FATAL DUEL AT THE STATE CAPITOL
by Carole E. Scott
On
March 11, 1879 at a little after 3:00 PM, Robert A. Alston (1832-1879), a member
of Georgia’s House of Representative, was shot and killed in front of witnesses
in the Capitol office of the State Treasurer. Alston, a lawyer, was forced into
a shoot out by his killer, who was both his friend and client. The conflict
between them was rooted in the killer’s subcontracting convict labor from
another of Alston’s clients, U.S. Senator John B. Gordon of Georgia.
After
the Civil War, “the South, impoverished and politically crippled, [was]
effectively a Third World country inside a First World one for 100 years,” says
historian John Steel Gordon. The Civil War destroyed Georgia’s economy. A very
large number of commercial and manufacturing facilities; farm buildings,
equipment, and livestock; railroad engines, cars, and tracks; and many state
and local government buildings, including the state penitentiary and some local
jails, were destroyed during the war.
The
new Thirteenth Amendment that freed pre-war slaves said: “Neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall
have been duly convicted, shall exist in the United States. So, in 1868, Union
General Thomas Ruger, who was Georgia’s provisional military governor, instituted
a convict lease system modeled on Massachusetts’ 1798 system to provide
compliant and cheap labor to private parties.
Leasing
out convicts provided the government with revenue and reduced its costs because
those who leased convicts were responsible for feeding, clothing, and housing
them. In 1881, 90% of the state’s convicts were black. The great majority of
them were men. In 1880 47% of Georgia’s population was black.
Before
the war if, through mistreatment, a slave died, at a significant cost a
replacement had to be purchased. Unlike with slaves before the war, there was
no incentive to spend on enslaved convicts in order to keep them healthy. When
a convict died from mistreatment, the state replaced him or her.
For decades after the war the most significant
politicians in Georgia were John B. Gordon, Alfred H. Colquitt, and Joseph E.
Brown. The Columbus Daily News said Brown’s
power derived from his money; Gordon’s from his (military) buttons; and
Colquitt’s from his religion. All three of these men served as governor and as
U.S. senator. Colquitt was a leading planter and Brown a leading and very
successful industrialist. Former Confederate General Gordon invested in a lot
of businesses and in planting, but he did not do as well. Colquitt, who had also
been a Confederate general, was involved with Gordon in railroading and coal
mining and in a textile mill, fertilizer factory, and insurance company.
In 1876, an act was passed in Georgia that confined the
state to leasing convicts to three corporations: Penitentiary Company No. 1,
Penitentiary Company No. 2, and Penitentiary Company No. 3. The number of
shares a person owned in one of these companies determined how many of the
convicts the company leased were allotted to that person. Most of the convicts
were utilized in jobs involving hard nad
dirty manual labor.
Brown was an original investor in Penitentiary Company
No. 1 and Gordon in Penitentiary Company No. 2. Cheap convict labor, it was
said, turned Brown’s coal mine into a gold mine. State convicts were all
convicted of felonies. Those convicted of other types of crimes were sold to
the highest bidder by the counties where they were convicted.
When the Atlanta
Herald was owned by Henry Grady and Robert A. Alston, it was very hostile
to Brown. Alston was a confidant of Gordon, a fellow DeKalb County resident. As
governor, Colquitt, who was also a DeKalb County resident, was criticized for
paying Alston and another man $30,000 to lobby Congress to pay the State of
Georgia $200,000 for the damage done during the war to the Western &
Atlantic Railroad the state owned. (Prices and wages were much lower back then
than they are now. U.S. Senators were paid $5,000 a year from 1873 to 1907. In
2016 they were paid $174,000.)
In 1877, Alston was the assistant of John W. Nelms, principal keeper of the penitentiary (warden), whose
job it was to deliver convicts to those who had leased them and periodically
inspect where they were kept. Nelms turned over half of
his salary to him. Alston kept that position until August, 1878. He was elected
in that year to the Georgia House of representatives, where he became Chairman
of the House Penitentiary Committee.
In late 1878, a harsh report on convict leasing issued
by Alston’s committee created a sensation. Reported in it was that at the
branch of the penitentiary on Gordon’s Taylor County plantation there was
neither a chaplain nor a physician. Alston condemned Brown’s very profitable
leasing of convicts, who were treated extremely brutally, including being
punished with what today is called waterboarding, which, unlike a whipping,
didn’t keep them from working for a while or kill them. In a letter to The Atlanta
Constitution, Alston told about women convicts not pregnant when sentenced giving
birth. He told of one woman giving birth to three children fathered by a lessee.
In a report to the legislature, Nelms insisted
something be done about 137 convicts being boys less than fifteen years old.
Privately, Alston said his committee’s report did not
tell half the story, and that he was going to give a speech that would really
shake up the public. He was murdered
before making that speech.
On
August 13, 1878, Edward Cox (1843-1901) signed an eight year contract starting
on January 1, 1879 which made him Gordon’s agent and manager whose
responsibility was to operate Gordon’s plantation in Taylor County and work the
60 convicts subleased to Cox by Gordon. Cox was obligated to pay Gordon what he
had to pay the state for the convicts and provide him with 50 bales of cotton a
year for the use of the plantation. Cox kept everything else raised on the
plantation. The contract was witnessed by Alston, whose law firm, Alston and
Calhoun, represented Cox in Fulton and DeKalb counties. Cox and Alston had met
and become friends in DeKalb County.
On
January 25, 1879, Cox let J. D. Mitchell of Taylor County have 20 convicts for
eight years if he met some conditions, one being he take up a mortgage given to
Cox by C. B. Howard, an investor in Penitentiary Company No. 2. Early in 1879, Gordon gave Alston a power of
attorney to find someone to sell his convict lease to. Gordon told Jesse
Walters, a state representative from Dougherty County, of his interest in
selling.
On
March 10, 1879, Cox met with Alston, Walters, and others in Nelms’
office. At Cox’s trial, Walters said he offered $4,000 to Gordon and $1,500 to
Cox. Some accounts of the reasons for the Cox/Alston shoot out the next day
claim Walters would not pay as much as $4,000. Alston chose to sell to C. B. “Chess”
B. Howard for $4,000. Howard declined to offer Cox anything, which meant he
would still be subleasing the convicts. In
1881, Howard would have Penitentiary No. 2 black, white, male and female
convicts in Cedartown, Dade County, Taylor County, and Atlanta. In Atlanta he
had only one convict, a white woman, Kate Southern, an ultimately pardoned
murderer who was a servant in his home.
On
March 11, 1879, Cox encountered Alston at the black owned Doughterty
Hutchins barber shop on Marietta Street in Atlanta that catered to wealthy whites.
At that time Georgia’s State Capitol was located on the corner of Marietta and
Forsyth Street. Cox demanded Alston sell to Walters. Alston refused, saying it
was a done deal with Howard. Cox, who said he would be ruined if Gordon’s
contract wasn’t sold to Walters, pulled a knife and threatened Alston.
When
Alton told Cox he wasn’t interested in fighting and was unarmed, Cox told him
to go arm himself and return soon. Cox then went to a nearby saloon, where he
said he wanted a pistol “damned quick.” Unable to borrow one there, he went to
the gun store of Heinz & Berkele on nearby
Whitehall Street, saying he “wanted a damned good one and well loaded,” and he
purchased a nickel-plated revolver which was not self cocking.
John
W. Renfroe, Treasurer of the State of Georgia, said
that when he returned to his three-room office from dinner J. W. Murphy, a
Treasury Department clerk; Renfroe’s black messenger,
Peter McMichael; M. W. Sams; C. B. Howard; and Alston
were there. Both Renfroe and Murphy were investors in
Penitentiary Company No. 3.
McMichael
told Renfroe there was going to be a row between
Alston and Cox and that Cox had sent Sams to talk to
Alston. Alston told Sams to “Go and tell Cox I will
not go to meet him. Tell him to go his way, and I will go mine—that I don’t
want any difficulty with him.” Sams, who had recently
married the niece of Alston’s wife, had for two years been the superintendent
of the convicts working on Gordon’s Taylor County plantation. Sams left and so did Murphy and Howard because Howard
wanted to talk to Murphy about borrowing the $4,000 he needed to pay Gordon. Then
Alston left.
According
to The Atlanta Weekly Constitution on
March 18, 1879, Alston left to look for Governor Colquitt, who was out to
dinner. He found him on Forsyth Street and told him what Cox had done and that
perhaps he should get a double-barreled shotgun and kill him on sight. Colquitt
told him not to do that. While they were talking, Alston saw Cox walking
rapidly towards the Capitol and said, “There goes Cox now, he is hunting me.”
Rebecca
Latimer Felton, wife of an “independent” Georgia congressman and a fierce
critic of the “Kirkwood Ring,” wondered why nobody called the police about Cox
hunting Bob Alston down. She claimed Alston had told her that his wife was
concerned that he would be killed as a result of the report about convict
leasing.
Colquitt
told Alston to go and have dinner at the Berron
House. At Cox’s trial, an account of which appeared in The Weekly Constitution
on May 6, 1879, it was revealed that Alston did eat there, and that he obtained
a self-cocking pistol from Murphy. Before getting the pistol from Murphy,
Alston tried to get one from Nelms, who made a
fruitless trip to the barbershop to talk to Cox. Nelms
said that Cox and Alston had exchanged hard words in August, 1878 over the
lease business.
Alston
went back to Renfroe’s office on the first floor of
the Capitol. Before he arrived, Professor B. F. Moore entered the office to
conduct some business. Cox entered the
middle room of Renfroe’s office before Alston arrived,
looked around, and left. Then Gilmer County tax collector P. H. Milton came in
to pay some money.
As
Moore left, Alston came in. Renfroe told him Cox had just left. Alston said he hadn’t
seen him leave, and that Cox was upstairs looking for him. When McMichael, at Renfroe’s request, went to close the door, Cox briskly
walked in and asked Alston why he hadn’t met him. Alston said he didn’t want to
be killed or kill Cox. As they argued, Cox, insisting Alston had done him wrong,
and he must settle it, put his hand on the pistol in his pocket because, he
claimed, it was heavy, his pants were loose, and he wasn’t wearing suspenders. As
they argued, Sams returned to Renfroe’s
office.
When
Colquitt had returned to the Capitol, he saw Cox hurriedly passing through the
executive department. He saw Nelms, who had just
talked with Cox in his office, and told him to follow Cox and prevent trouble
between him and Alston. Nelms entered Renfroe’s office and stepped between Cox and Alston.
Renfroe,
who at Cox’s trial said he thought the conflict between Cox and Alston might be
over, had gone to his desk with Milton. That’s when Alston said, “I will not
have difficulty with you, Cox, unless I’m forced to” and Cox responded, “Well
then, I will force you to.” Cox drew his pistol from his trouser pocket, and
Alston drew his from his breast pocket. Renfroe said they
fired simultaneously. Milton said Alston fired first, “but there was such a
small difference a man could hardly tell.”
Cox’s
first shot missed Alston, and he didn’t fire a second, fatal shot to Alston’s
temple until Alston emptied his pistol, which he could fire more rapidly than
Cox could fire his. Some of his five shots missed, but he hit Cox in the mouth
and jaw and in his left hand. Cox exclaimed, “We are both of us killed,” but he
was wrong. He survived and was arrested. At Cox’s trial, where he displayed it,
Murphy admitted to having, unnoticed, picked up his pistol after the shooting.
Georgia-born Alston, who said he didn’t want to die
with his boots on, was a member a family known as the dueling Alstons of North Carolina.
On April 1, 1879, Howard signed a contract with Gordon
for which he paid $4,000 cash in hand and promised to provide him with 50 bales
of cotton a year for eight years. Howard also took on the responsibility for
paying off a $3,000 debt of the Gordon and Cox business. Howard agreed to give
Gordon good bond and security of $18,000 to indemnity him for his liability to
the State of Georgia. At the end of eight years the convicts would return to
Gordon’s possession.
When he was tried, Cox’s plea of self-defense fell on
deaf ears. He was convicted and sentenced to a life of hard labor. Not chained
as convicts normally were, he was transported by train to Brown’s Dade County
coal and iron business, where he tended to the livestock on the farm that
provided food for Brown’s convicts.
In its September 23, 1879 issue, The Weekly Constitution
published a report about a Georgia House of Representatives committee’s
investigation of Nelms’ charges for delivering
convicts. It was also revealed that Renfroe and
Murphy had pocketed interest on bank deposits of state money. Renfroe did not run for reelection. Murphy resigned. In
1883, Renfroe became the assistant to the president
of Brown’s coal company.
In Cox’s unsuccessful
1880 appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court it was revealed that on March10, 1879
Murphy had promised him he would use his influence to get Alston to sell to
Walters.
Cox was pardoned by Governor Alexander H. Stephens in
1882. When Cox died in 1901, he was buried in Decatur a few feet from Alston.
There is a photo of Robert A. Alston in Historic DeKalb, An Illustrated History by Vivian Price
Alfred H. Colquitt photo is at http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/government-politics/alfred-h-colquitt-1824-1894
John B. Gordon photo at http://www.old-picture.com/mathew-brady-studio/General-Gordon-John-B.htm
Joseph E. Brown photo at
http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/gastudiesimages/Joseph%20E.%20Brown%202.htm
Alexander H. Stephens photo at http://douglascountyhistory.blogspot.com/2012_06_01_archive.html
http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/gastudiesimages/Kimball%20Opera%20House%201.htm
Also see Kimball Opera House (Sate Capitol building) at http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/file/11422
Photo of leased convicts in Atlanta 1895 http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/convict-lease-system
Convicts In South Georgia photo at https://raycityhistory.wordpress.com/tag/convict-lease-system/r
Convicts at Chattahoochee Brick Co. in Atlanta which was owned by a mayor of Atlanta.
http://atlanta.curbed.com/2016/6/3/11849010/chattahoochee-brick-company-site-memorial