In the campaign of 1874 the white people of Louisiana organized under the name of the White League. In New Orleans this League proposed to arm itself. Kellogg, who thought himself stronger than he really was, attempted to prevent this preparation, and to seize arms belonging to private individuals. The crisis was reached September 14th, 1874, when Kellogg attempted to prevent the landing of arms from the steamer "Mississippi," and the White League to secure them.

He ordered his entire police force to the river front, stationed his cannon on the levee, and stationed cavalry in the adjacent streets. He had two regiments of metropolitans, under Generals Longstreet and Badger, on Canal Street, the principal thoroughfare of the city, besides a regiment of militia at the state-house. His police marched on the citizens; the two forces met on the levee, and a bloody battle ensued, in which forty were killed and one hundred wounded.

The hollowness of the Kellogg government became at once conspicuous. In twenty-four hours, and without another drop of bloodshed, the Kellogg state and parish governments were overthrown throughout Louisiana, and the officials elected on the McEnery ticket installed. Nowhere did any one, white or black, attempt to support Kellogg, or make the slightest resistance to the change. He himself fled to the custom-house, and his officers dispersed everywhere. This change lasted but a few days. From the custom-house, Kellogg appealed to the President for assistance. The United States officer in command at New Orleans, was instructed to interfere in his behalf, and to reseat him in the gubernatorial chair. At the head of the Federal troops he captured the state-house, and Kellogg resumed his government surrounded by bayonets. But although reinstated, his government was weaker and more tottering than ever, and without the spirit it had previously shown.

In the election of 1874, which followed soon after, the Democrats swept the state, and secured a good majority in the Legislature. Again the Returning Board interfered, and, by throwing out many polls and a number of parishes, manufactured a Republican Legislature.

When the Legislature met, the Democrats secured control of the House, whereupon Kellogg adopted his old trick, and called on the Federal officer in command, Gen. De Trobriand, to interfere. A company of armed soldiers then entered and took possession of the Legislative hall, and, at the dictation of the Governor, a number of Democrats who had been elected, were arrested and marched out of the state-house between squads of armed soldiers. For days it looked as though a serious riot was imminent, for large crowds of excited citizens collected around the state-house. The presence of the United States troops alone prevented a collision and the overthrow of the Kellogg government.

When the matter was finally investigated by a Congressional Committee, a majority of which were Republicans, and over which Wheeler, subsequently Republican candidate for the Vice-Presidency, presided, it denounced in strong but proper terms the action of the Returning Board, and declared a majority of the Democratic members of the House elected. The Wheeler compromise, however, only postponed the final collapse; it could not give life or power to the Kellogg government, and as the election of 1876 drew nigh, it became more and more evident that the only hope of the Louisiana Republicans lay in a large force of United States troops.

These troops had been used in 1872 in seizing the state capitol, ousting Warmoth and installing the Lynch Returning Board; they were used again in keeping Pinchback in the gubernatorial office, and in dispersing the McEnery Legislature; they had installed Kellogg as Governor, and defended the state-house until his government was in working order. Again, in 1873, these troops were called on when the metropolitans had failed to arrest the white leaders in St. Martin, and Gen. De Blanc and others were arrested by the United States marshals, and brought to New Orleans. They were called into use in arresting the Grant parish prisoners, and raiding other parishes and bringing a number of their leading citizens to New Orleans. United States troops dispersed, on Sept. 17th, 1874, the McEnery state government, which had been installed by the people, and reinstated Kellogg; they invaded the state-house again in January, 1875,

dispersed the legal Legislature, arresting and ousting a number of members.

These frequent military interferences strengthened Kellogg in the idea that he could use the United States troops, and that his government depended on them for its existence. His telegrams to Washington were always for more troops, and still more troops, and his instructions to the Generals, commanding, showed that he deemed them under his command. Here are some of his instructions to General De Trobriand : "Please move your troops up to the State House."

"Please place sentinels at the entrance of the State House." "An illegal assembly of men having taken possession of the House of Representatives, and the police being unable to dislodge them, I respectfully request that you immediately clear the Hall and State House of all persons not returned as legal members by the Returning Board of the state. The clerk will point out to you the persons returned by the legal Board."

Kellogg was thus the commanding officer of the United States forces in Louisiana, and the latter performed all the duties of a state police force or constabulary.

Gen. P. H. Sheridan, who had been sent to Louisiana to view the situation, in his telegram to the Secretary of War, suggested that confidence and fair dealing could be established in Louisiana by the arrest and trial of the ringleaders of the armed White Leagues. He urged that they should be declared banditti, and tried by a military commission. "It is possible," he telegraphed, "that if the President would issue a proclamation declaring them banditti, no further action would be taken, except that which would devolve on me."

Gen. Sheridan, innocent of political guile, was, as the writer saw, surrounded by a living, sentient, greedy and cunning wall, interested to keep from him the truth, and to preserve the status quo. They had convinced him, and, induced him to so inform the government, that 1500 murders of union-men and negroes-political murders-had been committed in Louisiana since 1868. This writer, deeply anxious for his commonwealth, but belonging to no party, carefully, but quietly investigated, in two or three of the parishes where

he had the best of means of getting the truth. As to one of them, he wrote thus to the Picayune, January 11th, 1875: "If he will come [to Plaquemines Parish] and ask the negroes for aid [in gathering statistics] he will get many facts that will not quadrate with his theory; . . . he will find a score of murders of negroes in this parish, within the last year, most brutally done by negroes, while not a negro has been killed by a white man."

The above telegram received the approval of the President; and, with such a display of spirit, and the probability that it would be backed by adequate military force, the Louisiana Republicans decided to make the campaign of 1876 a military one. Between 500 and 600 persons had been arrested in the state at various times during Kellogg's régime, and brought by the United States troops or marshals to New Orleans. They had suffered great losses thereby, had been taken from their business and imprisoned; but, in every instance, when the cases against them were examined in court, all charges against them were dismissed. Many parishes suffered from these wholesale arrests, which were generally made on blank warrants.

VIII. THE FINAL STRUGGLE FOR SUPREMACY.

The campaign of 1876 was more excited and bitter than any of its predecessors, and the Kellogg government used its influence with the Federal Administration as far as possible. North Louisiana, in which the population was more largely white and Democratic, was filled with United States Marshals, accompanied by posses of soldiers. Citizens were arrested without cause, carried several hundred miles to New Orleans, and after long delay and great expense, they were set at liberty without even a preliminary hearing. These arrests were made on a great variety of charges. A number of citizens were dragged to jail because they were alleged to have discharged colored employees who supported the oppressive Kellogg gov

ernment.

Gov. Kellogg prepared for the election of 1876 by sending State and Federal officials to the parishes to conduct the reg

istration and count the votes. Clover, who had managed a snake show in New Orleans, went to Baton Rouge as supervisor of elections, after having made a written contract with Nash, the Republican candidate for Congress, that he was to receive the place of naval officer for New Orleans, in case he managed the election well. James E. Scott, a clerk in the New Orleans post-office, went to Claiborne as supervisor, counted the vote there, threw out five polls, and returned to New Orleans to fill his clerkship again. James E. Anderson, employed in the United States Custom House, went as supervisor of registration to East Feliciana, and so it was with nearly all the country supervisors. They were mostly Federal employees, who had never before been in the parishes where they were to hold the election.

Many of the New Orleans supervisors, also, were Federal officials. W. J. Moore, of the seventh ward, was not only supervisor, but held two Federal offices at the same time, having a regular clerkship, besides receiving pay as night inspector. P. J. Maloney in the fourteenth, H. Leon in the eighth, Napoleon Underwood in the twelfth, A. J. Brion in the second, R. C. Howard in the fourth, and, indeed, with few exceptions, all the other registration and election officers were Federal officials

It was shown in the case of Anderson of East Feliciana, that a regular contract signed and witnessed, was made between him and the negro candidate for Congress, Nash, as to the election in the parish, over which he had charge, and it is presumable that similar contracts were made with other supervisors.

At no time in the history of Lousiana, not even in the first days of reconstruction, had the Federal Government interfered so unreservedly with state affairs. Federal troops had installed Kellogg, and kept him in office. Federal Marshals and troops were raiding North Louisiana and making wholesale arrests; and Federal officials, clerks in the post-office and custom house, were conducting the registration, and holding the election.

These wrongs, and the use of the United States troops, did not, however, benefit the Kellogg government in the least.