[815] George E. Spencer, Colonel 1st Alabama Union Cavalry.
[816] The witnesses who furnished testimony to the Congressional committee were:—
| Name | Nativity | Remarks | |
| 1. | Warren Kelsey | Massachusetts | Cotton speculator |
| 2. | General Edward Hatch | Iowa | Volunteer army |
| 3. | General George E. Spencer | Iowa | Volunteer army |
| 4. | William H. Smith | Alabama | Deserter |
| 5. | J. J. Giers | Alabama | Tory |
| 6. | Mordecai Mobley | Iowa | |
| 7. | General George H. Thomas | Virginia | U. S. Army |
| 8. | General Clinton B. Fisk | North | Freedmen’s Bureau |
| 9. | M. J. Saffold | Alabama | “Union” man |
| 10. | D. C. Humphreys | Alabama | Deserter |
| 11. | Colonel Milton M. Bane | Illinois | Volunteer army |
| 12. | General Joseph R. West | California | Volunteer army |
| 13. | Colonel Hunter Brooke | North | Volunteer army |
| 14. | General Grierson | Illinois | Volunteer army |
| 15. | General Swayne | North | Freedmen’s Bureau |
| 16. | General C. C. Andrews | Minnesota | Volunteer army |
| 17. | General Chetlain | Illinois | Volunteer army |
| 18. | General Tarbell | North | Volunteer army |
[817] One of these men (W. H. Smith) became the first scalawag governor of Alabama, another (George E. Spencer) became a United States senator by negro votes, the third (Giers) was provided for in the departments at Washington, the fourth (Saffold) became a circuit judge in Alabama, and the fifth (Humphreys) a judge of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. See Herbert, “The Solid South,” pp. 19, 20.
[818] Testimony of General Swayne, Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, 1866, Pt. III, pp. 138-141.
[819] Other witnesses gave, in some respects, more favorable testimony, though most of them were very much more bitter. General Swayne showed no bias except the natural bias of one who did not understand the people, and who had no sympathy with any of the southern social or political principles. Of the northern men he was the best qualified by experience and observation to testify as to conditions in the South. He was an intelligent, educated man, trained in the law, and had a good military record. Most of the others were distinctly below his standard,—ignorant, prejudiced officers of volunteers from the West.
[820] General Swayne was in Alabama nearly three years as the head of the unpopular Freedmen’s Bureau, and his accounts, from first to last, of conditions in Alabama were marked by a fairness which can be found in but little of the official correspondence from the South. He believed in the Freedmen’s Bureau, in negro suffrage, and in the political proscription of white leaders; but his feelings influenced his judgment but little, and, unlike other Bureau officials, he never made misrepresentations.
[821] The Nation, Feb. 15, 1866.
[822] Huntsville Advocate, July 26, 1865.
[823] Herbert, “Solid South,” pp. 29, 30; Atlantic Monthly, Feb., 1901.