"He looked at me in a defiant manner"

Wilson Comfort (Courtesy of Tyler Talley)   

Thomas H. Comfort, a black citizen of Spotsylvania County, was born about 1862 to Wilson Comfort and Sarah Ann Brown. Thomas married Mary Woolfolk on December 23, 1884. Their time together would be short.

Map detail of Spotsylvania County, 1863

     Jesse H. Stubbs, Jr. (1841-1919) was born in southwestern Spotsylvania County to Jesse Stubbs and Sarah Elizabeth Prewett. The Stubbs farm can be seen in the center of the map detail above. Jesse enlisted in Company I of the 6th Virginia Cavalry on May 4, 1861. He was absent from his regiment for a time in 1862 while recuperating from pneumonia. When he returned to active duty, he spent much of the remainder of the war on detached duty as a teamster for the quartermaster department. After the Civil War, Jesse returned home to Spotsylvania. He married Ann Judson Sanders on October 24, 1869. In the years that followed, Jesse earned his living as the owner of a grist mill and also ran a steam saw mill. He was active in local politics and appeared to be well regarded in the community.

     On March 18, 1889 Thomas Comfort was working at the saw mill of Jesse Stubbs. He and Jesse were standing at opposite ends of the carriage which had just come off its track, apparently because a log was not placed properly on it. Thomas attempted to get the carriage back on the track by lifting up on it with a stick. Stubbs told him he was doing it the wrong way, and Thomas replied that he knew what he was doing, "to which he added an impolite word." Jesse picked up a five-foot black gum stick and struck Thomas twice. The first blow Thomas averted by throwing up his arms. The second blow smashed into the left side of Thomas's head, instantly rendering him unconscious. Jesse asked some of his other employees to carry Thomas out of mill shed. He was carried outside and laid on a pile of wood chips. Thomas lay insensible there for a time before regaining consciousness. When he woke up, he seemed not to understand what had happened to him. After a while, he managed to stand up and began tottering off in the direction of his home.

John Duerson Pulliam and his wife

     Shortly thereafter, Thomas was seen by witness Cleverious Woolfolk staggering across one of the fields of Dr. John Duerson Pulliam's farm. Mr. Woolfolk helped Thomas reach his home, where he died shortly thereafter. A Dr. Woolfolk was summoned to examine Thomas's body, and he and Dr. Pulliam, who acted as coroner, performed an autopsy. During the trial of Jesse Stubbs four months later, Dr. Pulliam testified that he issued a warrant for Jesse's arrest the following day. The charge was murder.

The Free Lance 22 March 1889

The Free Lance 9 July 1889

     A trial was held at Spotsylvania Court House on July 2, 1889. Representing the prosecution were Commonwealth's Attorney Alfred Benjamin Rawlings and William Seymour White. White had suffered from poor health most of his life and had to be rolled about in a wheel chair. However, this is no way stopped him from accomplishing a great deal during his short life. In addition to his work as an attorney, White was also the editor of The Free Lance and the mayor of Fredericksburg.

William Seymour White (Ancestry)

     The lawyers who defended Jesse Stubbs were also at the top of their profession. St. George Rose Fitzhugh was counsel for the RF&P and PF&P Railroads and the Weems Steamboat Line, and had once been city attorney of Fredericksburg. Lee Jackson Graves, who grew up on a farm near the Stubbs's property, succeeded A.B. Rawlings as commonwealth's attorney in 1899.

Lee Jackson Graves

     During the trial, Jesse testified in his own defense. He said that Thomas was trying to get the carriage back on the track incorrectly. When he told Thomas he was going about it in the wrong way, Thomas "made a vulgar, insulting remark to him." He then told Comfort to get away from his saw mill. "He looked me square in the face in a defiant manner. I then struck him on the head with the stick I had in my hand. As he fell, I caught him to prevent him from falling on the saw."

     William Seymour White "then opened the case for the prosecution. Those who heard his efforts, many of them gentlemen of the highest culture, and much observation of the practice of law, pronounced his speech as one of the master efforts of the Spotsylvania bar in the memory of the oldest citizen."

     There is an old adage among lawyers who try cases in court that goes something like this: If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the facts are against you, argue the law. If both are against you, argue like hell. At the conclusion of Mr. White's speech, Mr. Fitzhugh argued like hell during a three hour tirade during which he presented to the members of the jury what he wanted them to believe was really at stake in this trial. From the November 9, 1889 The Free Lance:

     "It was thought by many that the argument made by Mr. Fitzhugh was impolitic as it might have been from a standpoint of public policy, especially coming from him, a man who stands at the head of the bar of the State, and otherwise a representative in and of the important relations of life, yet it was the only alternative under the evidence in the case. Mr. Fitzhugh told the jury of the superiority of the white man over the negro. He held that the deceased was an insolent trespasser upon the rights of the prisoner, and that he therefore had a clear right to do what he did do, should it be construed that he intended to kill the negro; but that the evidence proved that there was no intention upon the part of the prisoner to take the life of the deceased, and where there is no evil intent, there can be no offense in law no matter what the result. He dealt severely with the character of the deceased, as being an impudent hater of the white race, and that as well as on previous occasions, he not only tried to domineer and declare himself the superior of the white man, but was there grossly insulting Mr. Stubbs upon his own premises. He held that nature never intended for the negro to enjoy the franchise of the white man. That whilst he was opposed to slavery, he was opposed to the enfranchisement of the negroes. That that was an occasion in which the verdict of the jury should teach the survivors of the dead negro what they may expect to become of them in such an altercation (or words to that effect). He went so far as to say that if the jury convicted Mr. Stubbs, that the negroes would put an interpretation upon it that would have to wiped out with blood. Such was the tenor and the line of Mr. Fitzhugh's argument."

     When St. George Fitzhugh finished his summation it was nearly midnight. Court was then adjourned and reconvened the following morning. After a brief consultation, the jury returned a verdict that Jesse Stubbs was guilty of involuntary manslaughter. He was fined $100 and released.

     Eight months after he was murdered, Thomas Comfort's youngest son was born. His widow named him in her late husband's honor.

To read a short biography of Dr. John Duerson Pulliam, click here: http://spotsylvaniamemory.blogspot.com/2014/12/dr-john-duerson-pulliam.html