"Act first in this matter," Hodgkins advised, & then "afterward explain or threaten" since "the act tells" without which "the threat or demand is regarded as idle." War crimes, he concluded, must be punished visibly & severely to offer any hope of protection against future lawlessness.

"This request or suggestion is not made in a spirit of vindicativeness," Hodgkins explained, "but simply in the interest of my poor suffering confiding fellow negros who are even now assembling at Annapolis and other points to reinforce the army of the Union."

If the US treated war crimes seriously, "the rebels will learn that the U.S. Govt. is not to be trifled with & the black men will feel not a spirit of revenge for have they not often taken the rebels prisoners even their old masters without indulging in a fiendish spirit of revenge or exultation."

"If the murder of the colored troops at Fort Pillow is not followed by prompt action on the part of our government," Hodgkins warned, "it may as well disband all its colored troops for no soldiers whom the goverment will not protect can be depended upon."

"This is the kind of liberty," Hunter warned the Confederate President, "the liberty to do wrong–which Satan, Chief of the fallen Angels, was contending for when he was cast into Hell."

"You say you are fighting for liberty," he concluded, "liberty to keep four millions of your fellow-beings in ignorance & degradation–liberty to separate parents & children, husband & wife, brother & sister–liberty to steal the products of their labor, exacted with many a cruel lash & bitter tear."

Gen. Hunter observed that Black soldiers "are fighting for liberty in its truest sense; and Mr [Thomas] Jefferson has beautifully said,–'in such a war, there is no attribute of the Almighty, which will induce him to fight on the side of the oppressor.'"

"On your authorities will rest the responsibility of having inaugurated this barbarous policy," he fumed, "and you will be held responsible, in this world and in the world to come, for all the blood thus shed."

These Confederate war crimes, Gen. Hunter threatened, "shall be followed by the immediate execution of the Rebel of highest rank in my possession; man for man, these executions will certainly take place, for every [Black soldier] murdered, or sold into a slavery worse than death."

"If the world doubts our fighting," they argued, "give us A chance and we will show then what we can do–" Instead, the Union commander continued to refuse Black officers & deployed Black troops primarily as manual laborers.

"Give us A commander," the group of former Black officers pleaded, "who will appreciate us as men and soldiers, And we will be willing to surmount all outer difficulties."

This relentless white conservative state & vigilante violence against Black Southerners could only be resolved in one way:

"get Congress to stick in a few competent colered men [into public service] as they did in the army & the thing will all go right."

Not only did local police & officials refuse to protect Black rights in the state, but actually worked to undermine them. "They have been accusing the colered peple of an insorection which is a lie, in order that they might get arms to carrie out their wicked designs–"

Some Black Mississippians, he asserted, "are being knocked down for saying they are free, while a great many are being worked just as they ust to be when Slaves, without any compensation."

One Black mother reported, he wrote, that "the coldest day that has been this winter & said that she & her eight children lay out last night, & come near friezing after She had paid some wrent on the house." The white landowner evicted her, despite her rent having been paid.

Of course! Happy to help!

You will see if you do a newspaper search for his name, however, that there are numerous other complaints against him from Black South Carolinians, several of which led to guilty verdicts, an incredibly unlikely outcome given the racist nature of the courts.

Thank you for asking! His name was Samuel Green. Needless to say, the details in the letter give a very different account, but this is a clipping from the Daily Phoenix newspaper in Columbia that gives an overview of the coroner's inquest.