Full Description
Virginia's capital city knew poverty, injustice, slavery, vagrancy, substandard working conditions, street crimes, brutality, unsanitary conditions, and pandemics. One of the biggest stains in the city's past was the spectacle of public executions, attended by throngs. Thousands, including the old and the very young, reveled in a carnival-like atmosphere. This book narrates the history of the executions--hangings, and during the Civil War also firing squads--that formed a large part of Richmond's entertainment picture. Revulsion slowly mounted until the introduction of the electric chair. The history has a cast of unusual characters--the condemned, the crime victims, family members, the executioners, and not least an 182 pound "gallows" dog.
Contents
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
1. "Usual Place of Execution"
2. "A Flood of Tears" delete1782-1799
3. "Liberty of My Countrymen" delete1800-1802
4. "Between the Heavens and the Earth" delete1801-1826
5. "Sleep in Alien Dust" delete1827
6. "Hideous Curiosity" delete1828-1851
7. "In Cold Blood" delete1852
8. "The Mob Is Coming" delete1853-1860
9. "To Be Shot to Death by Musketry" delete1861-1865
10. "Farewell, Brave Spirit" delete1861-1865
11. "Certainly Horrible to Look At" delete1861-1865
12. "The Last Carnival of Death" delete1865-1869
13. "You're Gwyne to Hell" delete1870-1882
14. "Wait, I'm Not Done Yet" delete1883
15. "Cluverius's Day" delete1884-1887
16. "Good-Bye, Boys" delete1888-1899
17. "You Knowed I Won't Crazy" delete1900-1907
Epilogue
Appendices:
deleteA. Profile of an Executioner—John Caphart
deleteB. The Last Days of Spencer Kellogg Brown in His Own Words,
September 1865
deleteC. "Sleepless Sentinel at Castle Thunder"
deleteD. Sentencing of James Jeter Phillips by Judge George L. Christian of the Henrico Circuit Court, July 10, 1868
deleteE. The Prosecutor, Colonel W.R. Aylett, States the Case Against
Thomas J. Cluverius, 1885
deleteF. "An act to establish a permanent place in the State penitentiary ... [and] to change the mode of execution ... [to] electricity," March 16, 1908
deleteG. Richmond Executions
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index
