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Chipley would later be implicated ==Participation and Subsequent Arrest for Role in the Assassination of G. W. Ashburn affair== On 6 April, 1868, Chipley was arrested and jailed for his role the bedside assassination of G. He W. Ashburn, a member of the Constitutional Convention of Georgia. In 1868, while the state of Georgia was undergoing Congressional Reconstruction, General Thomas Ruger was brought assigned the role of temporary military governor (from January to July 1868). Chipley and nine other men stood trialfor murder under the auspices of the Military Commission. Witness testimony was given identifying Chipley as the leader and organizer of Ashburn's murder, along with testimony describing the planning of the murder, the distribution of masks to the participants, and descriptions of the types of weapons used in which the federal government attempted to jail murder. Several of the accused men appeared as witnesses for the prosecution, identifying Chipley for his role in as the murders architect of the soldiers he fought during murder and as a powerful member of the Civil WarKluKluxKlan. With The former vice president of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens representing , represented the defense. At the start of the trial, Chipley was found Stephens put forward a claim that the defendants did not guilty by recognize the authority of trial proceedings under military commission, as none of the defendants were part of a military at the time of the murder. Furthermore, the defendants asserted their right to a civil trial with a jury of his their peers. It The trial was only revealed later that Mrs. Chipley had in her possession brought to a halt before a letter Stephens wrote to Chipleyverdict could be rendered, in which the government apologized owing to Chipley and offered him freedom because the prosecution had no evidenceconclusion of military supervision in Georgia. No civil charges were subsequently brought against Chipley turned down the offer, and instead waited for vindication at the trial.
Added contextual information re: murder trial & Klan membershi, removed inaccurate information (Stephens had no authority to speak for any recognized government, and as the attorney for the defense, would not have apologized for any recognized government.
After graduation from Transylvania, he enlisted in 9th Kentucky Infantry, fighting for the Confederacy. He was elevated to the position of lieutenant colonel and was wounded at the battles of Shiloh and Chickamauga before being taken prisoner at the Battle of Peachtree Creek near Atlanta. As a prisoner of war, Chipley was transported to Johnson's Island on Lake Erie in Ohio, and served time there until the war was over. In mid-1865, he settled in Columbus, Georgia and married Ann Elizabeth Billups, the daughter of a prominent Phenix City, Alabama planter.
==Railroad executive==
Chipley became fascinated with the railroad industry shortly after his trial for the murder of G. W. Ashburn affair trial. He built what would become the Columbus and Rome Railroad, and later became involved with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from 1873 to 1876. It was at this time that he moved to Pensacola, Florida, where he built the town's first railroad (this line would eventually become a part of the [[Louisville and Nashville Railroad]]). He also built the [[Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad]], linking the Atlantic coast of Florida with the Gulf Coast states for the first time.
His achievements in the railroad industry inspired the residents of Orange to name their town [[Chipley, Florida|Chipley]] in 1882.
After opening the two rail lines in Pensacola, he parlayed his industrial success into numerous terms as the mayor of the town. He also served in the Florida State Legislature from 1895 to 1897, and lost his bid for United States Senator in 1896 by one vote.
While on a trip to Washington, DC, Chipley died on December 1, 1897. He was in the middle of a trip to lobby lawmakers to base more industrial endeavors in Florida. He was buried in Columbus, while the townspeople of Pensacola erected an obelisk in the [[Plaza Ferdinand VII]] in his honor. Directly across from the obelisk is the Pensacola Museum of History: formerly known as the T. T. Wentworth Museum, the name of the museum was changed following the documented revelation that Wentworth was an "exalted cyclops" of the Klu Klux Klan. Chipley's title within the Klu Klux Klan is still unknown.
==Other images==
*Biographical Notes, ''Memoirs of Florida'', Volume 1, 481–483, 1902 ([http://fulltext.fcla.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?q1=SF00000009;subtype=bib;sid=e9020005777487f24cc59837f1ceaedd;cc=fhp;idno=SF00000009_0001_000;node=SF00000009_0001_000%3A24;seq=491;view=image;size=s;start=1;c=fhp])
The Ashburn Murder Case In Georgia Reconstruction, 1868 by Elizabeth Otto Daniell The Georgia Historical Quarterly Vol. 59, No. 3 (Fall, 1975), pp. 296-312
Report on the Ashburn Murder by George Gordon Meade 1868
New Georgia Encyclopedia Ku Klux Klan in the Reconstruction Era
New York Times Archives
Pensacola News Journal Archives
New Georgia Encyclopedia
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