Chatham County GaArchives History .....Savannah Duels - Chapter VI 1923
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CHAPTER VI. 

WHEN GUNN SOUGHT GEN. GREENE'S LIFE.

REVOLUTIONARY TROUBLE LEFT A BITTERNESS THAT SOUGHT SATISFACTION THROUGH THE
CODE—WASHINGTON'S PART IN THE AFFAIR—A SAVANNAHIAN THE FIRST APPOINTEE TO PUBLIC
OFFICE TO BE REJECTED BY THE UNITED STATES SENATE—HOW GEORGE M. TROUP CAME TO
ASSAIL THE EDITOR OF THE "MUSEUM"—GEORGIA URGES A RECALL AMENDMENT—OBNOXIOUS
FEDERALIST EDITOR MOBBED BY REPUBLICANS AND MAYOR ISSUES A PROCLAMATION.

    Many personal antagonisms which developed  during the struggle for
independence cropped out in later years. One of the most notable of these
locally was the difficulty between Capt. James Gunn and Gen. Nathaniel Greene.

    Gunn was a man of obscure origin, born in Virginia in 1739. He became a
lawyer there, joined the patriot cause, served as captain of dragoons under
General Wayne, engaged in the movement for the relief of Savannah, and after the
war made this city his home and took up the practice of his profession.

    He was one of the original members of the Georgia Society of the Cincinnati.

    Gunn had become incensed against Greene as a result of the course pursued by
the general, as his commanding officer, in 1782.

    Gunn had sold a horse belonging to the army, without orders. When the matter
was brought to Gen. Greene's attention he directed a Court of Inquiry- This
court exonerated Gunn. Gen. Greene refused to approve of its action. Gunn looked
on this as evidence of personal hostility. The correspondence was sent to
Congress, which approved of Greene's conduct and condemned that of Gunn, who
ever after cherished a bitter grudge against the general.

    On the termination of hostilities, when Gen. Greene came to reside on the
plantation, "Mulberry Grove", presented to him by the State of Georgia, Gunn's
animosity found speedy expression in a cartel through Col. James Jackson, who
soon withdrew from the affair on ascertaining the merits of the case.

    Judge Johnson, one of the early biographers of Greene, held that Jackson's
consenting to carry the challenge for Gunn arose "from the highly chivalrous
state of feeling which existed among American military men at the close of the
revolutionary war, and in no part of the United States was this feeling in such
excess and so frequently developed as in Savannah".

    Gen. Greene wrote to Col. Jackson detailing the facts in the case and
explaining why he would not receive a challenge from Gunn:

    "If an officer had the right to sell public property without authority, so
had a private soldier. Capt. Gunn demanded a confirmation of the proceedings of
the Board in justification of his conduct. At first I could scarcely suppose him
serious, but finding him persistent in the thing, I was obliged to give him my
sentiments on the subject, however unpleasant to his feelings or opposite to his
wishes. But no man ever heard me use language that would disgrace a gentleman.
My sense of his proceeding was that it was criminal and altogether
unwarrantable." Greene pointed out that he could have brought Gunn before a
court-martial and forced the loss of his commission but had no desire to so
degrade and punish him.

    Gen. Greene having ignored this challenge, Major Benjamin Fishbourne,
another revolutionary soldier, became the friend for Gunn in a second challenge.

    Jackson was colonel at the time of the First Regiment of Chatham County
Militia, Gunn was lieutenant-colonel, and Fishbourne was major.

    Again Greene refused to consider the challenge, taking the broad ground that
a superior officer could not be held accountable in such a way for acts
involving discipline of subordinate officers. The general recognized that such a
precedent would be subversive of all discipline and tend to a constant
embroilment of commanders with subordinates.

    It was a day when few men had the moral courage to decline a challenge from
one considered a gentleman.

    To refuse satisfaction rendered one subject to the charge of cowardice—the
unforgivable sin—and to the probable loss of public esteem.

    Gen. Greene appreciated this keenly, and, fearful that his brother officers
might misinterpret his conduct, laid the history of the affair before Gen.
Washington, and asked for his opinion.

    "If," said he, "I thought my honor and my reputation would suffer in the
opinion of the world, and more especially with the military gentlemen, I value
life too little to hesitate a moment to accept the challenge."

    It seems incredible that Greene could have believed, after the years of
service he had given his country on the battle field, that any one associated
with him could have considered the taint of cowardice applying to their old
comrade.

    The pressure of public opinion, as regards the right to demand personal
satisfaction if one felt injured by another, was so strong that the Quaker, who
had forsaken the teachings of his faith at the militant call of patriotic duty,
wavered in his convictions.

    But George Washington, with his clear insight and ability to pierce to the
heart of a question and lay bare its essential points, was prompt and decisive
in his judgment.

    His answer left no ground on which any possible enemies of Greene could
stand for an attack upon his action.

    "I give it as my decided opinion," wrote Washington from the privacy of
Mount Vernon, "that your honor and reputation will stand, not only perfectly
acquitted for the non-acceptance of his challenge, but that your prudence and
judgment would have been condemned by accepting it; because, if a commanding
officer is amenable to private calls for the discharge of his public duty, he
has always a dagger at his heart, and can turn neither to the right nor the
left, without meeting its point. In a word, he is no longer a free agent in
office, as there are few military decisions which are not offensive to one party
or the other."

    Backed by the overpowering- influence of Gen. Washington on the public mind,
it was needless for Gen. Greene to go further.

    Gunn knew this as well as Greene. But Gunn was a man described as "violent,
aggressive, overbearing." To Greene went the threat that his enemy would satisfy
his aggrieved "honor" by a personal assault.

    Greene's answer was cool and to the point:

    "I always wear pistols and will defend myself."

    When he rode into Savannah from his plantation the General wore his pistols
ready for immediate use.

    This was in 1785. A year later Greene died. It is interesting to note that
one old writer, explaining why the General rode through the intense heat of the
mid-day sun, intimates that he feared assassination after dusk, from some, old
Tory or other enemy. But Gunn never attempted his threatened personal assault.

    This Gunn-Greene "near duel" is referred to by old writers on the code as
one of the striking evidences of the force of popular sentiment.

    Sabine says that while Greene's courage had never been doubted, "he dared
not act definitely and finally without the assurance of the most illustrious man
in history that his 'honor' and his 'reputation' would not suffer by
disregarding the call.

    "No wonder that persons in the common walks of life yielded against their
convictions, in cases of aggravated injury, when a gentleman of Greene's lofty
character and standing in every sense, hesitated whether to meet an inferior
officer under the circumstances related."

    These old duels bring one into contact with strong men whose memories have
unfortunately vanished. They also allure one to stray into other by-paths of
history. It is so in this instance. Who recalls Major Benjamin Fishbourne
to-day? He had served bravely through the war and in 1783 married Nancy Wereat,
daughter of John Wereat, one of Georgia's illustrious patriots and "recognized
as one of the most useful men of his generation." Yet Fishbourne was the first
and only man nominated to office by President Washington who was rejected by the
United States Senate, bringing to that body a letter from Washington in
endorsement of this Savannahian such as probably no other president ever wrote
in favor of any other rejected candidate.
    The Senate had assigned no cause for its refusal to approve Fishbourne, who
had been nominated as the first collector of the port of Savannah under the new
Federal government. Washington acquiesced, but took occasion to inform the
Senators as to the type of man Fishbourne was.

    The Savannahian, the President stated, had served under his own eyes "with
reputation as an officer and a gentleman." At the storming of Stony Point he had
distinguished himself. General Wayne sent him as messenger to Washington with
the news of the mutiny of the Pennsylvania troops in 1781. Chatham county had
shown its confidence in him by electing him repeatedly to the Georgia Assembly.
The militia had selected him as their lieutenant-colonel. He had been a member
and president of the Executive Council of the State, and under its appointment
had served in practically the same position as collector of the port.

    "It appeared therefore to me," continued Washington, "that Mr. Fishbourne
must have enjoyed the confidence of the militia officers in order to have been
elected to a military rank—the confidence of the freemen to have been selected
for the Council, and the confidence of the Council to have been appointed
collector of the port of Savannah." Major John Habersham's name was then sent to
the Senate, the appointment confirmed, and he served as collector of the port
until his death, ten years later.

    Gunn lived for sixteen years after his vain efforts to force Gen. Greene
into a duel. That incident gives an insight into the vindictiveness of his
nature and his uncompromising disposition, and would also indicate that he was
not over-scrupulous in his methods.

    He was undoubtedly a man of unusual strength of character and genuine
ability, as otherwise he would not have been a state leader in the days of
strenuous political conflict that began with the inauguration of Washington and
ran on for several decades in Georgia without regard to the "era of good
feeling" under Monroe. He became Brigadier-General of the State's forces and
served twelve years in the United States Senate, 1789-1801, associated there
with General James Jackson, who had carried his first challenge to Gen. Greene.
If he had been less the man of unyielding determination and domineering power he
would not have left the national capital and coming to Augusta used every
influence at his command, legitimate and otherwise, to assist those who were
forcing through the "iniquitous" Yazoo act, albeit it is now a revised version
that Jackson and his allies, by their hue and cry, somewhat exaggerated the
"iniquity" thereof for their own political ends, which seems not at all
surprising to those who know the devious ways of politicians and statesmen even
until this day.

    Gunn is described as a sort of field marshal for the campaign to seduce the
Georgia legislators, and is pictured as striding about the streets of Augusta
"arrayed in broad cloth, tan boots and a beaver hat, commending those who
favored the bill and abusing those who opposed it. In his hand he carried a
loaded whip, and with this the burly United States Senator actually menaced
those members who objected to the scheme." But it does seem just a bit strange
in turning over the musty pages of the past to suddenly realize how, even in
death, this same picturesque, even if ruffianly, Gunn came near to forcing other
Savannahians to the duelling field, and how harsh reflections upon his
character, as he lay hardly cold beneath the sod in middle Georgia, involved a
future governor and senator in an assault with a loaded whip upon a Savannah
editor, with a soon-to-be judge of Chatham as aid and abettor—if the editor told
the truth—the editor posing as the defender of the liberty of the press to
publish anonymous personalities and yet refuse to divulge the identity of the
writer.

    It all came about in this way. Gunn died at Louisville on July 30, 1801, his
term as Senator having expired on March 3. Old English customs still lingered in
Georgia and we find designated as the official "mourners" at his funeral Capt.
Merriwether, Capt. Shellman, and Maj. John Berrien, the latter the State
Treasurer and father of John McPherson Berrien, who became the most prominent
Savannahian of his day, United States Senator, Attorney-General of the United
States, and otherwise a commanding figure in national affairs. The "Columbian
Museum", Savannah organ of the antagonists of the Jeffersonian party, sadly
commented :

    "Gen. Gunn is now beyond the reach of friendship or of hatred, nor can his
ashes be affected by censure or by praise. May be rest in peace, 'And if charity
and good nature open not the benevolent lips let the finger of silence rest on
the tongue of malevolence and detraction'."

    Gunn had been the target of ceaseless attacks from Jackson and other
Republican leaders and their assaults and the repeal of the Yazoo act were
credited with hastening his sudden death. But the "Museum's" appeal for the
"finger of silence" was of no avail. Attacks on the deeds and misdeeds of Gunn
continued, and his friends came to the rescue of his memory. They were
embittered by their political defeats and not inclined to spare the lash any
more than were their enemies. An anonymous contributor, signing his letter with
a Q, said:

    "That he (Gunn) had his faults his warmest friends will not deny. He,
however, served his country faithfully and bravely in our Revolutionary war, and
shall we allow any of these mushroom officers, these gewgaws, to insult his
memory? To the shame of one of the gentlemen be it told, that he wrote to Gen.
Gunn requesting the appointment of aide-de-camp." The writer intimated that
another of Gunn's revilers wanted to be Judge. "If it is their object to get in
the Legislature, for God's sake send them", he concluded.

    There was no question as to the parties referred to. David B. Mitchell was
major of the First Battalion of the Chatham Regiment and candidate for State
Senator; George M. Troup was an aspirant for the House; Thomas U. P. Charlton
was captain of a militia company and, youthful though he was, suspected of
having judicial aspirations. They were all active leaders of the Jeffersonian
Republicans, selected and groomed by Jackson himself. Troup and Charlton had
been anonymous contributors to the Savannah papers on political subjects.

    Charlton and Troup replied to Q in the "Museum." Their letters are
interesting disclosures of their style of attack and of the personal virulence
that marked the politics of that day.

    "Mark how a plain, unvarnished tale will set this libellous scoundrel down
and throw the lie into his teeth," said Charlton, and then he pointed out that
while friends had sent a request to Gen. Gunn to make him an aide, and he had
been told that Gunn on his return to Georgia would appoint him, he "felt that
even an abstract relation with Gen. Gunn, even the military connection of aide,
might be construed by the people into a partial dereliction of principles,
which, with my honor, I hold dearer than life, and to preserve which I have
sacrificed interest and everything that savors of selfish calculation."

    Troup was not less severe in his answer:

    "Whether I am a mushroom or a gewgaw, I will hunt the coward from his
obscurity and expose him to the public infamy.

    "I am not the persecutor of the dead. My malignity reaches not the peaceful
silence of the tomb. My resentment is against the living enemies of my country."

    Referring to the Federalists, Troup said: "I have always delighted in the
exposure of their crimes, and when their sins had brought upon them the
vengeance of their injured fellow citizens, when they had fallen never to rise
again, it was my triumph to insult them with their vices and to humble them in
repentance."

    "We told them of a leader, the very Hercules of his faction, concentrating
in himself the strength, the virtues and the confidence of his party, stealing
from the closet of secrecy the conspiracies of his friends1 and betraying them
to the world."

    This was a reference to a charge that Senator Gunn had divulged caucus
secrets to Duane, the notorious vituperative editor of the "Aurora," of
Philadelphia, chief of Republican organs.

    "Such a party was worthy of such a leader," concluded Troup. "Oppression,
insult and injury had followed in their footsteps, and the last scene of their
political life closed with the treachery of faithless friendship."

    Peremptory demands went from Charlton and Troup to Seymour and Woolhopter,
editors of the "Museum", for the name of the writer of the article signed Q.

    The request was denied. The editors held that "where injunctions had been
laid upon them to keep the real names of correspondents out of sight" "we have
been faithful to the trust," and that Trcup and Charlton themselves had
published articles in the "Museum" without exposure of their identity.

    "But we have not expected (them) to resort to assassination in these
enlightened days of special liberty and equal rights to compel us to violate our
engagements and to a surrender of the privileges time immemorially assigned to
and enjoyed by editors."

    The publication in the "Museum" which "arraigned the illiberal and
unjustifiable conduct of the two young men who had aspersed the character of the
late Gen. Gunn," the editors said, brought a demand for its author, which, "with
perfect integrity and propriety we refused." "The paper was open to them for
vindication. They came forward with replies, with their names annexed. Not
satisfied with this they insisted with violent threats upon the disclosure of
the author of Q, and were still denied.

    "One of them, George M. Troup, assailed the unarmed editor with a loaded
whip, was disarmed and failed in the rencounter, and would have met with his
deserts had not interference been made.

    "Though we shall never become the aggressor in any assault, we shall be
prepared to repel it at the hazard of our lives, and have no apprehension from
individual attack.

    "But we are told that these high mettled young men (Troup was then but 21
and Charlton 22) are stirring up the multitude, to do us evil and destroy us;
and that they are determined to make bloody war upon us, till they compel us to
a forfeiture of our integrity, honor and independence as men, or procure our
deaths.

    "We do not profess ourselves Samsons, to encounter armies, and we
confidently hope that the good sense and strength of this community will not be
idle spectators of our demolition, for preserving to ourselves the character of
men and of Americans."

    The appeal seems to have had its effect. Either the influential Federalists
rallied to the support of the editors or the Republican chieftains held in check
the too zealous game cocks of their party. But the incident pictures most
graphically the political conditions under which the nineteenth century opened
in the little city of Savannah, with its 2,800 white folks and 2,500 negroes.
There was no room here for the Laodicean. All men blew hot, and without mental
reservations.

    So it was throughout this section. Politics ruled and disturbed every
community. Writing from the country, a correspondent of the "Columbian Museum"
in 1798 gave this graphic description of what one had to contend with from the
political ardor of his neighbors:

    "In this little community there are no less than six classes of politicians.
We have the Republicans, Aristocrats, Aristocratic-Republicans,
Republican-Aristocrats, Democrats, and a few called Hell-Fire Republicans, and
when three or four of the different classes meet, by chance, at a poor man's
house, like mine, they never leave off disputation as long as- there is a drop
in the bottle; and the longer they dispute the hotter it grows, till sometimes
my wife and myself are obliged to go out of the cabin to avoid having the drums
of our ears broken."

    A few days after the trouble with the editors of the "Museum" the election
came and the Republicans swept the county, sending Mitchell to the Senate and
Edward Harden, Joseph Bryan and Troup to the House. The following year Charlton
went to the House and Bryan to Congress.

    It may not be amiss to recall that Senator Gunn's participation in the
"barefaced corruption" of members of the legislature, as it was described by his
enemies at the time, led to Georgia becoming the first state in the Union to
suggest a recall amendment to the Federal constitution, antedating William
Jennings Bryan and others in their support of such a measure by more than a
century. The General Assembly of 1796 was thoroughly in control of the enemies
of Gunn and of the Yazoo grants, and resolutions were adopted urging an
amendment to the constitution "authorizing the legislature of any State to
recall a senator in Congress therefrom whenever the same may be deemed
necessary". It needs no very vivid imagination to recall quite recent times when
Georgia might have been tempted to avail itself of the recall if it had been
grafted on the constitution as the State urged in its indignant impotence to rid
itself of Gunn.

    Charlton was Solicitor-General 1804-09 and Judge of the Eastern Circuit
1821-22. Troup went to Congress in 1807 and served four terms in the House,
until 1815, when he was elected United States Senator, serving 1816-18 and again
in 1831-33. He also served as governor in 1823-27. When Senator James Jackson
picked Charlton and Troup, before they were of age, as of the calibre from which
big men are made, he showed the unerring sagacity that marked all of his
political judgments.

    The bitter antagonism between the Republicans or Democrats and the
Federalists of Savannah continued for many years, in fact until the final
disappearance of the fragments of the latter party in the new and greater Whig
organization.

    Seymour and Woolhopter were not the only Federalist editors who were
threatened with, or suffered from, mob violence. Federalism became more than
ever obnoxious when the country was involved in the difficulties which led to
the second war with Great Britain. Savannah stood foursquare to the winds in its
support of the national government. Common prudence should have dictated to the
Federal handful of the city that they refrain from antagonizing this
overwhelming sentiment of the community.

    Partisanship overcame their discretion, though, and a newspaper began a
brief and stormy life as the organ of opposition to the administration at
Washington. It was dubbed "The American Patriot", and its course was limited to
sixteen numbers, two a week for eight weeks, from April 14,1812, to June 5,1812.
John S. Mitchell and Charles M. Pratt were the publishers and editors. They
stood, they declared, for the principles of Washington and Hamilton, and their
restoration in the conduct of the government. They "would endeavor", they
stated, "to place in a clear point of view the misconduct of the present public
servants in attempting to cajole, deceive and mislead the people, thereby to
maintain the high posts of honor, which their measures prove them incapacitated
to fill."

    The "Patriot" and its editors were the centres of a growing storm of hatred
from the first issue. They were pro-British and anti-French. Jefferson was
lampooned as "Terrapin Tom", Madison, then president, was held up as a poor,
abject, servile tool. The administration was "characterized by hypocrisy and
deception, imbecility and folly." The embargo and non-intercourse policies were
ridiculed, recruiting for the approaching war was opposed, the Republican
leaders were scorned as men of "dark and ignorant minds, instigated by debased
passions", and their utterances as "waves of Democratic slander and scurrility",
while Congress was "but little better than a factious club of demagogues".

    The nullification-secession tendencies of certain Federal leaders of New
England were endorsed. "All New England arises in the majesty of her strength
and says she will no longer be imposed upon."

    The anger of the Savannah Republicans grew hotter and hotter as each issue
of "The Patriot" poured its broadsides into their beliefs and their admired
leaders. Finally came the explosion.

    A mass meeting was called to consider the questions of the day and to
express Savannah's attitude as regards them. From the City Hall it adjourned to
the old Independent Presbyterian Church. Mayor William B. Bulloch presided. The
feeling was intense. Savannah was represented among the "Patriots" who had
seized East Florida from the Spanish. Resolutions were presented endorsing their
actions. The Republicans triumphed in their passage, despite the opposition of
Judge Berrien and John Y. Noel. Resolutions were introduced endorsing the acts
of the government at Washington. Col. Habersham, a veteran of the revolution,
introduced a substitute urging the administration to pause "until they had
ensured to themselves the means of rendering the conflict with Great Britain
honorable and decisive to this country".

    Alderman T. U. P. Charlton, ardent Republican, urged that the division be on
party principles, and the Republicans defeated the substitute and passed their
own endorsement of Madison and his policies.

    "The American Patriot" erupted one time more in its brief history, the day
after the meeting. According to it the Federalists at the mass meeting were
persons "of eminent standing in society, and warmly interested in the country,
from both property and family." While there were "some very honorable and
respectable characters" on the Republican or Democratic side, there "was a
considerable number of foreigners, entirely uninterested in our welfare, either
from family, or property", "If character were considered the principles of
Washington" would have triumphed.

    This was the last issue of "The American Patriot." The "Republican"
denounced it as a "traitorous print." "The common herd" and "the foreign
rabble", as its editors considered the majority of the Jeffersonians, arose in
their wrath before the hour came for it to go to press again. That very night a
mob gathered. The city administration was Republican and the guardians of the
peace seem to have had pressing business elsewhere for the time being. The house
where Mitchell and Pratt lived was invaded. Leaders of the assailants, according
to Mitchell, were "Burke, an Irishman", Pitcher, Ash, Greer and John Bulloch,
nephew of the Mayor." Mitchell's pistol failed to discharge; Pratt fired a shot
and ran for assistance. Mitchell was clubbed and then, to quote his language:

    "These degenerate cowards, were not content with bruising, but must drag me
out of my own dwelling, into the street, where I was surrounded by a large mob,
the very filthy dregs of corrupt Democracy, who hurried me along with abuse and
blows to an adjoining pump, where they gratified their hellish malice."

    This was set forth in a broadside which Mitchell printed and scattered over
the city the next day. The editor had his nerve unshaken to that extent. He
threw fresh fuel on the flames and the mob spirit flamed up in a more dangerous
mood. His life and perhaps other lives were imperilled thereby. Urged by friends
and supporting Federalists, Editor Mitchell placed himself in the hands of the
Sheriff for protection, and probably for the first and only time in the history
of Savannah its mayor had printed and distributed throughout the city a handbill
reciting this fact and urging the citizens to abstain from violence, and calling
on the officers of justice to be vigilant in preserving the peace of the city.
Accompanying this proclamation was another handbill, the obituary of "The
American Patriot":

TO THE PUBLIC.

    The paper lately published in this place under the title of The American
Patriot is discontinued from this moment and the firm of Mitchell and Pratt
under which it was edited hereby dissolved, John S. Mitchell ceasing henceforth
to have any interest in it.

                                   J. S. MITCHELL,
                                   CHS. M. PRATT.
Savannah, June 8, 1812.

    Ten days later Congress declared war against England —the war that Woodrow
Wilson has pronounced "a war of arms brought about by a programme of peace"—and
Savannahians, sinking their factional differences, ceased to be Federalists or
Republicans and became simply Americans.

    It must not be thought that Savannah was alone in this brutal outbreak of
political passion, or that it was the only city wherein a mob vented its hatred
of the Federalists in violent attacks upon an editor. Sitting in the Council
Chamber of the Savannah City Hall one day, Miss Mary Custis Lee, daughter of
Gen. Robert E. Lee, looking at the magnificent painting of that illustrious
chieftain, spoke of his father, Gen. "Light Horse" Harry Lee, and of the
movement then under way to remove his body from Cumberland Island to the soil of
his native Virginia. Incidentally she told of stirring incidents in his life and
among them of the injuries he suffered at the hands of a Republican mob in
Baltimore, injuries that crippled the Revolutionary hero for the remainder of
his life and were a contributory cause of his death six years after.

    In Baltimore, as in Savannah, many of the leading men of affairs were
opposed to the war with Great Britain and supported a newspaper, "The Federal
Republican," set up in opposition to the administration and edited by one
Hanson. "Lewd fellows of the baser sort," as they were described by the
Federalists, destroyed the newspaper plant and put a temporary stop to its
publication. This outrage brought to Hanson's open support men of distinction
and the paper resumed under the protection of prominent Federalists, including
Generals Lingan and Lee. A mob again attacked the office and the two old
soldiers with a party of friends sought to protect it. They did not hesitate to
fire upon the assailants and some were killed. Under the assurance of protection
given by the Mayor the defenders surrendered and were placed in prison. On the
following night the mob again assembled, broke open the jail, with little
resistance on the part of the authorities, beat General Lingan to death, left
General Lee senseless and grievously injured, and clubbed and mutilated others,
leaving nine of them on the prison steps supposedly dead.

    Savannah at least did better than Baltimore in the way it suppressed "right
of free speech" run to dangerous license at a time when the country was facing a
powerful foe and needed union among its people, regardless as to what their
original views had been as to the policies that lead to the hostilities. Can any
one 'believe that in 1917 Savannah would have been more tolerant of a newspaper
started here for the express purpose of antagonizing the government and of
neutralizing its efforts to prosecute the war with Germany?


Additional Comments:
From:

ANNALS   OF   SAVANNAH

SAVANNAH DUELS AND DUELLISTS

1733-1877
BY

Thomas Gamble

COPYRIGHT 1923
REVIEW PUBLISHING & PRINTING COMPANY SAVANNAH, GEORGIA




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