the blacks had lifted the boards and taken refuge under the
floor of the court-house. They were all captured. About thirty-seven men
were taken prisoners. The number is not definitely fixed. They were kept
under guard until dark. They were led out, two by two, and shot. Most of
the men were shot to death. A few were wounded, not mortally, and by
pretending to be dead were afterwards, during the night, able to make
their escape. Among them was the Levi Nelson named in the indictment.

The dead bodies of the negroes killed in this affair were left unburied
until Tuesday, April 15, when they were buried by a deputy marshal and
an officer of the militia from New Orleans. These persons found
fifty-nine dead bodies. They showed pistol-shot wounds, the great
majority in the head, and most of them in the back of the head. In
addition to the fifty-nine dead bodies found, some charred remains of
dead bodies were discovered near the court-house. Six dead bodies were
found under a warehouse, all shot in the head but one or two, which were
shot in the breast.

The only white men injured from the beginning of these troubles to their
close were Hadnot and Harris. The court-house and its contents were
entirely consumed.

There is no evidence that anyone in the crowd of whites bore any lawful
warrant for the arrest of any of the blacks. There is no evidence that
either Nash or Cazabat, after the affair, ever demanded their offices,
to which they had set up claim, but Register continued to act as parish
judge and Shaw as sheriff.

These are facts in this case as I understand them to be admitted.

To hold the people of Louisiana generally responsible for these
atrocities would not be just, but it is a lamentable fact that
insuperable obstructions were thrown in the way of punishing these
murderers; and the so-called conservative papers of the State not only
justified the massacre, but denounced as Federal tyranny and despotism
the attempt of the United States officers to bring them to justice.
Fierce denunciations ring through the country about office holding and
election matters in Louisiana, while every one of the Colfax miscreants
goes unwhipped of justice, and no way can be found in this boasted land
of civilization and Christianity to punish the perpetrators of this
bloody and monstrous crime.

Not unlike this was the massacre in August last. Several Northern young
men of capital and enterprise had started the little and flour