 "Like companies of Confederate cavalry", "heavily armed whites" pushed away black voters--until Federal troops came from twenty miles away, with Crews, and took the ballot boxes.but was murdered by Democrats in the run-up to the 1876 South Carolina gubernatorial election.Until 1948, Laurens County was a Democratic Party stronghold similar to the rest of the Solid South, with Democratic presidential candidates receiving near-unanimous margins of victory in most years.