In the heart of the Mississippi Delta, in the small cotton town of Drew, a dispute between a plantation manager and a sharecropper on December 14, 1923, erupted into violence that would leave multiple men dead. W. T. Saunders, a 45-year-old white male, was fatally shot at his home. The man responsible was Joe Pullen, an African-American sharecropper who had gotten into a disagreement with Saunders over a debt.
Accounts of the initial confrontation vary. Some suggest that Saunders went to Pullen's house to collect a debt and the argument escalated, leading to Saunders firing at Pullen first. Pullen, armed with a. 38-caliber revolver, returned fire, killing Saunders. Following the shooting, Pullen gathered more ammunition and a shotgun and fled into the nearby swamps, setting the stage for a massive manhunt.
A large posse, estimated to be around 1,000 men, was quickly formed to capture Pullen. The chase turned into a prolonged and deadly gunfight. Pullen, using his knowledge of the terrain, managed to evade the posse for a significant time, and in the ensuing conflict, he shot and killed several of the men hunting him. The posse eventually brought in a machine gun to overpower Pullen. After being wounded, he was captured.
Following his capture, Joe Pullen was tied to a car and dragged into the town of Drew, where he died from his injuries. The violence of that day also claimed the lives of Archie L. Manning, age 33, E. O. Hess, age 50, and R. L. Methevin, age 55, all members of the posse. Several other men were wounded in the shootout. In the aftermath, there were no arrests to be made for the death of W. T. Saunders, as the man responsible, Joe Pullen, was killed by the posse.
