Year: 1869

A letter from Memphis, Tenn, in the
Chicago Republican, describes the at
trocious manner in which negro man
was murdered for eloping with a
white girl, daughter of a blacksmith
residing about eight miles from that
city:


"The fugitives made their exit in
the evening, taking with them $4OO
in gold, and $145 in greenbacks, be-
longing to the girls father, which the
lady purloined as her lawful inherit
ance. Their flight being soon discov-
cred by the girls parents, they were
overtaken and arrested at small
town few miles distant, on the NOR
ming after the first night of their hon.
eymoon. The girl, who confessed her
self to have been the instigator of the
elopement, and to have hired the ne
gro to accompany her, was carried
back to her parents, and as punish
ment for her folly received at most
only sharp rebuke. But her gallant
was handcuffed and given over to the
county patrols, who brought him back
to within short distance of his en-
ployer's house, and then besmeared
him with tar, hung him by his hands
to the limb of tree, and set his tar
red clothes on fire. Here he hung
dangling in mid-air, writhing amid the
scorching flames, which rapidly envel-
oped him, and his fendish torturers
standing by grinning with delight at
the cries of their victim, to have pity
on him, and to spare his life. The
cries of the wretched sufferer were
unavailing, and he hung there wrap
ped in the fire till each particle of his
clothing dropped from his blistered
body, and the rope which suspended
him was also disconnected by the
flames when he fell to the ground with
the entire surface OF his body literally
broiled and quivering with pain. Here
he lay, gazed upon by the devilish
brutes, who chuckled over his misery,
till at last, becoming delirious from
his pains or aroused by a hope of es-
Gaping, he sprang to his feet and ran
with all his might in the direction of
small creek, few yards off, when
the villains fired their revolvers at
him, and he fell dead upon the ground,
pierced with several bullets.


Such was the knowledge of these
murderers of the character of the pub
lie sentiment of the country respect
ing any outrage of the kind upon a
colored man, and their confidence in
not being held to answer before any
court of justice, that, without attempt
ing to hide their crime by disposing
of the body, they left it lying as it
fell, for all to behold who might pass
that way, as though it was the carcass
of some wild beast they had shot
and those murderers, vested with the
responsibility of preserving the peace
of the county and the dignity of the
laws Of the state were correct in their
notions respecting the light in which
the public would judge of their con-
duct, for the rebel press, those careful
photographers of the prejudices and
opinions of their readers, have never
denounced the outrage with any en-
phasis, and one Of the daily papers
which has a circulation in the city
double that of any of its contemporary
les, in plain terms declared that the
colored man got his just deserts =
This outrage upon the colored man,
who, in his ignorance, was not con-
sclous of having perpetrated anything
more than "big joke" in eIoping
with the white girl, at her solicitation,
is of the same character as the scores
Of murders that have been committed
every week in West Tennessee up to
the passage of the. militia law"