J.E. HARVEY, _Assistant Surgeon 58th Illinois.
Freedmen's Hospital, Montgomery, Alabama, August 21, 1865.
No. 21.
OFFICE PROVOST MARSHAL,
Post of Selma, Alabama, August 22, 1865.
I have the honor to report the following facts in regard to the treatment of colored persons by whites within the limits of my observation:
There have come under my notice, officially, twelve cases in which I am morally certain (the trials have not been had yet) that negroes were killed by whites. In a majority of cases the provocation consisted in the negroes trying to come to town, or to return to the plantation after having been sent away. These cases are in part as follows:
Wilson H. Gordon, convicted by military commission of having shot and drowned a negro, May 14, 1865.
Samuel Smiley, charged with having shot one negro and wounded another, acquitted on proof of an alibi. It is certain, however, that one negro was shot and another wounded, as stated. Trial occurred in June.
Three negroes were killed in the southern part of Dallas county; it is supposed by the Vaughn family. I tried twice to arrest them, but they escaped into the woods.