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Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of Georgia
Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands 1865 - 1869
National Archives Microfilm Publication M798 Roll 32
Reports Relating to Murders and Outrages 1865 - 1868
List of Freedmen Murdered or Assaulted 1867
Report of assaults with intent to murder, committed upon freed people in the division of Albany from January 1st to October 31st 1868
Date & Place: Mitchell County, January 11. Victim: JOHN CHIVALIER. Injury: murdered. Cause: unprovoked. Attacker: HENRY MCMILLEN (white). Remarks: admitted to bail in the sum of $500.00 twelve hours before CHIVALIER's death. Bondsmen insolvent & in company with the murderer when the deed was done. Whereabouts unknown.
Date & Place: Mitchell County, February 5. Victim: SOLOMON BROWN. Injury: stabbed. Cause: unprovoked. Attacker: GEO. BAGGS, TH. GOULDIN & JAMES PALMER (white). Remarks: no arrest. Attackers supposed to be in Mitchell County.
Date & Place: Dougherty County, February 9. Victim: MOSES SHANNON. Injury: flesh wound from pistol shot. Cause: unknown. Attacker: MICHAEL JOHNSON (col'd). Remarks: no arrest. Johnson at large.
Date & Place: Mitchell County, February 9. Victim: JACK HICKS. Injury: shot at but not hit. Cause: unprovoked. Attacker: ROBERT WARREN (white). Remarks: no arrest. Supposed to be in Mitchell County.
Date & Place: Dougherty County, February 15. Victim: BLANDY ANTHONY. Injury: shot in the left side with a load of buckshot, not mortal. Cause: unknown. Attacker: JEREMIAH WALKER (white). Remarks: JEREMIAH WALKER is charged with the deed by the freemen on the plantation. Arrested by order of Lieut. O.H. HOWARD. Admitted to bail in the sum of $2500.00 for appearance at court, has been tried last July court, verdict not guilty for want of evidence that it was him who shot the man.
Date & Place: Dougherty County, March 10. Victim: MAJOR PORTER. Injury: flesh wound by an axe. Cause: quarrel. Attacker: JOHN THOMAS (col'd). Remarks: arrested by civil authorities at the insistence of Bureau Agent. No trial, as both parties consented to drop the case by John Thomas paying the writ.
Date & Place: Dougherty County, March 12. Victim: ROBERT PECK (PEEK?). Injury: shot in left arm. Cause: disobedience of orders & insolent language. Attacker: MRS. MOSS, wife of D. MOSS (white). Remarks: arrested by civil authorities at the insistence of Bureau Agent. Case dropped by consent of ROBERT PECK, MOSS paying the cost.
Date & Place: Baker County, April 4. Victim: THOMAS SMITH. Injury: shot at but not hit. Cause: unknown. Attacker: GREEN HARDIN (white). Remarks: no arrest. Whereabouts unknown.
Date & Place: Baker County, April 20. Victim: ALLEN WOOTEN. Injury: shot at, injured slightly. Cause: unprovoked. Attacker: CALHOUN M. DEAN (white). Remarks: no arrest. C.M. DEAN is supposed to be in Baker County.
Date & Place: Mitchell County, April 22. Victim: ____ BARROW. Injury: stabbed but not fatal. Cause: unknown. Attacker: unknown. Remarks: no arrest. Whereabouts unknown.
Date & Place: Mitchell County, May 2. Victim: NELSON HALLOWAY and family. Injury: no injury inflicted but more than one hundred shots fired through the door of his house while he and family were in there. Cause: unprovoked. Attacker: unknown, it being in the night from best information there were more than twenty men in disguise. Remarks: no effort to arrest perpetuators or ascertain who they were on the part of the civil authorities.
Date & Place: Mitchell County, May 5. Victim: DANIEL HUDSON. Injury: shot through the left lung, did not determine fatal. Cause: unprovoked. Attacker: three unknown men in disguise who went to his house in the night. Remarks: no arrest.
Date & Place: Baker County, May 8. Victim: GEORGE MALLOY. Injury: pistol shot in head & back. Cause: unknown. Attacker: ____ LEWIS (col'd). Remarks: no arrest.
Date & Place: Dougherty County, May 23. Victim: HENRY CLAY CARSWELL. Injury: slight flesh wound of the scalp by small shot. Cause: having brought a complaint before the Bureau for nonpayment of wages and being sent back with a summons after having ben told by W. C. BRAY not to come to his place anymore. Attacker: ROBERT BRAY (white). Remarks: civil authorities at the insistances of the agent of the Bur. R.F. & A. Lds. made an arrest. No trial on account of the absence of important witnesses. H. C. CARSWELL sentenced to the penitentiary for four years for having sworn that W. BRAY shot at him when ROBERT BRAY had done so. No true bill found against ROBERT BRAY.
Date & Place: Dougherty County, May 24. Victim: LIZZIE DAVIS (white? colored?) Injury: fracture of the bone of the right forearm by striking her with a chair. Cause: a quarrel in which she used insulting language. Attacker: WILLIAM DOLER (white). Remarks: arrested by civil authorities at the insistence of Bureau agent. No trial. LIZZIE DAVIS was arrested under a warrant for carrying of knives, forks, cups & saucers months ago taken out by WILLIAM DOLER after he was arrested for assault committed on her. She was convicted and not being able to give security for her appearance at court she was put in jail, remained there several months and was finally released, WILLIAM DOLER dropping the prosecution against hr by her dropping the prosecution against her for assault and battery.
Date & Place: Dougherty County, May 29. Victim: SAM BOSEMAN. Injury: was struck down insensible and disabled to work several weeks by a blow with a hoe on the back of the neck. Cause: occurred about the use of a mule. Attacker: JACK WRIGHT (col'd). Remarks: the assaulted party did not wish to prosecute the case in the civil courts, wanted the assailant punished by the Bureau agent, which was refused. JACK WRIGHT lives in Dougherty County.
Date & Place: Baker County, April 18. Victim: GEORGE RHEA. Injury: was shot through one hand with a pistol ball. Cause: political quarrel. Attacker: LOUIS ______ (col'd) at Tarver's Mill.. Remarks: no arrest.
Date & Place: Dougherty County, July 27. Victim: ANN HAMPTON. Injury: was beat over the head with a stick, considerably bruised. Cause: quarrel about work. Attacker: JAMES HALL (white) Remarks: no arrest. JAMES HALL had left the county before the warrant could be executed.
Date & Place: Dougherty County, August 10. Victim: ROLAND CARSWELL. Injury: was struck twice with a lightwood knot, showed fight, was then attacked with a knife, run off and was a few nights afterwards when he came back to the plantation, fired at with a shotgun in jumping out a window of the house his wife lives in. Cause: unruly conduct and impudent answers to the civil questions of his employer. Attacker: CHARLES MCFARLAND (white). Remarks: no arrest. ROLAND CARSWELL became an accomplice in stealing a cow from another col'd man and being about to be detected left for parts unknown.
Date & Place: Lee County, August 17. Victim: JACKSON SMITH. Injury: was struck several times and while running fired at with a double barrelled shot gun but not injured. Cause: quarrel about work. Attacker: LOING BAILEY & GUS BRACK (white). Remarks: no arrest. The county court being abolished and no judicial officers being known to the agents here, no immediate action was taken in the case. Attackers are in Lee County.
Date & Place: Dougherty County, August 29. Victim: ANDREW & WASHINGTON HARRIS, minors. Injury: ANDREW was struck over the head twice with a big hickory stick and fell down insensible. Flesh wounds of the ligaments of the skull. Washington received a cut on the hands and across the hips. Both unable to work for sometime. Cause: both boys had received permission from their father for a share in the crop, not to work on Saturday evening. The overseer TRYCE (white) found them at the house after dinner and when they refused to go to work, beat them as stated. Attacker: ANDERSON TRYCE (white). Remarks: arrested by civil authorities at the insistence of the agent of the Bureau . . . Committed and bound over to court. N.B. The father of the boys, GEORGE HARRIS, who prosecuted TRYCE has been discharged and driven from the place with his boys after working up to August 31 without any settlement or one cent pay for his labor.
Date & Place: Lee County, August 31. Victim: WILSON CARTER. Injury: struck on the head with a gun, the ligaments separated on the skull and attacked with a knife afterwards. Cause: came a short time after the other hands to the field and being asked by the overseer what was the matter said : "Nothing." A quarrel ensued and the result was as reported. Attacker: JOHN ALLEN (white). Remarks: at the same time the complaint was made no proper civil authorities were in existence in Lee County. The case was lately referee to Dr. F. MC. F. MOORE, Notary Public, Starksville, Lee County but has not been heard from since.
Date & Place: Calhoun County, August 30. Victim: HARRIET KING. Injury: was taken from her house to the woods after light, laid across a log and received about 50 lashes with boards and switches from MCCRACKEN, COLLIER & HENRICK on her naked body, her clothing being pulled over her head by GEORGE WOOTEN. Was immediately afterwards repeatedly and severely kicked, stomped and gauged by MCCRACKEN and bit by his dog. While she was laying on the floor he stomped and kicked her and finally drew his pistol at her and was going to shoot her but was prevented by WOOTEN and AVERY. Cause: called a child of JOHN COLLIER, which she was nursing, thoughtlessly a little mulatto, apologized for it all she could but was subjected to the punishment stated. Attacker: MCCRACKEN, late sheriff of Calhoun County (white); the principal assailant, JOHN COLLIER (white) and HENRY KENDRICK (HENDRICK?) (white) done the whipping. Remarks: no arrest. No warrant could be issued, only an affidavit made before an officer of Calhoun County. HARRIETT KING was made to promise never to divulge the treatment she received and told if she did she would be killed. She ran away from Morgan the same night and has ever since been in Albany, Ga., but cannot be persuaded to enter Calhoun County again, hence an arrest impossible. Attackers reside in Calhoun County.
Date & Place: Baker County, September 15. Victim: SAM MASON. Injury: was beat with a heavy stick and his thigh bone fractured. Attacker: TROUP PARKER (col'd). Cause: quarrel amongst their children in which the parents participated. Remarks: referee to H.H. ODOM, justice of the peace, Newton, Baker County, Ga. Result of trial unknown.
Date & Place: Lee County, September 15. Victim: EDMOND JOHNSON. Injury: was struck with the fist in the face, kicked, pursued with a open knife in the hand of assailant, who when reaching his house got his gun and fired at him twice. Cause: insignificant deviation from orders, attacked by his employer. Attacker: H. CALLAWAY (white). Remarks: referee to Dr. FRANCIS MC. F. MOORE, Starksville, Ga. (notary public for commitment trial but not heard from since.
Date & Place: Mitchell County, September 19. Victims and Injuries: A. B. COLLINS (killed); ROBERT MORRISON (killed); BARNEY MORRIS (killed); JOHN WATSON (killed); MORRIS ORR (killed). There is however a probability that BARNEY MORRIS is the same person but it is not definitely ascertained; JAMES INGRAHAM (killed); DOC POLHILL (killed); DANIEL CHILDS (killed . . . at his house on DR. TINSLEY'S plantation 5 miles from Camilla on Saturday night by disguised white men); JOHN SCARBOROUGH (killed, perhaps the same as JOHN SLAUGHTER); CHERRY DAVIS (killed); JOHN SLAUGHTER (killed); THOM WASHINGTON (killed); JOS. PARK (probably killed, is reported to have gone to Camilla on Sept. 19 and never to have returned); daughter of ISAAC ADAMS, not at ROSE WINKLES place about 12 years old. Name not known by reporting party (cut with a bowie knife, the neck and hand, was overtaken on the road from Camilla home by three armed white men and one of them cut her threatening to cut her throat); BENJ. LUNDY (gunshot wound of the left thigh and left foot, two buck shot passing through the thigh, one good sized ball through the foot (not fatal)); HOWARD BUNTS (gunshot wound in elbows and shoulder of the right side and scalp of the head, not fatal); HENRY ROBINSON (gunshot wound of both legs); RANDOLPH JURDAN (gunshot wound left leg); BURNT JOHNSON (gunshot wound, shoulder); HIRAM LANDSEY (lacerated wound of the scalp from a stroke with a musket stock); SAM DICKSON (gunshot wound in the arm); WESLEY CHATMAN (gunshot wound in the back); WILLIAM DESSAU (gunshot wound of the shoulder); PETER HINES (slight wounds from small shot in hands, neck and one foot); JOHN WARREN (shot in the right leg while running, then shot in the back with 5 or 6 buckshot, when already wounded and
unable to walk, immediately afterwards, when his pursuers came up, knocked in the head with a gun and wounded in the neck with a pistol ball while laying on the ground. Not all the wounds are healed, is just getting able to walk); WILLIAM OUTLAW (pistol shot wound, ball entering below claviete, banging upwards and inwards, remaining in the body, not fatal); and WILLIAM WASHINGTON (killed). Causes: (1) the political hatred and fired determination of JAMES JOHNS, a citizen of Camilla, who fired the first shot at the colored drummers and fifers to excite a difficulty with the colored republicans for the purpose of preventing the previously announced political meeting and speaking of the Republicans at the courthouse of Camilla on September 19, 1868. (2) the prompt support with this action of JAMES JOHNS received from the people assembled on that day, who ostensibly as the sheriff's posse, and under the pretense that an armed garrison of Republicans in violation of the Governors Proclamation was entering their town, did not hesitate but seemed to assault in not only following the example of JAMES JOHNS, whom they represent as being drunk on that day, by firing into the assembledge of the colored people but also in routing and chasing the unarmed and unresisting fugitives and shooting them down, while running for their lives, sometime even after having been wounded, overtaken and after surrendered themselves to their mercy.
Hence this catalogue of bloody outrages, which does not contain all the sounded and perhaps not all the killed as the colored people from about and south of Camilla dare not come here and as even the few white people, who depreciate the state of affairs, are afraid to speak bout these things for fear of secret revenge being taken on their person or property. Remarks: no arrest, no punishment. All attackers in Camilla and Mitchell County. The girl who was wounded says the man who cut her looks very much like RANSOM CHILDS but is not absolutely positive that it was him who did cut her. JOHN WARREN says ADAM TOULLET wounded him first in the leg, the other parties not known. Among attackers were: JAMES JOHNS (white) POORE, Sheriff " and his posse consisting of all the citizens of Camilla present that day."
Date & Place: Baker County, September 26. Victim: ISOM PARKER (PORTER?). Injury: was dragged out of his house, beaten and shot through the thigh. Cause: was a preacher and president of the Republican Club. Attackers: three unknown white men. Remarks: no arrest. Resides in Baker County.
Date & Place: Baker County, September. Victim: SAM PETER (JETER?). Injury: was severely beaten, so that medical attention was necessary. Cause: SAM JETER proposed to whip his child hisself instead of letting JAMES PORTER (white) whip it. Attackers: JAMES PORTER, JAMES WHITCOMB, and CALVIN CURREY (white). Remarks: no arrest. Attackers reside in Baker County.
Date & Place: Calhoun County, September 29. Victim: RALPH JONES. Injury: was severely beaten with a club and bruised considerably in different parts. Cause: was suspected of being one of six colored men engaged in drilling a company secretly. Attacker: unknown, the shot was fired at him from the woods on the roadside in day time. Remarks: no arrest. Attackers reside in Calhoun County.
Date & Place: Dougherty County, September 29. Victim: FANNY GILMORE. Injury: was severely beaten with a club and bruised considerably in different parts. Cause: was suspected of having circulated slanderous reports about the assailant and his wife. Attacker: JAMES ROBY (white), Deputy Marshall of Albany. Remarks: the case was referred by the Bureau Agent to D. S. MEADE, Justice of Peace at Albany, Ga., but no report as to the action taken in the case has been received.
Date & Place: Baker County, October 6. Victim: BENJ. JACKSON. Injury: was chased and frequently shot at but escaped unhurt. Cause: professed to be a radical in politics, when asked about it. Attackers: KING, STRAIN, & B. FOOT (white). Remarks: no arrest. The assaulted party being afraid to return to Baker County it was impossible to bring on a commitment trail. Attackers reside in Baker County.
Date & Place: Baker County, October 6. Victim: HAMPTON (?), laborer in B. FOOT's plantation. Injury: was chased and frequently shot and overtaken and probably wounded or killed at the same time and occasion in company with BEN JACKSON. Cause: professed to be a radical. Attacker: same as for BENJ. JACKSON. Remarks: no arrest. Was reported by BENJ. JACKSON. Attackers reside in Baker County.
Date & Place: Dougherty County, October 10. Victim: WASH GULLETT. Injury: shot through the neck and killed. Cause: assailant claims to have caught him in act of killing one of his pigs. Attacker: TERRY WALLERS (white). Remarks: arrested by sheriff of Dougherty County but was set at liberty next day as at the coroner's inquest no testimony except his own admission to other parties that he killed WASH GULLETT could be obtained. Attacker in Dougherty County.
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