The Bill of Rights was created to confirm mans God given rights and protect citizens and these rights from potential abuses committed by their own government. The Second Amendment recognizes the human right to self defense and guarantees this right as a means for citizens to defend themselves against all who would intend to do harm including government.

The fact of the matter is, armed American citizens have taken on their government many times throughout our history, but these events tend to be much more tame compared to what you may see in a Hollywood dramatization. Due to this reality, these very real stories tend to get overlooked and forgotten as time passes.

The following is one of those very pieces of history. It is the story of a group of World War II veterans who came home from fighting a tyrannical government overseas only to find another one growing in their home town.

At the end of World War II, more than 3,000 veterans came home to McMinn County, Tennessee. These men had returned from the wars in Europe and the Pacific where they had fought overseas to secure our democracy to then come home and find the same tyranny in their own local government. Almost all of the same politicians that were in office when they left were still running things when they had returned. Sheriff Paul Cantrell, the source of the corruption, had been suspected of committing election fraud since 1936 and for all intents and purposes ran the county.

By local standards, many of the veterans had a good chunk of money from mustering out, and these men spent it freely at the local bars and gambling halls. The county’s law enforcement saw easy targets for arrests and fees. So, they began arresting veterans and fining them at every moment possible. As you can imagine, this only fueled the flames of revolt. Bill White, one of the veterans told American Heritage magazine after the fact:

“There were several beer joints and honky-tonks around Athens; we were pretty wild; we started having trouble with the law enforcement at that time because they started making a habit of picking up GIs and fining them heavily for most anything—they were kind of making a racket out of it.

“After long hard years of service—most of us were hard-core veterans of World War II— we were used to drinking our liquor and our beer without being molested. When these things happened, the GIs got madder—the more GIs they arrested, the more they beat up, the madder we got …”

By the early part of 1946, the veterans along with the community of Athens were fed up with the corrupt practices of Sheriff Cantrell and his Deputies. The veterans banded together and decided they would defeat the corrupt political machine the way law-abiding Americans are supposed to… by ballot. The group had formed the GI Non-Partisan League and selected a diverse slate of candidates who they felt had the best chances of winning five offices throughout the county in the next election. In keeping with their non-partisan name, the five candidates included three Republicans and two Democrats. The main focus of the campaign was the sheriff’s seat which was contested between Paul Cantrell and the GI Non-Partisan League candidate, Henry Knox, a veteran of North Africa. The goal of the GI Non-Partisan League was clear as was communicated by their campaign slogan: “Your Vote Will Be Counted As Cast.”

Everyone was aware that the election had the potential to turn violent. Veterans in nearby Blount County offered 450 men to assist McMinn County on election day in any way needed. To counter, Cantrell hired two hundred “deputies” from outside the county to guard polling stations. The events that followed are now what is known as the “Battle of Athens,” or the “McMinn County War.”

Trouble started early on election day. By 9:30 a.m., a legally appointed poll watcher, and supporter of the GI Non-Partisan League, Walter Ellis had been arrested and thrown in jail because he protested irregularities he observed at his polling station.

Telegrams had been sent to both the governor of Tennessee and the United States Attorney General, requesting assistance with the election proceedings. These went unanswered and it was clear help was not coming.

At 3 p.m. Tom Gillespie, an African-American man who was registered to vote, tried to cast his ballot in the 11th Precinct. Mr. Gillespie was told by deputy C.M. Wise that he couldn’t vote. When Gillespie protested, Deputy Wise beat him with brass knuckles. Gillespie, fearing for his life, dropped his ballot and ran. As Gillespie ran, Deputy Wise shot him in the back. Gillespie’s wound was not fatal, however, instead of being taken to the hospital for treatment, the officers placed him under arrest and took him to jail.

Deputies also arrested two veterans who were then held hostage in the Athens Water Works. Other veterans responded by taking deputies who were sent to arrest them hostage. Elsewhere, veteran poll watchers in the 12th Precinct had witnessed one of the sheriff’s men, Minus Wilburn, permitting unregistered adults as well as minors to cast votes in Cantrell’s favor. The men even saw Wilburn giving out cash to voters in an attempt to sway votes the “right way.”

The veterans were informed armed guards had been stationed, by Sheriff Pat Mansfield, at every polling station to transport the ballot boxes to the local jail were they would be counted without oversight. This is the point at which the veterans had decided to arm themselves and prepare for the possibility of violent confrontation.

By 3:45 p.m., the vets were through with the voter intimidation, attempted murder, and outright fraud they had witnessed. It was decided that they were going to take action all throughout the town. Still, Cantrell was able to fill most of the ballot boxes with purchased votes and get them to the jail, ensuring he would win the election.

While the sheriff and his men counted the votes in the jail, Bill White and the other veterans were prepared to take action. Sometime after 6 p.m., a decision had been made. White led a raid on the National Guard armory to arm up. In a 1969 interview White said that he and the men had “broke down the armory doors and took all the rifles, two Thompson sub-machine guns, and all the ammunition we could carry, loaded it up in the two-ton truck and went back to GI headquarters and passed out seventy high-powered rifles and two bandoleers of ammunition with each one.”

At 9 p.m., approximately 50 deputies stood guard outside of the jail. Cantrell, Sheriff Mansfield, and State Representative George Woods, who had gotten the county redistricted a handful of years earlier were inside. Woods and Mansfield were part of the election commission, which meant there was enough of a commission majority present to count ballots and sign off on the results without having to confer with anyone else.

Split into two groups, the vets surrounded the jail. Some in the street and others on an embankment across the street from the jail. The vets gave the sheriff and his men in the jail a choice… “Bring out the ballot boxes or be fired upon.” No one came out of the jail.

Gunfire erupted and what would be known as the “Battle of Athens” began and would rage for hours. The GI’s fired on deputies outside of the jail. One of the deputy was wounded, while another crawled under a car after he was hit in the leg. The veterans fired continuously on Mansfield and his deputies, but they couldn’t breach the walls of the jail. The deputies were no match for the war veterans.

Cantrell and his cohorts remained safely locked behind the brick walls of the jail. The veterans needed to get through before more police or the National Guard were called in.

As the GI’s tried to breach the Jail, Molotov cocktails proved ineffective. Then, at 2:30 a.m., a secret weapon arrived… dynamite. The first bundle of dynamite landed under a police car and sent it skyward. Three more bundles were thrown simultaneously. One landed under the sheriff’s car, one on the roof of the jail’s porch, and one hit the jail wall. The simultaneous explosions destroyed the wall and car and took the jail porch off its foundation. At about the same time, an ambulance arrived and the veterans let it through, assuming it was there for the wounded. Instead, Paul Cantrell and one of his men escaped in it.

The deputies in the jail, as well as some hiding out in the courthouse, surrendered immediately. At this point the veterans were required to protect the deputies as locals attempted to kill them. Minus Wilburn, who had been paying voters at the 12th Precinct, had his throat slit, Prison Superintendent Biscuit Farris was shot in the jaw, and Deputy Wise, the man who shot Tom Gillespie, was beaten by many in the crowd, however all survived.

The veterans established a patrol to keep the peace and placed machine guns at all the approaches to Athens, where the jail and courthouse were located to stop a potential counterattack by Cantrell. The rest of the event unfolded without violence. At 7:05 a.m., Paul Cantrell sent word that he was conceding the sheriff’s race. The GI Non-Partisan League’s candidate, Henry Knox, was elected sheriff in the first honest election in Athens in a decade. Knox took over as sheriff on Aug. 4, 1946. Future elections dismantled what was left of Cantrell’s machine.

None of the veterans faced charges for their actions. Almost all deputies also faced no charges. However, Deputy Wise was sentenced to one to three years in prison for shooting, but not killing, Tom Gillespie.

The weapons used to defend Athens were returned to the National Guard armory, the armed patrols ceased and the machine gunners left their posts. The battle of Athens ended with democracy victorious. All made possible by armed citizens opposing a corrupt government.