Benjamin Leonard Covington Wailes, a wealthy plantation owner in Washington, Adams County, Mississippi, wrote a diary entry on January 21, 1860, describing the happenings of the Mississippi Senate, which he was a member of. According to Wailes, General Starkle, another Senate member, proposed to send a commission to the legislature of Virginia to discuss the state of federal relations and to procure...
A small article on the front page of The Natchez Democrat on December 11, 1865, described a conflict between state militia and black freedmen almost two weeks earlier. The incident occurred as the militia attempted to search for arms in the black community Grenada, Mississippi. The militia seized "a large number of muskets, ammunition…from the negroes."
This event was the result of the enforcement...