Decent, Orderly Lynching

by Frederick Allen

"The deadliest campaign of vigilante justice in American history erupted in the gold camps of the Rocky Mountains during the Civil War, when a private army hanged twenty-one troublemakers, including a rogue sheriff. Hailed as great heroes at the time, the Montana vigilantes are still revered as founding fathers who brought order to a lawless land." "Combing through original sources, including eyewitness accounts never before published, journalist and historian Frederick Allen concludes that the vigilantes were justified in their early actions, as they fought violent crime in a remote corner hundreds of miles beyond the reach of government." "But Allen has uncovered evidence that the vigilantes refused to disband after territorial courts were in place. Remaining active for six years, they lynched more than fifty men without trials. Reliance on mob rule in Montana became so ingrained that in 1883, a Helena newspaper editor advocated a return to "decent, orderly lynching" as a legitimate