Hurrah for Hampton!

About

This post-revisionist study examines the motives and the concerns of the ex-slaves in South Carolina who supported a movement that eventually led to white supremacy.

Although most freedmen throughout the states of the former Confederacy were Republicans loyal to the party of the Federal government that had emancipated them, they were factions of African-American voters who aligned themselves with local white Democratic leaders. one such group of black conservatives joined the “Red Shirts,” white paramilitary clubs that attempted to restore antebellum values in electing former Confederate general Wade Hampton governor of South Carolina in 1876.

Drago’s fine analysis recovers and explains this lost aspect of Southern black history. Drawing on primary sources that include testimonies of several black Red Shirts before a Congressional investigation of the election and eleven slave narratives, he de-romanticizes the black experience by examining the relationship between black initiative and southern paternalism.

Reviews

“Lee Drago’s Hurrah for Hampton! complicates our understanding collapse of Reconstruction in South Carolina by attending carefully African American men who donned the red shirt and rode with ton’s paramilitary army to redeem the state in 1876. … Overall, the book demonstrates that the political situation in 1876 South Carolina was not as neatly divided between black and white as we have previously portrayed it. Historians of Reconstruction South Carolina will have to take account of Drago’s important insights in the future.”
—Lou Falkner Williams, Journal of Southern History, May 2001

“Though we probably will never know how much of Hampton’s black support was voluntary, Drago’s book is an important reminder that there always was a small minority within the black community that supported white supremacy. The generally forgotten, largely ignored black conservative tradition attests to the rich diversity in and complexity of the African-American experience.”
—John David Smith, The Georgia Historical Quarterly, Winter 1999

“Edmund L. Drago’s Hurrah for Hampton! is an original contribution to Reconstruction scholarship, but more as a harbinger than as the final word. So far as I can tell, this is the first significant study of African American conservatives during Reconstruction. That makes this exploration of the Redeemers’ victory in South Carolina worthy of notice. … Postrevisionist or not, this book is significant, and the appended evidence invites readers to draw their own conclusions.”
—Michael W. Fitzgerald, Journal of American History, June 2000

“This book is important in adding balance to the continuing debate about this important era. This book is well researched and well presented. There are interesting insights, pathos, and genuine humor. This is a good read.”
—Robert K. Ackerman, The South Carolina Historical Magazine, July 2000

Praise

“The problem examined by this book is an important one as the findings help to shatter the view that the South’s African-American population represented a monolithic entity.”
—Carl Moneyhon, author of The Impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on Arkansas

“This is a significant work . . . beautifully written, deeply researched, and rationally organized.”
—Willard B. Gatewood, author of Aristocrats of Color