The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1910-09-24
The l4th of September Sc Years Ago.

The 14th of September IS Years Ago.
The editor of the Colfax Chronicle
when a young man % years of age
was an eye witness to the exciting
fight in New Orleans of Sept. 14th,
graphically described in the States
in the article below. In common
with the young men of the city We
expected to be in the fight when it
came off, but it was precipitated and
virtually over in Is or 20 minutes,
before thousands of people knew
what had happened. DR.. Dixon
Bruins had just made an impassioned
speech to several thousand people
from the gallery Of the Crescent bill
lard hall at the corner of st. Charles
and Canal streets, and Il delegation
had reported the refusal of the KEEL
logg government to abdicate, when
DR.. Bruins said to everybody TO go
home and get their guns and take
possession. The crowd dispersed
at once, and an excited office boy
grabbed this writer's arm and said
printers were wanted ut once to get
out an extra" We held ceases" on
the N. o. Bulletin, of which Dan Byer-
ly, who was killed by Warmoth, was
editor, Andy Weaver foreman, Steph-
en- Pool, Noise and Barringer were
reporters. The printers had hardly
got the type to clicking IN their sticks
when the Office boy and porter re-
ported the White Leaguers had their
guns and were marching towards
Canal down two or three streets.
Crowding to the second story win
dOws of the office on Gravier street
the printers could see the White
Leaguers. and in twinkling the
guns began to pop and rattle and
before the printers could get into
their coats and on the streets it was
all over. A few stray shots were fired
| from the Custom House and other
points for about an hour. but the
real fight was over almost before
you could tell it.
The States says:
To-day thirty-six years ago the
citizen soldiery of New Orleans, a
hastily organized band Of clerks, me-
chanics, merchants and professional
men, struck a blow that stirred the
country from end to end. The battle
of the Fourteenth of September, as
it will ever be called, spelled the down.
fall OF carpet-bag government in the
South. 1t aroused the North to
full realization of the appalling con-
ditionss existing in Louisiana and
other Southern States, and it was
the stern protest voiced by the North
that brought the infamous recon-
struction era to an inglorious end.
President Hayes withdrew the sup
port of Federal bayonets and the
rotten carpet-bag governments rum-
bied like houses of sand.
Looking back thirty-six years ago
to the battle fought on the levee at
the head OF Canal street and the
astonishing victory won by an un-
trained and undisciplined force Of
citizens armed with shotguns and
obsolete Belgian rifles the fact looms
large that on that day God was not
with the side that had the heaviest
battalions, for the regiment of Metro.
politan Police, under 80 great a cap
tain as General Longstreet, had been
drilled to a high point of military
efficiency and were equipped with the
latest repeating rifles and Calling
guns, yet in less than twenty minutes
of fighting they were routed and
swept from the field.
To the memory of the citizen SOL
diers who, on that day, gave up their
lives for home rule and white suprem-
acy, not only in Louisiana, but in all
the South, grateful people erected
Liberty monument, which stands on
the field where they fell, to remind us
and the generations to come after us
OF their glorious heroism.