In August 1874, Thomas Floyd, an African-American Union army veteran, was serving in the Louisiana State Senate as a Republican. On the night of August 25, he was murdered in Brownsville. When tensions arose, members of the White League arrested several White Republicans and twenty freedmen, accusing them of plotting a "negro rebellion". Among the White Republicans were Sheriff Edgerton, William Howell (the parish attorney), Robert Dewees (De Soto Parish tax collector), Homer Twitchell (a tax collector and Marshall Twitchell's brother), and three brothers-in-law, Monroe Willis, and Clark Holland; Marshall Twitchell was in New Orleans at a Republican state convention. Within two days, hundreds of armed Whites arrived in Coushatta.