particularly atrocious nature. Rumors to that effect which reached me at
Montgomery induced me to make inquiries at the post hospital. The records
of that institution showed a number of rather startling cases which had
occurred immediately after the close of the war, and some of a more recent
date; all of which proved that negroes leaving the plantations, and found
on the roads, were exposed to the savagest treatment. An extract from the
records of the hospital is appended, (accompanying document No. 20;) also
a statement signed by the provost marshal at Selma, Alabama, Major J.P.
Houston, (accompanying document No. 21.) He says: "There have come to my
notice officially twelve cases, in which I am morally certain the trials
have not been had yet, that negroes were killed by whites. In a majority
of cases the provocation consisted in the negroes' trying to come to town
or to return to the plantation after having been sent away. The cases
above enumerated, I am convinced, are but a small part of those that have
actually been perpetrated." In a report to General Swayne, assistant
commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, in Alabama, communicated to me by
the general, Captain Poillon, agent of the bureau at Mobile, says of the
condition of things in the southwestern part of the State, July 29: "There
are regular patrols posted on the rivers, who board some of the boats;
after the boats leave they hang, shoot, or drown the victims they may find
on them, and all those found on the roads or coming down the rivers are
almost invariably murdered. The bewildered and terrified freedmen know not
what to do--to leave is death; to remain is to suffer the increased burden
imposed upon them by the cruel taskmaster, whose only interest is their
labor, wrung from them by every device an inhuman ingenuity can devise;
hence the lash and murder is resorted to to intimidate those whom fear of
an awful death alone cause to remain, while patrols, negro dogs and spies,
disguised as Yankees, keep constant guard over these unfortunate people."
In a letter addressed to myself, September 9, Captain Poillon says:
"Organized patrols, with negro hounds, keep guard over the thoroughfares;