Laurens County Riot Adventure: before the election

(or: I gotta go see a man about a horse)

(the following 3-part story is taken from testimony given by Erastus on July 4th 1871 during a Congressional Hearing held in Columbia SC)

I started for Union, that is 80 miles away and out of my district, on Saturday the 14th to get a horse I had bought off Colonel Baker. I bought the horse there on Monday the 16th, and on Tuesday the 17th I was taking him across from Union to Laurens on my way back to Anderson – still 40 miles away - taking me across the country.

Along the way I met a good many armed men riding across on the road from Laurens; they were on the way coming from the cross-roads, falling in; they did not disturb me any. I got to Laurens on the night of Tuesday the 17th. Colonel Smith, of the Eighth United States Infantry, was there on the edge of town with his troops. I knew him very well. He thought it was not exactly prudent for me to go further until after the election on the 19th. I did not think that was a very quiet place to stay two or three days on my journey, but I thought it was much safer to stay there than to travel alone between there and Anderson. I wrote to my wife, in a letter that it was not safe for me to go across. There is a portion between Anderson and Laurens Counties that has a bad reputation and is the worst portion of the country. Anderson is very quiet, except two places; one is called Bushy Creek, and I would not say that is not quiet; but I have had two very tough scrimmages there with men, in trying to enforce the law against distillers.

The Colonel and I had a talk and he had told me some things about Joe Crews. If Mr. Crews has been reported to me correctly regarding some of his political proceedings, he has done things that I never would do and do not believe in. I think if he had not said a great many things along about election time that were ill-advised and indiscreet, society would have been better off. I believe in pouring oil on all these difficulties, and would probably go as far as any man. There is a step beyond which a man cannot go without sacrificing his honor and believing his whole life. I think he is an un- scrupulous politician, and did things and made remarks that were ill-advised. Yet he was an influential man, a leader of the local negroes, and in charge of overseeing the coming election in the county.

I put my horse up at the hotel. The only people I knew in town were a Mr. Foulk, and a young man Mr. Powell; but I had no conversations with them at all. Otherwise, no one knew me in town, so far as I knew, and I got along very well.

On the night of the Wednesday 18th the local men - citizens of the place and those who came in - commenced to discussing what was to take place the next day. They were at the door of the Hotel and they were discussing the probabilities of a row. The country people were coming into the town very fast that night to vote. The young ones would discuss the probabilities of a row, and say “Well, if it has to come, it might as well come now as any time.” They laid out plans for it, by saying what they could do. I mingled with them on purpose to get on the right side of them and to not get into any difficulty myself. They discussed the probabilities of the troops interfering. They said they did not want to raise trouble with the troops of the United States, only with the State constables, for they had no business there. There was a great deal of conversation of that nature.

I went to bed, and mounted armed men were riding all night. I slept on the lower floor, next to the street. They stored their arms in a building across the street, and gave orders to have the horses where they could put their hands on them and not to have them unsaddled, and they went up into a room overhead which had a board floor, and there they talked about it. In the conversation they referred to a difficulty that had occurred in 1866; that it was two days after the row before the United States troops got there; that all of them had plenty of time to get away. They stated that the United States troops were not going to interfere, that the troops were ordered there to report to the sheriff, and that the sheriff had control of the posse comilatus ; that they were ordered to assist him, but could not assist him until they were called upon. I think positively that two-thirds of the white inhabitants of Laurens were on the posse comilatus. The elderly men counseled that there should be no riot, saying that it would not do.

They talked about how they would seize the ballot-boxes, and they laid a plan to seize one of the ballot-boxes. They were to ride up toward the country poll, and an Irishman was to bring the poll or the box. The party were to ride out toward this country poll—one of them to get into the wagon with the Irishman who was bringing the box in. He was to go from Laurens Court House to get the box, and this man was to seize the box, and they were to be at hand to render him whatever assistance might be necessary. This was to take place the next night after the election.

I sent a note to Mr. Crews saying I overheard this and that there were to be a hundred men coming from Clinton. I did not want to have anything to do with him, for I was afraid to be mixed up in it.