The Fighting Bunch: The Battle of Athens and How World War II Veterans Won the Only Successful Armed Rebellion Since the Revolution

In this dramatic account, historian DeRose (Star Spangled Scandal) details how corrupt officials who had seized and held power in McMinn County, Tenn., from 1936 until 1946 were overthrown by a group of WWII veterans. Drawing on press accounts, private letters, and interviews with descendants of those involved, DeRose vividly describes ballot boxes stuffed with fraudulent votes, poll watchers forced out of precincts at gunpoint, and armed deputies intimidating voters. Orchestrated by sheriff and state senator Paul Cantrell, these voter suppression techniques ensured that his network of judges, deputies, and county officials won reelection year after year. In 1946, Navy veteran and lawyer Ralph Duggan led an effort to replace Cantrell and his cronies with a “GI ticket” split between Democrats and Republicans who had served in the military. When Cantrell’s men confiscated ballot boxes on election day and took them to a jail in Athens, Tenn., a group of armed veterans laid siege to the building and a gunfight broke out. Cantrell’s cronies were eventually forced to flee town, and every candidate on the GI ticket won. Doggedly researched and briskly narrated, this rousing chronicle testifies to the importance of free and fair elections. (Nov.)