14 the democratic party. We are going to kill all the negroes. The negro men shall not live.” And they don’t live, for every man they found they killed that morning and did not allow any one to escape them, so he said. So he told me all they intended to do about the colored people for having their dinner and parading there, and having their banners; and intended to kill the white republicans the same ; didn’t intend to leave any one alive they could catch ; and they did try to get hold of them, and went down on Monclay morning to kill the school teacher down there. Haffa, but he escaped. Jo Stevens and his son, Albert Stevens, I believe, was his name—they just muidered them right on through. These people staid there at the store and plundered it, and talked that they intended to kill them until they got satisfaction for three white people that was killed in that battle here. I can show who was the first white man that started the riot; and I can show you I have got his coat and pants, and can show you how they shot him. They blamed all on my husband ; and I asked what they killed Sam for; asked Dr. Alexander. They said they killed him because they were afraid he would tell about killing his brother. They killed my husband for obeying Governor Ames’s orders, and they cannot find anything he did. He didn’t do anything to be killed for. Then they have got his pistols there and they won’t give them to me. I have asked I don't know how many times. The outrages were generally confined to the republican counties where it was necessary to overcome the republican majority by unlawful means ; but in two or three counties, as Wilkinson and Issaquena, there was comparative peace at the election and during the canvass. Captain William A. Montgomery, a leading democrat and a commander of five military companies, with the designation in rank of major of battalion, testified that in some of the counties there was no military organization; that in those counties the democrats did not try to carry the election. This appears to have been true of the two counties named; but since the election, namely, in December and May, 1876, great outrages, attended with violence and murder, have been perpetrated, and evidently with the design of overawing the colored voters and preparing them to submit to a democratic victory in the coming election. The attention of the Senate is directed to the testimony concerning the events in Issaquena county, which took place in the month of December last. A Colonel Ball, an officer in the confederate service during the war, who at the time of the outrage was officiating as a clergyman, took command of a body of armed and mounted men Sunday morning, December 5, and traversed the country below Rolling Fork during toe day ; and that night the men of his command took from their homes at least seven unoffending negroes and shot them in cold blood. Within the next two days five other leading negroes were summoned to Rolling Fork, and there compelled to sign a statement by which they became responsible for the good conduct of all the negroes in their vicinity, with the exception of fourteen, who, in fact, by that stipulation, were made outlaws, and, as a consequence, fled from their homos and their families, and abandoned their property. (This statement maybe found in the testimony of W. D. Brown.) Reference is made to the testimony of W. D. Brown and William S. Farrish. both democrats and participators in the outrages, although they did not admit that they had personal knowledge of the killing of either of the seven men who were massacred on the night of the 5th of December. . (7.) The committee find, especially from the testimony of Captain Montgomery, supported by numerous facts stated by other witnesses, that the militaryorganization extended to most of the counties in the State where the republicans were in a majority; that it embraced a proportion not much less than one-half of all the white voters, and that in the respective counties the men could be summoned by signals given by firing cannons or anvils ; and that probably in less than a week the entire force of the State could be brought out under arms. (8.) The committee find that in several of the counties the republican leaders were so overawed and intimidated, both white and black, that they were compelled to withdraw from the canvass those who had been nominated, and to substitute others who were named by the democratic leaders, and that finally they were compelled to vote for the ticket so nominated under threats that their lives would be taken if they did not do it. This was noticeably the case in Warren county, where the democratic nomination of one Flanigan for sheriff was ratified at the republican county convention, held in Vlcksburgh, the members acting under threats that if it were not done they should not leave the building alive. Similar proceedings occurred in other counties. (9.) The committee find that the candidates in some instances were compelled, by persecution or through fear of bodily harm, to withdraw their names from the ticket, and even to unite themselves ostensibly with the democratic party. J. W. Caradine, a colored candidate, of Olay county, was compelled to withdraw his name from the republican ticket and to make speeches in behalf of the democratic candidates and policy. An extract from his testimony is herewith given, as follows : They told me that I would have to go round and make some speeches for them; that I had risen up a great element or some kind of feeling in the colored men that they never could get out of them for the next ten years to come with the speeches I had made, and that I had to go around and make some speeches in behalf of them in some way or else I might have some trouble. They told me if I would do that I could demand some respect among them, and have no further trouble with them. Q. What did they say would be the consequence if you did not go with them and make speeches ? A. They did not say if I did not do it what would be done, as I remember; but they came to my house and fetched a buggy for me, and told me I had to go with them to make speeches for them. And they said, “You know what has been said and what has been done; you have got to go along if you don’t want any further trouble.” I then got in and went along with them, and they did not really appreciate my speeches at length; but J went along with them and made three speeches; and they had some fault to find with my speeches at last, but I have never had any trouble with them since. (10.) The committee find that on the day of the election, at several voting places, armed men assembled, sometimes not organized and in other cases organized; that they controlled the elec- tions, intimidated republican voters, and, in fine, deprived them of the opportunity to vote the republican ticket. The most noticeable instance of this form of outrage occurred at Aberdeen, the shire town of the county of Monroe. At half past nine o’clock on the day of the election a cannon in charge of four or five cannoneers, and supported by ten or twelve men, a portion of the military company of that town, was trained upon the voting place and kept in that position during the day, while the street was traversed by a body of mounted, armed men under the command of Uapt. E. O. Sykes, of
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