Your obedient servant,
W.L. SHARKEY, Provisional Governor of Mississippi.
Colonel YORK.
Official copy:
J. WARREN MILLER, Assistant Adjutant General.
HEADQUARTERS POST OF PORT GIBSON,
Port Gibson, Mississippi, August 26, 1865.
General: I have the honor to state that my reasons for issuing the enclosed order, (No. 16,) was, that a party of citizens acting under authority from Captain Jack, 9th Indiana cavalry, and having as their chief C.B. Clark, was by their own acknowledgment in the habit of patrolling the roads in this section of the country, and ordering any one they came across to halt. If this was not promptly done, they were ordered to fire upon them. In this way one negro woman was wounded, and Union men and negroes were afraid to be out of their houses after dark. The company was formed out of what they called picked men, i.e., those only who had been actively engaged in the war, and were known to be strong disunionists.
The negroes in the section of the country these men controlled were kept in the most abject state of slavery, and treated in every way contrary to the requirements of General Orders No. 129 from the War Department, a copy of which order was issued by me to C.B. Clark.
Hoping, general, to receive instructions as to the manner in which I shall regulate my action,