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in the side door which was open at the time. I gave the command to get ready, but to the best of my knowledge and belief did not give the command to fire. The minute the pistols were seen by several others a shot was fired from the hands of a man unknown to me, because darkness prevailed outside and the doors and windows were crowded with negroes inside. After that they were ordered repeatedly to come out and afterwards they came, but, before they came out I saw one making steps for the field, out of which door or window he came out I could not tell. We marched back again after capturing 19 Negroes to Fort Whipple where they are yet in custody. This butcher-knife (produced in court), was found on the body of one of the negroes confined, this is all I know about the affair.

Col. Beach,

Between 1/2 past 12 and 1 this morning Mr.Veach came to my house and told me there was a riotous assembly at the house of a black woman who is generally known about here as aunt Lizz. A party of negroes from the house were fighting in his cornfield. that he and Bugler Grant had tried to stop the fight, that he had told them he was an officer, and one of them called him a white livered son of a bitch, and had drawn a pistol on him, he asked me for 15 men and a non-commissioned officer to stop the riot and that he was perfectly powerless to stop it