Chapter XLIX: Appendix: D

REPORT OF AN INVESTIGATION MADE BY HERBERT J. BROWN, EMPLOYED BY THE WAR DEPARTMENT IN CONJUNCTION WITH CAPTAIN W.G. BALDWIN, WITH A VIEW OF LEARNING WHAT HAPPENED AT BROWNSVILLE, TEX., ON THE 13TH AND 14TH OF AUGUST, 1906

WASHINGTON, _D.C._, _December 5, 1908_.

SIR: I have the honor to submit the following report relative to the investigation of the Brownsville raid:

Ex-Private Boyd Conyers, of Company B, Twenty-fifth Infantry, now at Monroe, Ga., told William Lawson, a detective in the employ of Captain William G. Baldwin, of Roanoke, Va., that he and three [or four] other men of the Twenty-fifth Infantry were the leaders in the Brownsville raid. This information was obtained at different dates during the month of June, 1908. (See Exhibit A.)

I submit the affidavit as presented. There are certain discrepancies of a minor character, due to the fact that Lawson is illiterate and had to depend on his memory for details. But it should be borne in mind that Lawson was unacquainted with the details of the Brownsville raid and was given information which could have come only from one familiar with the secret history of the affair. Lawson's first report included the names of Conyers, John Holloman, John Brown, and "another man." Subsequently he supplied the name of James Powell, but I think the original name given was that of Robert L. Collier, Company C, one of the relief guard. This information was corroborated in the presence of witnesses, but before Lawson could finish his work Conyers became suspicious and would give no further evidence incriminating himself. From then on he furnished to A.H. Baldwin, Captain W.G. Baldwin, and to myself information piecemeal and reluctantly. The name of Carolina de Saussure, his bunk mate, was the last one obtained.

Conyers tried to commit suicide after he found that he had made his statements to a detective, declaring that the other negroes would kill him when it got out. He finally wrote to Senator Foraker and received a reply, a copy of which is annexed. That reply he construed to mean that he should stick to his original story told before the Senate committee at all hazards, and there he stands. I have every reason to believe that his confession is genuine and gives for the first time the true secret history of the Brownsville raid.

The list of participants given in this report Conyers furnished me personally. I believe it is substantially correct, but with the influences shown to be backing Conyers to adhere to his false testimony given before the Senate committee still being exerted he cannot be relied on to support his own confession until it is thoroughly sustained from other sources.

Evidences of similar encouragement to stick to the lies told at Brownsville and before the Senate committee were found in many places, and subsequent to the date of the Foraker letter they became stronger and more obstructive than ever.

The investigation has been conducted with strict recognition of the advisability of preserving secrecy, and with discretion. No promises of immunity were made. The knowledge on the part of the ex-soldiers that the Government could not punish them after their separation from the service, coupled with the belief that by preserving silence they would aid in the passage of the relief legislation now pending in Congress, has added to the difficulty of securing information.

The issue has evidently become racial. The colored detectives would be confronted frequently in the smaller towns where these men are living with a demand from colored men for information as to their business.

We have located over 130 of these ex-soldiers, and have been in thirty States in quest of information. The appendices give statements as to the results obtained. They indicate a general knowledge on the part of the ex-soldiers that the raid came from inside the fort, and that the soldiers of Company B were the guilty parties.

We earnestly urge that we be permitted to continue the investigation. Several detectives are still in the field, and within the coming week a number of affidavits will be forthcoming.

With some repetition of matter appearing later in the report, Boyd Conyers's story is given here in narrative form:

REPORT OF T.B. SKIDMORE.

"The rumors of trouble over the assignment of colored troops to Brownsville were circulated before the troops left Fort Niobrara, and preparations were made among the men to 'get even with the crackers,' so the whites were called. Some cartridges were held out at range practice, but more en route to Brownsville. Pretense was made that they were given away at stations along the road. Some were, but a large number were secreted.

"At inspection in Brownsville, Lieutenant Lawrason, Company B, threatened punishment to the men who were short of ammunition, but nothing was done about it, and the deficiency was supplied.

"The friction with citizens of Brownsville began at once. In Boyd Conyers's language, 'Whisky made all the trouble. If we hadn't been drinking we wouldn't have had the nerve to shoot up the town.'

"It was agreed, at a gathering of a few men in the saloon of Allison, the colored ex-soldier, on the afternoon of August 13, 1906, that the raid should take place that night at 12 o'clock. It seems to have been delayed a few minutes to let Tamayo, the Mexican scavenger, get away from the B barracks.

"John Holloman, the money lender of Company B, was the chief conspirator and leader in the raid and custodian and distributor of the cartridges, but his plans could not have been carried out had not Sergeant George Jackson, of Company B, in charge of the keys of the gun racks in B barracks, and Sergeant Reid, in command of the guards, co-operated both before and after the raid.

"The four men who led the raid were John Holloman, John Brown, Boyd Conyers, and Carolina de Saussure, all of Company B (and probably R.L. Collier, of Company C). Holloman was in barracks, Brown in the bake shop, Conyers and De Saussure in the guardhouse. The two latter were in the same detail, and had been relieved at about 11 o'clock, de Saussure on the post at the guardhouse, and Conyers on No. 2, around the barracks and facing the town. Holloman got the party together. Conyers and De Saussure slept on the same bunk in the guardhouse, claiming that they wanted to get under the mosquito net, and they had the trick of taking their guns into the bunk instead of placing them in the open rack, on the excuse that they didn't rust so badly under cover, but really so the absence of the guns from the open guardhouse rack would not attract attention, and their own absence would be ascribed to a visit to the closet, which was back of the guardhouse. These two men slipped out the rear door of the guardhouse, passed through the sally port, and joined Holloman and Brown.

"The party crossed the wall of the fort down near the end of A barracks, went up the roadway to the entrance to the Cowen alley, where the signal shots were fired. These shots were immediately tallied onto by the alarm shots of Joseph B. Howard, guard on No. 2, and formed the series testified to by Mrs. Katie E. Leahy, of Brownsville. Her testimony is further borne out by the statement that not over thirty seconds elapsed before a number of men of Company B swarmed out on the upper gallery and opened a fusillade on the town.

"It is an absolute certainty that it would have been impossible for Sergeant Jackson to have opened the gun racks, for the men to have assembled, secured their guns, loaded them, gone out to the gallery, and started firing, all after the first shot was fired; all aroused, as they testified unanimously, from sound slumber, in less than two minutes, in the confusion of a dark barrack room. Beyond the possibility of a doubt, the racks had been opened and the inside conspirators were ready to pour out on the signal shots. The testimony is ample that there were scarcely twenty seconds between the last of the signal shots and the first general volley from B barracks.

"The number firing from the barracks is unknown, but perhaps 20 men were involved. A smaller number went to the ground and followed the leaders up the alley. It will be remembered that one of the witnesses testified to hearing some one of the group of soldiers exclaim, 'There they go!' Whereupon these men leaped over the wall and ran up the alley.

"Boyd Conyers is the man whose gun jammed at the exit of the alley by the Cowen house, testified to by Herbert Elkins, and it was taken from him by De Saussure and fixed in the street where the light from the street lamp at the corner of Elizabeth Street shone on them.

"Less than five minutes elapsed from the time the first shot was fired until these men were all back inside the fort.

"Conyers stated that Reid was told that they were going to shoot up the town, and he had laughed and said, 'Don't go out there and let the crackers get the best of you.'

"When Conyers and De Saussure reached the guardhouse they ran in the back way and got into their bunks. Sergeant Reid came in and swore at them, but Conyers was so excited and out of breath that he could hardly stand, so Reid stationed him at the rear of the guardhouse in the dark where he could not be scrutinized so closely.

"Holloman came around with extra cartridges about daybreak and Reid passed them out. The guns were all cleaned before daylight."

This day personally appeared before me William Lawson, who, being duly sworn, deposes and says:

"On June 5, 1908, I was sent to Monroe, Ga., to interview Boyd Conyers, one of the soldiers who was stationed at Brownsville, Tex., in August, 1906. I was sent by Mr. Baldwin to get in with Conyers and ascertain if he knew who did the shooting at that point. I was not given the names of any of the members of either of the companies stationed at that point, nor was I given any other information, except the fact that a shooting occurred at the time and place above mentioned, and that Boyd Conyers was suspected of knowing who did same.

"I arrived at Monroe, Ga., on June 5, and stopped at the home of Esther Crews, colored. I met Boyd Conyers, who is known as 'Buddie' Conyers, on the morning of June 6, but had very little conversation with him, but was introduced to him as an old soldier. On the morning of June 8, between 8 and 9 o'clock, I met Conyers about halfway between the station house and Main Street. We talked some twenty or twenty-five minutes. I broached the Brownsville case, and mentioned the fact that the soldiers had shown their good sense by keeping their mouths while at Washington. I then asked him what the motive was for the shooting. He told me that the 'crackers' at Brownsville had made threats that they would have no negro soldiers at Brownsville, and the soldiers had made it up in their minds that if they bothered them that they would go in and clean up the ground. He also said that they mentioned this to Sergeant Reid, who was commander of the guards, and that Reid said, 'All that I have to say is to take care of yourself and the boys when you go down there.' S.H. Parker, whose home is at Charleston, S. C, was present and heard the same conversation.

"About then a gentleman called Conyers to come and clean some clothes, and Conyers left, and nothing further was said about the matter at this time. I was with Conyers nearly every day, and went to Gainesville, Ga., on an excursion with him on the 15th of June. I did not mention the Brownsville matter to Conyers again until on the 29th of June, when I returned from Atlanta, having gone there on June 27. On this date I met him at Joe Blassingame's and had a pint bottle of liquor, offered him a drink--he would not drink in the house, but we went up the street and we stopped under a storehouse porch, near Main street. We took a drink or two, and I started the Brownsville case again. He told me that he was doing guard duty at the time of the shooting at Brownsville, and was stationed at the outlet toward the town. He said that when the guard was called the night of the shooting they mentioned to Sergeant Reid what had occurred downtown, and he said, 'Boys, if you are not satisfied, you will have to go and get satisfied,' and they remarked that they were going to get satisfaction that night. Reid then laughed and said, 'Boys, don't you go down there and let them get the best of you.' He then assigned the guard and went away.

"In this conversation Conyers told me that John Brown, J.H. Holloman, and a man named Powell, and several others, came down where he was on guard, and that they went downtown and just gave them hell, and after they shot out all of their cartridges they ran back to the barracks, and when they got back to the barracks they found that the alarm had been sounded and the officers were calling the roll. Holloman, Brown, and himself were late for roll call, but that some one answered for Brown and Holloman, but that he was late, and that Reid told him that they had gotten themselves and himself in a hell of a hole, and told him to go to the guardhouse and pretend to be asleep, which he did.

"He told me that they had slipped a few cartridges when at target practice and that before inspection, after the shooting, Reid gave him some cartridges to replace the ones he had used. He further said that they had all agreed before they went out that they would keep their mouths, and that he would have told them at the investigation at Washington all about the shooting, but that he was afraid. I had no further talk with Conyers, because I saw that I was being suspected by the negroes around Monroe, Ga.

"WILLIAM (his x mark) LAWSON."

Witnesses:

H.J. Browne. Geo. W. Madert.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, _ss._:

Subscribed and sworn to before me, a notary public in and for the District aforesaid, this 16th day of October, A.D. 1908.

[SEAL] GEO. W. MADERT, _Notary Public_.

This day personally appeared before me Herbert J. Browne, of Washington, D.C., who, being duly sworn, deposes and says:

"I was employed by the War Department in May, 1908, in company with Captain William G. Baldwin, of Roanoke, Va., chief of the Baldwin Detective Agency, to investigate the conduct of the battalion of the Twenty-fifth Infantry, stationed at Brownsville, Tex., which conduct resulted in the Brownsville raid, so called, on the night of August 13-14, 1906, wherein one Frank Natus was killed, Lieutenant of Police Dominguez badly wounded, and the houses of several citizens were shot into. Captain Baldwin has charge of the secret work for the Norfolk and Western Railway, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, the Southern Railway, and the Atlantic Coast Line, and is one of the best known and most responsible detectives in the country.

"In conjunction with him I have been continuously employed upon this work since its inception in May.

"The facts set forth in my report addressed to General George B. Davis, Judge-Advocate-General, War Department, under date of December 5, 1908, are true to the best of my knowledge and belief.

"In particular I visited Monroe, Ga., to corroborate the investigation at that point of William Lawson, a colored detective in the employ of Captain Baldwin, whose affidavit and reports are annexed to and made a part of my report of December 5, 1908, above referred to.

"I had several interviews at Monroe with Boyd Conyers, ex-private of Company B, Twenty-fifth Infantry, one of the guard on the night of the Brownsville raid, and found that William Lawson's statements regarding Conyers were substantially and essentially correct. I personally obtained from Conyers further information detailing how the cartridges used in the raid were surreptitiously and illegally obtained and distributed, how the principal raiders proceeded, when and by whom the gun racks in Company B were unlawfully and secretly opened for the purpose of the raid, how the raiders were protected during and subsequent to the raid and given opportunity to clean their guns, and, in particular, was furnished by Conyers with the names of eight participants in the raid other than the three named by him in his statements to William Lawson, a total of eleven, including himself, the said Conyers, all members of Company B, Twenty-fifth Infantry.

"The leaders of the raid, as named by Boyd Conyers, were John Holloman, John Brown, Carolina de Saussure, and himself. Following them were William Anderson, James Bailey, Charles E. Cooper, William Lemons, Henry Jimerson, James 'Rastus' Johnson, and Henry 'Sonny' Jones. Sergeant Reid, in charge of the guard, was accused by Conyers of knowledge before and after the raid. Sergeant George Jackson, in charge of the keys of the gun racks of Company B, was accused of opening the racks for the raiders, and of again opening them subsequent to the raid in order that the guns might be removed and cleaned.

"I found Boyd Conyers in a disturbed frame of mind. No claim is made that his original declarations to William Lawson were other than those of a criminal boasting to one of his own race of his crime and of his success in escaping discovery. His subsequent declarations to me were given partly during moments of contrition and in a desire to unload his conscience by a confession and partly as the result of careful and persistent questioning.

"I found the effect of the letter from Senator Foraker to Conyers extremely obstructive. He seemed to regard it as a mandate to adhere to the false story told by him before the Senate Committee on Military Affairs, and as absolving him from any and all obligations to aid in uncovering the truth. Similar influences were encountered at many points, adding largely to the difficulty of obtaining admissions of even the most obvious facts relative to the raid.

"HERBERT J. BROWNE."

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 9th day of December, 1908.

[SEAL.] J.B. RANDOLPH, _Notary Public_.