Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/133

Î2Q TEDESiXi liEPOBT^S,. �whom held commissions as deputy collecfors of internai reve- nue for the second collection district of Georgia, and one of them, Eobert Bolton, also a commission as deputy United States marshal, took the 11 o'clock train on the Atlanta & West Point Eailroad from Atlanta to Eed Oak, about 15 milea - distant, Their purpose was and their instructions were to traverse the country in the vicinity of Eed Oak, to search for and destroy illicit stills. Violent resistance to the enforce- ment of the internai revenue laws of the United States haa not been uncommon in the vicinity of Eed Oak. This ia shown by the foUowing facta in evidence : One Eason, who was suspected of being a witness against violators of the rev- enue laws, had been murdered in that locality. About 5 o'clock p. M. of April 22d last two illicit stills, belonging to one Brown, were seized in the vicinity of Eed Oak, by a party of revenue officers, and were carried off by them in the direc- tion of Atîanta. The officers were pursued as far as East Point, within six miles of Atlanta, by an armed mob of between 20 and 40 meu. They passed up the road in pursuit, making threats against the officers, and it was declared in the crowd that no still should again be seized in their neighborhood. In this party was Jones, the man who was killed on June 24th. �In the latter part of May last John G. Hendrix, deputy collecter of internai revenue, seized near Eed Oak two stills, one of them running. The man in charge of it fled to a house shouting for help, and fired a gun. Immediately iiring began in ail quartera, and men with guns were seen running in different directions, and the revenue officers thought it prudent to retire from that neighborhood, and did retire im- mediately. �On June 16th last Hendrix, with a posse in search of illicit stills, while passing along the highway, about three miles from Eed Oak, was fired upon by a man standing in the door of a house. He fired six shots with a repeating rifle. After proceeding about a quarter of a mile Hendrix and his party were again fired into,at the same moment from three diiïerent directions, by men in ambush. He concluded that his force was too weak, and abandoned the search for the still he was ����