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98 Chapter Six A Holocaust of Human Flesh While the quasi-legalistic proceedings were taking place inside the jail, the crowd surrounding the building, now composed of people from Newnan, Griffin, and the surrounding countryside, continued to grow, both in size and impatience. “There were all kinds of inciting cries, people mad almost with excitement and frenzy, begging for men to lead them in storming the jail,” the Journal reported . At nearby homes and city buildings, people climbed on roofs for a better view, and women stood at windows waving handkerchiefs in support before they “gradually were overcome by horror and simply stood in silence and awe, not knowing what moment there might be a frightful riot. They had friends and relatives, fathers and brothers and loved ones in the crowd, and they hesitated in making any further demonstration, as they knew their cheering was driving men to madness never before known.”1 In the jail, after Sheriff Brown finally put his name on paper assuring that the reward would be paid, he told his jailer, a man named Alsabrook, to place Hose in a cell. However, before the jailer could do this, “ten or fifteen men suddenly entered the corridor from the stairway and swooped down upon the negro.” Brown “protested ,” but Sam Hose was now in the hands of the mob. It is impossible to know if these proceedings in the jail were sincere efforts to safeguard the prisoner. Most accounts of prisoners taken from authorities stressed similar heroics of the lawmen, if only to give them legal cover. Brown surely knew from the beginning that Sam Hose would never reach trial, at least not a legally sanctioned one. Nevertheless, at this point two men made apparently sincere efforts to control the mob and to prevent the lynching that now seemed inevitable. One of these was William Yeates Atkinson. A Holocaust of Human Flesh 99 Atkinson was born in Oakland (Meriwether County), Georgia, in 1854, the son of a slave owner. After his father’s death in 1873, he worked to put himself through school. One of his jobs was that of teamster, an experience that later earned him the handy political sobriquet the “Wagon Boy of Coweta,” which he used in his campaigns. Upon earning his law degree, Atkinson established his practice in Newnan in 1877 and soon became one of the town’s leading citizens, serving first as solicitor of the Coweta County court and then, in 1885, being elected as representative from Coweta County to the state General Assembly. In 1890, he was named president of the state Democratic Convention, and in 1892, he became speaker of the state House of Representatives. Atkinson was only thirty-nine years old when he declared in the race for governor , and at first he seemed a long shot at best. His opponent for the Democratic nomination was Gen. Clement Evans, a Civil War veteran who had served under John B. Gordon and had led the final southern attack at Appomattox. Moreover, after the war, Evans had been ordained a Methodist minister and had gained great respect as a religious leader. As Barton Shaw has written in The Wool-Hat Boys, his study of the Populist movement in Georgia, “Evans’s friends never tired of delivering teary-eyed tributes to his valor and to the five wounds he had suffered in defense of the Confederacy. . . . Although he had little political experience , Evans seemed an ideal candidate for governor. He embraced no unorthodox views, he favored free silver, and he would shroud the campaign in the Stars and Bars and the cloth of the clergy.”2 Both the Constitution and the Journal supported him for the nomination. Atkinson, on the other hand, was seen by many as a callow, unprincipled, but well-connected opportunist who had no respect for the old southern traditions and beliefs. Nevertheless, the young man soon pulled ahead of Evans in their race, and Evans eventually withdrew, much to the disgust of “old veterans” in the state. Atkinson then faced the Populist candidate James K. Hines, and despite a contentious and ugly campaign, during which Atkinson was accused of advocating “social equality” for blacks and charged with general corruption and acts of chicanery , he was declared winner. His victory was marred by charges of voter fraud, and he had alienated many old-time Democrat loyalists during the campaign. As Shaw notes, “Atkinson’s coup d’etat had left Bourbons and old Confederates sullen...

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