John Murrell (bandit) - The Murrell Excitement

The Murrell Excitement

A young man named Virgil Stewart, in 1835, wrote an account of a Murrell sponsored slave rebellion plot sponsored by highwaymen and Northern Abolitionists. The account was thought to be fictitious. The account was published as a pamphlet called "A History of the Detection, Conviction, Life And Designs of John A. Murel, The Great Western Land Pirate; Together With his System of Villany and Plan of Exciting a Negro Rebellion, and a Catalogue of the Names of Four Hundred and Forty Five of His Mystic Clan Fellows and Followers and Their Efforts for the Destruction of Mr. Virgil A. Stewart, The Young Man Who Detected Him, To Which is Added Biographical Sketch of Mr. Virgil A. Stewart."

Stewart wrote this so-called "confession of John Murrell" under the pseudonym of "Augustus Q. Walton, Esq.," for whom he invented a fictitious background and profession. Some historians assert that Stewart's pamphlet was largely fictional, and that Murrell (and his brothers) were at best inept thieves, having bankrupted their father over the years for bail money.

However, many of the claims made in the pamphlet were believed at the time in some parts of the South, and led to the "Murrell Excitement". During this time, there was increased tension between the races and between locals and outsiders. On July 4, 1835, there were disturbances in the red-light districts of Nashville, Memphis and Natchez and twenty slaves and ten white men where hanged after confessing to complicity in this plot. On July 6, in Vicksburg, an angry mob decided to expel all professional gamblers from the town, based on a rumor that the gamblers were part of this plot. Five gamblers barricaded themselves inside their den, refusing to come out, and shot a widely-respected doctor, killing him. All five were hung.