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PART II.

PERSECUTION OF UNIONISTS IN THE

REVOLTED STATES;

OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS, ETC.

PERSECUTION OF UNIONISTS

IN THE

REVOLTED STATES;

OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS, ETC.

PRELIMINARY.

THE volumes of history scarcely furnish a chapter more replete with fiendish cruelty and atrocity, than do authentic accounts of the treatment of Unionists in the revolted States; while at the North, Secession sympathizers have generally been unmolested, have been allowed freely to express their opinions, and to discuss and condemn all measures employed for the suppression of the revolt, Unionists in the revolted states have been persecuted in every way, and subjected to every outrage; have been shot down without ceremony, hung without trial, hunted with blood-hounds, and tortured without mercy. Indeed, violence and savage ferocity have characterized the rebellion from the beginning, and by these means mainly have the masses of the Southern people been overawed, and made to acquiesce in the revolt.

This is so forcibly set forth in the following communication from Captain D. H. Bingham, of Alabama, that we insert it in this place.

(81)

INAUGURATION OF THE REIGN OF TERROR.

WHEN the rebellious states seceded in the fall and winter of 1860-1, the masses of the people were violently opposed to the measure, and in their primary meetings and social gatherings, expressed their opposition in no equivocal terms. Hence it was determined to inaugurate a reign of terror, in order to stifle the voice of opposition, and secure uniformity of sentiment and action.

As South Carolina was the first state to secede, so it was the first theatre of those barbarous cruelties which were designed to overawe the non-slaveholding population, who, however numerous, had few political rights, and no social position, and had been accustomed to be as submissive to the behest of the slaveholders as the negroes themselves. The reign of terror was introduced by putting forward that class of reckless and brutalized men, known as overseers and negro-drivers, who have ever been found ready, at the bidding of their employers, the slaveholders, to engage in the most atrocious acts. This class of menials were organized into squads of half a dozen, more or less according to exigency or design of the service they were expected to perform, and their business was to ride through the different neighborhoods, and inquire into the sentiments of every poor man, and wherever they found one who expressed himself as willing to give the administration of Mr. Lincoln a fair trial, he was forthwith taken out and "Lynched," until he professed to renounce his sentiments. In this way was South Carolina revolutionized within twenty days.

In other states, in which the non-slaveholding white population was proportionally larger, a somewhat different mode of operation was adopted to secure the same

object. In Alabama, particularly the northern portion of the state, vigilance committees were organized, selfconstituted in many cases, under the pretence that the country was full of abolitionists, and that the officers of the law were inadequate to the protection of the people against these emissaries of the Lincoln Government. These vigilance committees had their secret conclaves, in which measures were discussed, plans laid, plots devised, charges manufactured. At first the free negroes particularly were assailed. They were unceremoniously dragged before the committees, tried in secret, condemned, and led forth to execution without the public knowing for what, beyond the statement of the members that the evidence was sufficient. Among those who were thus condemned and executed, was an aged negro preacher, who had lived about Mooresville, Limestone county, Alabama. He was hung in February or March of 1861, his heart cut out and carried upon the point of a knife through the streets by a semi-barbarian drunkard; and the public do not know, to this day, the evidence on which that negro was executed, beyond the mere assertion of the committee that they had evidence enough to hang him.

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The country, at the time, abounded with travelling foot-pedlars, mostly Germans and Italians, who imperfectly spoke our language. They were inhumanly set upon by these human blood-hounds; some were shot and found dead in the roads; others were unceremoniously dragged before these committees, and ordered to leave the country.

But these committees did not stop here; they proceeded to assail the native white population when suspected of Unionism, robbing, torturing, shooting, hanging them without ceremony or form of trial.

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