The Rebels Are Bold, Defiant, and Unscrupulous in Their Dementions of All Men: Social Violence in Daviess County, Kentucky, 1861–1868

The Rebels Are Bold, Defiant, and Unscrupulous in Their Dementions of All Men": Social Violence in Daviess County, Kentuclcy, 18611868 J. Michael Crane In the summer of I 884, Daviess County, emancipation witnessed racial violence in many Kentucky, authorities arrested and jailed Richard forms ... IM]any Kentucky whites were determined May, : in African American, for allegedly raping a local to preserve the racial subscrvience that had chiracwhite woman. When rumors circulated of May' s terized the antchellum period, and others simply probable lynching, the sheriff, a former Confederate, refused t[) acknc) wledge that slavery had ended and vowed to protect the prisoner. A white mob formed, icsorted to force to keep blacks enslaved." Similarly, shot to death the sheriff who tried to hold them off, Marion Lucas determined t]1: it: " Much of the viothen grabbed May and hanged him on : 1 tree in front lence that gripped Kentucky iii the ye: irs immedi: itcof the courtht,Lisc. The local precedents for this event ly following the Civil War stemmed from the prevastretch b: ick tO I 866, when a ninh Strung Lip an(, ther lent belief of whites in tile inferiority of blacks. The black man accused of:ittempted rape, Timi Conyers, desire of the majority of white Kentuckians to keep likely on the same tree. The violence of the late- frcedincii 'in thcii place' altowed a minority to engage 18605 in Daviess County grew out of hatred and ani- in ' dark and bloody deeds,' creating a 'system of termositics fostered during the Civil War. As the coun- rorism' in the Coinnionwcalth."' These argilments ty's white coitii-nuitity split over political kind sec- are essentially correct but merit further £ 111: llysis, tiona] h,yaltics during the war, they res{) rted tc)via- including closer attention to the origin and types Clf lence against both real and imagined focs, black as violence, racial and otherwise, that occurred in well as white. The two sides agreed that white Kentucky. White society in Daviess County, [ ike that Kentuckians must maintain the subscrvience of in the rest of Kentucky, divided during the Civil War African Americans. The choice, however, was between proCc ) nfederate factions and Conditional whether they Could acc{, mplish this with Kentucky Unionist factions both of whom had desired to keep in the Union. Once the war ended,with slavery abol- slavery and who both now wanted to keep both ished, those who supported the Union found them- African Americans and white Unicmists submissive sclves in : in ironic position: they could not support after the war. Radical Reconstruction : ind thus had to find a home In many ways, Kentucky' s history diverged from within the Democratic Party, a party that contained the rest of the South: sat the outbreak of the Civil their wartime political foes. In this process of : idjust- War. Despite having the third largest number of ment, African Americans became entangled in a web slaveholders in the South, Kentucky remained in the of competing political factions, often suffering tile Uni() 11. The state's support of Constitutional vengeance of white Kentucki: ills who viewed freed- Unionist bihn Bell, over nativeson and Southern people as potential econoinic and social rivals.' Democratic candidate bilin Breckinridge, in the 1860 Several scholars have examined the violence election, showed Kentuckians wanted to maint: zin that whites Kentuckians wreaked on African the Unit) n : ind keep slavery.·The white population' s Americans in the aftermath of the Civil War. The loyalty fell both North and South, as the state had historian George Wright noted, " The first ten years of trade ties : ind blood ties to both sections. Sensing the Spring 1002 Social Violence in Daviess County, Kentucky l7 danger of Kentucky's border position and divided loyalties , the state' s politicians guided Kentucky int() a position of ncutrality once hostilities started. Through the efforts () f native son Abraham Lincoln and a coalition of in-state Unionists, Kentucky reinained within the United States' fold. Kentucky's loyalty to the federal government resulted in the state avoicling the harshest aspects of Radical Rec(): isti·action. C(, nseqitclitly, the aggressive white proConfederate violence against political rivals, white resentment over cin,incipation, and the state's prcihibition...