CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A Series of Tragedies
In Sumter county affairs were approaching a climax when Enoch Townsend, a negro, about dark one evening waylaid and repeatedly stabbed Mr. Bryant Richardson, a planter, and fled after Mr. Richardson, despite his wounds, bravely struggled to overcome his assailant. A warrant for the arrest of the assailant issued, and officers sought him on the plantation of Dr. Choutteau.
Choutteau was of French descent and migrated to Sumter from Louisiana, where, it was rumored, he had been involved in serious trouble. He is described as a swaggerer. During his early residence in Sumter he expressed intense dislike of freedmen and lost caste with the whites by seriously advocating wholesale poisoning as a means of relieving the county of the surplus of its negro population. Later he yielded to the temptation of office, and identified himself with the league and gained odious notoriety by his radicalism. He had constantly about him at his plantation armed negro guards; the league met there and picketed the roads thereabout. At length he became intolerable.
To this plantation officers with the warrant of arrest repaired and searched the cabins in the negro quarters. After the search was nearly completed, a negro scrambled from the chimney of a cabin to the roof, sprang thence to the ground and fled. Disobeying the summons to halt, he was fired upon by the posse and killed. Poor fellow! he was the wrong man, and no one ever learned why he acted so like a criminal. The dead man proved to be Yankee Ben, president of the Loyal League at Sumterville. (The fugitive Townsend was arrested by two law-abiding freedmen and lodged in jail at Livingston.)
The killing of Yankee Ben excited the negroes, and a meeting was called at Choutteau’s place for the purpose of formulating plans to avenge it. Sixty armed negroes assembled accordingly on Saturday, but were dispersed. On Monday one hundred and fifty met at Choutteau’s. Simultaneously, twelve white men went there to hold an inquest on the remains of Yankee Ben, which had previously been interrupted by the proceedings narrated. On the latter occasion Choutteau refused to permit an inquest unless by a jury composed of negroes. In this his dusky adherents supported him, and were insulting in demeanor. One hundred whites reinforced the jury and scattered the negroes. Thereupon Choutteau withdrew his objection. Moreover, he promised that if permitted to remain on his place undisturbed for a few days, he would leave the neighborhood, adding that he had for some time contemplated the move. He was told that what he purposed to do was unnecessary, and that he was required only to cease his turbulent practices.
Choutteau moved to Livingston, and shortly afterward his plantation house was destroyed by fire. He then posed as a victim of Ku Klux incendiarism, magnified his losses, memorialized the legislature for reimbursement, published exaggerated stories of the occurrence, and vociferously threatened revenge. He was regarded as a menace to the safety of the community in which he had taken up his residence.
Shortly after midnight August 13, 1869, his house was attacked by a small band of men, who forced an entrance into the hall. Doors on each side gave entrance to sleeping quarters, and an invader broke out a panel of one of them, struck a match and thrust his face into the opening. A gun was fired from within the room and the man fell to the floor. The weapon was discharged by a German named Coblentz, whom Choutteau had hired as a guard. The intruder’s head was blown to pieces, and the entire brain, with one hemisphere intact, together with the mask the unfortunate had worn, was found on the floor next morning. When the victim fell back from the door, a comrade sprang to the vacated place and fired several shots at Coblentz, inflicting wounds from which he died an hour or so later. Believing they had killed Choutteau, the band departed, taking the fallen comrade. Blood drippings marked for some miles, to the river, the trail of the retiring invaders. The negro ferryman testified that they ferried themselves over the stream.
The dead man’s identity was never disclosed to the public, but there was a rumor that he was a young doctor, and that his remains were interred by companions, who sent to his home his watch and other valuables which he had about his person, with information regarding the place of burial. In some unhappy home, a mother, wife or other loved ones long mourned the fate of him who had died so tragically. Choutteau did not tarry. He was given employment in Washington, and disappeared from view.
The party which visited Livingston that fateful night divided and a detachment went to the house of George Houston, one of the negro legislators. When the firing began at Houston’s home, someone sprang from a window and fled to the brush. Thinking it was Houston and that he had escaped, this band reunited itself with the others and all departed. It was Houston’s son who escaped. Houston himself was wounded, but recovered, and left for Montgomery, returning no more. Houston was accused of having repeatedly uttered the threat that if the whites did not cease their regulating activities he would have Livingston laid in ashes.
On August 8, of the same year leading citizens of Livingston received telegrams advising them that one hundred armed negroes, en route to Livingston, had stopped at Gainesville, in the same county, and purchased quantities of ammunition. Very soon thereafter Captain Johnson, commander of a steamer on the Tombigbee river, telegraphed to Livingston that in steaming up the stream he had seen groups of negroes on the banks,—all with guns,—who said they were going to Livingston to attend a nominating meeting, to be held next day; that they had been ordered to attend with arms. Another dispatch was received from Eutaw saying that Congressman Hays had engaged transportation next day for one hundred negroes.
The white people of Livingston, on receipt of these dispatches, bestirred themselves and summoned reinforcements from other points.
The night preceding the day set for the meeting the negroes camped outside of town. Next day, when they entered Livingston, they were confronted by a body of white men, who told them they would not be permitted to retain their guns while in town and must take them back to the camp. The negroes, after some disputation, on learning that the congressman would not be present, retired. Burke, the negro legislator and president of the league, went to the camp and harangued them. He urged them to return to town with their guns and resist any interference that might be offered. He wrought them into a state of excitement.
One negro, Hayne Richardson, refused to lay down his gun, and was shot on the road some distance out of town. The report of the gun attracted attention both in town and camp, and suddenly a party of horsemen dashed toward the latter, firing their weapons. The sudden attack abruptly terminated Burke’s fervid oratory and his audience fled. Some were shot. Richardson was badly hurt, but escaped and left the county. The following night twenty horsemen surrounded Burke’s dwelling. He escaped from it and fled, under fire. Early in the morning his body was found stretched in a path leading to the dwelling of his former master.
Price, the man of multifarious official employment, called the meeting, and the negroes who testified in the investigation said that his runners told them he directed that they attend with guns. Price took final leave of Sumter before the shooting commenced.
Congressman Hays said he was prevented from attending by sickness of a member of his family. He disavowed any responsibility for the negroes going armed. “I only want to state this,” he said, while testifying in Livingston, “in connection with that matter—I do not know that it is worth stating: that I understood from friends of mine here that there was a regular mob down there to assassinate me the very moment I got off the train. I heard that afterward,—that if I had come here, I would have been killed instantly. If I had been, I would have been killed innocently.”
Congressman Hays was unfortunate in being placed in alleged false situations. There was another memorable occasion when appearances were against him, however innocent of evil designs he may have been:
There was to be a meeting at Boligee, in Greene county, and Colonel J. J. Jolly, of Eutaw, was invited to address the gathering. The Boligee Democratic Club sent a committee to Major Charles Hays with an invitation to discuss jointly with Colonel Jolly the issues of the campaign. The invitation was accepted. When Major Hays arrived there was gathered a party of armed negroes. According to his own statement under oath, Hays, in relating the incidents of the abortive meeting, said that a half-hour after his arrival “there came some fifteen young men riding up, with double-barreled guns and a few hounds following them. I saw this demonstration at once and I came to the conclusion that it was gotten up for a row.” He had been present for a half-hour and was all the time aware that a crowd of armed negroes was gathered, but said nothing in remonstrance, but as soon as the party of young white men rode up he immediately stepped to the door of the building in which he was waiting, and said to the negroes: “You have come here with guns in your hands, and you know that I have expressly said to you that I would never speak to you on any occasion whatever when you brought arms to a political meeting at any place, and I shall decline to have anything to do with this matter in any way whatever.” Then, turning to the white men, “I hope, gentlemen, you will excuse me; I’m going home.”