New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-08-21
A Story of Southern Chivalry.

Monday morning, July IS, the papers of
the country printed the following tele
graphic dispatch from the South:
In Columbia county. Georgia, Friday
morning, the deputy sheriff and posse ar
rested four colored men named Doggett.
the father and three sons, on a charge of
distance the prisoners attempted to run,
when they were fired upon and killed. The
coroner jury rendered a verdict of justitia-
BILE homicide.
Two letters are lying before US. One is
written to the New York Evening Post, over
date of July 90, by citizen of Brooklyn,
who signs his own name. The other, ad-
dressed to the editor of the NeU National
Era. is dated at Columbia, Georgia, july,
1874. and is signed Columbia" Each writer
gives an account Of the above affair. The
former saws he was in Columbia county five
days after the shooting and made extensive
INQUIRIES concerning it. The latter, from
his position. would be a reliable witness,
provided he is an intelligent and honest re-
porter. If they agree in essentials it is rea-
sonable to trust them as accurate. THE
points of the first are these: Doggett was
the leader of a colored military company
called the Douglas Guard. in connection
with one in Augusta.
Hebert Lamkins. ''a high spirited and
good citizen of Columbia county" (so the
Augusta papers call him, Notwithstanding
the murders of dozen colOred people are
laid at his door, charged the negroes with
organizing for an insurrection, and per.
suaded some whites to remove their wives
from the neighborhood. Afterwards, he
gathered company OF men, went to the
field where the Doggetts were peacefully
at work, tied their hands, marched them a
short distance into the woods and shot
them all. Then they resolved themselves
into, or were placed upon, the coroner's
Jury of inquest, sat upon the case and rem
dered verdict of "justifable homicide"
By way of corroboration, now see the let
ter from Columbia county. The military
company is mentioned, with the additional
| note that they had six guns, common hunt.
ing pieces, and for the sake of supplying
their needs for drill, they had sawed out
some pine plank in gun shape. The whites,
with no authority of law, but from their
own insolence, ordered them to disband.
As it was perfectly legal organization,
they naturally refused to do so. On the
tenth of July, while the Doggets were at
work, the deputy sheriff of the county, with
five other armed men, rode up to them with
pretended order for their arrest Not
wishing to oppose the officer, they surren-
dered at once quietly. They we're told that
they were to be taken to the courthouse,
but their captors took the opposite direction.
Seeing the trouble, the wives Of the four
men started to follow, but were ordered
back, with the threat that they would be
killed if they did not obey. They men
were led on into the woods, shot, and left
lying there. They were all shot IN front.
How, then, could they have been running
away? The next day the same murderers
went through the country in the vicinity,
and whipped every man they could find
who had been connected with the colored
company.
Were these statements false, two inde-
pendent witnesses would not so exactly
agree in giving details. What is told above
can doubtless be matched by many stories
Of equal outrage, barbarity and cruelty in
tlicted by murderous whites on terror
stricken blacks. Our accounts of the riots
and shooting in the South come from White
League sources, and careful readers must
have noticed that in these accounts it is
always the black man who is charged with
beginning the riot, and the frequent muir
ders are perpe trated by the whites in self
defense. Were the Southern negroes as
fiery, bloodthirsty and savage as the aver
age white man in the South there might be
some plausibility in charging them with re-
sponslbllity for these frequent riots. But
they are peaceable by nature, unresisting
by training, and better satisfied to be quiet
than in promiscuous shooting affairs. The
truth of the trouble really is, so far as
known, that the whites improve every safe
opportunity to murder and whip the col
ored people and their so-called carpet-bag
allies.
How can it be stopped The general
government refuses to interfere. No rene
edy seems available. But the guilty MUIR
0Arora are Dnt DupiuhaI for fhoir nrivnoa
and If the blacks should become desperate
and really do what is now charged falsely
against them many would think they have
provOcatiOn sufficient to excuse them. If
they should go further and put out of the
way the murderers of their own race it
could not be said that nothing had been
done to drive them to desperation. The
wanton murderers who slaughter the col
ored people in this way, and then make
their their own reports Of what has happened,
deserve the severest punishment the law
allows.- Worcester, Massachusetts. Spg.