Southern Graves

1897 in Ripley County, Indiana saw a community fed up.  It seems there was a gang going 'round committing acts of marauding and thievery.  And this had been going on, day and night, for years.  It ended, for at least some gang members, September 15th. Headlines were ablaze in newspapers across the country: Judge Lynch Settles Five: Mob at Versailles, Ind., Deal Out Justice to Robbers.   [Duluth, MN] Outraged Citizens Take Quick Vengeance: Five Men Strung Up by the Neck at Versailles, Indiana.   [Wheeling, WV] Indiana Robbers Lynched.  Five Disposed of at Versailles at Once.  [Emporia, KS] Five Men Lynched Because They Stole: Mob at Versailles, Ind, Strings Up a Quintette of Burglars.  [Boise, ID] And here's the story as told by Georgia's Vienna Progress (23 September 1897): INDIANIANS LYNCH ROBBERS MOB OVERPOWERS JAILER AND SWING UP SIX MEN. DEPREDATIONS INCENSED PEOPLE. Taken By Force From the Authorities and Death Meted Out To Them By the "Hemp...

Along the outer wall that parallels Memorial Drive SE in Atlanta's Oakland Cemetery is a historical marker that tells the story of the final result of the acts of seven of Andrews Raiders, as well as James J. Andrews himself: Photo by S. Lincecum "280 feet south of this location on June 18, 1862, seven of the Union Army's brave Andrews Raiders were hanged and buried. On April 12, 1862, 22 Andrews Raiders seized The General, a tender and three boxcars at Big Shanty (now Kennesaw) and raced toward Chattanooga on the Western & Atlantic Railroad in an effort to burn bridges and otherwise dismember a supply artery vital to the Confederacy. They had covered 87 miles when The General was overtaken by valiant pursuers led by Conductor Fuller. Of the Raiders, only these seven plus James J. Andrews, their leader, were executed by the Confederate Army. In 1866, remains of the seven were exhumed from this location and reinterred at the National Cemetery at Chattanooga. A...