which they have so generously extended the weak, and hope the protection of the Government will continue until the elections are over. Life is dear to us, but we can't risk an article so precious when surrounded by murderous White Leaguers. ROB'T HEWLITT, Mayor. NEW ORLEANS, November 1, 1874. Extract from letter of Deputy Marshal Stockton, dated Natchitoches, October 22, 1874: There should be a company of infantry here now, and remain all winter. These people swear as soon as I go away with the cavalry they intend to kill all the prominent white and black republicans in the parish. It is rumored to-day that at the meeting of the White League last night, which was addressed by Levy and Moncure, only seventy-five present, twelve prominent republicans were selected to be killed as soon as the cavalry left here, among whom are Bolt and sons, Pierson, Blunt, Breda, &c. Moncure urged them to make it too hot for them to live here, &c. These peaceable citizens marched to the hall under military commands. The greatest reign of terror and intimidation all over the town, of three thousand inhabitants, and the parish. Both Lieutenants McIntosh and Wallace say there is more and greater disloyalty here openly avowed than they ever knew in any other part of the United States; and the moment we leave here they believe a large number will be killed, because these WhiteLeaguers say the leading republicans here have been at the bottom of these arrests. You cannot imagine the state of affairs here. If the President intends to make good the assertion, that any citizen shall be as safe in any part of Louisiana as in Massachusetts, he will have to order a company of troops to remain here permanently. I see and feel that our operations here, which for the time have upset all the calculations of the White-Leaguers, will only add increased revenge when we retire. It is a sad state of affairs, and can only be corrected by the military arm of the Government, and that arm must have positive instructions to render immediate aid, or be commanded by an officer like Lieutenant McIntosh, who comprehends the situation, perceives the effect, and knows how to remove the cause. I have the honor, therefore, to request you to direct that post be es tablished at Natchitoches, and that General Emnory be ordered to place a company of troops there. Very respectfully, Hon. GEORGE H. WILLIAMS, NEW ORLEANS, October 19, 1874. Attorney-General United States, Washington, D. C.: We have authentic information that systematic violence and intimidation will be practiced toward republican voters on the day of election at three or four points in this State. We earnestly request that General Emory be instructed to send troops to Franklin, Saint Mary's Parish; Napoleonville, Assumption Parish; and Moreauville, Avoyelles Parish. Governor Kellogg will furnish transportation to these points. without cost to the Government. S. B. PACKARD, Chairman State Central Committee. WM. P. KELLOGG. C. B. DARRALL. President GRANT, Washington: [Telegram.] NEW ORLEANS, December 9, 1874. Information reaches me that the White League purpose making an attack upon the State-house, especially that portion occupied by the treasurer of the State; the organization is very numerous and well armed, and the State forces now available are not sufficient to resist successfully any movement they make with a view of preventing such an attempt, and the bloodshed which would be likely to result should an insurgent body again take possession of the State-house and in dispersing them. I respectfully request that a detachment of United States troops be stationed in that portion of the Saint Louis Hotel which is not used for any of the State officers, where they will be readily available to prevent any such insurrectionary movement as that contemplated. WM. P. KELLOGG, Governor of Louisiana. [Telegram.] NEW ORLEANS, December 10, 1874. President GRANT, Washington, D. C. : I transmit the following dispatch by request of Ex-Governor Wells, president of the returning board. WM. P. KELLOGG. President GRANT: NEW ORLEANS, December 10, 1874. Authentic information in possession of the returning-board justifies them in believing that an attack is intended upon the Saint Louis Hotel, now occupied as a State-house, wherein the returning-board holds its sessions, and where the returns of the late elections are deposited. The board has nearly completed a careful and impartial canvass of the returns, in compliance with law, and expect to make promulgations therefrom as soon as the same can be properly compiled. The members of the board are being publicly and privately threatened with violence, and an attack upon the State-house, which is likely to result in bloodshed, is also threatened. By request of the board, I respectfully ask that a detachment of troops be stationed in the State-house, so that the deliberations and final action of the board may be free from intimidation and violence. J. MADISON WELLS, President of State Returning-Board. SHREVEPORT, LA., December 16, 1874. DEAR SIR: My position as United States commissioner for this locality has made me somewhat intimately acquainted with the condition of affairs in North Louisiana, which I think you ought to be informed of. This is my apology for troubling you with this communication. You are already informed of the general character of the late political canvass in this State, as conducted by the whites, and of the results. Without attempting to define the precise modus operandi of the white man's party here, it is scarcely too much to say that the white voters of each parish north of Red River constituted an armed conspiracy, with the scarcely disguised purpose of carrying the election at all eventsby threats, intimidation, and fraud if possible, and by violence if neces sary, all of which, first and last, were used freely. The scheme here was to expel from the country the republican leaders, and then to frighten the negroes into acquiescence with their wishes; and this scheme was pursued to the end, with this modification, that after the arrival of troops the expelled leaders returned, but did not dare to go out of Shreveport, and did not dare to mingle freely with the people or to express publicly their sentiments. The whites in all this portion of the State were united upon this programme almost to a man. This unanimity did not result all from choice, but so formidable had the organization become by August that even those who disapproved no longer dared to resist, even passively, and took shelter in the white party. The blacks are numerically far superior to the whites in all this part of the State, nearly 23 to 1-at any rate, more than an average of 2 to 1; yet, when you consider the ignorance and dependence of these blacks, and their consequent timidity, and that the leaders-white and blackwere either banished or silenced, it will not be difficult for you to comprehend how the white minority dominated so completely the colored majority and carried out their programme. The blacks, unorganized and unadvised, were quietly and peaceably pursuing their labor, cultivating the crops, while the whites, who habitually, to a greater or less extent, cheat them of the rewards of their labor, were banding themselves together to defraud them of their right of suffrage also. The Coushatta affair, occurring in the last days of July, and in the guilt of which, we believe from our present knowledge, not less than two hundred whites participated, more or less proximately, seemed to serve them as an incentive to closer union and more rigorous action. A very large number, scattered up and down the river, from Shreveport to Natchitoches, seeking immunity from their guilt in the destruction of all law and public order, redoubled their efforts to terrorize the blacks, and to annihilate all opposition. Perhaps I cannot give you in few words a better idea of the ascendant arrogance and intolerance of the white leaders, than to say that the Shreveport Times newspaper-the leading exponent of the principles of the party in the State-boldly and unqualifiedly justified the Coushatta assassination on the sole ground of political necessity. The orators of the party did substantially the same thing during the canvass, and the less prudent speak of it to this day as a good thing. Even Governor McEuery, in a speech in this place, as I am well informed, openly advocated the lynching of one of the republican leaders residing here, and a man of good character. The republican meetings during the canvass were composed mostly of blacks, generally not more than three to five or six white republicans. There were always present enough turbulent whites to overawe the meeting, and frequently to break it up. At these meetings the whites did not hesitate to threaten the blacks with condign punishment if they persisted in voting the republican ticket. Among the milder forms of intimidation resorted to were such announcements as the following: We,the undersigned, merchants and business men of Shreveport, in obedience to a request of the Shreveport Campaign Club, agree to use every endeavor to get our ployés to vote the people's ticket at the ensuing election, and in the event of their reinsal so to do, or in case they vote the radical ticket, to refuse to employ them at the Expiration of their present contracts. I inclose a short editorial on one of these cards, taken from the Shreveport Times of the 23d of October. It would be tedious to attempt to fill up this general outline. If your S. Ex. 13-2 imagination supplies for details that only a general apprehension of material consequences-loss of their present crops, loss of employment, disruption of their heretofore friendly relations with the whites, the proprietors of the soil, but an absolute and constant fear of personal danger, especially to all such as were supposed to have any prominence or influence among their fellows as political leaders; this fear frequently strengthened and even intensified by the actual experience of personal violence, you will not have an exaggerated idea of what was the real condition of the colored people here at the time of election. It is humiliating in the extreme to contemplate the condition of the freedmen in Louisiana, in the light of American citizens, under the protection of a great and benevolent Government. Emboldened by the prospective success of the infamous scheme of the election, the whites are now driving the freedmen from their homes, naked and penniless, to endure the severities of winter as best they may. This very evening, and since I commenced this letter, a colored man, of honest and intelligent expression, comes in and tells me that last night, about 9 o'clock, his em ployer, a white man, (well known to me,) by force (displaying a pistol and threatening to use it) put him and his wife and three helpless chil dren out of their house to spend the night, as best they might, in the public highway, which they did under the open canopy of heaven; and what may be put down as a special aggravation of the offense is, that two of the children were ill and taking medicine, and one of them was so ill that it was not expected to survive. These people (turned out) were partners in the crop which they had raised on the lands of the man who turned them out, and the crop had not yet been divided and is all in the pos session of the land-owner who turned them out. This man had voted the republican ticket at the late election. This is only one case in many coming to my knowledge daily. A few days ago, complaint was made before me against seven white men in the adjoining parish of De Soto, charging them with conspiring to plunder, rob, and murder one poor defenseless old negro by the name of John Allston, and an extensive and full inquiry into the matter revealed the fact that the charge was well laid, for they in fact not only plundered him and his family, but murdered the old man outright. Four of these are now under bond for their appearance, and the rest have fled. These people are systematically intimidated, brow-beaten, personally maltreated, cheated of their earnings, cheated of their suffrage, driven from their homes in penury to endure the inclemency of winter, and cheated of their rights to vindicate themselves before the courts. In simple truth, they no longer have any rights which the whites voluntarily respect, or which they have themselves the means or ability to make them respect. To submit their claims for adjustment to the mixed juries of our local courts, where the influence of the whites is wholly predominant, would be the veriest farce conceivable, and the attorney, if one could be found at all, would have to become answerable for court costs and work for nothing, all at the peril of his professional standing. So numerous and wholesale are the offenses of the whites against these defenseless creatures, that I almost hesitate to name approximately the number of persons subject to arrest and punishment for aggravated violation of the enforcement and Ku-Klux acts, within fifty miles of this place. To be entirely safe, I will put it at two hundred and fifty. What is the relief for this state of things? It seems clear to us that the only glimmer of hope for the freedmen is in a vigorous enforcement of the Federal laws, and that speedily; and when we contemplate this resource, and measure the capacity of the courts, as now established by the enormous amount of business to be transacted, it becomes at once obvious that the facilities for the administration of the laws of Congress in Louisiana are entirely inadequate. As now established, the Federal courts sit in this district only in New Orleans-700 miles away from here by the nearest and speediest mode of travel. Considering that what has been said above of the condition of two or three parishes adjacent to Shreveport is true, to a greater or less degree of every parish in the State, how would it be possible for any single court to answer the demands of this exigency? Besides, if the courts sitting in New Orleans had time to transact the business in fall, the expense and general impracticability of sending witnesses so far before the grand jury, and then to attend the final trial, will, to my mind, be such as itself to defeat substantially every attempt to bring these violators of the law to justice, and they will thus go unpunished. My object in writing this letter has been and is, not only to give you a reliable statement of our condition here generally, but specially to enable you to see the importance of increased facilities in the way of administering the law in this section, and to invoke the exercise of your influence for the establishment of a United States district court for North Louisiana. This, in my opinion, is an immediate and imperative necessity; without it the authority of the Federal laws will be scarcely known or heard of, and certainly not feared or respected, in North Louisiana. I have been a resident of Shreveport nearly twenty years, and of the South since the year 1847. I have further to add, that I have had the honor to read this letter to General Lewis Merrill, commanding this division, and he authorizes me to say that he fully indorses every statement and suggestion contained in it. I have the honor to be, very respectfully, GENERAL: The President sent for me this morning, and desires me to say to you that he wishes you to visit the States of Louisiana and Mississippi, and especially New Orleans, in Louisiana, and Vicksburgh and Jackson, in Mississippi, and ascertain for yourself, and for his information, the general condition of matters in those localities. You need not confine your visit to the States of Louisiana and Mississippi, and may extend your trip to other States, Alabama, &c., if you see proper; nor need you confine your visit, in the States of Louisiana and Mississippi, to the places named. What the President desires is to ascertain the true condition of affairs, and to receive such suggestions from you as you may deem advisable and judicious. Inclosed herewith is an order authorizing you to assume command of the Military Division of the South, or of any portion of that division, should you see proper to do so. It may be possible that circumstances |