Coldwater Communil)J in Elbert County 37

The Imprisonment and Trial of Francis Gaines Stowers

Many articles have been written about the trial of Francis Gaines Stowers (SFoA Vol I Page F-6) and three other men in 1866. The following account is based on records from the War Department archives in Washington, D.C., as described by L. Mell Glenn in his book, The Story of a Sensational Trial, Published in 1965.

On October 8, 1865, near midnight, pistol shots were heard in the vicinity of Brown 's Ferry on the South Carolina side of the Savannah River. Later the bodies of three young soldiers were found. These men were soldiers of the occupation forces stationed at Anderson, South Carolina, and they had been assigned to guard fifteen bales of cotton that James Crawford Keys' men had brought to the ferry just days before for shipment to Savannah. The cotton had then been confiscated by agents of the United States Treasury on the pretext that it was the property of the Confederate government and, therefore, subject to seizure.

On the night of the murders a mob used a boat belonging to Francis Gaines Stowers to take the cotton bales downstream and hide them on Piney Island, where the bales were later discovered. Then the mob returned the boat to Stowers' boat landing.

When the soldiers' bodies were discovered, a massive hunt began for the perpetrators. The first person to be arrested was James Crawford Keys, owner of the cotton seized by the Treasury agents. Keys was a wealthy Anderson County planter. One of his sons was also arrested, as was his friend Elisha Byrum.

Eight days later, while Francis Gaines Stowers was in Augusta buying supplies for his household, he too was arrested. He was suspected because it was thought that his boat had hauled the cotton. Stowers was a successful planter and former state senator who lived on the Georgia side of the Savannah, in Hart County. The men were taken first to Anderson and then to Charleston to stand trial.

On December 26, 1865, General Daniel Sickles, Commander of the Federal forces in North and South Carolina and stationed in Charleston, appointed a military commission to try the case. Thus began a sensational trial that was to involve the President of the United States, the Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, the governor of South Carolina, members of the U.S. Congress, and other prominent national figures. The significance of the trial lay in the fact that the military and civil courts were struggling with each other for control of the judicial authority in the South following the end of the Civil War. Apparently the trial of Stowers, Keys, and the others was one of the first to test which would gain supremacy. The four defendants had two eminent defense attorneys: General James Conner and Armistead Burt, who was married to John C. Calhoun 's niece. Stowers was tried first, and the other three were tried about two months later. The most serious charges against the four men were that they attacked a U.S. military guard and murdered them.

At the military trial, the prosecution 's star witness was Warren Howell, a man hired by William Brown to operate Brown 's Ferry. Numerous witnesses at the trial stated that Howell was unreliable and could not be trusted on his oath. The prosecution, however, relied almost entirely on his word. Howell first said that he was not positive about who it was that he saw on the road leading to the ferry on the night of the murders, but he "took them to be" the defendants. Howell admitted that he saw in the dim moonlight and at considerable distance only the outlines of the men. After he testified, the military commission had him confined to a solitary cell during the night. The next day he stated that he could positively identify the group, and it was the four defendants.

On Apri125, the Charleston Courier released news of the verdict. Stowers and Crawford Keys were sentenced to be hanged at Castle I Pinckney on April 27, and the other two sentenced to life imprisonment. Immediately, newspapers across the South began to protest the verdict. Over 1,200 signatures asking for a presidential pardon were placed in a petition to President Andrew Johnson. On the day before, President Johnson had sent a telegram to General Sickles ordering the suspension of the executions. This was mainly a courtesy to the lawyer General Conner, who had battled for the lives of the two men, and was not a permanent reprieve. General Conner and South Carolina 's Governor Orr, then wrote Alexander Stephens, former Vice President of the Confederacy, asking him to intervene with President Johnson and at least change the case from a military to a civil court. Stephens thereupon wrote Johnson on the men's behalf.

Two months later, General Conner asked Judge George Bryan of the U.S. District Court of South Carolina for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of the defendants, stating that at the time of the crime, the civil courts of the state were organized and in full exercise of their judicial powers, and that the military did not have jurisdiction in the case. Judge Bryan issued the writ, directing General Sickles to turn the prisoners over to the jurisdiction of his court. Sickles refused to comply with the writ. Judge Bryan then issued an attachment for contempt of court and ordered Sickles to be arrested, but Sickles refused to be arrested. Judge Bryan, General Conner, and Governor Orr then notified President Johnson of Sickles's action.

About June 13, President Johnson met with 0. H. Browning, a lawyer soon to be named Secretary of the Interior; a Colonel Tompkins, an Illinois native now practicing law in the South; William Henry Trescott of South Carolina; Louisa Keys, wife of Crawford Keys; and Mary Elizabeth Stowers, wife of F. G. Stowers. After this meeting, President Johnson commuted the death sentence of Keys and Stowers and sentenced all four defendants to life imprisonment at Fort Jefferson, on the small island of Dry Tortugas near the Florida Keys. Soon after, the president ordered the War Department to transfer the men to Fort Delaware, in the state of Delaware, to serve their sentences. Secretary of War Stanton, later testifying before a congressional committee investigating the trial, explained that the order was intended "to avoid a collision between the military commander of the department and the civil authorities in South Carolina." Stanton also testified that he had become concerned for the welfare of the men because of crowded conditions at the prison and because the season was likely to invite illness. The men were released from the prison on Dry Tortugas, and on October 11 arrived at Fort Delaware.

Shortly afterward, Judge Willard Hall of the U.S. District Court for Delaware ordered the commander of Ft. Delaware to produce the prisoners in his court, and a second hearing on the case was convened. On November 16, 1866 the defendants appeared in court and were represented by Mr. Tompkins and Mr. T. F. Bayard. The issue before the court was not whether the men were guilty or innocent but only whether the military court had authority to try the case. Judge Hall ruled on November 17 that the military court did not have that authority, and he ordered the prisoners discharged. After a thirteen- month ordeal the imprisonment was over.

The four men arrived in Anderson in November 1866 and were welcomed by a large crowd. Francis Gaines Stowers did not remain for the welcoming ceremonies but went directly home. His health had deteriorated while in prison. He lived five more years and died in 1871.

Less than a month after the four men gained their freedom, the U.S. House of Representatives called for an investigation into the case. The first person called to testify was Major-General Daniel E. Sickles. He stated, "There were probably other persons present who participated in the affair who were never arrested. I tried very hard, indeed, to secure one of them - a notorious fellow by the name of Jolly-who escaped into Tennessee and from thence, I hear has gone to Texas. He was undoubtedly one of the men who fired upon the soldiers, and I have no doubt he was one of the worst."

Manse (Manson) Jolly was a deserter from the Confederate Army. He had vowed to kill 25 Yankees for the five brothers he lost during the War. After the shooting incident he left for safer territory and was not seen again in the area.

Francis Gaines Stowers (SFoA Vol I Page F-6) was the son of Thomas Stowers (SFoA Vol II Page

T-15) and grandson of Lewis Stowers (SFoA Vol I Page L-2), Revolutionary War soldier originally from Orange County Virginia.

Taken from the book, Coldwater Community In Elbert County, Georgia by Clara Adams Stowers,