Laurens County Riot Adventure: The Escape

(or: I don't like the smell of this!")

The next morning, Saturday the 21st, I got up and came down. When I came down stairs a man came up and inquired for me; it was Hugh Farley. Now, this is the only reason I have for thinking those men were Ku-Klux. 'Mr. Farley had got into a trouble with his hands in 1866, and I straightened it out; that was on Edisto Island. He is a perfect gentleman About my age ; about thirty-three; he had been a confederate officer, an aide-de-camp, and knew me well. He was a coast man, and had moved up here within a year. I did not know he was there. The influence he seemed to exert over these young men, impressed me with a strong conviction that it was the result of this organization of the Ku-Klux.
He said he was sorry to see me there. He treated me very kindly. I told him the whole of the circumstances. I had to promise Farley that if he would see me safe through, I would come down here and go before the executive committee of the reform party and make a statement. (I had no intention of actually doing so, but felt it was something I had to say under the circumstances). It was understood by Mr. Copeland and by Mr. Little, and by a lawyer, Olin D. Yeast, from Greenville, who turned up there in the crowd, at Mr. Copeland's house, that I was to make this statement. They gave me written passes. One was signed by Mr. Yeast, protecting me wherever I should be; and one by Mr. Farley, and one by Mr. Little and Mr. Copeland. They were to protect me. They were written in this way: “That whoever might meet with me should treat me with respect and kindness”, and signed by these men.

Farley thought it was pretty rough, and said, "I will see you out." While he was there talking to me this man Spencer, who had been going to shoot me anyhow, came up and apologized to me for being so rash, and said he had thought I was a State constable, and if he had known I was a United States officer he never would have done so; although he had done so after I had already told him I was a United States officer. I shook hands with him, of course.

Mr. Farley went back about ten miles and got my horse for me to go away. I had observed enough of him while there to know that he had some influence with these riders. They were constantly coming and going. I had watched him, and I saw that he was an influential man. I said to him, "Farley, I do not know about this. I do not doubt your intention to see me straight down to Newberry ; I know your word is good ; but what can you do if those men undertake to put me up in any way ? " He said, "They are not going to touch you." I took Mr. Copeland and Captain Little to one side. They were Masons; Mr. Farley was not. Said I, "Can I trust myself in that man's hands ?" They both told me I could go anywhere I pleased, to Newberry or Laurens, with him. They gave me their word for it, and that was sufficient. This is the same Mr. Little I referred to as having saved me. He was back there, and stuck pretty close to me. He would be coming and going sometimes, and was gone away two or three hours or more at a time. Mr. Farley and I started about dusk from Mr. Copeland’s for Newberry. We had a long talk and talked about the conflict of the races. He did not think they would ever live together unless they were colonized.
We got to Martin’s Depot and there saw Wade Perrin’s body lying by the side of the rode dead, with his pockets turned inside out. We stopped and went into a doctor’s and asked him to call the coroner, which he promised to do. Then we went on.

We met five different squads stationed along the road, numbering from twenty to forty men. At one place we stopped at a well and there were forty or fifty. Some of them had their horses at the fences eating forage—the same as we did in the army when out foraging. At the Clinton Corners there were as many as one hundred. I would stop short about a gun-shot distance and Mr. Farley would ride ahead and talk with them, and we would then come on. In that way we went on to within twelve miles of Newberry. Mr. Farley seemed to have so much influence over these men that they must have been Ku-Klux and he one of them

In the night; we were riding along at the time talking over old times and the different places where we had been, he on the one side and I on the other, during the war. We were pleasant enough together. I noticed in a field some lights, and I said, "Farley, you are an old campaigner and know that that is not in a house." He said, "Yes, it is in so and so's house." I said, " No, you are mistaken." He rode on ahead perhaps six or seven yards, and as I got near the open field and right abreast of this light a rocket went over the road. I said " I told you that was not in a house." "What?" said he. "That rocket; did you see it?" said I. He said, "No; that was only a meteor." I noticed that the subject was disagreeable to him, and as I was not really my own master I dropped it. We then stopped at Dr. Gerry's about twelve o’clock or a little before. Mr. Furley gave me his revolver, and we stayed there until morning.

I got to Newberry the next morning, and a good many of the same troops were there. I knew them as soon as I saw them. Many of them I recognized as having seen them at Copeland's house. It seems that they had passed me in the night. They sat around with pants in their boots and with their revolvers strung. With them all sitting around there I felt no safer than before. I told Farley, " Here is the worst place I have struck yet. Here is Hamilton, a man that I have run for thousands of miles as a bushwhacker when I was on duty pursuing bushwhackers constantly. Here is Thomas M. Paysinger, He used to be a scout in the confederate army and now is the sheriff of Newberry, a man that I had in jail in Charleston for murder fourteen days." He walked right up to me, lifted up his finger at me and said, "There is that God-damned Everson, he arrested me in 1867, and I offered him $5,000 security to let me go and see my wife, and he refused, and I never will forgive him." I had done so and could not help it; for General Sickles had given me a black list, and orders that if I got any of them I should not let them go. When he said this, the whole mass of those young fellows sitting around on the steps—this bushwhacking, ill-looking crowd—raised up and walked around the horse. I said " Paysinger, hold on; I have rode a good ways and I will talk with you." I got off and went down to the coroner's office, did not go in, but stopped as if I was looking after my horse, but at the first chance I struck off for the cars and just caught them. The cars were going up and I went on toward Greenville until I struck the down train, and on it I met three escaped State constables and stopped them going down, for I knew those men at Newberry would get them. I had left Mr. Farley. I found Senator Owens there, whom I thought was dead. We locked ourselves in the privy of the mail car and came down the road until we got nearly to this town (Columbia) and then I came out. People were coming and going. I got the mail agent to tell me everything, when he would go out and come in. When we got down below Frog Level, which was the only bad place, we came out, and Mr. Farley was there and asked where I had been, and I told him.


(Erastus traveled from Anderson, northeast 80 miles to Union, backtracked southwest 40 miles on horseback to Laurens, ran/walked 4 miles northwest towards Greenville, force-marched 10 miles southeast to Clinton, retrieved his horse and rode 25 miles southeast to Newberry via Martin’s Depot, escaped onto an “up train” headed northwest towards Greenville (to beyond SilverStreet), switched to a “down train” headed back through Newberry and eventually southeast 40 miles more to Columbia – eight days after starting on this journey. How & when he returned to Anderson & his wife is unknown, although he is known to have sent a letter from Abbeville postmarked on Tuesday Oct 24th to Mr. Powells father regarding the son's misfortune)

(I guess we don’t learn if the horse was ever recovered and returned to Anderson as well)

(in 1875, Hugh Farley was a local Sheriff in Laurens County)