Subscribed and sworn to before me, a notary public in and for the District aforesaid, this 16th day of October, A.D. 1908.
[SEAL] Geo. W. Madert,
Notary Public.
This day personally appeared before me Herbert J. Browne, of Washington, D.C., who, being duly sworn, deposes and says:
"I was employed by the War Department in May, 1908, in company with Captain William G. Baldwin, of Roanoke, Va., chief of the Baldwin Detective Agency, to investigate the conduct of the battalion of the Twenty-fifth Infantry, stationed at Brownsville, Tex., which conduct resulted in the Brownsville raid, so called, on the night of August 13-14, 1906, wherein one Frank Natus was killed, Lieutenant of Police Dominguez badly wounded, and the houses of several citizens were shot into. Captain Baldwin has charge of the secret work for the Norfolk and Western Railway, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, the Southern Railway, and the Atlantic Coast Line, and is one of the best known and most responsible detectives in the country.
"In conjunction with him I have been continuously employed upon this work since its inception in May.
"The facts set forth in my report addressed to General George B. Davis, Judge-Advocate-General, War Department, under date of December 5, 1908, are true to the best of my knowledge and belief.
"In particular I visited Monroe, Ga., to corroborate the investigation at that point of William Lawson, a colored detective in the employ of Captain Baldwin, whose affidavit and reports are annexed to and made a part of my report of December 5, 1908, above referred to.
"I had several interviews at Monroe with Boyd Conyers, ex-private of Company B, Twenty-fifth Infantry, one of the guard on the night of the Brownsville raid, and found that William Lawson's statements regarding Conyers were substantially and essentially correct. I personally obtained from Conyers further information detailing how the cartridges used in the raid were surreptitiously and illegally obtained and distributed, how the principal raiders proceeded, when and by whom the gun racks in Company B were unlawfully and secretly opened for the purpose of the raid, how the raiders were protected during and subsequent to the raid and given opportunity to clean their guns, and, in particular, was furnished by Conyers with the names of eight participants in the raid other than the three named by him in his statements to William Lawson, a total of eleven, including himself, the said Conyers, all members of Company B, Twenty-fifth Infantry.
"The leaders of the raid, as named by Boyd Conyers, were John Holloman, John Brown, Carolina de Saussure, and himself. Following them were William Anderson, James Bailey, Charles E. Cooper, William Lemons, Henry Jimerson, James 'Rastus' Johnson, and Henry 'Sonny' Jones. Sergeant Reid, in charge of the guard, was accused by Conyers of knowledge before and after the raid. Sergeant George Jackson, in charge of the keys of the gun racks of Company B, was accused of opening the racks for the raiders, and of again opening them subsequent to the raid in order that the guns might be removed and cleaned.
"I found Boyd Conyers in a disturbed frame of mind. No claim is made that his original declarations to William Lawson were other than those of a criminal boasting to one of his own race of his crime and of his success in escaping discovery. His subsequent declarations to me were given partly during moments of contrition and in a desire to unload his conscience by a confession and partly as the result of careful and persistent questioning.