After
completing the deal at New Orleans, Smith piloted the U.S. gunboat
Wave up the Calcasieu River, where it dropped anchor in front of Smith’s
home. A few days later, the Sabine Pass Confederate garrison attacked
the anchored gunboats; Wave and Granite City, which surrendered after
a 90-minute battle.
That afternoon the Confederates searched Smith’s home, hopeful of
capturing the arch-Unionist, as well as the $10,000 bounty on his
head. Smith hid out for one hour under his wife’s hoop-skirts, and
after the soldiers left, she hid him in the marsh, where he remained
for the next year.
My grandmother reported that her father’s ragged hair and whiskers
hung down to his waist when he finally came out of the marsh.
nation remembers the 358,000 Union soldiers who died trying to end
slavery. It even remembers the 260,000 Confederates who died to preserve
slavery, although only one of each 20 actually owned slaves.
However, it does not remember the Southern Abolitionists like Duncan
Smith of Cameron or three others from Jefferson County, namely, James
G. Taylor, Henry Clay Smith (no relation), and L. W. Pennington. After
Taylor’s capture at Matagorda for the third time, he was executed
by the Confederates, and his probate file at Beaumont verifies the
year of his death.
W. T. Block Is a Nederland resident.
from Beaumont Enterprise, September 28, 1998, Pg. 6A