Kentucky Election Riots

The Shot-Gun, the Bowie-Knife, and Revolver
Used to Keep Up the Bourbon Majority

Cincinnati, Aug. 2. – Returns from the Kentucky election riots are coming in slowly, and the indications are that the persuasive shot-gun and gentle bowie-knife have performed well their part in rolling up the usual Democratic majorities.  . . .   At Milton, a small town on the Ohio river, 100 miles below this city, a colored man named Bonaparte Smith was in the crowd at the polls, when a white man named Amos Fox, who was drunk, walked up to Smith and struck him.  The colored man turned and knocked Fox down and stood over him.  A white man named Carnman then asked Smith not to hit Fox anymore. Smith then told Carnman that if he wanted anything in the same line he could get it.  Carnman then attacked Smith with a knife, cutting him so badly that he died this evening.  While Carnman was cutting Smith, other Kentuckians got excited, and for a time a bloody riot was in progress, but fortunately, no one else was injured. In addition to the cuts Smith received, his skull was fractured by a heavy blow with a bludgeon or stone.  Carnman was arrested.  Edward Claflin and John Stockhouse, brothers-in-law, had a difficulty this afternoon, during which Claflin received frequent blows with a board, and a last was knocked down a flight of steps where he lay insensible until picked up by the lookers-on.  He received serious injuries.  Claflin was the aggressor.  

from the New York Times, August 3, 1880. NKy Views has deleted a paragraph from this article that dealt with Covington and Winchester.