Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 August 1877 — LETTER FROM NICK OF THE WOODS. [ARTICLE]

LETTER FROM NICK OF THE WOODS.

Mr. Morton is very ill. Tfye men who work turned out enmasse, at Indianapolis, on the evening of the 13th. Their resolution sound very Democratic. We yield considerable space to-day to “Nick of the Woods.” The comparison he draws between Governors Hartranft and Williams is very correct and appropriate.

Sketch of the Colfax [Grant Parish' H-lof , Thrilling Incidents. 187”. Magnolia, Miss., August 17,1877. Dear Sentinel: Recent events transpiring in some of the Northern States bring to mind the old adage: “chickens will come home to roost.” The scenes and tragedies enacted, consequent upon the great railroad strike, at the North, prove that no community can expect, always, to be free from lawlessness and bloodshed.They prove also that. when a gross wrong has been perpetrated upon a people, either by a powerful corporation or a tyranical government, and the people become aroused to a sense of the wrongs they have suffered and unite for their own self-protection and that ot their families, how weak their oppressors are, and how easy it is to overthrow a seemingly well organized government. No government can exist without the consent of the governed, and had it not been for the natural law-abiding proclivities of t re people, their love for their government, daring and resolute men could have organized a formidable revolution in the Northern States which no power on earth could have stayed until the wrongs had been righted and justice yielded to the poor and oppressed. The weakness of the Governor of that great and powerful State, Pennsylvania, is strikingly similar to that of Kellogg in Louisiana and Ames in Mississippi, and shows what little could have been expected of him with his fifty thousand militia tendered to Grant, when brought face to face and muzzle to muzzle with an equal number of Louisianians or sissippians to force them to further submit to the oppressions they bad so long suffered. And, indeed, what a great contrast in the executive ability of’ Governor Hartranft when compared with that of the wise and consistent Governor of Indiana. Hartranft, by the organization of his militia, and his boasted prowess, caused millions of property to be destroyed, and streams of blood to flow, hearts to be broken, and poor, helpless women and children to be brought to greater suffering, and whose wails are heard throughout the length and breadth of the land; while Governor Williams, with a single stroke of his pen, his soothing voice and wise counsel, quieted the passions of his people and restored peace and harmony all over the State without the loss of a drop of blood.

The wise counsel of a father will often win the obedience of a child, when tyranny and unjust punishment will cause him to rebel and seek deeper revenge for what he deems a great injustice. The anglo-saxon race are a people that naturally love good government. but arc peculiarly sensitive to wrong, and while they are dangerous with passions and resentment aroused, yet they are ever ready to yield to the voice of reason. The lawlessness in the South, us it is termed by Northern radical papers, originated from causes of a more provoking character than those which actuated the strikers in some of the Northern States which I propose to show by writing you a series of sketches of some of the Southern riots, and give the above as a preface to those sketches.

Emergingfrom the great contest between the two sections of our common country, the South drifted into a conquered territory, though guaranteed by the Federal Government all their rights in the Union, with republican form of State governments as was guaranteed to the Northern States. With soldiers quartered in our midst who rode rough-shod over the white people, robbed them of their cotton, horses, cattle and other property; with thousands of worthless vagabonds, thieves and criminals turned loose upon us, society upheaved and shattered, and the chains of military despotism clanging about our limbs, followed by the establishment of ne- ; ro radical supremacy over the white people—property-owners and taxpayers—which continued an inaugurated system of open robbery, thus reducing the people to gre; t r sufferings, and subjecting them from year to year to mortifications, oppressions and even barbarous outrages, I claim and can prove to any unbiased, un prejudiced mind, that there was justification for almost every single act of general or public violence committed in the South by the white people. Having lived In Louisiana for six or seven years after the war, and being familiar with its political history, I propose to begin my sketches about events which have transpired there, and follow them up by similar occurrences in Mississippi and elsewaere. These sketches will contain accounts of outrages committed by negroes and carpet-baggers, thrilling incidents, &c., together with causes from which they originated, and which I hope will prove interesting to your numerous readers THE GRANT PARISH RIOT. When the radicals and negroes, thro’ the power of the Federal army obtained control of the State of Louisiana, one of their first objects was to double, if possible, their representation In the State Legislature. In the river parishes the negroes were largely in the majority and In order to secure this double representation they must form new parishes in those sections of the State where the negroes were known to be in the majority.— Another plan was to enact a registration law, disfranchise as many whites as possible and then take a new census and show the negroes largely in the majority,.make a false registration and stuff ballot boxes in order to show their vote equal and In proportion to the census. Grant Parish was formed of portions 01 Rapides and

Natchitoches parishes and the slices < were taken off so as to insure the negro majority. Colfax, the place selected for the parish seat, was a spot of ground on Bed River belonging to one of the large plantations of Willie Calhoun, a dwarf, and one of his emptied brick sugar mills was used for a court house. A renegade named W. B. Phillips, a white man, who lived in open concubinage with a mulatto woman, was appointed parish judge. The tax-collector and other officers were selected from men of a similar stripe whose sympathies were wholly with the radical party and negroes. A black unmitigated scoundrel named Ward was elected to the Legislature, and thus organized they were in condition to have things their own way. They le vied the most oppressive taxes on the white people, and in judicial matters in which a white man was concerned against a negro, the white man stood no chance at all. There was not even security in appeals to the higher courts as they were all in sympathy with each other. Willie Calhoun, who married an octaroon. and who owned several thousand acres of the richest Red River lands, secured an exemption from taxation by nonassessmeut, while the highest assessments were made on other peoples’ property who had the burden of taxstion to bear. Then lordly officials also encouraged the greatest insolence among the negroes for the whites and sought every opportunity possible to insult them, besides carrying on a most stupendous system of robbery of stock of all kinds. Thus things went on for several years. Among the negroes, however, there was a class who were in sympathy with their old masters, and soon learned that they themselves also were suffering by these scoundrels who had been foisted into office over them, and consequently took sides with the whites. Knowing this fact, the whites determined at the next general election to put a good ticket in the field and rid themselves of their oppressors Consequently, in 1872, there were two tickets put in the field —the Liberal or Fusion ticket, headed by John McEuery for Governcr, and D. B. Penn for Lieut. Governor, and the radical ticket headed by Win. Pitt Kellogg, for Governor, and O. C. Antoine, a negro, for Lieut. Governor. Warmoth was then Governor of the State and by a stroke of policy on the part of the democrats a large number of negroes were secured to their support. In Grant Parish James Hadnot ran on the Fusion ticket for the Legislature, and a young planter named Nash ran for Sheriff, and the balance of the ticket was made up of equally as good men, which was opposed by a mulatto ticket, that is made up of white renegade radicals and negroes. Having a good support from the negroes the Fusion ticket succeeded by a fair majority, which was admitted by their opponents, and the newly elected officers were commissioned by Warmoth, McEnery and Lellogg, and installed in office. In the meantime a struggle was going on between McEnery an 1 Kellogg for the gubernatoria. chair of the State, and having some hopes of the success of Kellogg the radical magnates of Grant Parish set up a claim for the offices for which they had been defeated. Headed by Ward, Phillips and others the negroes assembled at Colfax, killed Judge Rutland, who was elected on the Fusion ticket, drove out the other officers, committed acts of violence in diffeient places, threatened a general massacre of the white people, killed their cattle, hogs, sheep, and stole their horses, burned houses and fences, and bid defiance to all other authority. This threatening and violent attitude assumed by the negroes caused a general rising and arming of the white people, who formed into companies and tendesed their services to Sheriff Nash to restore order at the Court House. Nash exerted himself to induce the negroes to lay down their arms and return to tneir homes, but they and their leaders were deaf to his requests and entreaties, when he sent a message to them telling them that if they did not disperse he would attack and drive them by force of arms from the Court House and their entrenchments. This made them more defiant than ever, and after about a week Nash procured a small cannon from a steamboat and concentrated his forces for the attack. He made another demand for the Court House and offices, which was refused, and he immediately ordered a charge on their breastworks. It was estimated that there were one thousand negroes in Colfax, but I think the number was over-estimated. The larger body of them, however, were barricaded in the old sugar house, (court house) the walls of which were constructed of brick. A detachment of yonng men, under Lieutenant Stafford, were sent around under cover of the river bank to make an assault on one flat k of the negro line, while a force under Capt. James Hadnot charged their breastworks in front. At a given signal the charge was made simultaneously, and the whites rushed forward upon the negroes whh a wild yell, characteristic of the Southern soldier. The roar of musketry resounding through the plains, and the white smoke curling above the parish seat, told that the work had begun in earnest. The onslaught of the whites was so terrific that the negroes, those not killed and wounded, were driven pell mell from their entrenchment» and took refuge in the Court House. Nash then drew up his forces in such a manner as to prevent the escape of the negroes ex cept by plunging into the river. For some hours the negroes kept up a hot fire through crevices made in the walls of the building, while the whites were gradually closing around them. Nash brought up his little cannon and begran a rapid fire of iron rods, stones and such things as he could get for the purpose, on the buiiding. Procuring a ladder, a negro insurgent that had been captured was made climb to the roof and fire the building, in which he was protected by the white shooters from behind the captured breastworks. The negroes tried to put out the flames, but Nash kept up such a hot fire with his little cannon that they could not succeed. Finding that their destruction by the flames was imminent the negroes ran up a white flag. Capt. Hadnot with a squad of men advanced to receive their surrender. Throwing open the doors, the negroes seeing that it was Hadnot. whom they had a great hatred for, fired on him and his men, killing Hadnot and others, and then rushed from the building with the hope of making their escape. But in this they were sadly mistaken, for they were invested on three sides and their only chance was to swim the liver. After seeing Hadnot and his men thus murdered under a flag of truce, the whites closed in on the negroes and began a fearful fire. The negroes scattered in every direction but were met by determined and exasperated toes on horse and foot who committed fearful havoc among them. Hundreds of them plunged into the rh e”, and were drownedor shot while struggling for the other shore. Several negroes crawled under the Court House fQJ protection and died by the

flames of the burning building. One negro rushed out of the court house with his old master’s fine double-bar-rel gun which he had robbed his wife of during his ab ence from home, and plead with him to-save -him, but his old master told him “No,sir;you have threatened to kill me, to take my wife fin yourself, and have robbed my house, the negro down in Ms tracks and recovered his gun. After their treachery in killing Hadnot and his men under flag of truce, no quarter was shown. The negroes were chased through the fields and swamps by the cavalry and killed wherever found, and when tho day closed over two hundred negroes lay stiff and stark on the plains of Colfax. The number drowned in the river, or killed in the swamps by the horsemen will never be known. This fearful carnage was the result of not being organized, and being deserted by their leaders. No appeal to stay the carnage could reach the ears of the maddened white soldiery, they had everything their own way, and satiate 1 their desperate revenge. They swept the entire field, recovered and took possession of the offices again, and established peace throughout the par ish. The number of whites lost in this conflict was very few compared to that of the negroes, but this is easily accounted for when it is known that most of the whites were trained and tried soldiers, who had passed through a long and desperate revolution, and understood the art of war. while the negroes had no organization. They were simply a mob huddled together, without experienced leaders, and having no knowledge of the importance of systematic training and thorough organization. Now, sir, you have above and before you an account of the Colfax riot, but mark the sequel: Congress failing to act in regard to the dual governments of Louisiana, Gen. Grant assumed the responsibility of acting himself, and therefore sent the United States troops and a lot of gunboats into the State, recognized Kellogg’s illegal claims to the office of Governor, and demanded the surrender of the forces which had organized in resistance to Kellogg’s authority. Not wishing to come in contact with the Federal Govern men :, the white people yielded to the stern decree of military authority. A company of U. S. troops was stationed at Colfax to keep th* peace, while Kellogg fitted up a lot of gunboats and metropolitan police, and sent them up Red River to terriiy the inhabitants and to arrest those white persons who were engaged in the Colfax affair under Nash and Hadnot, or hunt them down as outlaws. Nash and his associates were driven from their homes and sought safety in the dense forests of Red River and western Louisiana. A large number of persons, however, were arrested, taken to New Orleans and confined in dingy dungeons for long months without the benefit of bail, while the radical black and white leaders who incited the negroes at Colfax were allowed to go free.

The presence of the U. 8. troops at Colfax and the patroling of the metropolitans emboldened the negroes to commit other attrocities, and only a short time had elapsed when a widow lady and her daughter of onlv seventeen summers, one of the most beautiful and accomplished young ladies on Red River, relatives of J. Madison Wells, of returning board perjury fame, were taken out in the dead hour of night, a mile from their home, in the swamp, by nine negroes, repeatedly outraged by them, and from which they both died in a few days after. Being missed from their home the following morning, search was made for them and they were found where they had been left by the negroes. As Providence would have it, they were conscious enough to remember the names of some of tha negroes that had outraged them and thus a clue was obtaiined as to the parties who had committed the crime. Reader! have you a wife, a mother, a sister, or ocher female relative? In a case like this would not revenge find a lodgment in your bosom? and wo’d it not be sweet to you ? Ah, thank God! the hand of the Anglo-Saxon never trembles, and his heart never falters, when called upon to avenge such a terrible crime. The criminals were apprehended and executed by the relatives friends and sympathizers of the unfortunate ladies. Five of them were killed by the hand of one of Gov. Wells’ own sons. The lives which flitted out by the hands of these barbarous fiends wexe truly avengjd. Their pure spirits had scarcely left mutilated tenements, when the lifeblood of those who had been the cause of their premature death, was lapped up by mother-earth. When DeCline, the officer commanding the United States troops at Colfax, was told of this crime and his assistance asked to arrest the perpetrators of it, he declined, and said “No, I did not come here to look after trifling matters.” No! but he had come to foster a most damnable infamy, to do the work of the Devil, to chain down the white man and place the foot of an African barbarian upon his neck, and to give the helpless white female over to his insatiable lust!

Five years have elapsed since these dreadful scenes were enacted at Colfax and Grant Parish. The passions have had time to cool and there ie no cause to give a false coloring to them. They are deplorable facts and belong to the history of the reign of despotism and terror which prevailed thro’out the South during that unhappy period.

The heroic Capt. Nash, though hunted as an outlaw, was ever on the alert to protect the weak and unfortunate. He managed to evade the clutches of the United States troopsand Kellogg’s metropolitans and by his wonderful sagacitv and übiquity, saved many a poor woman from such outrages as those above mentioned. On one occasion a family was moving from one of the east Mississippi Southern States through Grant Parish to Texas. The family consisted of a man, wife and two young grown daughters. In attempting to cross a stream which was swollen by recent rains, the party were swamped and came near being drowned. It was only by the most strenuous efforts that they extricated themselves, and they had not more than reached the opposite side of the stream, almost exhausted, than they were set upon by a squad of armed negroes, the man and his wife were overpowered and the two young girls seized by them. Just at this trying moment the tramp of horsemen were heard near by, and a voice rung out —“Nash I—Nash! bloody spurs, foaming steed, and pistol in hand, the young hero, with his few followers, dashed furiously upon the black villains, killed a few of them on the spot and chased the others into the deep recesses of the swamp, where their bones may now be overgrown with moss, or soaking in muddy sloughs, a fit ending to their attempted crime. The travelers then moved on, and at night camped on the bank of Red River. Early the next morning they were again set upon by a body of negroes, wh ■> were in the act of robbing the wagon of its contents when the inevitable Nash appeared on the seen*

and the negroes paid dearly for the eutrage. Nash then escorted the unfortunate man and family across the river and beyond the region of danger. The United States soldiers were constantly in search of him, and on one occasion he rode up to a farm and asked a friendly old negro woman to hold his horse and watch for him while he got a drink of water from a spring near by. While drinking, the old woman saw the soldiers coming and called to him. He mounted Ms horse, and as he rode off the soldiers followed in full pursuit The road lay perfectly level and stretched several miles between plantations and his escape depended upon the fleetness of his horse and his ability to reach a certain ferry on the river. The river was swollen, and at this point was at least two hundred yards wide. Nash saw it would be impossible for him to take the flat-boat and save himself before his pursuers would be upon him. They, however had taken the precaution to have the flat removed, and knowing Red River to be a dangerous stream, thought Nash would not hazard his life by attempting to swim it, But be was too closely pursued to even have time to take the boat; so, without checking his speed, he plunged headlong into the turbulent current, trusting to his noble animal, which knew to be a good swimmer, to cany him safely to the other shore. A deep thug, and the splash of the parting waves echoed from bank to bank, while the daring rider and noble horse struggled beneath the surface. For a moment all was silence save the surging waters and the clattering hoofs of the horses of Nash’s pursuers. The troops dashed up to the river bank. They had seen Nash’s horse a moment before stretched full length in close proximity to the stream, but he had suddenly and mysteriously disappeared from their sight. Their eyes quickly surveyed the surroundings. Presently a dark object rose far out in the river and with its appearance was heard a loud snort, while clouds of spray hung in the beaming sunshine. It was Nash and his faithful animal pulling heroically for the opposite shore. They at length reached it, and while ascending the bank Nash lazily turned in his saddle, pulled off his hat and proudly waved it at his would-be captors, who sat upon their horses, with their carbines across lheir saddles, and gazed after him in mute and blank astonishment. The bird had flown—the trap set to catch him had failed on account of his daring recklessness. Nash felt that it would Oe death to him any way, or, aj miserable life of confinement in a gloomy dungeon. His plantation had been robbed of its valuables, his fences and houses destroyed and his young, beautiful and accomplished wife and precious little ones driven away and forced to seek safety beneath othei’ roofs. What he had done was in the conscientious discharge of a public duty—a duty to his State and parish as well as to his neighbors. He was powerless to defend himself and his liberty depended only in flight. No river in America was then an object to him. Red River, with its quick-

sand banks, its rapid current, and dangerous whirlpools, proved a welcome succor; but as long as Kellogg pretended to rule in Louistai a and the United States troops remained at his back, Na»h was an exile from his own homeland he was a constant terror to those who had been Instrumental in his misfortunes and those of his people. He was familiar with every nook and ccrner of the dense swamps and lagoons of the Red River valley, in that section of the State, and could easily foil any attempt to entrap him. Every respectable white man was his friend, and he had no trouble in keeping fully posted about the movements of his enemies. Many a day did he sit in his saddle, within rifle-shot distance of the soldiers’ camp and watch them, and through spies learn all about their intentions. When an outrage was committed by a negro, and a clue was obtained as to who was the perpetrator, it would not be long till the body of the criminal was found, riddled with bullets and in a state of decomposition. But Kellogg’s henchmen were never able to learn who was the executioner. The veil of mystery still hangs over the death of many a criminal in Grant Parish, and perhaps will until the present generation of men in that section sleep the sleep that knows no waxing. This, sir, is only a single link in the long chain of events which mark the path of the usurpers and tyrants in Louisiana. It is no fiction. The writer is familiar with the locality where these dreadful and thrilling scenes transpired. He has grasped the hand of the young hero above alluded to and those who stood by his side. He has shared the hospitality of the noble, the generous, and the brave James Hadnot who yielded up his life at Coifax by the hands of the treacherous negroes- Should he particularize occurrences, he could fill column after column, and page after page of your valuable paper for the next year to < om«. His object is only to show to your people, by giving unvarnished facts, how the white people of the South have been made to suffer by carpet-baggers and villains, sustained by the army and navy of the United States, directed by General Grant, and to justify them in the eyes of your people for those acts of viols nee which have occurred and which have been exaggerated and magnified by radical newspapers in order to keep the radical party in power, while every department of the United States Government and of the State Governments were being plundered and robbed. Thank God! the South is redeemed! it is in the hands of its own people. Its fertile lands and salubrious climate offer homes for the toiling thousands of the North who have felt it an act of self preservation to make war on rich monopolies. Sir, we feel a deep sympathy for your poor working men and their families, for we have suffered even more deeply than they. The emotions swell and the sympathies of the heart go out to them as gaunt want spreads its black, mournful shadow over their little tenant homes. We ask them with pleading voice and trickling tears, that gush

from sad recollections of onr past sufferings and sorrows, if they have ever entertained them toward us, to lay aside their prejudices, and take us by the hand as we are—free-born American citizens, sprung from a common ancestry, and possessing the same feeling, the same instincts, and the same National characteristics.

Yours Truly,

NICK OF THE WOODS.