Hope H. Slatter II

Hope H. Slatter II (1841 – after 1900) was a convicted murderer, municipal police chief, Confederate States Army veteran, and one of the sons of notable American slave trader Hope H. Slatter.

Biography Slatter was born in 1841 in Baltimore, before his father sold out of the slaving business and became a real estate investor in Mobile, Alabama. Slatter grew up in Mobile, and eventually attended Georgetown College (later Georgetown University), class of 1862. When the American Civil War broke out he joined the Confederate States Army, apparently as a second lieutenant in the 1st Alabama Infantry Regiment.

On August 6, 1873, while attending the Schuetzenfest "annual shooting competition and beer bash" Slatter fled the scene of the crime but was captured in Virginia; when the police caught up with him he had with him a spring-back dagger and was sitting under a tree with a picnic basket that had been packed with "a lot of crackers, three fresh boiled spring chickens on toast, a bottle of fine brandy, and a box of matches." During his fewer than three years in prison for murder, Slatter apparently did not enjoy the hospitality of the Albany Penitentiary and "told a piteous tale of the severity of the discipline, by which the convicts are compelled to keep their eyes on the ground and not allowed to utter a syllable under pain of punishment by the shower bath, dark dungeon, flogging, etc."

In 1883, Slatter was appointed to be the chief of police of Mobile, Alabama. (Back in November 1857, federal marshals had arrested freelance imperialist William Walker; politician Pierre Soulé and "Col. Slatter" posted the $2,000 bond for the standard bearer of the planned Golden Circle greater pro-slavery prosperity sphere. Walker jumped bail, leaving S. F. Slatter on the hook for the money).

Hope H. Slatter Jr. was a resident of Mobile, Alabama as of the 1900 U.S. census. He is most likely buried in the family mausoleum at Magnolia Cemetery in Mobile, Alabama.