Muscogee County GaArchives Photo Place.....Enquirer- Sun  Editor W.E. Salisbury 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Christine Thacker http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00033.html#0008100 May 21, 2007, 3:21 pm

Source:             Sesquicentennial Supplement IV, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
Photo can be seen at:
http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/muscogee/photos/enquirer13072gph.jpg
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      Courageous Editor Gives Life in Line of duty

                       By Ken Elkins 
                       Ledger Staff Writer

  Gunslinging and cowboy lawlessness weren't confined to the wild West 100 
years ago.
  Shootouts spilled east in the late 18OOs when Col. William E. Salisbury, 
prominent banker, city alderman, school leader, and then publisher of The 
Columbus Enquirer, was shot in the back over an editorial in his newspaper. 
  Salisbury died April 21, 1878, from wounds inflicted by the assassin's bullet 
12 hours earlier.
  As if it were straight from the scenes of an action-packed western movie, 
Salisbury was gunned down at the train depot in Seale, Ala. 
  Packing a pistol, Salisbury was expecting trouble on that April Saturday 
after a court returned a verdict in favor of a man suing him, Dr. Robert U. 
Palmer's suit, charging Salisbury's newspaper had libeled him in an editorial 
about lawlessness in Russell County, had netted Palmer only a cent.
  Salisbury pushed his pistol into his back pants pocket, knowing Palmer was 
unhappy about so modest a balm for his pride.
  Salisbury and his brother-in-law. T. D. Huff. editor of The Enquirer and the 
man Salisbury descendants believe wrote the editorial that prompted the Palmer 
suit, were preparing to return to Columbus by train when the trouble started.  
  According to newspaper accounts of the shooting, Palmer approached Salisbury 
and Huff on the dimly lighted depot platform.
  As Salisbury and company passed, Palmer fired his pistol Salisbury, who lived 
through a trip home to his wife and 10 children later returned fire, shooting 
at a man he thought was his assailant.    Salisbury told a passerby that the 
man was "looking  gloatingly at me, as though he had come there and took a 
position to see me die." So the colonel shot at the man, who fled apparently 
unwounded.  Palmer also fled, only to surrender to authorities two weeks 
later.  Salisbury ancestors remember stories that Palmer escaped punishment to 
the part he played in shooting Salisbury, at that time the oldest living native 
of the still-young city of Columbus. 
His descendents remember Salisbury as a man of couragp and wisdom.
  Columbus physician Augustus Dudley recalls stories of his great-grandfather 
Salisbury that cast him as a man who advised against secession from the Union 
but , fought along side his neighbors when they didn't need  his advice.
  "From his travels, he learned that secession would be a mistake," Dr. Dudley 
recollects tales of the colonel, "because of sheer numbers and technology." But 
Salisbury marched with the Georgia Greys when they left Columbus in 1861 to 
rendezvous with the remainder of the Fifth Georgia Regiment.
  "He was very courageous," according to accounts told to Salisbury's great-
granddaughter. Mrs. John W. Humes. Palmer had threatened to kill him, but 
Salisbury went to the trial in Seale, keeping a promise to stand by Huff 
through the trial over the controversial editorial.
  Educators remember him as a leader in their field. Salisbury was a member of 
a group responsible for beginning public schools in Columbus, one of the few 
Southern cities with schools supported by taxes.
  At his funeral, school children followed the procession  to honor Salisbury. 
Schools were closed as an estimated  5,000 attended the service. 


 Special Sesquicentennial Supplement IV
 Ledger-Enquirer, Sunday , May 7, 1978. Pg S-6.




Col. Wil1iam E Salisbury,  was editor of the Columbus Enquirer-Sun. in 1878 
when he was gunned down in Seale, Ala., over an editorial he ran in the paper.
The Historical marker,  marks the start of his funeral procession on lower 
Broadway to the Linwood Cemetery.




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