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“C. H., S. C.” [i.e., Anderson Court House in Anderson, South Carolina, 1868]. Broadside, 9.125” x 12.125”. CONDITION: Very good, usual toning and foxing, .5” x 5.75” discoloration at top, later mounting cloth remnant at top of verso.

A rare broadside offering a reward for a partially-blind, mixed-race horse thief who escaped his initial arrest in Anderson, South Carolina three years after the Civil War.

Issued by prominent Anderson, South Carolina horse-thief-catcher and future politician John R. Cochran, this broadside reads in full:

I will pay the above reward for the arrest and safe confinement of BOB THOMPSON, who escaped from me on the 6th of Feb., by jumping from the train between Alston and Littleton, S. C. He is a mulatto, about 25 years old, 5 feet 6 or 7 inches high, blind in one eye, keeps it partly closed. He is considerably marked by small pox, especially on his nose—has very black hair, resembling that of an Indian, cut short at this time. 

He is a notorious burglar and horse thief; has broken open several stores, smoke-houses, &c, in this State. He has also stolen horses in this State, and committed many unlawful acts in adjoining States. Persons receiving handbills will oblige me by keeping a close look out for him. Was handcuffed when last heard from; has many assumed names.

Address,

JNO. R. COCHRAN, Anderson C. H., S. C. 

P. S--- PLEASE POST IN A CONSPICUOUS PLACE.

Bob Thompson, a “freedman”—and evidently a former slave—was originally arrested on January 28th, 1868 for stealing the horse of Captain E. L. Parker of Anderson (“Horse Thief Arrested”). As described on this broadside and reported in contemporary newspapers, Thompson escaped on February 6th, whereupon Cochran posted a reward for his recapture. Over the course of the ensuing days and weeks, Thompson’s description and reward were circulated in newspapers and handbills, and “one of these handbills…found its way to Adams Run, on the coast, and fell into the hands of a gentleman there, who recognized an individual in that community as answering to the description of ‘Bob Thompson.’ With the assistance of several negroes, the gentlemen arrested ‘Bob’…[who] was conveyed to Charleston and lodged in jail. As it happened, Mr. Cochran was on a visit to Charleston at the time,…took charge of ‘Bob,’ and brought him safely to Anderson” (“Arrested”). On Monday, May 28th, the Anderson Intelligencer notified readers that “The notorious Bob Thompson, indicted for horse stealing and larceny in four cases, plead guilty, with the exception of one case, and was sentenced to ten years and six months at hard labor in the Penitentiary” (“District Court”). Four years into his sentence, however, Thompson managed to use forged papers to secure a pardon. In 1878, a “Bob Thompson” was hanged with two other Black men in South Carolina “for the murder of Mr. & Mrs. Worley…All three asserted their innocence on the scaffold, and charged one Cox with having committed the murders for which they were about to suffer execution” (“Western and Southern States”). 

John R. Cochran (1842–1923) was born in Anderson, South Carolina to James Patterson and Louisa Elizabeth Day Cochran. He served in the Confederate Army as a private in Company B, 4th South Carolina Infantry (the Palmetto Riflemen) and was wounded at the First Battle of Bull Run on July 21st, 1861. He was discharged in April, 1862, and following the war gained a reputation as an able catcher of horse-thieves. One 1866 article in The Intelligencer discusses “the alarming increase of this crime throughout the section” and “award[s] the meed of praise to our energetic young friend, John R. Cochran, for his indefatigable efforts to arrest offenders against the law. He has been entirely successful in most cases, and within three weeks has lodged four or five horse-thieves with the Sheriff of this District” (“Cribb’d, Cabin’d and Confined”). From 1868 to 1869 he served as auditor of Anderson County, and from 1872 to 1874 as Lieut. Colonel on the staff of South Carolina governor Franklin I. Moses. He was elected to the state senate in 1874, and served one term. Cochran was evidently a more progressive voice in the South Carolina Reconstruction scene, advocating, among other things, for free elections, and urging Democrats against “intimidation or threats of any kind” at the polls (“John Robert Cochran Papers”).

OCLC locates just one example of this broadside, in the John Robert Cochran papers at the University of South Carolina.

A scarce broadside, signed in type by a Confederate veteran and future progressive voice in Reconstruction politics, announcing a reward for a formerly-enslaved, mixed-race horse thief.

REFERENCES: “Horse Thief Arrested,” The Intelligencer (Anderson, SC), Feb. 5, 1868, p. 2; “Arrested,” The Intelligencer, March 25, 1868, p. 2; “District Court,” The Intelligencer, May 20, 1868, p. 2; “Western and Southern States,” The Abbeville Press and Banner (Abbeville, SC), July 3, 1878, p. 4; “Cribb’d, Cabin’d and Confined,” The Intelligencer, August 16, 1866, p. 2; “John R. Cochran, Sr. Dies in Anderson,” The Index-Journal (Greenwood, SC), January 5, 1923, p. 8; Hoyt, James A. The Palmetto Riflemen. Co. B., Fourth Regiment S. C. Vols. Co. C., Palmetto Sharp Shooters. Historical Sketch (Greenville, S.C., 1886), p. 42; “John Robert Cochran Papers” at South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, OCLC 166147633.

Item #9602

Price: $1,500.00