employed in
the work of uprooting the Radical succession, and rendering Southern
hospitality, as applicable to its agents, a thing of unmitigated terror.
For a year or more after its organization had been completed, little was
done apparently, but during this time the League in all its departments
had been subjected to a rigid espionage, and the communications of the
former with the transactions of government at the capital, established by
the same means.

A slight difficulty in one of the Northern parishes, growing out of an
election issue, was perhaps the first intimation conveyed to the Louisiana
State authorities that they were to encounter opposition of this
character. It, however, was local in its belongings, and though widely
published by the organs of the League at the North, was not deemed worthy
of attention by the State press. In Grant Parish, a new shire division of
the State, created with a view to political ends, the quarrel of the
factions assumed a serious shape at an early day, and here eventually
transpired one of the most fearful tragedies of this bloody epoch. A
remarkable feature of this affair was that it grew out of a purely
personal matter, if we may except the contrast of races involved. The
details of the private quarrel would of course be uninteresting, and the
bloody particulars which followed may be recited in a few words.

An issue of races having been distinctly made, the two parties assembled
in force; the blacks, after some preliminary manoeuvring, entrenching
themselves in the court-house at Colfax, and bidding defiance to their
enemies. They were at once closely besieged by a force equalling, or
possibly barely exceeding, their own (three hundred to four hundred men),
and, after some parleying, an unconditional surrender demanded. This was
resisted on the expressed condition that the entrenched force, though in
the minority, were "able to defend themselves," and would do so at every
hazard. An irregular skirmish followed, pending which no advantage
resulted to the attacking party, and seeing which, the leaders of the
movement resolved on bolder measures: The blacks were again notified that
they must vacate their quarters, or submit to the torch, as the besiegers
were fully resolved upon dispossessing them of that stronghold. This they
seem to have regarded as a mere threat, impossible of execution, and
continued to throw out defiances and fire an occasional shot into the
enemy's rank