In southeast Alabama deserters from both armies and members of the so-called First Florida Union Cavalry continued for a year after the close of the war their practice of plundering all classes of people and sometimes committing other acts of violence. Some persons were robbed of nearly all that they possessed.[687] Joseph Saunders, a millwright of Dale County, served as a Confederate lieutenant in the first part of the war. Later he resigned, and being worried by the conscript officers, allied himself with a band of deserters near the Florida line, who drew their supplies from the Federal troops on the coast. Saunders was made leader of the band and made frequent forays into Dale County, where on one occasion a company of militia on parade was captured. The band raided the town of Newton, but was defeated. After the war, Saunders with his gang returned and continued horse-stealing. Finally he killed a man and went to Georgia, where, in 1866, he himself was killed.[688] He was a type of the native white outlaw. The burning of cotton was common. Some was probably burned because the United States cotton agents had seized it, but the heaviest loss fell on private owners. A large quantity of private cotton worth about $2,000,000, that had escaped confiscation and had been collected near Montgomery, was destroyed by the cotton burners.[689] Horse and cattle thieves infested the whole state, especially the western part. Washington and Choctaw counties especially suffered from their depredations.[690] The rivers were infested with cotton thieves, who floated down the streams in flats, landed near cotton fields, established videttes, went into the fields, stole the cotton, and carried it down the river to market.[691] A band of outlaws took passage on a steamboat on the Alabama River, overcame the crew and the honest passengers, and took possession of the boat.[692] A secret incendiary organization composed of negroes and some discharged Federal soldiers plotted to burn Selma. The members of the band wore red ribbon badges. One of the negroes informed the authorities of the plot and of the place of meeting, and forty of the band were arrested. The others were informed and escaped. The military authorities released the prisoners, who denied the charge, though some of their society testified against them.[693] There were incendiary fires in every town in the state, it is said, and several were almost destroyed.