Having had a tradition of a well-established class of free people of color in the city, African Americans organized to defend themselves during this volatile period.
[2] By suppressing the black majority in Edgefield County and election fraud (2,000 more votes were counted than the total number of registered voters in the county), the Democrats elected Wade Hampton III as the Democratic candidate by a narrow margin of slightly more than 1100 votes statewide.
[2] The whites fired a pistol above the heads of gathering black Republicans but that attracted more African Americans, and fighting started.
Blacks continued to roam, looting on King Street and nearby, as the outnumbered police (a mixed group racially) could not quell their activity.
[2] Their officers met the next day, making a plan to have rifle clubs available at short notice every night when political meetings were held.
[2] The inability of Governor Chamberlain and the local law authorities to preserve the peace convinced the people of the state of the failure of Republican rule.
Historian Ehren K. Foley noted that the event "demonstrated the continued mobilization and strength of both the Republican party and the African American community in the low country of South Carolina.
The initiation of the Ellenton riot began when a white posse attempted to serve warrants of arrest issued by an African-American Magistrate Prince Rivers[1] for two people suspected of breaking and entering.
One gun discharged accidentally and the crowd began to disperse; one of the whites shot an elderly black man, who was killed.
With the threat of retaliatory attacks by the whites, Governor Chamberlain sent a company of Federal troops to the town to prevent any more bloodshed.
On October 17, a group of six white men of the Red Shirts were leaving a Democratic meeting in Edgefield and were ambushed by two black brothers from a cotton patch about three miles outside the town.
The Red Shirts threatened retaliation, but were restrained by General Martin Gary and Wade Hampton because the black men were on state property.
As he walked down Broad street to the office of the News and Courier, a drunk white man struck Mackey's face with his hat and in the ensuing scuffle, a gunshot went off.
A call to action went out to all the rifle clubs and Red Shirts in Charleston; more than 500 paramilitary white men assembled by five o'clock.
Outraged red shirts across the Lowcountry gathered and restored order in the area while heeding calls from Wade Hampton to limit bloodshed and show mercy.