322 



GEORGIA. 



Lawlessness. On the night of Jan. 21 a mob 

 went to the home of John Rustin, near Col- 

 quitt, in Miller County, killed him and his son 

 and wounded his daughter. The intention had 

 evidently been to exterminate the family. The 

 father lived long enough to give the names of 

 five of the murderers whom he recognized. The 

 motive was easily seen one of the assailants 

 was out on bail "after having been arrested on 

 a warrant charging him with ruining the daugh- 

 ter of the murdered man, and the girl recognized 

 him as the one who fired the shot that wounded 

 her. The Grand Jury found indictments against 

 seven of the mob, and upon trial the father of 

 the young man was the first to be convicted and 

 sentenced to hard labor for life in the Peniten- 

 tiary. 



Feb. 5 was a day of wild excitement in Augusta. 

 A member of a Minnesota regiment was killed by 

 a barkeeper: the comrades of the dead man de- 

 termined to avenge his death, and about 75 of 

 them broke camp and set out on that errand, 

 but they were rounded up by troops of the regu- 

 lar cavalry and placed under arrest. 



A mob of 300 men broke into the jail at Lees- 

 burg and took out 3 negroes, whom they shot. 

 The prisoners were concerned in a robbery and 

 assault upon a woman near the town in Decem- 

 ber, but had been caught only two days before 

 the lynching. 



There was a riot at Griffin in March, caused 

 apparently by a regiment of negro immunes who 

 had been mustered out and were passing through 

 on their way home. They fired pistols from the 

 cars; the local militia were called out, and a 

 brakeman on the train was mortally wounded. 



On a charge of having set incendiary fires in 

 Palmetto in February 9 .negroes were awaiting 

 their preliminary trial in an improvised jail in 

 that place, when in the early morning of March 

 16 the guards were overpowered by a mob of 

 masked men, variously estimated from 15 to 150, 

 a number of the men were draw T n up in line in 

 the room, the negroes were made to stand in a 

 row, and two volleys were fired into them. Four 

 were killed and one mortally wounded, while two 

 were slightly hurt and one escaped injury. Troops 

 were ordered to the town and remained about ten 

 days. 



Another horrible tragedy, possibly connected 

 with the one just described, took place near Pal- 

 metto a little later. Threats, it is reported, were 

 made against white men who had been active 

 in securing evidence against the incendiaries or 

 who for some other reason were obnoxious to 

 the worst class of negroes, several of whom were 

 supposed to be in a conspiracy to murder these 

 men. One Sam Holt or Hose, sometimes known 

 as Tom Wilkes, committed a horrible crime on 

 the family of Mr. Cranford, by whom he had 

 been employed. The crime is thus described by 

 a correspondent of the New York Herald, who 

 went to Georgia to investigate the affair : " On 

 that fatal day he crept into the house in bare 

 feet, axe in hand, while the father, mother, and 

 two children were at the table. It was a moment 

 of speechless horror to the wife, for she saw the 

 murderer, saw the uplifted axe, but before she 

 could warn her husband the weapon flew to the - 

 mark, swung by the frenzied arm of Hose, and 

 buried itself up to the handle in his head. When 

 the victim had fallen Hose hewed and hacked 

 him as one hews a piece of timber. Holt held 

 the baby by the heels with his left hand ; the axe 

 was in his right hand, and he threatened to cut off 

 s head unless the mother submitted to his damn- 

 able wishes. The dead husband on the floor, one 



child lying unconscious from a cruel blow, and 

 now the last child, a babe, to be gashed to death 

 unless The woman must decide at once. The 

 uplifted axe was ready to fall. Maternal instinct 

 forgot all else, and she cried, ' Save my little 

 ones!'' The negro was captured a few days 

 later, taken to Macon, and put aboard a train for 

 Atlanta. He was recognized at Griffin by some 

 one, who sent word to Newnan that he was on 

 the train. When that station was reached he 

 was taken out at the suggestion of the crowd 

 that had gathered and delivered to the sheriff, 

 by whom he was put into jail, but afterward 

 turned over to the mob. Ex-Gov. Atkinson and 

 Judge A. D. Freeman, who lived in Newnan, ad- 

 dressed the crowd, imploring them to leave the 

 negro's punishment to the law; but their words 

 4iad no effect. He was taken to the house of 

 Mrs. Cranford's mother, where he was identified, 

 then to a place a mile and a half from the town, 

 where he was chained to a tree and, after being 

 horribly mutilated and tortured, was burned in 

 the presence of 2,000 persons. Before this he had 

 confessed the murder, but said he was hired by 

 Lije Strickland, the negro preacher, who gave 

 him $12 to kill Mr. Cranford. The next morning, 

 April 24, the body of Strickland was found hang- 

 ing from a tree near Palmetto. He had protested 

 his innocence, and there appears to have been 

 no evidence against him except that of Hose, 

 who in his confession made other statements that 

 were known to be false. Major W. W. Thomas 

 tried to save Strickland's life when the mob were 

 taking him away. He left them with the under- 

 standing that they w r ould take the man to jail 

 at Fairburn, but he was led away to his death. 



In May and June there was trouble in Griffin 

 from a band of " regulators," who were in a 

 scheme to drive the negroes out of the place. 

 They took, colored men from their houses and 

 beat and cut them. Five were arrested and in- 

 dicted. 



A dispatch from Covington, Ga., July 27, said: 

 " Three Mormon elders, who have been preaching 

 their peculiar doctrines in this section for the 

 past few weeks, were mobbed last night by 30 

 masked men near Newton factory, in Jasper 

 County, and their present whereabouts are un- 

 known to the people here." From later informa- 

 tion it appears that they were not harmed, but 

 were taken to the county line and warned to 

 leave. 



Three negroes were killed by a mob at Saffold, 

 Early County, July 22. for being concerned in 

 a robbery and assault. They confessed the crimes, 

 and said five others were in the gang. One of 

 these was taken and hanged July 25. Troops 

 were sent to Bainbridge that day to guard the 

 jail, in which was a negro held for a similar 

 crime. 



A negro accused of a criminal assault was in 

 danger of lynching by a mob at Darien about 

 Aug. 26. There was an uprising of negroes, ar\d 

 a race war was threatened. Troops -were sent 

 promptly, the danger was averted, and the ac- 

 cused was afterward brought to trial and ac- 

 quitted. 



Seven men were indicted at Greenville, Aug. 29, 

 charged with kidnaping and whitecaping a negro 

 who had refused to work for one of them. He 

 asserted that they took him from his home and 

 beat him unmercifully with buggy traces and 

 whips. Several crimes of a similar nature were 

 reported to have occurred in the neighborhood 

 about the same time. 



Gov. Candler appealed to all good citizens of 

 the State, white and black, to join hands and 



