George Ashburn was a Southern white man who joined the Union army during the Civil War. In 1867 he was a delegate to the Georgia Constitutional Convention where he helped draft provisions protecting the civil rights of African Americans. Ashburn decided to live among the African American community in Columbus, Georgia, and he was considering running for the United States Senate. On March 30, 1868 Ashburn participated in an integrated meeting of Republicans in Columbus. A few hours later, he was assassinated in his home by a group of five masked men.

Ashburn had been widely denounced by the Georgia Conservatives, a collection of men of various political stripes who united around opposition to African American suffrage.  Newspapers reported that he had made many enemies among the Conservatives because of his advocacy of civil rights. When Ashburn was murdered, local military authorities demanded that the killing be investigated by the civilian government. Captain Mills, the local military commander, reported to his commander, General George Gordon Meade, that the political structure in Columbus was unwilling to act against the assassins. Meade then removed the mayor, the board of aldermen, and the city marshal. Meade sent a detective to investigate the crime.

Detective H.C. Whitley reported that many witnesses had been intimidated into silence. After witnesses were removed to safe locations, nine men were indicted for the killing. A legal team, including the former Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, defended the nine accused men. Eight witnesses testified against the the defendents. They included two who had accompanied the mob that had been at Ashburn’s home and others who had heard the men speak of the murder.

In the middle of the trial, Meade halted proceedings because military supervision of the state ended. The civil authorities never brought the accused men back to trial and they were welcomed home by a large crowd of white people when they were released from jail.

The April 7, 1868 NY Times reported on the Ashburn murder.

 

Note: The illustration depicts the Ashburn assassination. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated (1868) entitled “The Ku Klux Klan At Work — The Assassination Of The Hon. G.W. Ashburn, In Columbus, Georgia.”

Sources:

The Ashburn Murder Case In Georgia Reconstruction, 1868 by Elizabeth Otto Daniell The Georgia Historical Quarterly Vol. 59, No. 3 (Fall, 1975), pp. 296-312

Report on the Ashburn Murder by George Gordon Meade 1868

New Georgia Encyclopedia Ku Klux Klan in the Reconstruction Era

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