[FAC-SIMILE OF ORIGINAL COPY.]

SEE INSTRUCTIONS AT THE BOTTOM.

“A” Declaration for Original Invalid Pension. “A”

On this 16th day of June, A. D. one thousand eight hundred and Eighty, personally appeared before me, J. H. Keels, Clerk; the same being a Court of Record of the County and State aforesaid, Robert Hanna, a resident of County of Williamsburg, State of S. C., who being by

me duly sworn according to law, on his solemn oath, deposes as follows, to wit! "I am the identical Robert Hanna who was enrolled on the..... day of August, 1861, in Company of the 15 Reg't of South Carolina C. S. A. Vol's., commanded by Captain McCutchen, and I was honorably discharged at Lynchburg, Va., on the day of Feb., 1866, and my age is now 8 years. While in the service aforesaid, and in the line of my duty, I received the following disability, to wit:

I claim pension on account of wound of right. arm rec'd Oct. 19, 1864, which caused the aim to be amputated to shoulder. The wound breaks out and I am

abled thereby

I was treated at Lynchburg hospital.

seriously dis=

I have never been employed in the Military or Naval Service of the United States otherwise than set forth above. Since leaving the Service, I have resided at S. C., and my occupation has been stock header, before my entry into the Service aforesaid I was of good, sound physical health, being at enrollment a farmet, and I am now very much disabled from obtaining my subsistence by manual labor by reason of my disabilities above stated, received in the service of the United States, and I make this Declaration for the purpose of being placed on the Invalid Pension Roll of the United States. I hereby appoint and empower, with full power of substitution, NATHAN W. FITZGERALD, of WASHINGTON CITY, D. C., my true and lawful Attorney to prosecute my claim. My Post Office address is Graham X Roads, County of Williamsburg, State of S. C.

his

Probert Hanna.

mark.

(Claimant's Signature.)

This Declaration MUST be made before some Clerk of a Court of Record. If acknowledged before a Notary or Justice, it will be worthless.

CHAPTER XII.

Recent Outrages in the "Solid South."

"It is this organization (the Democratic) that has come back to rule and that means to rule."— Hon. J. C. Blackburn, Ky.

in 1878-The Massacres in
Louisiana Five Men Hung in
one lot for Attending
a Repub-
lican Club-Seventy or Eighty
Colored Men Killed in one par-
ish—Reducing Republican Ma-
jorities.

Political Assassination in the Assassination and Intimidation South-Ghastly Record ofTwenty Thousand Crimes—The way a "Solid South" was secured. The country is familiar with many of the most infamous occurrences in the South, during the period from the close of the war to the last Presidential election, in which it has been shown by official investigation, that twenty thousand persons-mostly colored were killed, maimed, or cruelly beaten, for the purpose of intimidating them from the exercise of their civil and political rights.

Democratic “excuse for these crimes.

While the Demoratic party at the South, in whose service these crimes were committed, claimed that this wholesale killing and whipping was necessary, the Northern wing denied their commission until denial was no longer possible, and then "excused" them on the ground of the natural indisposition of the respectable people of the South to be outvoted by scalawags, carpet-baggers and niggers." It was said that when the Democrats should get control of the Government of all the Southern States, all outrages would cease in them and the colored people would be petted like favorite children.

46

The Solid South secured.

The North, only partially understanding the situation, because it was to the interest of Democratic politicians to misrepresent and excuse it, at last became wearied of the matter, and tacitly acquiesced in the verdict of the shot-gun, by withholding the support that was necessary to maintain the laws of the Republican administrations South. The solid South was acknowledged as a necessity in 1877, with the hope that the promised reformation of its methods of intimidation would be accomplished.

The South on its honor.

It was supposed that the possession of absolute power in the State, accompanied with the great powers of the executive and legislative branches over local matters, would render bulldozing unnecessary in Louisiana after the accession of the Nicholls' administration. But the dominant party in the South was not willing that the Republicans of parishes, where they were in overwhelming majority, should fill any of the few elective offices to which they were entitled, nor be represented in the State Legislature, or in Congress, and the shotgun and whip were accordingly, in 1878, again brought into service.

་་

either as to the firing or the meetings. But five black There was no evidence of the truth of these reports, men were seized, tried by lynch law, and although such juries never give the prisoner the benefit of a doubt, as they are organized to convict, there were several of them who refused to concur in the sentence of death; nevertheless the five unfortunates were hanged. The next morning.' says Randall McGowan, him what for? and he said Thomas Williams, a leader

The South was on its honor. Its white rul-Mr. Lewis said there were five men hung. I asked ing class had no near danger to fear from the votes and opposition of its few white Republicans and many blacks. The question uppermost in the minds of the North was: How would the South use its newly-gained power?

*

in the fourth ward, was about to organize his club;
that it was about time for us to go into the campaign;
and those boys appeared that night *
* They
said they did these things to scare the negroes, so that they
might carry the election.'"-[Senate Report, 855, 1879,
page 19.]

Six men hung in Concordia Parish. Armed bodies of men rode through the parish, whipping and hanging enough to "scare the negroes. The coroner testified that he held inquests on the bodies of six men, who had been taken from their homes and hanged; and there were several others who had been hung and killed who were not thus officially recognized.

Wholesale murder in Tensas Parish.

This parish was overrun by Ku-Klux parties, often from adjoining parishes, as it was necessary to wipe out its vote to save the Congressional district. The following is

from the official record:

"Alfred Fairfax lived near Waterproof, in the lower part of the parish. On Saturday night, about 8 or 9 o'clock, a band of armed men, variously estimated at from twenty-five to thirty, went to the house of Fairfax. They were under the command of one J. 8. Peck, who lived in the Congressional district, but not in the parish. A portion of the force remained in the road, and Peck and a few others invaded the house of Fairfax, who, on their entrance, fled out of the back door followed by bullets from Peck's pistol. A young colored man by the name of Singleton, who was in the house, was shot by Peck; and as he lay on the floor several others shot him also. He subsequently died. A man by the name of Branch crawled under the bed, but was pulled out and shot through the arm and in the back. He was before the committee, and will be a cripple for life. One Kennedy, who ran to the window, was shot from the outside by buckshot and dangerously wounded. Several women in the house made their escape. It appears that when the firing began in the house the men outside fired into the house through the windows. Peck, during the excitement that followed, went out of the house, and was killed, as near as can be ascertained on the gallery, by his own men who were firing in the house." [Senate Report, 1855, p. 14.]

Five hundred Ku-Klux-Seventy to eighty

colored men killed.

"It was in evidence before the committee that not

On

U. S. witnesses murdered. Two men who had witnessed the opening of the above massacre, were subpoenaed to attend the U. S. Court to certify in regard to it. the 21st day of December, when, in obedience to the subpoenas, they took the steamer Danube for New Orleans. The next morning, when some distance below Caledonia, the boat was run into the shore at an unusual landing-place, and a gang of armed men came on the boat and, under cover of a warrant in the hands of a negro constable named Jeff. Cole, took the witnesses, White and Clark, from the boat. The warrant has date November 12, and was issued by a justice of the peace at Shreveport. The two witnesses were taken off of the boat in the manner before stated; and the sequel can be better told in the language of the constable, who made an affidavit before the United States commissioner. He says, after detailing the arrest (Page 605): "At a point near Tone's Bayou, in the woods, he was met by a party of armed men, masked and without coats or shoes, all of whom were unknown to him, who told him to leave the road, which he did. He left the prisoners with them, and does not know what became of them afterward." Nothing has been heard of these men since that time.-[Ib., pp. 9, 10.]

The effect on the vote. '.

In Caddo parish, where the Republican majority vote had been over three thousand, the vote was, under these circumstances, only 279. There was a similar reduction in the other bulldozed parishes.

PART III.

less than 500 armed white men came into Tensas parish Outrages During 1880–Intimi

from Franklin, Catahoula, Concordia, and other par ishes between the 12th of October and election day. In addition to these, a company came from Mississippi, bringing with them a cannon; but that company appears not to have been guilty of any outrages.

"While these armed bodies were raiding the parish, the colored people were greatly excited, and very many fled to the woods. One witness swore that four men from his plantation died from exposure in the swamps, and that all the colored labor was for a time almost useless to the planters. It is impossible to say how many colored people lost their lives through this campaign. One witness gave the names of fifteen killed and two wounded; and this list did not include those who died from exposure;

nor does it include the killed in the adjoining parish of Concordia, which Governor Nicholls says was eight. One witness swears that he thinks seventy to eighty were killed."-[P. 16, same report.]

The Caledonia massacre.

dation in Alabama--Even White Opposition to Democracy not to be Tolerated - Greenback Speakers Subjected to Violence —Republican Meetings Broken up-Masked Men and Ku-Klux Outrages in Georgia–Violence and Bloodshed in Mississippi.

ally stopped publishing the details of outThe newspapers of the South have generrages on the colored people, and the suppression of public meetings, and the news of what is going on in that section mainly dribbles through the chance statements of At Caledonia, Caddo parish, the colored persons from there, and letters from individpeople turned out largely in spite of the pre-uals to friends or papers in the North, vious bulldozing in the parish. On the pretense that there were arms stored in a house near, belonging to a colored man who was distributing tickets at the polls, an attack was made on the house when no one was in it but the man's wife and daughter. A general attack was then made on the colored people, and during the day and night twenty colored people were killed-no wounded and no prisoners. No whites killed. Yet it was called the "quelling of a desperate riot."

Suppression of public meetings in Alabama.

The first Republican meeting in Montgomery, Alabama, to ratify the nomination of Garfield and Authur was broken up by a mob. Afterwards another meeting was called for June 26, at which Ex-Senator Warner, ExGovernor Parsons, and other distinguished gentlemen were to speak. General Warner writes of it as follows:

"While General Burke was speaking the hooting | and howling began, and the following speeches of Messrs. Parsons and Reid, and the reading of the resolutions were rendered inaudible to nine-tenths of the people present, and by the most vociferous howling and yelling. Eggs were also thrown but failed to reach the stand. The Democratic Sheriff of the county mounted the stand and appealed to his Democratic friends to desist, but his appeal had

little effect."

"

Greenbackers mobbed.

Gen. Weaver, greenback candidate for the presidency, who made several speeches in Alabama before the election, on his return was interviewed by a reporter at Wheeling,

with this result:

crats, several with open knives and large sticks in their hands, came up and immediately began to interrupt me, so that I could scarcely utter two sentences without interruption. I remonstrated, assuring them that they were injuring their own cause by such a course, and distinctly announcing to them that I did not desire to array one race against the other, but simply to break down the white line race And yet, issue raised by the Democratic party. while reading a letter, published on the 14th of August, 1879, in the Eutaw Whig (Democratic paper), I was stopped, forbidden by them to read said letter, and cursed and abused repeatedly in the vilest terms. And one of their party declared that they were all Democrats, and that I should not abuse the Democratic party. The accuracy of this statement is admitted by lished here, on July 20, 1880. But this is not all. the Eutaw Mirror, another Democratic paper, pubThey cursed my little seven-year-old boy, who stood dumb "He (Gen. Weaver) said that in the stories of bull-with fright before them. Moreover, I was obliged to desist in my effort to speak, and was assured by Mr. dozing and frauds in elections in the South the half has Horton, an aged gentleman, that I was in great pernot been told. He says that General West, of Missis-sonal danger, and but for his protection, I am fully sippi, told him at Selma that if General Hancock were lected such an impetus would be given to the spirit of haired satisfied that I should have sustained serious, if not and intolerance for Republicans in the South, that he (West) in commenting on the affair, says: fatal, injury. The aforesaid newspaper, the Mirror, That which did not believe he could live in Mississippi a day, A week before General Weaver spoke at Montgomery a Repub- Mr. Bird is said to have made, to the effect that the seems to have given most offense, was a statement lican meeting had been broken up by a mob, and after Democrats lay in the shade all the year, and then the speakers, one of whom was General Burke, Collector cheated the negroes out of all they made.' Thereupon of Customs at Mobile, had been driven from the stand, the editor indites a long leader, calculated to inflame the Democratic Solicitor of Montgomery mounted it and shouted: 'G―d d―n them, they can out-vote us, but the passions of men. But the charge against me is a miserable untruth. I simply read from the Eutaw we will count them out every time.' This information Whig the following sentence: The effort seems to General Weaver had on unimpeachable testimony." have been, with every recent Legislature, to so perfect the laws touching agriculture, that the monied man could shut his eyes and sleep the year out, and then gobble up all the laborers made.'" Horrible Ku-Kluxing in Georgia-Boy and girl killed.

Ordered out of town.

Hon. J. H. Randall, who had a number of appointments in the State, had some of his meetings broken up by mobs, and was himself threatened with death if he did not leave

town. The following note was served on him at Shubuta, a small town on the Mississippi line. We quote from Mr. Randall's statement in the National View:

"AUGUST, 1880.

"We took the note, written on a leaf torn from a
pocket memorandum, and read as follows:
"DEAR SIR-We will give you and your pard thirty-
five minutes to pick up your duds and git out of this

A letter from Atlanta, Georgia, under date of July 31, 1880, gives the following account of a recent case of Ku-Kluxing in that State :

"About a year ago Joe Thompson, an aged and decrepit negro, was, with his family, employed in Fayette County, Ga., on the cotton plantation of John Gray. Thompson's son, a negro of sixteen years, was accused by his employer of the theft of a plow, and Gray, disregarding the ordinary and slow forms of justice, one day administered a horrible whipping to him in the fields. Thompson had Gray arrested on a charge of assault and battery, and so strong was the testi"Do you mean to tell me that an American law-abid-mony against him, and so conclusive the evidence ing citizen on the way to attend to his business can not stay in this town to take the first train of cars going

town.

South ?"

Yours to death,

"THE BOYS OF SHUBUTA."

M. B.-D.-"We know you, and you can't stay. You "Who gives text station.""

must go to

this order?

M. B.-D.-"The Boys of Shubuta. Your time is passng. You'd better get right along, or you'll catch hell.” "You don't mean that they will lay rough hands on me, a peaceable citizen?"

M. B.-D.-"You'd better get out of here while you have a chance."

Mr. Randall also says, writing of Alabama: "God help this country, if it cannot be rescued from their bulldozing and domineering sway! One of the citizens of Butler, a peaceable man, expressed an opinon against voting for the Sheriff, the present incumbent, and a Democrat, when that gentleman and another attacked him, and gave him such a pounding as has rendered him unfit for business for several days.'

that the young negro was innocent of the theft, that Gray was found guilty, even before a Georgia jury, and a fine of one hundred dollars was imposed upon this castigator. Gray now threatened Thompson and his family with death, and the poor negro was, with his family, forced to leave his unharvested crop and flee to an adjoining county. He settled on a plantation two miles from Jonesboro', in Clayton county, and up to night before last lived there unmolested, winning for himself in the community a reputation for honesty and industry. In the above facts, an outrage in themselves, is found the only cause for a second outrage, one of the most horrible of all those that have occurred in the South since the emancipation.

In a rude log cabin, about twelve feet square, night before last, Joe Thompson and his family-a wife, son, married daughter and her two children-huddled themselves together for a night's rest. About midnight the inmates of the rude cabin were startled from their sleep by the crashing in of the door. A score of armed men, with painted faces, hideous in disguise, bearing torches made of rags, saturated with kerosene, yelling like demons, thronged into the door. Four seized the Speaker silenced for referring to the in- aged father by arms and legs, threatening: 'G-dd-n

famous lien laws.

you, we came here to give you a good thrashing,' and bore him towards the door; four others seized the son. Hon. Winfield S. Bird, of Green County, The daughter, sleeping between her two children, raised up Alabama, Chairman of the Republican Com-in bed, but a bullet went crashing through her skull, and mittee of the Sixth Congressional District, writes to the Cincinnatti Commercial:

she fell back a corpse, her warm blood spurting out in the faces of her innocent children. Meanwhile the father, ignorant of his daughter's death, had been borne out "On the 10th day of July, I went to the town of of doors into the field. Four men swung him from the Pleasant Ridge, in this county, to make a Republican ground by arms and legs, while a fifth administered the speech. Soon after I began a crowd of white Demo-lash upon his face and body, lacerating him terribly. Near

CHAPTER XIII. Peonage in the South.