From the above estimate it will be seen that more than one third of the white men that voted at that election voted the Republican ticket. This estimate is strengthened when the result of the election in the different counties is taken into consideration. The Republicans not only carried every county in which the Negro voters had a majority, but also a number of counties in which the whites were in the majority. The majority by which the State was carried by Alcorn in 1869 was about the same as that by which it was carried by Grant in 1872. Alcorn not only carried a number of white counties, but ten of them elected Republicans to the Legislature, two of them, Lawrence and Marion, elected each a Negro member. The ten counties were Pike, Lawrence, Marion, Jackson, Jasper, Clark, Lee, Leak, Lafayette and Attala. Judge Green C. Chandler, afterwards a judge of the Circuit Court and later U. S. District Attorney, was elected from Clark. Hon. H. W. Warren, who succeeded Judge Franklin as Speaker of the House, was elected from Leak, Judge Jason Niles and Hon. E. Boyd, both able and brilliant lawyers, were elected from Attala. Judge Niles was afterwards appointed a Judge of the Circuit Court and later served as a Republican member of Congress.
In the opinion of this expert Judge Dent, the Democratic candidate for Governor in 1869, was scarcely a typical carpet-bagger because he was born in Missouri and had family connections in Mississippi. Still if he were not a typical carpet-bagger, then we had none in the State, because the designation included all those that settled in the State after the war was over. Judge Dent was one of that number. But I may be able to give Mr. Rhodes what was believed to be the principal reason that influenced the Democrats to support Judge Dent. He was President Grant's brother-in-law. Hence it was hoped and believed that in this case family ties would prove to be stronger than party ties and that the national administration would support Dent instead of Alcorn, the Ex-Confederate. But in this case they were mistaken. Grant had been elected as a Republican, and he could not be induced to throw the weight of his influence against his own party, even in a State election, merely to contribute to the realization of the personal ambition of his wife's brother. It is true that a few men who called themselves Republicans also supported Judge Dent, but the result of the election was conclusive evidence that the so-called split in the party was not at all serious.