They were arrested, one by one, by officers of the law; they were
handcuffed and chained together and by the officers of the law loaded in a
wagon and deliberately driven into an ambush where a mob of lynchers
awaited them. At the time and upon the chosen spot, in the darkness of the
night and far removed from the habitation of any human soul, the wagon was
halted and the mob fired upon the six manacled men, shooting them to death
as no humane person would have shot dogs. Chained together as they were,
in their awful struggles after the first volley, the victims tumbled out
of the wagon upon the ground and there in the mud, struggling in their
death throes, the victims were made the target of the murderous shotguns,
which fired into the writhing, struggling, dying mass of humanity, until
every spark of life was gone. Then the officers of the law who had them in
charge, drove away to give the alarm and to tell the world that they had
been waylaid and their prisoners forcibly taken from them and killed.

It has been claimed that the prompt, vigorous and highly commendable steps
of the governor of the State of Tennessee and the judge having
jurisdiction over the crime, and of the citizens of Memphis generally, was
the natural revolt of the humane conscience in that section of the
country, and the determination of honest and honorable men to rid the
community of such men as those who were guilty of this terrible massacre.
It has further been claimed that this vigorous uprising of the people and
this most commendably prompt action of the civil authorities, is ample
proof that the American people will not tolerate the lynching of innocent
men, and that in cases where brutal lynchings have not been promptly dealt
with, the crimes on the part of the victims were such as to put them
outside the pale of humanity and that the world considered their death a
necessary sacrifice for the good of all.

But this line of argument can in no possible way be truthfully sustained.