several times on the head. I made no resistance at all, but said, 'Mr. Adams, I will make you pay, for this.' This made him still worse, and he took out his knife and said he would give me something to make him pay for—he would kill me.

"Henry Ottrecht, a German, and a colored boy named Wash caught him and begged him not to kill me, and told me to promise him that I would not report him. He held on to me until I promised him that I would not report him, and then let me go. He told these men that he would have killed me if they had not prevented him. As he started away to attend the burying of his nephew's wife, he said to me, 'Now you may go to Perry,' (the county seat,) 'and report me if you want; but if you do I'll be d——d if I don't kill you.' At night my wife heard him tell Charles Evart, a freedman, about the scrape, and he said he would have killed me if they had not held him, and he would kill me anyway, if I reported him. I was a slave until freed the by war, but I never received such treatment during all my life as a slave. I waited on officers in the Confederate army from 1862 until the surrender. The last six months I was with Lt. Col. Jones, Second Georgia Reserves, at Andersonville. I never received a blow or a harsh word from one of them. I have traveled a great deal before and since the war. I know that the colored people are more brutally treated now than they were in slavery times. A great many more are beaten, wounded and killed now than then. I know a great many cases where they have been beaten to death with clubs, killed with knives and dirks, shot and hung. We have no protection at all from the laws of Georgia. We had rather die than go back into slavery, but we are worse treated than we ever were before. We cannot protect ourselves; we want the Government to protect us. A great many freedmen have told me that we should be obliged to rise and take arms and protect ourselves, but I have always told them this would not do; that the whole South would then come against us and kill us off, as the Indians have been killed off. I have always told them the best way was for us to apply to the Government for protection, and let them protect us."

Andersonville, Ga., February 10, 1869.

WHY I WAS KU KLUXED.

Mr. B. B. Dikes, referred to in the foregoing statement of Floyd Snelson, is not the only claimant who has endeavored to secure possession of the grounds in and around the stockades at Andersonville, Georgia. I should have said that he has entered a suit in the U. S. Court for the possession of these lands, but in the absence of the military he judged the ejectment of the freedmen, and getting possession in the manner I have described, as more sure and speedy than the "law's delay."

A Mr. Crawford claims that the land which lies within and around the south stockade, in which are the hospital sheds, where so many of our soldiers died, where even now the bare ground upon which they lay shows the indenture made by the bodies of our suffering dying soldiers, belongs to certain heirs, and he, too, has been endeavoring to get possession of these grounds. My pastoral visitations led me to the cabins in and around the stockades, that have been built upon the land now claimed by Mr. Crawford. As was most natural, they poured into my ears the sad, the almost incredible, accounts of the wrongs they have suffered "since freedom came," or, as they more frequently expressed it, "since the surrender came through." One of these men came to me in January, in great distress, and told me that the day before he had been notified by Mr. Souber, the magistrate of the district, that he must leave his house by the next Monday night, or he would bring the Sheriff and turn him out. Mr. Souber told him that he had charge of the land for Mr. Crawford, and that he was agoing to fence it in, and raise a cotton crop in and around these stockades. There are thousands who know how this soil has been ensanguined and enriched. I had frequently walked over these grounds, and seen evidences of what is both too indelicate and too horrible to be described. I confess that my indignation was roused to the highest degree. I sat down immediately and wrote a statement of these facts to Hon. J. M. Ashley, and begged him to call on General Grant, and see if there was any power in the Government to prevent these outrages.

The Lieutenant in charge at Andersonville called upon me some days later, and informed me that my letter to Congressman Ashley had been referred, by General Grant to General Meade, who had referred it to him. I furnished him the facts upon which it was based, and also wrote General Meade as follows:

STATEMENTS OF ALBERT WILLIAMS, MARTHA RANDALL, JANE ROGERS, AND BENJAMIN WESTON.

Albert Williams states to me that in January after the surrender he was employed by the Government to work in the cemetery, and worked there until last spring. That Mr. Van Dusen, Supt. of the cemetery, gave him the privilege of moving into the house he now occupies, near the stockade that enclosed the hospital buildings; that afterwards Captain Rench gave him the privilege of clearing off the ground east of the stockade and raising a crop; that he hired hands and cleared and fenced about fifteen acres; that his wife and children helped to raise a crop; that after it was "laid by," Mr. Crawford, who claims the land, called on him and demanded rent, that he also called on Lewis Williams, Howard Ingraham, and Butler Johnson, who were raising crops around the stockades by permission of Captain Rench, and demanded rent, that Mr. Crawford called upon us four, with Mr. B. B. Dikes and Esquire Souber, and compelled us to sign a written contract, which they had prepared, that each of us four would pay forty bushels of corn each for rent; that he (Williams) was unable to pay the forty bushels of corn, but did pay ten dollars in money, ten bushels of corn which he gathered and hauled to Mr. Dikes' crib, for which he was allowed fifteen dollars in rent. None of the four men were able to pay the forty bushels of corn; but Mr. Crawford brought the Bailiff, John Law, and took what corn he could, and a sow and pig from Howard Ingraham. All these men but me have left their places that they had cleared and fenced, because they could not pay such rent, and Mr. Crawford has put the places in charge of Mr. Souber, and brought him two males to cultivate the grounds. Mr. Williams states that twice the stockade has been set on fire in the night, and he and his boys have toted water and put it out.

Mr. Williams states that Mr. Souber came to his house some two or three weeks ago, and told him he must