Volume 18 , Issue 4

Lynching A Republican (1884)

Continuing our research of the E. D. Atchison lynching of January, 1884, near Monterey, Virginia, we found this mention of E. D. Atchison lynching in an Angola, Indiana newspaper, Steuben Republican, dated Wednesday, 6 February 1884, page 3, under the following headlines: "Democratic Victories, A Vermont Republican Lynched at Monterey, VA., by a Democratic Mob. The Office of a Coalition Newspaper in Virginia Wrecked by a Bourbon Bomb. Lynching a Republican."

The Illinois newspaper writer about this Virginia lynching was mentioned in a Staunton, Virginia newspaper of March 1884, of falsely trying to blame the Atchison lynching on the Bourbon Democracy of Virginia.

Found on Newspapers.com

Further intelligence confirms the dreadful reports concerning the lynching of E. D. Atchison by a drunken Bourbon mob at Monterey, in Highland county, on Friday last. The details of this outrage were harrowing in the last degree. E. D. Atchison, who was a Vermont man and an out spoken Republican, came to this State about two years before. He was a cattle trader, and operated chiefly in Augusta, Bath, and Highland counties. He was a rough but straightforward man in all his dealings, and very plain-spoken and brave. Christmas day he was drinking in company with a man named Ruckman, who was a prominent Readjuster Republican, and with whom he had some tradings. They differed, and a blow was given, when Atchison was arrested and committed to jail, to await the result of Beckman's injuries. In a few days the physicians were satisfied that Beckman would recover, and made this known to Atchison and his counsel. Ruckman further stated that he was wholly to blame for the disturbance, and requested the authorities to release Atchison, as he had no complaint to prefer, and if brought to trial would not appear as a witness against him. Atchison had, in the meantime, threatened to bring suits against certain parties who had been mainly instrumental i securing his arrest and confinement.

These facts becoming generally known, ten persons (it seems ten is the number of each Bourbon club), wearing masks and otherwise disguised, called at the jail on Friday night and demanded the keys to Atchison's cell. This was refused. The mob then proceeded to batter the jail, and wherever a breach could be made they opened fire on Atchison with shotguns and pistols. Atchison made a gallant fight for his life, but in vain. He fell at last from four different wounds and loss of blood. The cell door was then forced by the desperadoes, who fastened a bed cord, taken from the cell bed, around Atchison's neck and dragged him off through the snow about half a mile from the village, and suspended him to a tree, where he was found at daylight, dead and stiffly frozen.

As usual in such cases, no arrests had been made and none would be, no magistrate daring to issue a warrant even if any one could be found to make complaint. Most of the lynchers were well known to different persons who witnessed the attack on the jail, as their masks fell of several times during the assault, and, most of them being half drunk, talked wildly and excitedly and were recognized by their voices.

The last Bourbon triumph in this State and the means resorted to insure it seems to have completely "knocked the bottom out" of all regard for law or order. Had Bourbonism been overthrown last fall no one in his senses believes for a moment that the outrages which daily disgrace the State would for a moment be tolerated, or that ten men under the influence of liquor would be allowed to enter a town, attack the jail, and persist in their attack for over two hours, and then drag therefrom a prisoner whose offense, if any at all, was merely a misdemeanor, and hung him. Atchison was hanged, not for cutting Ruckman, but because he was a Vermont man and a Republican. And this dastardly crime must be charged to the Bourbon Democracy of Highland county. If three men out of fifty who stood by, idle spectators, had simply protested, the outrage would not have been recorded. Had Ruckman died, and Atchison been hanged or sent to the State prison for life, then Bourbonism would have been happy. They had hoped to get rid of two Republicans, and were about to be disappointed, hence their conduct.

The finding of the Coroner's jury deserves notice: "We, the jury, find that E. D. Atchison came to his death, the night of Friday last, by exposure to cold and several gunshot wounds inflicted by persons to the jurors unknown." No mention was made of the hanging, nor is the name of a single villain given, though every man was well known to the jury. What a commentary on law and order! Yet there were men in the North who daily assert that Virginia Bourbons were conservative and do not molest Republicans for opinion's sake. Will such men ever learn?
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