Coushatta Massacre: White League Assassinates Entire Republican Parish Government

On August 30, 1874, the White League—a paramilitary organization of Confederate veterans described as “the military arm of the Democratic Party”—completes a weeklong campaign of terror in Red River Parish, Louisiana, by assassinating six white Republican officeholders and five to twenty Black freedmen witnesses. The massacre represents a dramatic escalation in Reconstruction violence: the officialdom of an entire parish has been virtually decapitated in a single coordinated murder spree. The White League forces the Republican officials to sign statements promising to leave Louisiana immediately, then murders them while they travel under escort—demonstrating that if the White League can take parish officials and simply gun them down with impunity, Republican governance is a hollow shell.

The violence begins on the night of August 25, 1874, with the murder of Thomas Floyd, an African-American farmer, in Brownsville. White League members subsequently arrest several white Republicans and twenty freedmen, falsely accusing them of plotting a “negro rebellion.” Among the white Republicans are Sheriff Edgerton, William Howell (parish attorney), Robert Dewees (De Soto Parish tax collector), Homer Twitchell (tax collector and Marshall Twitchell’s brother), and three brothers-in-law. Within two days, hundreds of armed whites arrive in Coushatta. After holding their hostages for several days, the captors force the officeholders to sign statements saying they would immediately leave Louisiana. While traveling out of the region under armed escort, six white captives are murdered by a band of armed whites led by Dick Coleman.

The massacre occurs just two weeks before the White League routes Republican forces in the Battle of Liberty Place in New Orleans, where 5,000 White League members overwhelm 3,500 troops and briefly seize control of the city government. Republican governance in Louisiana never recovers from these savage blows. None of the Coushatta lynch mob is ever brought to justice, establishing a pattern of elite impunity for political violence that will characterize the end of Reconstruction. The White League operates openly with membership virtually identical to the Democratic Party, making no distinction between partisan politics and armed insurrection.

The Coushatta killings prove strategically decisive in ending Reconstruction. By demonstrating the high enforcement costs and limited efficacy of federal oversight, the massacre reinforces congressional and executive inclinations toward withdrawal from the South. Though President Grant sends federal troops to restore order after the Battle of Liberty Place, the temporary nature of military intervention becomes clear. By underscoring that maintaining Republican governance requires permanent military occupation—which northern public opinion will not support—the massacre paves the way for Reconstruction’s formal termination in 1877. The Coushatta victims represent the last generation of Republican officials willing to enforce Black civil rights in the Deep South; their assassination signals that white supremacist violence has successfully made multiracial democracy impossible in the region for the next 90 years.