Historical marker detailing Mitcham Beat and the Mitchum War. near McEntyre, Alabama.
The Mitcham War was a bloody conflict that occurred in Clarke County, Alabama in the early 1890s.[1]
The conflict was between rural farmers in remote section of Clarke County named Mitcham Beat and merchants in Coffeeville and other towns near the Mitcham Beat.[1] Some accounts characterize the conflict as resulting from the 1892 elections that left rural whites disenfranchised and angry and resulting in racial violence.[2]
Around 1890, a group of young rural men formed a secret society called "Hell-at-the-Breech" that believed their local economy was being controlled by a small group. On December 25, 1892, the gang entered Coffeeville and murdered a prominent businessman.[1]
Soon a vigilante mob of 500 formed to seek the Hell-at-the-Breech murderers, and eventually killed 5 men.[1]
Different sources have the violence continuing until fall of 1893 after the Hell-at-the-breech disbanded[1] or when the mob of Clarke County men publicly shot a prominent member of the Hell-at-the-Breech gang.[2]
Jackson, Hardy, Joyce White Burrage, and James A. Cox. The Mitcham War of Clarke County, Alabama. Grove Hill, Alabama: Clarke County Democrat, 1988.
Jackson, Hardy. "The Middle-Class Democracy Victorious: The Mitcham War of Clarke County, Alabama, 1893." Journal of Southern History 57 (August 1991): 453-78.
In fiction
Hell at the Breech (2003) is a fictional account of the Mitcham War by novelist and Alabama native Tom Franklin (author).
