Double Lynching: Mob Does Bloody Work in 1896 Columbus, Georgia

According to MonroeWorkToday, the double lynching of Jesse Slayton and Will Miles is referenced in A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882-1930 and Fitzhugh Brundage's Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930.

Savannah Tribune (Georgia)
Saturday, 6 June 1896 -- pg. 4 [via GenealogyBank]

A DOUBLE LYNCHING.

A Mob at Columbus, Ga., Does Bloody Work.
At 10:45 o'clock, Monday morning, a scene unparalleled in the history of Georgia was enacted in the city of Columbus.  At that hour a mob of fully 600 armed men broke into the Webster building during the trial of Jesse Slayton, charged with assaulting Mrs. Howard Bryan last week and took the prisoner from the officers.  Slayton was carried to the building at an early hour by a strong guard of men and the trial had already begun behind locked doors and a heavy armed guard of men to protect the prisoner from any demonstration of violence.

The mob rushed down upon the building, forced the doors and with resistless rush swept back the spectators and guards and seized and carried the negro out on the street.  Resistance was utterly useless.

A rope was placed around Slayton's neck and he was dragged up Broad street, the crowd shooting him as they went.  Near the bell tower they swung the negro up and perforated him with bullets.

After this the mob, as coolly and deliberately as in the first instance, went immediately to the court house and, overpowering the jailer, took Will Miles, a negro charged with assaulting Mrs. Albright, two years ago, and marched him slowly to where Slayton's lifeless body was hanging from a tree.  The trembling negro was made to look upon the fate of his brother victim, and then a rope was placed about his neck and he was slowly suspended in the air and his body perforated with shot.

Right in the heart of the city for three and a half hours, riddled with bullets the two bodies swung from one of Broad street's shade trees.  It was a gory spectacle – below the two swinging, horrible bodies, filled with leaden missives of death, was an excited crowd shouting in wild exultation.

Slayton's gory body was placarded as follows:  "All cases of this kind shall be treated likewise."

Miles' body was adorned with the following legend:  "Both cousins.  This one convicted twice; mistrial once.  Father hung for same offense."

Coroner Martin finally cut them down and held an inquest.  The verdict rendered by both juries was to the effect that both persons came to their death at the hands of parties unknown.

The military was in readiness to protect Slayton but was not out because it was agreed Sunday, after a conference with civil authorities, that their presence would not be needed, no lynching being anticipated, as the negro had been unmolested so far as his trial was to take place immediately.

Vengeance of Law Visited on Culprits in Broad Daylight

Another article, published four days earlier in the Macon Telegraph, shares more harrowing detail:

…The terrified negro [Jesse Slayton], when he saw the crowd rushing in, crawled behind the judge's stand, but was dragged out and a noose put around his neck.  Winchesters and pistols flourished in the air, but no shots were fired in the court room.

…The bodies [of Slayton and Will Miles] presented a gory spectacle and were an awful warning that the lives and honor of women will be protected and all outrages avenged at all cost.  Two brutal crimes had been avenged.

A simple search on Google will give you the statistics. The Tuskegee Institute kept track of lynchings in America from 1882 - 1968. There were 581 in Mississippi, 531 in Georgia, 493 in Texas, 391 in Louisiana, 347 in Alabama, and so on. Total from all states: 4,743. That's more than one lynching and victim a week.

I feel a little like I should try to explain why I would give the horrible acts – those committed by the criminal, as well as those committed on the criminal – voice on this blog. There are no (at least to my knowledge) statistics showing the accuracy of the lynchers. How many times was an innocent person hung, riddled with bullets, and mutilated in the name of "justice?" I mean, we probably agree there are innocent people sitting in jail right now – with supposed checks and balances in place. Imagine when there were none. Shouldn't those innocent people be remembered?

Now, make no mistake, sometimes the lynching party "punished" the right person. As in, sometimes the true perpetrator was indeed apprehended – and then disposed of, often in a barbaric fashion. Even if you take the literal "eye for an eye" death penalty approach, I would not be surprised if that would have been an applicable punishment in only an infinitesimal number of cases. People were lynched for stealing, people were lynched for "insubordination," people were lynched for literally being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And let us not be cowards and leave out the racism debacle that lingers to this day. So another reason for giving voice to these past atrocities is in the same vein of "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

As a family historian, I am saddened to think (1) these revolting deeds took place, and (2) while statistics are easy to find, the names and stories of the individual victims are much harder to locate. A list of lynching victims will unfortunately never be complete. I hope that in a small way, posts such as these will serve as a memorial to those who were victims of Judge Lynch and his frightful law.