J. B. Blanding

Lt. J. B. Blanding (August 5, 1841 – May 1, 1866), born Jabez Bullock Blanding, was a disabled combat veteran of the American Civil War and an agent of the Freedmen's Bureau in the United States who was assassinated by white Mississippians in Grenada, Yalobusha County in April 1866. Blanding was shot three times (twice in the head, once in the back) while on an evening walk. There is a 50-page file on the murder of Blanding in the records of the Freedmen's Bureau; the gunman was likely "Young" Tom Wilson, aided and abetted by local gang leader Bill Forrest (brother of Nathan Bedford Forrest). No one was ever charged with Blanding's murder, in part due to witness intimidation.

Life J. B. Blanding was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1841, the son of William and Mary R. (Bullock) Blanding. Blanding attended Providence public schools and was working as a clerk when the American Civil War began. He served as a private in the First Rhode Island Detached Militia before he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1861. Initially a second lieutenant, he was promoted to first lieutenant in November 1862. He served in Company G of the 3rd Regiment, Rhode Island Heavy Artillery, and was "badly wounded in the left arm" at the Battle of Pocotaligo Bridge. A newspaper article 30 years after the fact reported that while "serving a battery of heavy guns from the deck of the steamer Planter, at the Battle of Pocotaligo, he was severely wounded by a rifle ball which entered the left arm near the shoulder, causing a compound fracture, and, passing into the left side, lodged near the spine, remaining there 18 months before it was extracted."

Per the 1892 account, "After lying in the hospital at Fort Pulaski for a time Blanding received a leave of absence and returned home, remaining there until March. He then returned to his regiment still suffering from the effects of his wound." Blanding was later feted at a regimental celebration as "the star of the R.I. Boys." Blanding was injured again when "the boat he was on was blown up on a reconnoitering trip up the Coosaw River." Per the regimental history, "...on account of the loss of the use of his arm from the battle of Pocotaligo, resigned his place amongst us to accept a commission as First Lieutenant in the Veteran Reserve Corps...He was almost idolized by Company G, and beloved by the whole regiment. A more gallant officer never drew sword. The loss of his arm was his full justification for retiring from the front to a more quiet position among those whose losses of limbs were their enduring proofs of noble conduct."

Murder

Background "Sketch of the Vicinity of Grenada, Mississippi" created 1862 (Confederate Maps collection, U.S. War Dept.) "Military Map of Mississippi by W.R. Robertson" showing Grenada at the intersection of Mississippi and Tennessee and Mississippi Central railroads (Confederate Maps collection, U.S. War Dept.) Blanding joined the Freedmen's Bureau after the end of the war, and was appointed sub-commissioner of the Grenada, Mississippi office on March 23, 1866. His first assignment was a county of about 16,000 people in a cotton district where two railroads from Tennessee met at a wye. Blanding was part of the Veterans Reserve Corps, and according to a history of that service, "Any VRC officer serving with the bureau risked [violence] if he tried to do his job. The white South was far from pacified during the late 1860s, and veteran officers were well aware of the situation in which they found themselves. More than a salary of to per annum kept these men on duty in the face of the dangers and hardships they encountered." Recollections of 19th-century Grenada, Mississippi, which were recorded in the 1920s, briefly mention the Freedmen's Bureau and described a large U.S. Army garrison in the town:

This account of "2,000 Yankees" stationed in Grenada, killing each other and various freedmen on the regular, conflicts (numerically at least), with a communication of Major Thomas J. Wood in Vicksburg, who reported having "one small battalion of regulars, numbering considerably less than 300 men for duty" across the Mississippi district.

April 30–May 1

Blanding was shot by white Mississippians shortly after 7:30 p.m. on the evening of Monday, April 30, 1866. The circumstances were that "he was invited to a walk after supper and had gone but a short distance when a pistol was placed near his head and without a moment's warning three shots were fired at him, each taking effect...No cause was given for this cowardly and brutal act." The shooting took place near the Woodroof & Co. building in front of a "10-pin alley" along the edge of the town square.

Murder and Brutal Assault at Grenada. — An officer of the regular service coming North from New Orleans learned in passing Grenada that Lieut. J. B. Blanding of the Veteran Reserve Corps on duty at Grenada in connection with the Freedmen's Bureau was shot three times on Monday night while passing a ten-pin alley in that place. He was not expected to survive. He was a quiet gentlemanly officer and was apparently the best of terms with the citizens...The officer who informed us of this also learned that the Rev. Mr. Bardwell, the Superintendent of Freedmen's Schools at Grenada, was brutally assaulted by an Alderman of that city without any provocation whatever. This law-abiding Alderman is said to have had himself fined $10 and was then congratulated on his chivalric attack. The honor of the deed will be heightened when it is known that Mr. Bardwell is a feeble old man. In addition to the killing of Blanding and the assault on the teacher Rev. Bardwell,

According to Lincoln, Wilson had been sentenced to life in Angola Prison after murdering "one or two negroes" but was out again and back in Grenada or environs. Per an affidavit of the sheriff of DeSoto Parish, Thomas H. Wilson had shot and killed William and Mrs. Dorsey on May 25, 1870, near Mansfield, Louisiana. Wilson escaped from jail in New Orleans on February 3, 1871. U.S. Attorney General George Henry Williams ultimately wrote U.S. Secretary of War William W. Belknap that it was not within the jurisdiction of G. Wiley Wells, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Mississippi, to prosecute Wilson for the murder of Blanding, but rather a matter for the local courts that had "decline to take action on the premises."

Decades after the fact, a history of the Reconstruction era in Yalobusha and Grenada Counties reported, "In 1866 Lieutenant Blooding, who was the head of the department at that time, was assassinated by Tom Wilson, a Southern man of desperate character. The reason for this act could not be ascertained by the writer." A biography of Blanding published in 1908 stated that "so great was the power exerted by a band of outlaws then holding a reign of terror that, though the instigators of the murder were believed to be well-known, no witness could be procured to appear against them before the grand jury." Blanding's killers were never brought to justice but according to Oliver Otis Howard, the commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, his death was nonetheless a signal event of the immediate post-war period: "The deliberate murder April 30th of that year of a worthy officer, Lieutenant J. B. Blanding, 21st Regiment Veteran Reserve Corps, while walking on the street at Grenada, Miss., and attempts upon the lives of other men who had been faithful and fearless in the discharge of their delicate and dangerous duties, gave rise to increased anxiety everywhere and seemed to necessitate an increase of military force."

Remains Lt. Blanding was buried at the historic North Burial Ground in his home state of Rhode Island. He was apparently breveted captain after his death. His marble grave marker reads, "21 Reg't Vet Res Corp. After serving with distinction in the US Army from commencement to the close of the Civil War, was basely assassinated while in the discharge of his military duties at Grenada, Miss." Blanding was 24 years, nine months old at the time of his murder. He was survived by his wife, Sarah, and a daughter, Pamelia, born December 1864.