East Mississippi times. (Starkville, Miss.) 19??-1926, 1912-03-15
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EA Z e.!SyrL.ar Ah u y ii L IL 8 LII
y4es \ company forma-
'Ss' 1'~1 ton, under the
leadership of Thomas Peters, they
advanced at once on the negro
church. AS they rounded a bend
in the road near the church the
negroes, who were already assem-
bled, fired on them. The whites Il
once returned the fire, killing one
negro outright and wounding
about thirty, some of whom after
terward died. The negroes scat
tered like sheep at the first fire,
the white men holding the field and
getting possession of the guns.
The ringleaders in the disturb
ance were arrested by IL G. Pow
ers, the republican sheriff, and sent
to Washington to testify before
the congressional committee. With
them was sent Henry Outlaw, the
negro leader. They were acquitted,
Outlaw himself swearing that the
negroes were at fault. An inter-
esting side light on his testimony
is furnished by the fact that the
democrats told Henry on the way
up that he would never see Missis
sippi again if he did not tell the
truth.
No man was ever loved more by
the people of StarkviIle than Col.
IL. l.. Muldrow, who was famil-
iarly called by his friends the
Little Giant" Of Oktibbeha coun-
ty. He it was who, with the connlv-
ance Of Powers, was sent to the
Mississippi legislature to act as d
check upon the ignorant negroes
there. He, it was, who in 1868,
as Grand CyclopS, became the chief
organizer Of the ku klux in the
Masonic building in Starkvillo.
He it was who, with his law part
ner, Gen. Nash, was counsel for
the accused men of Oktibbeha who
were suffering from a persecution
rather than a prosecutions. Years
after, when an attempt was briug
made to defeat him for some public
office, one of the men defended here
told how on one occasion, when the
case seemed to be going against
them and term in Federal prison
stared them in the face, Muldrow
followed them to their rooms and
told them, almost with tears, that
he was one with them and would
be beaten with the same stripes
with which they were afflicted.
Col. Muldrow's triumphant can
vas for congress in 1898, when the
white man had begun again to
come again into his own, was the
occasion OF one of the most excit-
ing incidents Of the reconstruction
regime. There was to be Il Joint
discussion at the Far Grounds in
StarkVille between MuIdrow and
Ennis H. Little, the republican cam
didate, with whom were Lee and
trazee, his lieutenants. The negro
republican organizations Of Oktib.
beha having assembled the rank
and file CT their membership to the
number Of about twelve or fifteen
hundred at I John" church, upon
the site Of which the present dairy
barn Of the a. & NJ College now
stands, announced that they in
tended to march to the speaking in
solid cclumn through the streets of
Stalkville. The whites had had
enough Of negro marching and
drumming and determined to resist
any such demonstration to the
death. In pursuance Of this reso-
luton a body of men much inferior
in numbers to the negroes, but
officered by old soldiers and suffi-
cient to have eXterminated them,
was assembled in the Starkville
streets. Col. Doss, the last colonel
of the 14th Mississippi, and Capt.
Mcdowell, Of Starkville, We're in
command. The negroes had been
warned not to attempt the march.
Rhett Maxwell, now Prof. Maxwell
OF the A. & vi. College, had said
to a negro leader, one De Loache:
You shall not march," De Loache
Loache had answered; 1--WE will !"
Maxwell then told him to go to q
certain store and buy the finest suit
Vt clothes on sale there, This was
"a