Death at Cross Plains: An Alabama Reconstruction Tragedy (review)

BOOK REVIEWS93 separate topical chapters with a topical, chronological organization within the chapters. The less important activities, such as the raising of rice (in Ohio) and the "silk frenzy," are gathered into one chapter. Jones provides separate chapters on both the turn to machinery in farming and to the efforts to establish "Agricultural Organizations." For the dairying industry he not only discusses the evolution of the dairy cow but gives attention to the barns, transportation of the milk, and the butter and cheese industries. In each topic, such as that for beef cattle or wheat, Jones discusses the evolution of the particular crop or industry from the beginning through the 1880 period. One can find comments on early techniques, sometimes rather critical, the introduction of new varieties of breed improvement , the gradual adoption of different cultural methods, and then the turn to machinery. In almost every topic area one can find, although frequently only in passing, some indication of the social condition of the farmers and their families and the impact on the larger community. Jones also spends some time on allied activities with the cattle and swine drives as a prime example. He develops the process by which the drovers gathered the herds for transit and describes not only the drives but the hands employed in the movement of the stock to market. Similar, if brief, consideration is found for the processing industry in Cincinnati as well as the production of liquor. While this is not a great book, it is a workmanlike effort which does what it sets out to do. It provides much information, some of which is not readily available elsewhere. The combined topical, chronological organization can be frustrating. Perhaps the most irritating aspect of the book is the all too frequent use of such statements as, "The new problems which then arose will be dealt with in a subsequent section" (88). The adherence to a topical, chronological organization to the point of raising and then referring to some nebulous future coverage could lead less determined souls to cease the effort. Roger Lambert Arkansas State University Death at Cross Plains: An Alabama Reconstruction Tragedy. By Gene L. Howard. (University, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1984. Pp. xiv, 151. $14.95.) This book details a lynching in northeastern Alabama in 1870, events that preceded the affair, and the disappointing investigation afterward. It is unclear if the book is focused on the lynching or on William Luke, the one white among those killed. Extensive background is included for Luke but none for the other victims. The cause for the tragedy resembles other Reconstruction violence: an interracial quarrel between two individuals where white supporters rushed to aid the white belligerent and blacks to aid the black. The investigation afterward represented one of 94CIVIL WAR HISTORY the rare efforts of the Alabama government to discipline the Ku Klux Klan. The author recounts failures all around: the questionable conduct of the federal troops, presiding judge, prosecuting attorney, and Republican governor. Unfortunately, the book lacks perspective. The episode is not set into the historical context of the Reconstruction era. For example, this affair began remarkably like the sequence of events that ignited the Memphis race riot in 1866. In Cross Plains no riot occurred, and we are left to wonder why. The author does not relate this affair to any of the other klan outrages in the state, and there are many more than two prominent ones (136). The book is simplistic in providing neat answers to complicated questions . Democrats won the 1870 Alabama elections for more significant reasons than "using the race riots to slander the Republican party" (123) . Knowledge that the 1870 election returns were disputed in court would prevent the author from characterizing the Republican governor's refusal to vacate his office to his Democratic opponent as "a strange turn of events" (123) . One distortion endangers the credibility of the entire text, a quote used to illustrate Republican failure to combat terrorism originally related to the acquisition of political patronage (37) . Sources have been accepted uncritically. The KKK testimony must be used carefully as must an interview with one participant's grandson 114 years after the event. If the...