The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-05-08
The Memphis Riot.

first accounts charged the negroes with conspi
Tacy and wholesale massacres. 1t has since ap.
peared that there was no conspiracy, and that
it was the whites who were guilty of massa-
Creing the negroes. lnstbe Memphis riots last
week the first kilograms, as in the Jamaica
case, laid all the blame on the negroes-who, it
may be remembered, do not control the tele-
graph wires. Whether subsequent and accu-
rate narratives will acquit the negroes and in
Cuipate the whites, we do not know, but it is
certain that the kilograms were based on very
imperect information. The Memphis papers OF
the morning after the riot are at hand and
their stories about the origin and progress of
7he afray are not merely inconsistent, but no
two OF them agree in any single particular,
except that in one way or another they make
the negro the occasion OF the difficulty.
The AUdldreche says the riot originated from a
difficulty between white boy and negro boy,
whom two officers tried to separate when a
crowd OF fifteen or twenty grown negroes, armed
with pistols, surrounded the police and imme-
ddtely commenced an unprovoked assault upon
them. The Argus says it began by two police
N going to arrest man who sold liquor in
S. nth Memphis, whereupon negro soldiers
d' mixing in the grog shop charged upon the
police, and were IN turn attacked by reinforce
1len, of constabes. The Bulletin, remarking
thPt there are hal-a-dozcn rumors about the
II ter is positive that the trouble really began
v a negro driving wagon which came into
[ lislon with another wagon driven by a white
n, The two came to blows, whips were used,
L cr negroes interered; then a policeman
lie up and attempted to arrest-of course
I negro first concerned Pistols were drawn
Q both sides, the fight became general, and
Il / spread indefinitely. The POst-the only
p. .'er IN Memphis that is not Rebel TO the core
'niesses 1t could not ascertain the cause of
tn, difficulty, but gives one version, which is
thai Is that sundry drunken cOlored soldiers fell
or policeman and killed him (Which cannot
bc true, because no policeman was killed), aud
IL the police and citizens then made an
inc scriminate attack on the negroes in that
ne, lhborhood.
lle details given in these four papers of the
progress OF the hight do not agree any better
than the stories they tell about its origin. 1t is
useless to try to silt them. They all, however
admit that the negroes suffered out of all pro-
portion to the whites-a remarkable result
truly, considering that the negroes are charged
with beng the aggressors, and are pictured as
drawn up in great numbers in line of battle and
1iIng heavy volleys into solid columns OF charg-
hiC by stray bait. Wherever in the city a
negro showed himself he was hunted and fired
on. Twenty, says the AUdLdnche, were killed
ard wounded, and the same paper states that
~1tany negroes, who had nothing to do with the
outrage in South Memphis, were roughly treated
in the intense and general excitement of the
hour" detachment of regulars sent at a late
hour to quell the riot took sides with the whites
as might be supposed, and fused no light per-
suGson in the matter, as the battered-up cond-
tiol OF many OF the negroes after wards sent to
the Station House exhibited" In front of the
Gayoso House, about dark, negro was shot in
the face. "The mobn saws the Ayg1ts Twas at
no time in that locality"
From the narrative Of the Bulletin which
comes nearer to being coherent than any other,
1t appears that the regulars did not reach the
ground till after the riot had been suppressed
and whatever violence they committed was
therefore wholly vindictive. The same paper
four negroes who were shot after the
riot was at an end The Post states that 'some
Nhnn Tod NNn,. Ia., ALL.
1ody, beaten nearly to jelly. We saw one with
his head covered with gashes, bruises, and blood,
from the Station House, there being
no ground of complaint against him."
Difficult as 1t is to get at the facts, there is no
difficulty in understanding the spirit with which
the whites oil Memphis discuss this event. The
papers make haste to proclaim it "war of
races" and the AUdtdnCIe begins its leading
article IN this style:-
"The bloody appetite of the radicals, in and out
OF Congress- has begun in earnest its terrib saa-
ton The reports from all parts of the country have
indicated, tor some time, that radical fendishness
was Induigng a partial satisfaction; but not until
afternoon did the people of Memphis be-
come iullv aware OF the terrible consequences which
the radicals have entaied upon the country, or of
the fearful volcano upon which they have been 30
long sleeping. The ioea incucated into The ug gish
intellect OF the negro that his condition accords
him superiority over the white man IN all the pur.
suits OF civil and political life, has at last eliminated
to be Overndden with heh-handed outrage In virtue
1orsooth. OF his dusky swarthY color "
And by way of keeping the peace for the
future, the same paper, with the same affecta-
ton tnat marked the Rebel papers in New York
during the July riots OF 1868, thus encourages
the murderous spirit of its friends:-
"The present state of the public mind excited as 1t
is by the fact that the white officers of the law nave
been fired upon by negroes, who but to-day have
expired their service Federal soldiers and doffed
their AUTHORITY to begin an unlicensed foray upon
law and order, bids us, the interest of the public
peace, to postpone, to a more calm occasion, any
further observations which the outrage naturally
suggests.
''We would at this time, uuon behalf of the unfor-
tunate class, who, by the Vaccinations and teach
ing OF designing white men have been brought to
this condition of turbulent, violent, and bloody
opposition to the civil law, ask fcllOw.citizens
to refrain from any exercise OF justifabe violence
upon them"
This invitation to bloodshed was but sparingly
accepted; the troops we suppose, being hume
days.