2024-01 Raynors Americana Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 1/20/2024
Four Page inked letter written by AEF Serviceman Howard Clark, signed "Howard", with original cover sent to his wife in Detroit Michigan. the letter is written Ordnance Dept. US Army letterhead. Datelined August 6, 1918 (Augusta Georgia). Clark describes his surroundings, "Augusta is some dump. Jackson or Battle Creek have it beat by a mile. I saw the Savannah River and looked across to So. Car. The town of Hamburg is opposite Augusta. It used to be quite a cotton center but now is inhabited by Negroes. It was in this town That the Klue Klux Klan raided a Negro Republican Mass meeting & opened fire on the building with a cannon. The number of dead will never be known as the bodies were thrown in the river. This was the period just after the war. The cannon used was taken from the Augusta arsenal where I did guard duty last week. ... As you remember Sherman passed thru here on his way to the coast. Near the camp are remnants of one of his railroads. The Hamburg Massacre, as it became known, was a racial attack on the Hamburg Militiaman, all Black. Over 100 white men attacked about 30 black servicemen of the National Guard at the armory, killing two as they tried to leave that night. Later that night, the Red Shirts tortured and murdered four of the militia while holding them as prisoners, and wounded several others. In total, the events in Hamburg resulted in the death of one white man and six black men with several more blacks being wounded. Although 94 white men were indicted for murder by a coroner's jury, none were prosecuted.
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