SEPT 14: ‘Swing Around the Circle’ Tour
George A. Custer was wrapping up his accompaniment of President Andrew Johnson on the latter’s “Swing Around the Circle” speaking tour, which took place from August 27 to September 15, 1866.
President Andrew Johnson. (Credit: Library of Congress)
Johnson, a Democrat who succeeded Republican Abraham Lincoln as President, following his assassination in April 1865, went on the road with Ulysses S. Grant, probably the most-admired American living at the time, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, Admiral David Farragut, and Secretary of State William Seward.
Johnson undertook the tour in the face of increasing opposition in the North and in Washington, D.C., to his lenient form of Reconstruction in the post-Civil War South. The Southern states were, largely, reverting to the racially imbalanced social system that had predominated before the war. Johnson hoped he could regain the trust of moderate Northern Republicans in time for the upcoming mid-term Congressional election that November. However, Johnson’s efforts to exploit tensions during the tour between Northern Republicans and their Radical counterparts, who supported comprehensive civil rights and political equality for newly freed slaves, only brought about increased alienation. One supporter of Johnson’s said of tour that it would have been better "had it never been made."
Custer, whose father was a diehard Democrat, accompanied Johnson, Grant, and other dignitaries on the tour. He wrote a letter on Sept. 12, addressing a “Radical Riot” at the Sept. 10 tour stop in Indianapolis. It was published by the Daily National Intelligencer and Washington Express on Sept. 18.
Secretary of State William Seward. (Credit: Library of Congress)
According to “The Facts, as stated by Gen. Custer,” he wrote:
“…I give you the following statement of what I saw relating to the disgraceful riot which occurred in Indianapolis on the evening of the President’s reception at that city. I had returned to my room from the supper table, where I had left the President and most of the party. The streets about the hotel were densely packed by the crowd waiting to see and hear the President. Loud and continuous calls were made for Johnson, Seward, Grant, Farragut, and others. I was seated in the window of my room, which was in the second story of the Bates House, and immediately overlooking the crowd in the street. Several hundred torches and transparencies borne among the crowd rendered the scene as light as midday, so that I could see and distinguish the faces of every person in the crowd below…
“Nothing of a disorderly character occurred until one of the marshals of the day was seen making his way on horseback through the crowd to a point where torch bearers were located. After apparently receiving directions to that effect, they began to move off in column. This was the signal for an attack by the crowd, which was begun by knocking down torches and transparencies with clubs, and in some \instances wresting them from the hands of holders. This continued without resistance for the space of probably two minutes, although several in the procession had been struck and beaten over the heads. A rush was finally made by the crowd, and several torches forcibly\y taken from the procession and the handles used as weapons against them in the procession…
Union Admiral David Farragut. (Credit: Library of Congress)
“It was not long before a dozen or so shots were fired by the attacking party that any was returned by those belonging to the procession, when a single man left the procession, stepped into the open space which had been cleared by the firing, and deliberately aimed and fired twice at one of the mob… This closed the disturbance for the time being…
“I was standing with the President in his room, when I heard two or three shots fired. I looked out the window just I time to see a man firing a pistol at another standing near him. The wounded man fell and was soon after picked up and carried into a drug store on the lower floor. No more shots were fired. General Grant, after twice appearing on the balcony and requesting the crowd to disperse and go home, induced respectable persons to do so. About one hundred and fifty more of the roughs and thugs of the city, and who probably began and upheld the riot, remained in front of the hotel, indulging in vile epithets, until a late hour. To use the words of Secretary Seward on the occasion, the loyal inhabitants had retired to their homes, while the disloyal remained in the streets.
(signed) G.A. Custer”
