Chisolm Massacre


The Chisolm Massacre occurred April 29, 1877, after the end of the Reconstruction era in Kemper County, Mississippi. A judge and former sheriff named William Chisolm was accused of killing a Democratic Party sheriff John Gully and was being held in the local jail. Also there, being held in protective custody, were his son and daughter and two of his friends. A mob of around 300 Ku Klux Klan members stormed the jail and killed Chisolm, his family, and one of his friends. No one was convicted for the attack.
Southern papers applauded the lynching. Governor John Marshall Stone refused to launch an investigation and U.S. President Rutherford Hayes did not comment on the killings. It was one of several reprisal actions in Mississippi during the period after Reconstruction. A freedman later confessed to killing Gully and was hanged.
The New York Times wrote about it. James Monroe Wells, a deputy revenue collector and U.S. Army veteran, wrote the book The Chisolm Massacre: A Picture of "Home Rule" in Mississippi about it. His criticisms of locals were responded to by James Daniel Lynch's account blaming Radical Republicans, Kemper County Vindicated, And a Peep at Radical Rule in Mississippi.