502 



LOUISIANA. 



Fairfax's house, one of whom afterward died. 

 The Governor then says : 



The visit of these men to Fairfax was utterly 

 wrong in my opinion, utterly without justification ; 

 and while attempted to be justified upon the ground 

 that they went in the interest of peace to expostulate 

 against a rumored proposed attempt of the colored 



geople to force the quarantine lines at the town of 

 t. Joseph. I am satisfied that such was not the pur- 

 pose, but that it had a political object. I do not 

 think the purpose was to kill or harm Fairfax, but I 

 do believe it was to influence his course and the lo- 

 cal campaign in the parish. The killing of Peck and 

 the wounding of the colored men was, in my opinion, 

 totally unexpected and attended by results which 

 none of the parties contemplated, and from which 

 political considerations utterly disappeared. Just as 

 soon as these men were killed and wounded, re- 

 ports of the same spread with astonishing rapidity 

 through Tensas and Coiicordia, and instantly armed 

 bodies of colored men, evidently organized prior 

 thereto, moved from every direction to the scene or 

 the occurrence. While this was taking place the Par- 

 ish Judge of Tensas, who had been informed of the 

 circumstances of Peck's death, issued a warrant for 

 the arrest of Fairfax, who was charged with having 

 killed him. Instead of either leaving the parish, if 

 he believed himself about to be wronged, or at once 

 surrendering to the authorities, who were pursuing 

 the forms of law, Fairfax remained with the large 

 number of men who had assembled, some of whom 

 were making the most horrible threats. These 

 threats produced a feeling of terror and apprehen- 

 sion in the parish, and with the events which fol- 

 lowed, in my opinion, politics had nothing to do. 

 The situation will be understood when I say that 

 Tensas is a parish of large territorial extent, with an 

 exceedingly sparse white and very dense colored 

 population, the proportion being nearly as ten to 

 one in favor of the latter, and that the bodies of 

 armed colored men parading through the parish were 

 variously estimated from one thousand to two 

 thousand men, while the whites seem to have been 

 totally unprepared. The fears entertained by the 

 latter of general bloodshed and pillage, I am satis- 

 fied, were fully justified by appearances, and were 

 beyond question thoroughly real. Their completely 

 defenseless condition demonstrates at once the folly 

 and wrong of the original act which brought about 

 the situation, and also the fact that it was unex- 

 pected. I can not conceive that men could wanton- 

 ly and deliberately place the lives and property of 

 their fellow citizens m such peril as they were then 

 in. Assistance was immediately called from neigh- 

 boring parishes, and when it came it found the peo- 

 ple ot Tensas, white and black, almost solidly ar- 

 rayed _ against each other. It needed but a spark 

 to ignite the train, and it was given by the firing of 

 a body of colored men upon a party, under the Par- 

 ish Judge, proceeding to put an end to the armed 

 demonstration. This fire was returned, and from 

 the best information I can receive several persons 

 were wounded, but not killed. The return fire caused 

 the negroes to disperse. In the mean time a negro 

 set fire to a gin in the neighborhood of Waterproof, 

 containing seventy bales of cotton. It is asserted 

 that this was a preconcerted signal for a general 

 rally of the colored people. This man was after- 

 ward, by some persons unknown, found and killed. 

 This, together with the killing of another negro, 

 also by persons unknown and for a cause unknown, 

 were the only lives taken at that time that I have 

 heard of. 



The strife thus rsclclessly originated in the parish 

 of Tensas spread to the parish of Concordia. Large 

 bodies of armed colored men from that parish hur- 

 ried toward Tensaa and manifested their presence 

 m various parts of the parish. An armed body of 

 white men, acting under a warrant for the arrest of 



Fairfax, who, it was supposed, had passed into Con~ 

 cordia, entered the parish for the purpose of the exe- 

 cution of the warrant, and while there some eight or 

 nine colored men were killed. On the return of the 

 men from the adjacent parishes, who had gone to 

 the assistance of the whites, quiet was gradually re- 

 stored and everything became peaceable. 



The success of the efforts to increase the 

 depth of water on the har at the mouth of the 

 Mississippi has been so great as to lead to the 

 conviction that the triumph will he complete. 

 The term " pass " is applied to all the outlets 

 of the Mississippi from the point where the 

 river divides into numerous branches or out- 

 lets to their termination in the Gulf. The 

 improvements under the direction of Captain 

 Eads have been made in the South Pass. The 

 contract with Captain Eads it being an act of 

 Congress approved March 3, 1875 provided 

 for the construction of jetty- work at the 

 mouth of South Pass, in order to secure and 

 maintain a navigable channel from the pass 

 into the Gulf of Mexico. ]t required him to ob- 

 tain a channel 20 feet deep and 200 feet wide at 

 bottom within thirty months from the passage 

 of the act, upon which a payment of $500,000 

 would be made; and upon obtaining channels 

 of two feet additional depth, with correspond- 

 ingly increased widths at bottom, until a depth 

 of '30 feet and a width at bottom of 350 feet 

 was secured, payments of $500,000 were to be 

 made, with additional payments for mainte- 

 nance of channel. The payments in full by 

 Government up to that period would amount 

 to $4,250,000, with a million dollars additional 

 earned by the contractor, to be retained, how- 

 ever, by the Government a certain period as 

 security that the jetty -works would maintain 

 the channel secured. Thus the total cost of 

 the 30-foot channel, with width of bottom of 

 350 feet, to the Government, would be $5,250,- 

 000. Another provision was made for the an- 

 nual payment of $100,000 to Captain Eads for 

 a period of twenty years for keeping the works 

 in repair and maintaining the channel. At the 

 close of the year Captain Eads had received 

 three regular payments of $500,000 each two 

 payments for the 20- and 22-foot channels, un- 

 der the provisions of the contract, and the last 

 payment under a modification of the contract, 

 made at the session of Congress of 1877-'78. 

 Captain Eads has also received, under the act 

 just mentioned, the sum of $80,000 for certain 

 monthly expenditures made in the progress of 

 the work, making the total amount received 

 by him to January, 1879, $1,580,000. He had 

 expended and incurred obligation sin the prog- 

 ress of the work ovc-r $4,000,000 up to that 

 date. Before the jetty-works were commenced 

 there existed an immense bar of sand or silt, 

 with a depth of only 8 feet of water, between 

 the channel in South Pass and navigable waters 

 of the Gulf. There was at the close of the year 

 a wide and ample channel of 23| feet, and for 

 the greater length of 'the channel between the 

 jetties, over or through this same bar, a channel 

 of 28 to 35 feet in depth. The main jetties are 



