Thread by @JABell27

Sobbing at my desk at 1730 today over a guy who has been dead since 1875. And his poor widow. The women’s voices in their depositions to Congress are like a Greek chorus.

He wasn’t the only one. Here are the known names of the 30-50 killed on 4 days in Sep 1875, and best guesses about the ones who appear in the 1870 census. A thread. 1/

Alec Wilson, 28. Farmer. Survived by wife Betsey, 23; son William, 6; possibly other children. Betsey isn’t identifiable in the 1880 census. 2/

Lewis Hargrove, 27. Survived by father William, 45; mother Mary, 40; sister Angy, 16. Unknown if survived by widow/children. 3/

Ben Jackson, 39. Farm laborer. Survived by wife Julia, 35; daughters Lou (17), Mary (13), & Shelly (9), son Stewart, (11), & an infant (not named). In 1880, Julia is a laborer and her children are gone—probably divided among family & neighbors. 4/

Sam Jackson, 31. Farm laborer. Unmarried in 1870. Unknown if he had a wife and children in 1875. 5/

Lewis Russell, 30. Farm laborer. Survived by wife Martha, 44; and sons William (28), Austin (21), and Eli (18). In 1880, Martha is living alone in Shelby, TN, and working as a laundress. 6/

Daniel Dabney, 19. Farm laborer. Survived by his mother Lily (57). 7/

Bob Beasley, an elderly gentleman. Age and family unknown. 8/

Moses Hill. Possibly a 37yo farmer. If correct, survived by his wife Jane, 35, and perhaps his 79yo mother Sarah. 9/

Gabriel and Gamaliel Brown may be one man, or brothers. They are not (he is not) clearly identified on the 1870 census. 10/

Squire Hodge, age unknown. A farm laborer born in Alabama. /11

Alfred Hastings, Albert Hudson, Simon Jackson, and Robert Robinson are not identifiable on the 1870 census. They were likely farmhands or sharecroppers, and may have moved into the county between 1870 & 1875 in search of work. /12

A mob of white men dragged Adolph and Joe Stevens, father and son, out of the house. While Mrs. Stevens and a neighbor watched in horror from their homes, Dolph and Joe were “stood up on a stump and shot.” /13

Correction on Squire Hodge. He was survived by an 18yo wife, Ann, & two small children. After threatening Ann’s life, the mob took Hodge away. Ann asked to put on his shoes: she had trouble tying them. The men told her he didn’t need them. She put his coat on him. /14

Ann and her brothers retrieved his remains from the swamp a week later, where a neighbor had found them. They picked up individual vertebrae and part of his skull. They identified him by his shoes, still tied in Ann’s clumsy knots. /15

The Haffas, a white family, were also targeted by the vigilantes. They had the effrontery to teach literacy and Sunday school to the local freedmen. Alzina Haffa told Congress that she had been severely injured by white men in Vicksburg & her young son shot at /16

before they moved to Clinton. There, on the weekend in question, a mob of 50-75 men broke into the house. One choked Alzina & held a gun to her head while her infant lay screaming on the bed. In front of her & her children, they shot Mr. Haffa twice. They refused to let her /17

call a doctor, saying that her husband would die anyway. The next day, a former white senator called: they refused to allow her a coffin to bury Mr. Haffa in, & told her she had 10 days to leave town. /18

Her African American neighbors helped her wrap Mr. Haffa in a sheet & bury him. They hid her & the children until the mobs went home a few days later. /19

Captain Montgomery, who led one of the bands of men roaming the county that weekend, took up a collection & gave her about $40; Governor Ames gave her $5 & train tix to Cincinnati. After buying things for the children there, she had to beg for train fare to family in Philly. /20

Sam Caldwell, 32, was killed later, on Christmas Day. His brother had just been assassinated by the same men responsible for the deaths of those killed in September; they were afraid he would raise a mob of Black men to take revenge. He was survived by his 24yo wife Laura. /21

They may or may not have had children. I can’t find Laura on the 1880 census. /22

Finally, the man over whom I was crying: Mississippi State Senator Charles Caldwell, 1831 or 1832-1875. He was targeted for assassination b/c he was a radical Republican, & because— /23

after the Clinton massacre in Sep 1875, when Ulysses S. Grant refused to send troops to suppress the violence against the African Americans in Mississippi, Governor Ames called up 5 companies of Black infantry & 2 of white infantry. Caldwell was the 1st to volunteer. /24

He & his company of 102 men were tasked to escort weapons to a new state militia company about 30 miles west of Jackson. (The White Line—informal Democratic Party vigilantes—had stolen previous shipments of state weapons in transit.) /25

They marched out on the morning of 09 Oct 1875 w/flags flying, drums beating, & bayonets fixed. When they returned to Jackson, 2 more companies of volunteers had joined them. Caldwell marched 300 Black militiamen, some 200 of them armed, back into Jackson. It was gutsy AF. /26

It also made him a marked man. On the evening of Christmas Day, a neighbor insisted that Caldwell stop in at the cellar of a local merchant for a little Christmas cheer. Caldwell was reluctant but polite. The clinking of their glasses was the signal: the assassin shot him /27

through the window. He asked to go home to his wife Ann at their nearby home to die. The men with him—neighbors & colleagues—refused. He demanded to be taken up to the street, & told the men: /28

“Remember when you kill me, you kill a brave man. Never say you killed a coward. I want you to remember it when I am gone.” The men stood him up in the middle of the street and riddled him with bullets. Ann would later count 30-40 bullet holes in her husband’s body. /29

The men who killed Charles & his brother Sam brought the bodies to Ann & helped her lay them out. At 0100, the train from Vicksburg arrived w/a gang of Modocs. They broke into the house where Ann & two friends were sitting with the bodies. /30

They sang, danced, played the accordion, cursed and hit the men’s bodies, and while Ann watched, hit them & dared them to get up & fight. Then they left. The next day, a neighbor who had been in the store when Charles Caldwell was killed /31

came by & asked what he could do for Ann. Her words fucking broke my heart: “Judge, you have already done too much for me. You have murdered my husband, and I don’t want any of your friendship.” /32

Charles Caldwell & Ann had a son named Charles, 20, and a daughter, Annie (12). /33

I was thinking as I read that their names, insofar as are they are known, needed to be said. They were not just “30-50 African Americans who were killed in the Clinton Massacre of 1875.” /34

They were real people, with wives & parents & children & a community who grieved their murders. Maybe if we had said their names & told their stories in our history books, we’d be saying fewer names in 2020. /35

May their souls and the souls of the departed whose names are not known rest in power. Their lives mattered. Black lives matter. 36/end