Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

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Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862–1867
him to stop, “or I will blow your brains out you black son of a bitch.” The soldiers
finally halted about ten yards from Peck, the sheriff, and the posse. 45
“We did not look behind us to see . . . whither there were any men or not,” Dowell
testified. “We had our guns levelled—each man of us had his man picked out in the
crowd.” Dowell aimed at the sheriff. While Peck talked to his captors, one of them
used his shoulder as a rest for the barrel of a shotgun pointed at the soldiers. After a
few minutes’ conversation that Peck’s men could not overhear, the captain agreed to
submit to arrest. As the posse and its prisoner left Hazlehurst, Pvt. Peter Williams followed
them for a while to learn whether the sheriff’s men intended to murder Peck.
Instead, they took him to Gallatin, the decaying county seat some four miles west of
the railroad, where Justice Thomas Jones held court. Required to post a $2,000 bond,
Peck refused to acknowledge the authority of county officials. When he declined to
post bond, they “locked [him] up in an iron cage in a very filthy room,” Peck testified.
“I was left in the cage from the 19th until the 23d Oct after which I was allowed to
walk about the room in the day time—and locked up in the cage during the night.” 46
How word of Peck’s arrest got out is not clear. He sent a note to his clerk in
Hazlehurst before entering the Gallatin jail, but the Bureau assistant commissioner
at Vicksburg got the news in a telegram from an Army staff officer at Jackson on
22 October. Then began five days of correspondence between Colonel Thomas, the
assistant commissioner; General Osterhaus, commanding the Southern District;
Provisional Governor Sharkey; and the new popularly elected governor, Benjamin
G. Humphreys. When Humphreys asserted finally that any attempt by the executive
(himself) to influence a judicial proceeding (Peck’s arrest and trial) would
be unconstitutional, the general acted, ordering four companies of the 58th USCI
from Brookhaven to secure the captain’s release. To lead the expedition, Osterhaus
sent his judge advocate general, Maj. Norman S. Gilson of the 58th USCI. 47
At the same time Gilson released Peck, he arrested Judge Jones and Leonard
H. Redus, the deputy sheriff who had taken Peck from Hazlehurst to Gallatin.
Present at the arrests was another Freedmen’s Bureau agent, Capt. James T. Organ
of the 6th USCA. “When the said Redus was arrested and placed under guard, he
grew violent,” Organ testified, “saying that he had arrested Captain Peck and By
God if he had the power, he would get out a posse that night to arrest [Gilson]
and his whole party. . . . The father of the aforesaid Redus who was arrested at the
same time and place used very insulting and treasonable language saying I always
have been a Rebel and I am Rebel now.” How long Gilson held the justice and the
deputy is not clear. 48
Peck returned to Hazlehurst to find that his office had been ransacked. He
blamed the entire affair on public opinion in Mississippi, which held that the federal
government would withdraw its troops after the state elections, “that all au-
45 Affidavits, Dowell, 31 Oct 1865, Sgt D. George, 31 Oct 1865, and Peck, 1 Nov 1865, Peck file.
46 Ibid.
47 Lt Col R. S. Donaldson to Col S. Thomas, 21 Oct 1865 (D–56), NA Microfilm Pub M826,
Rcds of the Asst Commissioner for the State of Mississippi, BRFAL, roll 9; Col S. Thomas to Maj
Gen O. O. Howard, 31 Oct 1865 (M–61), and B. G. Humphreys to Lt Col R. S. Donaldson, 23 Oct
1865, both in NA M752, roll 22; Maj N. S. Gilson to Maj Gen P. J. Osterhaus, 4 Nov 1865, and Maj
Gen P. J. Osterhaus to Maj Gen E. D. Townsend, 6 Nov 1865, both in Peck file.
48 Affidavits, Peck, 1 Nov 1865, and Capt J. T. Organ, 31 Oct 1865, Peck file.