company organized under its liberal provisions. It is needless to say, that every company of whites was promptly rejected on the ground of disloyalty; and only colored companies and regiments were received.

But, the crowning enormity in this whole series of tyrannical usurpations, was the purchasing and issuing improved small arms, with an unlimited supply of fixed ammunition, to all the colored regiments throughout the State.

It required no prophet to foretell the deplorable results of such a reckless policy as this. To arm and equip the colored race, exclusively, constituting, as they did, so large a majority throughout the State, and, but a few years before, an ignorant and debased mob of emancipated slaves-could only be accounted for by turning to the desperate character of these leaders themselves, whose well-known policy was to "rule or ruin," or rather to ruin and rule.

In the middle and lower counties, where the Radical majorities were well assured, this game of organizing and arming the negroes, was played without serious consequences. As there was no object to be gained, in these counties, by supplementing the militia with the infamous constabulary force, this "playing sogers" was rather a source of amusement, and would have been enjoyed as such, had it not caused serious interruption to their plantation work, by their too frequent drilling and parading. Besides, it was embarrassing to set Col. Sambo and Maj. Cuffee to ditching the rice-fields, up to their middles in mud. and water-a work only suitable for high privates.

But it was desirable to these leaders to have them tickled with a sense of their importance and privileges as citizen-soldiers; and these organizations might be substituted for the Union Leagues, now beginning to flag in interest.

But in the upper and border counties, where the whites had a majority, or were so nearly equal as to make the result of a contest doubtful, the whole force of this party machinery, in both its branches, was brought to bear, with very memorable results.

Here the constabulary force flourished in full blast, and all their professional ingenuity was called into play to produce sensations, and to cause troubles the most serious. The militia companies were very much under their influence, and were drilled in other tactics beside the military.

To secure accuracy in the details in the working of these military and judicial devices, the writer will confine himself, in the next few chapters, to what occurred in the County of Laurens alone, during the political campaigns of 1870 and 1872.

1874.

CHAPTER FOURTH.

RECONSTRUCtion Continued.

LAURENS COUNTY.

The year 1870 will long be remembered by the citizens of Laurens County. Here it was doubtful how the contest between the Democratic or "Reform" party and the Radicals would result in the then approaching elections for State officers. The Democrats had carried the county two years before, but the Radicals claimed that they had not been fully organized at that time, and that the colored votes, in fact, outnumbered the whites.

It, therefore, presented a fair field for the introduction and manipulation of all their party contrivances, and the excitement soon became intense.

It becomes necessary, at the very outset, to make the reader acquainted with the recognized leader of the Radical party, in this county, and at that time. And among the many humiliations to which we have been subjected under reconstruction, it is not the least to be forced, not only to notice, but to give prominence to such vile characters as Joe Crews. But, as he was the type of a large class, who really became the leaders in these, the Dark Ages in South

Carolina, the reader must consent to a rather familiar acquaintance with him, in this local narrative.

Before the war, he was a low "negro-trader," making his bread by trafficking in negroes, and with negroes. In their most debased condition their nature was congenial with his own, and he so fully understood and appreciated their peculiar characteristics, that he found no difficulty in becoming their recognized leader in their changed condition; and in making more money out of them, and by means of their votes, than he ever did before the war. His availability was soon recognized in Columbia, and we shortly find him a "member of the Legislature," a "Commissioner of Elections," a "military Aid" to the redoubtable Scott, a "Trial Justice," and a general dispenser of all the local offices within the gift of the Governor. In Columbia, he was generally distinguished as among the scavengers of the carpetbag government-always a ready tool to do their "dirty work,"-which office he found to be no sine

cure.

As leader of the party in Laurens, he was entrusted with full powers to organize the militia, and to conduct the campaign according to his own notions, which were known to be unscrupulous enough. He soon had his companies filled up-some six or seven hundred stand of improved Springfield rifles issuedwith any amount of fixed ammunition with them.

A complete programme of military barbecues was arranged for the summer, always to be attended, armed and equipped, as the (party) law directed.

It was his harranguing at these barbecues that first fired the colored heart. Some of his speeches were listened to by respectable citizens, who testified in the public prints of the day, and over their own signatures, to his highly incendiary diatribes. Among very many other things, he advised the laborers, now that they had arms in their hands, to seize whatever of the crops they thought they ought to have, and if any fuss was made, they could easily burn them out, as matches were cheap. That they now had the ✔ power, and the white man must be taught to know his place.

Under such teachings as these, it was not to be wondered at, that companies of colored militia, in going to, and returning from these gatherings, with arms in their hands, should be insolent, and sometimes even violent towards their former owners. There were many instances of insults offered to ladies, while riding in their carriages over the public roads; and of indignities the most gross, perpetrated by them, on the premises of some obnoxious farmers.

All this may have been foreseen, and probably was foreseen by these leaders; but what cared they for law or peace, if they could only secure the votes? What cared they for the restiveness and indignation of the white man, who, himself disarmed, was thus forced to witness the marching and counter-marching of his former slaves about his premises; these being assured too, that they could trample upon all law, with impunity? These leaders knew that there was no tribunal, State or Federal, to which he could ap