788 



TENNESSEE. 



Maynard. A third candidate for Governor, 

 B. F. 0. Brooks, as the Working-men's nomi- 

 nee, received 192 votes. In 1872, the aggre- 

 gate number of votes polled for Governor was 

 181,789, which were less unequally distributed; 

 the majority of Mr. Brown over Mr. Freeman 

 having been 13,589. 



The state of parties in the Legislature is as 

 follows : In the Senate Democrats, 23 ; Ke- 

 publicans, 2 ; in the House of Eepresentatives 

 Democrats, 70 ; Eepublicans, 5. 



The following are the names of the success- 

 ful candidates for Congress : From the first 

 district, William McFarland, of Hamblin; sec- 

 ond district, Thornburg ; third district, George 

 D. Dibrell, of White ; fourth district, John W. 

 Head, of Sumner ; fifth district, John M. Bright, 

 of Lincoln; sixth district, John F. House, of 

 Montgomery ; seventh district, W. 0. Whit- 

 thorne, of Maury; eighth district, J. D. 0. At- 

 kins, of Henry; ninth district, W. P. Caldwell, 

 of Weakley; tenth district, H. Casey Young, 

 of Shelby. Nine are Democrats, and one is a 

 Eepublican. 



John W. Head having died, Samuel M. Fite 

 was elected to the vacancy. 



Serious disturbances of the public peace, 

 and deeds of blood, have been of frequent oc- 

 currence in Tennessee during the year 1874 

 the effect of hostile feelings, reciprocally enter- 

 tained by the white population of the State, 

 or a considerable portion of it, and the blacks, 

 against each other. Among such deeds was 

 that of sixteen negroes forcibly taken out of 

 the Trenton Jail, and shot down on the public 

 road by a large body of disguised men, early 

 in the morning of August 26th. The apparent 

 cause of the misdeed was that, on the night of 

 August 22d, an armed band of thirty or forty 

 negroes discharged their guns upon two white 

 men on horseback at a short distance from 

 Pickettsville, in Gibson County, and continued 

 shooting at them even after they had aban- 

 doned thcsr horses and sought safety by flight 

 through a corn-field. The occurrence, related 

 by the two men who took refuge in that town, 

 created the most intense excitement and alarm 

 not only in the white population at Picketts- 

 ville, the male portion of which armed them- 

 selves and continued in the street all night to 

 guard the place against the constantly-ap- 

 prehended attacks upon it, but also in all the 

 neighboring towns, whose local magistrates 

 and prominent citizens hastened to Picketts- 

 ville, both to offer assistance, and concert 

 measures together for the common defense. 



The juridical hearing being ended, the ac- 

 cused were bound over by the justices of the 

 peace, and, in default of the required bail, 

 committed. They were placed under the 

 charge of the town - marshal and two con- 

 stables, who, with a guard of above forty men, 

 escorted the prisoners to the jail of Trenton, 

 the county-seat of Gibson, and some ten miles 

 distant from Pickettsville, there to await their 

 trial. 



At about two o'clock in the morning of 

 August 26th, a large body of disguised, fully- 

 armed horsemen rode into the town of Tren- 

 ton, surrounded the jail, and, calling out the 

 jailer and sheriff on duty, demanded the keys 

 of the negro prisoners' cells. Upon the abso- 

 lute and several times repeated refusal of those 

 officers to comply with that request, the horse- 

 men declared that they would have the pris- 

 oners without the use of keys by pulling the 

 jail-building down, and made preparations for 

 commencing work at it. Those officers then 

 delivered the keys under protest of compulsion 

 and violence. Part of the band then took the 

 sixteen prisoners out of their cells, tied them 

 in couples with -cords, and, having placed them 

 in their midst, left the town by the Hunting- 

 ton road. Having gone scarcely half a mile 

 from Trenton, the band halted and shot six of 

 the prisoners down on that road; then con- 

 tinued their march some two miles farther up 

 the river-bottom, when they halted again and 

 shot the remaining ten prisoners, leaving the 

 bodies of these also lying where they fell on 

 the road. 



On being informed of so remarkable an oc- 

 currence, Governor Brown issued a proclama- 

 tion, offering a reward of $500, the largest sum 

 which the law allowed him to offer, for the de- 

 tection and apprehension of those jail-breakers 

 and murderers, "the reward to be paid upon 

 final conviction." 



On August 29th the Governor issued a proc- 

 lamation, addressed to the officers and citizens 

 of all classes in the State, wherein he says 

 that, without their strenuous cooperation, he 

 is unable for want of means to suppress the 

 lawlessness prevailing in Tennessee ; and points 

 out the duties incumbent on each of them re- 

 spectively, and which they are expected faith- 

 fully to comply with for the realization of 

 that purpose. 



A short time after the Trenton prisoners' 

 massacre, one of the band of masked horse- 

 men who committed the deed, a youth scarcely 

 seventeen years of age, moved by repentance, 

 or the desire of escaping punishment, turned 

 State's evidence and revealed all he knew of 

 that criminal transaction, at which he was 

 present from beginning to end, and about the 

 persons who composed the band. This he 

 said to have been formed of two companies, 

 representing the whole neighborhood, and 

 numbering thirty and thirty-eight mounted 

 men respectively, who, according to previous 

 appointment, met together at a certain place 

 five miles from Trenton, at nine o'clock in the 

 evening of August 25th, thence to proceed to 

 the town's jail after midnight. He was three 

 different times before the grand-jury in order 

 to make his statements ; and his revelations 

 probably contributed more than any thing else 

 to the capture of many of his accomplices. A 

 number of them were arrested and held in 

 custody by the State's authorities to be tried 

 before her courts. 



