In the 1850’s large numbers of Germans emigrated to the United States. Many went to the mid-west, particularly to the cities of the Mississippi Valley, including Louisville, Kentucky. Some were radicals, forced to leave when the revolution of 1848 failed. They advocated women’s suffrage, direct election of all officials, ending of prayer in Congress, ending of capital punishment, public lands for colonists, and, most troublesome of all, abolition of slavery and equality for blacks. Others were Catholics, against whom there was considerable prejudice. In 1854, Louisville anti-German nativists organized a Know-Nothing Party; in response the Germans organized a group called the Sag-Nichts. At election times the two groups often fought for control of the polls. An August 6, 1855, the Know-Nothings captured the polls before dawn, and with the aid of police and sympathetic local officials, pulled immigrant Americans out of voting lines and beat them. Gun fights began at noon and spread over the city. By evening twenty people had been killed and large numbers had been injured.
The following account is taken from the Louisville Courier, an anti-Know-Nothing journal, as reprinted in The New York Times, August 10, 1855. See also Charles E. Deusner: “The Know Nothing Riots in Louisville,” Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, LXI (1963), 122–47.
We passed, yesterday, through the forms of an election. As provided by the statute, the polls were opened, and privilege granted to such as were “right upon the goose,” with a few exceptions, to exercise their elective franchise. Never, perhaps, was a greater farce, or as we should term it tragedy, enacted. Hundreds and thousands were deterred from voting by direct acts of intimidation, others through fear of consequences, and a multitude from the lack of proper facilities. The city, indeed, was, during the day, in possession of an armed mob, the base passions of which were infuriated to the highest pitch by the incendiary appeals of the newspaper organ and the popular leaders of the Know-Nothing party.
On Sunday night, large detachments of men were sent to the First and Second Wards to see that the polls were properly opened. These men, the “American Executive Committee,” supplied with requisite refreshments, and as may be imagined they were in very fit condition on yesterday morning to see that the rights of freemen were respected. Indeed they discharged the important trusts committed to them in such manner as to commend them forever to the admiration of outlaws! They opened the polls; they provided ways and means for their own party to vote; they buffed and bullied all who could not show the sign; they in fact converted the election into a perfect farce, without one redeeming or qualifying phase.
We do not know when or how their plan of operations was devised. Indeed we do not care to know when such systems of outrage—such perfidy—such dastardy—was conceived. We only blush for Kentucky that her soil was the scene of such outrages, and that some of her sons were participants in the nefarious swindle.
It would be impossible to know when or how this riot commenced. By daybreak the polls were taken possession of by the American party, and in pursuance of their preconcerted game, they used every stratagem or device to hinder the vote of every man who could not manifest to the “guardians of the polls” his soundness on the K. N. question. We were personally witnesses to the procedure of the party in certain wards, and of these we feel authorized to speak. At the Seventh Ward we discovered that for three hours in the outset in the morning it was impossible for those not “posted” to vote, without the greatest difficulty. In the Sixth Ward a party of bullies were masters of the polls. We saw two foreigners driven from the polls, forced to run a gauntlet, beat unmercifully, stoned and stabbed. In the case of one fellow, Hon. Wm. Thomasson, formerly a member of Congress from this District, interfered, and while appealing to the maddened crowd to cease their acts of disorder and violence, Mr. Thomasson was struck from behind and beat. His gray hairs, his long public service, his manly presence, and his thorough Americanism, availed nothing with the crazed mob. Other and serious fights occurred in the Sixth Ward, of which we have no time to make mention now.
The more serious and disgraceful disturbances occurred in the upper wards. The vote cast was but a partial one, and nearly altogether on one side. No show was given to the friends of Preston, who were largely in the majority, but who, in the face of cannon, musket and revolvers, could not, being an unarmed and quiet populace, confront the mad mob. So the vote was cast one way, and the result stands before the public.
In the morning as we stated elsewhere, George Berg, a carpenter, living on the corner of Ninth and Market Streets, was killed near Hancock Street. A German named Fitz, formerly a partner at the Galt House, was severely, if not fatally, beaten.
In the afternoon a general row occurred on Shelby Street, extending from Main to Broadway. We are unable to ascertain the facts concerning the disturbance. Some fourteen or fifteen men were shot, including officer Williams, Joe Selvage, and others. Two or three were killed, and a number of houses, chiefly German coffee-houses, broken into and pillaged. About 4 o’clock, when the vast crowd, augmented by accessions from every part of the city, and armed with shotguns, muskets and rifles, were proceeding to attack the Catholic Church on Shelby Street, Mayor Barbee arrested them with a speech, and the mob returned to the First Ward Polls. Presently a large party arrived with a piece of brass ordinance, followed by a number of men and boys with muskets. In an hour afterwards the large brewery on Jefferson Street near the junction of Greene, was set fire to.
In the lower part of the city the disturbances were characterized by a greater degree of bloody work. Late in the afternoon, three Irishmen going down Main Street near Eleventh, were attacked, and one knocked down. Then ensued a terrible scene; the Irish firing from the windows of their houses on Main Street, repeated volleys. Mr. Rhodes, a river man, was shot and killed by one in the upper story, and Mr. Graham met with a similar fate. An Irishman who discharged a pistol at the back of a man’s head, was shot and then hung. He, however, survived both punishments. John Hudson, a carpenter, was shot dead during the fracas.
After dusk a row of frame houses on Main Street between Tenth and Eleventh, the property of Mr. Quinn, a well known Irishman, was set on fire. The flames extended across the street and twelve buildings were destroyed. These houses were chiefly tenanted by Irish, and upon any of the tenants venturing out to escape the flames they were immediately shot down. No idea could be formed of the number killed. We are advised that five men were roasted to death, having been so badly wounded by gun-shot wounds that they could not escape from the burning buildings.
Of all the enormities and outrages committed by the American party yesterday and last night we have not time now to write. The mob having satisfied its appetite for blood, repaired to Third Street, and until midnight made demonstrations against the Times and Democrat offices. The furious crowd satisfied itself, however, with breaking a few window panes and burning the sign of the Times office.
At one o’clock this morning a large fire is raging in the upper part of the city.
Upon the proceedings of yesterday and last night we have no time nor heart now to comment. We are sickened with the very thought of the men murdered and houses burned and pillaged, that signalized the American victory yesterday. Not less than twenty corpses form the trophies of this wonderful achievement.