Col. Lewis Merrill-- Part 5: The Situation Worsens in York County, S.C.

That truce was broken the next day, February 12, 1871 when 500 to 700 Whites in neighboring Union County killed eight Blacks.  On March 6, 1871, J. Rufus Bratton and a group of seventy white men  attacked a number of black houses and hung Jim Williams.

Companies B, E and K of George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry led by Lewis Merrill were dispatched to the area to quell the violence.

In the meantime, Elias Hill stepped up to lead the Union League which with the deaths was now in disarray.  In another raid by Whites, Hill's nephews, Solomon Hill and June Moore were attacked and forced to renounce their Republican allegiance in the local newspaper, the Yorkville Enquirer.

Elias Hill was also attacked on May 5, 1871.  By then, Merrill was in York County and this was the first activity that Merrill saw of the Ku Klux Klan.  But he found himself unable to step in to protect the black citizens of the county.

--Old Secesh