| Hamburg Massacre |
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ABOUT The shots fired at the Hamburg Massacre deflated the Fusionists and crystallized support around the uncompromising 'Straight-Out' faction of the Democratic party (Holt 1979:199-201). The ensuing violent and bitterly contested election campaign gained undivided control of South Carolina for the Democrats. Hamburg , a defunct market town across the Savannah River from Augusta, Georgia , had been repopulated by black freedmen since the end of the War. On July 4, 1876 , two neighboring white farmers in a carriage drove downg Hamburg's Market Street. They met the local {Link without Title} company of South Carolina State Militia drilling under command of Captain D. L. "Dock" Adams. After an exchange of words, the farmers passed through the parade (Allen 1888:314). The farmers filed a complaint before the local court in Hamburg, Trial Justice Prince Rivers presiding. The case was continued until July 8, when Edgefield attorney Matthew Calbraith Butler appeared as counsel. M. C. Butler demanded that the Hamburg company disband, and turn their guns over to him personally. As armed white men gathered in the vicinity, the Militia refused to disarm and, with perhaps fifty men, repaired to their armory in the Sibley building near the Charlotte, Columbia and Augusta Railroad bridge. Firing began with two men falling in the heat of battle - McKie Meriwether, white, and Hamburg's Town Marshal James Cook, black. Outnumbered, discouraged by a small cannon brought from Augusta, and running out of ammunition, the Militia slipped away but not without capture of perhaps two dozen of their men. As evening progressed into night, five of these prisoners were killed, and what was now a mob proceeded to loot the town (Allen 1888:314-317). CONSEQUENCES The incident gained nationwide attention (e.g. Harper's Weekly, August 12, 1876). White South Carolinians saw virtue in necessity and repeated the lesson in full at the town of Ellenton, also in Aiken County, two months later (Allen 1888:385-387). M. C. Butler's expectations and the depth of his involvement are unclear, but association with the bloody violence damaged his later career in the magnified his own role and used it to spur his campaigns for Governor and then Senator (Simkins 1944:270-271). EXTERNAL LINKS
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