About this Book: |
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In the early 1870s, U.S. Army units moved into seven former Confederate states to support United States marshals in the difficult days of Reconstruction as Southern Democrats and Radical Republicans struggled for political control. North central Louisiana saw more violence and bloodshed in the ten years after the Civil War than during in the conflict itself. Lynchings of freed blacks and white criminals, the assassination of Republican officeholders, and a host of brutal crimes rocked the countryside.
In 1874, a marshal, accompanied by elements of the Seventh U.S. Cavalry, conducted a roundup of prominent citizens in Claiborne and Lincoln Parishes. The men arrested were accused of violating the federal Enforcement Acts by intimidating freedmen and terrorizing Republican officeholders. But was the incident a simple execution of the law or a more sinister political plot? The meticulous research detailed here reveals the truth.
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