McCagg

A CITIZEN OF CINCINNATI MOBBED AT FLORENCE, KENTUCKY.

We could hardly believe the evidence of our own senses, last night, as we listened to the details of one of the most flagrant outrages perpetrated by a mob of Secessionists at Florence, Kentucky, yesterday morning that we have ever heard. The victim was J. V. McCagg of Cincinnati, who has just returned from Virginia with Burdsals Cavalry company, of which he was a member.

McCagg had gone to Florence in a buggy yesterday morning to visit some friends, and being very well known in the region, which is intensely secession, it soon became noise about that d — d Lincoln soldier was in the place, and during a few minutes stay in Florence, McCagg’s ears were greeted with epithets of the vilest character.

Seeing the tendency of the feeling toward him, he jumped into his buggy and drove rapidly from the city, but he had hardly got clear of the precincts when three men in buggies and a horseman drove after him, and as they neared his vehicle fired their revolvers at him. His horse was swift and he enjoyed a temporary advantage; but he was soon overtaken, and was fired at six or seven times, when he had to surrender.

A gigantic Kentuckian, Captain of secession military company, whose name we could not learn then got into McC’s  buggy, and, with a loaded pistol, pointed at his head, made him drive back again to Florence, accompanied by the others, and upon reaching the place they were met an infuriated mob of Secessionists, who clamored loudly for McC.'s life, some being in favor of shooting and others wishing to hang him.

 Their prisoner plead at some length with the mob, but his voice was drowned in an uproar. One rascal came forward and informed him that he had been watched all day in Cincinnati, and he told him of several business transactions in which he had been engaged during the forenoon, and that he was traced all along the road to Florence, where this reception was in store for him.

Very fortunately for McCagg, a lady who knew him in Florence heard of his predicament, and interceded for him, but it was not until he had taken an oath of allegiance to the State of Kentucky, and the lady had sworn that he had come there only to see her, that he was allowed to depart with his life. Even then he got an hour to leave the state, and but for the fact that the noble hearted lady referred to, volunteered to accompany McC to Cincinnati, it is very doubtful whether he would ever have ever seen it alive. — Cincinnati Gazette

Sacramento Daily Union, September 16, 1861