>>21530866
Battle of Athens
https://www.americanheritage.com/battle-athens
"At 2:48 A.M. the first dynamite was tossed toward the jail; it landed under Boe Dunn’s cruiser, and the explosion flipped the vehicle over on its top, leaving its wheels spinning. Three more bundles of dynamite were thrown almost simultaneously; one landed on the jail porch roof, another under Mansfield’s car, and the third struck the jail wall. The explosions rattled windows throughout the town; leaves fell from the trees, debris scattered for blocks, and the jailhouse porch jumped off its foundation. The deputies barricaded in the courthouse a block away rushed onto the balcony, eager to surrender. The jail’s defenders staggered from their ruined stronghold and handed the ballot boxes over to the veterans.
With the Cantrell forces conquered, ten years of suppressed rage exploded. The townspeople set upon the captured deputies and, but for the GIs, probably would have killed them all. Minus Wilburn, a particularly unpopular deputy, had his throat slashed; Biscuit Farris, Cantrell’s prison superintendent, had his jaw shattered by a bullet; and Windy Wise was kicked and beaten senseless. Joined by a number of their fellows, the GIs cleared the jail of the rioters and locked up their prisoners for the night.
At dawn the veterans slipped from the jail, made their way through the detritus of the battle, and dispersed into what they hoped would be anonymity. Miraculously there had been no deaths. But on August 2 a page-one headline in The New York Times wrongly trumpeted the news: TENNESSEE SHERIFF is SLAIN IN PRIMARY DAY VIOLENCE . All day long reporters with cameras and notebooks poured into town to photograph, question, analyze, and write. And every newcomer passed the sign on Highway 11:"