... Some fourteen or fifteen men were shot, including Officer Williams, Joe Selvage and others. Two or three were killed, and a number of houses, chiefly German coffee houses, broken into and pillaged. About 4 o'clock, a vast crowd armed with shotguns, muskets and rifles were proceeding to attack the new German parish of St. Martin of Tours on Shelby street. Mayor Barbee, himself a Know-Nothing, dissuaded them with and the mob returned to the First Ward polls. An hour afterwards the large brewery on Jefferson street, near the junction of Green, was set on fire.[3] Rev. Karl Boeswald was fatally injured by a hail of flying Stones while on his way to visit a dying parishioner.
Late in the afternoon three Irishmen going down Main street, near Eleventh, were attacked, and one knocked down. Irish in the neighborhood responded by firing repeated volleys from the windows of their houses on Main street. Mr. Rodes, a river-man, was shot and killed by one in the upper story, and a Mr. Graham met with a similar fate. An Irishman who discharged a pistol at the back of a man's head was shot and then hung but survived. After dusk, a row of frame houses on Main street between Tenth and Eleventh, the property of Mr. Quinn, a well known Irishman, were set on fire. The flames extended across the street and twelve buildings were destroyed. These houses were chiefly tenanted by Irish, and upon any of the tenants venturing out to escape the flames, they were immediately shot down. Those badly wounded by gun shot could not escape from the burning buildings.[3] (Wiki)
Late in the afternoon three Irishmen going down Main street, near Eleventh, were attacked, and one knocked down. Irish in the neighborhood responded by firing repeated volleys from the windows of their houses on Main street. Mr. Rodes, a river-man, was shot and killed by one in the upper story, and a Mr. Graham met with a similar fate. An Irishman who discharged a pistol at the back of a man's head was shot and then hung but survived. After dusk, a row of frame houses on Main street between Tenth and Eleventh, the property of Mr. Quinn, a well known Irishman, were set on fire. The flames extended across the street and twelve buildings were destroyed. These houses were chiefly tenanted by Irish, and upon any of the tenants venturing out to escape the flames, they were immediately shot down. Those badly wounded by gun shot could not escape from the burning buildings.[3] (Wiki)
Louisville, Kentucky. Monday August 6, 1855. An election day, and the Nativist "Know Nothing" Party, a fearmongering hypernationalistic hair-on-fire bunch warning of the dire consequences of immigrants, had sent thugs out to stand Intimidation Patrol at the polling places. Targeted (this time) were Germans and Irish.
Background (in part):
>> Over a decade before Bloody Monday, the German editor of a Louisville newspaper urged his fellow immigrants to assert their right to vote by arming themselves as they headed to the polls to vote in the 1844 presidential election. The editor was later forced to flee after native-born U.S. citizens gathered in front of his office, but the “damage” was done. James K. Polk, a Democrat, won the election instead of Kentucky Senator Henry Clay, a member of the Whig party. The result of the election was blamed on the votes of German and Irish immigrants.
By 1849, a group called the National Central Union of Free Germans (NCUFG) was headquartered in Louisville, urging immigrants to retain their native language and customs. The NCUFG also promoted “wild” notions like women’s suffrage, the abolition of slavery, and equality for black men. The party that would soon be known as the Know-Nothings were infuriated because the immigrants weren’t conforming to their idea of how Americans should behave or think. << -- Bloody Monday
By 1849, a group called the National Central Union of Free Germans (NCUFG) was headquartered in Louisville, urging immigrants to retain their native language and customs. The NCUFG also promoted “wild” notions like women’s suffrage, the abolition of slavery, and equality for black men. The party that would soon be known as the Know-Nothings were infuriated because the immigrants weren’t conforming to their idea of how Americans should behave or think. << -- Bloody Monday
The end result left over a hundred businesses, homes vandalized, looted and/or burned, including an entire row of houses destroyed by fire, with a death toll estimated at anywhere from about 20 to over 100, with entire families trapped in their own houses where they burned to death.
>> Needless to say, the immigrants weren’t exactly happy about being prevented from voting. One man, George Berg, was beaten to death by a group of angry Irishmen, while a German man fired shots at a passing carriage on the corner of Shelby and Green Streets. After the first shots were fired, the Know-Nothings came out in uncontrollable mobs. They burned a whole row of houses in the Irish district, burning several people to death and hanging a few more before tossing the bodies into the flames. An old Irishman was pulled from his bed and killed for “being an Irishman and a Catholic.” << (ibid)
Over ten thousand survivors packed up and left for other cities. So much so that the population drop closed still more businesses and cultural resources, causing Louisville to be eclipsed by then-comparable cities like Cincinnati and St. Louis, two of the major destinations to which the disgusted residents fled.
The Know Nothings were a short-lived nativist political party, staunchly opposed to immigrants and purporting to stand for pure Americanism. Their nickname came from the secrecy associated with it -- if one was questioned about the party he was supposed to reply, "I know nothing". Happily they died out soon after this incident, though not because of it, although the spirit of what they stood for would be revived and manifest in the 20th century Ku Klux Klan.. And some suggest, in the 2016 election.
Those who ignore their own history.....
