(RACE RIOT.) SWAYNE, MAJOR GENERAL WAGER. Documents ordering the arrest of a policeman for the shooting of an unarmed black man, and placing local civil officers under arrest. Two partially printed documents, accomplished by hand: Western Union Telegraph and Headquarters, District of Montgomery. Signed by Maj. General Swayne's Aide de Camp, S. C. Greene. Alabama, 1867
Major General Wager Swayne (1829-1902), president of the Alabama Freedmen's Bureau, orders a detachment of twenty-five men of Company G, 5th Cavalry to round up and arrest a number of civil officers, and the policeman who shot an unarmed black boy. It seems a group of white boys were playing and tossed a firecracker at the head of a negro boy, who then reciprocated by hitting the white boy with a stick. The boy's father, Mr. Morgan, a policeman, determined that the boy had indeed struck his son, produced a pistol and fired two shots, the second one to his back killing the boy. A local newspaper observed that 'the Negroes then became very much excited, and would not be quieted or listen to reason.' Demanding the whites hand over the policeman, a riot seemed sure to follow---all of this on Christmas Eve! The local military official (the author of the telegram offered here) called for troops, and the arrests, all according to the present documents. The article, a Xerox of which accompanies these documents, describes the rest of the proceedings.
