Wide Awakes - Southern Reaction

Southern Reaction

In 1860, Texas Senator Louis T. Wigfall alleged falsely that Wide Awakes were behind a wave of arson and vandalism in his home state of Texas. Historians have found no evidence whatever of any such conspiracy, but they do report that in Texas, in 1860, a statewide hysteria over nonexistent slave revolts led to the lynching of 30-100 slaves and whites in the so-called Texas Troubles.

The Wide Awakes never marched anywhere in the South, in 1860, but they represented the South’s greatest fear, an oppressive force bent on marching down to their lands, liberating the slaves and pushing aside their way of life. Their outfits and equipment only further incited this fear with beliefs that “they parade at midnight, carry rails to break open our doors, torches to fire our dwellings, and beneath their long black capes the knife to cut our throats”. To the South, the Wide Awakes were only a taste of what was to come if Lincoln were to be elected. The North would not compromise, and would, if need be, force themselves upon the great South. “One –half million of men uniformed and drilled, and the purpose of their organization to sweep the country in which I live with fire and sword." This mindset was not appeased any by the wide acceptance of the Wide Awakes in the North. On October 25, 1858, Senator Seward of New York stated to an excited crowd, “a revolution has begun” and alluded to Wide Awakes as “forces with which to recover back again all the fields…and to confound and overthrow, by one decisive blow, the betrayers of the constitution and freedom forever.” To the South, the Wide Awakes and, thus the North, would only be content when the South was fully dominated.

The South recognized the need for their own Wide Awakes, and thus started a movement to create “a counteracting organization in the South”, dubbed the "Minute Men". The South viewed the Wide Awakes as the North’s private army, and thus they determined on creating their own. They would no longer entertain the “abhorrence of the rapine, murder, insurrection, pollution and incendiarism which have been plotted by the deluded and vicious of the North, against the chastity, law and prosperity of innocent and unoffending citizens of the South”. The Minute Men was the South’s unofficial army. Like that of the Wide Awakes, they were expected “to form an armed body of men…whose duty is to arm, equip and drill, and be ready for any emergency that may arise in the present perilous position of Southern States.” The fear of the Wide Awakes resulted in Minute Men companies forming all over the South. Like their enemy, they too held torch rallies and wore their own uniforms, complete with an official badge of “a blue rosette…to be worn upon the side of the hat.”