Clarion-Ledger clipping

Patterson, James G., -1875; Lynching

During the campaign of 1875, Dixon rushed to the front eagerly and monopolized as his exlusive privilege the performance of the work of the Democratic party. In murderous cruelty he exceeded the demands of the hour and the necessities of the occasion. The first victim was Dick Mitchell, whom Dixon claimed to have shot, but in this case it was in a riot and the life of every one present was in danger. The next was Horace Hammond, a colored man; he was neither a leader nor a man of influence, but he was an enemy of Dixon, and under cover of political excitement he was hung by his antagonist. Albert August, a colored man, was also hung; he was also an enemy of Dixon, but there was no other cause for his death. James G. Patterson, a colored man, was State representative; he resided in a portion of the county in which the blacks outnumber the whites one hundred to one. Among these ignorant people he was thought to be a power in the land. He became infatuated with the Dixon policy, and as killing appeared to be statesmanship he proposed to take a whack at it. He hired a man to kill the husband of a female friend. Patterson was a Radical imported from Ohio; perhaps procuring assassination may entitle him to be called a martyr in the saintly Globe Democrat.

But there is a good deal more of the Patterson affair. Patterson had on him when he was hung by Dixon's band about $1,300. Some of it was thought by the bilks to be a Radical corruption fund. It came into the hands of Dixon; it cannot be traced further. Dixon said he spent it in the campaign, but he could show how. Patterson, in his last moments, requested that this money should be sent to his sister in Ohio.

The Globe-Democrat will please inquire of Patterson's sister, whose address can be given by A. T. Morgan of Washington, D. C., whether she ever got this money from H. M. Dixon.