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0551

To the Officers of the Freedmen's Bureau.

I was at the camp meeting in Shipley's woods on the night of the 30th of August when the riot which broke up the camp occurred.  When the riot commenced, I was in a tent on the east side of the ground, (that is if I have the ground in my mind properly located as to the points of the compass)

I immediately ran to the front of the tent which brought me in full view of all the terrific scene.  Such as scene as no language can describe.  At the time the riot commenced, there were in the neighborhood of sixty penitents at the altar (whites) kneeling in prayer, with hundreds of deeply interested spectators standing around, while the members of the church were engaged in singing, prayer and conversation with the penitents.  They were startled from the devotions, by women screaming and fainting, children crying, falling and being trampled upon, while hundreds of people were running in the utmost terror and in the wildest confusion.  

Just behind the preacher's stand the rioters were shooting and yelling like demons.  While all this was transpiring, I distinctly saw, not far from the upper corner on the east side of the altar, several shots fired at the people directly in front of the preacher's stand.  So confident was I at the time from the direction of the streams of fire issuing from the weapons fired, that they were aimed at that particular spot, that as the people fled the altar I looked to see if any one had been killed at that point.  Mr. Benson who was shot, kneeled just about where this fire seemed to be directed.

The negroes were not, nor had they been in range of the parties who fired these shots, nor could they by any possibility have been intended for the blacks.  I saw a black man, said to be a servant of Judge Baldwin, knocked down with