[750] Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 1941.
[751] Curry, “Civil History Confederate States,” pp. 115, 126, 128. See testimony of Lieut.-Col. Hunter Brooke in Rept. Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Pt. III, p. 115.
[752] Whitelaw Reid, “After the War,” p. 204.
[753] Reid, “After the War,” pp. 208, 209.
[754] Miller, “Alabama,” p. 236.
[755] One who suffered writes from Selma: “Our cotton, the only thing left us with which to buy the necessaries of life, was seized at the point of the bayonet under the plea that it was Confederate cotton and that it was being seized by the government for its own use, whereas it was taken by the officers and sold, and the money put into their own pockets. It was then worth $255 a bale. Gen. —— commanded at this place, and he and his staff coined money faster than a mint could turn it out.” Judge B. H. Craig. In July, 1865, a train of wagons at Talladega was sent to the ginnery of Ross Green, at Alexandria, and 59 bales of cotton, Green’s own property, worth $100 a bale in gold, were carried off. Miller, p. 236.
[756] Testimony in Rept. of Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Pt. III, p. 115; Ku Klux Rept., Ala. Test., p. 1426. F. S. Lyon said that the people would have been better reconciled to the confiscation had the cotton been sold for the benefit of the United States, but it was plainly stolen by the agents and the army, and they began to resist in every way. Some of them concealed Confederate cotton; some stole from the government, some from the agents what the latter had stolen from them; some went into partnership with the agents. No one believed that any one except the original owner had a right to the cotton, and they did anything to get even.
[757] Miller, p. 236; N. Y. Times, March 2 and Aug. 30, 1865. In the Black Belt the United States military authorities collected the tax-in-kind which had been levied by the Confederate authorities but not collected. One planter had to pay one thousand bushels of corn, two barrels of syrup, and smaller quantities of other produce. From those who refused to pay the tax was taken forcibly. See Ku Klux Rept., p. 446 (F. S. Lyon).
[758] Ho. Mis. Doc., No. 30, 46th Cong., 2d Sess.
[759] Trowbridge, “The South,” p. 447; Reid, “After the War,” pp. 208, 209, 375; N. Y. Times, Aug. 30, 1865; N. Y. Herald, June 23, 1865.