Murder, Mayhem and Whitecapping: The Fall of the Northwest Georgia Whitecappers

Murder, Mayhem and Whitecapping is set in northwest Georgia 1894. It is the story of two men who were attacked by a group of whitecappers, men sworn by a blood oath to protect moonshiners, remove immoral people from their communities, but most of all to protect their own. The area of northwest Georgia had a membership of 800-1000 men. Henry Worley, a whitecapper himself, turns on his brotherhood, and manages to survive the hangman's noose but a week later is shot and killed by men he once called friends. A few months later, William Roper, who has been turning in moonshiners for a profit, finds himself a target as well. He is attacked in the middle of the night by whitecappers, who shoot him and leave him for dead in an abandoned copper pit. After six days, he is rescued from the pit and eventually testifies in federal court against his attackers. The federal government would eventually charge 30+ men, many of them prominent individuals in the county, with conspiracy. These two trials, as well as subsequent pleas, would eventually lead to the demise of the whitecappers in northwest Georgia. The trials would be covered extensively by The Atlanta Constitution. It along with federal court transcripts, essays on moonshining and whitecapping, and other historical references, serve as sources for this historical, nonfiction book.