There were some, however, who agreed with Major Thomas, and after a discussion a vote was taken, which was supposed to mean life or death to Lige Strickland. The vote to let him live was unanimous.
Major Thomas then retired some distance and the mob was preparing to send Strickland in a wagon to Newnan when a member of the mob said:
This again aroused the mob and a messenger was sent to advise Major Thomas to leave Palmetto for his own good, but the old gentleman was not frightened so easily. He drew himself up and said with all the emphasis he could summon:
“I have never before been ordered to leave a town and I am not going to leave this one.” And then the Major, uplifting his hand to give his words force, said to the messenger:
“Tell them that the muscles in my legs are not trained to running; tell them that I have stood the fire and heard the whistle of the minies from a thousand rifles and I am not frightened by this crowd.”
Then, with the understanding that Lige Strickland was to be delivered to the jailer at Fairburn, Major Thomas saw the Negro he had pleaded for led off to his death. This occurred at about 1 o’clock this morning.
Strickland was then taken in the rear of the home of Dr. W. S. Zellars, to the persimmon tree upon which his lifeless body was left hanging.
The colored citizens of Chicago sent a detective to Georgia, and his report shows that Samuel Hose, who was brutally tortured at Newnan, Ga., and then burned to death, never assaulted Mrs. Cranford and that he killed Alfred Cranford in self-defense.
The full text of the report is as follows:
About three weeks ago I was asked to make an impartial and thorough investigation of the lynchings which occurred near Atlanta, Ga., not long since. I left Chicago for Atlanta, and spent over a week in the investigation. The facts herein were gathered from interviews with persons I met in Griffin, Newman, Atlanta and in the vicinity of these places.
I found no difficulty in securing interviews from white people. There was no disposition on their part to conceal any part they took in the lynchings. They discussed the details of the burning of Sam Hose with the freedom which one would talk about an afternoon’s divertisement in which he had very pleasantly participated.