The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-09-22
Camilla.

CAT last reports Camilla was quiet ~ Suoh
are the closing words Of the unreoonstructed
despatch from Augusta, Ga, which details the
particulars of fearful riot alleged to have
taken place at Camilla, the county seat of
Mitchell county. Three hundred negroes,
headed by two carpet-baggers, plentifully sup
piled with war material, and provided with
three weeks rations, marched down upon the
town Of Camilla, with the serious intention OF
"overawing the citizens and killing the lead
ing Democrats" Despite the remonstrances
of ga deputation Of three prominent citizens"
thrice repeated, the mob entered the town
four hundred strong, and began to clamor for
the blood of "a man named Johns" Johns
was shot at, and so was every man that could
be seen, when the white and black population
of Camilla, with utter determination staring
them in the face, rallied to the number OF
fifty, and forced the invaders to beat a hasty
retreat. In consequence Of the panic which
took possession Of the mob, but five whites
were injured, and none Of them fatally. The
total casualties, however, reached one hun
dred, ninety-fve of whom must have been
negroes, thirty-five having been killed outright
on the retreat.
1t would seem that the Democracy of Ca
milla sustained the prestige which they have
doubtless acquired on many a we'll. fought
field. Fifty to four hundred-one to eight
ing forces throughout the war. Vide the New
York World and Pollards "History of the
Lost Cause" And yet this superiority in
point of numbers was too overwhelming and
Lee at last succumbed, after Grant had lost
more men than his entire army comprised at
the outset of the campaign. Looking at the
Camilla contest from this standpoint, the
"man by the name of Johns" is a greater
soldier, and his forty y-nine companions in arms
more valiant fighters, than Lee and the Army
of Virginia. For Lee surrendered, while
Johns and the forty y-nine chased the negroes
and the carpet-baggers five miles out of town,
killing thirty five Of them and woundipg ever
SO many more. What a wretched failure,
then, attended this radical sally in Georgia
How completely abortive was the attempt "to
overawe the citizens and kill the leading
Democrats" of Camilla When Frank Blair
marskals his revolutionary host, the valiant
men of Camilla, white and black, should not
be forgotten. Nowhere in the whole South
can he pick up more chivalrous, a more
dashing, more destructive body-guard. And
what a captain of the guard will be this
"man by the name of Johns.' And what
tishy thing the whole story is, from beginning
to end. 1t is fair sample of the Quixotic
episodes which are daily telegraphed North
by the unreoonstructed Democrats who are
employed by the Associated Press in the South.
We publish the truth Of the matter else
where, and our readers will see from it that
more monstrous lie has never been fabricated
by desperate men. The affair at Camilla was
one of the most diabolical outrages which has
as yet been perpetrated by the Hampton
Democracy. 1t was a wanton and unprovoked
assault upon peaceful assemblage of unarmed
Republicans, who had met together for the
purpose of discussing the issues of the day.
Rebels armed to the teeth, among them the
Sheriff of the county, forbade the meeting,
and when it was attempted to be held in
spite of intimidation, they fell upon the
orderly citizens who were exercising the pri-
vilege accorded them by the Constitution, and
killed and wounded fifty of them in cold
blood. The details of the outrage are horrible
enough, but when it comes to the "omnipo-
tence of lying' by which the perpetrators
have attempted to shroud their bloody deeds,
we can appreciate the full force of the situa-
ton in the South, and the desperate measures
to which the Democracy Of that section are
resorting to uphold the fortunes of Seymour
and Blair. There is but one remedy for it all,
and that is for the people of the North to rise
in their might and forever extinguish the
slumbering fires of rebellion.