Chapter I: Nine Men Lynched on Suspicion

In dealing with all vexed questions, the chief aim of every honest inquirer should be to ascertain the facts. No good purpose is subserved either by concealment on the one hand or exaggeration on the other. “The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” is the only sure foundation for just judgment.

The purpose of this pamphlet is to give the public the facts, in the belief that there is still a sense of justice in the American people, and that it will yet assert itself in condemnation of outlawry and in defense of oppressed and persecuted humanity. In this firm belief the following pages will describe the lynching of nine colored men, who were arrested near Palmetto, Georgia, about the middle of March, upon suspicion that they were implicated in the burning of the three houses in February preceding.

The nine suspects were not criminals, they were hard-working, law-abiding citizens, men of families. They had assaulted no woman, and, after the lapse of nearly a month, it could not be claimed that the fury of an insane mob made their butchery excusable. They were in the custody of the law, unarmed, chained together and helpless, awaiting their trial. They had no money to employ learned counsel to invoke the aid of technicalities to defeat justice. They were in custody of a white Sheriff, to be prosecuted by a white State’s Attorney, to be tried before a white judge, and by a white jury. Surely the guilty had no chance to escape.

Still they were lynched. That the awful story of their slaughter may not be considered overdrawn, the following description is taken from the columns of the Atlanta Journal, as it was written by Royal Daniel, a staff correspondent. The story of the lynching thus told is as follows:

Palmetto, Ga., March 16.--A mob of more than 100 desperate men,
armed with Winchesters and shotguns and pistols and wearing masks,
rode into Palmetto at 1 o’clock this morning and shot to death four
Negro prisoners, desperately wounded another and with deliberate
aim fired at four others, wounding two, believing the entire nine
had been killed.

The boldness of the mob and the desperateness with which the murder
was contemplated and executed, has torn the little town with
excitement and anxiety.

All business has been suspended, and the town is under military
patrol, and every male inhabitant is armed to the teeth, in
anticipation of an outbreak which is expected to-night.

Last night nine Negroes were arrested and placed in the warehouse
near the depot. The Negroes were charged with the burning of the
two business blocks here in February.

At 1 o’clock this morning the mob dashed into town while the people
slept.

They rushed to the warehouse in which the nine Negroes were guarded
by six white men.

The door was burst open and the guards were ordered to hold up
their hands.

Then the mob fired two volleys into the line of trembling, wretched
and pleading prisoners, and to make sure of their work, placed
pistols in the dying men’s faces and emptied the chambers.

Citizens who were aroused by the shooting and ran out to
investigate the cause were driven to their homes at the point of
guns and pistols and then the mob mounted their horses and dashed
out of town, back into the woods and home again.

None of the mob was recognized, as their faces were completely
concealed by masks. The men did their work orderly and coolly and
exhibited a determination seldom equaled under similar
circumstances.

The nine Negroes were tied with ropes and were helpless.

The guard was held at the muzzle of guns and threatened with death
if a man moved.

Then the firing was deliberately done, volley by volley.

The Negroes now dead are: Tip Hudson, Bud Cotton, Ed Wynn, Henry
Bingham.

Fatally shot and now dying: John Bigby.

Shot but will recover: John Jameson.

Arm broken: George Tatum.

Escaped without injury: Ison Brown, Clem Watts.

The men who were guarding the Negroes are well known and prominent
citizens of Palmetto, and were sworn in only yesterday as a special
guard for the night.

The commitment trial of the Negroes was set for 9 o’clock this
morning.

Bud Cotton, who was killed, had confessed to the burning of the
stores in Palmetto, and had implicated all the others who had been
arrested.

The military having been sent by Governor Candler arrived at 10:40
o’clock this morning on a special train under command of Colonel
John S. Candler.

The Negro population of Palmetto has fled from town and it is
believed the Negroes are now congregating on the outskirts and will
make an assault upon the town to-night.

The place is in the wildest excitement and every citizen is armed,
expecting an outbreak as soon as night shall fall.

The Negroes left the town in droves early this morning, weeping and
screaming and dogged and revengeful.

Business has been entirely suspended and Palmetto, formerly a
peaceful agricultural village, is running riot with intense
excitement and anxiety is expressed by every one.

The lives and property of citizens will be protected at any cost,
and the white people, while condemning the act of lawlessness of
the mob, are determined to meet any attempt the Negroes may make
for revenge.

It was just past the hour of midnight. The guards were sleepy and
tired of the weary watch and the little city of Palmetto was sound
asleep, with nothing to disturb the midnight hour or to interrupt
the crime that was about to be committed.

Without the slightest noise the mob of lynchers approached the door
to the warehouse. Not a false step was made, not a dead leaf was
trod upon and not even the creaking of a shoe or the clearing of a
throat broke the stillness.

With a noise that shook the buildings and threw every man to his
feet the big fireproof door was suddenly struck as if with the
force of a battering ram.

The guards sprang to their guns and the Negroes screamed for mercy.

But there were rifles, shotguns and pistols everywhere.

The little anteroom was packed full of armed men in an instant. The
men seemed to come up through the floor and through the walls, so
rapidly did they fill the room. And still others poured in at the
door, and when the room was filled so that not another man could
enter, the door was slammed to with awful noise and force.

The Negroes were screaming at the top of their voices.

“Hands up and don’t move; if you move a foot or turn your hands I
will blow your damned brains out,” came the stern and rigid command
from a man of small, thick stature, his face wholly concealed by a
mask of white cloth and holding in his hands a couple of dangerous
horse pistols.

The guards threw their hands up above their heads, all except one
guard, James Hendricks, who lifted only one hand, while the other
firmly grasped his revolver.

“I’ll blow hell out of you in a minute if you don’t put that hand
up,” came the warning, and the hand followed the other one.

The command was then given to move, and move quick.

“You guards, move, and move quick, if you don’t want to get your
brains blown out,” cried the low man, who was the mob’s leader.

The guards were then placed in line, six of them, and marched
around the room and then marched to the front of the room, near the
door through which the mob had entered.

They were placed in line against the front wall of the building and
ordered not to move at the cost of their lives.

They did not speak, neither did they move, and not a word was said
by the guard to the mob.

The men then walked around where they could get a good look at the
trembling, pleading, terror-stricken Negroes, begging for life and
declaring that they were innocent.

There was a moment’s pause of deliberation. The Negroes thought it
meant that the assassins hesitated in their bloody deed, but the
men hesitated only because they wanted deliberate action and a
clear range for their bullets.

The Negroes, helpless, tied together with ropes, begged for mercy,
for they saw the cold gun barrels, the angry and determined faces
of the men, and they knew it meant death--instant death to them.

“Oh, God, have mercy!” cried one of the men in his agony. “Oh, give
me a minute to live.”

The cry for mercy and the prayer for life brought an oath from the
leader and derisive laughter from the mob.

“Stand up in a line,” said the man in command. “Stand up and we
will see if we can’t kill you out; if we can’t, we’ll turn out.”

The Negroes faltered.

“Burn the devils,” came a suggestion from the crowd.

“No, we’ll shoot ’em like dogs,” said the mob’s leader.

“Stand up, every one of you and get up quick and march to the end
of the room.”

The Negroes slowly stood up. The mob came closer and pressed about
the stacks of furniture that had been stored in the room.

The leader asked if everybody’s gun was loaded and the men answered
in the affirmative.

The Negroes pleaded and prayed for mercy.

They stood, trembling wretches, jerking at the long ropes that held
them by the waist and about the wrists.

“Oh, give me a minute longer!” implored Bud Cotton.

“My men, are you ready?” asked the captain, still cool and composed
and fearfully determined to execute the bloodiest deed that has
ever stained Campbell County.

“Ready,” came the unanimous response.

“One, two, three--fire!” was the command, given orderly, but
hurriedly.

Every man in the room, and the number is estimated at from
seventy-five to one hundred and fifty, fired point blank at the
line of trembling and terror-stricken bound wretches.

The volley came as the fire from a gatling gun.

It filled the warehouse with smoke and flame and death and brought
a wail of horror that chilled the helpless guard.

The volley awakened the peaceful town of Palmetto and from every
house the excited citizens ran.

“Load and fire again,” shouted the captain of the mob, and his
voice was heard above the screaming and death cries of the wounded
and dead.

The men rapidly loaded their guns, then fired at the given command.

“Now, before you leave, load and get ready for trouble,” came the
captain’s order, and then men loaded their guns and got ready to
leave the bloody room.

The guard was not relieved, however, until every man had left the
building and all was safe for their hasty flight.

“I wonder if they are all dead,” said one of the mob, when the
order was given to leave the building.

“I reckon so,” said one of the mob.

“But we had better see,” said the captain coolly and assuming an
air of business.

A detail of probably a half dozen men, probably a dozen and maybe
more, the guard does not remember just how many, was sent forward
into the blood and brains and into the twisting mass of dying men
to examine if all were dead. They were given orders to finish those
who were not dead.

The detail rushed forward.

The men jerked the fallen, twisting and writhing and bleeding
bodies about.

The first man they reached was not dead. He was still groaning, and
the breath was coming in great, quick gasps.

A pistol was placed at his breast and every chamber was emptied.

“He’s dead now,” laughed one of the crowd.

Other men, wounded, bleeding, moaning and begging, were caught,
turned over and pistols emptied into their bodies.

But the shooting had made so much noise that the mob concluded its
safety lay in flight.

The Negroes were quickly examined and with a parting shot and a
volley of oaths of warning the mob left the warehouse and rushed to
their horses.

The men ran from the warehouse to the little spot in the center of
the town, where horses are tied by countrymen and merchants.

They mounted quickly and began their ride for life.

With a sweeping of falling and echoing hoofs the cavalrymen dashed
down the principal street at breakneck speed.

Mr. Henry Beckman, who lives a few hundred yards beyond the scene
of the murders, heard the firing and ran from his house to the
railroad tracks.

The horsemen, using the lash and urging their horses to their
highest speed, dashed into view.

“Hello,” said Beckman, “what does all that firing mean?”

Beckman was answered with an oath and told to get into his hole as
quickly as possible. “If you don’t, we’ll kill you on the spot,”
was the warning.

Beckman flew for life, ran through the yard and entered the house
as quickly as possible.

Dr. Hal L. Johnson saw a crowd of men on foot running down the
sidewalk.

He hailed them, but there was no response.

“There must have been more than one hundred men on horses,” said
Mr. Beckman this morning, in telling the Journal of his wild night
experience with the mob.

When the mob left, the guards, who had been held against the
warehouse wall at the points of guns and pistols, turned their
faces toward the scene of carnage and death.

The furniture in the room had been splintered and wrecked with
bullets and the contortions of the Negroes.

On the floor, near the center of the room, were two Negroes, still
tied with the rope, locked in each other’s embrace. Near their
bodies streams of blood were dyeing red the floor and spreading out
in pools.

Just beyond were two more bodies. These Negroes were dead, too.

Near the fireplace was John Bigby, twisting and writhing in his
agony. Blood was spouting from a number of wounds.

Under the beds and tables and piles of furniture were other bodies,
every prisoner apparently dead, except Bigby, who was fast
regaining consciousness.

The guards opened the door cautiously, but there was no sign of the
mob, save the echoing footfalls on the country road.