Charleston riot

The soldiers humiliated Constable by making him swear allegiance to the federal government, due to his decision to allow four Union deserters to go free in Marshall, Illinois.

One such news source, from the Chicago Tribune, later reprinted in the Charleston Courier, labeled Nelson Wells as the instigator of the conflict.

Also many sources speculate that a sizable portion of the participants, at least on the side of the Peace Democrats, had been drinking quite heavily all day, and this led to the outbreak that resulted in the confrontation.

Other Union troops were called in from Mattoon to assist the soldiers fighting in Charleston, but by the time their train arrived, none of the instigators were left in the town.

President Lincoln, whose father and stepmother had lived in Coles County, waived the prisoners' right to Habeas Corpus and ordered their removal to Fort Delaware in the East.

This political affiliation which stirred up support, as David Montgomery points out in Beyond Equality: Labor and the Radical Republicans, by incorporating the fears that the federal government's war effort sought to usurp the constitution.

The Civil War had split the country into factions, either side chose to support or oppose the aim to reincorporate the Southern states back into the Union.

Although the exact number is hard to gauge it has been estimated, by Victor Hicken in Illinois in the Civil War, that Coles County had been a significant pocket of Copperhead sympathizers.

In the end, the Charleston Riot provides a good example of how local events of Coles County history have fit into national currents as well.

The same day an organized gang of Copperheads, led by Sheriff O’Hair, attacked some men of the Regiment at Charleston, killing Major Shubal York, Surgeon, and four privates, and wounding Colonel G. M. Mitchell.