What sparked the Memphis riot of 1866 that led to the deaths of 48 and homelessness of hundreds? In 1866, an on-site investigation by Congressman Elihu Benjamin Washburne (1816-1887) and his committee would result in Washburne's harrowing 1866 report titled, "Memphis Riots and Massacres." The Memphis massacre of 1866 was a series of violent events that occurred from May 1 to 3, 1866 in Memphis, Tennessee. The racial violence was ignited by political, social, and racial tensions following the American Civil War, in the early stages of Reconstruction. After a shooting altercation between white policemen and black veterans recently mustered out of the Union Army, mobs of white residents and policemen rampaged through black neighborhoods and the houses of freedmen, attacking and killing black soldiers and civilians and committing many acts of robbery and arson. In introducing his book, Washburne writes: "The committee reached Memphis on the 22d day of May last, and immediately proceeded with their investigations. They examined a hundred and seventy witnesses... Previous to this time the people of Memphis had been clamoring for a withdrawal of all the United States troops, boasting that they were perfectly competent to take care of themselves. General Stoneman had, therefore, turned the city and that section of country over to the civil authorities, as far as it was practicable, holding them responsible for good order, peace, and quiet.
