This authority, given by the sergeant to kill Charles on sight, would have
been no news to Charles, nor to any colored man in New Orleans, who, for
any purpose whatever, even to save his life, raised his hand against a
white man. It is now, even as it was in the days of slavery, an
unpardonable sin for a Negro to resist a white man, no matter how unjust
or unprovoked the white man's attack may be. Charles knew this, and
knowing to be captured meant to be killed, he resolved to sell his life as
dearly as possible.
The next step in the terrible tragedy occurred between 2:30 and 5 o'clock
Tuesday morning, about four hours after the affair on Dryades Street. The
man hunt, which had been inaugurated soon after Officer Mora had been
carried to the station, succeeded in running down Robert Charles, the
wounded fugitive, and located him at 2023 4th Street. It was nearly 2
o'clock in the morning when a large detail of police surrounded the block
with the intent to kill Charles on sight. Capt. Day had charge of the
squad of police. Charles, the wounded man, was in his house when the
police arrived, fully prepared, as results afterward showed, to die in his
own home. Capt. Day started for Charles's room. As soon as Charles got
sight of him there was a flash, a report, and Day fell dead in his tracks.
In another instant Charles was standing in the door, and seeing Patrolman
Peter J. Lamb, he drew his gun, and Lamb fell dead. Two other officers,
Sergeant Aucoin and Officer Trenchard, who were in the squad, seeing their
comrades, Day and Lamb, fall dead, concluded to raise the siege, and both
disappeared into an adjoining house, where they blew out their lights so
that their cowardly carcasses could be safe from Charles's deadly aim. The
calibre of their courage is well shown by the fact that they concluded to
save themselves from any harm by remaining prisoners in that dark room
until daybreak, out of reach of Charles's deadly rifle. Sergeant Aucoin,
who had been so brave a few hours before when seeing the two colored men
sitting on the steps, talking together on Dryades Street, and supposing
that neither was armed, now showed his true calibre. Now he knew that
Charles had a gun and was brave enough to use it, so he hid himself in a
room two hours while Charles deliberately walked out of his room and into
the street after killing both Lamb and Day. It is also shown, as further
evidence of the bravery of some of New Orleans' "finest," that one of
them, seeing Capt. Day fall, ran seven blocks before he stopped,
afterwards giving the excuse that he was hunting for a patrol box.
At daybreak the officers felt safe to renew the attack upon Charles, so
they broke into his room, only to find that--what they probably very well
knew--he had gone. It appears that he made his escape by crawling through
a hole in the ceiling to a little attic in his house. Here he found that
he could not escape except by a window which led into an alley, which had
no opening on 4th Street. He scaled the fence and was soon out of reach.
It was now 5 o'clock Tuesday morning, and a general alarm was given.
Sergeant Aucoin and Corporal Trenchard, having received a new supply of
courage by returning daylight, renewed their effort to capture the man
that they had allowed to escape in the darkness. Citizens were called upon
to participate in the man hunt and New Orleans was soon the scene of
terrible excitement. Officers were present everywhere, and colored men
were arrested on all sides upon the pretext that they were impertinent and
"game niggers." An instance is mentioned in the _Times-Democrat_ of the
twenty-fifth and shows the treatment which unoffending colored men
received at the hands of some of the officers. This instance shows
Corporal Trenchard, who displayed such remarkable bravery on Monday night
in dodging Charles's revolver, in his true light. It shows how brave a
white man is when he has a gun attacking a Negro who is a helpless
prisoner. The account is as follows:
The police made some arrests in the neighborhood of the killing of the
two officers. Mobs of young darkies gathered everywhere. These Negroes
talked and joked about the affair, and many of them were for starting a
race war on the spot. It was not until several of these little gangs
amalgamated and started demonstrations that the police commenced to
act. Nearly a dozen arrests were made within an hour, and everybody in
the vicinity was in a tremor of excitement.
It was about 1 o'clock that the Negroes on Fourth Street became very
noisy, and George Meyers, who lives on Sixth Street, near Rampart,
appeared to be one of the prime movers in a little riot that was rapidly
developing. Policeman Exnicios and Sheridan placed him under arrest, and
owing to the fact that the patrol wagon had just left with a number of
prisoners, they walked him toward St. Charles Avenue in order to get a
conveyance to take him to the Sixth Precinct station.
A huge crowd of Negroes followed the officers and their prisoners.
Between Dryades and Baronne, on Sixth, Corporal Trenchard met the trio.
He had his pistol in his hand and he came on them running. The Negroes
in the wake of the officers, and prisoner took to flight immediately.
Some disappeared through gates and some over fences and into yards, for
Trenchard, visibly excited, was waving his revolver in the air and was
threatening to shoot. He joined the officers in their walk toward St.
Charles Street, and the way he acted led the white people who were
witnessing the affair to believe that his prisoner was the wanted Negro.
At every step he would punch him or hit him with the barrel of his
pistol, and the onlookers cried, "Lynch him!" "Kill him!" and other
expressions until the spectators were thoroughly wrought up. At St.
Charles Street Trenchard desisted, and, calling an empty ice wagon,
threw the Negro into the body of the vehicle and ordered Officer
Exnicios to take him to the Sixth Precinct station.
The ride to the station was a wild one. Exnicios had all he could do to
watch his prisoner. A gang climbed into the wagon and administered a
terrible thrashing to the black en route. It took a half hour to reach
the police station, for the mule that was drawing the wagon was not
overly fast. When the station was reached a mob of nearly 200 howling
white youths was awaiting it. The noise they made was something
terrible. Meyers was howling for mercy before he reached the ground. The
mob dragged him from the wagon, the officer with him. Then began a
torrent of abuse for the unfortunate prisoner.
The station door was but thirty feet away, but it took Exnicios nearly
five minutes to fight his way through the mob to the door. There were no
other officers present, and the station seemed to be deserted. Neither
the doorman nor the clerk paid any attention to the noise on the
outside. As the result, the maddened crowd wrought their vengeance on
the Negro. He was punched, kicked, bruised and torn. The clothes were
ripped from his back, while his face after that few minutes was
unrecognizable.
This was the treatment accorded and permitted to a helpless prisoner
because he was black. All day Wednesday the man hunt continued. The
excitement caused by the deaths of Day and Lamb became intense. The
officers of the law knew they were trailing a man whose aim was deadly and
whose courage they had never seen surpassed. Commenting upon the
marksmanship of the man which the paper styled a fiend, the
_Times-Democrat_ of Wednesday said:
One of the extraordinary features of the tragedy was the marksmanship
displayed by the Negro desperado. His aim was deadly and his coolness
must have been something phenomenal. The two shots that killed Captain
Day and Patrolman Lamb struck their victims in the head, a circumstance
remarkable enough in itself, considering the suddenness and fury of the
onslaught and the darkness that reigned in the alley way.
Later on Charles fired at Corporal Perrier, who was standing at least
seventy-five yards away. The murderer appeared at the gate, took
lightning aim along the side of the house, and sent a bullet whizzing
past the officer's ear. It was a close shave, and a few inches'
deflection would no doubt have added a fourth victim to the list.
At the time of the affray there is good reason to believe that Charles
was seriously wounded, and at any event he had lost quantities of blood.
His situation was as critical as it is possible to imagine, yet he shot
like an expert in a target range. The circumstance shows the desperate
character of the fiend, and his terrible dexterity with weapons makes
him one of the most formidable monsters that has ever been loose upon
the community.
Wednesday New Orleans was in the hands of a mob. Charles, still sought for
and still defending himself, had killed four policemen, and everybody knew
that he intended to die fighting. Unable to vent its vindictiveness and
bloodthirsty vengeance upon Charles, the mob turned its attention to other
colored men who happened to get in the path of its fury. Even colored
women, as has happened many times before, were assaulted and beaten and
killed by the brutal hoodlums who thronged the streets. The reign of
absolute lawlessness began about 8 o'clock Wednesday night. The mob
gathered near the Lee statue and was soon making its way to the place
where the officers had been shot by Charles. Describing the mob, the
_Times-Democrat_ of Thursday morning says:
The gathering in the square, which numbered about 700, eventually became
in a measure quiet, and a large, lean individual, in poor attire and
with unshaven face, leaped upon a box that had been brought for the
purpose, and in a voice that under no circumstances could be heard at a
very great distance, shouted: "Gentlemen, I am the Mayor of Kenner." He
did not get a chance for some minutes to further declare himself, for
the voice of the rabble swung over his like a huge wave over a sinking
craft. He stood there, however, wildly waving his arms and demanded a
hearing, which was given him when the uneasiness of the mob was quieted
for a moment or so.
"I am from Kenner, gentlemen, and I have come down to New Orleans
tonight to assist you in teaching the blacks a lesson. I have killed a
Negro before, and in revenge of the wrong wrought upon you and yours, I
am willing to kill again. The only way that you can teach these Niggers
a lesson and put them in their place is to go out and lynch a few of
them as an object lesson. String up a few of them, and the others will
trouble you no more. That is the only thing to do--kill them, string
them up, lynch them! I will lead you, if you will but follow. On to the
Parish Prison and lynch Pierce!"
They bore down on the Parish Prison like an avalanche, but the avalanche
split harmlessly on the blank walls of the jail, and Remy Klock sent out
a brief message: "You can't have Pierce, and you can't get in." Up to
that time the mob had had no opposition, but Klock's answer chilled them
considerably. There was no deep-seated desperation in the crowd after
all, only, that wild lawlessness which leads to deeds of cruelty, but
not to stubborn battle. Around the corner from the prison is a row of
pawn and second-hand shops, and to these the mob took like the ducks to
the proverbial mill-pond, and the devastation they wrought upon Mr.
Fink's establishment was beautiful in its line.
Everything from breast pins to horse pistols went into the pockets of
the crowd, and in the melee a man was shot down, while just around the
corner somebody planted a long knife in the body of a little newsboy for
no reason as yet shown. Every now and then a Negro would be flushed
somewhere in the outskirts of the crowd and left beaten to a pulp. Just
how many were roughly handled will never be known, but the unlucky
thirteen had been severely beaten and maltreated up to a late hour, a
number of those being in the Charity Hospital under the bandages and
courtplaster of the doctors.
The first colored man to meet death at the hands of the mob was a
passenger on a street car. The mob had broken itself into fragments after
its disappointment at the jail, each fragment looking for a Negro to
kill. The bloodthirsty cruelty of one crowd is thus described by the
_Times-Democrat_:
"We will get a Nigger down here, you bet!" was the yelling boast that
went up from a thousand throats, and for the first time the march of the
mob was directed toward the downtown sections. The words of the rioters
were prophetic, for just as Canal Street was reached a car on the
Villere line came along.
"Stop that car!" cried half a hundred men. The advance guard, heeding
the injunction, rushed up to the slowly moving car, and several, seizing
the trolley, jerked it down.
"Here's a Nigro!" said half a dozen men who sprang upon the car.
The car was full of passengers at the time, among them several women.
When the trolley was pulled down and the car thrown in total darkness,
the latter began to scream, and for a moment or so it looked as if the
life of every person in the car was in peril, for some of the crowd with
demoniacal yells of "There he goes!" began to fire their weapons
indiscriminately. The passengers in the car hastily jumped to the ground
and joined the crowd, as it was evidently the safest place to be.
"Where's that Nigger?" was the query passed along the line, and with
that the search began in earnest. The Negro, after jumping off the car,
lost himself for a few moments in the crowd, but after a brief search he
was again located. The slight delay seemed, if possible, only to whet
the desire of the bloodthirsty crowd, for the reappearance of the Negro
was the signal for a chorus of screams and pistol shots directed at the
fugitive. With the speed of a deer, the man ran straight from the corner
of Canal and Villere to Customhouse Street. The pursuers, closely
following, kept up a running fire, but notwithstanding the fact that
they were right at the Negro's heels their aim was poor and their
bullets went wide of the mark.
The Negro, on reaching Customhouse Street, darted from the sidewalk out
into the middle of the street. This was the worst maneuver that he could
have made, as it brought him directly under the light from an arc lamp,
located on a nearby corner. When the Negro came plainly in view of the
foremost of the closely following mob they directed a volley at him.
Half a dozen pistols flashed simultaneously, and one of the bullets
evidently found its mark, for the Negro stopped short, threw up his
hands, wavered for a moment, and then started to run again. This stop,
slight as it was, proved fatal to the Negro's chances, for he had not
gotten twenty steps farther when several of the men in advance of the
others reached his side. A burly fellow, grabbing him with one hand,
dealt him a terrible blow on the head with the other. The wounded man
sank to the ground. The crowd pressed around him and began to beat him
and stamp him. The men in the rear pressed forward and those beating the
man were shoved forward. The half-dead Negro, when he was freed from his
assailants, crawled over to the gutter. The men behind, however, stopped
pushing when those in front yelled, "We've got him," and then it was
that the attack on the bleeding Negro was resumed. A vicious kick
directed at the Negro's head sent him into the gutter, and for a moment
the body sank from view beneath the muddy, slimy water. "Pull him out;
don't let him drown," was the cry, and instantly several of the men
around the half-drowned Negro bent down and drew the body out. Twisting
the body around they drew the head and shoulders up on the street, while
from the waist down the Negro's body remained under the water. As soon
as the crowd saw that the Negro was still alive they again began to beat
and kick him. Every few moments they would stop and striking matches
look into the man's face to see if he still lived. To better see if he
was dead they would stick lighted matches to his eyes. Finally,
believing he was dead they left him and started out to look for other
Negroes. Just about this time some one yelled, "He ain't dead," and the
men came back and renewed the attack. While the men were beating and
pounding the prostrate form with stones and sticks a man in the crowd
ran up, and crying, "I'll fix the d--- Negro," poked the muzzle of a
pistol almost against the body and fired. This shot must have ended the
man's life, for he lay like a stone, and realizing that they were
wasting energy in further attacks, the men left their victim lying in
the street.
The same paper, on the same day, July 26, describes the brutal butchery of
an aged colored man early in the morning:
Baptiste Philo, a Negro, seventy-five years of age, was a victim of mob
violence at Kerlerec and North Peters Streets about 2:30 o'clock this
morning. The old man is employed about the French Market, and was on his
way there when he was met by a crowd and desperately shot. The old man
found his way to the Third Precinct police station, where it was found
that he had received a ghastly wound in the abdomen. The ambulance was
summoned and he was conveyed to the Charity Hospital. The students
pronounced the wound fatal after a superficial examination.
Mob rule continued Thursday, its violence increasing every hour, until 2
p.m., when the climax seemed to be reached. The fact that colored men and
women had been made the victims of brutal mobs, chased through the
streets, killed upon the highways and butchered in their homes, did not
call the best element in New Orleans to active exertion in behalf of law
and order. The killing of a few Negroes more or less by irresponsible mobs
does not cut much figure in Louisiana. But when the reign of mob law
exerts a depressing influence upon the stock market and city securities
begin to show unsteady standing in money centers, then the strong arm of
the good white people of the South asserts itself and order is quickly
brought out of chaos.
It was so with New Orleans on that Thursday. The better element of the
white citizens began to realize that New Orleans in the hands of a mob
would not prove a promising investment for Eastern capital, so the better
element began to stir itself, not for the purpose of punishing the
brutality against the Negroes who had been beaten, or bringing to justice
the murderers of those who had been killed, but for the purpose of saving
the city's credit. The _Times-Democrat_, upon this phase of the situation
on Friday morning says:
When it became known later in the day that State bonds had depreciated
from a point to a point and a half on the New York market a new phase of
seriousness was manifest to the business community. Thinking men
realized that a continuance of unchecked disorder would strike a body
blow to the credit of the city and in all probability would complicate
the negotiation of the forthcoming improvement bonds. The bare thought
that such a disaster might be brought about by a few irresponsible boys,
tramps and ruffians, inflamed popular indignation to fever pitch. It was
all that was needed to bring to the aid of the authorities the active
personal cooperation of the entire better element.
With the financial credit of the city at stake, the good citizens rushed
to the rescue, and soon the Mayor was able to mobilize a posse of 1,000
willing men to assist the police in maintaining order, but rioting still
continued in different sections of the city. Colored men and women were
beaten, chased and shot whenever they made their appearance upon the
street. Late in the night a most despicable piece of villainy occurred on
Rousseau Street, where an aged colored woman was killed by the mob. The
_Times-Democrat_ thus describes, the murder:
Hannah Mabry, an old Negress, was shot and desperately wounded shortly
after midnight this morning while sleeping in her home at No. 1929
Rousseau Street. It was the work of a mob, and was evidently well
planned so far as escape was concerned, for the place was reached by
police officers, and a squad of the volunteer police within a very short
time after the reports of the shots, but not a prisoner was secured. The
square was surrounded, but the mob had scattered in several directions,
and, the darkness of the neighborhood aiding them, not one was taken.
At the time the mob made the attack on the little house there were also
in it David Mabry, the sixty-two-year-old husband of the wounded woman;
her son, Harry Mabry; his wife, Fannie, and an infant child. The young
couple with their babe could not be found after the whole affair was
over, and they either escaped or were hustled off by the mob. A careful
search of the whole neighborhood was made, but no trace of them could be
found.
The little place occupied by the Mabry family is an old cottage on the
swamp side of Rousseau Street. It is furnished with slat shutters to
both doors and windows. These shutters had been pulled off by the mob
and the volleys fired through the glass doors. The younger Mabrys,
father, mother and child, were asleep in the first room at the time.
Hannah Mabry and her old husband were sleeping in the next room. The old
couple occupied the same bed, and it is miraculous that the old man did
not share the fate of his spouse.
Officer Bitterwolf, who was one of the first on the scene, said that he
was about a block and a half away with Officers Fordyce and Sweeney.
There were about twenty shots fired, and the trio raced to the cottage.
They saw twenty or thirty men running down Rousseau Street. Chase was
given and the crowd turned toward the river and scattered into several
vacant lots in the neighborhood.
The volunteer police stationed at the Sixth Precinct had about five
blocks to run before they arrived. They also moved on the reports of the
firing, and in a remarkably short time the square was surrounded, but no
one could be taken. As they ran to the scene they were assailed on every
hand with vile epithets and the accusation of "Nigger lovers."
Rousseau Street, where the cottage is situated, is a particularly dark
spot, and no doubt the members of the mob were well acquainted with the
neighborhood, for the officers said that they seemed to sink into the
earth, so completely and quickly did they disappear after they had
completed their work, which was complete with the firing of the volley.
Hannah Mabry was taken to the Charity Hospital in the ambulance, where
it was found on examination that she had been shot through the right
lung, and that the wound was a particularly serious one.
Her old husband was found in the little wrecked home well nigh
distracted with fear and grief. It was he who informed the police that
at the time of the assault the younger Mabrys occupied the front room.
As he ran about the little home as well as his feeble condition would
permit he severely lacerated his feet on the glass broken from the
windows and door. He was escorted to the Sixth Precinct station, where
he was properly cared for. He could not realize why his little family
had been so murderously attacked, and was inconsolable when his wife was
driven off in the ambulance piteously moaning in her pain.
The search for the perpetrators of the outrage was thorough, but both
police and armed force of citizens had only their own efforts to rely
on. The residents of the neighborhood were aroused by the firing, but
they would give no help in the search and did not appear in the least
concerned over the affair. Groups were on almost every doorstep, and
some of them even jeered in a quiet way at the men who were voluntarily
attempting to capture the members of the mob. Absolutely no information
could be had from any of them, and the whole affair had the appearance
of being the work of roughs who either lived in the vicinity, or their
friends.
+DEATH OF CHARLES+
Friday witnessed the final act in the bloody drama begun by the three
police officers, Aucoin, Mora and Cantrelle. Betrayed into the hands of
the police, Charles, who had already sent two of his would-be murderers to
their death, made a last stand in a small building, 1210 Saratoga Street,
and, still defying his pursuers, fought a mob of twenty thousand people,
single-handed and alone, killing three more men, mortally wounding two
more and seriously wounding nine others. Unable to get to him in his
stronghold, the besiegers set fire to his house of refuge. While the
building was burning Charles was shooting, and every crack of his
death-dealing rifle added another victim to the price which he had placed
upon his own life. Finally, when fire and smoke became too much for flesh
and blood to stand, the long sought for fugitive appeared in the door,
rifle in hand, to charge the countless guns that were drawn upon him.
With a courage which was indescribable, he raised his gun to fire again,
but this time it failed, for a hundred shots riddled his body, and he fell
dead face fronting to the mob. This last scene in the terrible drama is
thus described in the _Times-Democrat_ of July 26:
Early yesterday afternoon, at 3 o'clock or thereabouts, Police Sergeant
Gabriel Porteus was instructed by Chief Gaster to go to a house at No.
1210 Saratoga Street, and search it for the fugitive murderer, Robert
Charles. A private "tip" had been received at the headquarters that the
fiend was hiding somewhere on the premises.
Sergeant Porteus took with him Corporal John R. Lally and Officers
Zeigel and Essey. The house to which they were directed is a small,
double frame cottage, standing flush with Saratoga Street, near the
corner of Clio. It has two street entrances and two rooms on each side,
one in front and one in the rear. It belongs to the type of cheap little
dwellings commonly tenanted by Negroes.
Sergeant Porteus left Ziegel and Essey to guard the outside and went
with Corporal Lally to the rear house, where he found Jackson and his
wife in the large room on the left. What immediately ensued is only
known by the Negroes. They say the sergeant began to question them about
their lodgers and finally asked them whether they knew anything about
Robert Charles. They strenuously denied all knowledge of his
whereabouts.
The Negroes lied. At that very moment the hunted and desperate murderer
lay concealed not a dozen feet away. Near the rear, left-hand corner of
the room is a closet or pantry, about three feet deep, and perhaps eight
feet long. The door was open and Charles was crouching, Winchester in
hand, in the dark further end.
Near the closet door was a bucket of water, and Jackson says that
Sergeant Porteous walked toward it to get a drink. At the next moment a
shot rang out and the brave officer fell dead. Lally was shot directly
afterward. Exactly how and where will never be known, but the
probabilities are that the black fiend sent a bullet into him before he
recovered from his surprise at the sudden onslaught. Then the murderer
dashed out of the back door and disappeared.
The neighborhood was already agog with the tragic events of the two
preceding days, and the sound of the shots was a signal for wild and
instant excitement. In a few moments a crowd had gathered and people
were pouring in by the hundred from every point of the compass. Jackson
and his wife had fled and at first nobody knew what had happened, but
the surmise that Charles had recommenced his bloody work was on every
tongue and soon some of the bolder found their way to the house in the
rear. There the bleeding forms of the two policemen told the story.
Lally was still breathing, and a priest was sent for to administer the
last rites. Father Fitzgerald responded, and while he was bending over
the dying man the outside throng was rushing wildly through the
surrounding yards and passageways searching for the murderer. "Where is
he?" "What has become of him?" were the questions on every lip.
Suddenly the answer came in a shot from the room directly overhead. It
was fired through a window facing Saratoga Street, and the bullet struck
down a young man named Alfred J. Bloomfield, who was standing in the
narrow passage-way between the two houses. He fell on his knees and a
second bullet stretched him dead.
When he fled from the closet Charles took refuge in the upper story of
the house. There are four windows on that floor, two facing toward
Saratoga Street and two toward Rampart. The murderer kicked several
breaches in the frail central partition, so he could rush from side to
side, and like a trapped beast, prepared to make his last stand.
Nobody had dreamed that he was still in the house, and when Bloomfield
was shot there was a headlong stampede. It was some minutes before the
exact situation was understood. Then rifles and pistols began to speak,
and a hail of bullets poured against the blind frontage of the old
house. Every one hunted some coign of vantage, and many climbed to
adjacent roofs. Soon the glass of the four upper windows was shattered
by flying lead. The fusillade sounded like a battle, and the excitement
upon the streets was indescribable.
Throughout all this hideous uproar Charles seems to have retained a
certain diabolical coolness. He kept himself mostly out of sight, but
now and then he thrust the gleaming barrel of his rifle through one of
the shattered window panes and fired at his besiegers. He worked the
weapon with incredible rapidity, discharging from three to five
cartridges each time before leaping back to a place of safety. These
replies came from all four windows indiscriminately, and showed that he
was keeping a close watch in every direction. His wonderful marksmanship
never failed him for a moment, and when he missed it was always by the
narrowest margin only.
On the Rampart Street side of the house there are several sheds,
commanding an excellent range of the upper story. Detective Littleton,
Andrew Van Kuren of the Workhouse force and several others climbed upon
one of these and opened fire on the upper windows, shooting whenever
they could catch a glimpse of the assassin. Charles responded with his
rifle, and presently Van Kuren climbed down to find a better position.
He was crossing the end of the shed when he was killed.
Another of Charles's bullets found its billet in the body of Frank
Evans, an ex-member of the police force. He was on the Rampart Street
side firing whenever he had an opportunity. Officer J.W. Bofill and A.S.
Leclerc were also wounded in the fusillade.
While the events thus briefly outlined were transpiring time was a-wing,
and the cooler headed in the crowd began to realize that some quick and
desperate expedient must be adopted to insure the capture of the fiend
and to avert what might be a still greater tragedy than any yet enacted.
For nearly two hours the desperate monster had held his besiegers at
bay, darkness would soon be at hand and no one could predict what might
occur if he made a dash for liberty in the dark.
At this critical juncture it was suggested that the house be fired. The
plan came as an inspiration, and was adopted as the only solution of the
situation. The wretched old rookery counted for nothing against the
possible continued sacrifice of human life, and steps were immediately
taken to apply the torch. The fire department had been summoned to the
scene soon after the shooting began; its officers were warned to be
ready to prevent a spread of the conflagration, and several men rushed
into the lower right-hand room and started a blaze in one corner.
They first fired an old mattress, and soon smoke was pouring out in
dense volumes. It filled the interior of the ramshackle structure, and
it was evident that the upper story would soon become untenable. An
interval of tense excitement followed, and all eyes were strained for a
glimpse of the murderer when he emerged.
Then came the thrilling climax. Smoked out of his den, the desperate
fiend descended the stairs and entered the lower room. Some say he
dashed into the yard, glaring around vainly for some avenue of escape;
but, however that may be, he was soon a few moments later moving about
behind the lower windows. A dozen shots were sent through the wall in
the hope of reaching him, but he escaped unscathed. Then suddenly the
door on the right was flung open and he dashed out. With head lowered
and rifle raised ready to fire on the instant, Charles dashed straight
for the rear door of the front cottage. To reach it he had to traverse a
little walk shaded by a vineclad arbor. In the back room, with a cocked
revolver in his hand, was Dr. C.A. Noiret, a young medical student, who
was aiding the citizens' posse. As he sprang through the door Charles
fired a shot, and the bullet whizzed past the doctor's head. Before it
could be repeated Noiret's pistol cracked and the murderer reeled,
turned half around and fell on his back. The doctor sent another ball
into his body as he struck the floor, and half a dozen men, swarming
into the room from the front, riddled the corpse with bullets.
Private Adolph Anderson of the Connell Rifles was the first man to
announce the death of the wretch. He rushed to the street door, shouted
the news to the crowd, and a moment later the bleeding body was dragged
to the pavement and made the target of a score of pistols. It was shot,
kicked and beaten almost out of semblance to humanity....
The limp dead body was dropped at the edge of the sidewalk and from
there dragged to the muddy roadway by half a hundred hands. There in the
road more shots were fired into the body. Corporal Trenchard, a
brother-in-law of Porteus, led the shooting into the inanimate clay.
With each shot there was a cheer for the work that had been done and
curses and imprecations on the inanimate mass of riddled flesh that was
once Robert Charles.
Cries of "Burn him! Burn him!" were heard from Clio Street all the way
to Erato Street, and it was with difficulty that the crowd was
restrained from totally destroying the wretched dead body. Some of those
who agitated burning even secured a large vessel of kerosene, which had
previously been brought to the scene for the purpose of firing Charles's
refuge, and for a time it looked as though this vengeance might be
wreaked on the body. The officers, however, restrained this move,
although they were powerless to prevent the stamping and kicking of the
body by the enraged crowd.
After the infuriated citizens had vented their spleen on the body of the
dead Negro it was loaded into the patrol wagon. The police raised the
body of the heavy black from the ground and literally chucked it into
the space on the floor of the wagon between the seats. They threw it
with a curse hissed more than uttered and born of the bitterness which
was rankling in their breasts at the thought of Charles having taken so
wantonly the lives of four of the best of their fellow-officers.
When the murderer's body landed in the wagon it fell in such a position
that the hideously mutilated head, kicked, stamped and crushed, hung
over the end.
As the wagon moved off, the followers, who were protesting against its
being carried off, declaring that it should be burned, poked and struck
it with sticks, beating it into such a condition that it was utterly
impossible to tell what the man ever looked like.
As the patrol wagon rushed through the rough street, jerking and
swaying from one side of the thoroughfare to the other, the gory,
mud-smeared head swayed and swung and jerked about in a sickening
manner, the dark blood dripping on the steps and spattering the body of
the wagon and the trousers of the policemen standing on the step.
+MOB BRUTALITY+
The brutality of the mob was further shown by the unspeakable cruelty with
which it beat, shot and stabbed to death an unoffending colored man, name
unknown, who happened to be walking on the street with no thought that he
would be set upon and killed simply because he was a colored man. The
_Times-Democrat_'s description of the outrage is as follows:
While the fight between the Negro desperado and the citizens was in
progress yesterday afternoon at Clio and Saratoga Streets another
tragedy was being enacted downtown in the French quarter, but it was a
very one-sided affair. The object of the white man's wrath was, of
course, a Negro, but, unlike Charles, he showed no fight, but tried to
escape from the furious mob which was pursuing him, and which finally
put an end to his existence in a most cruel manner.
The Negro, whom no one seemed to know--at any rate no one could be found
in the vicinity of the killing who could tell who he was--was walking
along the levee, as near as could be learned, when he was attacked by a
number of white longshoremen or screwmen. For what reason, if there was
any reason other than the fact that he was a Negro, could not be
learned, and immediately they pounced upon him he broke ground and
started on a desperate run for his life.
The hunted Negro started off the levee toward the French Vegetable
Market, changed his course out the sidewalk toward Gallatin Street. The
angry, yelling mob was close at his heels, and increasing steadily as
each block was traversed. At Gallatin Street he turned up that
thoroughfare, doubled back into North Peters Street and ran into the
rear of No. 1216 of that street, which is occupied by Chris Reuter as a
commission store and residence.
He rushed frantically through the place and out on to the gallery on the
Gallatin Street side. From this gallery he jumped to the street and fell
flat on his back on the sidewalk. Springing to his feet as soon as
possible, with a leaden, hail fired by the angry mob whistling about
him, he turned to his merciless pursuers in an appealing way, and,
throwing up one hand, told them not to shoot any more, that they could
take him as he was.
But the hail of lead continued, and the unfortunate Negro finally
dropped to the sidewalk, mortally wounded. The mob then rushed upon him,
still continuing the fusillade, and upon reaching his body a number of
Italians, who had joined the howling mob, reached down and stabbed him
in the back and buttock with big knives. Others fired shots into his
head until his teeth were shot out, three shots having been fired into
his mouth. There were bullet wounds all over his body.
Others who witnessed the affair declared that the man was fired at as he
was running up the stairs leading to the living apartments above the
store, and that after jumping to the sidewalk and being knocked down by
a bullet he jumped up and ran across the street, then ran back and tried
to get back into the commission store. The Italians, it is said, were
all drunk, and had been shooting firecrackers. Tiring of this, they
began shooting at Negroes, and when the unfortunate man who was killed
ran by they joined in the chase.
No one was arrested for the shooting, the neighborhood having been
deserted by the police, who were sent up to the place where Charles was
fighting so desperately. No one could or would give the names of any of
those who had participated in the chase and the killing, nor could any
one be found who knew who the Negro was. The patrol wagon was called and
the terribly mutilated body sent to the morgue and the coroner notified.
The murdered Negro was copper colored, about 5 feet 11 inches in height,
about 35 years of age, and was dressed in blue overalls and a brown
slouch hat. At 10:30 o'clock the vicinity of the French Market was very
quiet. Squads of special officers were patrolling the neighborhood, and
there did not seem to be any prospects of disorder.
During the entire time the mob held the city in its hands and went about
holding up street cars and searching them, taking from them colored men to
assault, shoot and kill, chasing colored men upon the public square,
through alleys and into houses of anybody who would take them in, breaking
into the homes of defenseless colored men and women and beating aged and
decrepit men and women to death, the police and the legally constituted
authorities showed plainly where their sympathies were, for in no case
reported through the daily papers does there appear the arrest, trial and
conviction of one of the mob for any of the brutalities which occurred.
The ringleaders of the mob were at no time disguised. Men were chased,
beaten and killed by white brutes, who boasted of their crimes, and the
murderers still walk the streets of New Orleans, well known and absolutely
exempt from prosecution. Not only were they exempt from prosecution by the
police while the town was in the hands of the mob, but even now that law
and order is supposed to resume control, these men, well known, are not
now, nor ever will be, called to account for the unspeakable brutalities
of that terrible week. On the other hand, the colored men who were beaten
by the police and dragged into the station for purposes of intimidation,
were quickly called up before the courts and fined or sent to jail upon
the statement of the police. Instances of Louisiana justice as it is
dispensed in New Orleans are here quoted from the _Times-Democrat_ of July
26:
+Justice Dealt Out to Folk Who Talked Too Much+
All the Negroes and whites who were arrested in the vicinity of
Tuesday's tragedy had a hard time before Recorder Hughes yesterday. Lee
Jackson was the first prisoner, and the evidence established that he
made his way to the vicinity of the crime and told his Negro friends
that he thought a good many more policemen ought to be killed. Jackson
said he was drunk when he made the remark. He was fined $25 or thirty
days.
John Kennedy was found wandering about the street Tuesday night with an
open razor in his hand, and he was given $25 or thirty days.
Edward McCarthy, a white man, who arrived only four days since from New
York, went to the scene of the excitement at the corner of Third and
Rampart Streets, and told the Negroes that they were as good as any
white man. This remark was made by McCarthy, as another white man said
the Negroes should be lynched. McCarthy told the recorder that he
considered a Negro as good as a white in body and soul. He was fined $25
or thirty days.
James Martin, Simon Montegut, Eddie McCall, Alex Washington and Henry
Turner were up for failing to move on. Martin proved that he was at the
scene to assist the police and was discharged. Montegut, being a
cripple, was also released, but the others were fined $25 or thirty days
each.
Eddie Williams for refusing to move on was given $25 or thirty days.
Matilda Gamble was arrested by the police for saying that two officers
were killed and it was a pity more were not shot. She was given $25 or
thirty days.
+INSOLENT BLACKS+
"Recorder Hughes received Negroes in the first recorder's office yesterday
morning in a way that they will remember for a long time, and all of them
were before the magistrate for having caused trouble through incendiary
remarks concerning the death of Captain Day and Patrolman Lamb."
"Lee Jackson was before the recorder and was fined $25 or thirty days. He
was lippy around where the trouble happened Tuesday morning, and some
white men punched him good and hard and the police took him. Then the
recorder gave him a dose, and now he is in the parish prison."
"John Kennedy was another black who got into trouble. He said that the
shooting of the police by Charles was a good thing, and for this he was
pounded. Patrolman Lorenzo got him and saved him from being lynched, for
the black had an open razor. He was fined $25 or thirty days."
"Edward McCarthy, a white man, mixed up with the crowd, and an expression
of sympathy nearly cost him his head, for some whites about started for
him, administering licks and blows with fists and umbrellas. The recorder
fined him $25 or thirty days. He is from New York."
"Then James Martin, a white man, and Simon Montegut, Eddie Call, Henry
Turner and Alex Washington were before the magistrate for having failed to
move on when the police ordered them from the square where the bluecoats
were Tuesday, waiting in the hope of catching Charles. All save Martin and
Montegut were fined."
"Eddie Williams, a little Negro who was extremely fresh with the police,
was fined $10 or ten days."
+SHOCKING BRUTALITY+
The whole city was at the mercy of the mob and the display of brutality
was a disgrace to civilization. One instance is described in the
_Picayune_ as follows:
A smaller party detached itself from the mob at Washington and Rampart
Streets, and started down the latter thoroughfare. One of the foremost
spied a Negro, and immediately there was a rush for the unfortunate
black man. With the sticks they had torn from fences on the line of
march the young outlaws attacked the black and clubbed him unmercifully,
acting more like demons than human beings. After being severely beaten
over the head, the Negro started to run with the whole gang at his
heels. Several revolvers were brought into play and pumped their lead at
the refugee. The Negro made rapid progress and took refuge behind the
blinds of a little cottage in Rampart Street, but he had been seen, and
the mob hauled him from his hiding place and again commenced beating
him. There were more this time, some twenty or thirty, all armed with
sticks and heavy clubs, and under their incessant blows the Negro could
not last long. He begged for mercy, and his cries were most pitiful, but
a mob has no heart, and his cries were only answered with more blows.
"For God's sake, boss, I ain't done nothin'. Don't kill me. I swear I
ain't done nothin'."