"Poor Peter" is the name of the negro whose lacerated back, as presented in the original photograph, has excited both the sympathy and the indignation of every humanitarian who has seen it. Here is his own statement, taken from his lips April 2, 1863, at Baton Rouge, La., just after he had entered the Provost-Marshal's office. It may be well to state that "Peter" could speak but little English, and that in broken accents. The majority of the negroes of Louisiana are owned by Frenchmen or those of French descent, and nearly all speak French; indeed thousands were to be found along our line of march who could not understand a word of English.
Being interrogated in French, "Poor Peter," who stood before us the picture of poverty, shrouded in rags of every imaginable color, began his doleful story. "Ten days from to-day I left the plantation, run away from massa." "What made you run away, Peter; was your master ugly—did he whip you?" With a peculiar shrug of his shoulders, and raising his eyes toward the ceiling he shouted, "Lor Gor Almighty Massa! look here"—and suiting the action to the word, he pulled down the pile of dirty rags that half concealed his back, and which was once a shirt, and exhibited his mutilated sable form to the crowd of officers and others present in the office. It sent a thrill of horror to every white person present, but the few Blacks who were waiting for passes, men, women and children, paid but little attention to the sad spectacle, such terrible scenes being painfully familiar to them all. "Who whipped you, Peter?" "Overseer Artayon Carrier whipped me—I don't remember the whipping. I was two months in bed sore from the whipping and salt brine, which Overseer put on my back. By and by my senses began to come—they said I was sort of crazy, and tried to shoot everybody. I did not know it—I did not know that I had attempted to shoot any one—they told me so. I burned up all my clothes, but I don't remember that. I never was this way (crazy) before. I don't know what make me come that way (crazy). My master came after I was whipped—saw me in bed. He discharged the overseer. They told me I attempted to shoot my wife first one. I did not shoot any one. I did not harm any one. My wife tell me I no do these things when I come away. She thought I was dead with whipping. My master's name is Captain John Lyon [sic], cotton planter, on Atchafalaya River, near Washington, La. I was whipped two months before Christmas."
The above is a verbatim copy of the original statement of "Poor Peter," as written on the back of the photograph at Baton Rouge, a few hours after it was printed.
