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Records of the Assistant
Commissioner for the State of Tennessee
Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1869
National Archives Microfilm Publication M999, roll 34
"Reports of Outrages, Riots and Murders, Jan. 15, 1866 - Aug. 12, 1868"
Affidavits regarding the 1866 Memphis Riot
Before me personally appeared the undersigned Dr. R. W.
Creighton and being duly sworn deposes as follows.
My name is R .W. Creighton, I am a Physician and have my
office at No. 444 Main St., I reside at the same place. On May 1, 1866 as I was standing
at my door a carriage drove up and four policemen got out. One was shot in the finger.
They were very much excited and said that they wanted to kill a nigger. A Negro was
passing my house on the opposite side when one of the policemen fired at him, the Negro
surrendered to the crowd which had collected at that time. A number of police were with
them, the crowd passed on with him. Shortly after Policeman Slatterly was brought to my
place with two shots through the thigh. He was able to walk away by himself. I was called
upon in the night to examine Policeman Stevens, wounded in the lower part of the upper
third of the thigh. The wound ranged downwards and backwards. He has since died. He said
that he was thirty yards off from the mob when he was shot, but I am of the opinion that
he shot himself from the fact that the wound was powder burnt and from the peculiar
direction of the wound.
(signed) R. H. Creighton
Subscribed and sworn to before me this the 18th
day of May 1866.
(signed) Saml. Walker
Bvt. Capt. & A. A. Genl.
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