Empire of Sin by Gary Krist

surprising.Balding, bespectacled, and somewhat portly, the thirty-five-year-old lawyer may not have looked the part of the dynamic leader of men, but his intensity in the courtroom was legendary. A powerful natural orator, he had been a political force in the Young Men’s Democratic Association for some time already. But it was his position as alleged leader of the YMDA’s unofficial militia that explained why these men were at his office. Described by one historian as a“Southern ‘special gentlemen’s police,’ ” Parkerson’s so-called Regulators included many of the city’s most prominent citizens. These were the men who had brought Mayor Shakspeare and his reform government into office, and who now felt it their job to correct the “mistake” the jurors had made that day.
    After fifteen minutes, Parkerson broke up the meeting, instructing the men in his office to assemble again later that night. They would meet at the home of Franklin Brevard Hayne, a young cotton merchant who was also a leader of the Regulators militia. And when they reconvened in the parlor of Hayne’s home—at the corner of Royal and Bienville Streets in the Vieux Carré—their ire was, if anything, stoked even higher than before.Many had heard stories of raucous demonstrations in the Italian colony that day; one report even had some Italians spitting on an American flag in joyous defiance. To the 150 men present, the meaning of this was obvious. The Mafia society was flaunting its power, celebrating its victory over the forces of law and order in New Orleans.
    Many at the meeting wanted to march to the parish prison at that very moment to exact their revenge. But Parkerson dissuaded them. Convinced that any such vigilante action needed a popular mandate behind it, he argued instead for a mass meeting to be held the next morning—a gathering that would attract a large number of participants. And so together they composed an announcement to be printed in all of the morning papers. Signed by sixty-one men, it read:
MASS MEETING!
A LL GOOD CITIZENS ARE INVITED TO ATTEND A MASS MEETING ON SATURDAY, M ARCH 14 , AT 10 O’CLOCK A.M., AT C LAY S TATUE, TO TAKE STEPS TO REMEDY THE FAILURE OF JUSTICE IN THE HENNESSY CASE.
                                         
   C OME PREPARED FOR ACTION .   
    The announcement did not specify what action was meant, but Parkerson’s intentions were clearly telegraphed by what he did next: After adjourning the meeting at Hayne’s house, he and a select group of trusted friendsrode a horse-drawn wagon to a hardware store across town. There they loaded it up with an ample supply of rope, plenty of ammunition, and 150 Winchester rifles and shotguns. Then they carried this arsenal back to Hayne’s, where they loaded it into several large trunks, to be easily available the next day.

    W HEN Sheriff Gabriel Villere read the newspapers the next morning, he was under no illusions about the probable result of the announced mass meeting, and he wanted to be ready for it. Whatever his own sympathies, he was responsible for the safety of the nineteen prisoners in his charge. Soat eight thirty A.M. he left his office at the parish prison and headed toward City Hall to find Mayor Shakspeare. If the crowds at the mass meeting turned into an unruly mob, he wanted the mayor to give him more men, or maybe even help from the state militia.
    At roughly the same time of the morning, Pasquale Corte, Italy’s consul to New Orleans, washeading through the streets in the same direction. The announcement in the papers had distressed the consul considerably. At least two of the defendants in the trial were Italian nationals, and Corte saw it as his responsibility to make certain of their safety. So he, too, was going to see the mayor, hoping to persuade him to protect the acquitted men.
    Sheriff Villere was already at City Hall when Corte arrived, but both were to be disappointed. Neither