Volume 18 , Issue 4

1884 - False Charge Corrected

It was in the Staunton Spectator, Staunton, Virginia, dated 25 March 1884, Tuesday, page 3, that we found this mention of the E. D. Atchison lynching: "False Charge Corrected."

It seemed that a writer from the Chicago Tribune had written and attributed the lynching of E. D. Atchison in Highland county as a Bourbon murder. He said, "Atchison was hanged, not for cutting Ruckman, but because he was a Vermont man and a Republican, and this dastardly act must be charged to the Bourbon Democrats of Highland county."

Found on Newspapers.com

Sid Ruckman, whom Atchison cut slightly, and for which offense he was hanged, was Mahone's County Superintendent of free schools for Highland county, and they were informed creditably that every man who had been indicted as being one of the mob was a Mahoneite, whilst Atchison was a Republican who voted with the Democrats.

It would be impossible to conceive of a paper like the Chicago Tribune employing a correspondent so devoid of truth as this one, were not such lies and liars the preferred constants of the Mahone press of Virginia and its confreres without the State. With Mahone, Riddleberger, the "Trick Mule," and a horde of vassals to do their bidding, all heaping their slanders on Virginia, the people abroad, if they believed them, would avoid the State as they would an adder. There was certainly enough in this Atchison affair to command the attention of Mr. Sherman, and the matter ought to be investigated and give additional wight to the approaching Republican campaign.
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