Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre

Truth Deferred is a historic true crime podcast by Mike and Amy Morgan, who share the story of a series of grisly murders and public hysteria leading up to the largest massacre of unarmed civilians by National Guard troops in U.S. history.

Accepted history says that the National Guard Massacre, usually referred to as the Cincinnati Courthouse Riot, was caused by a corrupt lawyer getting a cold-blooded murdered off on a ridiculously light sentence – probably by bribing the jury. This caused the public to riot, and the National Guard had to step in and heroically restore order. But what if most of this story is a lie?

Join us as we peel back the layers of murder, media bias, Gilded Age corruption, the rivalry between attorney T.C. Campbell and a rising young legal star named William Howard Taft, and how it all led to the slaughter of dozens of innocent people and a whitewash that covered up the truth for over 140 years

This isn’t just history – it’s a mirror reflecting today’s dangerous political divisions paired with an unsettling question: could something similar happen in the streets of a modern American city?

]]> https://audioboom.com/channels/5168888 audioboom.com Wed, 27 May 2026 19:21:00 +0000 en https://audioboom.com/i/43547640.png Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre https://audioboom.com/channels/5168888 false Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre Audioboom 9b5a731d-7a1a-57bc-8c98-94f006957097 https://audioboom.com/channels/5168888.rss serial 10: Can It Happen Again? https://audioboom.com/posts/8879370 10 Can It Happen Again? 1 5130 false full The riot seals the fate of convicted killers Joe Palmer, William McHugh, and the accused Avondale murderers. People want vengeance, and all these men will leave the jail dead, although Allen Ingalls has one final life to take, and he will leave haunting questions about how many people he murdered before the Taylor family after he is gone. While Berner does prison time, Palmer gets the dubious distinction of being the last man hanged in Cincinnati. Some politicians will suffer retribution at the ballot boxes, but by 1886, many of the people most directly responsible for the bad decisions, lack of leadership, and incompetence that left such a horrific death toll will come together in a banquet, where they will all seem to agree that it is no longer too soon to recall the National Guard Massacre with lighthearted humor.  ]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 19:21:00 +0000 tag:audioboom.com,2026-03-26:/posts/8879370 Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre 9: Blame the Immigrants https://audioboom.com/posts/8879368 9 Blame the Immigrants 1 2696 false full Years later, as Will Taft is on a meteoric rise through the ranks towards US President and Supreme Court Justice, he reveals that all he learned from the Cincinnati National Guard Massacre was that when the working class rise up in protest, soldiers need to mow them down in the streets. But in 1884, the last chance to hold any of the people responsible for the massacre accountable is squandered by the County Coroner for blatantly and shamefully partisan political reasons. The Coroner’s “Inquest” becomes the coup de grace.]]> Wed, 20 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000 tag:audioboom.com,2026-03-26:/posts/8879368 Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre 8: Taft v. Campbell https://audioboom.com/posts/8879367 8 Taft v. Campbell 1 3580 false full Although only one of them is a huge public spectacle, the first week of April is full of funerals. As dozens of dead are buried, finger-pointing begins. There will be three public inquiries, and William Howard Taft becomes the bulldog for both a Special Grand Jury and a Cincinnati Bar Association investigation into T.C. Campbell. For personal and partisan reasons, the National Guard and all the public officials are excluded from scrutiny, the blame for everything is laid at the feet of Campbell, and in an epic battle that gets increasingly personal, Taft pursues his white whale through both criminal bribery charges and a disbarment trial like none before it or since.]]> Wed, 13 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000 tag:audioboom.com,2026-03-26:/posts/8879367 Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre 7: The Courthouse Riot https://audioboom.com/posts/8879361 7 The Courthouse Riot 1 4006 false full On Saturday morning, a remarkable number of citizens are dead, but the prisoners have all been saved. Some believe that the trouble has passed, but Sheriff Hawkins disagrees, and he begs Ohio Governor Hoadly to send as many National Guard troops as possible. Hoadly’s indecisiveness squanders critical time, and when the first reinforcements finally arrive and Hoadly is frantically sending every member of the Ohio National Guard racing to Cincinnati, the county courthouse is an inferno, a Gatling Gun is trained on curiosity seekers, and soldiers are ordered straight into an angry crowd of thousands, resulting in a senseless and astounding slaughter of unarmed citizens. ]]> Wed, 06 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000 tag:audioboom.com,2026-03-26:/posts/8879361 Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre 6: The Rich Form a Lynch Mob https://audioboom.com/posts/8879352 6 The Rich Form a Lynch Mob 1 4047 false full As a comically stupid plan to sneak Berner to prison unravels, affluent Cincinnatians call a mass meeting, where speakers praise lynchings in nearby towns and whip the crowd into a frenzy. Afterward, people start marching to the jail. As the crowd grows to thousands, people grab battering rams, sledgehammers, and nooses, intent on breaking down the doors and hanging the accused killers inside. Despite obvious danger, the jail is unguarded, and by the time a few dozen poorly trained Ohio National Guardsmen are called into duty, the jail is overrun by a lynch mob, and it is surrounded by a crowd of over 10,000 people. Guardsmen respond by opening fire at random.]]> Wed, 29 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000 tag:audioboom.com,2026-03-26:/posts/8879352 Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre 5: One Trial Decides the Fate of a City https://audioboom.com/posts/8879347 5 One Trial Decides the Fate of a City 1 3675 false full Before the "boy murderer" goes to trial, newspapers inflame the city with a non-existent crime wave. Prosecutor Pugh rejects an offer to plead Berner guilty to 2nd degree murder, and the public is told that if this 17-year-old defendant isn’t hanged, every citizen will be a future target. But jurors hear a more nuanced and complicated story, creating a dangerous divide between the people who hear the evidence in court from the ones that only get it from newsprint.]]> Wed, 22 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000 tag:audioboom.com,2026-03-26:/posts/8879347 Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre 4: The Resurrectionist and the Avondale Horror https://audioboom.com/posts/8879341 4 The Resurrectionist and the Avondale Horror 1 2985 false full When two body snatchers commit a triple homicide so barbaric that it shocks the nation, Cincinnatians grow more alarmed that the laws of human decency are coming untethered and that the legal system is no longer protecting them from falling victim to incredible violence. We also explore the recent, prolific history of lynchings to see how the public views its options.    ]]> Wed, 15 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000 tag:audioboom.com,2026-03-26:/posts/8879341 Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre 3: A Christmas Eve Murder https://audioboom.com/posts/8879335 3 A Christmas Eve Murder 1 2413 false full William Kirk was a horse trader with too many wives, an unlikely man to become a rallying cry for a city, but when he is brutally killed on Christmas Eve, and one of the accused “boy murderers” hires the venerated T.C. Campbell to defend him, a murder trial becomes a public litmus test for the entire justice system.]]> Wed, 08 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000 tag:audioboom.com,2026-03-26:/posts/8879335 Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre 2: “Crazy Joe” Pleads Insanity https://audioboom.com/posts/8879328 2 “Crazy Joe” Pleads Insanity 1 3327 false full The heartless crime and multiple murder trials of “Crazy Joe” Payton introduce us to the morally pliable brilliance of attorney T.C. Campbell, his odd political alliance with The Cincinnati Enquirer, and his blood feud with the Commercial Gazette and a young, idealistic lawyer named William Howard Taft – personal animosities that will help re-write history.]]> Wed, 01 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000 tag:audioboom.com,2026-03-26:/posts/8879328 Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre 1: Love Lost & Justice Unraveling https://audioboom.com/posts/8879314 1 Love Lost & Justice Unraveling 1 3440 false full Our story starts on Monday, March 31, 1884. The streets are covered in blood. Over 50 people are dead and some are dying in the hallways of the hospital. Every window has been smashed out of the jail, and the county courthouse is a smoldering ruin. To find out how we got here, we travel back to an imperfect love story ending in a public murder, and how the case of William McHugh illustrates a growing distrust of the criminal justice system.]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 16:00:00 +0000 tag:audioboom.com,2026-03-26:/posts/8879314 Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre Truth Deferred - Series Promo https://audioboom.com/posts/8879309 1 113 false trailer Season One of Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre takes listeners through a series of grisly murders, into the minds of a public whipped into a lynch mob, and explains how it all ended in the largest slaughter of unarmed civilians by National Guard troops in U.S. history. Just as shockingly, hosts Mike and Amy Morgan reveal how the truth of these events was so successfully whitewashed that the real story has been buried for over 140 years – until now – and well also ask the unsettling question: could it happen again?]]> Thu, 26 Mar 2026 18:21:42 +0000 tag:audioboom.com,2026-03-26:/posts/8879309 Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre Truth Deferred: The National Guard Massacre