Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/349

Rh whom fear of an awful death alone causes 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 9th, Captain Poillon says:

Organized patrols, with negro hounds, keep guard over the thoroughfares; bands of lawless robbers traverse the country, and the unfortunate who attempts to escape, or he who returns for his wife or child, is waylaid or pursued with hounds, and shot or hung.

In Mississippi I received information of a similar character. Lieutenant-Colonel, P. J. Yorke, post commander at Port Gibson, Mississippi, reported to General Davidson, on August 26th, that a “county patrol” had been organized by citizens of his sub-district, which, for reasons given, he had been obliged to disband; one of these reasons in his own language, was:

The company was formed out of what they called picked men, i.e., those only who had been actually engaged in the war, and were known as strong disunionists. The negroes in the sections of country these men controlled were kept in the most abject slavery and treated in every way contrary to the requirements of General Orders No. 129, from the War Department.

As late as September 29th, Captain J. H. Weber, agent of the Freedmen s Bureau, reported to Colonel Thomas, assistant-commissioner of the Bureau in the State of Mississippi, as follows: In many cases negroes who left their homes during the war, and have been within our military lines, and having provided homes here for their families, going back to get their wives