Carpetbaggers were northerners who came to the South after the war claiming to want to bring order to the states. In reality they only came down to take advantage of the south and make money. Working closely with the carpetbaggers were the scalawags. Scalawags were Republicans from the south who were sympathetic with the blacks and the Radicals4. Republican James Lusk Alcorn was one of the most well known scalawags in Mississippi. He was never very popular with either party within his state. The Republicans never saw him as being radical enough, and the Democrats still just saw him as another untrustworthy Republican. Alcorn had been the leading voice against secession in Mississippi before the war and was seen as a traitor by the Democrats in Mississippi. In 1873 Republican candidate Adelbert Ames defeated Alcorn in the race for governor of Mississippi5. The rivalry between these two men would be one of the leading causes of the rise of the Redeemers. .
There are many reasons as to how the Radicals lost control of the South. One of the largest problems for Radicals in Mississippi was the development of disagreements between the leaders of the Republican Party, specifically between Alcorn and Governor Ames. Alcorn tended to be more conservative towards the South; he was not as concerned with punishing the south as much as his fellow Republicans. Alcorn called out carpetbaggers for being more concerned about their own personal political goals and being less concerned about bringing equality to blacks. Ames and Alcorn ran against each other for governor in 18736. In his attempt to gain control of the black votes, Ames surrounded himself with black politicians and made promises of equality and further advancements for blacks. Ames won the election by a landslide, and although this seemed like a huge victory for Republicans, the Democrats achieved an even greater victory when Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, future leader of the Redeemers, was elected to Mississippi's House of Representatives7.