Mike, I can't find my copy of the book at this moment. I know it is around here somewhere. For now I'll run off memory so take this for what it's worth.

If I recall correctly the gang of blacks that were said to be massacred at Colfax had actually been on a rampage for sometime. They had done their own killing and burning and had made no secret they intended to kill every white person they could. The whites had sent representatives to Longstreet asking for help in stopping the killing and marauding but after promising to help Longstreet never delivered.

Eventually things turned into an armed conflict and the rest you probably know. The blacks were surrounded at the court house. When the whites sent in men to negotiate a surrender they were fired upon. I believe this accounts for the white casualties in the event. They responded by setting fire to the court house and shooting anybody who came out. A sad event to be sure but contrary to what is posted on the Internet the gang of blacks were not a bunch of innocent folk just trying to get by in life.

If I understand correctly Longstreet was criticized because he claimed he had no men to send to Grant Parish to stop this before it happened or even to stop the marauding blacks. Yet, when word of this event got to New Orleans Longstreet somehow found a way to send troops. However, these were mostly black men and since many of the men Longstreet sent them after were former Confederate soldiers, likely some had even served under Longstreet himself, it is easy to see, for right or wrong, why Longstreet could end up nearly being shot by former Confederates as you stated happened at Liberty Place in New Orleans.

We all are familiar with the stories of the "night riders" of the Reconstruction era. Yet we are seldom told of any black on white atrocities when, truth is, it happened more than we think. My own paternal 3rd great-uncle, William Thomas Johns Company C, 7th Mississippi was murdered in 1912 by what was described as a "Band of roaming...".