A preacher (near Bladen Springs) states in the pulpit that the roads in Choctaw county stunk with the dead bodies of servants that had fled from their masters.
The people about Bladen declare that no negro shall live in the county unless he remains with his master and is as obedient as heretofore.
In Clark county, about the first of June, a freedman was shot through the heart; his body lies unburied.
About the last of May, a planter hung his servant (a woman) in presence of all the neighborhood. Said planter had killed this woman's husband three weeks before. This occurred at Suggsville, Clark county.
About the last of April, two women were caught near a certain plantation in Clark county and hung; their bodies are still suspended.
On the 19th of July, two freedmen were taken off the steamer Commodore Ferrand, tied and hung; then taken down, their heads cut off and their bodies thrown in the river.
July 11, two men took a woman off the same boat and threw her in the river. This woman had a coop, with some chickens. They threw all in together, and told her to go to the damned Yankees. The woman was drowned.
There are regular patrols posted on the rivers, who board some of the boats; after the boats leave they hang, shoot or drown the victims they may find on them, and all those found on the roads or coming down the river are most invariably murdered.
This is only a few of the murders that are committed on the helpless and unprotected freedmen of the above-named counties.
All the cases I have mentioned are authentic, and numerous witnesses will testify to all I have reported. Murder with his ghastly train stalks abroad at noonday and revels in undisputed carnage, while the bewildered and terrified freedmen know not what to do. To leave is death; to remain is to suffer the increased burden imposed on them by the cruel taskmaster, whose only interest is their labor wrung from them by every device an inhuman ingenuity can devise. Hence the lash and murder are resorted to to intimidate those whom fear of an awful death alone causes to remain, while patrols, negro dogs, and spies (disguised as Yankees) keep constant guard over these unfortunate people.