American Discord : The Republic and its People in the Civil War Era

The Evolution of the Public Memory of the Hamburg Massacre

KEVIN L. HUGHES

In the wake of two national tragedies—a white supremacist opening fire on black worshippers in a Charleston, South Carolina, church in 2015 and the death of a protestor of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017—debates over the twenty-first century relevance of Confederate memorials reached a fever pitch. In response around 115 memorials came down, some officially removed by local municipalities and others felled by impromptu protestors. Such support, however, has not been unanimous. In many areas of the country officials have chosen to ignore criticisms, and in some cases have gone so far as to pass legislation designed to protect Confederate monuments from removal.1 In the midst of this controversy, one of the most blatantly racist memorials to white supremacy may provide a blueprint for how to productively settle this contentious debate.

Located in a small park in North Augusta, South Carolina’s central thoroughfare, a single obelisk has cast a shadow on the city for over a century. Dedicated in 1916, the monument honors the sacrifice of Thomas McKie Meriwether, the one white man killed in what is now commonly known as the Hamburg Massacre. Its inscriptions are silent on the seven African Americans who lost their lives in the event—four of whom were executed in cold blood by Meriwether’s compatriots—and instead celebrates Meriwether’s sacrifice to “Anglo-Saxon civilization.” Despite its unconcealed racism, the monument still stands.

Historical memory has of course been a popular area of inquiry for historians in recent decades, particularly for those studying the Civil War and its aftermath, but as cities across the country debate the removal of Confederate monuments and the rechristening of buildings, roads, and bridges named after famous Confederates, it seems as if the general public’s interest in collective memory is growing as well. A cursory glance at the discourse surrounding these disputes, however, hints that the average American may not, as of yet, acknowledge a key principle of memory that most historians take for granted—that collective memory is both imagined and malleable. In light of this, a closer look at the evolution of the memory of the Hamburg Massacre and its subsequent commemorations could prove particularly useful.2

The German entrepreneur Henry Schultz built the town of Hamburg opposite the riverbank of Augusta, Georgia, in 1822, with the notion of directly competing with its more established neighbor for a stake of the cotton trade. Though marginally successful early on, the Savannah River’s propensity for flooding and the steady improvements in Augusta’s rail and water transportation sent Hamburg into a steady decline. In the wake of the Civil War, however, the town enjoyed a brief resurgence as many freedpeople from surrounding areas relocated there.3

The incident that would ingrain Hamburg in infamy began as a disagreement between a black militia company and two white men. On July 4, 1876, Thomas Butler and his cousin Henry Getzen were traveling home down Hamburg’s Market Street when they came upon a local company of the South Carolina National Guard, made up mostly of freedmen.4 According to Butler and Getzen, the parading militia, under the command of Captain D. L. “Doc” Adams, blocked the road and refused to allow the carriage to pass. On the other hand, the freedmen argued that Butler and Getzen charged toward the head of the column, provoking a confrontation. Words were exchanged, and though this incident ended without bloodshed, Butler and Getzen appealed to the court claiming to have been wrongfully detained by the militia.5 The disagreement clearly delineated competing worldviews, with whites essentially claiming sole ownership of public spaces and thus deeming the black militia trespassers.6

Upon receiving the complaint, Justice Prince Rivers began an inquest to investigate the incident. Rivers, a former slave who had risen to prominence as a Republican, faced the difficult task of diffusing the growing animus between the two sides, which by now was nearing critical mass. The two white men procured prominent South Carolina lawyer and former Confederate General Matthew Calbraith Butler to represent them. At the initial hearing, Adams briefly appeared as a witness but was uncooperative. This forced Rivers to hold Adams in contempt and to order a delay until July 6 at 4:00 in the afternoon.7

By the time the case was to resume a large number of armed whites, estimated to be at least one hundred in number, had gathered on the scene and committed themselves to the command of Butler. Most were South Carolinians and members of the paramilitary white supremacist group the “Red Shirts,” who were committed to controlling the election of 1876 through intimidation and violence. They were also joined by a number of Georgians from nearby Augusta, who crossed the river and added to the growing mob. Fearing for their lives, Doc Adams and the militiamen refused to return to the courthouse at the allotted time and instead prepared to defend themselves.8

With the situation spiraling toward violence, Butler erroneously assured Rivers that he could peaceably disarm Adams and the militia. Seeing no other recourse, Rivers conceded, and Butler set off to confront the militiamen. Not surprisingly, Adams and his men refused to disarm and instead sought refuge inside the Sibley building, their brick armory located near a railroad bridge that crossed the Savannah River into Georgia. Butler’s men, by now numbering in the hundreds, prepared to lay siege to the structure. Accounts of who fired first vary, but soon a “miniature battle” broke out, and the first to fall was Thomas McKie Meriwether. Who fired the shot that struck him in the head remains unsettled, but Meriwether died within five minutes of receiving the wound.9

As the sun set and darkness led to a pause in the fighting, Adams surveyed his options. The militia men had defended their position well, but their opposition continued to grow in size. Even more concerning, word began to spread through the ranks that the whites had procured a small cannon from Augusta and were preparing to use it. Hopelessly outnumbered and fearing what would happen if he either surrendered or resumed fighting, Adams ordered his men to quietly slip away from the building and scatter into the countryside. The men complied, and all but one escaped. A volley from the white mob killed James Cook, who also served as Hamburg’s sheriff, as he attempted to flee.10

When Butler and his men discovered their prey had fled, they began pursuit. The Augusta Chronicle described the feverish search, as an estimated 250 men combed Hamburg. The search yielded around two dozen African American men, some of whom were discovered hiding under steps or floorboards. By now it was 2:00 a.m., and the whites transported their black hostages near the river to debate their fate.11

General Butler had allegedly ordered the prisoners to be transported to the Aiken County jail and left the scene, but at some point those orders were abandoned. One by one the white militia identified black men they considered to be ring leaders and singled them out to be executed. For sport, some were allowed to run only to be shot in the back as they fled. At least four men, Allan Attaway, David Phillips, Hampton Stephens, and Albert Myniart, were executed in this manner, and several others were wounded when “as the remainder of the prisoners were turned loose, they were fired into.”12 Another, Moses Parks, died sometime during the night, though there is some degree of uncertainty as to when and where his death occurred.13

No one was ever punished for the bloodshed at Hamburg. Republican Governor Daniel H. Chamberlain immediately condemned the violence and wrote to Washington in hopes of federal intervention. He justified his request by arguing that if “large bodies of citizens can be coerced by force or fear into absenting themselves from the polls, or voting in a way contrary to their judgment or inclination, the foundation of every man’s civil freedom is deeply if not fatally shaken.” The president responded promptly, and while he agreed that the actions of the white militia were “cruel, bloodthirsty, wanton, unprovoked, and uncalled for,” he lamented that such intimidation had become a common tactic throughout the South. With that in mind, Grant encouraged the governor to use the power at his disposal to pursue justice in the case but refused to intervene.14 A coroner’s jury indicted ninety-four white men for the murders at Hamburg, but none were ever prosecuted.15

How the events at Hamburg would be remembered was contentious from the start. Augusta’s two daily newspapers covered the story extensively, even before the actual fighting took place. On July 8, the Chronicle had published an account of the standoff between Butler, Getzen, and the Hamburg militia. Not surprisingly, the paper came down solidly on the side of the whites, asserting that Judge Rivers was “making every effort in his power to preserve the supremacy of the civil law, which [the Hamburg militia] violate on every occasion.” When Rivers was forced to hold Doc Adams in contempt and suspend the case, the paper declared it the “second time during the week that white citizens have been insulted by these marauders, and we are satisfied justice will be dealt out to them now that the matter is in the hands of a civil officer.”16

When the sun rose the morning after the massacre, it still was not clear exactly what had occurred. Nonetheless, the Chronicle breathlessly reported what it called “a pitched battle in Hamburg,” under the thick-lettered headline: “War of Races.” As an addendum, the last paragraph of the story described the murder of the black prisoners. An editorial in the same issue called the event an “unfortunate affair” but also asserted “that for some time past” the Hamburg militia had “been a source of great annoyance, as well as a real danger to the people of Edgefield County.” The editorial ended by reminding readers, “We cannot help but condemn lynch law in South Carolina as we have always condemned it in Georgia, but when we censure the deed, we must also remember the provocation.”17

As it became clear that several unarmed men had been executed, the Chronicle softened its tone. Headlines calling the affair “The Hamburg Troubles” appeared less and less and were replaced instead with the moniker “The Hamburg Tragedy.” A July 11 editorial explicitly condemned the killing of the prisoners, noting that at the time the paper first published the story, “We had not heard of the fate of the prisoners, or we should have condemned in fitting phrase their cruel and unnecessary murder.” In this most stinging local critique, the Chronicle declared, “There is no extenuation of the butchery of unarmed and helpless captives. In real war such a deed would receive the execration of all civilized nations. How much more should it be reprobated when no state of war exists.”18 Such condemnation of the actions of the white militia was rare among southern papers, especially among those who supported the Democratic Party.

Conversely, most newspapers outside of the South condemned the bloodshed at Hamburg. The San Francisco Chronicle labeled the event an “outrage” carried out by a “late Rebel General.”19 Furthermore, the paper argued that “to speak” of the event as “a ‘riot’ or a ‘disorder’” was “monstrous,” as it was nothing less than “a deliberate, devilish, cold-blooded murder.”20 Likewise, the Hartford Daily Courant referred to the white militia as “the Hamburg murderers” and the event as the “Hamburg Massacre.”21 The Christian Advocate called it “the most barbarous and fiendish massacre in modern times.”22

The Chicago Daily Tribune further highlighted the sectional nature of the coverage by labeling it “the Confederate defense of Hamburg.” “Georgia Democrats,” the paper contended, “went over to Hamburg, S.C., and murdered a half-score or so of Republicans, whose only offense consisted of having black skin and voting the Republican ticket,” an outrage which several southern papers “openly and boldly” justified. Dumbfounded by such support, the Tribune rhetorically asked where else can “a mob . . . get together, seize upon citizens, imprison some of them, shoot others, and then pillage their residences, and not only escape punishment, but have their deeds justified because the victims do not vote to suit the mob?”23 Echoing the Tribune’s coverage, the New York Times called the Hamburg killings a “slaughter” and branded the perpetrators as “white murderers.” Even if the residents of Hamburg were guilty of the litany of offenses put forth by Butler and his compatriots, the paper declared there to be no justification “for the whites taking the law into their own hands and visiting such fearful and disproportionate punishment upon the alleged offenders.”24

Harper’s Weekly ran at least two cartoons decrying the murders of the black prisoners. In one, famed cartoonist Thomas Nast sketched a personification of justice, with her scales unbalanced by the multitude of black bodies on one side and only Meriwether’s on the other. The foreground features the nation’s founding documents, while in the background posters listed white terrorist groups responsible for tipping the scales of justice against African Americans in the South.25

Black southerners interpreted the event similarly. Charleston’s African American community crafted a statement describing the actions of the white militia as “unmitigated and foul murder, premeditated and predetermined.” It further argued that the violence was meant to intimidate black laborers and voters and to “‘keep negroes in their place,’ as they say.” When the remaining portion of the address warned that African Americans may retaliate with their own violence, one newspaper dismissed the entire document as a fraud. For white southerners who refused to see African Americans as anything but docile, the address could only be “the product of some white incendiary intruder who would promote his own selfish ends at the expense of both races.”26

As time passed and no one was held responsible for the deaths, several outlets continued to demand justice. The Christian Advocate lamented that “because of the political and social ostracism of the colored people of the South, the ‘swift retribution’ demanded is delayed.” Particularly odious was the fact that “well known politicians, even in the halls of Congress, apologize for the perpetrators of the crime. Shame!”27 Likewise, the New York Witness flatly declared that “Butler and his gang . . . deserved to be hung, but we hear no word of their being even tried.”28

By now clear lines were drawn as to how each side would remember the events at Hamburg. The majority of southern whites chose to characterize it as a riot carried out by insolent and dangerous African Americans who had been justly put down by gallant white gentlemen. Others characterized the event differently. In their view, law-abiding members of a black militia had been ruthlessly murdered by a mob of whites who hoped to intimidate Republican voters and return political control of the state to the Democrats. More succinctly, most white southerners referred to the event as the Hamburg Riot. Most everyone else considered it the Hamburg Massacre.29

The election of Democrat Wade Hampton as governor in the fall of 1876, along with the end of federal intervention in the South, briefly extinguished national interest in the Hamburg Massacre. The story returned to the forefront just a year later, however, when South Carolina chose to send Butler to the US Senate. White South Carolinians certainly saw Butler as a heroic figure, but his provocative selection reignited the controversy over the Hamburg affair.

Several senators protested the appointment, citing Butler’s leadership during the Hamburg Massacre. Perhaps the most hyperbolic objection came from Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, who accused Butler of coming before the Senate “with his hands dripping with human gore.” Butler’s allies, on the other hand, rallied to his side, declaring him an upstanding citizen who was worthy of high office. Such a polarized political environment forced Butler to distance himself from the bloodshed at Hamburg. Instead he rehashed his old argument that the murders were the fault of a mob gone mad and that he had left the scene before the murders occurred. In the end, Butler assumed his Senate seat, though not without significant dissent.30

Ironically, Butler’s attempts to distance himself from the Hamburg Massacre proved a detriment later in his career. In 1894 he found himself embroiled in a battle for his Senate seat against Benjamin Tillman, the fiery populist governor who proudly boasted of partaking in the violence at Hamburg. With the Reconstruction era now long passed and the shadow of Jim Crow stretching across the South, participation in the Hamburg Massacre became a badge of honor for conservative whites. Thus Tillman enthusiastically reminded South Carolinians that Butler had repeatedly downplayed his role at Hamburg. For his part, Butler denied that Tillman had even been present at Hamburg in the first place, declaring that when the shooting started Tillman was “not to be found.” This struggle between Butler and Tillman demonstrated that the memory of what had occurred at Hamburg was malleable and still significant. In this case Tillman’s superior political organization carried the day, and he ascended to the US Senate, where he served until his death in 1918.31

In this manner, the “Hamburg Riot” continued to be recycled by white supremacists to rally support for Democratic candidates. Tillman’s own unrelenting reminders ensured that his followers never forgot that he was present at Hamburg. When speaking before a reunion of the Red Shirts in 1909, he chose to recount the struggle to “redeem” South Carolina. Never one to shy away from the subject, Tillman proudly stated that he had “nothing to conceal about the Hamburg Riot.” Continuing to speak frankly, he affirmed, “I told the Republicans in the Senate that we had to shoot negroes to get relief from the galling tyranny to which we had been subjected; and while my words were used in the Republican campaign book for 1900, I think my very boldness and the frankness with which I explained conditions did more to enlighten and disarm the fanatics than anything else I could have said.”32

Tillman’s recollection left no doubt as to the original intent of the white militia, as he flatly stated, “It had been the settled purpose of leading men of Edgefield to seize the first opportunity . . . to provoke a riot.” As to why they killed the seven African Americans, Tillman asserted, “It was generally believed that nothing but bloodshed and a good deal of it could answer the purpose of redeeming the state from negro and carpet bag rule.” Tillman judged the violence effective, noting that “the purpose of our visit to Hamburg was to strike terror, and the next morning (Sunday) when” those “who had fled to the swamp returned to the town . . . the ghastly sight which met their gaze of seven dead negroes lying stark and stiff certainly had its effect.”33

Tillman recalled the death of McKie Meriwether with particular sentiment in his reunion speech. The young man’s death had become a key component in the white supremacist memory of Hamburg and would soon become the focus of a statewide memorial project. In the meantime, Tillman kept Meriwether’s memory alive with a touching story of the man’s final moments. According to Tillman, McKie’s father, Joseph Meriwether, had joined the white mob carrying only a rifle. At that moment McKie, “a very handsome young man about twenty-five years of age came running towards” Joseph, “unbuckling his pistol belt.” “As he ran, he handed the two pistols to his father and said, ‘Here papa, take these and let me have the rifle.’” Tillman recalled that it was just a short time later when “we were all shocked and enraged by the news that young McKie Meriwether . . . had been killed.”34 Whether Tillman’s story was true or not is difficult to determine, but its intended effect is not. Conservative whites were determined to ensure that Carolinians remembered Meriwether’s death as a tragic sacrifice by a true hero of Hamburg.

Tillman’s speech also featured another important component of the white supremacist memory of Hamburg, as he drew parallels between the struggle to “redeem” South Carolina and America’s War for Independence. With particular flair Tillman declared, “The Spirit of 1776, which made Moultrie . . . man his palmetto fort and destroy Sir Peter Parker’s Fleet, pulsated in the bosom of every brave Carolinian, when they learned a body of seventy-five poorly armed whites had dared to attack a legally organized militia company, capture its armory, and then put to death some of its members.”35 Without the Hamburg Massacre, Tillman speculated, there would likely have been no “Redemption” for South Carolina in 1876. Thus the events at Hamburg became of mythical importance for the white supremacist narrative.

Southern newspapers also occasionally recounted the Hamburg story in historical columns meant to educate a new generation of readers on past events. In one such column, the author made sure to take the opportunity to denigrate the black militia and their leadership, remembering Doc Adams as “a smart fellow, but awfully unruly and self-willed.” Offering further social commentary on the perils of emancipation, the paper lamented that “with freedom” Adams, “unrestrained, rejected the influences that had been thrown about him by his master.” In contrast, Adams’s mother was remembered as a “prized . . . good old negress,” who “was greatly distressed by the part her son played in the rioting in 1876.” In just a few short paragraphs, this column managed to reinforce both the white supremacist memory of Hamburg and the Lost Cause myth of plantations filled with docile slaves.36

In this manner, the memory of the Hamburg Massacre continued to live on, particularly for white southerners who glorified the actions of the white militia. As time passed, the white supremacist view of what happened at Hamburg slowly became the dominant memory of the event, as talk of the Hamburg Riot drowned out recollections of the Hamburg Massacre. As the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth, aged veteran Red Shirts and their admirers turned their attention to creating more permanent memorials, designed to transmit the white supremacist memory of the events at Hamburg to future generations.

The first was a modest project to honor two unassuming citizens whose story was not well known. White South Carolinians pooled their resources and placed a monument on the otherwise unmarked graves of Reverend S. P. T. Field and his wife, Ann Dagnail Field, of Aiken. The Fields were otherwise “unostentatious, living in the ordinary channels of life, without title, or degree,” who ran a small bakery. Yet many deemed them worthy of recognition because of the kindness they had shown nearly forty years earlier. D. S. Henderson, the last surviving lawyer who had represented the white militiamen indicted for the incidents at Hamburg, explained why the family deserved to be recognized. According to Henderson, in the wake of the events at Hamburg, a large number of whites facing charges for their actions gathered in Aiken “getting their bails prepared.” Night fell leaving “many hungry, thirsty, men on the street.” “As they passed . . . the Field’s Bakery, the good old couple came to the door, and invited the hungry crowd to come in and eat up everything in the store, refusing to take a cent for it.” Reporting on the monument’s unveiling, the Augusta Chronicle revealed the efficacy of remembering not just the Fields but the now mythical tale of South Carolina’s Redemption campaign, noting that “nineteen years after [the Fields’s] death their memory is fresh and alive in the memory of not only those who intimately knew them, but the whole of Aiken County, and all over South Carolina.”37

With this project complete, admirers shifted their energies toward erecting a monument to commemorate the death of McKie Meriwether. The prospect first gained steam in the South Carolina legislature, where J. P. DeLaughter of Edgefield sponsored a joint resolution to appropriate $400 toward the project. Though the measure passed unanimously, South Carolina’s governor, Coleman Livingston Blease, vetoed the appropriation.38 DeLaughter countered by giving a speech before the house to rally support to overturn the governor’s veto. It was his first speech on the house floor in his two-year career, and according to the Edgefield Advertiser, it “yielded results.” DeLaughter “painted a picture of the scene at the Hamburg riot . . . in which McKie Meriwether laid down his life to redeem South Carolina from Radical rule.” In response to DeLaughter’s “stirring maiden speech,” the house overturned the veto by a vote of eighty to four, and “members crowded around [DeLaughter] to offer their congratulations.”39

With this initial contribution secured, the search for private donations began in earnest. McKie Meriwether’s cousin, James B. McKie, was one of the men chosen to oversee the monument’s construction. In an appeal for contributions, McKie lamented that the appropriation of the legislature was “so small—about one fourth the value of an antebellum slave.” “To this end,” he wrote that he “would appreciate and duly acknowledge any contributions to the fund.”40 In response, McKie secured a small contribution from a famous donor, the aging Benjamin Tillman himself. In a personal letter to McKie, Tillman declared, “I am prompted to assist you in getting money for the purpose of erecting a monument to that brave and splendid boy—he was little else than a boy when he was killed.” Tillman enclosed a check for twenty-five dollars and regretted that he could not afford to give more. He closed his letter by suggesting that McKie be sure to “get someone with good literary taste to write the inscription for the monument” and offered his sincere hope that enough money would be raised for the monument to build a “worthy one.”41

The ladies of the North Augusta Civic League also worked tirelessly to see the Meriwether monument come to fruition. In the wake of the Civil War, women’s auxiliary clubs took the lead in organizing Confederate memorial services and monuments and in fostering and preserving the Lost Cause myth. In December 1914, Mrs. A. M. Parker continued this tradition by delivering a paper titled “The Cause and Effects of the Hamburg Riot” before the Civic League. Parker filled her paper to the brim with the key elements of the white supremacist memory of the Hamburg Massacre and of the Reconstruction era in general. In setting up her story she described the “deplorable state of affairs” during the postwar era, a time when “law . . . gave to every ignorant negro the right to vote and hold any office in South Carolina, taking such rights from white men connected with the Confederacy.” Parker blamed black militia companies for terrorizing whites, opining that “drums could be heard all night. Smokehouses were robbed. Produce taken from wagons along roads, and any resistance meant you would be knocked on the head.” As if this hyperbolic depiction was not enough, she added, “Houses were burned. Children’s faces slapped. And on all sides, ignorant negro officers.”42

Parker was particularly vicious in defaming Hamburg’s black community. Hinting that the town’s economic decline was due to emancipation and African American influence, she noted “Hamburg’s streets now overrun with pickaninnies and washer women, were at that time [1876] very prosperous looking.” Parker described the African American magistrate, Prince Rivers, “as black as a crow and as slick as a peeled onion, as shiny as a new mirror.” She reveled in the fact that Rivers “had a very elaborate library,” yet she alleged he “could neither read nor write, and signed his name in a kind of a scroll.” Furthering the stereotypical depiction of emancipated slaves as incapable of fulfilling the serious duties of office, Parker noted that Rivers “used a typical low country dialect and as a magistrate was absurd in the extreme.” In defense of the murder of the black prisoners, Parker ironically noted, “It is sometimes thought that [they] were shot at random, but this was not true, for only those who had committed some crime were shot, except in an instance or two.”43

In a letter to the editor of the Edgefield Advertiser in May 1915, G. W. Medlock stressed that the proposed monument to Meriwether was to honor much more than just the sacrifice of one man. He reminded readers that Americans construct “towering monuments to the heroes of the past, not so much for perpetuating the deeds of some individual, as that of the cause for which they freely offered themselves.” Thus the proposed memorial would not just honor Meriwether but would also serve as “a reminder of the times when the young men” of South Carolina “arose as one man and prompted alone by a high sense of patriotism, dared to risk life and personal liberty, in fact everything they held most dear in the effort to break up the degrading conditions, that existed as a result of the Civil War.” The Hamburg Riot, Medlock reasoned, was the major turning point in this struggle and therefore deserved to be memorialized. “All we have to do is raise the money,” he declared, “and that should be easy to do.”44 Easy or not, donors eventually responded to the many calls for aid, and sufficient funds were raised.

Organizers scheduled the long-awaited unveiling of the Meriwether monument for February 16, 1916. They secured D. S. Henderson, still active in the Hamburg memorial efforts, as keynote speaker, and the South Carolina legislature offered to send a delegation of three senators and three representatives to attend. An Augusta Chronicle article urged Georgians to cross the river and attend the ceremony as well, calling it “but proper that men and women of this city be present,” because white Georgians had so prominently participated in the event.45

When the day of the event finally arrived, the crowds did not disappoint. People from all over South Carolina and Georgia gathered at North Augusta’s high school, just across from the monument. Henderson’s keynote speech held the attention of the audience, estimated at over one thousand, for nearly an hour. In it, he emphasized the active nature of memory, affirming that the purpose of the monument was not just to honor Meriwether’s sacrifice but to “perpetuate the memory and the cause which he represented.” Henderson avowed that the unveiling of the monument was not to be the end of the story, declaring that “McKie Meriwether died, but his spirit survives.” He assured his listeners that though “the white man’s revolution of 1876 is numbered among the past epochs of history, its lessons and experiences remain to be applied to the perplexities and hopes of American life and American ambition in 1916.” If one wonders what lessons Henderson had in mind, one need look no further than earlier in his speech where he spoke of the results of the “white man’s revolution.” “We have lived to see the day,” he said, “where the negro, ceasing to be in position to act as a tool for political charlatans, is satisfied with his normal condition, as an equal to the white man in the eye of the law, but not his equal politically or socially.”46

When the speeches were complete the crowd exited the high school and gathered, their heads uncovered, as female relatives of Meriwether ceremoniously unveiled the monument for the first time. The obelisk itself was twenty-one feet high, made of granite from Winnsboro, South Carolina, and weighed twenty-seven thousand pounds. Inscriptions covered all four sides, each echoing the same theme. One declared the monument dedicated to “Thomas McKie Meriwether, who on 8th of July, 1876, gave his life that the civilization builded by his fathers might be preserved for the children unimpaired.” Another offered “forever the grateful remembrance of all who know high and general service in maintaining these civil and social institutions which the men and women of his race had struggled through the centuries to establish in South Carolina.” As if these two inscriptions were not clear enough, another side declared, “In life [Meriwether] exemplified the highest ideal of Anglo-Saxon civilization. By his death, he assured to the children of his beloved land the supremacy of that ideal.”47 The dedication of a monument to disseminate and preserve this message marked the victory of the white supremacist memory of the Hamburg Massacre, a remembrance which stood unchallenged for nearly a century.

In recent years, momentum has begun to shift toward a more inclusive memory of the bloodshed at Hamburg. In 2011, the North Augusta Heritage Council, a nonprofit group, sponsored a new historical marker that recalls the details of the massacre. Though it does not name names, it recounts that “after a dispute between whites and a black militia company, about 200 men from local rifle clubs tried to disarm 38 black militiamen and others barricaded in a warehouse. One white was killed and men on each side were wounded before the blacks fled. Two blacks were killed trying to escape. Whites captured 25–30 blacks and executed four of them. 87 whites were charged in the massacre but were never tried for it.”48

In 2016, the city of North Augusta again memorialized the Hamburg Massacre by erecting a new memorial stone honoring all of those who died. As a goodwill gesture, McKie Meriwether’s name is included with the names of the black victims. The ceremony was part of a larger vision of a Hamburg renaissance, which includes plans for a future Hamburg museum. This renewed interest in Hamburg has continued in recent years, with plans for multiple projects currently in the works. The Aiken County Historical Museum has recently received funding to create a film about Hamburg in conjunction with Aiken County schools. The completed project will allow students throughout the state to take a virtual fieldtrip to the now defunct town. The Heritage Council of North Augusta also has received a grant to compile a history of Hamburg, including the massacre.49

Yet the trajectory of the memory of the Hamburg Massacre continues to raise uncomfortable questions. Despite all the renewed interest in recognizing the victims of this heinous violence, the obelisk to Meriwether remains, complete with its racially tinged inscriptions. The new historical marker and memorial stone are located several miles away, in a part of North Augusta that was once known as Carrsville. It was here that much of the area’s African American community relocated when in 1929 back-to-back floods led to the abandonment of Hamburg. The marker and memorial stone sit in front of the Carrsville Society House, a decaying building made from boards painstakingly moved from Hamburg. The structure is scheduled to be renovated and to eventually house the proposed Hamburg museum. It is here that local historian and activist Wayne O’Bryant hopes to create an African American historical district, likely to be called the Hamburg district.50

There is also a more practical reason for placing Hamburg memorials here rather than more prominent locations such as where the massacre occurred or near the Meriwether monument. The Carrsville location offers the best protection from potential vandals. A generic Hamburg historical marker noting the town’s growth and decline, placed near the Savannah River in 1963 by the County Historical Commission, vanished in 2004. Some organizers fear that a more prominent monument to the Hamburg Massacre could suffer a similar fate.

Perhaps the most difficult question is what should be done with the Meriwether monument. As cities and towns across the South continue to debate the efficacy of Confederate memorials, one would be hard pressed to find a monument more clearly erected to white supremacy than the Meriwether obelisk. One could also make a sound argument that the monument is an affront to the memory of the African American lives lost during the massacre, as well as to all those who suffered through the decades-long era of segregation and Jim Crow, and therefore should be removed.

In 2017, activist Ken Makin stepped up to the podium at a meeting of the city council and requested the city review and denounce the monument. In response, Mayor Bob Pettit formed an ad hoc committee to investigate and recommend how to proceed.51 The biggest obstacle to simply removing the monument is South Carolina’s Heritage Act, a 2000 law that requires a two-thirds vote in both houses of the state legislature in order to remove a historical monument.52 To bypass this obstacle, Pettit and his committee have suggested adding to the original obelisk to both honor the African Americans killed in the massacre and educate the public on Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era.53

Any such attempt to update the memorial, however, is fraught with difficulty. First, there is a legitimate concern that allowing input from a variety of stakeholders will result in compromises that water down the message and further whitewash the memory of the Hamburg Massacre. Such concerns are not without warrant and have led some activists to reject these plans. Responding to the mayor’s announcement, Makin argued that not removing the monument will not “decisively denounce white supremacy,” and “sends the wrong message.”54 Such a response is understandable, and if this middle-ground solution fails to present the history of both the Hamburg Massacre and its resulting memorial efforts in all of its white supremacist horror, then removal is clearly the answer. But if the city is truly committed to presenting the Hamburg memorial as an educational opportunity that demonstrates how white supremacists shaped a certain memory of the Civil War and Reconstruction era, and how that ill-conceived version of events continues to influence the historical understanding of many members of the general public, then the effort to reorient the Hamburg monument will serve an important role.

The Meriwether monument is a powerful reminder of how those in power can manipulate commemoration to aid their own agenda and of the pliability of memory in general. Conceivably, an updated memorial that tells the entire history of the evolution of the memory of the Hamburg Massacre would be a greater service to future generations, serving as a cautionary tale of the influences of remembrance and memorialization and potentially providing a blueprint for similar monuments throughout the country.

Notes

1. Rick Hampton, “Confederate Memorials Turn Up Faster Than They Can Be Removed a Year after Charlottesville,” USA Today, August 16, 2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/08/06/confederate-memorials-list-longer-usa-public-remove/891739002/.

2. Examples of the prominent works on Civil War memory include David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001); Caroline E. Janney, Remembering the Civil War: Reunion and the Limits of Reconciliation (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013); John R. Neff, Honoring the Civil War Dead: Commemoration and the Problem of Reconciliation (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005); Charles Reagan Wilson, Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865–1920 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980); Gaines M. Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat, the Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); William Blair, Cities of the Dead: Contesting the Memory of the Civil War in the South, 1865–1914 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004); and W. Fitzhugh Brundage, The Southern Past: A Clash of Race and Memory (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005).

3. Charles G. Cordle, “Henry Shultz and the Founding of Hamburg, South Carolina,” in Studies in Georgia History and Government, ed. James C. Bonner and Lucien E. Roberts (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1940); Rosser H. Taylor, “Hamburg: An Experiment in Town Promotion,” North Carolina Historical Review 11 (January 1934): 20–38.

4. Henry Getzen’s surname is spelled a variety of ways throughout the historical record, sometimes appearing as Getson, Gettson, or Getzon.

5. Augusta Chronicle, July 8, 1876; George C. Rable, But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984), 166–167; Stephen Budiansky, The Bloody Shirt: Terror after Appomattox (New York: Penguin Group, 2008), 226–228; Stephen Kantrowitz, Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 65–66.

6. Kathleen Ann Clark, Defining Moments: African American Commemoration & Political Culture in the South, 1863–1913 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 128.

7. Augusta Chronicle, July 8, 9, 1876; Kantrowitz, Ben Tillman, 67–69; Rable, But There Was No Peace, 167; Budiansky, The Bloody Shirt, 228–230.

8. Kantrowitz, Ben Tillman, 64–71; Clark, Defining Moments, 126–127.

9. Augusta Chronicle, July 11, 1876; Budiansky, The Bloody Shirt, 232–233; Richard Zuczek, State of Rebellion: Reconstruction in South Carolina (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996), 161; Clark, Defining Moments, 126–127.

10. Augusta Chronicle, July 11, 1876; Budiansky, The Bloody Shirt, 233–234; Clark, Defining Moments, 126–127.

11. Augusta Chronicle, July 11, 1876; Kantrowitz, Ben Tillman, 69; Budiansky, The Bloody Shirt, 233–234, Clark, Defining Moments, 126–127.

12. Augusta Chronicle, July 9, 1876; Rable, But There Was No Peace, 167; Kantrowitz, Ben Tillman, 69; Budiansky, The Bloody Shirt, 235–237; Zuczek, State of Rebellion, 164; Clark, Defining Moments, 126–127. For more on lynching of African Americans in the postbellum South, see William D. Carrigan, ed., Lynching Reconsidered: New Perspectives in the Study of Mob Violence (New York: Routledge, 2008); W. Fitzhugh Brundage, Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880–1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1993); W. Fitzhugh Brundage, ed., Under Sentence of Death: Lynching in the South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1997); Edward L. Ayers, The Promise of the New South: Life after Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 156–157, 495–496; Michael J. Pfeifer, Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society, 1878–1946 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004); and Kidada E. Williams, They Left Great Marks on Me: African American Testimonies of Racial Violence from Emancipation to World War I (New York: NYU Press, 2012).

13. Congress, House of Representatives, Condition of South Carolina, Views of the Minority, 44th Cong., 2nd Sess., appendix to the Congressional Record, 234.

14. Friends’ Intelligencer (Philadelphia), August 12, 1876.

15. William Stone to Daniel H. Chamberlain, July 12, 1876, Letters Received in Governors’ Papers for Daniel H. Chamberlain, South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, SC, S518004; Kantrowitz, Ben Tillman, 70.

16. Augusta Chronicle, July 8, 1876; Clark, Defining Moments, 128, Kantrowitz, The Bloody Shirt, 242–243.

17. Augusta Chronicle, July 9, 1876.

18. Augusta Chronicle, July 11, 1876.

19. San Francisco Chronicle, July 21, 1876.

20. San Francisco Chronicle, July 26, 1876.

21. Hartford Daily Courant, August 12, July 13, 1876.

22. Christian Advocate (Chicago), August 3, 1876.

23. Chicago Daily Tribune, July 22, 1876.

24. New York Times, July 24, 1876.

25. Harper’s Weekly, August 12, 1876.

26. Baltimore Sun, July 25, 1876; Clark, Defining Moments, 127.

27. Christian Advocate (Chicago), August 3, 1876.

28. Reprinted in Augusta Chronicle, March 24, 1877.

29. In Race and Reunion, David Blight identifies three strands of memory that emerged from the Civil War. African Americans and their close allies embraced an emancipationist vision that emphasized slavery’s demise and the promise of racial equality as the major results of the Civil War. White supremacists rejected this view, often resorting to violence in order to maintain a racial order where black people were subjugated. Blight’s final group encompasses the majority of whites, in both the North and South, who chose to downplay emancipation and racial justice in order to more quickly reconcile the two regions. While several historians have identified weaknesses in Blight’s categories, in this case the dominant memory of the events at Hamburg generally fit into Blight’s white supremacist strand. Blight, Race and Reunion, 1–5.

30. Press and Daily Dakotian, February 10, 1881.

31. Kantrowitz, Ben Tillman, 161–162.

32. Edgefield (SC) Advertiser, December 23, 1914; Times and Democrat (Orangeburg, SC), September 11, 1909.

33. Edgefield (SC) Advertiser, December 23, 1914; Times and Democrat (Orangeburg, SC), September 11, 1909.

34. Edgefield (SC) Advertiser, December 23, 1914, Times and Democrat (Orangeburg, SC), September 11, 1909.

35. Abbeville (SC) Press and Banner, October 6, 1909. Further emphasizing the connection between Hamburg and the American Revolution, the Abbeville Press and Banner published the entirety of Tillman’s Red Shirt reunion speech under the headline “The Struggle of ’76.” Most other papers ran the story under the headline “The Dark Days,” which was likely the headline of choice for either Tillman or his associates, who distributed the speech for publication. See Times and Democrat (Orangeburg, SC), September 11, 1909; Fort Mill (SC) Times, September 16, 1909; Manning (SC) Times, September 15, 1909.

36. Augusta Chronicle, October 12, 1914. For more on the Lost Cause, see Gary W. Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan, eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000); Wilson, Baptized in Blood; Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy; Blight, Race and Reunion, 255–299; and Brundage, Southern Past.

37. Augusta Chronicle, February 8, 1910.

38. Anderson (SC) Daily Intelligencer, February 20, 1914; Pickens (SC) Sentinel, March 22, 1914.

39. Edgefield (SC) Advertiser, March 11, 1914; Herald and News (Newberry, SC), March 10, 1914. For more on southern monument projects and their influence on southern memory, see Brundage, The Southern Past, 1–54; Blight, Race and Reunion, 80–81, 272–283; Wilson, Baptized in Blood, 18–24; Neff, Honoring the Civil War Dead, 146–147; Janney, Remembering the Civil War, 261–265; and Cynthia Mills and Pamela H. Simpson, eds., Monuments to the Lost Cause: Women, Art, and the Landscapes of Southern Memory (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2003).

40. Augusta Chronicle, December 7, 1914.

41. Augusta Chronicle, December 26, 1914.

42. Bamberg (SC) Herald, December 24, 1914. For more on the role southern white women played in perpetuating the memory of the Lost Cause, see Caroline E. Janney, Burying the Dead But Not the Past: Ladies’ Memorial Associations and the Lost Cause (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008); Karen L. Cox, Dixie’s Daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Preservation of Confederate Culture (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003); Brundage, The Southern Past, 1–54; Blight, Race and Reunion, 71, 97, 255–256, 272–278; Lesley J. Gordon, “Let the People See the Old Life as It Was: LaSalle Corbell Pickett and the Myth of the Lost Cause,” in The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, ed. Gary W. Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), 170–180; Clark, Defining Moments, 53–55, 112–117; and Janney, Remembering the Civil War, 9–10, 54, 92–100, 123, 140, 234–235, 238–245, 259, 283–284, 295–301, 304.

43. Bamberg (SC) Herald, December 24, 1914.

44. Edgefield (SC) Advertiser, May 5, 1915.

45. Augusta Chronicle, February 15, 16, 1916; Edgefield (SC) Advertiser, January 12, 26, 1916.

46. Edgefield (SC) Advertiser, February 23, 1916; Augusta Chronicle, February 17, 1916; Budiansky, The Bloody Shirt, 280–281.

47. Edgefield (SC) Advertiser, January 26, 1916; Augusta Chronicle, February 13, 1916.

48. Aiken (SC) Standard, February 27, 2011.

49. Augusta Chronicle, March 6, 2016; North Augusta (SC) Star, July 7, 2017.

50. Augusta Chronicle, August 25, 2015.

51. Aiken (SC) Standard, November 11, 2018.

52. South Carolina General Assembly, South Carolina Heritage Act of 2000, 113th session, 2000, GB 4895; Kirk Brown, Nathaniel Cary, and Nikie Mayo-Anderson, “Gov. McMaster Doubts Efforts to Remove Confederate Monuments Will Spread to South Carolina,” Independent Mail, August 14, 2017, https://www.independentmail.com/story/news/local/2017/08/14/s-c-law-protects-confederate-monuments/566472001/.

53. Augusta Chronicle, December 2, 2018; “North Augusta Mayor Requests Changes to Monument,” WRDW.com, November 13, 2018, https://www.wrdw.com/content/news/North-Augusta-Mayor-Requests-Changes-To-Monument-500431291.html.

54. Dakin Andone, “This South Carolina Mayor Wants to Use a White Supremacist Monument to Teach about Unity,” CNN, November 24, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/24/us/south-carolina-white-supremacist-monument-trnd/index.html.