Battle of Selma

Union General James H. Wilson

On March 30, 1865, Union General James H. Wilson detached Gen. John T. Croxton's brigade to destroy all Confederate property at Tuscaloosa. Wilson's forces captured a Confederate courier, who was found to be carrying dispatches from Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest describing his scattered forces. Wilson sent a brigade to destroy the bridge across the Cahaba River at Centreville, which cut off most of Forrest's reinforcements from reaching the area. He began a running fight with Forrest's forces that did not end until after the fall of Selma.

On the afternoon of April 1, opening what would be the final full month of the war, and after skirmishing all morning, Wilson's advanced guard ran into Forrest's line of battle at Ebenezer Church, where the Randolph Road intersected the main Selma road. Forrest had hoped to bring his entire force to bear on Wilson. Delays caused by flooding, plus earlier contact with the enemy, resulted in Forrest's mustering fewer than 2,000 men, many of whom were not war veterans but home militia consisting of old men and young boys.

The outnumbered and outgunned Confederates fought for more than an hour as reinforcements of Union cavalry and artillery were deployed. Forrest was wounded by a saber-wielding Union captain, whom he shot and killed with his revolver. Finally, a Union cavalry charge broke the Confederate militia, causing Forrest to be flanked on his right. He was forced to retreat.

Confederate General Nathan B. Forrest

Early the next morning, Forrest reached Selma; he advised Gen. Richard Taylor, departmental commander, to leave the city. Taylor did so after giving Forrest command of the defense. Selma was protected by fortifications that circled much of the city; it was protected on the north and south by the Alabama River. The wall was high and deep, surrounded by a ditch and picket fence. Earthen forts were built to cover the grounds with artillery fire.

Forrest's defenders consisted of his Tennessee escort company, McCullough's Missouri Regiment, Crossland's Kentucky Brigade, Roddey's Alabama Brigade, Frank Armstrong's Mississippi Brigade, General Daniel W. Adams' state reserves, and the citizens of Selma who were "volunteered" to man the works. Altogether this force numbered less than 4,000. As the Selma fortifications were built to be defended by 20,000 men, Forrest's soldiers had to stand 10 to 12 feet (3.7 m) apart to try to cover the works.

Wilson's force arrived in front of the Selma fortifications at 2 pm. He had placed Gen. Eli Long's Division across the Summerfield Road with the Chicago Board of Trade Battery in support. Gen. Emory Upton's Division was placed across the Range Line Road with Battery I, 4th US Artillery in support. Altogether Wilson had 9,000 troops available for the assault.

The Federal commander's plan was for Upton to send in a 300-man detachment after dark to cross the swamp on the Confederate right; enter the works, and begin a flanking movement toward the center moving along the line of fortifications. A single gun from Upton's artillery would signal the attack to be undertaken by the entire Federal Corps.

At 5 pm, however, Gen. Eli Long's ammunition train in the rear was attacked by advance elements of Forrest's scattered forces approaching Selma. Both Long and Upton had positioned significant numbers of troops in their rear for just such an event. But, Long decided to begin his assault against the Selma fortifications to neutralize the enemy attack in his rear.

Long's troops attacked in a single rank in three main lines, dismounted and shooting their Spencer's carbines, supported by their own artillery fire. The Confederates replied with heavy small arms and artillery fire. The Southern artillery had only solid shot on hand, while a short distance away was an arsenal which produced tons of canister, a highly effective anti-personnel ammunition.

St. Paul's Episcopal Church burned following the Battle of Selma and was rebuilt in 1871.

The Federals suffered many casualties (including General Long) but continued their attack. Once the Union Army reached the works, there was vicious hand-to-hand fighting. Many soldiers were struck down with clubbed muskets, but they kept pouring into the works with their greater numbers. In less than 30 minutes, Long's men had captured the works protecting the Summerfield Road.

Meanwhile, General Upton, observing Long's success, ordered his division forward. They succeeded in overmounting the defenses and soon U.S. flags could be seen waving over the works from Range Line Road to Summerfield Road.

After the outer works fell, General Wilson led the 4th U.S. Cavalry Regiment in a mounted charge down the Range Line Road toward the unfinished inner line of works. The retreating Confederate forces, upon reaching the inner works, united and fired repeatedly together into the charging column. This broke up the charge and sent General Wilson sprawling to the ground when his favorite horse was wounded. He quickly remounted his stricken horse and ordered a dismounted assault by several regiments.

Mixed units of Confederate troops had also occupied the Selma railroad depot and the adjoining banks of the railroad bed to make a stand next to the Plantersville Road (present day Broad Street). The fighting there was heavy, but by 7 p.m. the superior numbers of Union troops had managed to flank the Southern positions. The Confederates abandoned the depot as well as the inner line of works.

In the darkness, the Federals rounded up hundreds of prisoners, but hundreds more escaped down the Burnsville Road, including generals Forrest, Armstrong, and Roddey. To the west, many Confederate soldiers fought the pursuing Union Army all the way down to the eastern side of Valley Creek. They escaped in the darkness by swimming across the Alabama River near the mouth of Valley Creek (where the present day Battle of Selma Reenactment is held.)

The Union troops looted the city that night and burned many businesses and private residences. They spent the next week destroying the arsenal and naval foundry. They left Selma heading to Montgomery. When the war ended three weeks later, they were en route to Columbus and Macon, Georgia.

Selma Voting Rights Movement

Selma maintained segregated schools and other facilities, enforcing the state law in new enterprises such as movie theaters. The Jim Crow laws and customs were enforced with violence.

Segregated drinking fountain, 1938.

In the 1960s, black people who pushed the boundaries, attempting to eat at "white-only" lunch counters or sit in the downstairs "white" section of movie theaters, were still beaten and arrested. Nearly half of Selma's residents were black, but because of the restrictive electoral laws and practices in place since the turn of the century, only one percent were registered to vote, preventing them from serving on juries or serving in local office.^[9] All the members of the city council were elected by at-large voting. Black people were prevented from registering to vote by means of a literacy test, administered in a subjective way, as well as through economic retaliation organized by the White Citizens' Council in response to civil rights activism, Ku Klux Klan violence and police repression. After the Supreme Court case Smith v. Allwright (1944) ended the use of white primaries by the Democratic Party, the Alabama state legislature passed a law giving voting registrars more authority to challenge prospective voters under the literacy test. In Selma, the county registration board opened doors for registration only two days a month, arrived late and took long lunches.^[10]

In early 1963, Bernard Lafayette and Colia Lafayette of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) began organizing in Selma alongside local civil rights leaders Sam, Amelia and Bruce Boynton, Rev. L.L. Anderson of Tabernacle Baptist Church, J.L. Chestnut (Selma's first black attorney), SCLC Citizenship School teacher Marie Foster, public school teacher Marie Moore, Frederick D. Reese and others active with the Dallas County Voters League (DCVL).^[11]

In 1963, under the leadership of Patricia Swift Blalock, the public library of Selma-Dallas County was integrated.^[12]

Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church in Selma. A gathering place for meetings and a starting point for the Selma to Montgomery civil rights marches of 1965, it has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.

Against fierce opposition from Dallas County Sheriff Jim Clark and his volunteer posse, black people continued their voter registration and desegregation efforts, which expanded during 1963 and the first part of 1964. Defying intimidation, economic retaliation, arrests, firings and beatings, an ever-increasing number of Dallas County blacks tried to register to vote, but few were able to do so under the subjective system administered by whites.^[13]

In the summer of 1964, a sweeping injunction issued by local judge James Hare barred any gathering of three or more people under sponsorship of SNCC, SCLC or DCVL, or with the involvement of 41 named civil rights leaders. This injunction temporarily halted civil-rights activity until Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. defied it by speaking to a crowd about the struggle at Brown Chapel AME Church on January 2, 1965. He had been invited by local leaders to help their movement.^[14]

Beginning in January 1965, SCLC and SNCC initiated a revived voting-rights campaign designed to focus national attention on the systematic denial of black voting rights in Alabama, and particularly in Selma. Over the next weeks, more than 3,000 African-Americans were arrested, and they suffered police violence and economic retaliation. Jimmie Lee Jackson, who was unarmed, was killed in a café in nearby Marion after state police broke up a peaceful protest in the town.

Edmund Pettus Bridge, heading out of downtown Selma, across the Alabama River, towards Montgomery. Pettus was a Confederate brigadier general, and later Grand Dragon of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan.

The Edmund Pettus Bridge, looking back towards Selma. Sheriff's deputies await the marchers on "Bloody Sunday".

"Bloody Sunday", March 7, 1965. State troopers^[15] attack marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Activists planned a larger, more public march from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery to publicize their cause. It was initiated and organized by James Bevel, SCLC's Director of Direct Action, who was directing SCLC's Selma Movement. This march represented one of the political and emotional peaks of the modern civil-rights movement. On March 7, 1965, approximately 600 civil rights marchers departed Selma on U.S. Highway 80, heading east to the capital. After they passed over the crest of the Edmund Pettus Bridge and left the boundaries of the city, they were confronted by county sheriff's deputies and state troopers, who attacked them using tear gas, horses and billy clubs, and drove them back across the bridge. Governor George Wallace had vowed that the march would not be permitted. Seventeen marchers were hospitalized and 50 more were treated for lesser injuries. Because of the brutal attacks, this became known as "Bloody Sunday." It was covered by national press and television news, reaching many American and international homes.^[16]

Two days after the first march, on March 9, 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. led a symbolic march over the bridge. By then local activists and residents had been joined by hundreds of protesters from across the country, including numerous clergy and nuns. White people made up one-third of the marchers. King pulled the marchers back from entering the county and having another confrontation with county and state forces. But that night, white minister James Reeb, who had traveled to the city from Boston, was attacked and killed in Selma by members of the KKK.

King and other civil-rights leaders filed for court protection for a third, larger-scale march from Selma to Montgomery, the state capital. King was also in touch with the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson, who arranged for protection for another march. Frank Minis Johnson, Jr., the federal district court judge for the area who reviewed the injunction, decided in favor of the demonstrators, saying:

The law is clear that the right to petition one's government for the redress of grievances may be exercised in large groups ... and these rights may be exercised by marching, even along public highways.

— Frank Johnson

Selma to Montgomery marches, March 1965.

On Sunday, March 21, 1965, approximately 3,200 marchers departed for Montgomery. Marching in the front row with King were Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Greek Orthodox Father Iakovos (later Archbishop Iakovos of America) and Roman Catholic nuns. They walked approximately 12 miles a day and slept in nearby fields. The federal government provided protection in the form of National Guard and military troops. Thousands joined the march along the way. By the time the marchers reached the capital four days later, on March 25, their strength had swelled to around 25,000 people. Their moral campaign had attracted thousands from across the country.^[17]

The events at Selma helped increase public support for the cause; later that year the U.S. Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a bill introduced, supported and signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson. It provided for federal oversight and enforcement of voting rights for all citizens in state or jurisdictions where patterns of underrepresentation showed discrimination against certain populations such as ethnic minorities.

By March 1966, a year after the Selma-to-Montgomery marches, nearly 11,000 black people had registered to vote in Selma, where 12,000 white people were registered. Registration increased by November, when Wilson Baker was elected as Dallas County Sheriff to replace the notorious Jim Clark.

However, seven years later, black people had not been able to elect a candidate of their choice to the city council. The council's members were elected at-large by the entire city, and the white majority had managed to control the elections. Threatened with a lawsuit under the Voting Rights Act, the council voted to adopt a system of electing its ten members from single-member districts. After the change, five African-American Democrats were elected to the city council, including activist Frederick Douglas Reese, who became a major power in the city; five white people were also elected to the council.^[18]