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talked with General Lewis and Colonel Sibley. I then went down to Madison and met Joshua Hill. I told him some of the circumstances. He said he had heard of it and asked me what I was going to do about it. I said, "I am going back home, my family is there, and all that I have in the world is there; I have done nothing wrong, and I am going back there." Said he, "Allen, you are a good fellow; but you are going among mighty bad men if you go back there; it is hard, but if I was you I would go back." That was about 10 o'clock. At2 o'clock Mr. Hill sent for me to come to his house, and went. He said, "I see you have published that thing in Bryant's paper in Augusta." I said, "I have." He said, "Then I think you had better not go back there, for they will kill you right in the day-time." I staid there until two days before the election for President. I said to him, "I am going to vote for President sure." He said, "You can vote at Atlanta; if I was you I would not go back there, and stay there; if you had not published this thing maybe you could have got along very well." I came back here and voted for President. I bought a little place here and built a house for my family, whom I did not sce until the 18th of January afterward. I was called to the care of a church at Marietta; I did not give up my residence, for I was confident I would be put back into the legislature. I never voted here except for President, and I never paid any tax here. When our time was out I went back there last year and they nominated me again.

Question. Which party nominated you?

Answer. The republican party, the colored men. We did not poll but three votes for General Grant in that county out of nine hundred and odd votes. There were nine hundred and sixty colored voters there, and about six hundred white voters. There were three votes polled there for Grant, two by colored men, and one by a white man. They wanted to get me away from there before the Presidential election. I was pominated against my will. I and Mr. H. M. Turner made a couple of speeches there. We had tickets struck off in Macon, and I went back and staid until the election. The day before the election two men came to my brother-in-law's shop and said they wanted to talk with me. I said, "Well, now is a good time." They said, "We want to go to your room." I said, “No white man shall go to my room; I am guarded; you are aware of that, and you cannot blame me, for you know what occurred here." They said they did not blame me, but would rather see me privately. I said, "Say what you have got to say here." One of them said, "I want you to give up the field to us.” I said, "I never expect to do it." They said, "We will give you about what you would make if elected." I said, "I have the car on the track, and I will run it into the depot, so help me God;" just that way. They said, "You will be beaten." I said, "I cannot help it; I am going to run, and if I am beat, I will not be the first man that was beat." That night I was at my brother-in-law's, and had some six or eight men guarding me. They came there and shot all around the house; shot and bullets fell all around the house. I went to the polls to vote the first day, and carried about a hundred men with me. When I called my name Judge Williams said, "Allen, you cannot vote unless you take the oath." I said, "What is it?" He said, "You cannot vote unless you take an oath that you have been living in the county for six months, and have paid all your taxes." I thought at first I would take the oath, but afterwards I thought I would not take it. I said, "I will not swear that I have lived in this county for the last six months; but I will swear that I was obliged to leave the county because they killed my brother-in-law; and that I have paid taxes in no place else; I voted for President." I understood there that they were going to put me in jail if I had voted. I staid there until the second day of the election, when they drove me off. Question. How was that?

Answer. Two young men met me as I was at dinner, and asked who I was. I said, "My name is Allen." I looked around and white men were standing all around there. They talked awhile and said, "You make a pretty good representative; we want to see what kind of man you are." I got frightened and went off from there. Question. How many votes did you get?

Answer. They beat me sixty votes. I am very glad I did not get elected, for if I had been I could not have staid there, and they would have turned me out as soon as they met.

Question. Suppose you had had a fair election?

Answer. I would then have beaten this man as before.

Question. They wanted you to take this oath, and then if you had done so they were going to arrest you and put you in jail?

Answer. Yes, sir; and when they get a man in jail here, that is as good a place as they want him.

Question. Why so?

Answer. They would just go there and demand the keys from the jailer, and take him out and kill him.

Question. Did you see any of those men that came to your house that night ?
Answer. No, sir; I did not see one of them. It was dark out of doors.
Question. Have you any reason to believe who the parties were ?

Answer. Yes, sir; I have always had my ideas who some of them were, but I could not swear to them, and would not undertake it now. I have always believed that I knew who a great many of them were.

Question. What was the verdict of the coroner's jury?

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Answer. That he came to his death by gun-shot wounds in the hands of unknown parties. The foreman of the jury testified that they did not kill the man they were after; that they were after Allen. I was standing right there and said, "That is true."

Question. Has there been any attempt made to discover who the perpetrators of that murder were?

Answer. I think after I left there they had a regular court. They had my wife and his wife and a great many others, and they wanted to make out that he and I had had a falling out, and that I did it. They tried to make his wife believe it.

Question. Did they circulate that report?

Answer. Yes, sir. Mr. Hill was over there at the court, and came back and told me, and said it was a shame..

Question. They charged that you had done it and run off?

Answer. Yes, sir. Yet he and I were just as friendly as I and my wife were.

Question. The only investigation they made was the one in which they attempted to fasten the deed upon you?

Answer. Yes, sir; that is all.

Question. What do you know about this organization of men that they call Ku-Klux? Answer. I have never seen one in my life; I have seen a great many people who have seen them. I have a Ku-Klux letter here that I got on the day of the election for the constitution.

Question. Will you read it?
Answer. Yes, sir; this is it?

"TO THOMAS ALLEN, (Freedman :)

Tom, you are in great danger; you are going heedless with the radicals, against the interest of the conservative white population, and I tell you if you do not change your course before the election for the ratification of the infernal constitution, your days are numbered, and they will be but few. Just vote or use your influence for the radicals or for the constitution, and you go up certain. My advice to you, Tom, is to stay at home if you value your life, and not vote at all, and advise all of your race to do the same thing. You are marked and closely watched by K. K. K., (or in plain words Ku-Klux.)

"Take heed; a word to the wise is sufficient.

"By order of Grand Cyclops."

Question. Where did you get this?

Answer. It was dropped in the shop the morning of the election, when I was running for the legislature. I showed it to a great many men in town; I showed it to Colonel Preston, a friend of mine. He asked where I got it, and I told him. He said, "Tear it up." I said, "No, it may be of service to my children if not to me." He said, “You need not talk so slack about it; there may be heaps of Ku-Klux in the State, and they might get hold of your talk."

Question. What have you known of the operations of that sort of people, more than you have stated here ?

Answer. As I have said, I have never seen any one disguised at all. In fact, I never went out much of nights, only to church and back. After they got after me I came away from there.

Question. Have you heard of their operations in other parts of the State?

Answer. O, yes, sir, I have heard of them all over the State. I heard of a Mr. Goldsboro who was whipped nearly to death. And an old man by the name of Terry and seven of his sons were murdered in Warren County, all but one; one was thrown into a brush heap and burned.

Question. Were they colored people?

Answer. Yes, sir.

By Mr. BAYARD:

Question. When was that?

Answer. Since the emancipation. And I know of Mr. Ayer, a member of the legislature, who was killed; and Mr. Ashburn, Mr. Adkins, and various others who have been killed.

By the CHAIRMAN :

Question. What is the feeling of your people in regard to their personal safety?

Answer. They do not consider that they have any safety at all, only in the cities; that is the truth. In a great many places the colored people call the white people mas

ter and mistress, just as they ever did; if they do not do it they are whipped. They have no safety at all except in a large place like this. If I could have staid at home I would not have been here. I left all my crops and never got anything for them. My wife had no education, and when I came away everything went wrong. There are thousands in my condition.

Question. Is that the reason so many of your people come to the large cities?

Answer. Yes, sir, that is the reason. Mr. Abram Turner, a member of the legislature, from Putnam County, the county adjoining mine, was shot down in the street in open day. He was a colored man. They have elected another in his place, a democrat, Question. When was he elected?

Answer. Last fall.

Question. He has been killed since?

Answer. Yes, sir, shot down in broad open day. I see his name published in the New Era of this State among the list of members; but another man has been elected in his place. The young man who murdered him got on his horse and rode off. Over in Jasper County two young men went to a man's house and shot him down, and he died instantly. They arrested them and held them for a little while, but soon turned them loose.

Question. Was the man who was killed a colored man?

Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. What was the politics of the young men who killed him?

Answer. They were democrats.

Question. Was he a republican?.

Answer. Yes, sir. I knew him very well; he was a good man, a harmless man; I married him to his wife.

Question. Do the people of your race feel that they have the protection of the laws? Answer. By no means.

Question. What is their hope and expectation for the future?

Answer. They expect to get protection from the Federal Government at Washington; that is all. You ask any one of my people out there, even the most ignorant of them, and they will tell you so. I will tell you what Captain Bartlett remarked to me once, in the streets of Monticello. He is a democratic lawyer, and a young man. A white man was murdered by a negro who caught him in bed with his wife. He went to the door, and his wife would not let him in. He went to the window and broke in, and he killed the white man. They arrested the colored man and put him in Eatonton jail. There is no jail in Monticello, for General Stoneman burned it up. When his trial came off, they convicted him. Colonel Bartlett was defending the negro. I asked him how it would go. He said that he should be cleared; "But," said he, "we have just gone through an election, and you cannot get justice out of that jury." They convicted him, and the gallows was put up for his execution. The Governor commuted his sentence to imprisonment in the penitentiary for life. Captain Bartlett said, "I will do the best I can, but we have just gone through an election; the negroes have voted the radical ticket, and I cannot do much for you." I believe that many of the jurymen, and lawyers too, are members of the Ku-Klux Klan; I believe it positively; I would say so on my death-bed.

Question. How much have you been over the State?

Answer. I have traveled all over the State.

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Question. Have you communicated pretty freely with the people of your own race? Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. Have you received information from them about the Ku-Klux?

Answer. Yes, sir, occasionally.

Question. In how large a portion of the State do you find reports of Ku-Klux operations?

Answer. I find it in the counties of what is known among us as the Black Belt. Wherever the negroes are in the majority, there the Ku-Klux range more than in aðfy other places. Up in Cobb County they are very peaceable. The democrats are always elected there to the general assembly. The whites have about seven hundred majority. The colored people get along splendidly there. In those counties where the whites are largely in the majority, the colored people get along very well; but go into the counties where the negroes are in the majority, and there is always trouble; for instance, in Monroe County, or Warren County, or anywhere in the Black Belt, there is always trouble between the whites and the colored people.

Question. Are the colored people riotous in disposition? Are they inclined to make trouble?

Answer. I suppose the colored people are as peaceable as any people in the world. The colored people of Madison, when the white people went to the jail and murdered a man there, could have burned up the town and killed all the white people there. Question. What was the man charged with that was murdered ?

Answer. I heard that he had tried to commit a rape on a white girl. In the county of Green, Abram Colby was whipped nearly to death. He was always a good man, and

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so considered until he took part in politics. Colonel William A. Lofton, a democratic lawyer, sent for me at one time. He is a perfect gentleman. I do not think he would stoop so low as to go about with the Ku-Klux. He sent for me to come and see him, and I went into his parlor. He said, "Allen, I want to have a long talk with you." I said, "This is not the day for it; I am now on my way to baptize some persons." He said, "Have you any Union League here?" I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "Who is the president of it?" I said, "I am." He said, "Was not that Mr. Eberhart's business here the other day?" I said, "No, sir." He said, "Where did you get your idea of it?" I said, "In Macon, from a southern man. Mr. Eberhart came here to see me about school affairs." He said, “I advise you to quit the Union League from to-day; if you will do it and go on and preach the Gospel, you will always have friends in this country; but if you stay in that Union League and get the colored men of this county to go into it, you will never be liked in the county again." I said, "I cannot help it; you know the colored people 'now have the right of suffrage; they are ignorant people, and somebody must teach them. It is reasonable to presume that they are going to hold on to the party that freed them." He said, "You can do more good here preaching than doing anything else, and you had better let politics alone." I said, “I will see you some other day." He said, "I hope when I see you again you will have changed your opinion, and will give your documents up to me." I said, "I will not do it." It went on until I was nominated for the lower house of the legislature. I met him in town one day, and he said, "Allen, you are running against Eli Glover." I said, "Yes." He said, "You will be very badly beaten." I said, "I cannot help it." I told Mr. Swansey, who asked me if I had any idea who did it, that I had. He said, "How do you feel toward that man?" I said, "If I knew who it was I would not hurt him; for a man who would condescend to try and murder me at night I would not hurt him." He said, "You must be a Christian." I said, "I hope I am."

Question. Have you ever known anybody to be punished in Cobb County or in Fulton County for mistreating a colored man?

Answer. I have not attended court here. I was in court in Cobb County, where they had a colored man in jail last winter who was suspected of burning a gin-house. They had him in jail until he was frost-bitten. They tried him about the first of the spring; I happened to go into the court-house when I was up there. They cleared him, and turned him loose. That was the first case I ever knew where a colored man was cleared and turned loose.

Question. They kept him in jail until he was frost-bitten?

Answer. Yes, sir; his lawyer made a point of that. He was kept there until he was frost-bitten, and both legs had to be cut off, and he was of no account to anybody; he was cleared. I have never been in the courts much here in this city, but the people here say they don't get justice.

Question. What is the difference of feeling, if any, between the whites toward the colored people, and the whites toward those white men who are supposed to be

Answr. If there is any difference, the white' people who are called radicals are not liked as well as the colored people.

Question. Who is Mr. Eberhart, of whom you have spoken?

Answer. He was a major general in the Union Army from Pennsylvania. He was State superintendent of free schools. I named one of my little boys after him. They said if he said anything about politics, he should not come back there any more. Question. The man who said that was one of your best peoplo?

Answer. Yes, sir. I do not think he would stoop so low as to murder any man or anything of that kind on account of his politics.

By Mr. BAYARD:

Question. Mr. Eberhart was superintendent of education and of the public schools in this State?

Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. He was an active politician?

Answer. I never heard him say anything about politics.

Question. What was the complaint about his bringing politics into the schools?

Answer. I was in Macon once in a convention there, and I heard him say that he did not want politics mixed up with the schools.

Question. Did you not say that some complaint of that kind was made against him?

Answer. Mr. Lofton asked me if I was a member of the Union League, and I said I was. He asked if that was not Eberhart's business in the county a few days ago, and I said no, that he had come there about the schools.

Question. What was his comment upon Eberhart ?

Answer. He simply wanted to know if Eberhart came over there to establish a Union League.

By Mr. SCOFIELD :

Question. After you told him that, what did he say?

Answer. He said that he thought he came for that purpose, and if he had he did not intend to have him come into the county again. I went to the hotel in the morning and met him; he knew me, and he had made a speech there.

By Mr. BAYARD:

Question. What was his speech about-on politics?

Answer. On education, and how best to get along. Mr. Lofton met me at the hotel and said, "Allen, you are going to have a speech here." I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "What is the nature of it-politics?" I said, "No, I do not think anybody will talk about politics on Sunday."

Question. Is Mr. Eberhart in the State now?

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Answer. No, sir; he left here very early after that. He was suspended from the bureau on account of some difficulty that grew up between him and Mr. Bryant. had an estate left him in England of half a million, and he left and went home. Question. When did he come here?

Answer. Immediately after the war.

Question. How long did he stay?
Answer. One year.

Question. And was appointed superintendent of education in the State?
Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. And he remained until he had some difficulty with the agent of the Freedmen's Bureau and was suspended, and then went home?

Answer. Yes, sir. The evening Mr. Eberhart landed at Monticello Mr. Rockwell came with him.

Question. What year was that?

Answer. It was in 1867.

Question. And it was in 1868, in October, that this outrage was committed upon your brother-in-law?

Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. Where was General Meade at that time?

Answer. I do not know whether General Meade or General Terry was in command at that time; if General Meade was in command he was here.

Question. One of those two generals was in command of the State at that time? Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. Were there any troops in the State?

Answer. There were none in my city; a few were sent down at the Presidential election.

Question. What was Colonel Sibley's position?

Answer. He was not commanding general here then. I do not know what he did; I went before him anyway.

Question. He was in the United States Army?

Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. And he had command of this post?

Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. And you made your statement to him?

Answer. Yes, sir. He said he would send troops to the election, but that I had better not go back there.

Question. Was any investigation made by the military authorities into that crime? Answer. They made a record of what I said to them.

Question. They were in full possession of the facts you have stated?

Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. Were you present at the coroner's inquest?

Answer. Yes, sir; I was.

Question. You stated there what you have stated here?

Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. You did not identify anybody on account of the darkness of the night? Answer. No, sir.

Question. You had suspicions as to who the persons were?

Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. That is the extent of your knowledge upon the subject of that outrage? Answer. Yes, sir.

Question. When you spoke of organizing Grant Rangers on the very night that your brother-in-law lay dead in the next room, what was the nature of that organization?

Answer. We had a charter, but I do not know that I could give you the details now. We organized with a president and two or three vice-presidents, one for each district in the county. We were to have meetings similar to the Union League. We found

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