Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1911-09-26
RED shirt REVOLUTION.
Clear, Concise, Correct Story Of Ex'
citing Events.
AS told BY One Who WAS There.

Origin of the Red Shirt Movement;
But This Is Close to the Facts.
The following remarkably clear and
comprehensive sketch of the Red Shirt
movement, has been prepared for the
press, by Mr.. D. S. Henderson OF
Aiken:
| Having been invited by Col. ]. G.
Mobley, the commandant of the Red
in Columbia on the 9th and 2Sth OF
September, inasmuch as court engage
ments prevent my attending, 1 ask you
to publish a few recollections Of the
events leading up to that movement,
the occasion and it's results. 1 was
| intimately connected with it, and can
speak from memory and experience.
The Reconstruction Era.
In 1868 the national Democratic con-
vention, which met in New York, NOM
mated as standard bearer Horatio
Seymour and Franklin P. Blair; the
Republicans nominated U. S. Grant
and Schuyler Colfax.
A tremendous mass meeting was
held in Charleston on Meeting street
in front of the Charleston hotel to rat
| ify the Democratic nominations. AS
| a college student, at the College of
Charleston, I attended that meeting.
James B. Campbell, the great lawyer,
presided. The chief speaker was Gen.
Wade Hampton. He made a memora-
BILE enunciation, that at New York he
induced the convention to put in the
platform the words: THE Reconstruc-
tion acts are unconstitutional, revo-
lutionary and void"
Grant was elected. These recon-
struction acts, which were not declar-
ed constitutional by the supreme court
of the United States until In 1878,
were enforced on the state Of South
Carolina with a mailed hand. Sickles.
Candy and Ruger, with drawn bayo-
nets and martial tread, allowed the
bummers and stragglers from the in
vading armies to paralyze every in
dustry and hope of white supremacy.
notwithstanding the fact that Gov.
Orr, on the platform Of the constitu-
tional convention Of 1868, in Charles
ton, had warned the members, with
prophetic glance, that if universal suf-
frage was given the negroes they would
be relegated within less than twenty
years, these deceivers who had
swarmed into the state enacted the
same as law.
Hampton had retired to his planta-
tion in Mississippi. The white lead
ers advised the people to remain from
the polls, because they alleged the re-
construction act would not stand, and
soon the state government was in the
hands of the "black and TAM"
In the gubernatorial race Of 1870,
Carpenter and Butler made a cam
paign against r. K. Scott, noted car
petbagger, but the spirit of the whites
was not in it; they trusted Butler but
had no faith in the pyrotechnics Of
Judge Carpenter.
I settled at Aiken in 1872. During
1873, 1874 and 1875 1 attended each
year taxpayers conventions, which
convened in Columbia.
They were presided over mostly by
that peerless son of Charleston, Will
liam Denison Porter
They were solemn, secret affairs,
held in Irvings' hall uptown, and
Parker hall downtown, with closed
doors.
Addresses were issued to the peo-
them to keep in heart; addresses to
congress and to the president, pro-
testing against the condition of pub
lie affairs in the state, brought about
by Radical extravaganza and misrule.
The people listened, waited, bore and
forebore, suffered and grew stronger
from suffering.
In 1874, after Moses administration
ed by the Radicals. A boiling set Of
that party nominated Judge Greene of
Sumter for governor, and a San Dom
lingo negro. named Martin Delaney. for
lieutenant governor.
The white people though some i'm
provements were made at the polls in
| November) took no interest in the
election of this mongrel ticket, and
Chamberlain was elected. The robber
legislature of 1875 cleaned out so'ae
good Judges and elected the negro bri-
gand from Beaufort, w. ]. Whipper,
| to the Charleston circuit, r. B. Car
penter to the Fifth circuit, and a
numbskull, named P. L. Wiggin, from
Beaufort, to the Second circuit.
Chamberlain, apparently in earnest,
refused to commission Whipper, but
the people felt that he was sur =
rounded by such a corrupt crowd that
he could not be trusted, and they be-
gan to arouse themselves.
The Rise of the White Tide.
The spring of 1876 came in, in all
of it's pregnancy. Full of disgust at
past efforts to concilate, full of hu-
initiation at the infamous orgies of the
brigands of the Palmetto state, who
had heaped disgrace on her name and
ruined her credit at home and abroad;
full of the belief that if something was
not done the real sons of the sacred
soil of the great commonwealth, which
lad done so much for the honor of
| freedom, would have to take their
household gods and goods and go else
where; early in the spring confer
ences were held, with a view of a
straightout white mans fight for a
white mans government
1t was a presidential year. and
prominent Democrats within and
without the state took the position
that a determined effort here to dis
rupt the carpetbag government would
lead to disorders which would be used
against the growing tide in favor OF
Democratic success i'm the Union
Friends of Mr.. Tiden were sent here
to stop the movement, but the swell
was on, and it kept growing bigger