“Abominable Story-Telling” from Northern Newspapers

One hundred fifty years ago today the Fayetteville (NC) Observer refuted northern newspapers’ claims “about [the] indignities… heaped upon Northern men in all the Southern States.” As the Observer noted, one northern editor published a story on how:

“[Virginia] Governor [John] Letcher and his satellites had purposely inaugurated mob law and anarchy for the purpose of enriching themselves and their followers out of the private property of citizens who may be driven out of the State by the mob. Men of property, who are suspected of being loyal to the flag that has so long protected them, received notice to leave their homes at a few hours’ warning and they and their families are compelled to fly Northward with only the clothes they wear and what loose cash they may chance to have in their possession. The property they leave behind is clutched by the rebels.”

The Observer was surprised “that even that maddest of all mad fanatics, a Black Republican editor, can believe so absurd a story as that.” While these northern papers also claimed that “mob law and a reign of terror are unknown” in places like New York City, the Observer pointed out that the reality was different. “Witness the Southern men leaving that city by hundreds, and going round far out of their way to avoid the suspicion of being Southern men and thus to escape insult and violence,” as the Observer argued. This type of “abominable story-telling [from northern] papers” was dangerous and, as the Observer explained, “[had] brought the country to its present awful condition.”