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Toward dawn a thundering explosion rocked the bullet-riddled jail front. A dynamite charge had ripped away the porch, and behind the billowing cloud of smoke and rubble the sporadic firing ceased. From within a voice called: "Stop it. You're killing us. Let us give up."
Leaving their wounded bleeding on the floor inside, the defeated garrison of Cantrell-Mansfield followers filed out, hands high in the air. Under a glaring spotlight beamed on the damaged entrance, the onetime law of McMinn County squinted wearily at a jeering, taunting mob.
At week's end McMinn County Politicos Paul Cantrell and Pat Mansfield, whose Democratic machine had bullied the fertile East Tennessee valley for ten years, were still absent and in hiding. The entire G.I. Nonpartisan ticket (including two Republicans) had been declared elected. The new Sheriff will be Knox Henry, 34, filling-station owner and an overseas Air Corps sergeant.
In Athens' white, gingerbread courthouse a public mass meeting chose a minister and two businessmen to run governmentless McMinn County until the G.I.s could take over. Shootings and car-wreckings by armed bands of vigilantes continued. Big-jawed, towering Jim Buttram, twice-wounded corporal with the Ninth Division and manager of the G.I. Ticket, promised "to help maintain order."
McMinn County's shooting veterans had spectacularly rid themselves of one type of tyranny. But thoughtful citizens knew they had set an ominous precedent. Abraham Lincoln had made the point:
"Among freemen there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and. . . they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case and pay the cost."