Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/311

 office from Andrew Johnson's hands on Andrew Johnson's terms to take the place of an officeholder dismissed for fidelity to his principles, he could not be forgiven. The so-called “bread-and-butter-brigade” was looked down upon with a contempt that could hardly be expressed in words.

But there were more serious things to inflame the temper of the North. The Southern whites again proved themselves their own worst enemies. Early in May news came from Memphis of riots in which twenty-four negroes were killed and one white man wounded. The conclusion lay near and was generally accepted that the whites had been the aggressors and the negroes the victims. In the last days of July more portentous tidings arrived from New Orleans. An attempt was made by Union men to revive the constitutional convention of 1864 for the purpose of remodeling the constitution of the States. The attempt was of questionable legality, but, if wrong, it could easily have been foiled by legal and peaceable means. The municipal government of New Orleans was in possession of the ex-Confederates. It resolved that the meeting of the remnant of the convention should not be held. When it did meet, the police, consisting in an overwhelming majority of ex-Confederate soldiers, aided by a white mob, broke into the ball and fired upon those assembled there. The result was thirty-seven negroes killed and one hundred and nineteen wounded,—and of three of the white Union men killed and seventeen wounded—against one of the assailants killed and ten wounded. General Sheridan, the commander of the Department, telegraphed General Grant: “It was no riot; it was an absolute massacre by the police which was not excelled in murderous cruelty by that of Fort Pillow. It was a murder which the Mayor and the police of this city perpetrated without the shadow of necessity.” A tremor of horror and rage ran over