Saturday, February 22, 2020

The event-filled and tragic life of Mobile newsie Charles Archie Johnson


This fading image, graciously provided by Heritage Auctions, HA.com, gives us an early glimpse of a well-known Mobile newsie, Charles Archie Johnson.

Johnson became a pawn in the struggle between Democrats and Republicans for control of Port City politics during Reconstruction. Mobile newspapers gave Johnson a lot of attention in their pages but so did other papers around the country. Newspapers on the Gulf Coast continued to follow Johnson’s misfortunes until he died in 1903.

Johnson poses in a photographer’s studio on this carte de visite, a photographic calling card, just 2.3 inches by 4 inches. I found the photo online in 2020. Unfortunately, it had been sold in 2017. It is heavily stained and has been folded in half, resulting in the deep horizontal crease. The photographer chemically treated the finish, giving the tone an altered color. I corrected the tone to improve the clarity of the image.

Johnson’s past before coming to Mobile is just as unclear as the image. One of two different stories may be true, or it also is possible to look at the two stories as parts of the same tale.

According to a story in the New Orleans Picayune, Johnson had been the slave of a Confederate army captain who was wounded during the battle of Murfreesboro. This is taken to mean the Battle of Stones River from December 31, 1862, to January 2, 1863, in Middle Tennessee, and not the First Battle of Murfreesboro, a cavalry battle in July 1862.

This story, which may have been embellished, holds that while Johnson was carrying his wounded master from the firing line, he too was wounded in the right leg. Doctors had to amputate the limb above the knee.(1)

In this version of events, we don’t know if Union or Rebel doctors amputated Johnson’s leg or what happened to him before he showed up in Mobile after the war. Although Stones River was an inconclusive battle, the Confederates withdrew, making it likely that Union troops picked up Johnson from the battlefield and took him to their hospital for care.

As Heritage Auctions points out, the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System database lists a Charles Archie Johnson, apparently a liberated slave, as a veteran of Company D, 92nd Infantry Regiment, U.S. Colored Infantry. He appears to have mustered into service as a private on October 24, 1863, with the 22nd Infantry Regiment, Corps d’Afrique, organized at New Orleans on September 30, 1863.

The regiment saw duty at New Orleans, Brashear City, New Iberia, and in the District of La Fourche until January 1864. The Army ordered the troops to duty at Port Hudson on January 4 and then to Brashear City in April. The Army took advantage of the move to reorganize the unit as the 92nd Infantry. The Army discharged this Johnson after the end of the war on December 31, 1865.

It’s possible that the Johnson wounded at Murfreesboro somehow found his way to New Orleans and later enlisted with the Corps d’Afrique. Or these may be two entirely different men.

At any rate, the Johnson who sold newspapers in Mobile was suited only to menial labor, regardless of having only one leg. Most observers at the time seem to agree that Johnson was a “mental, intellectual and physical cripple . . . who can scarce distinguish between right and wrong, whose mind borders on idiocy. . . .”

That description may have somewhat exaggerated Johnson’s mental limitations as those who used him sought to present the newsboy as deserving sympathy. All newsboys also tried to look sorrowful in order to elicit larger tips from their patrons.(2)

The Johnson who sold papers in Mobile would seem, then, to have lacked the capability to shoulder arms and wasn’t the man who enlisted in New Orleans. But he still could have served as a teamster or other laborer with the Army toward the end of the war.

At some point, the news peddler Johnson, who was about 25 in 1865, found his way to Mobile. Union black troops were still stationed in Mobile and perhaps Johnson came to join friends or family. He earned a living by hawking newspapers along Royal Street for the Mobile Daily Tribune and blacking shoes. Johnson sold his papers wearing the outlandish costume he dressed in for the photo. It is an exaggerated military uniform with large epaulettes. It may have been a cast off band uniform.

Written on the back of the photo is, “Hon Archie Johnson Gentleman of Color / G. Horton's Friend / 1867 Mobile Ala.” The phrase, “G. Horton’s Friend,” was meant to be tongue in cheek.

In 1867, U.S. Major General John Pope had appointed Gustavus Horton mayor of Mobile. Before the war, Horton had been a successful and prominent businessman. During the war, Horton had remained a unionist and suffered persecution, even though two sons and a son-in-law served in the Confederacy. After the war, he became a Republican.

As mayor, Horton fired ineffective white policemen and hired black officers in their place. He also replaced some white laborers with blacks. Both moves angered white Democrats.

The Tribune may have hired Johnson just to torment Horton. As Johnson went about the streets selling the Mobile Tribune, he wore placards with the paper’s headlines, which were often critical of Horton and fellow Republican Frederick G. Bromberg, who was the city treasurer in 1867. On one occasion Johnson cried, “Here’s yer Mobile Tribune, wid all about Mayor Horton and his Bromberg rats.”

Written on the hat that Johnson is wearing in the photo is “Bromberg.” Another word, which may be “Horton,” is written below Bromberg.(3)

Among his duties, Horton presided over the Mayor’s Court to try cases for minor offenses. Police officers arrested Johnson at least three times during the summer 1867 for disorderly conduct, probably related to his frequent drunkenness. The court could fine offenders, order them to post a bond to insure good behavior, or order them to leave the city. Horton ordered Johnson to leave.

When Johnson didn’t leave the city, Horton had an officer put him on a steamer to New Orleans. But Mobile’s Democrats chartered a steamer and chased the boat carrying Johnson. Overtaking the other boat, the Democrats took Johnson aboard their steamer and back to Mobile. The steamer arrived with a band playing Dixie and banners flying. The Democrat partisans put Johnson in a carriage and paraded past large, cheering crowds.

Johnson’s days as a pawn in this political chess game weren’t over. Mayor Horton had an officer put Johnson on a train and escort him to Montgomery. Again the peg-legged veteran returned, no doubt aided by the Democrats. Policemen arrested Johnson again and Horton ordered him to post a $500 bond to keep the peace.

In a few weeks, Johnson was back in front of the mayor charged with disorderly conduct, drunkenness, and resisting arrest. Horton ordered the newsboy to pay a $50 fine or serve 30 days in jail, and pay a peace bond of $300.

Johnson undoubtedly was getting help and encouragement in his battles with the mayor from Democrats, particularly the owners of the Tribune, the Mobile Times, and the Mobile Register. Certainly, there is no way that Johnson made enough money selling papers and shining shoes to pay all his fines and return trips from banishment.

The editor of the Nationalist, a Republican paper, charged the Democrats with being behind Johnson’s antics. The newspaper said Johnson got drunk and allowed “himself to be tricked out by the Tribune buffoons and their allies in such a manner as to necessarily create an excitement upon the street, and endanger the public peace.”(4)

Horton’s opponents now snared mayor in the federal government’s own laws. They turned U.S. law aimed at securing black civil rights against the white unionist mayor. Johnson’s bosses and the other Democrat editors charged that Horton’s arrests and sentences of the street vendor were politically motivated and deprived Johnson of his civil rights. They charged Horton in federal court with violating the U.S. civil rights act.

U.S. District Judge Richard Busteed, although a fellow Republican, was an opponent of Horton. In Horton’s trial, Busteed excluded evidence that other mayors had commonly expelled troublemakers, often whites, from the city. A jury found Horton guilty. Busteed had the mayor briefly jailed before slapping him with a $250 fine.

With their point made, the Tribune and other Democrat newspaper editors apparently ceased using Johnson to torment the mayor. In 1868, voters elected Horton as probate judge of Mobile County, which took him out of Reconstruction political controversies. Archie Johnson, as he was usually called, continued to hawk the Tribune along Royal Street and to get into trouble with the law for many years.

On one occasion in January 1868, however, Johnson needed the help of the police. Johnson presented himself at Mobile’s guardhouse in such an excited state that it was sometime before police could calm him down enough to understand the problem.

Johnson’s Democrat patrons had favored him with numerous gifts, including a gold stud. He had a sentimental attachment to the gift and carried it with him each time he was expelled from Mobile. On one deportation to Montgomery, Johnson was broke but refused to sell the stud for the money he needed.

Johnson accused a fellow newsboy named Palmer of stealing the stud. Police arrested Palmer and put him under a $100 bond to appear in Mayor’s Court.(5)

But it was usually Johnson who was in trouble. In November 1874, a policeman again hauled the newspaper vendor into the Mayor’s Court, with Alderman Underhill presiding in the absence of the mayor. The officer explained that Johnson was drunk and disorderly all the time and that he made too little money to live on. Underhill must have taken pity on Johnson because he didn’t assess a fine.

In January 1875, Johnson was back in court, this time before Mayor Alphonse Hurtel. The Tribune reported that Johnson “got into a weaving way and became very noisy and abusive near the corner of St. Michael and Joachim” streets. The mayor fined Johnson $10 “and he will languish in durance vile unless some friend comes to his rescue,” meaning the newsie was stuck behind bars until someone paid his fine.

The Mayor’s Court must have sent Johnson again from Mobile at some point because in May 1876, he was in Pensacola and in trouble. The Pensacola Gazette reported that a photographer caught Johnson breaking into his studio one night. Deputies confined Johnson to the county jail.

The news stories don’t say so, but it seems likely that someone else directed Johnson in his petty criminal ways. Given Johnson’s limited abilities, he would have needed a Fagin, a fence, to tell him what to steal and to exchange the goods for shelter or cash. It also possible that Johnson simply didn’t know legal from illegal and right from wrong. Regardless of the reasons for his activities, Johnson paid the consequences.(6)

The Pensacola court found Johnson guilty of burglary and the judge sentenced him to 10 years in the state penitentiary. Johnson applied to the pardoning board in 1882 for a reduction of his sentence. Whether that happened isn’t clear, but whenever Johnson was released the veteran newsie returned to the Port City. By 1880, regular passenger rail service linked Pensacola and Mobile, making it easier and cheaper for Johnson to travel.(7)

The sound of Johnson crying the news could again be heard on Mobile’s streets. A correspondent for the New Orleans Times-Democrat in August 1897 recalled for his Crescent City audience the colorful cries of Mobile street vendors. These included the charcoal man or woman, ice man, butcher boy, fruit wagon driver, beer bottle collector, and, of course, one particular newspaper seller.

“In the past who does not remember ‘Charles Archie Johnson’ the one-legged negro, with a voice that equaled that of a bugle, and whose call, ‘Times-Democrat,’ could be distinctly heard for eleven blocks?” Mobile newsboys such as Johnson sold out-of-town newspapers such as the Times-Democrat as well as Mobile newspapers. “Archie is still with the gang, but his loud calls have grown to respectable limits, old age and a fast life having had their effect, but his voice is yet good for six squares.” The Mobile Register said Johnson had “stentorian lungs.”(8)

A year later, in 1898, an unknown photographer captured Johnson chatting with a passerby in Mobile. The photo, in the collection of the Alabama Department of Archives and History, had only identified the man as a “newspaper carrier.” (The department has since updated the identification.) News stories make it clear that Johnson was a well-known character in Mobile, which explains the photographer’s interest. Besides, how many one-legged, African American newsies could there have been on Royal Street in Mobile at that time?

In the photo, Johnson is resting the stump of his right leg on the steps of the U.S. Customs House at the southwest corner of Royal and St. Francis streets. He appears to be carrying on a lively conversation with the well-dressed older man wearing the derby. Judging from a number of photos of the Customs House, this area was a popular place for men to gather and talk. It would have been a good place to sell newspapers.

The state archives doesn’t identify which newspaper he is selling. It’s likely he’s hawking the Mobile Register, but it could have been the Mobile Daily Item or another newspaper such as the New Orleans Times-Democrat, which was shipped to news agents in Mobile.

In March 1899, Johnson was back in Pensacola and back in trouble with the law. He and a comrade, Charles Wright, were charged with petit larceny and held for trial. The jury found Johnson guilty, but acquitted Wright. The judge sentenced the hapless newsboy to 30 days in the county jail at hard labor.(9)

In January 1903, Pensacola’s opera house called the police to deal with rowdies, apparently newsboys, at the ticket box. When the police arrived, they caught Johnson crawling over the shoulders of those ahead of him trying to reach the box. The next morning, the police court judge sentenced Johnson to work 60 days on the city’s street gang.(10)

Not long after completing his sentence in Pensacola, Johnson was back on the streets of Mobile hawking papers. About April 9, 1903, Johnson fell seriously ill and was taken to the city hospital. He died 20 days later, never having recovered.(11) 

(1) “Mobile Negroe’s Adventure,” Pensacola News, April 29, 1903 3:4
(2) Harriet E. Amos Doss, “Trials of a Unionist: Gustavus Horton, Military Mayor of Mobile during Reconstruction,” 123-144, in Michael Thomason, editor, Down the Years: Articles on Mobile’s History. (Mobile: Gulf Coast Historical Review, 2001), 136; Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System, National Park Service. Online: https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-soldiers.htm. Accessed February 8, 2020.
(3) Walter L. Fleming, Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama. (The Macmillan Company, 1905), 482. Online: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/41680/41680-h/41680-h.htm#f_1291. Accessed February 8, 2020.
(4) Harriet E. Amos Doss, “Trials of a Unionist: Gustavus Horton, Military Mayor of Mobile during Reconstruction,” 123-144, in Michael Thomason, editor, Down the Years: Articles on Mobile’s History. (Mobile: Gulf Coast Historical Review, 2001), 133-134
(5) “Charles Archie Johnson Robbed,” Mobile Daily Times, January 6, 1868 5:1. The Times gives the name of the thief as “Palmes,” but this appears to be a typographical error.
(6) Mobile Daily Tribune, November 6, 1874, 3; Mobile Daily Tribune, January 15, 1875, 3; Mobile Daily Tribune, May 13, 1876, 2
(7) Pensacola Commercial, April 1, 1882, 3:5
(8) “Record of happenings in the Gulf City yesterday,” New Orleans Times-Democrat, August 12, 1897, 9:3; “The Surrender at Montgomery,” Pickens County Herald and West Alabamian, December 14, 1870 2:6
(9) “The Criminal Court,” Pensacola News March 13, 1899 2:5; “The Criminal Court,” Pensacola News March 18, 1899 5:2
(10) “Rowdy opera house patrons,” Pensacola News January 29, 1903 1:6
(11) New Orleans Times-Democrat April 9, 1903 9:4; “Mobile Negroe’s Adventure,” Pensacola News, April 29, 1903 3:4

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