Kentucky Outrages

[Correspondence of the New York Tribune.] Louisville (Ky.), September 29th.— Some time ago we read in the papers that an officer of the army objected to having the rebel guns at West Point marked with the place of their capture, lest in future years some youth from the South who came there to be educated should see the marks and have his feelings hurt by being reminded of the treason of his State. We also heard of a gentleman in the late canvass in Kentucky who was so fearful of hurting the feelings of his auditors that he always spoke of the war as " the late slight differences" with each other.

The sensitiveness of these , gentlemen was as nothing, however, when compared with the deep emotions of Kentuckians. Some one having recently said that a few persons had been deprived of life and liberty in the State of Kentucky without due process of law there was forthwith a profound agitation, and the mischievous person was bitterly denounced as a hired Abolitionist, sent down here to slander the sublime State and the angelic inhabitants thereof.

An examination of the official records of the Freedmen's Bureau show that during the past year nearly 500 murders and outrages had been committed on freedmen alone, to say nothing of as many more on white men, and perhaps another 500 that had never been reported at all or taken notice of officially.

The first paper, a voluminous document, states that in Kenton county Amanda Bishop, a daughter of Henry Bishop, a colored Sergeant in the United States Army, was taken while at work and beaten with a club until she was senseless, because she worked for a Union citizen and refused to work for the rebel who beat her. On the 13th of March, 1866, O. B. Duke, at Mount Sterling, Kentucky, shot and killed an inoffensive negro named Henry Stone. On the 17th of March, in Montgomery county, a poor black man named George Baity was murdered by some one unknown. On the 26th of March, William Thomas, a colored man, was taken from the jail at Paris, Kentucky, and hung by a mob. On the Fifth of April, in Montgomery county, Sandy Crook was murdered in cold blood. On the _2th of May, in the same county, Henry Nelson was murdered, and a short time before, Ann Rogers, a colored woman, was killed in Madison county by William Shaw, a white man living with Estill. Ann Rogers was a poor harmless old creature, known best by the name of " Auntie Rogers." None of the above murderers have been punished.

In May, 1866, a band of men, styling themselves Regulators, went through Boone county, robbing, burning and killing negroes. In the same month many negroes were robbed, their houses burnt, and bodies mutilated, in Owen county. In Mason county, Harvey Sharp took a knife and cut to pieces William Johnson, a poor black man. On the 17th of June three men beat, on the Tate creek road, a poor colored man because he would not say he stole a horse found in their possession, and which he said they themselves had stolen. On the 23d of June, 1666, in Mason county, : Kentucky, Owens Lume outraged the person of Cordelia Turner, a black woman The case, on being referred to the County Judge, his Honor replied, “This Court does not receive negro testimony.”

Tillman Dusenberry, a quiet negro, while returning home from church on Sunday, the 14th day of July, was shot down by Thomas Fullalive, and on the 25th of July this same Fullalive assaulted with a pistol and attempted to kill a black man named Henderson. The case of Fullalive was referred to Judge Carr of Lexington, who issued a warrant for Fullalive's arrest after he had left the country.

A well-to-do colored man named Thos. Banks, who had bought a farm in Scott county and moved on it, was, in the month of July, 1866, at the instigation of Dudley Morrison, Fleur Glass and others, driven off, his furniture destroyed and his stock taken. Lewis Sanders, George Sanders and two other white brutes, on the 17th of July, 1866, went to the house of Louisa Ghent (colored), whipped her cruelly and broke up her furniture. This happened near Warsaw, Kentucky. On the 27th of July, in Clarke county, an inoffensive black man, named Charles Martin, for no cause whatever, was killed by C. K. Johnston, who is still at large. While sitting in his own house, in Mercer county, on the 12th of August last, Harrison Benton, black, was shot and killed by William Clark, white. On the 9th of August, in Gallatin county, Kentucky, T. Bottom, George Summers and J. Williams, with five other white men, went to the house of William Kane, and robbed him of all he had, including $200 in silver. In the same month, in Gallatin county, a mob, styling themselves negro regulators, beat and drove off a great many negroes.

A band of white men, thirty strong, on the night of the 9th of September, robbed, beat, and maltreated a great, many peaceful negroes in and about Camp Nelson, Kentucky, In October last, at the Paris Fair, in Bourbon county, a black man who was on the Fair grounds had some words with a white man, who fired at him with a pistol. A mob soon gathered, shot the negro four or five times and then threw him into a cart, several following the cart and firing into it. The negro, who was not dead, was taken to the jail, and the same night a mob broke open the jail, beat the sick and wounded man to death, then cut his throat and threw him into the creek. Next day he lay nearly all day exposed to the public gaze, a horrible sight to look upon.

Some white fiends in Marion county cut a negro's ears off, and another, near Charlottesville (Ky.), had his ears slit. Some white men hung two negroes near Danville and one near Lebanon (Ky.) Dr. Jerry Donovan went to the cabins of some inoffensive negroes living near Johnsonville, in Mercer county, and beat an old man named David Bergan. Bergan ran away to Johnsonville, where Donovan followed him, beat him over the head with a pistol until he broke the pistol in pieces, and then, mounting his horse, drove the old creature before him three miles to Dresdell's farm. He repeatedly rode up to the old man and kicked him in the back, the poor creature being too feeble to get out of the way.

In March last a negro man named Anderson Hackley was arrested in Mercer county and thrown into jail, when one Dr. John Witherspoon bailed him out on condition that the negro would make a written contract to work for him his lifetime, which the negro did. In May, 1867, a mob broke open the jail at Nicholasville and shot and killed a negro prisoner. They then went out three miles into the country, where a poor, innocent negro, who had been shot by a white man in the hip, was lying wounded, took him out and hung him. In Boone county a party of citizens attacked Jordan Finney, a quiet, industrious negro, drove him off, and destroyed his house and furniture. Two daughters of Finney were driven cut of the county because their husbands were soldiers in the Union army. None of the Finney family were allowed to remain in the county of Boone. Their persecutors were returned rebel soldiers.

In Grant county, William Sleet, Eliza Sleet, Jesse Best, Edward Alexander, Mary Alexander and Carter Rorst were beaten in the most cruel and inhuman manner, their property destroyed, and they forbidden to return borne, on pain of death. Carter Rorst was terribly punished, lashes nearly six inches long being cut in his body and filled with salt. All the above named persons are reported as quiet, industrious black people. Jacob Rile, a colored soldier, who was living with his former master, was taken out of his house by a band of armed men, who then burned the house. While they were burning the house he ran away but was shot through the side in making his escape. He and his family were compelled to leave the county, Harrison Griggs, a colored man, residing in Boone county, was taken from his bed in the night and beat for nearly an hour with whitethorn sticks, many of the thorns breaking off in his body, bead and face. He was compelled to leave the county.

A negro man, formerly the slave of Pete Bailey, of Woodford county (Ky.), was knocked down and savagely beaten because he did not pay over to his former master all his wages. Reuben Atkins a discharged colored soldier, was robbed of $50 and beaten by his former master, Clarissee Burdett, the wife of a colored soldier, was whipped by her former master until she was insensible. Charity Smith, the wife of a soldier, was stripped naked by her former owner, who then tied her hands and feet as far apart as possible, when he took a cowhide and whipped her until she was insensible; then he ordered her to be washed down with saltwater.

Joseph Ralls, an humble and inoffensive freedman, and the owner of forty acres of land, was taken from his house by some white men, who so mutilated and abused him that his bowels protruded, and he died in great agony. The same gang, after killing Ralls, took an old black man by the name of Macket and roasted the soles of his feet before the fire, after which they put out one of his eyes. The same night they went to the house of a colored preacher named Burns, who was a quiet and good man, and after robbing his house ravished his wife in his presence, and then shot him in the head. Two other colored persons were horribly treated, and one shot by these inhuman fiends. Two of the perpetrators of these outrages were arrested by an officer of the Freedmen's Bureau, but while they were being removed for trial Judge Apperson, of Montgomery county, Kentucky, took their bodies from the officer by a writ of habeas corpus, and I set them at liberty.

Lewis Tandy, a colored man living in Lexington offered a pistol for sale to a white man, who wanted it for $5; but the pistol being worth more than double that amount, Tandy declined to sell, when the white man bad him arrested for carrying arms in violation of the State laws, and brought him before a magistrate, who fined Tandy $5, and gave the pistol as a present to the white man for having informed on Tandy. Another white man "bought" a pistol in the same way of Armstead Towles, an industrious and well-to-do colored citizen.

Sacramento Daily Union, October 22,1867