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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Iron Furnace, by John H. Aughey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Iron Furnace
+       Slavery and Secession
+
+Author: John H. Aughey
+
+Release Date: February 13, 2012 [EBook #38855]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IRON FURNACE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: John H. Aughey. _Engraved by Samuel Sartain, Phila._]
+
+
+
+
+  THE IRON FURNACE:
+  OR,
+  SLAVERY AND SECESSION.
+
+
+  BY REV. JOHN H. AUGHEY,
+  A REFUGEE FROM MISSISSIPPI.
+
+
+  Cursed be the men that obeyeth not the words
+  of this covenant, which I commanded your
+  fathers in the day that I brought them forth
+  out of the land of Egypt, from the _Iron
+  Furnace_.--Jer. xi. 3, 4. See also, 1 Kings
+  viii. 51.
+
+
+  PHILADELPHIA:
+  WILLIAM S. & ALFRED MARTIEN.
+  606 CHESTNUT STREET.
+  1863.
+
+
+
+
+  Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1863,
+  BY WILLIAM S. & ALFRED MARTIEN,
+  In the office of the Clerk of the District Court for the
+  Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
+
+
+
+
+  TO MY PERSONAL FRIENDS
+
+  REV. CHARLES C. BEATTY, D.D., LL.D.,
+  OF STEUBENVILLE, OHIO,
+  Moderator of the General Assembly of the (O.S.) Presbyterian
+  Church in the United States of America,
+  and long Pastor of the Church in which
+  my parents were members, and
+  our family worshippers;
+
+  REV. WILLIAM PRATT BREED,
+  Pastor of the West Spruce Street Presbyterian Church, of
+  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;
+
+  GEORGE HAY STUART, ESQ.,
+  OF PHILADELPHIA, PA.,
+  The Philanthropist, whose virtues are known and
+  appreciated in both hemispheres,
+
+  THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+A celebrated author thus writes: "Posterity is under no obligations to a
+man who is not a parent, who has never planted a tree, built a house, nor
+written a book." Having fulfilled all these requisites to insure the
+remembrance of posterity, it remains to be seen whether the author's name
+shall escape oblivion.
+
+It may be that a few years will obliterate the name affixed to this
+Preface from the memory of man. This thought is the cause of no concern. I
+shall have accomplished my purpose if I can in some degree be humbly
+instrumental in serving my country and my generation, by promoting the
+well-being of my fellow-men, and advancing the declarative glory of
+Almighty God.
+
+This work was written while suffering intensely from maladies induced by
+the rigours of the Iron Furnace of Secession, whose sevenfold heat is
+reserved for the loyal citizens of the South. Let this fact be a
+palliation for whatever imperfections the reader may meet with in its
+perusal.
+
+There are many loyal men in the southern States, who to avoid martyrdom,
+conceal their opinions. They are to be pitied--not severely censured. All
+those southern ministers and professors of religion who were eminent for
+piety, opposed secession till the States passed the secession ordinance.
+They then advocated reconstruction as long as it comported with their
+safety. They then, in the face of danger and death, became quiescent--not
+acquiescent, by any means--and they now "bide their time," in prayerful
+trust that God will, in his own good time, subvert rebellion, and
+overthrow anarchy, by a restoration of the supremacy of constitutional
+law. By these, and their name is legion, my book will be warmly approved.
+My fellow-prisoners in the dungeon at Tupelo, who may have survived its
+horrors, and my fellow-sufferers in the Union cause throughout the South,
+will read in my narrative a transcript of their own sufferings. The loyal
+citizens of the whole country will be interested in learning the views of
+one who has been conversant with the rise and progress of secession, from
+its incipiency to its culmination in rebellion and treason. It will also
+doubtless be of general interest to learn something of the workings of the
+"peculiar institution," and the various phases which it assumes in
+different sections of the slave States.
+
+Compelled to leave Dixie in haste, I had no time to collect materials for
+my work. I was therefore under the necessity of writing without those aids
+which would have secured greater accuracy. I have done the best that I
+could under the circumstances; and any errors that may have crept into my
+statements of facts, or reports of addresses, will be cheerfully rectified
+as soon as ascertained.
+
+That I might not compromise the safety of my Union friends who rendered me
+assistance, and who are still within the rebel lines, I was compelled to
+omit their names, and for the same reason to describe rather indefinitely
+some localities, especially the portions of Ittawamba, Chickasaw,
+Pontotoc, Tippah, and Tishomingo counties, through which I travelled while
+escaping to the Federal lines. This I hope to be able to correct in future
+editions.
+
+Narratives require a liberal use of the first personal pronoun, which I
+would have gladly avoided, had it been possible without tedious
+circumlocution, as its frequent repetition has the appearance of egotism.
+
+I return sincere thanks to my fellow-prisoners who imperilled their own
+lives to save mine, and also to those Mississippi Unionists who so
+generously aided a panting fugitive on his way from chains and death to
+life and liberty. My thanks are also due to Rev. William P. Breed, for
+assistance in preparing my work for the press.
+
+I am also under obligations to Rev. Francis J. Collier, of Philadelphia;
+to Rev. A. D. Smith, D. D., and Rev. J. R. W. Sloane, of New York, and to
+Rev. F. B. Wheeler, of Poughkeepsie, New York.
+
+May the Triune God bless our country, and preserve its integrity!
+
+JOHN HILL AUGHEY.
+
+FEBRUARY 1, 1863.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  CHAPTER I.
+
+  SECESSION.
+
+  Speech of Colonel Drane--Submission Denounced--Northern
+  Aggression--No more Slave States--Northern _isms_--Yankees'
+  Servants--Yankee inferiority--Breckinridge, or immediate,
+  complete, and eternal Separation--A Day of Rejoicing--Abraham
+  Lincoln, President elect--A Union Speech--A Southerner's
+  Reasons for opposing Secession--Address by a Radical
+  Secessionist--Cursing and Bitterness--A Prayer--Sermon
+  against Secession--List of Grievances--Causes which led to
+  Secession                                                         13--49
+
+
+  CHAPTER II.
+
+  VIGILANCE COMMITTEE AND COURT-MARTIAL.
+
+  The election of Delegates to determine the status of
+  Mississippi--The Vigilance Committee--Description of its
+  members--Charges--Phonography--No formal verdict--Danger of
+  Assassination--Passports--Escape to Rienzi--Union sentiment--
+  The Conscript Law--Summons to attend Court-Martial--
+  Evacuation of Corinth--Destruction of Cotton--Suffering
+  poor--Relieved by General Halleck                                 50--69
+
+
+  CHAPTER III.
+
+  ARREST, ESCAPE, AND RECAPTURE.
+
+  High price of Provisions--Holland Lindsay's Family--The
+  arrest--Captain Hill--Appearance before Colonel Bradfute at
+  Fulton--Arrest of Benjamin Clarke--Bradfute's Insolence--
+  General Chalmers--The clerical Spy--General Pfeifer--Under
+  guard--Priceville--General Gordon--Bound for Tupelo--The
+  Prisoners entering the Dungeon--Captain Bruce--Lieutenant
+  Richard Malone--Prison Fare and Treatment--Menial Service--
+  Resolve to escape--Plan of escape--Federal Prisoners--
+  Co-operation of the Prisoners--Declaration of Independence--
+  The Escape--The Separation--Concealment--Travel on the
+  Underground Railroad--Pursuit by Cavalry and Bloodhounds--The
+  Arrest--Dan Barnes, the Mail-robber--Perfidy--Heavily
+  ironed--Return to Tupelo                                         70--112
+
+
+  CHAPTER IV.
+
+  LIFE IN A DUNGEON.
+
+  Parson Aughey as Chaplain--Description of the Prisoners--
+  Colonel Walter, the Judge Advocate--Charges and
+  Specifications against Parson Aughey, a Citizen of the
+  Confederate States--Execution of two Tennesseeans--Enlistment
+  of Union Prisoners--Colonel Walter's second visit--Day of
+  Execution specified--Farewell Letter to my Wife--Parson
+  Aughey's Obituary penned by himself--Address to his Soul--The
+  Soul's Reply--Farewell Letter to his Parents--The Union
+  Prisoners' Petition to Hon. W. H. Seward--The two Prisoners
+  and the Oath of Allegiance--Irish Stories                       113--142
+
+
+  CHAPTER V.
+
+  EXECUTION OF UNION PRISONERS.
+
+  Resolved to Escape--Mode of Executing Prisoners--Removal of
+  Chain--Addition to our Numbers--Two Prisoners become Insane--
+  Plan of Escape--Proves a Failure--Fetters Inspected--
+  Additional Fetters--Handcuffs--A Spy in the Disguise of a
+  Prisoner--Special Police Guard on Duty--A Prisoner's
+  Discovery--Divine Services--The General Judgment--The Judge--
+  The Laws--The Witnesses--The Concourse--The Sentence            143--167
+
+
+  CHAPTER VI.
+
+  SUCCESSFUL ESCAPE.
+
+  The Second Plan of Escape--Under the Jail--Egress--Among the
+  Guards--In the Swamp--Travelling on the Underground
+  Railroad--The Fare--Green Corn eaten Raw--Blackberries and
+  Stagnant Water--The Bloodhounds--Tantalizing Dreams--The
+  Pickets--The Cows--Become Sick--Fons Beatus--Find Friends--
+  Union Friend No. Two--The night in the Barn--Death of Newman
+  by Scalding--Union Friend No. Three--Bound for the Union
+  Lines--Rebel Soldiers--Black Ox--Pied Ox--Reach Headquarters
+  in Safety--Emotions on again beholding the Old Flag--Kindness
+  while Sick--Meeting with his Family--Richard Malone again--
+  The Serenade--Leave Dixie--Northward bound                      168--211
+
+
+  CHAPTER VII.
+
+  SOUTHERN CLASSES--CRUELTY TO SLAVES.
+
+  Sandhillers--Dirt-eating--Dipping--Their Mode of Living--
+  Patois--Rain-book--Wife-trade--Coming in to see the Cars--
+  Superstition--Marriage of Kinsfolks--Hardshell Sermon--Causes
+  which lead to the Degradation of this Class--Efforts to
+  Reconcile the Poor Whites to the Peculiar Institution--The
+  Slaveholding Class--The Middle Class--Northern _isms_--
+  Incident at a Methodist Minister's House--Question asked a
+  Candidate for Licensure--Reason of Southern Hatred toward the
+  North--Letter to Mr. Jackman--Barbarities and Cruelties of
+  Slavery--Mulattoes--Old Cole--Child Born at Whipping-post--
+  Advertisement of a Keeper of Bloodhounds--Getting Rid of Free
+  Blacks--The Doom of Slavery--Methodist Church South             212--248
+
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.
+
+  NOTORIOUS REBELS.--UNION OFFICERS.
+
+  Colonel Jefferson Davis--His Speech at Holly Springs,
+  Mississippi--His Opposition to Yankee Teachers and
+  Ministers--A bid for the Presidency--His Ambition--Burr,
+  Arnold, Davis--General Beauregard--Headquarters at Rienzi--
+  Colonel Elliott's Raid--Beauregard's Consternation--Personal
+  description--His illness--Popularity waning.--Rev. Dr. Palmer
+  of New Orleans--His influence--The Cincinnati Letter--His
+  Personal Appearance--His Denunciations of General Butler--His
+  Radicalism.--Rev. Dr. Waddell of La Grange, Tennessee--His
+  Prejudices against the North--President of Memphis Synodical
+  College--His Talents prostituted.--Union Officers--General
+  Nelson--General Sherman                                         249--263
+
+
+  CHAPTER IX.
+
+  CONDITION OF THE SOUTH.
+
+  Cause of the Rebellion--Prevalence of Union Sentiment in the
+  South--Why not Developed--Stevenson's Views--Why Incorrect--
+  Cavalry Raids upon Union Citizens--How the Rebels employ
+  Slaves--Slaves Whipped and sent out of the Federal Lines--
+  Resisting the Conscript Law--Kansas Jayhawkers--Guarding
+  Rebel Property--Perfidy of Secessionists--Plea for
+  Emancipation--The South Exhausted--Failure of Crops--Southern
+  Merchants Ruined--Bragg Prohibits the Manufacture and Vending
+  of Intoxicating Liquors--Its Salutary Effect                    264--281
+
+
+  CHAPTER X.
+
+  BATTLES OF LEESBURG, BELMONT, AND SHILOH.
+
+  Rebel Cruelty to Prisoners--The Fratricide--Grant Defeated--
+  Saved by Gunboats--Buell's Advance--Railroad Disaster--The
+  South Despondent--General Rosecrans--Secession will become
+  Odious even in the South--Poem                                  282--296
+
+
+
+
+THE IRON FURNACE; OR SLAVERY AND SECESSION.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+SECESSION.
+
+    Speech of Colonel Drane.--Submission Denounced.--Northern
+    Aggression.--No more Slave States.--Northern _isms_.--Yankees'
+    Servants.--Yankee inferiority.--Breckinridge, or immediate, complete,
+    and eternal Separation.--A Day of Rejoicing.--Abraham Lincoln
+    President elect.--A Union Speech.--A Southerner's Reasons for opposing
+    Secession.--Address by a Radical Secessionist.--Cursing and
+    Bitterness.--A Prayer.--Sermon against Secession.--List of
+    Grievances.--Causes which led to Secession.
+
+
+At the breaking out of the present rebellion, I was engaged in the work of
+an Evangelist in the counties of Choctaw and Attala in Central
+Mississippi. My congregations were large, and my duties onerous. Being
+constantly employed in ministerial labours, I had no time to intermeddle
+with politics, leaving all such questions to statesmen, giving the
+complex issues of the day only sufficient attention to enable me to vote
+intelligently. Thus was I engaged when the great political campaign of
+1860 commenced--a campaign conducted with greater virulence and asperity
+than any I have ever witnessed. During my casual detention at a store,
+Colonel Drane arrived, according to appointment, to address the people of
+Choctaw. He was a member of one of my congregations, and as he had been
+long a leading statesman in Mississippi, having for many years presided
+over the State Senate, I expected to hear a speech of marked ability,
+unfolding the true issues before the people, with all the dignity,
+suavity, and earnestness of a gentleman and patriot; but I found his whole
+speech to be a tirade of abuse against the North, commingled with the bold
+avowal of treasonable sentiments. The Colonel thus addressed the people:
+
+    MY FELLOW-CITIZENS--I appear before you to urge anew resistance
+    against the encroachments and aggressions of the Yankees. If the
+    Black Republicans carry their ticket, and Old Abe is elected, our
+    right to carry our slaves into the territories will be denied us; and
+    who dare say that he would be a base, craven submissionist, when our
+    God-given and constitutional right to carry slavery into the common
+    domain is wickedly taken from the South. The Yankees cheated us out of
+    Kansas by their infernal Emigrant Aid Societies. They cheated us out
+    of California, which our blood-treasure purchased, for the South sent
+    ten men to one that was sent by the North to the Mexican war, and thus
+    we have no foothold on the Pacific coast; and even now we pay five
+    dollars for the support of the general Government where the North pays
+    one. We help to pay bounties to the Yankee fishermen in New England;
+    indeed _we_ are always paying, paying, paying, and yet the North is
+    always crying, Give, give, give. The South has made the North rich,
+    and what thanks do we receive? Our rights are trampled on, our slaves
+    are spirited by thousands over their underground railroad to Canada,
+    our citizens are insulted while travelling in the North, and their
+    servants are tampered with, and by false representations, and often by
+    mob violence, forced from them. Douglas, knowing the power of the
+    Emigrant Aid Societies, proposes squatter sovereignty, with the
+    positive certainty that the scum of Europe and the mudsills of
+    Yankeedom can be shipped in in numbers sufficient to control the
+    destiny of the embryo State. Since the admission of Texas in 1845,
+    there has not been a single foot of slave territory secured to the
+    South, while the North has added to their list the extensive States of
+    California, Minnesota, and Oregon, and Kansas is as good as theirs;
+    while, if Lincoln is elected, the Wilmot proviso will be extended over
+    all the common territories, debarring the South for ever from her
+    right to share the public domain.
+
+    The hypocrites of the North tell us that slaveholding is sinful. Well,
+    suppose it is. Upon us and our children let the guilt of this sin
+    rest; we are willing to bear it, and it is none of their business. We
+    are a more moral people than they are. Who originated Mormonism,
+    Millerism, Spirit-rappings, Abolitionism, Free-loveism, and all the
+    other abominable _isms_ which curse the world? The reply is, the
+    North. Their puritanical fanaticism and hypocrisy is patent to all.
+    Talk to us of the sin of slavery, when the only difference between us
+    is that our slaves are black and theirs white. They treat their white
+    slaves, the Irish and Dutch, in a cruel manner, giving them during
+    health just enough to purchase coarse clothing, and when they become
+    sick, they are turned off to starve, as they do by hundreds every
+    year. A female servant in the North must have a testimonial of good
+    character before she will be employed; those with whom she is
+    labouring will not give her this so long as they desire her services;
+    she therefore cannot leave them, whatever may be her treatment, so
+    that she is as much compelled to remain with her employer as the slave
+    with his master.
+
+    Their servants hate them; our's love us. My niggers would fight for me
+    and my family. They have been treated well, and they know it. And I
+    don't treat my slaves any better than my neighbours. If ever there
+    comes a war between the North and the South, let us do as Abraham
+    did--arm our trained servants, and go forth with them to the battle.
+    They hate the Yankees as intensely as we do, and nothing could please
+    our slaves better than to fight them. Ah, the perfidious Yankees! I
+    cordially hate a Yankee. We have all suffered much at their hands;
+    they will not keep faith with us. Have they complied with the
+    provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law? The thousands and tens of
+    thousands of slaves aided in their escape to Canada, is a sufficient
+    answer. We _have_ lost millions, and _are_ losing millions every year,
+    by the operations of the underground railroad. How deep the perfidy of
+    a people, thus to violate every article of compromise we have made
+    with them! The Yankees are an inferior race, descended from the old
+    Puritan stock, who enacted the Blue Laws. They are desirous of
+    compelling us to submit to laws more iniquitous than ever were the
+    Blue Laws. I have travelled in the North, and have seen the depth of
+    their depravity. Now, my fellow-citizens, what shall we do to resist
+    Northern aggression? Why simply this: if Lincoln or Douglas are
+    elected, (as to the Bell-Everett ticket, it stands no sort of chance,)
+    let us secede. This remedy will be effectual. I am in favour of no
+    more compromises. Let us have Breckinridge, or immediate, complete,
+    and eternal separation.
+
+The speaker then retired amid the cheers of his audience.
+
+Soon after this there came a day of rejoicing to many in Mississippi. The
+booming of cannon, the joyous greeting, the soul-stirring music, indicated
+that no ordinary intelligence had been received. The lightnings had
+brought the tidings that Abraham Lincoln was President elect of the United
+States, and the South was wild with excitement. Those who had been long
+desirous of a pretext for secession, now boldly advocated their
+sentiments, and joyfully hailed the election of Mr. Lincoln as affording
+that pretext. The conservative men were filled with gloom. They regarded
+the election of Mr. Lincoln, by the majority of the people of the United
+States, in a constitutional way, as affording no cause for secession.
+Secession they regarded as fraught with all the evils of Pandora's box,
+and that war, famine, pestilence, and moral and physical desolation would
+follow in its train. A call was made by Governor Pettus for a convention
+to assemble early in January, at Jackson, to determine what course
+Mississippi should pursue, whether her policy should be submission or
+secession.
+
+Candidates, Union and Secession, were nominated for the convention in
+every county. The speeches of two, whom I heard, will serve as a specimen
+of the arguments used _pro_ and _con_. Captain Love, of Choctaw, thus
+addressed the people.
+
+    MY FELLOW-CITIZENS--I appear before you to advocate the Union--the
+    Union of the States under whose favoring auspices we have long
+    prospered. No nation so great, so prosperous, so happy, or so much
+    respected by earth's thousand kingdoms, as the Great Republic, by
+    which name the United States is known from the rivers to the ends of
+    the earth. Our flag, the star-spangled banner, is respected on every
+    sea, and affords protection to the citizens of every State, whether
+    amid the pyramids of Egypt, the jungles of Asia, or the mighty cities
+    of Europe. Our Republican Constitution, framed by the wisdom of our
+    Revolutionary fathers, is as free from imperfection as any document
+    drawn up by uninspired men. God presided over the councils of that
+    convention which framed our glorious Constitution. They asked wisdom
+    from on high, and their prayers were answered. Free speech, a free
+    press, and freedom to worship God as our conscience dictates, under
+    our own vine and fig-tree, none daring to molest or make us afraid,
+    are some of the blessings which our Constitution guarantees; and these
+    prerogatives, which we enjoy, are features which bless and distinguish
+    us from the other nations of the earth. Freedom of speech is unknown
+    amongst them; among them a censorship of the press and a national
+    church are established.
+
+    Our country, by its physical features, seems fitted for but one
+    nation. What ceaseless trouble would be caused by having the source of
+    our rivers in one country and the mouth in another. There are no
+    natural boundaries to divide us into separate nations. We are all
+    descended from the same common parentage, we all speak the same
+    language, and we have really no conflicting interests, the statements
+    of our opponents to the contrary notwithstanding. Our opponents
+    advocate separate State secession. Would not Mississippi cut a sorry
+    figure among the nations of the earth? With no harbour, she would be
+    dependent on a foreign nation for an outlet. Custom-house duties would
+    be ruinous, and the republic of Mississippi would find herself
+    compelled to return to the Union. Mississippi, you remember,
+    repudiated a large foreign debt some years ago; if she became an
+    independent nation, her creditors would influence their government to
+    demand payment, which could not be refused by the weak, defenceless,
+    navyless, armyless, moneyless, repudiating republic of Mississippi.
+    To pay this debt, with the accumulated interest, would ruin the new
+    republic, and bankruptcy would stare us in the face.
+
+    It is true, Abraham Lincoln is elected President of the United States.
+    My plan is to wait till Mr. Lincoln does something unconstitutional.
+    Then let the South unanimously seek redress in a constitutional
+    manner. The conservatives of the North will join us. If no redress is
+    made, let us present our ultimatum. If this, too, is rejected, I for
+    one will not advocate submission; and by the coöperation of all the
+    slave States, we will, in the event of the perpetration of wrong, and
+    a refusal to redress our grievances, be much abler to secure our
+    rights, or to defend them at the cannon's mouth and the point of the
+    bayonet. The Supreme Court favours the South. In the Dred Scott case,
+    the Supreme Court decided that the negro was not a citizen, and that
+    the slave was a chattel, as we regard him. The majority of Congress on
+    joint ballot is still with the South. Although we have something to
+    fear from the views of the President elect and the Chicago platform,
+    let us wait till some overt act, trespassing upon our rights, is
+    committed, and all redress denied; then, and not till then, will I
+    advocate extreme measures.
+
+    Let our opponents remember that secession and civil war are
+    synonymous. Who ever heard of a government breaking to pieces without
+    an arduous struggle for its preservation? I admit the right of
+    revolution, when a people's rights cannot otherwise be maintained, but
+    deny the right of secession. We are told that it is a reserved right.
+    The constitution declares that all rights not specified in it are
+    reserved to the people of the respective States; but who ever heard of
+    the right of total destruction of the government being a reserved
+    right in any constitution? The fallacy is evident at a glance. Nine
+    millions of people can afford to wait for some overt act. Let us not
+    follow the precipitate course which the ultra politicians indicate.
+    Let W. L. Yancey urge his treasonable policy of firing the Southern
+    heart and precipitating a revolution; but let us follow no such
+    wicked advice. Let us follow the things which make for peace.
+
+    We are often told that the North will not return fugitive slaves. Will
+    secession remedy this grievance? Will secession give us any more slave
+    territory? No free government ever makes a treaty for the rendition of
+    fugitive slaves--thus recognising the rights of the citizens of a
+    foreign nation to a species of property which it denies to its own
+    citizens. Even little Mexico will not do it. Mexico and Canada return
+    no fugitives. In the event of secession, the United States would
+    return no fugitives, and our peculiar institution would, along our
+    vast border, become very insecure; we would hold our slaves by a very
+    slight tenure. Instead of extending the great Southern institution, it
+    would be contracting daily. Our slaves would be held to service at
+    their own option, throughout the whole border, and our gulf States
+    would soon become border States; and the great insecurity of this
+    species of property would work, before twenty years, the extinction
+    of slavery, and, in consequence, the ruin of the South. Are we
+    prepared for such a result? Are we prepared for civil war? Are we
+    prepared for all the evils attendant upon a fratricidal contest--for
+    bloodshed, famine, and political and moral desolation? I reply, we are
+    not; therefore let us look before we leap, and avoiding the heresy of
+    secession--
+
+        "Rather bear the ills we have,
+        Than fly to others that we know not of."
+
+A secession speaker was introduced, and thus addressed the people:
+
+    LADIES AND GENTLEMEN--FELLOW-CITIZENS--I am a secessionist out and
+    out; voted for Jeff Davis for Governor in 1850, when the same issue
+    was before the people; and I have always felt a grudge against the
+    _free state_ of Tishomingo for giving H. S. Foote, the Union
+    candidate, a majority so great as to elect him, and thus retain the
+    State in this accursed Union ten years longer. Who would be a
+    craven-hearted, cowardly, villanous submissionist? Lincoln, the
+    abominable, white-livered abolitionist, is President elect of the
+    United States; shall he be permitted to take his seat on Southern
+    soil? No, never! I will volunteer as one of thirty thousand, to
+    butcher the villain if ever he sets foot on slave territory. Secession
+    or submission! What patriot would hesitate for a moment which to
+    choose? No true son of Mississippi would brook the idea of submission
+    to the rule of the baboon Abe Lincoln--a fifth-rate lawyer, a
+    broken-down hack of a politician, a fanatic, an abolitionist. I, for
+    one, would prefer an hour of virtuous liberty to a whole eternity of
+    bondage under northern, Yankee, wooden-nutmeg rule. The halter is the
+    only argument that should be used against the submissionists, and I
+    predict that it will soon, very soon, be in force.
+
+    We have glorious news from Tallahatchie. Seven tory-submissionists
+    were hanged there in one day, and the so-called Union candidates,
+    having the wholesome dread of hemp before their eyes, are not
+    canvassing the county; therefore the heretical dogma of submission,
+    under any circumstances, disgraces not their county. Compromise! let
+    us have no such word in our vocabulary. Compromise with the Yankees,
+    after the election of Lincoln, is treason against the South; and still
+    its syren voice is listened to by the demagogue submissionists. We
+    should never have made any compromise, for in every case we
+    surrendered rights for the sake of peace. No concession of the scared
+    Yankees will now prevent secession. They now understand that the South
+    is in earnest, and in their alarm they are proposing to yield us much;
+    but the die is cast, the Rubicon is crossed, and our determination
+    shall ever be, No union with the flat-headed, nigger-stealing,
+    fanatical Yankees.
+
+    We are now threatened with internecine war. The Yankees are an
+    inferior race; they are cowardly in the extreme. They are descended
+    from the Puritan stock, who never bore rule in any nation. We, the
+    descendants of the Cavaliers, are the Patricians, they the Plebeians.
+    The Cavaliers have always been the rulers, the Puritans the ruled. The
+    dastardly Yankees will never fight us; but if they, in their
+    presumption and audacity, venture to attack us, let the war come--I
+    repeat it--let it come! The conflagration of their burning cities, the
+    desolation of their country, and the slaughter of their inhabitants,
+    will strike the nations of the earth dumb with astonishment, and serve
+    as a warning to future ages, that the slaveholding Cavaliers of the
+    sunny South are terrible in their vengeance. I am in favour of
+    immediate, independent, and eternal separation from the vile Union
+    which has so long oppressed us. After separation, I am in favour of
+    non-intercourse with the United States so long as time endures. We
+    will raise the tariff, to the point of prohibition, on all Yankee
+    manufactures, including wooden-nutmegs, wooden clocks, quack nostrums,
+    &c. We will drive back to their own inhospitable clime every Yankee
+    who dares to pollute our shores with his cloven feet. Go he must, and
+    if necessary, with the bloodhounds on his track. The scum of Europe
+    and the mudsills of Yankeedom shall never be permitted to advance a
+    step south of 36° 30'. South of that latitude is ours--westward to
+    the Pacific. With my heart of hearts I hate a Yankee, and I will make
+    my children swear eternal hatred to the whole Yankee race. A mongrel
+    breed--Irish, Dutch, Puritans, Jews, free niggers, &c.--they scarce
+    deserve the notice of the descendants of the Huguenots, the old
+    Castilians, and the Cavaliers. Cursed be the day when the South
+    consented to this iniquitous league--the Federal Union--which has long
+    dimmed her nascent glory.
+
+    In battle, one southron is equivalent to ten northern hirelings; but I
+    regard it a waste of time to speak of Yankees--they deserve not our
+    attention. It matters not to us what they think of secession, and we
+    would not trespass upon your time and patience, were it not for the
+    tame, tory submissionists with which our country is cursed. A fearful
+    retribution is in waiting for the whole crew, if the war which they
+    predict, should come. Were they then to advocate the same views, I
+    would not give a fourpence for their lives. We would hang them
+    quicker than old Heath would hang a tory. Our Revolutionary fathers
+    set us a good example in their dealings with the tories. They sent
+    them to the shades infernal from the branches of the nearest tree. The
+    North has sent teachers and preachers amongst us, who have insidiously
+    infused the leaven of Abolitionism into the minds of their students
+    and parishioners; and this submissionist policy is a lower development
+    of the doctrine of Wendell Philips, Gerritt Smith, Horace Greely, and
+    others of that ilk. We have a genial clime, a soil of uncommon
+    fertility. We have free institutions, freedom for the white man,
+    bondage for the black man, as nature and nature's God designed. We
+    have fair women and brave men. The lines have truly fallen to us in
+    pleasant places. We have indeed a goodly heritage. The only evil we
+    can complain of is our bondage to the Yankees through the Federal
+    Union. Let us burst these shackles from our limbs, and we will be free
+    indeed.
+
+    Let all who desire complete and eternal emancipation from Yankee
+    thraldom, come to the polls on the ---- day of December, prepared not
+    to vote the cowardly submissionist ticket, but to vote the secession
+    ticket; and their children, and their children's children, will owe
+    them a debt of gratitude which they can never repay. The day of our
+    separation and vindication of States' rights, will be the happiest day
+    of our lives. Yankee domination will have ceased for ever, and the
+    haughty southron will spurn them from all association, both
+    governmental and social. So mote it be!
+
+This address was received with great eclat.
+
+On the next Sabbath after this meeting, I preached in the Poplar Creek
+Presbyterian church, in Choctaw county, from Romans xiii. 1: "Let every
+soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God:
+the powers that be, are ordained of God."
+
+Previous to the sermon a prayer was offered, of which the following is the
+conclusion:
+
+    ALMIGHTY GOD--We would present our country, the United States of
+    America, before thee. When our political horizon is overcast with
+    clouds and darkness, when the strong-hearted are becoming fearful for
+    the permanence of our free institutions, and the prosperity, yea, the
+    very existence of our great Republic, we pray thee, O God, when flesh
+    and heart fail, when no human arm is able to save us from the fearful
+    vortex of disunion and revolution, that thou wouldst interpose and
+    save us. We confess our national sins, for we have, as a nation,
+    sinned grievously. We have been highly favoured, we have been greatly
+    prospered, and have taken our place amongst the leading powers of the
+    earth. A gospel-enlightened nation, our sins are therefore more
+    heinous in thy sight. They are sins of deep ingratitude and
+    presumption. We confess that drunkenness has abounded amongst all
+    classes of our citizens. Rulers and ruled have been alike guilty; and
+    because of its wide-spreading prevalence, and because our legislators
+    have enacted no sufficient laws for its suppression, it is a national
+    sin. Profanity abounds amongst us; Sabbath-breaking is rife; and we
+    have elevated unworthy men to high positions of honour and trust. We
+    are not, as a people, free from the crime of tyranny and oppression.
+    For these great and aggravated offences, we pray thee to give us
+    repentance and godly sorrow, and then, O God, avert the threatened and
+    imminent judgments which impend over our beloved country. Teach our
+    Senators wisdom. Grant them that wisdom which is able to make them
+    wise unto salvation; and grant also that wisdom which is profitable to
+    direct, so that they may steer the ship of State safely through the
+    troubled waters which seem ready to engulf it on every side. Lord,
+    hear us, and answer in mercy, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.
+    Amen and Amen!
+
+The following is a synopsis of my sermon:
+
+    Israel had been greatly favoured as a nation. No weapon formed against
+    them prospered, so long as they loved and served the Lord their God.
+    They were blessed in their basket and their store. They were set on
+    high above all the nations of the earth. * * * * When all Israel
+    assembled, ostensibly to make Rehoboam king, they were ripe for
+    rebellion. Jeroboam and other wicked men had fomented and cherished
+    the sparks of treason, till, on this occasion, it broke out into the
+    flame of open rebellion. The severity of Solomon's rule was the
+    pretext, but it was only a pretext, for during his reign the nation
+    prospered, grew rich and powerful. Jeroboam wished a disruption of the
+    kingdom, that he might bear rule; and although God permitted it as a
+    punishment for Israel's idolatry, yet he frowned upon the wicked men
+    who were instrumental in bringing this great evil upon his chosen
+    people.
+
+    The loyal division took the name of Judah, though composed of the two
+    tribes, Judah and Benjamin. The revolted ten tribes took the name of
+    their leading tribe, Ephraim. Ephraim continued to wax weaker and
+    weaker. Filled with envy against Judah, they often warred against that
+    loyal kingdom, until they themselves were greatly reduced. At last,
+    after various vicissitudes, the ten tribes were carried away, and
+    scattered and lost. We often hear of the lost ten tribes. What became
+    of them is a mystery. Their secession ended in their being blotted out
+    of existence, or lost amidst the heathen. God alone knows what did
+    become of them. They resisted the powers that be--the ordinance of
+    God--and received to themselves damnation and annihilation.
+
+    As God dealt with Israel, so will he deal with us. If we are exalted
+    by righteousness, we will prosper; if we, as the ten tribes, resist
+    the ordinance of God, we will perish. At this time, many are
+    advocating the course of the ten tribes. Secession is a word of
+    frequent occurrence. It is openly advocated by many. Nullification and
+    rebellion, secession and treason, are convertible terms, and no good
+    citizen will mention them with approval. Secession is resisting the
+    powers that be, and therefore it is a violation of God's command.
+    Where do we obtain the right of secession? Clearly not from the word
+    of God, which enjoins obedience to all that are in authority, to whom
+    we must be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake.
+    The following scriptural argument for secession is often used, 1 Tim.
+    vi. 1--5. In these verses Paul was addressing believing servants, and
+    commanding them to absent themselves from the teaching of those who
+    taught not the doctrine which is according to godliness. In a former
+    epistle he had commanded Christians not to keep company with the
+    incestuous person who had his father's wife. He directed that they
+    should not keep company with any man who was called a brother, if he
+    were a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a
+    drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one no not to eat; but he
+    expressly declares that he does not allude to those who belong to the
+    above classes that have made no profession of religion. He does not
+    judge them that are without, for them that are without, God judgeth.
+    He afterwards exhorts that the church confirm their love toward the
+    incestuous person as he had repented of his wickedness. This direction
+    of the Apostle to believers to withdraw from a brother who walked
+    disorderly, till he had manifested proper repentance; and his
+    exhortation to believing servants to absent themselves from the
+    teachings of errorists, cannot logically be construed as a scriptural
+    argument in favour of secession. Were the President of the United
+    States an unbeliever, a profane swearer, a Sabbath-breaker, or a
+    drunkard, this fact would not, _per se_, give us the right to secede
+    or rebel against the government.
+
+    There is no provision made in the Constitution of the United States
+    for secession. The wisest statesmen, who made politics their study,
+    regarded secession as a political heresy, dangerous in its tendencies,
+    and destructive of all government in its practical application.
+    Mississippi, purchased from France with United States gold, fostered
+    by the nurturing care, and made prosperous by the wise administration
+    of the general government, proposes to secede. Her political status
+    would then be anomalous. Would her territory revert to France? Does
+    she propose to refund the purchase-money? Would she become a territory
+    under the jurisdiction of the United States Congress?
+
+    Henry Clay, the great statesman, Daniel Webster, the expounder of the
+    Constitution, General Jackson, George Washington, and a mighty host,
+    whose names would fill a volume, regarded secession as treason. One of
+    our smallest States, which swarmed with tories in the Revolution,
+    whose descendants still live, invented the doctrine of nullification,
+    the first treasonable step, which soon culminated in the advocacy of
+    secession. Why should we secede, and thus destroy the best, the
+    freest, and most prosperous government on the face of the earth? the
+    government which our patriot fathers fought and bled to secure. What
+    has Mississippi lost by the Union? I have resided seven years in this
+    State, and have an extensive personal acquaintance, and yet I know not
+    a single individual who has lost a slave through northern influence. I
+    have, it is true, known of some ten slaves who have run away, and have
+    not been found. They may have been aided in their escape to Canada by
+    northern and southern citizens, for there are many in the South who
+    have given aid and comfort to the fugitive; but the probability is
+    that they perished in the swamps, or were destroyed by the
+    bloodhounds.
+
+    The complaint is made that the North regards slavery as a moral,
+    social, and political evil, and that many of them denounce, in no
+    measured terms, both slavery and slaveholders. To be thus denounced is
+    regarded as a great grievance. Secession would not remedy this evil.
+    In order to cure it effectually, we must seize and gag all who thus
+    denounce our peculiar institution. We must also muzzle their press. As
+    this is impracticable, it would be well to come to this
+    conclusion:--If we are verily guilty of the evils charged upon us, let
+    us set about rectifying those evils; if not, the denunciations of
+    slanderers should not affect us so deeply. If our northern brethren
+    are honest in their convictions of the sin of slavery, as no doubt
+    many of them are, let us listen to their arguments without the dire
+    hostility so frequently manifested. They take the position that
+    slavery is opposed to the inalienable rights of the human race; that
+    it originated in piracy and robbery; that manifold cruelties and
+    barbarities are inflicted upon the defenceless slaves; that they are
+    debarred from intellectual culture by State laws, which send to the
+    penitentiary those who are guilty of instructing them; that they are
+    put upon the block and sold; parent and child, husband and wife being
+    separated, so that they never again see each other's face in the
+    flesh; that the law of chastity cannot be observed, as there are no
+    laws punishing rape on the person of a female slave; that when they
+    escape from the threatened cat-o'-nine-tails, or overseer's whip, they
+    are hunted down by bloodhounds, and bloodier men; that often they are
+    half-starved and half-clad, and are furnished with mere hovels to live
+    in; that they are often murdered by cruel overseers, who whip them to
+    death, or overtask them, until disease is induced, which results in
+    death; that masters practically ignore the marriage relation among
+    slaves, inasmuch as they frequently separate husband and wife, by sale
+    or removal; that they discourage the formation of that relation,
+    preferring that the offspring of their female slaves should be
+    illegitimate, from the mistaken notion that it would be more numerous.
+    They charge, also, that slavery induces in the masters, pride,
+    arrogance, tyranny, laziness, profligacy, and every form of vice.
+
+    The South takes the position, that if slavery is sinful, the North is
+    not responsible for that sin; that it is a State institution, and that
+    to interfere with slavery in the States in any way, even by censure,
+    is a violation of the rights of the States. The language of our
+    politicians is, Upon us and our children rest the evil! We are willing
+    to take the responsibility, and to risk the penalty! You will find
+    evil and misery enough in the North to excite your philanthropy, and
+    employ your beneficence. You have purchased our cotton; you have used
+    our sugar; you have eaten our rice; you have smoked and chewed our
+    tobacco--all of which are the products of slave-labour. You have grown
+    rich by traffic in these articles; you have monopolized the carrying
+    trade, and borne our slave-produced products to your shores. Your
+    northern ships, manned by northern men, brought from Africa the
+    greater part of the slaves which came to our continent, and they are
+    still smuggling them in. When, finding slavery unprofitable, the
+    northern States passed laws for gradual emancipation, but few obtained
+    their freedom, the majority of them being shipped South and sold, so
+    that but few, comparatively, were manumitted. If the slave trade and
+    slavery are great sins, the North is _particeps criminis_, and has
+    been from the beginning.
+
+    These bitter accusations are hurled back and forth through the
+    newspapers; and in Congress, crimination and recrimination occur every
+    day of the session. Instead of endeavouring to calm the troubled
+    waters, politicians are striving to render them turbid and boisterous.
+    Sectional bitterness and animosity prevail to a fearful extent; but
+    secession is not the proper remedy. To cure one evil by perpetrating a
+    greater, renders a double cure necessary. In order to cure a disease,
+    the cause should be known, that we may treat it intelligently, and
+    apply a proper remedy. Having observed, during the last eleven years,
+    that sectional strife and bitterness were increasing with fearful
+    rapidity, I have endeavoured to stem the torrent, so far as it was
+    possible for individual effort to do so. I deem it the imperative duty
+    of all patriots, of all Christians, to throw oil upon the troubled
+    waters, and thus save the ship of State from wreck among the
+    vertiginous billows.
+
+    Most of our politicians are demagogues. They care not for the people,
+    so that they accomplish their own selfish and ambitious schemes. Give
+    them power, give them money, and they are satisfied. Deprive them of
+    these, and they are ready to sacrifice the best interests of the
+    nation to secure them. They excite sectional animosity and party
+    strife, and are willing to kindle the flames of civil war to
+    accomplish their unhallowed purposes. They tell us that there is a
+    conflict of interest between the free and slave States, and endeavour
+    to precipitate a revolution, that they may be leaders, and obtain
+    positions of trust and profit in the new government which they hope
+    to establish. The people would be dupes indeed to abet these wicked
+    demagogues in their nefarious designs. Let us not break God's command,
+    by resisting the ordinance of God--the powers that be. I am not
+    discussing the right of revolution, which I deem a sacred right. When
+    human rights are invaded, when life is endangered, when liberty is
+    taken away, when we are not left free to pursue our own happiness in
+    our own chosen way--so far as we do not trespass upon the rights of
+    others--we have a right, and it becomes our imperative duty to resist
+    to the bitter end, the tyranny which would deprive us and our children
+    of our inalienable rights. Our lives are secure; we have freedom to
+    worship God. Our liberty is sacred; we may pursue happiness to our
+    hearts' content. We do not even charge upon the general Government
+    that it has infringed these rights. Whose life has been endangered, or
+    who has lost his liberty by the action of the Government? If that man
+    lives, in all this fair domain of ours, he has the right to complain.
+    But neither you nor I have ever heard of or seen the individual who
+    has thus suffered. We have therefore clearly no right of revolution.
+
+    Treason is no light offence. God, who rules the nations, and who has
+    established governments, will punish severely those who attempt to
+    overthrow them. Damnation is stated to be the punishment which those
+    who resist the powers that be, will suffer. Who wishes to endure it? I
+    hope none of my charge will incur this penalty by the perpetration of
+    treason. You yourselves can bear me witness that I have not heretofore
+    introduced political issues into the pulpit, but at this time I could
+    not acquit my conscience were I not to warn you against the great sin
+    some of you, I fear, are ready to commit.
+
+    Were I to discuss the policy of a high or low tariff, or descant upon
+    the various merits attached to one or another form of banking, I
+    should be justly obnoxious to censure. Politics and religion, however,
+    are not always separate. When the political issue is made, shall we,
+    or shall we not, grant license to sell intoxicating liquors as a
+    beverage? the minister's duty is plain; he must urge his people to use
+    their influence against granting any such license. The minister must
+    enforce every moral and religious obligation, and point out the path
+    of truth and duty, even though the principles he advocates are by
+    statesmen introduced into the arena of political strife, and made
+    issues by the great parties of the day. I see the sword coming, and
+    would be derelict in duty not to give you faithful warning. I must
+    reveal the whole counsel of God. I have a message from God unto you,
+    which I must deliver, whether you will hear, or whether you will
+    forbear. If the sword come, and you perish, I shall then be guiltless
+    of your blood. As to the great question at issue, my honest conviction
+    is (and I think I have the Spirit of God,) that you should with your
+    whole heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, oppose secession. You
+    should talk against it, you should write against it, you should vote
+    against it, and, if need be, you should fight against it.
+
+    I have now declared what I believe to be your high duty in this
+    emergency. Do not destroy the government which has so long protected
+    you, and which has never in a single instance oppressed you. Pull not
+    down the fair fabric which our patriot fathers reared at vast expense
+    of blood and treasure. Do not, like the blind Samson, pull down the
+    pillars of our glorious edifice, and cause death, desolation, and
+    ruin. Perish the hand that would thus destroy the source of all our
+    political prosperity and happiness. Let the parricide who attempts it
+    receive the just retribution which a loyal people demand, even his
+    execution on a gallows, high as Haman's. Let us also set about
+    rectifying the causes which threaten the overthrow of our government.
+    As we are proud, let us pray for the grace of humility. As a State,
+    and as individuals, we too lightly regard its most solemn obligations;
+    let us, therefore, pray for the grace of repentance and godly sorrow,
+    and hereafter in this respect sin no more. As many transgressions have
+    been committed by us, let the time past of our lives suffice us to
+    have wrought the will of the flesh, and now let us break off our sins
+    by righteousness, and our transgressions by turning unto the Lord, and
+    he will avert his threatened judgments, and save us from dissolution,
+    anarchy, and desolation.
+
+    If our souls are filled with hatred against the people of any section
+    of our common country, let us ask from the Great Giver the grace of
+    charity, which suffereth long and is kind, which envieth not, which
+    vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself
+    unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no
+    evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth
+    all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all
+    things, and which never faileth; then shall we be in a suitable frame
+    for an amicable adjustment of every difficulty; oil will soon be
+    thrown upon the troubled waters, and peace, harmony, and prosperity
+    would ever attend us; and our children, and our children's children
+    will rejoice in the possession of a beneficent and stable government,
+    securing to them all the natural and inalienable rights of man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+VIGILANCE COMMITTEE AND COURT-MARTIAL.
+
+    The election of Delegates to determine the status of Mississippi--The
+    Vigilance Committee--Description of its
+    members--Charges--Phonography--No formal verdict--Danger of
+    Assassination--Passports--Escape to Rienzi--Union sentiment--The
+    Conscript Law--Summons to attend Court-Martial--Evacuation of
+    Corinth--Destruction of Cotton--Suffering poor--Relieved by General
+    Halleck.
+
+
+Soon after this sermon was preached, the election was held. Approaching
+the polls, I asked for a Union ticket, and was informed that none had been
+printed, and that it would be advisable to vote the secession ticket. I
+thought otherwise, and going to a desk, wrote out a Union ticket, and
+voted it amidst the frowns and suppressed murmurs of the judges and
+bystanders, and, as the result proved, I had the honour of depositing the
+only vote in favour of the Union which was polled in that precinct. I knew
+of many who were in favour of the Union, who were intimidated by threats,
+and by the odium attending it from voting at all. A majority of secession
+candidates were elected. The convention assembled, and on the 9th of
+January, 1861, Mississippi had the unenviable reputation of being the
+first to follow her twin sister, South Carolina, into the maelstrom of
+secession and treason. Being the only States in which the slaves were more
+numerous than the whites, it became them to lead the van in the
+slave-holders' rebellion. Before the 4th of March, Florida, Alabama,
+Georgia, Louisiana and Texas had followed in the wake, and were engulfed
+in the whirlpool of secession.
+
+It was now dangerous to utter a word in favour of the Union. Many
+suspected of Union sentiments were lynched. An old gentleman in Winston
+county was arrested for an act committed twenty years before, which was
+construed as a proof of his abolition proclivities. The old gentleman had
+several daughters, and his mother-in-law had given him a negro girl.
+Observing that his daughters were becoming lazy, and were imposing all the
+labour upon the slave, he sent her back to the donor, with a statement of
+the cause for returning her. This was now the ground of his arrest, but
+escaping from their clutches, a precipitate flight alone saved his life.
+
+Self-constituted vigilance committees sprang up all over the country, and
+a reign of terror began; all who had been Union men, and who had not given
+in their adhesion to the new order of things by some public proclamation,
+were supposed to be disaffected. The so-called Confederate States, the new
+power, organized for the avowed purpose of extending and perpetuating
+African slavery, was now in full blast. These _soi-disant_ vigilance
+committees professed to carry out the will of Jeff. Davis. All who were
+considered disaffected were regarded as being tinctured with abolitionism.
+My opposition to the disruption of the Union being notorious, I was
+summoned to appear before one of these august tribunals to answer the
+charge of being an abolitionist. My wife was very much alarmed, knowing
+that were I found guilty of the charge, there was no hope for mercy.
+Flight was impossible, and I deemed it the safest plan to appear before
+the committee. I found it to consist of twelve persons, five of whom I
+knew, viz., Parson Locke, Armstrong, Cartledge, Simpson, and Wilbanks.
+Parson Locke, the chief speaker, or rather the inquisitor-general, was a
+Methodist minister, though he had fallen into disrepute among his
+brethren, and was engaged in a tedious strife with the church which he
+left in Holmes county. The parson was a real Nimrod. He boasted that in
+five months he had killed forty-eight raccoons, two hundred squirrels, and
+ten deer; he had followed the bloodhounds, and assisted in the capture of
+twelve runaway negroes. W. H. Simpson was a ruling elder in my church.
+Wilbanks was a clever sort of old gentleman, who had little to say in the
+matter. Armstrong was a monocular Hard-shell-Baptist. Cartledge was an
+illiterate, conceited individual. The rest were a motley crew, not one of
+whom, I feel confident, knew a letter in the alphabet. The committee
+assembled in an old carriage-shop. Parson Locke acted, as chairman, and
+conducted the trial, as follows.
+
+"Parson Aughey, you have been reported to us as holding abolition
+sentiments, and as being disloyal to the Confederate States."
+
+"Who reported me, and where are your witnesses?"
+
+"Any one has a right to report, and it is optional whether he confronts
+the accused or not. The proceedings of vigilance committees are somewhat
+informal."
+
+"Proceed, then, with the trial, in your own way."
+
+"We propose to ask you a few questions, and in your answers you may defend
+yourself, or admit your guilt. In the first place, did you ever say that
+you did not believe that God ordained the institution of slavery?"
+
+"I believe that God did not ordain the institution of slavery."
+
+"Did not God command the Israelites to buy slaves from the Canaanitish
+nations, and to hold them as their property for ever?"
+
+"The Canaanites had filled their cup of iniquity to overflowing, and God
+commanded the Israelites to exterminate them; this, in violation of God's
+command, they failed to do. God afterwards permitted the Hebrews to reduce
+them to a state of servitude; but the punishment visited upon those seven
+wicked nations by the command of God, does not justify war or the
+slave-trade."
+
+"Did you say that you were opposed to the slavery which existed in the
+time of Christ?"
+
+"I did, because the system of slavery prevailing in Christ's day was cruel
+in the extreme; it conferred the power of life and death upon the master,
+and was attended with innumerable evils. The slave had the same complexion
+as his master; and by changing his servile garb for the citizen dress, he
+could not be recognised as a slave. You yourself profess to be opposed to
+white slavery."
+
+"Did you state that you believed Paul, when he sent Onesimus back to
+Philemon, had no idea that he would be regarded as a slave, and treated as
+such after his return?"
+
+"I did. My proof is in Philemon, verses 15 and 16, where the apostle asks
+that Onesimus be received, not as a servant, but as a brother beloved?"
+
+"Did you tell Mr. Creath that you knew some negroes who were better, in
+every respect, than some white men?"
+
+"I said that I knew some negroes who were better classical scholars than
+any white men I had as yet met with in Choctaw county, and that I had
+known some who were pre-eminent for virtue and holiness. As to natural
+rights, I made no comparison; nor did I say anything about superiority or
+inferiority of race; I also stated my belief in the unity of the races."
+
+"Have you any abolition works in your library, and a poem in your
+scrap-book, entitled 'The Fugitive Slave,' with this couplet as a refrain,
+
+  'The hounds are baying on my track;
+  Christian, will you send me back?'"
+
+"I have not Mrs. Stowe's nor Helper's work; they are contraband in this
+region, and I could not get them if I wished. I have many works in my
+library containing sentiments adverse to the institution of slavery. All
+the works in common use amongst us, on law, physic, and divinity, all the
+text-books in our schools--in a word, all the works on every subject read
+and studied by us, were, almost without exception, written by men opposed
+to the peculiar institution. I am not alone in this matter."
+
+"Parson, I saw Cowper's works in your library, and Cowper says:
+
+  'I would not have a slave to fan me when I sleep,
+  And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
+  That sinews bought and sold have ever earned.'"
+
+"You have Wesley's writings, and Wesley says that 'Human slavery is the
+sum of all villany.' You have a work which has this couplet:
+
+  'Two deep, dark stains, mar all our country's bliss:
+  Foul slavery one, and one, loathed drunkenness.'
+
+You have the work of an English writer of high repute, who says, 'Forty
+years ago, some in England doubted whether slavery were a sin, and
+regarded adultery as a venial offence; but behold the progress of truth!
+Who now doubts that he who enslaves his fellow-man is guilty of a fearful
+crime, and that he who violates the seventh commandment is a great sinner
+in the sight of God?'"
+
+"You are known to be an adept in Phonography, and you are reported to be a
+correspondent of an abolition Phonographic journal."
+
+"I understand the science of Phonography, and I am a correspondent of a
+Phonographic journal, but the journal eschews politics."
+
+Another member of the committee then interrogated me.
+
+"Parson Aughey, what is Funnyography?"
+
+"Phonography, sir, is a system of writing by means of a philosophic
+alphabet, composed of the simplest geometrical signs, in which one mark is
+used to represent one and invariably the same sound."
+
+"Kin you talk Funnyography? and where does them folks live what talks it?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I converse fluently in Phonography, and those who speak the
+language live in Columbia."
+
+"In the Destrict?"
+
+"No, sir, in the poetical Columbia."
+
+I was next interrogated by another member of the committee.
+
+"Parson Aughey, is Phonography a Abolition fixin?"
+
+"No, sir; Phonography, abstractly considered, has no political complexion;
+it may be used to promote either side of any question, sacred or profane,
+mental, moral, physical, or political."
+
+"Well, you ought to write and talk plain English, what common folks can
+understand, or we'll have to say of you, what Agrippa said of Paul, 'Much
+learning hath made thee mad.' Suppose you was to preach in Phonography,
+who'd understand it?--who'd know what was piped or harped? I'll bet high
+some Yankee invented it to spread his abolition notions underhandedly. I,
+for one, would be in favour of makin' the parson promise to write and talk
+no more in Phonography. I'll bet Phonography is agin slavery, tho' I never
+hearn tell of it before. I'm agin all secret societies. I'm agin the
+Odd-fellers, Free-masons, Sons of Temperance, Good Templars and
+Phonography. I want to know what's writ and what's talked. You can't throw
+dust in my eyes. Phonography, from what I've found out about it to-day, is
+agin the Confederate States, and we ought to be agin it."
+
+Parson Locke then resumed:
+
+"I must stop this digression. Parson Aughey, are you in favour of the
+South?"
+
+"I am in favour of the South, and have always endeavoured to promote the
+best interests of the South. However, I never deemed it for the best
+interests of the South to secede. I talked against secession, and voted
+against secession, because I thought that the best interests of the South
+would be put in jeopardy by the secession of the Southern States. I was
+honest in my convictions, and acted accordingly. Could the sacrifice of my
+life have stayed the swelling tide of secession, it would gladly have been
+made."
+
+"It is said that you have never prayed for the Southern Confederacy."
+
+"I have prayed for the whole world, though it is true that I have never
+named the Confederate States in prayer."
+
+"You may retire."
+
+After I had retired, the committee held a long consultation. My answers
+were not satisfactory. I never learned all that transpired. They brought
+in no formal verdict. The majority considered me a dangerous man, but
+feared to take my life, as they were, with one exception, adherents of
+other denominations, and they knew that my people were devotedly attached
+to me before the secession movement. Some of the secessionists swore that
+they would go to my house and murder me, when they learned that the
+committee had not hanged me. My friends provided me secretly with arms,
+and I determined to defend myself to the last. I slept with a
+double-barrelled shot-gun at my head, and was prepared to defend myself
+against a dozen at least.
+
+Learning that I was not acceptable to many of the members of my church,
+whilst my life was in continual jeopardy, and my family in a state of
+constant alarm, I abandoned my field of labour, and sought for safety in a
+more congenial clime. I intended to go North. Jeff. Davis and his Congress
+had granted permission to all who so desired, to leave the South. Several
+Union men of my acquaintance applied for passports, but were refused. The
+proclamation to grant permits was an act of perfidy; all those, so far as
+I am informed, who made application for them, were refused. The design in
+thus acting was to get Union men to declare themselves as such, and
+afterwards to punish them for their sentiments by forcing them into the
+army, confining them in prison, shooting them, or lynching them by mob
+violence. Finding that were I to demand a passport to go north, I would be
+placed on the proscribed list, and my life endangered still more, I
+declared my intention of going back to Tishomingo county, in which I owned
+property, and which was the home of many of my relatives. I knew that I
+would be safer there, for this county had elected Union delegates by a
+majority of over fourteen hundred, and a strong Union sentiment had always
+prevailed.
+
+On my arrival in Tishomingo, I found that the great heart of the county
+still beat true to the music of the Union. Being thrown out of employment
+I deemed it my duty, in every possible way, to sustain the Union cause and
+the enforcement of the laws. It was impossible to go north. Union
+sentiments could be expressed with safety in many localities. Corinth,
+Iuka, and Rienzi had, from the commencement of the war, been camps of
+instruction for the training of Confederate soldiers. These three towns in
+the county being thus occupied, Union men found it necessary to be more
+cautious, as the cavalry frequently made raids through the county,
+arresting and maltreating those suspected of disaffection. After the
+reduction of Forts Henry and Donelson, and the surrender of Nashville, the
+Confederates made the Memphis and Charleston railroad the base of their
+operations, their armies extending from Memphis to Chattanooga. Soon,
+however, they were all concentrated at Corinth, a town in Tishomingo
+county, at the junction of the Memphis and Charleston railroad with the
+Mobile and Ohio. After the battle of Shiloh, which was fought on the 6th
+and 7th of April, the Federal troops held their advance at Farmington,
+four miles from Corinth, while the Confederates occupied Corinth, their
+rear guard holding Rienzi, twelve miles south, on the Mobile and Ohio
+railroad.
+
+Thus there were two vast armies encamped in Tishomingo county. Being
+within the Confederate lines, I, in common with many others, found it
+difficult to evade the conscript law. Knowing that in a multitude of
+counsellors there is wisdom, we held secret meetings, in order to devise
+the best method of resisting the law. We met at night, and had our
+countersigns to prevent detection. Often our wives, sisters, and daughters
+met with us. Our meeting-place was some ravine, or secluded glen, as far
+as possible from the haunts of the secessionists; all were armed; even the
+ladies had revolvers, and could use them too. The crime of treason we were
+resolved not to commit. Our counsels were somewhat divided, some
+advocating, as a matter of policy, the propriety of attending the militia
+musters, others opposing it for conscience' sake, and for the purpose of
+avoiding every appearance of evil. Many who would not muster as
+conscripts, resolved to escape to the Federal lines; and making the
+attempt two or three at a time, succeeded in crossing the Tennessee river,
+and reaching the Union army, enlisted under the old flag, and have since
+done good service as patriot warriors. Some who were willing to muster as
+conscripts, were impressed into the Confederate service, and I know not
+whether they ever found an opportunity to desert. Others, myself among the
+number, were saved by the timely arrival of the Federal troops, and the
+occupation of the county by them, after Beauregard's evacuation of
+Corinth. I had received three citations to attend muster, but disregarding
+them, I was summoned to attend a court-martial on the first day of June,
+at the house of Mr. Jim Mock. The following is a copy of the citation.
+
+    Ma the 22d. 1862
+
+    _Parson Awhay_, You havent tended nun of our mustters as a konskrip.
+    Now you is her bi sumenzd to attend a kort marshal on Jun the fust at
+    Jim Mock.
+
+When I received the summons, I resolved to attempt reaching the Union
+lines at Farmington. Two of my friends, who had received a similar
+summons, expected to accompany me. On the 29th of May, I left for Rienzi,
+where my two friends were to meet me. I had not been many hours in Rienzi
+when it became evident that the Confederates were evacuating Corinth. On
+the 1st of June, (the day the court-martial was to convene,) I had the
+pleasure of once more beholding the star-spangled banner as it was borne
+in front of General Granger's command, which led the van of the pursuing
+army. Had I remained and attended the court-martial, I would have been
+forced into the army. Were I then to declare that I would not take up arms
+against the United States, I would have been shot, as many have been, for
+their refusal thus to act. General Rosecrans, on his arrival, made his
+head-quarters at my brother's house, where I had the pleasure of forming
+his acquaintance, together with that of Generals Smith, Granger, and Pope.
+As this county was now occupied by the Federal army, I returned to my
+father-in-law's, within five miles of which place the court-martial had
+been ordered to convene, considering myself comparatively safe. I learned
+that the court-martial never met, as Colonel Elliott, in his successful
+raid upon Boonville, had passed Jim Mock's, scaring him to such a degree,
+that he did not venture to sleep in his house for two weeks. The Union
+cavalry scoured the country in all directions, daily, and we were
+rejoicing at the prospect of continuous safety, and freedom from outrage.
+
+The Rebels, during their retreat, had burned all the cotton which was
+accessible to their cavalry, on their route. At night, the flames of the
+burning cotton lighted up the horizon for miles around. These baleful
+pyres, with their lurid glare, bore sad testimony to the horrors of war.
+In this wanton destruction of the great southern staple, many poor
+families lost their whole staff of bread, and starvation stared them in
+the face. Many would have perished, had it not been for the liberal
+contributions of the North; for, learning the sufferings of the poor of
+the South, whose whole labour had been destroyed by pretended friends,
+they sent provisions and money, and thus many who were left in utter
+destitution, were saved by this timely succor. I have heard the rejoicings
+of the poor, who, abandoned by their supposed friends, were saved, with
+their children, from death, by the beneficence of those whom they had been
+taught to regard as enemies the most bitter, implacable, unmerciful, and
+persistent. Their prayer may well be, Save us from our friends, whose
+tender mercies are cruel! I have never known a man to burn his own cotton,
+but I have heard their bitter anathemas hurled against those who thus
+robbed them, and their denunciations were loud and deep against the
+government which authorized such cruelty. It is true that those who thus
+lose their cotton, if secessionists, receive a "promise to pay," which all
+regard as not worth the paper on which it is written. Ere pay-day, those
+who are dependent on their cotton for the necessaries of life, would have
+passed the bourne whence no traveller returns. 'Tis like the Confederate
+bonds--at first they were made payable two years after date, and printed
+upon paper which would be worn out entirely in six months, and would have
+become illegible in half that time. The succeeding issues were made
+payable six months after the ratification of a treaty of peace between the
+United States and the Confederate States. Though not a prophet, nor a
+prophet's son, I venture the prediction that those bonds will never be
+due. The war of elements, the wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds,
+announcing the end of all things, will be heard sooner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ARREST, ESCAPE, AND RECAPTURE.
+
+    High price of Provisions--Holland Lindsay's Family--The
+    arrest--Captain Hill--Appearance before Colonel Bradfute at
+    Fulton--Arrest of Benjamin Clarke--Bradfute's Insolence--General
+    Chalmers--The clerical Spy--General Pfeifer--Under
+    guard--Priceville--General Gordon--Bound for Tupelo--The Prisoners
+    entering the Dungeon--Captain Bruce--Lieutenant Richard Malone--Prison
+    Fare and Treatment--Menial Service--Resolve to escape--Plan of
+    escape--Federal Prisoners--Co-operation of the Prisoners--Declaration
+    of Independence--The Escape--The Separation--Concealment--Travel on
+    the Underground Railroad--Pursuit by Cavalry and Bloodhounds--The
+    Arrest--Dan Barnes, the Mail-robber--Perfidy--Heavily ironed--Return
+    to Tupelo.
+
+
+At this time--May and June, 1862--all marketable commodities were
+commanding fabulous prices; as a lady declared, it would soon be
+necessary, on going to a store, to carry two baskets, one to hold the
+money, and the other the goods purchased. Flour was thirty dollars per
+barrel, bacon forty cents per pound, and coffee one dollar per pound.
+Salt was nominally one hundred dollars per sack of one hundred pounds, or
+one dollar per pound, but there was none to be obtained even at that
+price. Ladies were compelled to dispense with salt in their culinary
+operations; even the butter was unsalted. Cotton-cards, an article used in
+every house at the South, the ordinary price of which is fifty cents per
+pair, were selling at twenty-five dollars per pair, and wool-cards at
+fifteen dollars per pair, the usual price being thirty-eight cents. All
+the cotton used in the manufacture of home-made cloth, is carded into
+rolls upon these cotton-cards, which are brought from the North, there
+being not a single manufactory of them in the South. When the supply on
+hand becomes exhausted, the southern home manufacture of cloth must cease,
+no one as yet having been able to suggest a substitute for the
+cotton-card. There are only three factories in Mississippi, which must
+cease running as soon as their machinery wears out, as the most important
+parts of the machinery in those factories are supplied from the North. The
+people are fully aware of these difficulties, but they can devise no
+remedy, hence the high price of all articles used in the manufacture of
+all kinds of cloths. All manufactured goods were commanding fabulous
+prices. On the occupation of the county by Federal troops, goods could be
+obtained at reasonable prices, but our money was all gone, except
+Confederate bonds, which were worthless. Planters who were beyond the
+lines of the retreating army had cotton, but many of them feared to sell
+it, as the Rebels professed to regard it treason to trade with the
+invaders, and threatened to execute the penalty in every case. As there
+was no penalty attached to the selling of cotton by one citizen of
+Mississippi to another, some of my friends offered to sell me their cotton
+for a reasonable price.
+
+I was solicited also to act as their agent in the purchase of commodities.
+I agreed to this risk, because of the urgent need of my friends, many of
+whom were suffering greatly for the indispensable necessaries of life. I
+thought it was better that one should suffer, than that the whole people
+should perish. By this arrangement my Union friends would escape the
+punishment meted out to those who were found guilty of trading with the
+Yankees; if discovered, I alone would be amenable to their unjust and
+cruel law, and they would thus save their cotton, which was liable to be
+destroyed at any moment by a dash of rebel cavalry. I now hired a large
+number of wagons to haul cotton into Eastport and Iuka, that I might ship
+it to the loyal States. On the 2d of June the wagons were to rendezvous at
+a certain point; there were a sufficient number to haul one hundred bales
+per trip. I hoped to keep them running for some time.
+
+On the first of June I rode to Mr. Holland Lindsay's on business. I had
+learned that he was a rabid secessionist, but supposed that no rebel
+cavalry had come so far north as his house since the evacuation of
+Corinth. Mr. Lindsay had gone to a neighbour's. His wife was weaving; she
+was a coarse, masculine woman, and withal possessed of strong prejudice
+against all whom she did not like, but especially the Yankees. I sat down
+to await the arrival of her husband, and it was not long before Mrs.
+Lindsay broached the exciting topic of the day, the war. She thus vented
+her spleen against the Yankees.
+
+"There was some Yankee calvary passed here last week--they asked me if
+there wos ony rebels scoutin round here lately. I jest told em it want
+none of ther bizness. Them nasty, good for nothin scamps callen our men
+rebels. Them nigger-stealin, triflin scoundrels. They runs off our
+niggers, and wont let us take em to Mexico and the other territories."
+
+I ventured to remark, "The Yankees are mean, indeed, not to let _us_ take
+_our_ negroes to the Territories, and not to help catch them for _us_ when
+they run off."
+
+The emphatic _us_ and _our_ nettled her, as none of the Lindsays ever
+owned a negro, being classed by the southern nabobs as among the _poor
+white trash_; nor did I ever own a slave. Her husband, however, had once
+been sent to the Legislature, which led the family to ape the manners, and
+studiously copy the ultraism of the classes above them. Mrs. Lindsay
+became morose. I concluded to ride over and see her husband.
+
+On my way I met a member of Hill's cavalry. He halted me, inquired my name
+and business, which I gave. He said that, years ago, he had heard me
+preach, and that he was well acquainted with my brothers-in-law, who were
+officers in the Rebel army. He informed me that his uncle, Mr. Lindsay,
+had gone across the field home, and that he himself was on his way there.
+I returned with him, but fearing arrest, my business was hastily attended
+to, and I at once started for my horse. By this time one or two other
+cavalry-men rode up. I heard Mrs. Lindsay informing her nephew that I was
+a Union man, and advising my arrest. When I had reached my horse, Mr.
+Davis, Lindsay's nephew arrested me, and sent my horse to the stable.
+After supper, my horse was brought, and I was taken to camp. Four men were
+detached to guard me during the night. They ordered me to lie down on the
+ground and sleep. As it had rained during the day, and I had no blanket,
+I insisted upon going to a Mr. Spigener's, about fifty yards distant, to
+secure a bed. After some discussion they consented, the guards remaining
+in the room, and guarding me by turns during the night. The next morning I
+sought Captain Hill, and asked permission to return home, when the
+following colloquy ensued.
+
+"Are you a Union man?"
+
+"I voted the Union ticket, sir."
+
+"That is not a fair answer. I voted the Union ticket myself, and am now
+warring against the Union."
+
+"I have seen no good reason for changing my sentiments."
+
+"You confess, then, that you are a Union man?"
+
+"I do; I regard the union of these States as of paramount importance to
+the welfare of the people inhabiting them."
+
+"You must go to head-quarters, where you will be dealt with as we are
+accustomed to deal with all the abettors of an Abolition government."
+
+A heavy guard was then detached to take charge of me, and the company set
+off for Fulton, the county seat of Ittawamba county, Mississippi, distant
+thirty miles. After going about ten miles, we halted, and two men were
+detached to go forward with the prisoners, a Mr. Benjamin Clarke and
+myself. Our guards were Dr. Crossland, of Burnsville, Tishomingo county,
+Mississippi, and Ferdinand Woodruff. They were under the influence of
+liquor, and talked incessantly, cursing and insulting us, on every
+occasion, by abusive language. They detailed to each other a history of
+their licentious amours. We halted for dinner at one o'clock, and being
+out of money, they asked me to pay their bill, which I did, they promising
+to refund the amount when they reached Fulton. This they forgot to do.
+
+On our arrival at Fulton, we were taken into the office of the commander
+of the post, Colonel Bradfute. My fellow-prisoner was examined first.
+Woodruff stated that they had played off on Mr. Clarke--calling on him,
+as he was plowing in the field, stating that they were Federal soldiers.
+They asked Clarke what were his political views. He replied that he always
+had been a Union man--had voted the Union ticket, and would do it again,
+if another election were held; that he hated the secession principles, and
+would enlist in the Federal army as soon as he got his crop in such a
+condition that his family could attend to it. On hearing this statement,
+Bradfute became very angry, swearing that Clarke ought to be taken out and
+shot then, but that a few days' respite would make but little difference.
+Said he, addressing the guards, had you hung Clarke, you would have saved
+us some trouble, and have done your country good service. The Colonel,
+turning round, glared upon me with eyes inflamed with passion and liquor,
+and thus addressed me:
+
+"Are you a Union man too?"
+
+"I am, sir. I have never denied it."
+
+"Where do you reside?"
+
+"I consider Rienzi my home, but have been staying for some time at my
+father-in-law's, in the south-eastern part of Tishomingo county."
+
+"What is your father-in-law's name?"
+
+"Mr. Alexander Paden."
+
+"I know the old gentleman and his three sons. They are all in the
+Confederate service. They are brave men, and have done some hard fighting
+in our cause. How happens it that you look at matters in a different light
+from your relatives?"
+
+"I am not guided in my opinions by the views of my friends."
+
+"What is your profession?"
+
+"I am a minister of the gospel."
+
+"I suppose, then, that you go to the Bible for your politics, and that you
+are a sort of higher-law man."
+
+"My Bible teaches, 'Let every soul be subject to the higher powers, for
+there is no power but of God; the powers that be, are ordained of God.
+Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God;
+and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.' I have seen
+no reason for resistance to the government under which we have, as a
+nation, so long prospered."
+
+"I command you to hush, sir; you shan't preach treason to me, and if you
+get your deserts you will be hung immediately. Have you ever been within
+the Federal lines?"
+
+"I have, sir."
+
+"At what points?"
+
+"At Rienzi and Iuka."
+
+"When were you at Iuka?"
+
+"On last Saturday."
+
+"Had the Federals a large force at that place, and who was in command?"
+
+"They have a large force, and Generals Thomas and Steadman are in
+command."
+
+"That is contrary to the reports of our scouts, who say that there are but
+two regiments in the town. I fear you are purposely trying to mislead us."
+
+"General Steadman has but two regiments in the town, but General Thomas is
+within striking distance with a large force."
+
+"What was your business in Iuka?"
+
+"I went there to pay a debt of fifty dollars which a widow owed, as she
+wished it to be paid in Confederate money before it became worthless."
+
+"Have you a Federal pass?"
+
+"I have none with me, but I have one at home."
+
+"How does it read?"
+
+"It was given by General Nelson, and reads thus: 'The bearer, Rev. John H.
+Aughey, has permission to pass backward and forward through the lines of
+this division at will.'"
+
+"Where were you born?"
+
+"I was born in New Hartford, Oneida county, New York."
+
+"Yankee born," said the Colonel, with a sneer; "you deserve death at the
+rope's-end, and if I had the power I would hang all Yankees who are among
+us, for they are all tories, whatever may be their pretensions."
+
+"My being born north of the nigger-line, Colonel, if a crime worthy of
+death, was certainly not my fault, but the fault of my parents. They did
+not so much as consult me in regard to any preference I might have
+concerning the place of my nativity."
+
+Woodruff, one of my guards, now informed the Colonel that I was a spy,
+and, while the Confederates were at Corinth, had, to his certain
+knowledge, been three times at Nashville, carrying information. I told
+Woodruff that his statement was false, and that he knew it; that I had
+never been at Nashville in my life. General Chalmers, who was present, and
+Colonel Bradfute, at the conclusion of the examination, spent fifteen or
+twenty minutes in bitterly cursing all Yankees, tories, and traitors, as
+they termed us. All the conversation of the rebel officers was interlarded
+with the most horrid profanity. General Chalmers, in speaking, invariably
+called me the clerical spy. We were placed under guard, and sent to
+Brooksville, ten miles distant, the head-quarters of General Pfeifer.
+Immediately after our arrival, we were soundly berated by General Pfeifer,
+and then sent out to the camp, half a mile from the town, where we were
+placed under guard for the night, in a small plot of ground surrounded by
+a chain. We had no supper, and no blankets to sleep on. Our bed was the
+cold ground, our covering the blue canopy of heaven. The next morning we
+were started, without breakfast, under a heavy guard, numbering fourteen
+cavalry, to Priceville, six miles west of Brooksville. Priceville was
+named in honour of General Sterling Price, or rather the little village
+where he encamped had its name changed in his honour. When we reached
+Priceville we were taken to the head-quarters of General Jordan, and
+immediately brought into his presence. After reading the letter handed to
+him by one of the guard, he said, looking sternly at me,
+
+"You are charged with sedition."
+
+I asked him what sedition meant, to which he replied:
+
+"It means enough to hang you, you villanous tory!"
+
+He also asked me where I was born. My reply was, in the State of New York,
+near Utica, in Oneida county.
+
+"Then you doubly deserve death," said he.
+
+"As to the guilt of my nativity," said I, "it is not my fault, for I could
+not have helped it if I had tried. But I glory in my native State. She has
+never done anything to disgrace her. She never repudiated her just debts,
+nor committed any other disgraceful act."
+
+"Well, you ought to have staid there, or have gone back when Mississippi
+seceded."
+
+"Give me an opportunity, and I will go instanter."
+
+"The first _going_ you will do, will be to go to hell, where, if the devil
+had his due, you would have been long ago; and before you leave us, we
+will give you a free ticket to the shades infernal."
+
+"Thank you for your kind offer to give me a free pass to the infernal
+regions. I did not know before that you were the devil's ticket-agent. You
+have me in your power, and may destroy my life; but when you have done
+that, there is no more that you can do."
+
+Very little was said to my fellow-prisoner, Clarke. A few curses for a
+traitor, tory, &c., was about all. We were now placed under guard, and
+conducted to Tupelo, and after visiting the provost-marshal's office and
+the office of the commander of the post, whose names were Peden and Clare,
+we were committed to the Central Military Prison. As we entered, Captain
+Bruce and Lieutenant Malone (two gentlemen who had been elected to those
+offices by their fellow-prisoners) received us with a cordial greeting.
+Captain Bruce thus addressed us:
+
+"Welcome, gentlemen, thrice welcome. I am rejoiced to see you at my hotel.
+We are now doing a land-office business, as the large number of my
+boarders, whom you see, will testify. We have numerous arrivals daily,
+whilst the departures are very few, giving evidence that all are satisfied
+with their treatment. The bill of fare is not very extensive. In these war
+times we must not expect the luxuries of life, but be content with the
+necessaries. It is true, we cannot furnish you with coffee, or molasses,
+or sugar, or salt, or beef, or vegetables; but we have something more
+substantial--we have flour, rather dark in colour, to be sure, but people
+must not be squeamish. The boarders are required to do their own cooking,
+as they could otherwise have but little exercise; we consider it a
+sanitary measure, exercise being indispensable to health. We furnish the
+boarders, also, with meat--none of your lean meat, either, but fat
+middling, with a streak of lean in it. The Bible promises the righteous
+that their bread shall be given, and their water sure; but we go beyond
+the promise, and give not only bread (or rather the flour to make it) and
+water, but also fat, strong meat. What room will you be pleased to have?"
+
+I replied, that as they seemed to be crowded, I would choose number 199.
+
+"Well," said the Captain, "it shall be prepared. Lieutenant Malone, have
+room number 199 fitted up for the reception of these gentlemen."
+
+Lieutenant Malone replied, that the room designated would be fitted up in
+style for our reception. He asked us if we had dined.
+
+"No," replied Clarke; "we have not tasted food since yesterday at noon,
+when the Parson paid for his own dinner and the dinner of the guards. We
+asked for something to eat, but were as often refused, and now we are in a
+starving condition."
+
+"I pity you," said Malone, laying aside his facetious style; "you shall
+have something to eat as soon as it can be cooked."
+
+He then went to some of the prisoners, and set them to cooking, and we
+were soon furnished with the best repast the poor fellows could supply.
+
+We entered the prison July 3d, 1862, at two o'clock, P. M. Our prison was
+a grocery-house, its dimensions about twenty-five by fifty feet. When we
+were incarcerated, there were about seventy prisoners in the building,
+whites, mulattoes and negroes. The prison was filthy in the extreme, and
+filled with vermin; even our food was infested with them. No brooms were
+furnished us, and we could not sweep the floor. No beds were furnished,
+and we were compelled to lie upon the floor, with no covering, and
+nothing but the hard planks beneath us.
+
+Several times a day officers would come in and order a specified number of
+men to go and work, under a strong guard. We were made to clean the
+streets, roll barrels, and clean the hospital; but our own prison we were
+not permitted to clean. Every kind of drudgery, and the most menial
+services, were imposed upon us.
+
+The crimes charged upon the prisoners were desertion, trading with the
+Yankees, adhesion to the United States government or Unionism, acting as
+spies, refusing Confederate bonds, and piloting the Yankees. The crime of
+the negroes and mulattoes was endeavouring to escape on the underground
+railroad from Dixie land and the Iron Furnace. These remained till their
+masters were informed of their arrest, and came for and released them. On
+the evening preceding our imprisonment, two prisoners had been led out and
+shot, and I soon learned that this was no unusual occurrence. Nearly
+every day witnessed the execution of one or more of us. Those who were
+doomed to die were heavily ironed. In some cases, however, those who were
+not in fetters were taken out and shot or hanged, often with no previous
+warning; though sometimes a few hours warning was given.
+
+Our privations were so great from a want of proper food and water--for the
+scanty amount of water furnished us was tepid and foul--and from a lack of
+beds, cots, couches, or something better than a filthy floor whereon to
+sleep, that I resolved to attempt an escape at the risk of my life. I felt
+confident that I could not long survive such cruel treatment. As soon as
+my arrest was known to the thirty-second Mississippi regiment, encamped in
+the suburbs of Tupelo, the colonel, major, adjutant, and one of the
+captains called upon me. This regiment was raised in Tishomingo county,
+one of the companies, the Zollicoffer Avengers, being from Rienzi, where I
+had been for years proprietor and Principal of the Rienzi Female Seminary.
+The daughters of many of the officers of this regiment had been educated
+at this Seminary during my superintendence. Some of these officers had
+expressed themselves under great obligations to me, for the thorough,
+moral, mental, and physical training of their children while under my
+care. As proof of this, I have their own statements, as published in the
+public journals of the day. Owing me a debt of gratitude, as they
+professed, could I expect less than the manifestation of deep sympathy for
+me in my sad condition--confined in a gloomy dungeon, deprived of the
+comforts, yea, even the necessaries of life, menaced and insulted by the
+officers in whose power I was? Whatever may have been my hopes, they were
+doomed to be blasted. These summer friends, so obsequious in my
+prosperity, conversed for a while on indifferent topics, never alluding to
+my condition, and as I did not obtrude it upon their attention, they left,
+promising to call again. I said, "Do so, gentlemen; you will always find
+me _at home_." Adjutant Irion, as he passed out, asked Lieutenant Malone
+what the charge was against me. Malone replied that I was charged with
+being a Union man. The adjutant said, in a bitter and sarcastic tone, that
+I should never have been brought to Tupelo, but on my arrest should have
+been sent to hell from the lowest limb of the nearest tree.
+
+Having determined to escape at all hazards, I sought out an accomplice, a
+_compagnon de voyage_; that person was Richard Malone; his piercing eye,
+his intellectual physiognomy, led me to believe that if he consented to
+make the attempt with me, our chances for escape would be good. I drew
+Malone to one side, and covertly introduced the matter. He soon got my
+idea, and drawing from his pocket a paper, showed me the route mapped out
+which he intended to pursue, as he had for some days determined to escape,
+or die in the attempt. He was charged with being a spy, and there was
+little doubt that they would establish his guilt by false testimony. We
+went out now under every possible pretext. We no longer shunned the guard
+who came to obtain prisoners to do servile labour. Our object being to
+reconnoitre, in order to learn where guards were stationed, and to
+determine the best method of escape through the town after leaving the
+prison. During the day we made these observations: that there were two
+guards stationed at the back door, who were very verdant; that they would,
+after relief, come on duty again at midnight; that there was a building on
+the south side of the prison, extending beyond the prison and beyond the
+guards; that the moon would set about eleven o'clock, P. M.; that there
+were no guards stationed on the south side of the prison during the day;
+that one of the planks in the floor could be easily removed; and that
+there were several holes, when we were once under the floor, by which
+egress might be made either on the north or south side; that the coast was
+probably clearest in the direction of a corn-field some two hundred yards
+distant in a northwest direction.
+
+At four o'clock P. M., our plan was fully matured. At midnight, (the moon
+being down, and the verdant guards on duty) we would raise the plank, get
+under the floor, and myself in the advance, make our exit through one of
+the holes on the south side of the jail, then crawl to the building, some
+fifteen feet distant, and continue crawling till we passed the guards;
+then rise and make our way as cautiously as possible, to a point in the
+corn-field, a short distance in the rear of a garment which was hanging
+upon the fence. The one who first arrived must await the other. A signal
+was agreed upon, to prevent mistake. If the guards ordered us to halt, we
+had resolved to risk their fire, our watchword being, Liberty or death!
+
+About this time the prisoners chose me their chaplain by acclamation.
+During the day, we made known our intention of escaping to several
+fellow-prisoners, who promised us all the assistance in their power. All
+the prisoners who knew of the matter, earnestly desired our escape, and
+co-operated with us in effecting it. Clarke and Robinson begged us to take
+them along, averring there was no doubt that they would be shot. Malone
+told them that no more than two could go together; that if they wished to
+escape, they could make the attempt half an hour after us, which they
+agreed to. Clarke, however, came to me, and desired me to take him along,
+as he would rather go with us than with Robinson. He had a wife and five
+small children dependent on him for support, and if he perished, they must
+perish too. I consulted Malone, but he would not agree to have Clarke go
+with us. Three would be too many for safety, and he doubted whether Clarke
+had sufficient nerve to face the glittering bayonet, or tact enough to
+pass through the camps without detection. He might commit some blunder
+which would endanger our safety. I informed Clarke that the arrangement
+made, in which he and Robinson were to go together, must be adhered to. He
+begged me, by all that was sacred, to take him along. But Malone was
+inexorable, and I thought it best to acquiesce in his judgment.
+
+Night drew on apace. Thick darkness gathered around us, and murky clouds
+covered the sky, as we sat down with the Federal prisoners to our scanty
+allowance. While partaking of our rude fare, Malone thus spoke:
+
+"This day is the 4th of July, 1862, the anniversary of our patriot
+fathers' declaration of independence of British tyranny and oppression.
+They had much to complain of. They suffered grievous wrongs and cruel
+bondage. But eighty-six years ago to-day they declared themselves to be a
+free and independent people, who would rather die than be again enslaved.
+Of what worth was their declaration if they had remained inactive?
+Supineness would not have saved them. But trusting in our God, who gives
+success to the righteous cause, they imperilled their lives, they hazarded
+their fortunes, and with untiring energy and sleepless vigilance they
+contested to the bitter end against all efforts to deprive them of their
+inalienable rights. Success crowned their efforts, and they rid themselves
+of tyrants' chains. We (I allude to my friend, Parson Aughey, and myself,)
+degenerate sons of these noble sires, have suffered wrong, nay, gross
+outrage. Citizens of the sunny South, guilty of no offence whatever, not
+even of constructive crime, we are immured in a loathsome dungeon,
+deprived of the comforts of life, separated from our families, and
+suffered to have no communication with them; dragging out a miserable
+existence, which an ignominious death on the scaffold must soon end. We,
+therefore, John H. Aughey and Richard Malone, in view of these accumulated
+wrongs and outrages, solemnly swear before High Heaven, and in presence of
+these witnesses, that we will be free, or perish in the attempt. Appealing
+to the God of liberty, of truth, and of righteousness, for the rectitude
+of our motives and the justness of our cause, we commit ourselves into his
+hands, and implore his protection amid the dangers through which we are
+about to pass, and humbly pray that he will give us success, and restore
+us speedily to our families and friends, and to the enjoyment of our
+inalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
+
+Grasping the Lieutenant by the hand, I consented to this Declaration of
+Independence of rebel thraldom. We gave our respective addresses to our
+friends, who promised, that if they were ever liberated, and we were
+killed by the guards, they would write to our families, informing them of
+the manner of our death.
+
+About ten o'clock, Malone raised the plank, and I went under to
+reconnoitre. I remained under the floor about ten minutes, having learned
+that there were no guards patroling the south side of the house, as we
+feared might be the case after night. We had learned, from observation,
+that there were none during the day. Just at the noon of night, we heard
+the relief called. Malone and I endeavoured to find the prisoners who were
+to raise the plank, but not being able readily to do so, we raised the
+plank ourselves, and both got under without difficulty. Malone getting
+under first, was, contrary to agreement, compelled to take the lead. As he
+was passing out, he made considerable noise. To warn him of the danger, I
+patted him on the back. Reaching back, he gave my hand a warm pressure, to
+assure me that all was right, and passed out. I followed, and reached the
+designated point in the corn-field in about half an hour, having to use
+the utmost precaution, and in some cases to pass the guards by crawling in
+a serpentine manner. When I arrived, I gave the preconcerted signal, but
+Malone was nowhere to be seen. I waited for him two hours at least, when I
+was compelled to seek my safety alone.
+
+Not being able to meet with my friend, I regarded as a great misfortune,
+because, after reaching a point ten miles north of Tupelo, he would be
+familiar with the country. I had frequently passed through the town on the
+railroad, but knew nothing of the country through which I must travel.
+Somewhat depressed in spirits at the loss of my _compagnon de voyage_, I
+resolved to reach my family by the safest and most practicable route.
+Still in the midst of camps, I had considerable difficulty in making my
+way out of them. When I thought that this had been effected, I found that
+day was brightening in the east. Looking around for some place to hide, I
+soon found a dense, though small thicket, in which I secreted myself as
+covertly as possible. Having slept but little since my arrest, I
+endeavoured to compose myself to slumber, and partially succeded; but soon
+the noise and confusion of soldiers passing and re-passing near, awoke and
+alarmed me. I soon learned that I was near a camp, and that the soldiers
+had found a suitable place for bathing in a creek which ran within thirty
+yards of my place of concealment. There were two paths by which they
+reached the creek. On one, they passed within fifteen feet of me; on the
+other, within six or seven. About nine o'clock, I heard the booming of
+cannon all around me, proceeding from the different camps. The soldiers
+who passed me stated, in their conversation, that the cannon were firing
+in honour of a great victory obtained over General McClellan, in Virginia.
+According to their statement, his whole army, after a succession of
+losses, during eight days' fighting, had been completely annihilated, and
+that Stonewall Jackson would be in Washington city before the close of the
+week.
+
+The day passed slowly away. At one time two soldiers came within a few
+feet of me in search of blackberries, but passed out without detecting me.
+At another time two soldiers sat down to converse, so near that their
+lowest tones were distinctly audible. One informed the other that he had
+been in town in the morning, and had learned that the _Clerical Spy_,
+Parson Aughey, and a fellow by the name of Malone, had broke jail, but
+that they would soon be brought in, as a company of cavalry had been put
+on their track, with a pack of bloodhounds. Soon after this, one of them
+arose and struck a bush several times, which seemed to be but a very short
+distance above my head. I thought that he had discovered me, and was about
+to rise and run, when I heard him say to his companion, that he had
+attempted to kill a very large snake, which had escaped to the bushes. I
+began to feel somewhat uncomfortably situated when I learned that I was in
+close proximity to a large snake, though I would have preferred meeting
+with an anaconda, boa-constrictor, rattlesnake, or even the deadly cobra
+di capello, rather than with those vile secessionists thirsting for
+innocent blood.
+
+I thought this 5th of July was the longest day I had ever known. The sun
+was so long in reaching the zenith, and so slow in passing down the steep
+ecliptic way to the occident. The twilight, too, seemed of endless
+duration. But as all long days have had an end, so had this. The stars
+came glittering one by one. I soon recognised that old staunch and
+immovable friend of all travellers on the underground railroad, the
+polar-star.
+
+Rising from my lair, I was soon homeward bound, guided by the north-star
+and an oriental constellation. Plunging into a dense wood I found my rapid
+advance impeded by the undergrowth, and great difficulty in following my
+guiding stars, as the boughs of the great oaks rendered them invisible, or
+dimly seen. Fatigued, hungry, and sleepy, I at length lay down at the foot
+of a large swamp-oak tree, intending to take a nap, and then rise and
+pursue my journey. When I awoke the sun was just rising. I arose filled
+with regret for the time I had lost. Though somewhat refreshed by my
+sound sleep, yet I was very hungry and almost famished with thirst.
+
+After travelling about half a mile I came to a small log-house on a
+road-side. Feeling sick and faint, I resolved to go to the house to obtain
+water, and, if I liked the appearance of the inmates, to reveal my
+condition and ask for aid. Upon reaching the house I met the proprietor,
+but did not like his physiognomy. He looked the villain; a sinister
+expression, a countenance revealing no intellectuality, except a sort of
+low cunning, bore testimony that it would be foolish to repose confidence
+in the possessor of such villanous looks. I asked for water, intending to
+drink and leave. He pointed to the bucket; I drank and bade him good
+morning, and turned to leave. I had proceeded but a few steps, when I was
+ordered, in a stentorian tone, to halt. On looking round, I saw a soldier
+within a few steps, presenting a double-barrelled gun; another soldier was
+standing near, heavily armed. I asked by what authority he halted me. To
+which he replied:
+
+"I know you, sir; I have heard you preach frequently. You are Parson
+Aughey, and you were arrested and confined in prison at Tupelo. I was in
+Lowrey's regiment yesterday, and learned that you had broken jail; and
+now, sir, you must return. My name is Dan Barnes. You may have heard of
+me."
+
+I had indeed heard of him. He had been guilty of robbing the United States
+mail, had fled to Napoleon or Helena, Arkansas, where he was arrested,
+brought back, and incarcerated in jail at Pontotoc, and confined there for
+nearly a year. As the evidence against him was positive, he would have
+been sent to the penitentiary; but, fortunately for him, at this juncture
+Mississippi seceded. There being then no United States officers to execute
+the laws, he was liberated, and soon after joined the army.
+
+After breakfast, which I paid for, Barnes called me to one side, and told
+me that he felt sorry for me, and would afford me an opportunity of
+escaping, if I would pay him a reasonable sum. He had been in a tight
+place himself, and would have been glad had some friend been near to aid
+him. He named two hundred and forty dollars as the _reasonable sum_ for
+permitting me to escape. After getting my money, their horses were
+saddled, and telling me he was playing-off on me, said I must go to
+General Jordan's head-quarters at Priceville, to which place he and Huff,
+the proprietor of the log cabin, conducted me.
+
+On my arrival, General Jordan ordered me to be put in irons, and placed
+under guard. I was taken to a blacksmith's shop in the town, the General
+accompanying the guard, and heavy iron bands were put around my ankles,
+and connected by a chain. The bands were put on hot, and my boots were
+burnt in the operation. The blacksmith seemed averse to the order, and
+only obeyed it upon compulsion. The General stood by, and saw that it was
+well done. "Iron him securely--securely, sir," was his oft repeated order.
+The ironing caused me much pain. My ankles were long discoloured from
+the effects of it.
+
+[Illustration: "I was taken to a blacksmith's shop, and heavy iron bands
+put around my ankles." Page 104.]
+
+After my manacles were put on, I was taken back to Tupelo by Barnes and
+another guard. On my arrival, the commander of the post and the Provost
+Marshal were filled with joy. Barnes gave them the history of the arrest,
+stating that I had attempted to bribe him; that he listened to my
+proposition with indignation, and when he had got the money, performed
+what he regarded his duty. The commander replied that all the property of
+traitors was theirs, and that he did right in deceiving me, after
+accepting the bribe. He also recommended Barnes for promotion for his
+heroic and patriotic act in arresting me. (Perhaps it secured for him a
+captaincy.) The following colloquy now took place between the commander of
+the post, the Provost Marshal, and myself:
+
+"Why did you attempt to leave us?"
+
+"Because, sir, your prison was so filthy, and your fare so meagre and
+unwholesome, that I could not endure it long, and live."
+
+"Parson, you know the Bible says, the wicked flee when no man pursueth,
+but the righteous are as bold as a lion. You must have been guilty of
+crime, or you would not have tried to escape."
+
+"I may have been guilty of the offence charged against me, and yet
+innocent of real _guilt_."
+
+"You shall never be taken back to the prison you left, rest assured of
+that. Did any of the prisoners know of or aid you in your escape?"
+
+"No, sir; none of them knew anything about it."
+
+"Are you telling the truth?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"Where is Malone?"
+
+"I never saw him after I left the building."
+
+"He cannot escape; the cavalry are after him, and he will be brought in
+soon, dead or alive."
+
+"Why did you attempt to bribe Barnes?"
+
+"It was his own offer. I knew that his cupidity was great, and thought it
+no harm to accept his offer. If Barnes had his deserts, he would now be
+hard at work in the penitentiary."
+
+"Did the jury that tried him, acquit him?"
+
+"No. The secession of Mississippi saved him. I refer you to Colonel Tison,
+who is in Tupelo, for the particulars. He being marshal of North
+Mississippi, arrested Barnes, and knows all about it. He found on his
+person the evidence of his guilt, the money and checks stolen when he
+robbed the mail."
+
+"Parson, you will not be immediately executed, but you will, without
+doubt, hang in a week or two, so that, if you have any word to send your
+family, you have permission to do so."
+
+"May I write a letter to my wife?"
+
+"You may, and I will see that it is forwarded to her."
+
+I sat down and wrote a letter, a very common-place letter, to my wife,
+inserting, occasionally, a word in phonography, which, taken in
+connection, read thus: "If possible, inform General Rosecrans or Nelson of
+my arrest." While inspecting the letter, Lieutenant Peden noticed the
+phonography, and asked me to read it. I read it thus: "My dear wife, I
+hope to be at home soon. Do not grieve." This letter they never sent. It
+was merely an act of duplicity on their part, to obtain some concession,
+which might be used against me. The guard, receiving orders, now conducted
+me to a hotel, and placed me in a small room, two guards remaining inside,
+and two at the door outside, with orders to shoot me if I made the least
+attempt at escape. I remained in this room only a few hours, after which I
+was taken to my old prison. As I entered, my old friends, the prisoners,
+crowded around me, and Captain Bruce addressed me in his facetious manner.
+In prison, his wit had beguiled many a tedious hour. His humour was the
+pure Attic salt.
+
+"Parson Aughey, you are welcome back to my house, though you have played
+us rather a scurvy trick in leaving without giving me the least inkling of
+the matter, or settling your bill."
+
+I replied: "Captain, it was hardly right; but I did not like your fare,
+and your beds were filled with vermin."
+
+"Well, you do not seem to have fared better since you left, for you have
+returned."
+
+"Captain, my return is the result of coercion. Some who oppose this
+principle when applied to themselves, have no scruples in enforcing it
+upon others.
+
+  "No rogue e'er felt the halter draw,
+  With good opinion of the law;"
+
+is an old saw, and the truth of proverbs is seldom affected by time. I am
+your guest upon compulsion; but remember, I will leave you the first
+opportunity."
+
+Upon hearing this, an officer present swore that when I again left that
+building, it would be to cross the railroad, (the place of execution.)
+
+The prisoners gathered around me, and I related to them my adventures.
+They then informed me of what had transpired during my absence. Clarke was
+taken out of prison to guide a cavalry company in search of me. Clarke
+informed me that they scoured the country, and then went to my
+father-in-law's; and after searching the premises, returned, believing
+that I had gone due north towards Rienzi, in which direction another
+company had been despatched. On their return, Clarke was remanded to jail.
+At roll-call--seven o'clock, A. M., we were missed. The cavalry were
+immediately sent in pursuit. All the guards on duty during the night were
+put under arrest. Our method of escape was soon discovered, and the guards
+were released, as they were not at fault. A large number of spikes were
+hammered in the floor, the guards were doubled, and greater vigilance
+enjoined. The prisoners were questioned, strictly and individually, to
+learn whether any of them knew of our intention to escape, or had rendered
+us any assistance. They all positively denied any knowledge of the matter.
+They asked me whether I had given the officers any information about their
+knowledge of our designs, and coöperation in effecting them. I replied
+that I had positively denied that any except Malone and myself were privy
+to our plans.
+
+I may state here that it is difficult to justify a falsehood. We ought to
+utter truth always, without exaggeration or prevarication, leaving
+consequences with God. We should do right without regard to results, for
+with consequences we have no business; but in this case the temptation to
+utter an untruth was great. These wicked men, thirsting for my blood, had
+no right to make me criminate myself or my coadjutors. It would have been
+wrong for me to give them the information they desired. Truth is too
+precious for a secessionist, thirsting for innocent blood. Had I refused
+to answer, they would have suspected that some of my fellow-prisoners
+aided us, and would have either forced me to tell who they were, or would
+have hanged me instantly for my refusal. If I had given information, and
+criminated those who had befriended us, they would have been severely
+punished, and I have been guilty of the basest ingratitude; I would have
+been shunned by the prisoners, and regarded as one of the meanest of men,
+one of the veriest wretches in existence; I could never again ask nor
+expect aid in a similar attempt to save myself from a violent death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+LIFE IN A DUNGEON.
+
+    Parson Aughey as Chaplain--Description of the Prisoners--Colonel
+    Walter, the Judge Advocate--Charges and Specifications against Parson
+    Aughey--A Citizen of the Confederate States--Execution of two
+    Tennesseeans--Enlistment of Union Prisoners--Colonel Walter's second
+    visit--Day of Execution specified--Farewell Letter to my Wife--Parson
+    Aughey's Obituary penned by himself--Address to his Soul--The Soul's
+    Reply--Farewell Letter to his Parents--The Union Prisoners' Petition
+    to Hon. W. H. Seward--The two Prisoners and the Oath of
+    Allegiance--Irish Stories.
+
+
+I was remanded to jail on Sabbath, the 6th of July, 1862. On the day of my
+escape I had been elected chaplain. Captain Bruce asked permission for me
+to hold divine service, to which no special objection was made. I
+conducted the services as I would have done were I in my own pulpit. The
+best order was maintained by the prisoners, and a deep seriousness
+prevailed. The songs of Zion resounded through the prison-house, and a
+great concourse of soldiers assembled outside the guards in front of the
+door, causing considerable interruption by their noise and insulting
+language. Several officers, also, saw fit to come in and interrupt the
+services by conversing in a loud tone, and asking me how I liked my
+jewelry, referring to my fetters. The prisoners protested against their
+rude and ungentlemanly conduct, but with little effect. They sent a
+remonstrance to the commander of the post, but he treated it with silent
+contempt.
+
+As the prisoners insisted upon it, I persisted in preaching,
+notwithstanding the persecutions endured, as long as I remained with them.
+We were a motley assemblage. Some were dressed in cloth of finest texture;
+others were clad in filthy rags. There were present the learned and the
+illiterate, the rowdy and the minister of the gospel, the holy and the
+profane, the saint and the sinner. All the Southern States, and every
+prominent religious denomination were represented. The youth in his
+nonage, and the gray-haired and very aged man were there. The superior and
+the subordinate were with us. The descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth,
+were here on the same common level, for in our prison were Afric's
+dark-browed sons, the descendants of Pocahontas, and the pure Circassian.
+Death is said to be THE great leveller; the dungeon at Tupelo was _a_
+great leveller. A fellow-feeling made us wondrous kind; none shared his
+morsel alone, and a deep and abiding sympathy for each other's woes
+pervaded every bosom. When our fellow-prisoners were called to die, and
+were led through us with pallid brows, and agony depicted on their
+countenances, our expressions of sorrow and commiseration were not loud
+(through fear) but deep.
+
+On Monday morning an officer entered; my name was called, and I arose from
+the floor on which I had been reclining. I recognised him as my old
+friend, Colonel H. W. Walter, of Holly Springs, Mississippi. After the
+ordinary salutations, he informed me that he was Judge Advocate, and that
+my trial would take place in a few days, and inquired whether I wished to
+summon any witnesses. I gave him the names and residences of several
+witnesses, but he refused to send for them, upon the plea that they were
+too near the Federal lines, and their cavalry might be in danger of
+capture were they to proceed thither. I told him that the cavalry which
+went in pursuit of me had visited that locality. He then wished to know
+what I desired to prove by those witnesses. I replied that I wished to
+prove that the specifications in the charge of being a spy were false.
+
+"Your own admissions are sufficient to cause you to lose your life," said
+the Colonel, "and I will not send for those witnesses."
+
+I replied: "I know that I must die, and you need not go through the
+formality of a trial. If condemned as a spy, I must be hanged. I only
+wished the witnesses to prove that Woodruff is a man of no moral worth,
+that his testimony is false; that Barnes is a mail-robber, and that his
+testimony, therefore, should be rejected. Proving these facts, the other
+charges which I admit, will cause me to be shot. I hope I am prepared to
+die, but do not wish to die a dog's death. Promise me that I shall be
+shot, and not hanged, and I will cavil no more."
+
+"Parson Aughey, your chances for living are very slender. The proof
+against you on both charges will be established; the testimony as to your
+guilt is positive, and spies are always hanged."
+
+He then stated the charges and specifications against me as follows:
+
+First charge--_Treason_.
+
+Specification 1st. That said Aughey stated to a member of Hill's cavalry,
+that if McClellan were defeated, the North could raise a much larger army
+in a very short time; that the North would eventually conquer the South,
+and that he was a Union man--this for the purpose of giving aid and
+comfort to the enemy.
+
+Specification 2d. That when said Aughey was requested to take the oath of
+allegiance to the Confederate States, he refused, giving as a reason, that
+England, France, and himself, had not yet recognised the Southern
+Confederacy, stating, also, that he had voluntarily taken the oath of
+allegiance to the United States Government, which he regarded as
+binding--this in North Mississippi.
+
+Specification 3d. That said Aughey was acting as a Federal agent in the
+purchase of cotton, and had received from the United States Government a
+large amount of gold, to pay for the cotton purchased.
+
+Second charge--_Acting as a spy_.
+
+Specification 1st. That said Aughey, while a citizen of the Confederate
+States, repeatedly came into our lines for the purpose of obtaining
+information for the benefit of the enemy, and that he passed through the
+lines of the enemy at pleasure, holding an unlimited pass from General
+Nelson, granting that privilege--this in the vicinity of Corinth,
+Mississippi.
+
+Witnesses, ---- Wallace, Dan Barnes, Ferdinand Woodruff, ---- Williams,
+David Huff.
+
+I demanded a copy of the charges, which Colonel Walter promised to
+furnish.
+
+About three o'clock in the afternoon, I went to a couple of prisoners who
+were heavily ironed; they were handcuffed, had a chain on their legs
+similar to mine, and were chained together to a post, or to some fixture
+at the side of the jail. I inquired for what offence they were
+incarcerated.
+
+The prisoner whom I addressed was a tall gentleman, with a very
+intellectual countenance, and of prepossessing manners. He was somewhat
+pale, and wore a sad countenance. He replied:
+
+"We are charged with desertion."
+
+"Did you desert?"
+
+"I enlisted in the Confederate service for twelve months. At the
+expiration of my term of service, I asked permission to return home,
+stating that my family were suffering for the necessaries of life; that
+they lived in Tennessee, which is occupied by Federal troops. Confederate
+bonds are there not worth the paper on which they are printed; provisions
+are scarce, and my family have not the means of purchasing. I wish to
+relieve their wants, and as my term of service has expired, I wish a
+discharge. This they refused, stating that the Confederate Congress had
+passed a law requiring all troops who had enlisted for any term, however
+short, to be held to service during the war, and all who left before that
+time would be considered guilty of desertion, and if arrested, would be
+shot. I attempted to return to my family, regarding the law a tyrannical
+enactment. I was arrested and committed to this prison."
+
+"What will be your fate?"
+
+"I know not, but fear the worst."
+
+I learned that the other prisoner had about the same statement to make,
+and was also in dread of capital punishment. I left them and walked to the
+opposite side of the prison, when I observed a file of soldiers drawn up
+in front of the building. Two officers entered, and walking up to the two
+prisoners whom I had just left, unfastened their chains, and ordered them
+to follow. One of the prisoners asked whether he should bring his blanket.
+"No," replied the officer, in a jocular tone; "you have no more need for a
+blanket in this world."
+
+On reaching the door, the soldiers separated, received the prisoners in
+their midst, closed up, and marching them across the railroad, shot them.
+As the officers passed Captain Bruce, he asked where the prisoners were
+going. They replied, "Going to be shot!" and showed him the warrant for
+their execution, having written across it, in red letters, "_Condemned to
+death!_"
+
+Thus was perpetrated an act of cruel tyranny, which cries loudly to Heaven
+for vengeance. Two families, helpless and destitute, were thus each
+deprived of its head, on whom they were dependent for support, and
+abandoned to the cold charity of a selfish world. The wages they earned by
+a year's faithful service in behalf of the wicked, cruel, and vindictive
+Confederate States, was an ignominious death and a dishonoured grave. Will
+not God visit for this? The widow and the fatherless cry to Heaven for
+vengeance, and their cries have entered into the ears of the Lord of
+Sabaoth.
+
+On Tuesday morning, six young men, who had been arrested for their Union
+sentiments, resolved to escape. Their plan was to enlist in the
+Confederate service, then to desert on the first opportunity, and make
+their way to the Federal lines. They consulted me as to the propriety of
+taking the oath of allegiance under these circumstances. Such a step would
+give them another chance for life; but were they to profess adherence to
+their Union principles, they had no hope of living many days. If permitted
+to enlist, they thought there was little doubt of their escape in a few
+days; and should a battle take place, no Federal soldiers would be injured
+by them, and an opportunity to desert might occur during the engagement. I
+drew up a paper for them, requesting permission to enlist in a company
+which they specified. Their petition was granted by the authorities, and
+they were removed from prison to the camp. I feel confident that ere this,
+they are safe in the Federal lines, for they knew the whole country, so as
+to be able to travel by night or by day, with little danger of detection.
+They had all been arrested at their homes by the Rebel cavalry. They were
+bitter in sentiment against the military usurpation, self-styled the
+Confederate States of America.
+
+This (Tuesday) evening, Colonel Walter called again, to give me a copy of
+the charges against me. He informed me that my trial had been deferred
+till Monday, the 15th inst. He also informed me in advance, that I must
+die, and that, doubtless, on the day after the trial. I asked and obtained
+permission to send for the Rev. Dr. Lyon, of Columbus, Mississippi, to be
+present at my execution. Dr. Lyon and I were co-presbyters, both being
+members of the Tombeckbee Presbytery. Colonel Walter was a renegade
+Yankee. Coming from Michigan to Mississippi, he married the daughter of a
+wealthy slave-holder. Obtaining through her the control of a large number
+of slaves, he became a very ultra advocate of the peculiar institution,
+and a rabid secessionist.
+
+Soon after Colonel Walter left, Colonel Ware came in, and asked me if I
+had been President of a Female College in Rienzi. I replied in the
+affirmative. 'Tis strange, said he, that one who has been so favoured, and
+one who has accumulated property in the South, should prove a traitor to
+the land of his adoption, and side with his enemies. I replied that I had
+given a fair equivalent for every dollar I had obtained from the citizens
+of the South; that for eleven years I had laboured faithfully as a teacher
+and minister of the gospel to promote the educational and spiritual
+interests of the Southern people; and that now I was receiving my reward
+in being chained, starved, and insulted; and that they intended soon to
+pay the last instalment by putting me to death ignominiously on the
+scaffold; I also denied being an enemy to the South. I regarded those who
+imperilled all her best interests, and plunged her into a protracted and
+desolating war, as the real enemies of the South. If my advice had been
+followed, the South and the whole country would now be enjoying its wonted
+peace and prosperity. He only replied with cursing and vituperation.
+
+Believing my end to be near, I sat down upon the floor of my dungeon, and
+penned the following letter to my wife.
+
+    TUPELO MILITARY DUNGEON, July 10th, 1862.
+
+    MY DEAR MARY--The Confederate authorities announce to me that I have
+    only a few more days to live. When you receive this letter, the hand
+    that penned it will be cold in death. My soul will have passed the
+    solemn test before the bar of God; I have a good hope through grace
+    that I will be then rejoicing amid the sacramental host of God's
+    elect, singing the new song of redeeming love in the presence of Him
+    who is the Chief among ten thousand, and the one altogether lovely.
+    Mary, meet me in heaven, where sorrow, and crying, and sin are not
+    known, and where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at
+    rest. I will request your brother Ramsey, and cousin, Captain
+    Tankersley, to convey my body to you. Bury me in the graveyard at
+    Bethany. Plant an evergreen--a cedar--at my head, and one at my feet,
+    and there let me repose in peace, till the Archangel's trump shall
+    sound, calling the dead to the judgment of the great day, and
+    vouchsafing to saints the long wished-for "redemption of the body."
+
+    As to my property, it has all been confiscated; and after years of
+    incessant toil, I leave you penniless and dependent; but trust in God.
+    To his protecting care I commit you and our dear little Kate, who has
+    promised that he will be the widow's husband, and the father of the
+    fatherless. Rest assured, the Lord will provide. Only trust in him,
+    and love him with your whole heart, and soul, and mind, and strength.
+    "I know that it shall be well with those that love God." Be not
+    faithless, but believing, and though clouds and thick darkness
+    surround you at present, a more auspicious day will dawn, and God will
+    bring you safely to your journey's end, and our reunion in heaven will
+    be sweet.
+
+    Our dear little daughter, Kate, bring up in the nurture and admonition
+    of the Lord. Teach her to walk in wisdom's ways, for her ways are ways
+    of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. Her mind may be compared
+    to wax, in its susceptibility for receiving impressions, and to
+    marble, for its power of retaining those impressions. O that she may
+    be satisfied early with the mercy of God, that she may rejoice and be
+    glad all her days! Teach her to remember her Creator in the days of
+    her youth, before the evil days come, in which she shall say, I have
+    no pleasure in thee. Make the Bible her constant study, and let its
+    words be as household words to her. Inspire her mind with a reverence
+    for _the Book_ which is able to make wise unto salvation. See to it
+    that the words of Christ dwell richly in her soul, that she may be
+    filled with wisdom, and knowledge, and spiritual understanding. Pray
+    for the Holy Spirit to bless your labours and instructions, without
+    which all your efforts would be in vain, and pray that the Third
+    Person of the adorable Trinity may take up his abode in her heart, and
+    dwell with her for ever.
+
+    As my duties in regard to instructing our child, will devolve solely
+    on you, take for your guidance, in this respect, Deut. vi. 5-9. Let
+    your example be such as you would wish her to follow. Children are
+    much more inclined to follow example than precept. Exercise care in
+    this respect, for, "as is the mother, so is her daughter."
+
+    I regret my family will, from the force of circumstances, be compelled
+    to remain in a land where my death will be considered disgraceful, but
+    it cannot be avoided. The time may come when, even in Mississippi, I
+    may be regarded as a patriot martyr. My conscience is void of offence,
+    as regards the guilt attached to the charges made against me. I am
+    charged with treason against the Confederate States. The charge and
+    the specifications are true, except that I was not a Federal agent in
+    the purchase of cotton. That was a private arrangement altogether. I
+    am also charged with acting as a spy. The specifications under this
+    charge are false. I think that this accusation was made to prevent
+    retaliation by the Federal generals; and in the Rebel army they are
+    not at a loss to prove any charge, however false. Ferdinand Woodruff
+    is their tool to prove me a spy, and he will do it, though he knows
+    his testimony to be as false as that of the suborned witnesses who
+    bore testimony against the Saviour.
+
+    How long shall the wicked triumph? How long will God forbear to
+    execute that vengeance which is his, and which he will repay sooner or
+    later! I feel confident that the right cause will prevail, and though
+    I will not live to see it, for my days are numbered, yet I firmly
+    believe that the rebel power will be destroyed utterly.
+
+        "Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again;
+          The eternal years of God are hers;
+        But error, wounded, writhes in pain,
+          And dies amid her worshippers."
+
+    I write this letter amid the din and confusion incident to a large
+    number of men crowded into a narrow compass, and free from all
+    restraint. This letter will be transmitted to you by friends. The
+    names of those friends you will know hereafter. They will present your
+    case to General Rosecrans or Nelson, who may obtain a pension for you.
+    My services heretofore in the Union cause are known to them, and I
+    think they will see that you do not suffer; all my real estate will
+    be restored to you if the Union cause triumphs, and I think there is
+    no doubt as to its success. Give my love to all my friends. Remember
+    that I have prayed for you unceasingly during my imprisonment, and my
+    last utterances on earth will be prayers for your welfare.
+
+    Farewell. God bless you, and preserve you and our dear little Kate.
+
+    Your affectionate husband,
+
+        JOHN H. AUGHEY.
+
+I next wrote my obituary, which I placed in the hands of a Union soldier
+who expected soon to be exchanged. By him it was to be sent to the editors
+of _The Presbyterian_, published in Philadelphia, with a request that it
+should appear in their columns.
+
+OBITUARY.
+
+Died, in Tupelo, Ittawamba county, Mississippi, July --, 1862, the Rev.
+John H. Aughey. The subject of the above notice was executed on the
+gallows, by authority of the Confederate States, on the charges of treason
+and acting as a spy.
+
+John H. Aughey was born in New Hartford, Oneida county, New York, May 8th,
+1828; removed with his parents to Steubenville, Ohio, in 1837; is an
+alumnus of Franklin College, New Athens, Harrison county, Ohio; studied
+theology in Memphis, Tennessee, under the Rev. John H. Gray, D. D.,
+President of Memphis Synodical College--also under the care of the Rev. S.
+I. Reid of Holly Springs, Mississippi; was licensed to preach the gospel
+by the Presbytery of Chickasaw, October 4th, 1856; was ordained to the
+full work of the gospel ministry by the Presbytery of Tombeckbee, at its
+session in Winston county, Mississippi, in April, 1861. God blessed his
+labours by giving him many seals to his ministry. After labouring eleven
+years in the South as a teacher and minister of the gospel, having never
+injured a citizen of the South either in person or property, he suffered a
+felon's death for attachment to the Federal Union, because he would not
+turn traitor to the government which had never in a single instance
+oppressed, but had always afforded him protection. He rests in peace, and
+in the hope of a blessed immortality.
+
+      "Leaves have their time to fall,
+  And flowers to wither in the north wind's breath,
+      And stars to set; but all--
+  Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!"
+
+ADDRESS TO MY SOUL.
+
+O my soul! thou art about to appear in the presence of thy Creator, who is
+infinite, eternal, unchangeable in his being, power, wisdom, holiness,
+justice, goodness, and truth. He cannot look upon sin. He is a
+sin-avenging God, and thou art stained with sin. Thy transgressions are as
+numerous as the stars of heaven, and the sand that is upon the sea-shore.
+Thou art totally debased by sin, and thy iniquities abound. Thou art
+guilty of sins of omission and of commission. Justice would consign thee
+to everlasting burnings, to dwell with devouring fire, even to everlasting
+destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power.
+Guilty, helpless, wretched as thou art, what is thy plea why sentence of
+eternal death should not be pronounced against thee?
+
+THE SOUL'S REPLY.
+
+I plead the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood cleanses from
+_all_ sin, even from sins of the deepest dye. I plead the sufferings of
+Him who bore my sins in his own body, on the tree, and wrought out a
+perfect righteousness, which I may obtain by simple faith. No money, no
+price is demanded. This I could not pay, for all my righteousness is as
+filthy rags, and I must perish, were any part of the price demanded.
+Nothing in my hand I bring. My salvation must be _all_ of grace, or to me
+it would be hopeless. I trust that Christ will clothe me in the spotless
+robes of his own righteousness, and present me faultless before his
+Father. With this trust, I go to the judgment-seat, assured that the soul
+which trusts in Christ shall never be put to shame. God is faithful who
+has promised.
+
+    MILITARY DUNGEON, Tupelo,
+    Ittawamba Co., Miss., July 11th, 1862.
+
+    DEAR PARENTS--"Life is sweet, and it is a pleasant thing to behold the
+    sun." "All that a man hath, will he give for his life." "Having
+    promise of the life that now is." "The life is more than meat." "They
+    hunt for the _precious_ life." The above quotations from the Word of
+    Life, show the high estimate that is placed upon life. My life is not
+    "_precious_" in the eyes of the Secessionists, for their authorities
+    declare that "my chances for living long are extremely slender." "Yet
+    a few days, and me the all-beholding sun shall see no more in all his
+    course." Mourn not for me, my dear parents, as those who have no hope.
+    "For me to live, is Christ; but to die, is gain." I fear not those
+    who, when they have killed the body, have no more that they can do.
+    But I fear Him whose fear casteth out every other fear. When these
+    lines are read by you, their author will be an inhabitant of the
+    Celestial City, the New Jerusalem, and will be reposing in Abraham's
+    bosom, in the midst of the Paradise of God. Next to God, my thanks are
+    due to you, for guiding my infant feet in the paths of wisdom and
+    virtue. In riper years, by precept, I have been warned and instructed.
+    By example I have been led, until my habits were fixed, and then,
+    accompanied by your parental blessing, I sought a distant home, to
+    engage in the arduous duties of life. Whatever success I have met
+    with, whatever influence for good I may have exerted, are all due to
+    your pious training. I owe you a debt of gratitude which I can never
+    repay. Though I cannot, God will grant you a reward lasting as
+    eternity. It will add to that exceeding and eternal weight of glory
+    which will be conferred on you in that day when the heavens shall be
+    dissolved, and the elements melt with fervent heat. I die for my
+    loyalty to the Federal Government. I know that you would not have me
+    turn traitor to save my life. Life is precious, but death, even death
+    on the scaffold, is preferable to dishonour. Remember me kindly to all
+    my friends. Tell sisters Sallie, Mary, and Emma, to meet me in heaven.
+    I know that _my_ Redeemer liveth. Dying is but going home. I have
+    taught many how to live, and now I am called to teach them how to die.
+    May God grant that as my day is, so may my strength be, and that, in
+    my last moments, I may not bring dishonour upon my Master's cause,
+    but may glorify him in the fires!
+
+    My dear parents, farewell till we meet beyond the river.
+
+        Your affectionate son,
+        JOHN H. AUGHEY.
+
+    TO DAVID AND ELIZABETH AUGHEY,
+    Amsterdam, Jefferson Co., Ohio.
+
+The following letter was written to the Hon. William H. Seward in behalf
+of the Union men in prison and within the rebel lines.
+
+    CENTRAL MILITARY PRISON, Tupelo,
+    Ittawamba Co., Mississippi, July 11th, 1862.
+
+    Hon. William H. Seward:
+
+    DEAR SIR--A large number of citizens of Mississippi, holding Union
+    sentiments, and who recognise no such military usurpation as the
+    so-called Confederate States of America, are confined in a filthy
+    prison, swarming with vermin, and are famishing from hunger--a
+    sufficient quantity of food not being furnished us. We are separated
+    from our families, and suffered to hold no communication with them.
+    We are compelled, under a strong guard, to perform the most menial
+    services, and are insulted on every occasion by the officers and
+    guards of the prison. The nights are very cool; we are furnished with
+    no bedding, and are compelled to lie down on the floor of our dungeon,
+    where sleep seldom visits us, until exhausted nature can hold out no
+    longer; then our slumbers are broken, restless, and of short duration.
+    Our property is confiscated, and our families left destitute of the
+    necessaries of life; all that they have, yea, all their living, being
+    seized upon by the Confederates, and converted to their own use. Heavy
+    fetters are placed upon our limbs, and daily some of us are led to the
+    scaffold, or to death by shooting. Many of us are forced into the
+    army, instant death being the penalty in case of refusal; thus
+    constraining us to bear arms against our country, to become the
+    executioners of our friends and brethren, or to fall ourselves by
+    their hands.
+
+    These evils are intolerable, and we ask protection, through you, from
+    the United States Government. The Federal Government may not be able
+    to release us, but we ask the protection which the Federal prisoner
+    receives. Were his life taken, swift retribution would be visited upon
+    the rebels by a just retaliation--a rebel prisoner would suffer death
+    for every Federal prisoner whom they destroyed. Let this rule hold
+    good in the case of Union men who are citizens of the South. The loyal
+    Mississippian deserves protection as much as the loyal native of
+    Massachusetts. We ask, also, that our confiscated property be restored
+    to us, or, in case of our death, to our families. If it be destroyed,
+    let reparation be demanded from the rebels, or the property of known
+    and avowed secessionists sequestered to that use.
+
+    Before this letter reaches its destination, the majority of us will
+    have ceased to be. The writer has been informed by the officers that
+    "his chances for living long are very slender;" that he has confessed
+    enough to cause him to lose his life, and the Judge Advocate has
+    specified Tuesday, the 15th inst., as the day of his execution. We
+    have, therefore, little hope that we, individually, can receive any
+    benefit from this petition, though you regard it favourably, and
+    consent to its suggestions; but our families, who have been so cruelly
+    robbed of all their substance, may, in after time, receive
+    remuneration for their great losses. And if citizens of avowed
+    secession proclivities, who are within the Federal lines, are arrested
+    and held as hostages for the safety of Union men who are and may be
+    hereafter incarcerated in the prison in Tupelo and elsewhere, the
+    rebels will not dare put another Union man to death.
+
+    Hoping that you will deem it proper to take the matters presented in
+    our petition under advisement, we remain, with high considerations of
+    respect and esteem, your oppressed and imprisoned fellow-citizens,
+
+        JOHN H. AUGHEY,
+        BENJAMIN CLARKE,
+        JOHN ROBINSON,
+        and thirty-seven others.
+
+Two young men informed me to-day that they had been forced into the rebel
+service. They had been taken prisoners at Corinth by General Pope, and had
+taken the oath of allegiance to the Federal Government, to which their
+hearts had always been loyal. Recently they had been arrested, and on
+refusing to rejoin their regiment, were immured in this dungeon. From the
+threats of the officers, they expected to be shot at any moment. They had
+used every means to banish the thoughts of death--had forced themselves to
+engage in pleasantry and mirth to drive away the sadness and gloom which
+oppressed them when alone, and recalled the pleasures of their happy
+homes--homes which they would never see again. I counselled them to
+prepare to meet their God in peace; to wisely improve the short time
+granted them to make their calling and election sure. They replied that
+they hoped all would be well. They had long since confessed Christ before
+men, and hoped for salvation through his merits. Still, they could not
+help feeling sad in the near prospect of death. They left me to mingle
+with a group of prisoners, who were endeavouring to dissipate the tedium,
+and vary the monotonous routine of prison life, by "telling stories."
+Captain Bruce led off by telling the following Irish story:
+
+"Once upon a time, an Irishman, who rejoiced in the possession of a fine
+mare and a colt, wished to cross the Mississippi river at Baton Rouge with
+them. By some mishap, they were all precipitated from the ferry-boat into
+the water. The Irishman, being unable to swim, grasped the colt's tail,
+hoping thus to be carried to the shore. Some of the passengers called out
+to him: 'Halloo, Pat, why don't you take hold of the mare's tail; she is
+much stronger, and much more able to carry you safely to the shore.' 'O,
+be jabers!' says Pat, 'this is no time for swapping horses.'" This tale
+was received with applause.
+
+Baltimore Bill, a real Plug-ugly, told his story next, as follows: "Two
+Irishmen, immediately after their arrival in America, found a gun. After
+long inspection, they concluded it was some kind of musical instrument,
+and wishing to hear the music, it was agreed that Jimmie should blow at
+the muzzle, while Pat worked with the 'fixins' at the breech. At it they
+went. Soon the gun went off, and Jimmie fell down, shot dead. 'Och!' says
+Pat, 'are you charmed at the first note?'" This story was received with
+loud bursts of laughter. An officer then entered, and ordered us to be
+quiet, forbidding us to narrate any more tales.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+EXECUTION OF UNION PRISONERS.
+
+    Resolved to Escape--Mode of Executing Prisoners--Removal of
+    Chain--Addition to our Numbers--Two Prisoners become Insane--Plan of
+    Escape--Proves a Failure--Fetters Inspected--Additional
+    Fetters--Handcuffs--A Spy in the Disguise of a Prisoner--Special
+    Police Guard on Duty--A Prisoner's Discovery--Divine Services--The
+    General Judgment--The Judge--The Laws--The Witnesses--The
+    Concourse--The Sentence.
+
+
+On Friday morning, the twelfth of July, as I lay restless and sore,
+endeavouring to find some position which would be sufficiently easy to
+permit me to enjoy, even for a few moments, the benefit of "Tired nature's
+sweet restorer, balmy sleep," the thought occurred that it would be well
+to attempt an escape, though it should result in death from the fire of
+the guards, which would be far preferable to death by strangling at the
+rope's end, and in the presence of a large concourse of rebel enemies.
+Their method of shooting was, to dig a hole, and make the victim sit with
+his legs hanging in it. The soldiers would fire three balls through the
+brain, and three through the heart; then the mangled and bleeding body
+fell into the grave, and was immediately covered with earth. At first,
+coffins were used, but of late, these had been dispensed with, owing to
+the increased expense, and the increasing number of executions.
+
+I had not long meditated upon this subject, when I arose, fully resolved
+on death or liberty. My intentions were communicated to several prisoners,
+who promised me all the aid in their power. My fetters were examined, and
+it was concluded, that with proper instruments my bands could be divested
+of the iron which secured the chain-rings. A long-handled iron spoon, a
+knife, and an old file, were obtained, and two were detached at a time to
+work on my fetters. We went to one side of the building, and a sufficient
+number of prisoners stood in front of us, to prevent the guard from
+noticing our proceedings. Our locations were changed frequently, to
+prevent detection; and when an officer entered, labour was suspended till
+his exit.
+
+We called General Bragg, Robespierre; General Jordan, Marat; and General
+Hardee, Danton. Several prisoners were led out and shot to-day. The
+majority of them were Union men. Six Union men were committed to jail
+to-day. The horrors of our situation were sufficient to render two of
+these victims insane. A reign of terror had been inaugurated, only
+equalled, in its appalling enormity, by the memorable French Revolution.
+Spies and informers, in the pay of the Rebel government, prowl through the
+country, using every artifice and strategy to lead Union men to criminate
+themselves, after which they are dragged to prison and to death. The
+cavalry dash through the country, burning cotton, carrying off the
+property of loyal citizens, and committing depredations of every kind.
+
+Several prisoners resolved to attempt an escape with me. Our plan was, to
+bring in the axe with which we split wood for cooking, and raise a plank
+in the floor, a sufficient number to stand around those who lifted it, to
+prevent observation, and then make our way out among the guards, who were
+off duty on the north side of the building. At this time there were three
+guards in front of each door, and two on the south side of the building.
+On the north side of the building, there were no guards on duty, for, if
+the other three sides were securely guarded, the prisoners could not
+escape on the north side. There were, however, several hundred guards,
+who, when off duty, slept on this side of the prison. When their turn
+came, they went on duty; and those who were relieved, came there to sleep.
+They were coming and going all the time, and during the whole night, they
+kept up an incessant noise.
+
+After the unremitting labour of my friends during the day, I found that I
+could slip my chain off and on at pleasure. The sun was now setting, but
+the axe had not been brought in. At this time a guard was stationed in
+each door; the favourable moment had passed; none dared to bring the axe
+past the guard. While deliberating on the best course to pursue--as
+raising a plank had proved a failure for the present--General Jordan and
+Colonel Clare entered. I was standing with others in the middle of the
+floor. General Jordan came directly to me; either accidentally or
+intentionally, he held up a light to my face. "Ah! you are here yet," said
+he. I gave an affirmative nod. "Well," said he to Colonel Clare, "I must
+examine this fellow's irons." Putting his hand down, and ascertaining that
+they had been tampered with, he endeavoured, ineffectually, to pull the
+bands off; he did not notice that I could slip the chain-rings off. "These
+irons," said he, "are very insecure; who helped you to put them in this
+condition?" I made no reply. After waiting until he found I intended none,
+he continued: "Colonel Clare, have these irons secured in the morning;
+also put handcuffs on him, and chain him, so as to confine him to one
+locality; the gallows shall not be cheated of their due." Having given
+these orders, they passed out. As soon as they were gone, the prisoners
+who had aided me crowded around, stating that they believed there was a
+spy in the house, in the guise of a prisoner, and declaring that I must
+escape that night, or it would be too late. All realized that on to-morrow
+there would be no hope.
+
+There were eleven guards on duty--three in front of each door, one in each
+door, two on the south side of the building, and at night one passing back
+and forth through the centre of the prison, which was lighted during the
+whole night. There was also a special police guard on duty that night, as
+five Federal prisoners, who remained in our prison until some formalities
+were gone through with, would be sent in the morning to the prison at
+Columbus, Mississippi, and it was feared they might attempt to escape ere
+they were sent further south.
+
+At this juncture, a young man ran up and informed me that he had made a
+discovery which might result in my escape; I must go alone, however, and
+though they would aid me, they would run great risk in doing so. Only
+four could assist, and he would volunteer to be one of them. Several
+others immediately volunteered, of whom three were selected by M----, and
+the plan then communicated. At this moment, Captain Bruce announced that
+the hour for divine worship had arrived. I asked my friends whether I
+should plead indisposition, and dispense with the services for that time.
+They replied that it might lead to suspicion, and advised me to give them
+a short sermon. I went to my usual place of standing, clanking my chains
+as heretofore. I give a synopsis of the sermon.
+
+The text was 2 Cor. v. 10: "We must all appear before the judgment-seat of
+Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according
+to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad."
+
+The doctrine of a general judgment was revealed to mankind at a very early
+period of the world's history. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied,
+saying, "Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to
+execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among
+them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of
+all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him."
+Job declares: "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at
+the latter day upon the earth." Daniel also speaks of a general judgment:
+"I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did
+sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the
+pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning
+fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand
+thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood
+before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened." The New
+Testament is also explicit in its declarations that God hath appointed a
+day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he
+hath ordained. The text declares that we must all appear before the
+judgment-seat of Christ.
+
+The scenes which will usher in the judgment of the great day will be of
+the most magnificent character. "The heavens shall pass away with a great
+noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and
+the works that are therein, shall be burned up." This does not indicate
+annihilation. God will never annihilate any of his creatures, animate or
+inanimate.
+
+The inquiry is often made, what becomes of the soul after death, and where
+does it await the general judgment? A sect called the Soul-sleepers, take
+the position that the soul, after death, goes into a torpid state, like
+bears in winter, and thus remains till the sounding of the Archangel's
+trump. There is no Scripture to sustain this view, and it is only assumed,
+to avoid the objection that God would not judge a soul, and send it to
+reward or punishment, and then bring it back, to be again judged. That the
+soul, at death, passes immediately into glory or torment, is proved by
+many scriptures. Paul "desired to depart, and be with Christ, which was
+far better," than remaining on earth. He declares that to be present with
+the body, is to be absent from the Lord. The dying Stephen calls upon the
+Lord Jesus to receive his spirit. These holy men would not thus have
+spoken, if they supposed that ages must elapse ere they entered heaven.
+God is not the God of the dead or torpid, but of the living. Moses and
+Elias appeared on the mount of transfiguration in a state far from
+torpidity. The dying thief received the promise, "This day shalt thou be
+with me in paradise." No mention is made of Purgatory or torpidity. The
+objector urges that paradise is not heaven. We are told that the river of
+life flows from the throne of God, that the tree of life grows on both
+sides of the river, and that the tree of life grows in the midst of the
+paradise of God. The paradise of God is where he is seated on his throne,
+which is heaven. Paradise is where Christ is. The thief would be with
+Christ in paradise. He who regards the Lord Jesus as the Chief among ten
+thousand, the One altogether lovely, will deem his presence heaven indeed.
+As to the wicked, it is said of the rich man, that in hell he lifted up
+his eyes, being in torment. If, after being judged, the souls of
+believers, do pass immediately into glory, and the wicked into torment,
+what use is there of another or general judgment. I reply, We are
+responsible not only for our acts, but for the influence which those acts
+exert through all time. Gibbon, Hume, Rosseau, Paine, and other infidel
+writers, wrote works which, during the life of the authors, did great
+evil. If those wicked men passed away from earth impenitent, they are now
+suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. But the influence for evil, of
+those wicked works, did not cease with the death of their authors.
+Thousands of young men every year are led into pernicious and hurtful
+errors by their perusal. At the general judgment, the accumulated guilt,
+for the baleful influence exerted through their writings in all time, will
+sink them deeper in the flames of perdition. The sainted Alexander, and
+other pious men who are now in heaven, wrote many works whose influence
+for good was great while their authors lived; and since their death they
+are, and will continue to be, instrumental in the hand of God in turning
+many to righteousness. All the good accomplished by their writings,
+through all time, will, at the judgment, add to their exceeding and
+eternal weight of glory.
+
+In this life, we often see the righteous man contending with life's
+unnumbered woes; all the dealings of Providence seem to be adverse. While
+the wicked are in great power, they flourish in life, like the green
+bay-tree, and have no bands in their death. These things are strange and
+mysterious. We understand them not now; but we shall learn, in that great
+day, when all mysteries are made plain, that God's dealings were just,
+both with the righteous and the wicked.
+
+The text declares that _we_ must all appear before the judgment-seat of
+Christ. This _we_ includes all who are now within the sound of my voice,
+and not only us, but all who live upon the face of the earth; and the
+Archangel's trump will wake the pale nations of the dead, and summon them
+to judgment. The dark domain of hell will be vacated, and the angels that
+kept not their first estate, and are now reserved in chains of darkness,
+will appear in the presence of the Judge. Heaven's holy inhabitants will
+be present. Thus heaven, earth, and hell, will be represented in that
+august assemblage. The scene will bear some resemblance to that which
+takes place in our earthly courts. The Lord Jesus Christ will be the
+Judge, and the angels and saints will be the jurors, who will consent to
+and approve of the acts of the Judge. The angels will be the officers who
+will summon, from the prison-house of hell, the devils, to the trial, and
+also those wicked men who will call upon the rocks and mountains to fall
+upon them, and hide them from the face of the Lamb. Nor, as is so often
+the case with earthly officers, will any be able to elude the vigilance of
+these. They will be clothed with ample power to compel the attendance of
+all; none will escape. We _must all_ appear before the judgment-seat. As
+in earthly courts, law is the basis of judgment, so we shall be judged
+according to law in that day. The heathen will be judged by the law of
+nature--the law written in their hearts, and on their consciences. The
+light of nature teaches the being, wisdom, power, and goodness of God. For
+a violation of this law, they will be beaten with few stripes. The Jews
+will be judged by both the law of nature, which they have, in common with
+the heathen and the Mosaic law. But we who live in the nineteenth century,
+in the full blaze of gospel light, will be judged not only by the light of
+nature and the Mosaic law, which we possess in common with the heathen and
+the Jew, but also by the glorious gospel of the Son of God, which brought
+life and immortality to light; and if condemned, how fearful our doom, who
+are so highly favoured! In earthly courts, we are judged for our overt
+acts alone; but in the court of heaven, the commandment is exceeding
+broad; it reaches every thought. Our words, too, are taken into account.
+We must give an account for every idle word. By our words, we shall be
+justified, and by our words we shall be condemned. Our thoughts, our
+words, our deeds, will all be taken into account.
+
+As in our courts there are witnesses, so also there will be at the bar of
+God. Our pious relatives and friends will bear this testimony, that they
+have prayed with us and for us; that they had a deep concern for our
+souls, and that we who are found on the left hand of the Judge, refused
+all their counsel, and despised their admonitions. Ministers of the gospel
+will testify that they came as ambassadors from the King of kings, and
+beseeching you, in Christ's stead, to be reconciled to God, pointing to
+the coming wrath, and warning you from that wrath to flee; and yet their
+labour of love ye despised, and scorned the message from on high. The
+Bible will be a witness against you. Its teachings are able to make wise
+unto salvation. It is the chart which is given to guide us through this
+wilderness-world, to fairer worlds on high. It tells of the Lamb of God,
+who taketh away the sin of the world. It is truth without any mixture of
+error, and yet you have despised this necessary revelation, and chosen to
+perish, with the Word of Life open before you. God, the Father, will be a
+swift witness against you. In the greatness of his love for you, in the
+counsels of eternity, he devised the plan of salvation, and sent his only
+begotten Son to suffer and die, that you might live, and yet you have
+despised that love, and rejected that Saviour. God, the Son, will bear
+this testimony, that he came from the shining abodes of glory, where
+seraphim and cherubim fell prostrate at his feet, in humble adoration, and
+emptying himself of his glory, bore all the ills of life--the persecutions
+of wicked men, and the accursed death of the cross, that salvation might
+be yours, and yet ye refused it, and trod the blood of the Son of God
+under foot, and put him to an open shame. The Holy Spirit, the Third
+Person of the adorable Trinity, will bear witness that he often knocked at
+the door of your hearts for admittance; that he wooed you to embrace his
+love, offering to abide with you for ever, and yet you rejected the offer,
+and did despite to the Spirit of grace, till, in sorrow, he took his
+everlasting flight.
+
+The devil is now going about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may
+devour, and sometimes transforming himself into an angel of light. He is
+tempting you to sin, by presenting before your minds the superior charms
+of the riches and pleasures of earth, to things that are unseen and
+eternal. He has no power to compel you to sin. His evil suggestions are
+whispered in your oft too willing ears, and then it remains with you to
+accept or reject. He has no power of compulsion. Your sin must be an act
+of your own will, or it is not sin. When you consent to the wiles of this
+arch enemy, and sin against God, remember that with eager desire and base
+ingratitude he will fiercely accuse in the great day of God Almighty, and
+urge these very sins of his suggestion as a reason why he should have you
+to torment you for ever in the bottomless pit.
+
+That internal monitor, that light which enlightens every man that cometh
+into the world--the moral sense, or conscience--will be a swift witness
+against you. By it you have been enlightened and warned; and in the case
+of many who have denied a future state of punishment, the goadings of
+remorse have convinced them that there is a hell, the kindlings of whose
+fires they have felt in their own bosoms. Conscience will compel you to
+confess that your doom is just, though for ever debarred from the joys and
+happiness of heaven. O! my fellow-prisoners and travellers to the bar of
+God, listen to her warning voice to-day, before it be too late, and you
+are compelled mournfully to exclaim, "The harvest is past, the summer is
+ended, and I am not saved!" The conscience of the sinner will be compelled
+to admit the truth of the testimony. In earthly courts, oftentimes
+witnesses are suborned, and their testimony false. Not so at the grand
+assize. Not a scrap of false testimony will be admitted. The evidence will
+be in truth, and the judgment in righteousness.
+
+After all these scenes have occurred, the Judge will render a verdict, and
+pronounce the sentence, which will be irreversible and eternal. With
+regard to the righteous, though they have been guilty of many sins, both
+of omission and commission, and have no merits of their own to plead, and
+consider themselves justly obnoxious to eternal banishment, their
+Advocate, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom, while in the flesh, they
+exercised a true and living faith, will now present them, clad in the
+white robes of his perfect righteousness, faultless before his Father, and
+they will now hear the welcome plaudit, "Come ye blessed, inherit the
+kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." But those on
+the left hand, who all their life rejected the mercy offered--the great
+salvation proffered without money and without price--will now hear the
+dread sentence, "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for
+the devil and his angels!"
+
+O my dear, impenitent fellow-prisoners! how can ye take up your abode,
+your eternal abode, in everlasting burnings? How can ye dwell with
+devouring fire? How can ye endure everlasting destruction from the
+presence of the Lord and the glory of his power, shut up for ever in the
+fearful pit out of which there is no egress except for the vision of the
+damned, and the smoke of its torment? Be wise to-day, 'tis madness to
+defer. Procrastination is the thief of time. Delay is fraught with awful
+danger. Trust not in promises of future amendment. The way to hell is
+paved with good resolutions, which are never kept. The future convenient
+season never arrives. Like Felix, we may tremble when the minister reasons
+of a judgment to come; and like Agrippa, we may be almost persuaded to be
+a Christian, and yet come short of the glory of God through
+procrastination. Procrastination has populated hell. All the doomed and
+damned from Christian lands are victims of this pernicious and destructive
+wile of the devil. It is foolish to procrastinate. Though the Bible teems
+with rich and glorious promises of a hundred-fold blessings in this life,
+and eternal glory in the world to come, to those who break off their sins
+by righteousness, and their transgressions by turning unto the Lord, yet
+all these promises are limited to the present tense. There is not a single
+blessing promised the future penitent. He procrastinates at the risk of
+losing all. Behold, _now_ is the accepted time, and now is the day of
+salvation. _To-day_ if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
+"Ho, every one that thirsteth, _come_ ye to the waters; and he that hath
+no money, _come_ ye, _buy_ and _eat_; yea, _come buy_ wine and milk
+without money and without price." "Seek ye _first_ the kingdom of God and
+his righteousness." "And the Spirit and the Bride say, _come_; let him
+that heareth say, _come_; and let him that is athirst _come_: and
+whosoever will, let him _take_ the water of life freely."
+
+Choose ye _this day_ whom ye will serve. There is no warrant for deferring
+till to-morrow the momentous and eternal interests of the immortal soul.
+The shortness and uncertainty of life furnish a strong reason why we
+should not procrastinate. In the Bible, life is compared to everything
+that is swift, transient, and fleeting in its nature. It is compared to
+the swoop of the eagle hasting to the prey; to the swift post, to the
+bubble on the river. Life is compared in its duration to a year, a day,
+and to nothing, yea, less than nothing, and vanity. All these comparisons
+indicate that it is very brief and evanescent. We have no lease of life;
+we hold it by a very slight tenure; and this is especially true of us in
+our present condition. Confined in prison, some of us led to death every
+day without a moment's warning, every evening I address some who, before
+the next evening, are in eternity. Myself in chains, my life declared
+forfeited, ought we not all to be deeply impressed with the necessity of
+immediate preparation to meet our God? I feel that I am preaching as a
+dying man to dying men, and I beseech you in Christ's stead, be ye
+reconciled to God. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and ye shall be
+saved. Trust in him for salvation, for he is faithful who has promised.
+God has never said to any, seek ye my face in vain. By the love and mercy
+of God, by the terrors of the judgment, by the sympathy and compassion of
+Jesus, I entreat you, my fellow-prisoners, to seek an interest, a present
+interest, in the great salvation!
+
+I close for the present. We shall never all engage in divine service
+together again on earth. We separate--some to go to a distant prison, and
+some to death. May God grant that when we are done with earthly scenes, we
+may all meet in the realms of bliss, where there is in God's presence
+fulness of joy, and at his right hand pleasures for evermore! And may the
+love of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the communion of the
+Holy Spirit, rest and abide with us, and all the Israel of God, now,
+henceforth, and for ever, Amen!
+
+The following hymn was then sung:
+
+  In the sun, and moon, and stars,
+    Signs and wonders there shall be;
+  Earth shall quake with inward wars,
+    Nations with perplexity.
+
+  Soon shall ocean's hoary deep,
+    Tossed with stronger tempests, rise;
+  Wilder storms the mountains sweep,
+    Louder thunders rock the skies.
+
+  Dread alarms shall shake the proud,
+    Pale amazement, restless fear;
+  And, amid the thunder-cloud,
+    Shall the Judge of men appear.
+
+  But though from his awful face,
+    Heaven shall fade, and earth shall fly,
+  Fear not ye, his chosen race,
+    Your redemption draweth nigh.
+
+I preached longer than I had intended, having become so fully engrossed
+with the subject as to forget my chains and my frustrated plans. My
+fellow-prisoners were listening apparently with interest; great solemnity
+prevailed, and penitential tears were flowing. It was evident that the
+Spirit of the living God was in our midst; and though danger and death
+were before our eyes, the consolations of the glorious gospel of the
+blessed God caused our peace to flow like a river. The precious seed was
+sown in tears. May we not entertain a good hope that he who cast the seed
+into this soil, prepared by affliction, shall come again with rejoicing,
+bringing his sheaves with him. By my side stood two in chains, who
+appeared deeply moved. During the day I had conversed with them about
+their souls. They expressed regret that they had not heretofore given this
+matter the attention its importance demanded. Since their imprisonment,
+however, they had been led to feel that they were great sinners, and had,
+as they hoped, put their trust in Christ alone for salvation. I have since
+learned that on the morrow they were shot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+SUCCESSFUL ESCAPE.
+
+    The Second Plan of Escape--Under the Jail--Egress--Among the
+    Guards--In the Swamp--Travelling on the Underground Railroad--The
+    Fare--Green Corn eaten Raw--Blackberries and Stagnant Water--The
+    Bloodhounds--Tantalizing Dreams--The Pickets--The Cows--Become
+    Sick--Fons Beatus--Find Friends--Union Friend No. Two--The night in
+    the Barn--Death of Newman by Scalding--Union Friend No. Three--Bound
+    for the Union Lines--Rebel Soldiers--Black Ox--Pied Ox--Reach
+    Headquarters in Safety--Emotions on again beholding the Old
+    Flag--Kindness while Sick--Meeting with his Family--Richard Malone
+    again--The Serenade--Leave Dixie--Northward bound.
+
+
+After the sermon was concluded, the preparations for my escape were
+commenced. The building used for our prison was built with the front
+toward the east. The doors were at the eastern and western extremities,
+which were the gable ends, one door being in each end. There were also two
+windows at each end, the door being between them. The doors and
+window-sashes had been removed, to allow the guards stationed in front an
+unobstructed view of the interior. At night the apartment was lighted, and
+a guard patrolled the floor; it was, therefore, nearly impossible for a
+person to escape the observation of the guards, either within or without
+the jail. In the North, the houses are usually built with a cellar
+underneath; at the South, such a thing is very rare, the houses being
+built upon the ground, or upon piles. Our prison was built upon piles, the
+floor being elevated about eighteen inches above the ground. The boards
+were nailed upon the building perpendicularly, and in some cases did not
+quite reach to the ground. Small openings were thus left between the floor
+and the ground, through which a person could crawl underneath the
+building. Around each door was an enclosure, formed by stakes surmounted
+with poles, in the shape of a parallelogram, whose dimensions were about
+ten by sixteen feet. In each of these enclosures four guards were
+stationed, one of them being seated in the doorway. The rear enclosure was
+used for cooking purposes; and into both enclosures we were permitted to
+go at pleasure during all hours of the day, and as late at night as ten
+o'clock. Only three prisoners were allowed to be in an enclosure at one
+time.
+
+M---- had discovered a hole by the side of the steps within the front
+enclosure, by which I could get under the building. I felt unwilling to
+make such an attempt, as the aperture was in the immediate vicinity of the
+guards. M---- stated that four others would aid me, though at considerable
+risk on their part. "I'll take the risk," was the individual response of
+all present. M---- selected three, who with himself assumed the perilous
+task, in which discovery would have cost them their lives. M----, who had
+devised the plan of escape, now instructed us in the respective parts we
+were to perform. All promised implicit obedience. At half-past nine, three
+prisoners and myself were to go into the enclosure. They would stand up
+and converse with the guards, whilst I sat upon the ground by the hole, to
+wait for an opportunity to crawl under the building unobserved. This
+opportunity we expected to occur at ten o'clock, when the relief-guard
+came on duty. The duty of one prisoner was to remain inside and engage the
+attention of the guard who sat in the doorway, while the other three would
+go into the enclosure, and entertain the other guards, according to the
+previously devised plan. At half-past nine o'clock, we placed ourselves in
+the designated positions. I readily removed my chain, coiled it up, and
+laid it by the side of a little stump. The moon shone with great
+brilliancy, revealing the tents which surrounded us on every side.
+Officers and soldiers passed hurriedly to and fro. We were in the midst of
+the noise and confusion of a great encampment, as there were in and around
+Tupelo some fifteen thousand soldiers. Mingled sounds of mirth and
+contention proceeded from the surrounding tents. My prisoner friends were
+engaged in a fierce argument with the guards as to the comparative merits
+of Tennessee and Mississippi troops. This was done to divert their
+attention, and I observed with pleasure that they were meeting with
+success. I reflected that a few more moments would decide my fate. If
+detected, my life must end ignominiously and on the gallows. In the
+morning, my anklets would be securely welded. I would also be handcuffed
+and chained to a post. Then all hope must end, and soon my corpse would be
+borne into the presence of her whose tears were flowing, and who refused
+to be comforted because of my ominous absence.
+
+The order for the relief-guard now came loud and clear. I heard their
+hurried tramp, and saw their glittering bayonets in the bright moonlight.
+The set time, the appointed moment, big with my fate, had arrived. I
+offered an ejaculatory prayer to Him who sits upon the throne of heaven
+for protection at this critical moment. The guard stood within ten feet of
+me, with their eyes constantly upon me. Just as they were turning to
+receive the advancing relief-guard, I crawled backward under the building,
+and disappeared from their view. The relief-guard went on duty, and those
+relieved retired. The prisoners were ordered into the house, and as the
+new guards did not know that four were in the enclosure, I was not
+missed.
+
+[Illustration: "Just as they were turning to receive the relief-guard, I
+crawled backward under the building, and disappeared from view." Page
+172.]
+
+I was now under the prison, but there were guards on every side, and the
+jail was in the midst of a camp, so that I was still in great danger of
+detection. I saw, through the crevices in the floor, the guard who
+patrolled the prison. I heard the murmurings and mutterings of the
+prisoners, as he occasionally trod upon them in his carelessness. I could
+hear, though not distinctly, the conversation of the prisoners. One of my
+assistants was detailing to his companions their success in getting me off
+unnoticed. The prisoners slept but little that night, owing to their
+anxiety for my safety, and I frequently heard my name mentioned, and hopes
+for my safety expressed. I occasionally fell into uneasy slumbers, but the
+fleas and other vermin were so annoying, that my sleep refreshed me but
+little. I could distinctly hear the new guard conversing, and among other
+topics, one remarked that he had forgotten the countersign; the other
+replied that it was _Braxton_. Well, said the former, I thought it was
+Bragg, or Braxton, or something like that. Knowing the countersign
+emboldened me, as I could, if halted, give it, and pass on. I soon crawled
+to the north side of the prison, and found that there were three apertures
+sufficiently large to admit of my egress. Upon reaching the first one, I
+found a number of guards, some sitting and some lying so close to it, that
+I dared not make the attempt at that point.
+
+Crawling to the second, I remained till there was comparative quiet; but
+at the instant I was about to pass out, a soldier, who was lying with his
+face toward me, commenced to cough, and continued to do so, at intervals,
+for more than an hour. Finding it unadvisable to run the risk of detection
+at this point, I made my way, with considerable difficulty, to the third
+and last aperture, near the rear of the building, and not very distant
+from the rear-guards. I remained at this aperture till I heard one guard
+say to another that it was three o'clock, and that they must soon go on
+duty. I felt confident that then was my time, or never, as morning would
+find me under the house, and I would be re-arrested in that situation.
+Committing myself into the hands of God, and asking him to keep me from
+detection, and grant me a safe escape, I arose from under the building,
+passed by two sleeping guards, who were lying within three or four feet of
+the prison. As it was my first essay at walking without chains, I reeled,
+as if under the influence of strong drink, striking my foot against the
+head of one of those sleeping guards, who, awaking, turned over, and
+uttering some exclamation of disapprobation, took no further notice of me,
+doubtless mistaking me for one of his companions. After proceeding a few
+steps, I sat down upon the ground among some of the guards. I took out my
+knife, and whistling, to appear as unconcerned as possible, commenced
+whittling a stump, around which they were collected--some sitting, some
+standing, and others reclining. I readily passed for one of them, as I was
+wearing a colored shirt, which resembled that worn by the guards. I soon,
+however, arose, and wound my way among the various groups, endeavouring
+to reach the corn-field, to which I had made my first escape. After
+passing the guards off duty, a sentinel arose a short distance in front of
+me, evidently with the intention of halting me, if I advanced farther.
+Stopping a few minutes, to avoid suspicion, I changed my direction,
+bearing southwest, and after a time, got into the woods. Kneeling down, I
+returned God thanks for thus crowning my efforts with success, and prayed
+for his continuous protection, and that he would choose out my path, that
+I might escape detection, and rejoin my family and friends in safety.
+
+I now pursued my journey rapidly in a southwest direction, choosing that
+which led directly from my home, for two reasons. The cavalry and
+bloodhounds would not be so likely to follow in that direction, and after
+listening, while in prison, to the drum-beat morning and evening, in the
+various surrounding camps, I noticed that it had ceased in the southwest
+for several mornings; hence I supposed that the camp in that direction had
+been broken up, and that, in taking that route, I could more readily get
+beyond the rebel pickets, and then I could change my course, and bear
+northward, and reach the Federal lines at some point on the Memphis and
+Charleston railroad. I hastened on till the sun arose, having passed
+through woods and corn-fields, studiously avoiding all roads, when, as I
+was rapidly travelling along a narrow path, I met a negro. The suddenness
+of our meeting alarmed both. I, in a peremptory tone, addressed him, in
+quick succession, the following interrogatories:
+
+"Where are you going? To whom do you belong? Where have you been? Have you
+a pass?"
+
+"I belong," said the boy, trembling, "to Mr. ----. I have been to wife's
+house; am gwine back home, but I haint got nary pass."
+
+"I suppose it is all right with you?"
+
+"Oh, yes, master! it's all right wid me."
+
+Concluding that it was not all right "wid" myself, I hurried on, soon
+leaving the path, and turning into a dense woods. Travelling on till
+about one P. M., I came to an open country, so extensive that I could not
+go round it, neither could I, in daylight, travel through it with safety.
+I sought out a place to hide, and finding a ditch which bisected a
+corn-field, I concealed myself in that. During the day, negroes and whites
+passed near, without discovering me. Becoming hungry, I ate a small piece
+of the bread which one of my fellow-prisoners had given me, but it made me
+quite sick. On my former escape, I had, just before leaving the house,
+traded pants with a fellow-prisoner, without his knowledge or consent. On
+my return, he refused to trade back. My reason for trading was, to get a
+dark pair, as mine were so light-coloured, I feared the guards would
+discover me more readily. Their owner had been accustomed to use tobacco,
+and the bread had become tinctured with it. Tobacco being very offensive
+to me, its presence on my bread caused me to lose it.
+
+The day passed away, and the night came. The stars came out in silent
+glory, one by one. Fixing my eye upon the pole-star, the underground
+railroad travellers' guide, I set out, bearing a little to the west of
+north. I soon reached the thick woods, and found it very difficult to make
+rapid progress, in consequence of the dense under-growth and obscure
+light. The bushes would strike me in the eyes, and often the top of a
+fallen tree would cause me to make quite a circuit. Soon, however, the
+moon arose in her brightness--the old silver moon. But her light I found
+to be far less brilliant than that of the sun, and her rays were much
+obscured by the dense foliage overhead; hence my progress was necessarily
+slow, laboured, and toilsome. I slept but little during the day, in
+consequence of the proximity of those who might be bitter foes, and also
+the unpleasant position I occupied, as the ditch in which I had concealed
+myself was muddy, and proved an uncomfortable bed. I therefore became
+weary, my limbs stiff from travel and from the pressure of the heavy iron
+bands. Sleep overpowered me, and I laid down in the leaves, and slept till
+the cold awoke me, which, judging from the moon's descent, must have been
+an hour and a half. The nights in Mississippi are invariably cool, however
+hot the days may be. Arising from my uneasy slumber, I pressed on. My
+thirst, which for some time had been increasing, now became absolutely
+unendurable. I knew not where to obtain water, not daring to go near a
+well, through fear of being arrested. At length I heard some suckling pigs
+and their dam, at a short distance from me, in the woods. There seemed to
+be no alternative. I must either perish, or obtain some fluid to slake my
+raging thirst; so I resolved to catch a little pig, cut its throat, and
+drink the blood. I searched for my knife, but I had lost it. I was,
+therefore, reluctantly compelled to abandon my design on the suckling's
+life. As I went forward, the sow and her brood started up alarmed, and in
+their flight, plunged into water. I immediately followed, and found a
+mud-hole. Removing the green scum, I drank deep of the stagnant pool. My
+thirst was only partially quenched by this draught, and soon returned. As
+day dawned, I found some sassafras leaves, which I chewed, to allay the
+pangs of hunger; but they formed a paste which I could not swallow.
+
+I soon after came to an old field, where I obtained an abundant supply of
+blackberries, which not only served to check the gnawings of hunger, but
+also to allay my intolerable thirst. I reflected that this day was the
+holy Sabbath, but it brought neither rest to my weary frame, nor composure
+to my agitated and excited mind. Like Salathiel, the Wandering Jew, the
+word _March!_ was ringing in my ears. Onward! was my motto; Liberty or
+death! my watchword. About ten o'clock I came to an open country, and
+sought out a ditch, in which to conceal myself. Here I fell into a
+troubled sleep. I saw, in dreams, tables groaning under the weight of the
+most delicious viands, and brooks of crystal waters, bubbling and
+sparkling as they rushed onward in their meandering course; but when I
+attempted to grasp them, they served me as they did Tantalus, of olden
+time, by vanishing into thin air, or receding beyond my reach. While lying
+here, I was now and then aroused by the trampling of horses grazing in
+the field, which I feared might be bringing on my pursuers. And once the
+voices of men, mingled with the sounds of horses' feet upon a little
+bridge, some twenty feet distant, induced me to look out from my
+hiding-place, and lo! two cavalry-men--perhaps hunting for my life!--rode
+along.
+
+When the sun had reached the zenith, I was again startled by voices, which
+approached nearer and nearer my place of concealment, till at length the
+cause was discovered. Several children, both black and white, had come
+from a farm-house, about a quarter of a mile distant, to gather
+blackberries along the margin of the ditch. They soon discovered me, and
+seemed somewhat startled and alarmed at my appearance. I soon saw them
+gazing down upon me, in my moist bed, with evident amazement and alarm.
+Pallid, haggard, unshaven, and covered with mud, I must have presented a
+frightful picture.
+
+As soon as the children passed me, fearing the report they would carry
+home, I arose from my lair, and hurried on, though I had to pass in sight
+of several houses. After travelling three or four miles through an open
+champaign country, I came to a dense woods, bordering a stream which had
+ceased running, in consequence of the great drought that had, for a long
+time, prevailed throughout this section of Mississippi. The creek had been
+a large one, and in the deep holes, some water still remained, though
+warm, and covered with a heavy scum, and mingled with the spawn of frogs.
+I drank it, however, from sheer necessity, tepid and unhealthy as it was.
+It did not allay my thirst, but created a nausea, which was very
+unpleasant.
+
+About four o'clock P. M., I was startled by the baying of bloodhounds
+behind me, and apparently on my track. Before escaping from jail, I had
+been advised by the prisoners to obtain some onions, as these, rubbed on
+the soles of my boots, would destroy the scent. They could only be
+procured, however, by a visit to some garden-patch, and I feared to go so
+near a house. I had left no clothes in prison from which the hounds could
+obtain the scent in order to find my track, and my starting in a
+southwest direction was an additional precaution against bloodhounds.
+Their baying soon became alarmingly distinct. Having heard them almost
+every night for years, as they hunted down the fugitive slave, I could not
+mistake the fearful import of their howling. I could devise no plan for
+breaking the trail. Dan Boone, when pursued by Indians, succeeded in
+baffling the hounds by catching at some overhanging branches, and swinging
+himself forward. Negroes often destroy the scent by carrying matches, and
+setting the leaves on fire. One negro of whom I heard, ran along the brink
+of a precipice, and dug a recess back from the narrow path. Crawling into
+it, he remained till the hounds reached that point, when he thrust them
+from the path. They fell and were dashed to pieces on the jagged rocks
+below.
+
+None of these plans were practicable to me, and I supposed death imminent,
+either from being torn to pieces by the hounds, or by being shot by the
+cavalry, who were following them. Climbing a tree, I resolved to await
+the arrival of the cavalry, and having determined to die rather than be
+taken back again to Tupelo, I would refuse to obey any summons to descend.
+O, how I wished for my navy repeater, that I might sell my life as dearly
+as possible! that I might make some secessionist bite the dust ere I was
+slain! I often thought of the couplet in the old song--
+
+  "The hounds are baying on my track,
+  Christian, will you send me back?"
+
+A feeling of strong sympathy arose in my bosom for the poor African, who,
+in his endeavour to escape from the Iron Furnace of Southern slavery,
+often encountered the bloodhounds, and was torn to pieces by them. "A
+fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind."
+
+I had remained but a short time in the tree, when I ascertained that the
+hounds were bearing eastward, and they soon passed at a distance. They
+were on the track of some other poor fugitive, and I rejoiced again in the
+hope of safety. Coming to a corn-field, I plucked two ears of corn, and
+ate them raw, having no matches wherewith to kindle a fire, which, indeed,
+would have increased my peril, as the smoke might advertise my presence to
+bitter and unrelenting foes.
+
+Toward night I lay down in the woods, and fell asleep. Visions of
+abundance, both to eat and drink, haunted me, and every unusual sound
+would startle me. A fly peculiar to the South, whose buzz sounded like the
+voice of an old man, often awoke me with the fear that my enemies were
+near. As soon as Ursa Minor appeared, I took up my line of march. The
+night was very dark, and I became somewhat bewildered. At length I reached
+a crossroads, and as I was emerging from the wood, I saw two pickets a few
+yards from me. Stooping down, I crawled on my hands and knees back into
+the woods. As I retired, I heard one picket say to the other, "Who is
+that?"
+
+He replied, "It is the lieutenant of the guard."
+
+"What does he want?" said the first.
+
+"He is slipping round to see if we are asleep."
+
+After I got a safe distance in the bushes, I lay down and slept till the
+moon arose. To the surprise of my bewildered brain, it seemed to rise in
+the west. Taking my course, I hastened on, sometimes through woods,
+sometimes through cornfields, and sometimes through swamps. Coming to a
+large pasture, in which a number of cows were grazing, I tried to obtain
+some milk, but none of them would allow me to approach near enough to
+effect my purpose. My face was not of the right colour, and my costume
+belonged to a sex that never milked them. I travelled until day-break,
+when I concealed myself in a thicket of cane, and had scarcely fallen
+asleep when I heard the sound of the reveille, in a camp close at hand.
+Arising, I hurriedly beat a retreat, and travelled several hours before I
+dared take any rest. I at length lay down amid the branches of a fallen
+tree, and slept. Visions of home and friends flitted before me. Voices
+sweet and kind greeted me on all sides. The bitter taunts of cruel
+officers no longer assailed my ears. The loved ones at home were present,
+and the joys of the past were renewed. But, alas! the falling of a limb
+dissipated all my fancied pleasures. The reality returned, and I was still
+a fugitive escaping for life, and in the midst of a hostile country.
+
+To-day my mock trial would have taken place, and I fancied the
+disappointment of Woodruff, who had stated that to his knowledge I was a
+spy, and to-day would have sworn it. And Barnes, the mail-robber,
+recommended for promotion because of his heroism in re-arresting me, how
+sad he must feel, that the bird had flown, and that he would not have the
+pleasure of witnessing my execution. I thanked God and took courage.
+Though faint and weary, I was still hopeful and trusting, often repeating,
+
+  "'Tis God has led me safe thus far,
+    And he will bring me home."
+
+On this (Monday) night, I travelled steadily, crossing swamps,
+corn-fields, woods, and pastures. I came to only one cotton-field during
+the night. I passed through several wheat-fields, where the wheat had been
+harvested; I pulled a handful from a shock, and rubbed out some of the
+grain, but it was so bitter I could not eat it. I suspected every bush a
+secessionist, though I felt much more secure at night than in daylight. I
+avoided roads as much as possible, travelling on none except to cross
+them, which was done with great rapidity. The rising sun still found me
+pressing onward, and thirst and hunger were now consuming me. To satisfy
+hunger, I had recourse to the corn-field; but I could find no water. I
+would gladly have drank any kind of beverage, however filthy, so that my
+thirst might be allayed. About nine o'clock, when I had almost despaired
+of getting water at all, I came to a copious fountain in a gorge of the
+hills, and from its appearance, I seemed to be the discoverer. Around it
+there was no trace of human foot, nor hoof of cattle. On beholding it, I
+wept with joy. I remained by it about four hours, quaffing its cool and
+crystal waters, the first running water I had tasted since leaving
+prison. I also bathed my body and washed my clothes, drying them in the
+sun, and endeavoured to rid them of vermin, in which I only partially
+succeeded. I named this fountain _Fons Beatus_, and left it with sincere
+sorrow.
+
+Three o'clock, P. M., arrived, and I felt bewildered. I knew not where I
+was. I might be near friends, I might be near bloodthirsty foes. I could
+scarcely walk. My iron bands had become very irksome. I felt that I was
+becoming childish. I could tell all my bones. I tried to pray, but could
+only utter, "Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner!" Still I felt thankful
+that it was so well with me as it was.
+
+At that very hour, had I not escaped, I should have been either on the
+scaffold at Tupelo, or suspended between heaven and earth, surrounded by
+an insulting and jeering army. This reflection made me thankful to God,
+even though I should die in the swamps. The sky became overcast, and I
+found it impossible to distinguish north from south. I therefore concealed
+myself and slept. It was night when I awoke, and the clouds still covered
+the sky threateningly, concealing my guiding star, and rendering it
+impossible for me to proceed. Thus, when I wished most to go forward, my
+progress was arrested, and my distressing suspense prolonged. During the
+whole night I was asleep and awake alternately, but could not at any time
+discern either moon or stars. Once, while sleeping behind a fallen tree by
+the roadside, a horseman passed by. His dog, a large and ferocious-looking
+animal, came running along by the side of the tree where I was lying. When
+he reached me, I raised up suddenly and brandishing a club menacingly, the
+alarmed and howling dog incontinently and ingloriously fled, leaving me
+master of the field.
+
+On Wednesday morning the sun was still obscured until nine o'clock. I was
+then sick. There was a ringing in my ears, and I was affected with
+vertigo, a dimness of vision and faintness, which rendered me absolutely
+unfit for travel. It required an hour to walk a quarter of a mile. I found
+a good supply of blackberries, which very much refreshed me. Before me
+was a hill, the top of which I reached after two hours' laborious ascent.
+I despaired of getting much further. I thought I must perish in the Iron
+Furnace of secession, which was heated very hot for me. Feeling confident
+that I must be near Tippah county, and knowing that there were many Union
+men in that county, I resolved to call at the first house on my route. If
+I remained where I was, I must perish, as I could go no further, and if I
+met with a Union family, I should be saved; if with "a secesh," I might
+possibly impose upon their credulity, and get refreshment without being
+arrested. They might, however, cause my arrest. It was a dilemma such as I
+hope never to be placed in again. About an hour before sunset I came to a
+house, and remained near it for some time. At length I saw a negro girl
+come to the door. Knowing that where there were negroes, in nine cases out
+of ten there were secessionists near, I left the house as quickly as my
+enfeebled condition would permit. Going to another house, I remained near
+it till I was satisfied there were no negroes held by that family. I then
+went boldly up, knocked, gained admittance, and asked for some water,
+which was given me. The lady of the house, scrutinizing me closely, asked
+me if I were from Tupelo. I replied in the affirmative. She then inquired
+my name. I gave her my Christian name, John Hill, suppressing the surname.
+Her husband was sitting near, a man of Herculean frame; and as the wife's
+inquisitiveness was beginning to alarm me, I turned to him and said: "My
+friend, you are a man of great physical powers, and at this time you ought
+to be in the army. The Yankees are overrunning all our country, and the
+service of every man is needed." His wife replied that he was not in the
+army, nor would he go into it, unless he was forced to go. They had been
+told that the cavalry would be after him in a few days, to take him as a
+conscript; but she considered the conscript law, base and tyrannical.
+Overjoyed at the utterance of such sentiments as these, I then revealed my
+true character. I told them that I had recently made my escape from
+Tupelo, where I was doomed to execution on the gallows, and that I was
+now flying from prison and from death. I then exhibited the iron bands
+upon my ankles. Both promised all the aid in their power. The lady at once
+proposed to prepare supper, but I was too near the point of starvation to
+await the slow process of cooking. She therefore turned down the
+tablecloth, which covered the fragments remaining from dinner, and
+disclosed some corn bread and Irish potatoes. Though I never liked corn
+bread, I must confess I thought that was the sweetest morsel I had ever
+tasted.
+
+After eating a little, however, I became very sick, and was compelled to
+desist. It was so long since I had partaken of any substantial food, that
+my stomach now could not bear it. The lady soon prepared supper,
+consisting of broiled chicken, and other delicacies. The fowl was quite
+small, and I ate nearly the whole of it, much to the chagrin of a little
+daughter of mine host, whom I heard complaining to her mother, afterward,
+in an adjoining room, saying, "Ma, all I got of that chicken was a little
+piece of the wing," and "aint that gentleman a hoss to eat?" with other
+remarks by no means complimentary to my voracious appetite.
+
+After supper, mine host endeavoured to remove the heavy iron bands by
+which my ankles were clasped. This was accomplished after considerable
+labour. I asked him to retain the bands till called for, which he promised
+to do. The good lady furnished me with water and a suit of her husband's
+clothes. After performing a thorough ablution, I donned the suit, and felt
+completely metamorphosed, and was thoroughly disguised, as my new suit had
+been made for a man of vastly larger physical proportions. I spent the
+night with my new friends, during which a heavy thunder-storm passed over.
+Had I been out in the drenching rain in my wretched condition, I must
+surely have perished. In the morning my host informed me of a Union man
+who knew the country in the direction of Rienzi, the point which I now
+determined to reach. This gentleman lived half a mile distant, and my host
+accompanied me to a thicket near his house, where I concealed myself till
+he brought Mr. ---- to me. Said my friend No. 2, "I am not familiar with
+the route to Rienzi, but will go with you to friend No. 3, who I am
+positive is well acquainted with the road. He can take you through the
+woods, so as to avoid the Confederate cavalry. As I undertake this at the
+risk of my life, we must wait till night. I would gladly have you come to
+my house, but I fear that it might transpire through my children that I
+had helped you to escape. I have a large family, and most of 'em is gals,
+and you know gals will talk. You can stay in my barn till I come for you.
+I will carry you provisions during the day, and to-night we will go to my
+friend's."
+
+About three o'clock in the morning, he came with two horses, one of which
+he mounted, and I the other. The horse I rode was a blooded animal, and to
+use my friend's expression, could run like a streak of lightning. I
+provided myself with a good whip, resolving, in case of danger, to put my
+horse to his utmost speed. A short time after daylight, we reached friend
+No. 3, who promised to conduct me to Rienzi. While at his house, I learned
+that a Unionist, Mr. N----, had been killed under circumstances of the
+greatest cruelty. His sentiments had become known to the rebels. He was
+arrested by their cavalry, and refusing to take the oath, they resolved to
+put him to death on the spot. He had a large family of small children,
+who, together with his wife, begged that his life might be spared. He
+himself had no favours to ask of the secessionists. Among his foes, the
+only point of dispute was, as to the mode of his death. Some favoured
+shooting, some hanging; but the prevailing majority were in favour of
+scalding him to death. And there, in the presence of his weeping and
+helpless family, these fiends in human form _deliberately heated water,
+with which they scalded to death their chained and defenceless victim_.
+Thus perished a patriot of whom the State was not worthy. The corpse was
+then suspended from a tree, with a label on the breast, stating that
+whoever cut him down and buried him, should suffer the same fate. My
+companions cut down the corpse by night, and buried it in the forest. May
+God reward them!
+
+My friend No. 3 thought that it would be best to travel in daylight. He
+could follow by-paths, and avoid the rebel cavalry. We started about eight
+o'clock on Friday morning, and met with no incident worth narrating until
+we reached a mill; here we fell in with some six or seven rebel soldiers,
+who had been out on sick furlough, and were returning. They scanned us
+closely, and inquired whence we came, and whither bound. My friend
+specified a neighbourhood from which he affirmed we came, and stated that
+we were hunting stray oxen, asking whether they had seen a black ox and a
+pied ox in their travels. They replied in the negative; and in turn asked
+him who I was. He replied that I was his wife's brother, who had come from
+Alabama about three months ago. They said I looked like "death on a pale
+hoss," and wished to know what was the matter with me--if I were
+consumptive. My friend replied that I had had the chills for several
+months; and as there was no quinine in the country, it was impossible to
+stop them.
+
+During this inquisition, I was ready at any moment to put spur to my
+horse, and run a race for life, had any attempt been made to arrest me, or
+if I had been recognised by any of the soldiers. We were, however,
+permitted to pass on, not without some suspicious glances. We at length
+reached a point ten miles from Rienzi. My guide now insisted on returning.
+It would be morning ere he reached home, and if met by cavalry, he must
+invent some plausible excuse for having a led horse. Nor did he dare
+return by the same route. Knowing the country, I permitted him to return.
+I then set out on foot, and at length reached the Federal pickets, three
+miles from Rienzi, where a horse was furnished me; and about ten o'clock I
+reached the head-quarters of Colonel Misner in Rienzi. When I gazed upon
+the star-spangled banner, beneath whose ample folds there was safety and
+protection--when I saw around me the Union hosts--I shed tears of joy, and
+from the depths of my heart returned thanks to Almighty God, who had
+given me my life at my request, preserving me, amid dangers seen and
+unseen, till I now was safe amid hosts of friends.
+
+Colonel Misner requested me to report all that would be of service to
+General Rosecrans, which I did, he copying my report as I gave it. I
+reported, so far as I was informed, the probable number of troops in and
+around Tupelo, the topography of the country, the probable designs of the
+rebels, the number of troops sent to Richmond under Beauregard, &c. The
+Colonel requested me to go with him to head-quarters in the morning; but
+at the hour specified I was sick, and my physician, Dr. Holley, of the
+Thirty-sixth Illinois, thought it would not be advisable for me to go,
+even in an ambulance. My report, however, was carried up to General
+Rosecrans.
+
+Through proper treatment I recovered in a few days, so as to be able to go
+into Jacinto, the nearest point in the Federal lines to my family. I
+called on General Jefferson C. Davis, who was in command of that post. The
+General had heard of my arrest, and expressed gratification at my safe
+return. I informed him of my desire to get my family within the lines. The
+General immediately proffered me all the cavalry at his command, and
+ordered them to prepare for the expedition. I thankfully accepted his kind
+offer, but after reflection concluded to send a messenger first, with a
+letter to my wife; if he were not intercepted, I knew that she would come
+in as soon as possible. The order to the cavalry was countermanded until
+this plan would be tried. The messenger was not intercepted, and on the
+next day I had the pleasure of beholding my wife and child, whose faces, a
+short time before, I had given up all hope of ever beholding on earth.
+
+While here, I called on my friend, Lieutenant Richard Malone, who resides
+in Jacinto. On inquiring at his house for him, he heard my voice, and ran
+out to the gate to meet me. Grasping my hand, he could not for some time
+control his emotions so as to speak.
+
+Malone gave me his history since we had parted at the outer wall of the
+prison. He reached the corn-field at the point designated, and anxiously
+awaited my arrival until near daylight, when he was compelled to seek
+safety in flight. We had agreed to meet in the corn-field at a place where
+there was a garment suspended upon the fence. We think there must have
+been two garments suspended at different points, and hence our mistake. We
+could not signal loud in consequence of the nearness of the pickets, and
+therefore did not meet. Soon after daylight, Malone found himself in the
+midst of a cavalry company which had encamped there during the night; they
+were making preparations for departure, and the majority of them were
+gathering blackberries. Joining them, he passed as a citizen, and when he
+reached the rear of the company, he gathered some sticks in his arms, and
+started towards a small cabin at a short distance, as if it were his
+residence. Before reaching it, he made a detour to the right, and passed
+into the dense woods. On the next day, about ten o'clock, A. M., he
+reached an open champaign country, through which it would have been
+dangerous to travel. To the west, about three hundred yards distant, was a
+dense woods, which he hoped to reach without detection. While travelling
+down a road for this purpose, four cavalrymen who were in pursuit dashed
+towards him, and ordered him to return with them to Tupelo. Malone
+replied, that as it was useless to resist, he must submit. He asked for
+some water; they had none in their canteens, but went to a house in the
+distance to obtain some. Malone was ordered to march before them, which he
+was compelled to do, though famishing from hunger and thirst. On reaching
+the house, they all went to the well and drew a bucket of water. There
+being no dipper, Malone remarked that he would go into the house and get
+one. One of the guards followed, and stationed himself at the door with
+his gun. Malone went into the house, and immediately passed out at the
+back door. The garden gate being open, he passed into the garden, when he
+commenced running. Two women in the house noticed his running, and
+clapping their hands exclaimed, "Your Yankee's gone! Your Yankee's gone!"
+The guards immediately followed, ordering him to halt, and firing at him
+with their revolvers. Malone quickly reached a corn-field, and soon after
+a swamp, whence he made good his escape, and after various vicissitudes
+reached his family in Jacinto, where I now found him.
+
+I returned to Rienzi with my family, resolved to leave for the North. My
+wife, before leaving her father's, learned, through a letter sent by a
+rebel officer to his wife, that all the guards who were on duty during the
+night I escaped from prison, were placed under close arrest, and were
+still in the dungeon at the time of his writing. There were eleven guards
+on each relief, and three reliefs during the night; there were, therefore,
+thirty-three guards placed under arrest because of my escape.
+
+On the night previous to our departure from Rienzi, we were honoured with
+a serenade, through the politeness of General Granger, of the cavalry, and
+Colonel Bryner, of the Forty-seventh Illinois Regiment. Being called on
+for a speech, I thus responded:
+
+    GENTLEMEN--I return you sincere thanks for the honour intended myself
+    and family. In the language of the last tune played by your band, I
+    truly feel at "home again," and it fills my soul with joy to meet my
+    friends once more. What a vast difference a few miles makes! Tupelo is
+    about forty miles south of Rienzi, on an air-line. There I was
+    regarded as a base ingrate, as a despicable traitor, as an enemy to
+    the country, chained as a felon, doomed to die, and before the
+    execution of the sentence, subjected to every species of insult and
+    contumely. Here I meet with the kindest expressions of sympathy from
+    officers of all ranks, from the subaltern to the general, and there is
+    not a private soldier who has heard my tale of woe, who does not
+    manifest a kindly sympathy.
+
+    I hope that you will soon pass south of Tupelo; but in your march to
+    the Gulf, may you fare better than I did in my journey to this place.
+    Green corn eaten raw, berries, and stagnant water, would soon cause
+    you to present the emaciated appearance that I do. On your route, call
+    upon the secession sympathizers, and compel them to furnish you with
+    better and more substantial food. My horse I left at Tupelo. He is a
+    valuable animal. The rebel General Hardee, in the true spirit of
+    secession, appropriated--that is, stole--him. However, I did not call
+    to demand him when I left. Being in haste, I did not choose to spare
+    the time, and leaving in the night, I did not wish to disturb the
+    slumbers of the Tupelonians. He is a bright bay. If you meet with him,
+    you may have him for nothing. I would much prefer that he serve the
+    Federal army.
+
+    If you take General Jordan prisoner, send me word, and I will furnish
+    you with the iron bands that he put on me, by which you may secure him
+    till he meets the just award of his crimes, which would be death, for
+    destroying the lives of so many Union men.
+
+    I hope that you may soon plant the stars and stripes on the shores of
+    the Gulf of Mexico, and play the "Star-spangled Banner" within
+    hearing of its vertiginous billows, after having conquered every foe
+    to the permanence of the glorious Union. I close with the sentiment of
+    the immortal Jackson, which I wish you to bear constantly in mind, in
+    your victorious progress--"The Federal Union--it must and shall be
+    preserved!" Relying upon the God of battles, rest assured that the
+    right cause will triumph, and that after having secured the great
+    object of your warfare, the preservation of the Union, your children
+    and your children's children will rise up and call you blessed,
+    rejoicing in the enjoyment of a free, united, and happy country.
+
+    Wishing you abundant success, I beg leave to retire.
+
+On Saturday, the 2d of August, 1862, we left Rienzi, _en route_ for the
+North, in company with William H. Hubbard, Esq., and family, who were also
+refugees. From the moment I reached the Federal lines I experienced
+nothing but kindness. I could not mention all who are deserving of thanks
+from myself and family. I am under special obligations to Generals Nelson,
+Rosecrans, Granger, Davis, and Asboth; also to Colonel Bryner and
+Lieutenant Colonel Thrush, of the Forty-seventh Illinois, and Surgeon
+Lucas, of same regiment, and to Dr. Holley, of the Thirty-sixth Illinois
+Volunteers; to Josiah King, Esq., of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Dr.
+McCook, of Steubenville, Ohio; also Mrs. Ann Wheelwright, of Newburyport,
+Massachusetts, whose kind letter will ever be remembered, and whose
+"material aid" entitles her to lasting gratitude; and to Rev. George
+Potts, D. D., of New York; and Mr. William E. Dubois, of Philadelphia;
+Rev. Dr. Sprole, Newburgh, New York; Rev. N. Hewitt, D. D., Bridgeport,
+Connecticut; and Rev. F. N. Ewing, Chicago, Illinois; Rev. J. M. Krebs, D.
+D., New York; Rev. A. D. Smith, D. D., New York; and Rev. F. Reck
+Harbaugh, Philadelphia, and many others.
+
+Before closing this chapter I would mention the following incident:
+
+On Wednesday evening, November 19th, I addressed the citizens of
+Philadelphia at the Sixth Presbyterian Church, (Rev. F. Reck Harbaugh's.)
+A report of this address found its way into the city papers. Two days
+afterwards, while in conversation with Mr. Martien, at his book-store, two
+soldiers entered, one of whom approached, and thus addressed me:
+
+"Do you know me, sir?"
+
+I replied: "Your face is familiar, but I do not remember your name. It is
+my misfortune not to be able to remember proper names."
+
+"I read the report of your address in the newspaper, and through the aid
+of my comrade, I have succeeded in finding you. We have met before, at
+Tupelo."
+
+At the mention of Tupelo, I immediately recognised in the speaker the man
+who, after labouring with the others in sundering my chain, engaged the
+guard, who sat in the doorway, in conversation, while I watched an
+opportunity to disappear under the prison. Grasping him warmly by the
+hand, I said: "I now recognise you. You are Mr. Howell Trogdon, of
+Missouri, late my fellow-prisoner in Tupelo. How and when did you succeed
+in leaving that prison?"
+
+"Being a Federal prisoner, I was removed from Tupelo to Mobile, and there
+parolled on the 26th of August last."
+
+"When was I missed after my escape, and how did the officers act when they
+learned that I was gone?"
+
+"You were missed at roll-call, the next morning, and in a short time, many
+officers came into the prison. They were greatly enraged at this, your
+second flight. The prisoners were closely questioned as to their
+complicity in your escape, but they denied all knowledge of the matter.
+Soon all the prison-guards on duty during the night, thirty-three in
+number, were brought into the prison in chains. The cavalry was ordered
+out in search of you, and directed to shoot you down wherever found. The
+mode of your escape was not discovered, and the officers were of the
+opinion that you had bribed the guards. _From that time, the officers
+became more cruel than ever, and in two weeks, thirty-two of our
+fellow-prisoners were taken out and shot!_ We never learned whether you
+had succeeded in escaping to the Union lines. We feared that you were
+overtaken and shot, or that you perished in the swamps from hunger,
+thirst, and fatigue. I hope soon to see McHatten, Speer, De Grummond, and
+Soper, who are also parolled, and they will rejoice to learn that you
+still live. During the night of your escape, we slept but little, through
+fear that _our chaplain_ might be shot by the guards, and I assure you
+many fervent prayers ascended to Heaven for your safety."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+SOUTHERN CLASSES--CRUELTY TO SLAVES.
+
+    Sandhillers--Dirt-eating--Dipping--Their Mode of
+    Living--Patois--Rain-book--Wife-trade--Coming in to see the
+    Cars--Superstition--Marriage of Kinsfolks--Hardshell Sermon--Causes
+    which lead to the Degradation of this Class--Efforts to Reconcile the
+    Poor Whites to the Peculiar Institution--The Slaveholding Class--The
+    Middle Class--Northern Isms--Incident at a Methodist Minister's
+    House--Question asked a Candidate for Licensure--Reason of Southern
+    Hatred toward the North--Letter to Mr. Jackman--Barbarities and
+    Cruelties of Slavery--Mulattoes--Old Cole--Child Born at
+    Whipping-post--Advertisement of a Keeper of Bloodhounds--Getting Rid
+    of Free Blacks--The Doom of Slavery--Methodist Church South.
+
+
+The sojourner in the Slave States is struck with the wretched and degraded
+appearance of a class of people called by the slaveholders, "poor white
+folks," and "the tallow-faced gentry," from their pallid complexion. They
+live in wretched hovels, dress slatternly, and are exceedingly filthy in
+their habits. Many of them are clay or dirt-eaters, which is said to cause
+their peculiar complexion. Their children, at a very early age, form this
+filthy and disgusting habit; and mere infants may be found with their
+mouths filled with dirt. The mud with which they daub the interstices
+between the logs of their rude domicils, must be frequently renewed, as
+the occupants pick it all out in a very short time, and eat it. This
+pernicious practice induces disease. The complexion becomes pale, similar
+to that occasioned by chronic ague and fever.
+
+Akin to this is the practice of snuff-dipping, which is not confined
+exclusively to females of the poor white caste, though scarcely one in
+fifty of this class is exempt from the disgusting habit. The method is
+this: The female snuff-dipper takes a short stick, and wetting it with her
+saliva, dips it into her snuff-box, and then rubs the gathered dust all
+about her mouth, and into the interstices of her teeth, where she allows
+it to remain until its strength has been fully absorbed. Others hold the
+stick thus loaded with snuff in the cheek, _a la quid_ of tobacco, and
+suck it with a decided relish, while engaged in their ordinary
+avocations; while others simply fill the mouth with the snuff, and
+imitate, to all intents and purposes, the chewing propensities of the men.
+In the absence of snuff, tobacco in the plug or leaf is invariably
+resorted to as a substitute. Oriental betel-chewing, and the Japanese
+fashion of blacking the teeth of married ladies, are the height of
+elegance compared with snuff-dipping. The habit leads to a speedy decay of
+the teeth, and to nervous disorders of every kind. Those who indulge in it
+become haggard at a very early age.
+
+The _Petersburg_ (Va.) _Express_ estimates the number of women in that
+State as one hundred and twenty-five thousand, one hundred thousand of
+whom are snuff-dippers. Every five of these will use a two-ounce paper of
+snuff per day; that is, to the hundred thousand dippers, two thousand five
+hundred pounds a day, amounting, in one year, to the enormous quantity of
+nine hundred and twelve thousand pounds. This practice prevails generally,
+it says, among the poor whites, though some females of the higher classes
+are guilty of it.
+
+The poor whites obtain their subsistence, as far as practicable, in the
+primitive aboriginal mode, viz., by hunting and fishing. When these
+methods fail to afford a supply, they cultivate a truck-patch, and some of
+them raise a bale or two of cotton, with the proceeds of the sale of which
+they buy whiskey, tobacco, and a few necessary articles. When all other
+methods fail, they resort to stealing, to which many of them are addicted
+from choice, as well as from necessity. They are exceeding slovenly in
+their habits, cleanliness being a rare virtue. Indolence is a prevailing
+vice, and its lamentable effects are everywhere visible. They fully obey
+the scriptural injunction, take no thought for the morrow. A present
+supply, sufficient to satisfy nature's most urgent demands, being
+obtained, their care ceases, and they relapse into listless inactivity.
+They herd together upon the poor sand-hills, the refuse land of the
+country, which the rich slaveholder will not purchase, for which reason,
+they are sometimes called sand-hillers, and here they live, and their
+children, and their children's children, through successive generations,
+in the same deplorable condition of wretchedness and degradation.
+
+They are exceedingly ignorant; not one adult in fifty can write; not one
+in twenty can read. They can scarcely be said to speak the English
+language, using a patois which is scarcely intelligible. An old lady thus
+related an incident of which her daughter "_Sal_" was the heroine. "My
+darter Sal yisterday sot the lather to the damsel tree, and clim up, and
+knocked some of the nicest saftest damsels I ever seed in my born days." I
+once called to make some inquiry about the road, at a small log tenement,
+inhabited by a sand-hiller and family. A sheet was hanging upon the wall,
+containing the portraits of the Presidents of the United States. I
+remarked to the lady of the house that those were, I believed, the
+pictures of the Presidents.
+
+"Yes!" she replied; "they is, and I've hearn tell of 'em a long time. They
+must be gittin' mighty old, ef some of 'em aint dead. That top one," she
+continued, "is Gineral Washington. I've hearn of him ever sence I was a
+gal. He must be gittin' up in years, ef he aint dead. Him and Gineral
+Jackson fit the British and Tories at New Orleans, and whipped 'em, too."
+
+She seemed to pride herself greatly on her historical knowledge.
+
+One of these geniuses once informed me of a peculiar kind of book "he'd
+hearn tell on," that the Yankees had. He had forgotten its name, but thus
+described it: "It told the day of the week the month come in on. It told
+when we was a gwine to have rain, and what kind of wether we was gwine to
+have in gineral. May-be they call it a rain-book."
+
+I replied that I had heard of the book, and I believed that it was called
+an Almanac.
+
+"You've said it now," remarked the man. "It's a alminick, and I'd give
+half I's wuth to have one. I'd no when to take a umberell, and if I
+haddent nary one, I'd no when I could go a huntin' without gittin' wet."
+
+Two of these semi-savages had resolved to remove to the West, in hope of
+bettering their condition. One wished to remove to Arkansas, the other to
+Texas. The wife of the former wished to go to Texas, the latter to
+Arkansas. The husbands were desirous of gratifying their spouses, but
+could devise no plan that seemed likely to prove satisfactory, till one
+day when hunting, finding game scarce, they sat down upon a log, when the
+following dialogue took place:
+
+"Kit, I'm sort o' pestered about Dilsie. She swars to Rackensack she'll
+go, and no whar else. I allers had a hankerin' arter Texas. Plague take
+Rackensack, I say! Ef a man war thar, the ager and the airthquakes ed
+shake him out on it quicker en nothin'."
+
+"When a woman's set on a gwine anywhar, they're a gwine. It's jest no use
+to talk. I've coaxed Minnie more'n a little to go long with me to
+Arkansas, and the more I coax, the more she wont go."
+
+"Well, Kit, 'sposen we swap women."
+
+"Well, Sam, what trade'll ye gin?"
+
+"Oh! a gentleman's trade, of course!"
+
+"Shucks, Sam! 'sposen I had a young filly, and you a old mar, ye wouldn't
+ax an even trade, would ye?"
+
+"No; it 'ud be too hard. I tell you what I'll do, Kit. Here's a shot-gun
+that's wuth ten dollars, ef it's wuth a red. I'll give it and that ar
+b'ar-skin hangin' on the side of my shanty, to boot, and say it's a
+trade."
+
+"Nuff sed, ef the women's agreed."
+
+Home they went, and stated the case to the women, who, _after due
+deliberation_, acceded to the proposition, having also made a satisfactory
+arrangement about the children, and they all soon went on their way
+rejoicing to their respective destinations in that
+
+  "American's haven of eternal rest,
+  Found a little farther West."
+
+On the Sabbath after the completion of the Memphis and Charleston
+railroad, a large number of the sand-hillers came to Iuka Springs, to
+witness the passing of the cars. Arriving too early, they visited a church
+where divine service was progressing. Whilst the minister was in the midst
+of his sermon, the locomotive whistle sounded, when a stampede took place
+to the railroad. The exodus left the parson almost alone in his glory.
+The passing train caused the most extravagant expressions and gestures of
+wonder and astonishment by these rude observers. It was an era in their
+life.
+
+Once while standing on the railroad-track, I observed a crowd of these
+people coming to see the "_elephant_." They came so near, that I overheard
+their conversation. One young lass, of sweet sixteen, with slattern dress
+and dishevelled hair, looking up the road, which was visible for a great
+distance, thus expressed her astonishment at what she saw: "O, dad! what a
+long piece of iron!" Soon the whistle sounded; this they had never heard
+before, and came to the conclusion that it was a dinner-horn. As soon as
+the cars came in sight, they scattered like frightened sheep, some on one
+side of the road, and some on the other. Nor did they halt till they had
+placed fifty yards at least between them and the track.
+
+Superstition prevails amongst them to a fearful extent. Almost every hut
+has a horse-shoe nailed above the door, or on the threshold, to keep out
+witches. In sickness, charms and incantations are used to drive away
+disease. Their physicians are chiefly what are termed faith-doctors, who
+are said to work miraculous cures. They are strong believers in luck. If a
+rabbit cross their path, they will turn round to change their luck. If, on
+setting out on a journey, an owl hoot on the left hand, they will return
+and set out anew. If the new moon is seen through brush, or on the left
+hand, it is a bad omen. They will have trouble during the lunar month.
+When the whippoorwill is first heard in the spring, they turn head over
+heels thrice, to prevent back-ache during the year. Dreams are harbingers
+of joy or wo. To dream of snakes, is ominous. To dream of seeing a coffin,
+or conversing with the dead, is a sign of approaching dissolution, and
+many have no doubt perished through terror, occasioned by such dreams.
+Fortune-tellers are rife amongst them--those sages whose comprehensive
+view knows the past, the present, and the future. They seek unto familiar
+spirits, that peep and mutter, for the living to the dead.
+
+They have many deformed, and blind, and deaf among them, in consequence of
+the intermarriage of relatives. Cousins often marry, and occasionally they
+marry within the degrees of consanguinity prohibited by the law of God.
+Perhaps this divine law forbids the marriage of cousins when it declares,
+"Thou shalt not marry any that is near of kin." The sad effects on
+posterity, both mentally and physically, lead to the conviction that if
+the law of God does not condemn it, physiological law does.
+
+These sand-hillers do not (when no serious preventive occurs) fail to
+attend the elections, where the highest bidder obtains their vote.
+Sometimes their vote will command cash, and sometimes only whiskey. It is
+sad to witness the elective franchise, that highest and most glorious
+badge of a freeman, thus prostituted.
+
+The proverb holds good--Like people, like priest. Their ministers are
+ignorant, ranting fanatics. They despise literature, and every Sabbath
+fulminate censures upon an educated ministry. The following is a specimen
+of their preaching. Mr. V---- is a Hard-shell Baptist, or, as they term
+themselves, "Primitive Baptists." Entering the pulpit on a warm morning in
+July, he will take off his coat and vest, roll up his sleeves, and then
+begin:
+
+    MY BRETHERING AND SISTERN--I air a ignorant man, follered the plough
+    all my life, and never rubbed agin nary college. As I said afore, I'm
+    ignorant, and I thank God for it. (Brother Jones responds, "Passon,
+    yer ort to be very thankful, fur yer very ignorant.") Well, I'm agin
+    all high larnt fellers what preaches grammar and Greek fur a thousand
+    dollars a year. They preaches fur the money, and they gits it, and
+    that's all they'll git. They've got so high larnt they contradicts
+    Scripter, what plainly tells us that the sun rises and sets. They seys
+    it don't, but that the yerth whirls round, like clay to the seal. What
+    ud cum of the water in the wells ef it did. Wodent it all spill out,
+    and leave 'em dry, and whar ed we be? I may say to them, as the
+    sarpent said unto David, much learning hath made thee mad.
+
+    When I preaches, I never takes a tex till I goes inter the pulpit;
+    then I preaches a plain sarment, what even women can understand. I
+    never premedertates, but what is given to me in that same hour, that I
+    sez. Now I'm a gwine ter open the Bible, and the first verse I sees,
+    I'm a gwine to take it for a tex. (Suiting the action to the word, he
+    opened the Bible, and commenced reading and spelling together.) Man is
+    f-e-a-r-f-u-l-l-y--fearfully--and
+    w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l-l-y--wonderfully--m-a-d-e--mad.--"Man is fearfully
+    and wonderfully made." (Pronounced _mad_.) Well, it's a quar tex, but
+    I said I's a gwine to preach from it, and I'm a gwine to do it. In the
+    fust place, I'll divide my sarment into three heads. Fust and
+    foremost, I show you that a man will git mad. 2d. That sometimes he'll
+    git fearfully mad; and thirdly and lastly, when thar's lots of things
+    to vex and pester him, he'll git fearfully and wonderfully mad. And in
+    the application I'll show you that good men sometimes gits mad, for
+    the Posle David hisself, who rote the tex, got mad, and called all men
+    liars, and cussed his enemies, wishen' 'em to go down quick into hell;
+    and Noah, he got tite, and cussed his nigger boy Ham, just like some
+    drunken masters now cusses their niggers. But Noah and David repented;
+    and all on us what gits mad must repent, or the devil'll git us.
+
+Thus he ranted, to the great edification of his hearers, who regard him as
+a perfect Boanerges, to which title his stentorian voice would truly
+entitle him. This exordium will serve as a specimen of the "sarment," as
+it continued in the same strain to the end of the peroration.
+
+Where there is no vision, the people perish. Such blind leaders of the
+blind are liable, with their infatuated followers, to fall into a ditch
+worse than Bunyan's Slough of Despond. This minister had undoubtedly run
+when he was not sent, though he "had hearn a call; a audible voice had,
+while he was a shucken corn, said unto him, Preach." Though God does not
+need men's learning, yet he has as little use for their ignorance.
+Learning is the handmaid of religion, but must not be substituted in its
+stead.
+
+The causes which induce this "wilderness of mind" are patent to all who
+make even a cursory examination. There is a tendency in the poor to ape
+the manners of the rich. Those having slaves to labour in their stead,
+toil not physically; hence labour falls into disrepute, and the poorer
+classes, having no slaves to work for them, and not choosing to submit to
+the degradation of labour, incur all the evils resulting from idleness and
+poverty. Ignorance and vice of every kind soon ensue, and a general apathy
+prevails, which destroys in a great measure all mental and physical
+vigour.
+
+The slaveholders buy up all the fertile lands to be cultivated by their
+slaves; hence the poor are crowded out, and if they remain in the vicinity
+of the place of their nativity, they must occupy the poor tracts whose
+sterility does not excite the cupidity of their rich neighbours. The
+slaveholders' motto is, "Let us buy more negroes to raise more cotton, to
+buy more negroes, and so on _ad infinitum_." To raise more cotton they
+must also buy more land. Small farmers are induced to sell out to them,
+and move further west. For this reason, the white population of the
+fertile sections of the older slave States is constantly on the decrease,
+while the slave population is as constantly increasing. Thus the
+slaveholder often acquires many square miles of land, and hundreds of
+human chattels. He is, as it were, set alone in the earth. Priding himself
+upon his wealth, he will not send his princely sons to the same school
+with the poor white trash; he either sends them to some distant college or
+seminary, or employs a private teacher exclusively for his children. The
+poor whites in the neighbourhood, even should they desire to educate their
+children, have no means to pay for their tuition. Compelled to live on
+poor or worn-out lands, honest toil considered degrading, and forced to
+submit to many inconveniences and disabilities (all the offices of honour
+and profit being monopolized by the slaveholders,) through the workings of
+the "peculiar institution," they find it utterly impossible to educate
+their offspring, even in the rudiments of their mother tongue. As the
+power of slavery increases, their condition waxes worse and worse.
+
+The slaveocracy becomes more exacting. Laws are passed by the legislature
+compelling non-slaveholders to patrol the country nightly, to prevent
+insurrections by the negroes. They denounce the law, but coercion is
+resorted to, and the poor whites are forced to obey. When their masters
+call for them, they must leave their labour, by day or by night, patrol
+the country, follow the bloodhounds, arrest the fugitive slave, and do all
+other dirty work which their tyrants demand. If they refuse to obey, they
+are denounced as abolitionists, and are in danger of death at the hands of
+Judge Lynch, the mildest punishment they can hope for being a coat of tar
+and feathers.
+
+The house-negroes feel themselves several degrees above the poor whites,
+as they, from their opportunities for observation amongst the higher
+classes, are possessed of greater information and less rusticity than this
+less favoured class. The poor whites have no love for the institution of
+slavery. They regard it as the instrument of inflicting upon them many
+wrongs, and depriving them of many rights. They dare not express their
+sentiments to the slaveholders, who hold them completely under their
+power. A. G. Brown, United States Senator from Mississippi, to reconcile
+the poor whites to the peculiar institution, used the following arguments
+in a speech at Iuka Springs, Mississippi. He stated, that if the slaves
+were liberated, and suffered to remain in the country, the rich would have
+money to enable them to go to some other clime, and that the poor whites
+would be compelled to remain amongst the negroes, who would steal their
+property, and destroy their lives; and if slavery were abolished, and the
+negroes removed and colonized, the rich would take the poor whites for
+slaves, in their stead, and reduce them to the condition of the Irish and
+Dutch in the North, whose condition he represented to be one of cruel
+bondage. These statements had some effect upon his auditors, who
+believed, from sad experience, that the rich could oppress the poor as
+they chose, and might, in the contingency specified, reduce them to
+slavery. Labour is considered so degrading, that any argument, based upon
+making labour compulsory on their part, has its weight. Even the beggar
+despises work. A sturdy beggar asked alms at a house at which I was
+lodging. As he appeared to be a man of great physical strength, he was
+advised to go to work, and thus provide for his wants. "Work!" said he, in
+disgust; "niggers do the work in this country"--and retired highly
+insulted.
+
+This people form a distinct class, distinguished by as many
+characteristics from the middle and higher classes of Southern society, as
+the Jews are from the nations amongst whom they sojourn. The causes which
+brought about their reduction to their present state of semi-barbarism,
+must be removed, ere they can rise to the condition whence they have
+fallen. They must rise upon the ruins of slavery. When the peculiar
+institution is abolished, then, and not till then, will their disabilities
+be removed, and they be in reality what they are nominally--freemen.
+
+Slaveholders and their families form a distinct class, characterized by
+idleness, vanity, licentiousness, profanity, dissipation, and tyranny.
+There are glorious exceptions, it is true, but those are the
+distinguishing traits of the class. The middle class is the virtuous class
+of the South. They are industrious, frugal, hospitable, simple in their
+habits, plain and unostentatious in their manners. Some of this class are
+small slaveholders, but the great majority own none. The gross vices of
+the higher class are not found among them. They labour regardless of the
+sneers of their aristocratic neighbours. Senator Hammond, of South
+Carolina, may call them mudsills; they regard it not, but pursue the even
+tenor of their way. The slow, unmoving finger of scorn may be pointed at
+them by the sons of pride, yet they refuse to eat the bread of idleness,
+and labour with their _own hands_, that they may provide things honest in
+the sight of all men. Equidistant from poverty and riches, they enjoy the
+golden mean, and immunity from the temptations incident to the extremes of
+abject poverty and great riches.
+
+In the slave States all those born north of the "nigger line," are
+denominated Yankees. This is applied as a term of reproach. When a
+southerner is angry with a man of northern nativity, he does not fail to
+stigmatize him as a Yankee. The slaveholders manifest considerable
+antipathy against the Yankees, which has been increasing during the last
+ten years. In 1858, the Legislature of Mississippi passed resolutions
+recommending non-intercourse with the "Abolition States," and requesting
+the people not to patronize natives of those States residing amongst them,
+and especially to discountenance Yankee ministers and teachers. In the
+educational notice of Memphis Synodical College, at La Grange, Tennessee,
+it is expressly stated that the Faculty are of southern birth and
+education. The principals of the Female Seminaries at Corinth and Iuka,
+Mississippi, give notice that no Yankee teachers will be employed in those
+institutions. While on a visit at the house of a Methodist clergyman,
+quite a number of ministers, returning from Conference, called to tarry
+for the night. During the evening, one of them, learning that I was
+"_Yankee born_," thus interrogated me: "Why is it, sir, that all kinds of
+delusions originate in the North, such as Millerism, Mormonism,
+Spirit-rappings, and Abolitionism?" To which I replied: "The North
+originates everything. All the text-books used in southern schools, all
+the books on law, physic, and divinity, are written and published north of
+Mason & Dixon's line. The South does not even print Bibles. The magnetic
+telegraph, the locomotive, Lucifer matches, and even the cotton-gin, are
+all northern inventions. The South, sir, has not sense enough to invent a
+decent humbug. These humbugs once originated, the South is always well
+represented by believers in them. I have known more men to go from this
+county (Shelby county, Tennessee) to the Mormons, than I have known to go
+from the whole State of Ohio."
+
+When I had thus spoken, my inquisitor was nonplussed, and the laugh went
+against him.
+
+When a candidate before the Presbytery of Chickasaw, in Mississippi, for
+licensure, one of the members of Presbytery, learning that I was a
+"Yankee," asked me the following questions, and received the following
+answers:
+
+"Mr. Aughey, when will the day of judgment take place?"
+
+"The Millerites have stated that the 30th of June next will be the
+judgment-day. As for myself, I have had no revelation on the subject, and
+expect none."
+
+"Do you believe that any one can call the spirits?"
+
+"I do, sir."
+
+"What! believe that the spirits can be called?"
+
+"I do, sir."
+
+"I will vote, then, against your licensure, if you have fallen into this
+heresy of the land of your nativity."
+
+Another then said:
+
+"Brother Aughey, please explain yourself. I know you do not believe in
+spirit-rapping."
+
+"I do not, sir, though I believe, as I stated, that any one may call the
+spirits; but I do not believe that they will come in answer to the call."
+
+A lady once remarked to me that she did not believe that a northern man
+would ever become fully reconciled to the institution of slavery, and that
+his influence and sentiments, whatever might be his profession of
+attachment to the peculiar institution, would be against it. The cause of
+the general opposition to northern men is their opposition to slavery.
+Their testimony is against its abominations and barbarities, and hence the
+wish to impair the credibility of the witnesses.
+
+An illustration of the working of the institution may be found in the
+following letter:
+
+    KOSCIUSKO, ATTALA COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI,
+    December 25, 1861.
+
+    MR. WILLIAM JACKMAN:
+
+    DEAR SIR--Your last kind and truly welcome letter came to hand in due
+    course of mail. I owe you an apology for delaying an answer so long.
+    My apparent neglect was occasioned by no want of respect for you; but
+    in consequence of the disturbed state of the country, and difficulty
+    of communication with the North, I feared my reply would never reach
+    you. Now, however, by directing "_via_ Norfolk and flag of truce,"
+    letters are sent across the lines to the North. In your letter you
+    desired me, from this stand-point, to give you my observations of the
+    workings of the peculiar institution, and an expression of my views as
+    to its consistency with the eternal principles of rectitude and
+    justice. In reply, I will give you a plain narrative of facts.
+
+    On my advent to the South, I was at first struck with the fact that
+    the busy hum of labour had in some measure ceased. What labour I did
+    observe progressing, was done with little skill, and mainly by
+    negroes. I called upon the Rev. Dr. R. J. Breckinridge, to whom I had
+    a letter of introduction, who treated me with the greatest kindness,
+    inviting me to make his house my home when I visited that section of
+    country. On leaving his house, he gave me some directions as to the
+    road I must travel to reach a certain point. "You will pass," said he,
+    "a blacksmith's shop, where a one-eyed man is at work--my property."
+    The phrase, "my property," I had never before heard applied to a human
+    being, and though I had never been taught to regard the relation of
+    master and slave as a sinful relation, yet it grated harshly upon my
+    ears to hear a human being, a tradesman, called a chattel; but it
+    grated much more harshly, a week after this, to hear the groans of two
+    such chattels, as they underwent a severe flagellation, while chained
+    to the whipping-post, because they had, by half an hour, overstayed
+    their time with their families on an adjoining plantation.
+
+    The next peculiar abomination of the peculiar institution which I
+    observed, was the licentiousness engendered by it. Mr. D. T----, of
+    Madison county, Kentucky, had a white family of children, and a black,
+    or rather mulatto family. As his white daughters married, he gave each
+    a mulatto half-sister, as a waiting-girl, or body-servant. Mr.
+    K.----, of Winchester, Kentucky, had a mulatto daughter, and he was
+    also the father of her child, thus re-enacting Lot's sin. Dr. C----,
+    of Tishomingo county, Mississippi, has a negro concubine, and a white
+    servant to wait on her. Mr. B.----, of Marshall county, Mississippi,
+    lived with his white wife till he had grandchildren, some of whom came
+    to school to me, when he repudiated his white wife, and attached
+    himself to a very homely old African, who superintends his household,
+    and rules his other slaves with rigour. Mr. S----, of Tishomingo
+    county, Mississippi, has a negro concubine, and a large family of
+    mulatto children. He once brought this woman to church in Rienzi, to
+    the great indignation of the white ladies, who removed to a
+    respectable distance from her.
+
+    I preached recently to a large congregation of slaves, the third of
+    whom were as white as myself. Some of them had red hair and blue eyes.
+    If there are any marked characteristics of their masters' families,
+    the mulatto slaves are possessed of these characteristics. I refer to
+    physical peculiarities, such as large mouths, humped shoulders, and
+    peculiar expressions of countenance. I asked a gentleman how it
+    happened that some of his slaves had red hair. He replied that he had
+    a red-headed overseer for several years.
+
+    I never knew a pious overseer--never! There may be many, but I never
+    saw one. Overseers, as a class, are worse than slaveholders
+    themselves. They are cruel, brutal, licentious, dissipated, and
+    profane. They always carry a loaded whip, a revolver, and a
+    Bowie-knife. These men have the control of women, whom they often whip
+    to death. Mr. P----, who resided near Holly Springs, had a negro woman
+    whipped to death while I was at his house during a session of
+    Presbytery. Mr. C----, of Waterford, Mississippi, had a woman whipped
+    to death by his overseer. But such cruel scourgings are of daily
+    occurrence. Colonel H----, a member of my church, told me yesterday
+    that he ordered a boy, who he supposed was _feigning_ sickness, to the
+    whipping-post, but that he had not advanced ten steps toward it, when
+    he fell dead!--and the servant was free from his master. During our
+    conversation, a girl passed. "There is a girl," said he, "who does not
+    look very white in the face, owing to exposure; but when I strip her
+    to whip her, I find that she has a skin as fair as my wife." Mrs.
+    F---- recently whipped a boy to death within half a mile of my
+    residence. A jury of inquest returned a verdict that he came to his
+    death by cruelty; but nothing more was done. Mrs. M---- and her
+    daughter, of Holly Springs, abused a girl repeatedly. She showed her
+    bruises to some of my acquaintances, and they believed them fatal. She
+    soon after died. Mr. S----, a member of my church, has several maimed
+    negroes from abuse on the part of the overseer.
+
+    I am residing on the banks of the Yock-a-nookany, which means
+    "meandering," when translated from the Indian tongue. In this vicinity
+    there are large plantations, cultivated by hundreds of negroes. The
+    white population is sparse. Every night the negroes are brought to a
+    judgment-seat. The overseer presides. If they have not laboured to
+    suit him, or if their task is unfulfilled, they are chained to a post,
+    and severely whipped. The victims are invariably stripped; to what
+    extent, is at the option of the overseer. In Louisiana, women,
+    preparatory to whipping, are often stripped to a state of perfect
+    nudity. Old Mr. C----, of Waterford, Mississippi, punished his negroes
+    _by slitting the soles of their feet with his Bowie-knife_! One man he
+    put into a cotton-press, and turned the screw till life was extinct.
+    He stated that he only intended to alarm the man, but carried the joke
+    too far. I have heard women thus plead, in piteous accents, when
+    chained to the whipping-post, and stripped: "O, my God, master! don't
+    whip me! I was sick! indeed I was sick! I had a chill, and the fever
+    is on me now! I haven't tasted a morsel to-day! You know I works when
+    I is well! O for God's sake don't whip a poor sick nigger! My poor
+    chile's sick too! Missis thinks it's a dyin'! O master, for the love
+    of God, don't cut a poor distressed woman wid your whip! I'll try to
+    do better, ef you'll only let me off this once!" These piteous
+    plaints only rouse the ire of their cruel task-masters, who sometimes
+    knock them down in the midst of their pleadings. I have known an
+    instance of a woman giving birth to a child at the whipping-post. The
+    fright and pain brought on premature labour.
+
+    One beautiful Sabbath morning I stood on the levee at Baton Rouge,
+    Louisiana, and counted twenty-seven sugar-houses in full blast. I
+    found that the negroes were compelled to labour eighteen hours per
+    day, and were not permitted to rest on the Sabbath during the rolling
+    season. The negroes on most plantations have a truck-patch, which they
+    cultivate on the Sabbath. I have pointed out the sin of thus labouring
+    on the Sabbath, but they plead necessity; their children, they state,
+    must suffer from hunger if they did not cultivate their truck-patch,
+    and their masters would not give them time on any other day.
+
+    Negroes, by law, are prohibited from learning to read. This law was
+    not strictly enforced in Tennessee and some other States till within
+    a few years past. I had charge of a Sabbath-school for the instruction
+    of blacks in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1853. This school was put down by
+    the strong arm of the law in a short time after my connection with it
+    ceased. In Mississippi, a man who taught slaves to read or write would
+    be sent to the penitentiary instanter. The popular plea for this
+    wickedness is, that if they were taught to read, they would read
+    abolition documents; and if they were taught to write, they would
+    write themselves passes, and pass northward to Canada.
+
+    Such advertisements as the following often greet the eye.
+
+    "_Kansas War._--The undersind taks this method of makkin it noan that
+    he has got a pack of the best nigger hounds in the South. My hounds is
+    well trand, and I has had much experience a huntin niggers, having
+    follered it for the last fiften year. I will go anywhar that I'm sent
+    for, and will ketch niggers at the follerin raits.
+
+    "My raits fur ketchin runaway niggers $10 per hed, ef they's found in
+    the beat whar thar master lives; $15 if they's found in the county,
+    and $50 if they's tuck out on the county.
+
+    "N. B.--Pay is due when the nigger is tuck. Planters ort to send fur
+    me as soon as thar niggers runs away, while thar trak is fresh."
+
+    Every night the woods resound with the deep-mouthed baying of the
+    bloodhounds. The slaves are said by some to love their masters; but it
+    requires the terrors of bloodhounds and the fugitive slave law to keep
+    them in bondage. You in the North are compelled to act the part of the
+    bloodhounds here, and catch the fugitives for the planters of the
+    South. Free negroes are sold into bondage for the most trivial
+    offences. Slaveholders declare that the presence of free persons of
+    colour exerts a pernicious influence upon their slaves, rendering them
+    discontented with their condition, and inspiring a desire for freedom.
+    They therefore are very desirous of getting rid of these persons,
+    either by banishing them from the State or enslaving them. The
+    legislature of Mississippi has passed a law for their expulsion, and
+    other States have followed in the wake. The Governor of Missouri has
+    vetoed the law for the expulsion of free persons of colour, passed by
+    the legislature of that State because of its unconstitutionality.
+
+    Were I to recount all the abominations of the peculiar institution,
+    and the wrongs inflicted upon the African race, that have come under
+    my observation, they would fill a large volume. Slavery is guilty of
+    six abominations; yea, seven may justly be charged upon it. It is said
+    that the negro is lazy, and will not work except by compulsion. I have
+    known negroes who have purchased their freedom by the payment of a
+    large sum, and afterward made not only a good living, but a fortune
+    beside. It is said Judge W---- of South Carolina gave his servants the
+    use of his plantation, upon condition that they would support his
+    family; and that in three years he was compelled to take the
+    management himself, as they did not make a comfortable living for
+    themselves and the Judge's family. In reply, it might be said that the
+    negroes had not a fair trial, as no one had any property he could call
+    his own, and they were thrown into a sort of Fourierite society,
+    having all things in common. In this state of things, while some would
+    work, others would be idle. White men do not succeed in such
+    communities, and for this reason it was no fair test of the industrial
+    energies of Judge W----'s slaves.
+
+    The question is often asked, is slavery sinful in itself? My
+    observation has been extensive, embracing eight slave States, and I
+    have never yet seen any example of slavery that I did not deem sinful.
+    If slavery is not sinful in itself, I must have always seen it out of
+    itself. I have observed its workings during eleven years, amongst a
+    professedly Christian people, and cannot do otherwise than pronounce
+    it an unmitigated curse. It is a curse to the white man, it is a curse
+    to the black man. That God will curse it, and blot it out of existence
+    ere long, is my firm conviction. The elements of its abolition exist;
+    God speed the time when they will be fully developed, and this mother
+    of abominations driven from the land of the free! The development of
+    the eternal principles of justice and rectitude will abolish this
+    hoary monster of fraud and oppression. Slavery subverts all the rights
+    of man. It divests him of citizenship, of liberty, of the pursuit of
+    happiness, of his children, of his wife, of his property, of
+    intellectual culture, reserving to him only the rights of the horse
+    and ass, and reducing him to the same chattel condition with them. Not
+    a single right does the State law grant him above that of the
+    mule--no, not one. The chastity of the slave has no legal protection.
+    The Methodist Church South is expunging from the discipline everything
+    inimical to the peculiar institution, whilst I observe that the Church
+    North is adding to her testimony and deliverances against the sin of
+    slaveholding. The Church South refused to abide by the rules of the
+    Church, and hence the guilt of the schism lies with her, and you are
+    henceforth free from any guilt in conniving at the sin which the
+    founder of your church, the illustrious Wesley, regarded as the "sum
+    of all villany."
+
+    Remember me kindly to Mrs. Jackman and family. Hoping to hear from
+    you soon, I beg leave to subscribe myself,
+
+        Yours fraternally,
+        JOHN H. AUGHEY.
+
+    To Mr. William Jackman,
+    Amsterdam, Jefferson Co., Ohio.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+NOTORIOUS REBELS.--UNION OFFICERS.
+
+    Colonel Jefferson Davis--His Speech at Holly Springs, Mississippi--His
+    Opposition to Yankee Teachers and Ministers--A bid for the
+    Presidency--His Ambition--Burr, Arnold, Davis--General
+    Beauregard--Headquarters at Rienzi--Colonel Elliott's
+    Raid--Beauregard's Consternation--Personal description--His
+    illness--Popularity waning--Rev. Dr. Palmer of New Orleans--His
+    influence--The Cincinnati Letter--His Personal Appearance--His
+    Denunciations of General Butler--His Radicalism--Rev. Dr. Waddell of
+    La Grange, Tennessee--His Prejudices against the North--President of
+    Memphis Synodical College--His Talents prostituted--Union
+    Officers--General Nelson--General Sherman.
+
+
+COLONEL JEFFERSON DAVIS.
+
+In 1856 I heard Colonel Jefferson Davis deliver an address at Holly
+Springs, Mississippi. The Colonel is about a medium height, of slender
+frame, his nose aquiline, his hair dark, his manners polite. He is no
+orator. His speech was principally a tirade of abuse against the North,
+bitterly inveighing against the emigrant aid societies which had
+well-nigh put Kansas upon the list of free States. He advised the people
+to employ no more Yankee teachers. He had been educated in the North, and
+he regarded it as the greatest misfortune of his life. Soon after Colonel
+Davis visited New England, where he eulogized that section in an
+extravagant manner. He was pleased with everything he saw; even "Noah
+Webster's Yankee spelling-book" received a share of the Colonel's fulsome
+flattery. On his return to the South, "a change came o'er the spirit of
+his dream," and his bile and bitterness against Yankee-land returned in
+all its pristine vigour. The Colonel was making a bid for the Presidency;
+but New England was not so easily gulled; his flimsy professions of
+friendship were too transparent to hide the hate which lay beneath, and
+his aspirations were doomed to disappointment.
+
+Though Colonel Davis is often called Mississippi's pet, yet he is not
+regarded as a truthful man, and his reports and messages are received
+with considerable abatement by "the chivalry." His ambition knows no
+bounds. He would rather "reign in hell than serve in heaven."
+
+Had Jefferson Davis been elected President of the United States, he would
+have been among the last instead of the first to favour secession. Had he
+been slain on the bloody fields of Mexico, his memory would have been
+cherished. History will assign him a place among the infamous. Burr,
+Arnold, and Davis will be names for ever execrated by true patriots. The
+two former died a natural death, though the united voice of their
+countrymen would have approved of their execution on the gallows. The fate
+of the latter lies still in the womb of futurity, though his loyal
+countrymen, without a dissenting voice, declare that he deserves a felon's
+doom. An announcement of his death would suffuse no patriot's eye with
+tears. What loyalist would weep while he read the news-item--the arch
+traitor Jeff. Davis is dead.
+
+
+GENERAL G. T. BEAUREGARD.
+
+I met General Beauregard under very peculiar circumstances. I had gone to
+Rienzi for the purpose of escaping to the Federal lines for protection
+from the rigorous and sweeping conscript law. When I arrived, I found the
+rebels evacuating Corinth, and their sick and wounded passing down the
+Mobile and Ohio railroad to the hospitals below. General Beauregard had
+just arrived in Rienzi, and had his headquarters at the house of Mr.
+Sutherland. A rumour had spread through Rienzi that General Beauregard had
+ordered the women and children to leave the town. Many of them, believing
+that the order had been issued, were hastening into the country. In order
+to confirm or refute the statement, I called upon General Beauregard, and
+asked him whether he had issued such an order. He replied, "I have issued
+no such order, sir." Just at that moment a courier arrived with the
+information that the Yankees had attacked the advance of their retreating
+army at Boonville, that they had destroyed the depot, and taken many
+prisoners. The General told the courier that he must be mistaken; that it
+was impossible for the Yankees to pass around his army. While he was yet
+speaking a citizen arrived from Boonville, confirming the statement of the
+courier. Beauregard was still incredulous, replying that they must have
+mistaken the Confederates for the Yankees. In a few minutes the explosion
+of shells shook the building. The General then thought that it might be
+true that the Yankees had passed around the army; but on hearing the
+shells, he stated that General Green (of Missouri) was driving them away
+with his cannon. The truth was soon ascertained by the arrival of several
+couriers. Col. Elliott, of the Federal army, had made a raid upon
+Boonville, had fired the depot, and destroyed a large train of cars filled
+with ammunition. The explosions of the shells which we heard was
+occasioned by the fire reaching the ears in which these shells were
+stored. The Colonel also destroyed the railroad to such an extent that it
+required several days to repair the track.
+
+General Beauregard is below the medium height, and has a decidedly French
+expression of countenance. His hair is quite gray, though a glance at his
+face will convince the observer that it is prematurely so. The General is
+regarded as taciturn. His countenance is careworn and haggard. During the
+winter of 1861-2, he was attacked with bronchitis and typhoid pneumonia,
+and came near dying; and had not, at my interview, by any means recovered
+his pristine health and vigour. His prestige as an able commander is
+rapidly waning. For some time his military talents were considered of the
+first order; now a third-rate position is assigned him. He is still
+regarded as a first-class engineer. When General Sterling Price arrived at
+Corinth, General Beauregard conducted him around all the fortifications,
+explaining their nature and unfolding their strength; but no word of
+approval could he elicit from the Missouri General. At length he ventured
+to ask what he thought of their capacity for resisting an attack. General
+Price replied, "They may prove effective in resisting an attack. These are
+the second fortifications I ever saw; the first I captured." He had
+reference to Colonel Mulligan's, at Lexington, Missouri. Sumter and
+Manassas gave Beauregard fame. Since the latter battle his star has
+declined steadily; and if the Federal generals prove themselves competent,
+it will soon go out in total darkness, and the world's verdict will be, it
+was a misfortune that Beauregard lived.
+
+
+REV. DR. B. M. PALMER.
+
+Dr. Palmer has done more than any non-combatant in the South to promote
+the rebellion. He was accessory both before and after the fact. His
+sermons are nearly all abusive of the North. The mudsills of Yankeedom and
+the scum of Europe are phrases of frequent use in his public addresses,
+and they are meant to include all living north of what is more familiarly
+than elegantly termed in the South the "nigger line," although the North
+is the land of his parental nativity.
+
+A few years ago, Dr. Palmer wrote to a friend in Cincinnati respecting a
+vacant church, in which he gave as one reason, among others, for desiring
+to come North, that he wished to remove his family from the baleful
+influences of slavery. That letter still exists, and ought to be
+published.
+
+Dr. Palmer's personal appearance is by no means prepossessing. He is small
+of stature, of very dark complexion, dish-faced. His nose is said to have
+been broken when a child; at all events, it is a deformity. He is fluent
+in speech, has a vivid imagination, and has a great influence over a
+promiscuous congregation.
+
+After the reduction of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, and the capture of
+New Orleans, Dr. Palmer came to Corinth, where he preached to the rebel
+army. His text was invariably General Butler's "women-of-the-town order,"
+which we fully believe he intentionally misconstrued. The conservation and
+extension of slavery is a matter which lies near the Doctor's heart. He
+urged secession for the purpose of extending and perpetuating for ever
+the peculiar institution. His views, however, must have undergone a
+radical change since the writing of the Cincinnati letter, as he then
+regarded slavery with little favour. Love of public favour may have much
+to do with his recently expressed views, for no true Christian and patriot
+can wish to perpetuate and extend an institution founded on the total
+subversion of the rights of man.
+
+
+REV. DR. JOHN N. WADDELL.
+
+Dr. Waddell is a man of considerable talent, but his prejudices are very
+strong against the North. He cordially hates a Yankee, and his poor
+distressed wife, who was a native of New England, was compelled to return
+to her home, where she mourns in virtual widowhood her unfortunate
+connection with a man who detests her land and people. Dr. Waddell's
+sermons are very abusive. The North is the theme of animadversion in all
+the published sermons and addresses I have seen from his prolific pen. He
+has prostituted his fine talents, and his writings are full of cursing
+and bitterness. As President of La Grange College, Tennessee, he might
+wield a great influence for good--an influence which would tend to calm
+the storm aroused by demagogues, rather than increase its power. His
+memory will rot, for the evil which he has done will live after him.
+
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM NELSON.
+
+I met General Nelson frequently at his head-quarters at Iuka Springs,
+Mississippi. Though the General was quite brusque in his manners, yet he
+always treated me with kindness and marked attention. Once while seated at
+the table with him, several guests being present, the following colloquy
+ensued.
+
+"Parson Aughey, I suppose you are well versed in the Scriptures, and in
+order to test your knowledge, permit me to ask a question, which doubtless
+you are able to answer."
+
+"Certainly, General, you have permission to ask the question you propose.
+I am not so sure, however, about my ability to answer it."
+
+"The question I desire to propose is this--How many preceded Noah in
+leaving the ark?"
+
+"I am unable to answer, sir."
+
+"That is strange, as the Bible so plainly and explicitly informs us. We
+are told that Noah went _forth_ out of the ark; therefore _three_ must
+have preceded him."
+
+The General's wit "set the table in a roar." As soon as the mirth had
+subsided, I addressed the General:
+
+"It is my turn to ask a question. Do you know, sir, where the witch of
+Endor lived?"
+
+"I did know, but really I have forgotten."
+
+"Well, sir, she lived at Endor."
+
+The laugh was now against him, but he joined in it heartily himself.
+
+Knowing that General Nelson had visited every quarter of the globe, I
+asked him whether he had ever seen any of the modern Greeks.
+
+"I never saw any of the ancient Greeks," was his curt reply.
+
+General Nelson was regarded as a brave and skilful officer. He has done
+good service in his country's cause. At Shiloh his promptness and
+efficiency contributed greatly to retrieve the disaster which befell
+General Grant on the first day of the battle. His rencontre with General
+Davis, which resulted in his own death, is greatly to be regretted, though
+his own ungovernable temper and inexcusable conduct caused his tragic end.
+
+I once visited his headquarters late in the afternoon. On my arrival, he
+informed me that I would confer a great favour upon him by guiding a
+company of cavalry on an expedition to the south-eastern part of the
+county, to which I consented. I rode in front with the officer in command.
+When we had reached a point beyond the pickets, my companion informed me
+that we would meet no more Federals; if we met any soldiers while outward
+bound, we might take it for granted that they were rebels. After riding
+about an hour longer, we encountered a company of cavalry, and were
+ordered to halt by the officer in command. My companion, stating that they
+must be rebels, rode up and gave the countersign. I felt somewhat uneasy
+at the head of that company at this time, not knowing the moment that
+bullets would be whistling around us. They proved however to be Federals,
+returning from an extended scouting expedition. I conducted our company to
+the house of a Union man, whom we aroused from his bed; and learning that
+we were Federals, he took my place, and I returned to General Nelson. The
+General now desired me to go as a spy, to obtain information as to the
+number of troops stationed at Norman's Bridge, which spanned Big Bear
+Creek. I replied that I had ridden sixty miles without sleep, but that I
+would send two Union men of my acquaintance in my stead. This was
+satisfactory, and my Union friends returned with accurate information as
+to the number of rebel troops stationed at the bridge, and the best points
+of attack. The attack was made on the next day after receiving the
+information, and the rebels were surprised and totally defeated; but few
+escaped death or capture.
+
+
+GENERAL W. T. SHERMAN.
+
+On the day that General Sherman reached Rienzi, I supped with him at the
+house of a friend. At table the following dialogue took place between us.
+
+"Are you the person from whom Sherman's battery took its name?"
+
+"I am, sir."
+
+"Many gentlemen in this county," said I, "and among them my father-in-law,
+have pipes made of the fragments of the gun-carriages of Sherman's
+battery, which was captured at Manassas by the Confederates."
+
+"Sherman's battery was not captured at Manassas," replied the General.
+
+"The honour of capturing Sherman's battery is generally accorded to the
+second regiment of Mississippi volunteers, which went from this county and
+the adjoining county of Tippah, though several regiments claim it, and
+many of my friends declare that they have seen Sherman's battery since its
+capture."
+
+"I assure you, sir, Sherman's battery was not captured--so far from this,
+it came out of the battle of Manassas Plains with two pieces captured from
+the enemy, having itself lost none."
+
+At this moment Colonel Fry, who killed Zollikoffer, rode up for orders.
+While receiving them, the horses attached to a battery halted in front of
+us. "There," said the General, "is every piece of Sherman's battery. I
+ought to know that battery, and I assure you there is not a gun missing."
+
+The pipes, canes, and trinkets supposed to be made of the wood of
+Sherman's battery, if collected, would form a vast pile; and were you to
+inform the owners of those relics that they were spurious, you would be
+politely informed that you might "tell that tale to the marines," as their
+sons and their neighbours' sons were the honoured captors of that battery;
+a fact, concerning the truth of which they entertained not even the shadow
+of a doubt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CONDITION OF THE SOUTH.
+
+    Cause of the Rebellion--Prevalence of Union Sentiment in the
+    South--Why not Developed--Stevenson's Views--Why Incorrect--Cavalry
+    Raids upon Union Citizens--How the Rebels employ Slaves--Slaves
+    Whipped and sent out of the Federal Lines--Resisting the Conscript
+    Law--Kansas Jayhawkers--Guarding Rebel Property--Perfidy of
+    Secessionists--Plea for Emancipation--The South Exhausted--Failure of
+    Crops--Southern Merchants Ruined--Bragg Prohibits the Manufacture and
+    Vending of Intoxicating Liquors--Its Salutary Effect.
+
+
+The following is the substance of addresses delivered by me on October 22d
+and 25th, 1862, at Cooper's Institute, New York, and before the Synod of
+New York and New Jersey, at its session in Brooklyn.
+
+    I will confine myself to rendering answers to various questions which
+    have been asked me since my escape to the North. I have viewed the
+    rebellion from a southern stand-point; have been conversant with its
+    whole history; have been behind the curtains, and have learned the
+    motives which impel its instigators in their treasonable designs
+    against the Government.
+
+    Slavery I believe to have been the sole cause of the rebellion. It is
+    true that the slaveholders of the South were becoming strongly
+    anti-republican. Rule or ruin was their determination, and they would
+    not have listened to any compromise measure after the election of Mr.
+    Lincoln; but this feeling, this opposition to republicanism, and lust
+    of power, is the offspring of slavery. In 1856 I heard Jeff. Davis
+    declare that the people of the North and the South were not
+    homogeneous, and that therefore he advocated secession. The reason he
+    assigned for this want of homogeneousness was found in the fact that
+    the South held slaves; the North did not.
+
+    Men accustomed to exercise arbitrary power over their fellow-men, will
+    not cease their encroachments upon the rights of all with whom they
+    are associated, politically or otherwise, and a temporary suspension
+    of the control of the government is regarded by them as a _casus
+    belli_. Slavery may therefore be justly regarded as the parent of
+    secession. Whilst this cause exists, the South will be the hot-bed of
+    treason. Slavery has produced its legitimate fruit, and treason is its
+    name. With slavery intact, no compromise, if accepted by the South,
+    would prevent another outbreak in a few years.
+
+    The question has been asked, is there any Union sentiment in the
+    South? I reply that there is a strong Union sentiment, even in
+    Mississippi. This sentiment is not found amongst the slaveholders,
+    for, as a class, they are firmly united in their hostility to the
+    Government. The middle and lower classes are not only opposed to
+    secession, but also to slavery itself. Eleven years' association with
+    the southern people has enabled me to form a correct opinion, and to
+    know whereof I affirm. I make this statement without fear of
+    successful contradiction, that the majority of the white inhabitants
+    of the South are Union-loving men. The slaveholders have long ruled
+    both the blacks and the whites in the South. When the rebellion was
+    determined upon, the slaveholders had the organized force to compel
+    acquiescence upon the part of those who favoured the Union, yet wished
+    to remain neutral. Their drafts and conscriptions swept them into the
+    army, and when once there, they must obey their officers upon pain of
+    death. To desert and join the Union army, was to abandon their homes
+    and families, and all their youthful associations. Yet many have done
+    it, and are now doing good service in their country's cause.
+
+    The rebels punished with death any who declared himself in favour of
+    the Union. In my presence at Tupelo, they were taken out daily and
+    shot for the expression of sentiments adverse to the rebellion. If the
+    Union troops at any time occupied a place, and the people expressed
+    any favourable sentiments to their cause, upon the evacuation of that
+    position, those who sided with the Union troops were cruelly treated.
+    All these causes, and many others which I might mention, have
+    prevented the full development of the true sentiments of the people. I
+    could name many localities within the rebel lines where the great
+    majority of the people bitterly denounce the Southern Confederacy and
+    all connected with it. I could name many individuals who have declared
+    to me that they would prefer death to a dishonourable compliance with
+    the conscript law. I could name localities within the rebel lines
+    where armed resistance to the conscript law has been made; but the
+    safety of those loyal citizens forbids it.
+
+    I know that there are some who assert that there is no Union feeling
+    in the South; but they are mistaken. The author of "Thirteen Months in
+    the Rebel Army" found but little. His situation was not favourable for
+    its discovery. He informs us in his work, that after he had been
+    compelled to _volunteer_, he regarded his oath (an oath much more
+    honoured in the breach than in the observance,) of such force that he
+    sought to obtain information, rather than to desert. He passed from
+    one post of preferment to another, till at length he was on duty under
+    the eye of Breckinridge himself, who complimented him upon his
+    alacrity in bearing dispatches; and this was truly great, as he rode
+    at one time sixty miles in seven hours, and at another, fourteen
+    miles in less than fifty minutes. He also exhibited a guarded zeal for
+    the secession cause. Who would have gone to an officer who was
+    apparently aiding and abetting the rebellion, ably and assiduously, to
+    communicate his Union sentiments? Any who would thus betray themselves
+    could not be sure that they would not be shot in twenty-four hours.
+    Had Mr. Stevenson been with me in Tupelo, and looked upon those
+    seventy or eighty prisoners who were incarcerated for their adherence
+    to the Union--had he witnessed the daily execution of some of them who
+    preferred death to _volunteering_ to defend a cause which they did not
+    hesitate to denounce at the peril of their lives--had he been with me
+    while in the midst of a host of Union citizens of Mississippi, who at
+    the noon of night had assembled in the deep glens and on the high
+    hills, for the purpose of devising means to resist the hated conscript
+    law--he would have come to a far different conclusion. I have seen the
+    cavalry go out to arrest Union men. I was at a Mr. William Herron's,
+    in South Carroll, Carrol county, Tennessee, and while there, several
+    companies of cavalry came up from Jackson to destroy the loyal
+    citizens of that vicinity, and they did destroy some of them and much
+    property. They passed within two hundred yards of fortifications
+    hastily thrown up to resist them, and would have been fired on had
+    they come within range. Before completing their mission, a messenger
+    came to inform them that Fort Henry was beleagured. They hastened to
+    the fort just in time to take part in the action. After the surrender
+    of the fort, they retreated to Fort Donelson, and were all captured at
+    the reduction of that fort, to the great joy of those Union citizens
+    whom they had driven from their homes, and whose property they had
+    destroyed.
+
+    The slaves add greatly to the strength of the rebellion. Slave labour
+    is extensively employed in the military department. They are the
+    sappers and miners, the cooks, the teamsters, the artisans; and there
+    are instances where they are forced to shoulder the musket and go into
+    the ranks. I have seen and conversed with slave soldiers who have
+    fought in every battle from Manassas to Shiloh.
+
+    Many strong secession counties send more soldiers to the rebel army
+    than there are voters in those counties. The slaves who remain at
+    home, labour to raise provisions for the sustenance of the families of
+    the soldiers, and a surplus for the army; hence every white man is
+    available for service in the field. Were this slave labour diverted to
+    some other channel, the result would follow, that a great proportion
+    of the rebel soldiers would be forced to return home to care for their
+    families, or those families must perish. In order to divert this
+    labour, it would be only necessary to encourage the negroes to leave
+    their masters. Wherever the Federal army has advanced in the
+    southwest, the slaves have crowded into their lines by hundreds, and
+    only desisted upon learning, much to their regret, that they would not
+    be received, many of them being tied up and whipped, and then sent
+    southward beyond the limits of the Federal army. Some who had
+    travelled seventy miles upon the underground railroad, to reach the
+    Union army, being asked by their fellow-servants upon their return,
+    how they liked the Yankees, replied that "General Nelson sort o'
+    hinted that he didn't want us." Upon being urged to be more explicit,
+    and to state more fully what was the nature of the hint which led them
+    to infer that General Nelson did not want them, their spokesman
+    replied: "Well, if we must tell, we must. General Nelson tied us up
+    and gave us fifty apiece, and sent us off, sw'arin' he'd guv us a
+    hundred ef we didn't go right straight back home to our masters. He
+    said this wa'n't no war got up to set the niggers free."
+
+    The Kansas Jayhawkers liberate all the slaves with whom they come in
+    contact. I passed four regiments of their cavalry last August, on
+    their way to Rienzi, Mississippi. They had about two thousand slaves
+    with them, of every age and sex. Those slaves groomed their horses,
+    drove their wagons, cooked their victuals, and made themselves useful
+    in a variety of ways, leaving every white man free to go into the
+    battle when the hour of contest arrived.
+
+    Slavery is a strong prop to the rebellion. Four millions of labourers
+    are able to furnish supplies for eight millions. Subtract that vast
+    resource from the rebellion, add it to the support of the Government,
+    and its stunning effect would be speedily demonstrated in the complete
+    paralysis of the Southern Confederacy. In order to supply the loss of
+    the slaves, half the soldiers in the army must return, or famine would
+    sweep both the army and the families of the soldiers from the face of
+    the earth. One cause of the long continuance of the war is, that the
+    Union army has endeavoured to conciliate the South, rather than crush
+    the rebellion. They have guarded the property of the rebels; they have
+    returned promptly their fugitive slaves; they have put down servile
+    insurrection with an iron hand, and in every possible way have shown
+    clemency instead of severity. But their kindness has been abused,
+    their clemency regarded as evidence of imbecility, and the humane
+    policy of the Government totally misconstrued. Captain John Rainey, of
+    Cambridge, Ohio, while on duty at Corinth, Mississippi, received an
+    application from a notorious secessionist for a guard to protect his
+    premises, which was obtained for him from the colonel, three soldiers
+    being detached for that purpose, who proceeded to the station assigned
+    them. About four o'clock in the afternoon they saw the owner of the
+    premises they were guarding, mount his horse and ride off. Supposing
+    him to be going on some ordinary errand, they took no further notice
+    of it. About nine o'clock, one of the guard who had strayed into the
+    orchard, some three hundred yards from the house, heard an unusual
+    sound, as of cavalry approaching. Concealing himself, he saw, by the
+    bright moonlight, this secessionist ride up with seven or eight rebel
+    cavalrymen, who, seizing his two companions, rode off with them as
+    prisoners. The ingrate who committed this base and perfidious act then
+    went into his house and retired to rest. As speedily as possible the
+    third picket returned to his company, and informed them of the
+    occurrence. Fired with indignation, twenty men volunteered to visit
+    summary punishment upon the perpetrator of this villany. Hastening to
+    his house, they aroused him from his slumbers, and in a few minutes
+    suspended him by the neck between the heavens and the earth. On their
+    return they reported to their companions what they had done, and,
+    through fear of punishment, took every precaution to prevent the act
+    reaching the colonel's ears. It was reported to the colonel, however,
+    whose reply to his informant was, "Served him right!" This policy of
+    guarding rebel property by Union troops must be abandoned, or the war
+    will never terminate. The Union army has been attacked by the rebels
+    when large numbers of the soldiers were absent as guards to protect
+    the plantations and all the interests of secessionists. Such gingerly
+    warfare must end, or the days of the Republic are numbered. Carrying
+    the war into the enemy's country has thus far proved a mere farce. The
+    retreating rebels destroyed tenfold more property than the pursuing
+    Federals. I would not counsel cruelty. I would not advise the
+    unnecessary destruction of life or property, for all wanton
+    destruction tends to weaken rather than to strengthen the cause of
+    those who perpetrate it. Vandalism is everywhere reprehensible. The
+    proper policy I believe to be this: Let the Union army be supplied
+    with provisions, so far as practicable, from the territory occupied.
+    Let the slaves find protection and employment on their arrival within
+    the Union lines. Despise not their valuable services. Let it be
+    proclaimed that for every Union citizen of the South who is slain for
+    his adherence to the old flag, a rebel prisoner shall be executed, and
+    that the confiscated property of Union men shall be restored, at the
+    cost of rebel sympathizers in the vicinity. Let these necessary
+    measures be carried out, and no well-informed person can doubt that
+    the war will cease before the end of six months. With slavery, the
+    rebels are powerful; without it, they are powerless. With slavery,
+    every white man between the ages of eighteen and sixty is available as
+    a soldier, and vast supplies are procured by servile labour. Abolish
+    slavery, and the army would be immediately reduced one-half, and
+    supplies would be diminished to a destructive extent. Slaves armed
+    and drilled would make effective soldiers. With a perfect knowledge of
+    the country, with an intense desire to liberate themselves and their
+    brethren from bondage, with an ardent hatred of their cruel masters
+    and overseers, (and the majority of them are cruel,) they would render
+    a willing and powerful aid in crushing the great rebellion. After the
+    war is ended, give them as much land as their necessities require,
+    either in New Mexico or Arizona, and they will furnish more sugar,
+    rice, and cotton, than were extorted from them by compulsory labour in
+    the house of bondage.
+
+    The desire for freedom on the part of the slaves is universal. It is,
+    according to my observation and full belief, a rule without exception.
+    These aspirations are constantly increasing as the rigours of slavery
+    are increased, and the slaves are as well prepared for freedom as they
+    would be a hundred years hence. The _Iron Furnace_ of slavery does not
+    tend to the elevation of its victims. There are better methods of
+    elevating a race than by enslaving it. The moral elevation of the
+    slave is no part of the reason why he is held in bondage; but the
+    convenience and profit of the master is the sole end and aim of the
+    peculiar institution. All attempts on the part of the slaves to obtain
+    their liberty are resisted by the slaveholders, by the infliction of
+    appalling and barbarous cruelties. Thirty-two negroes were executed at
+    Natchez, Mississippi, recently, because they expressed a determination
+    "to go to Lincoln." Six were hanged in Hoxubee county, and one burned
+    in the streets of Macon. The southern papers state that Hon. Mr. Orr,
+    of South Carolina, attempted to drive his slaves into the interior, to
+    prevent their escaping to the Yankees, and upon their refusal to go,
+    he ordered them to be driven at the point of the bayonet, and in the
+    execution of the order, fifty of them were slain. There are instances
+    in which the slave is greatly attached to his master's family, but his
+    love of liberty is greater than that attachment. It often transcends
+    his love for his own family, which he abandons for its sake, risking
+    his life on the underground railroad, and enduring the rigours of a
+    Canadian winter, that he may enjoy his inalienable rights.
+
+    The southwest is already nearly exhausted. The troops which first went
+    into the service were well supplied with clothing, provisions, and
+    money; but the conscripts were poorly clad, and received their wages
+    in Confederate bonds, which have so depreciated, that ten dollars in
+    gold will purchase one hundred dollars of the bonds. Great suffering
+    is the consequence, and desertions are of daily occurrence. While I
+    was in prison at Tupelo, eighty-seven of the Arkansas infantry
+    deserted in a body. One hundred cavalry were sent to arrest them, but
+    they defeated the cavalry in a fair fight, and went on their way
+    rejoicing. Tennesseeans and Kentuckians could not be trusted on picket
+    duty, their proclivity for desertion being notorious. They suffered no
+    opportunity to escape them, and often went off in squads. Many of them
+    being forced into the service, did not consider their involuntary oath
+    binding.
+
+    The wheat crop of 1862, in the southwest, was almost totally destroyed
+    by the rust, and the corn crop by the drought. Salt could not be
+    obtained at any cost, and every marketable commodity had reached a
+    fabulous price. Southern merchants feel that they are ruined. At the
+    commencement of the war they had made large purchases in the North,
+    mainly on credit. The rebel Congress passed a law that all who were
+    indebted to the North must pay two-thirds of the amount of their
+    indebtedness to the Southern Confederacy. This the merchants did. They
+    then sold their goods, taking cotton and Confederate money in pay. The
+    cotton was destroyed by order of Beauregard, and the Confederate scrip
+    is worthless, and the Federal generals are enforcing the payment of
+    Northern claims. This fourfold loss will beggar every southern
+    merchant subjected to it.
+
+    At the commencement of the war, strong drink was abundant, and it was
+    freely used by the soldiers. Drunkenness was fearfully prevalent. This
+    vice increased to such a degree that the army was rapidly becoming
+    demoralized. A large amount of grain was wasted in the manufacture of
+    liquor. At this juncture the rebel government wisely prohibited the
+    manufacture and sale of all that would intoxicate. Soon the wisdom of
+    this measure was apparent. For a time this contraband article was
+    smuggled in, yet it was only in limited quantities, and at the present
+    time a drunken soldier is a _rara avis_ in the army. At the first
+    promulgation of the law, a cunning countryman perforated a large
+    number of eggs, withdrew the contents, filled the shells with whiskey,
+    closed them up, and carrying them to the camp at Rienzi, sold them at
+    an exorbitant price. Others resorted to filling coffee-pots with
+    whisky, stopping up the bottom of the spout, filling it with
+    buttermilk, and if asked by the guards what they had for sale, would
+    pour out some of the milk in the spout, and by this deception gain an
+    entrance to the camp, and supply the soldiers with liquor. But all
+    these tricks were discovered, and since the manufacture, as well as
+    the sale, was prohibited, the supply on hand became exhausted, and
+    drunkenness ceased.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+BATTLES OF LEESBURG, BELMONT, AND SHILOH.
+
+    Rebel Cruelty to Prisoners--The Fratricide--Grant Defeated--Saved by
+    Gunboats--Buell's Advance--Railroad Disaster--The South
+    Despondent--General Rosecrans--Secession will become Odious even in
+    the South--Poem.
+
+
+BATTLE OF LEESBURG.
+
+The battle of Leesburg was fought on the 21st of October, 1861. The
+southern accounts of this battle were so contradictory, that I will not
+give the various versions. One statement, however, all concur in--that
+when the Federal troops retreated to the river, after being overpowered by
+superior numbers, and had thrown down their arms, calling for quarter, no
+mercy was shown them. Hundreds were bayoneted, or forced into the river
+and drowned. The rebels clubbed their guns, and dashed out the brains of
+many while kneeling at their feet and imploring mercy. I saw one ruffian
+who boasted that he had bayoneted seven Yankee prisoners captured on that
+occasion.
+
+
+BATTLE OF BELMONT.
+
+The battle of Belmont was fought on the 7th of November, 1861. I have
+heard repeatedly from southern officers their version of the events which
+occurred on that occasion. General McClernand, for the purpose of breaking
+up the rebel camp at Belmont, attacked it in force at an early hour, and
+completely routed the enemy, pursuing them to a considerable distance.
+Returning, he destroyed completely the camp, but delaying too long, large
+reinforcements were thrown over the river from Columbus, and the Federals
+were compelled to retreat precipitately to their boats, not, however, till
+they had fully accomplished the object of their mission. A scene occurred
+on this field which exhibits one of the saddest phases of this internecine
+strife. The incident was related to me by Mr. Tomlin, a lawyer of Jackson,
+Tennessee, not unknown even in the North, who was personally acquainted
+with the actors. Colonel Rogers, of an Illinois regiment, led his command
+into action early in the contest. A Tennessee regiment opposed him with
+fierceness for some time. At length they began to waver and exhibit
+symptoms of disorder. At this moment their colonel, who had been unhorsed,
+mounted a stump, and by an energetic and fervid address, rallied his men.
+Again they began to falter, and again his burning words restored order.
+Colonel Rogers believing that the safety of himself and regiment depended
+upon the death of the Tennessee colonel, drew a pistol from his holsters,
+rode up and deliberately shot him through the brain. The Tennesseeans
+seeing their colonel fall, fled precipitately. On the return of the
+Illinois troops, Colonel Rogers, impelled by curiosity, dismounted, and
+scanning the features of the colonel whom his own hand had slain,
+recognised his own brother. As the tide of battle had rolled past for the
+moment, he ordered the corpse to be conveyed to a transport, on which it
+was brought to Cairo, and thence borne to the stricken parents, who
+mourned over and buried the remains of their brave but erring child, who
+had met his fate at his brother's unconsciously fratricidal hand.
+
+
+BATTLE OF SHILOH.
+
+On April 6th, 1862, the sun rose clear; not a cloud was discernible in the
+sky; it was truly a lovely Sabbath, even for a southern clime. Early in
+the morning I took a walk with my little daughter, a child four years of
+age, in whose prattle I was taking great interest. We had gone about one
+hundred yards when my child exclaimed, "Pa, we must go back! it's going to
+rain; don't you hear the thunder?" The sharp and stunning reports I soon
+recognised to be the sound of cannon on the field of battle. The
+cannonading continued incessantly during the day. The whole country became
+intensely excited, and many citizens hastened to the battlefield, the
+majority bent upon plunder. On Monday the battle still raged with
+increasing fury. On Sabbath, General Grant had been completely surprised,
+and would have lost his whole army but for the gunboats in the river.
+These gunboats shelled the pursuing rebels, checking their advance, and
+saving the discomfitted Federals. Buell arrived with his division on
+Sabbath night, and on Monday the rebels were driven at every point during
+the whole day, with great loss. When I heard the rebel officers state that
+the gunboats lying in the Tennessee river had checked their pursuit, and
+had committed great havoc amongst their troops, at the distance of nearly
+three miles, I supposed that the rebel army had continued the pursuit till
+they came in sight of the gunners on the boats, who then threw their
+shells into their advancing columns, and my mistake was not corrected till
+I saw the scene of action. A plateau extended from the river, where the
+gunboats lay, to the hills, a distance of about one-quarter of a mile. The
+hills rose to a considerable height, and were covered with a large growth,
+and on their frowning summits the lofty trees seemed to intercept the
+passing clouds. Grant's discomfitted and shattered army had taken refuge
+on the plateau. Some had even thrown themselves into the river, and swam
+across. Such was the position of affairs when the gunners threw their
+shells over those lofty hills, and beyond them a distance of two miles,
+into the midst of the rebels, checking their advance, and destroying them
+by scores. Couriers constantly passed to and fro to give information of
+the position of the enemy. All night long their shelling continued,
+causing Beauregard to change his camp thrice. Thus,
+
+    "Bombs bursting in air,
+  Gave proof through the night
+    That our flag was still there."
+
+On Monday morning Buell's division advanced, and the tide was turned. The
+rebels were driven from every position, and their loss was fearful; and
+had pursuit been continued to Corinth, their whole army must have been
+annihilated. General A. S. Johnson fell about three o'clock on the
+Sabbath. The tibial artery had been severed--a wound not necessarily
+fatal; but he remained in the saddle till he fainted from loss of blood,
+and when borne from his horse by Governor Harris and others, survived but
+twenty minutes. On Sabbath night Beauregard occupied, for a time, an old
+Presbyterian church--a rude log edifice. The church was named Shiloh;
+hence both Beauregard and General Grant, in their dispatches, named the
+engagement the battle of Shiloh. I was in Rienzi as the wounded passed
+down on the cars to the various hospitals below. They passed continually
+for a month. On the 18th of April I went down to Macon, in Noxubee county.
+A large number of wounded were on the train. A lady from the Female
+Seminary in Aberdeen had been placed under my care. When we reached a
+point six miles from Crawfordsville, I noticed a young man looking out in
+an excited manner, and immediately after he jumped out and rolled down an
+embankment. I was much surprised at his conduct, but soon the crashing of
+the cars explained the cause. The train had been thrown from the track,
+and was rushing down an embankment. Jumping from the cars now became
+general. My lady friend arose, declaring that she also would leap from the
+car. I caught and held her till the danger was over, and thus prevented
+perhaps serious injury to her person, as all who jumped from the train
+were more or less injured. On extricating ourselves from the debris of the
+cars, an appalling sight met our view. The sick, wounded, dying, and dead,
+were scattered promiscuously in every direction. Their groans and piercing
+shrieks were heart-rending. The heavy fragments of the broken cars were
+thrown upon their mangled limbs, and in many instances this disaster
+completed what Shiloh had commenced. As we came down, I passed through the
+train amongst the wounded. Some had lost an arm, several an upper lip, as
+many an under lip. Through the body of one six balls had passed. They were
+wounded in the feet, the hands, the head, and the body; and some who had
+not been touched by ball or bullet were paralyzed by their proximity to
+the exploding shells. Truly every battle is with confused noise and
+garments rolled in blood. I remained some time at the destroyed train,
+aiding in extricating those buried beneath the ruins. The extent of the
+damage and destruction of life, I never accurately learned. It must,
+however, have been great. The catastrophe was occasioned by a stick of
+wood falling from the tender before the wheels of the adjacent car, which,
+being thrown from the track, precipitated the whole train down the
+embankment.
+
+For weeks after the battle of Shiloh, little was done by Federals or
+Confederates. The rebels firmly believed that Corinth could not be taken.
+Its evacuation discouraged the people exceedingly. Nothing but disasters
+had befallen them since the year commenced. Zollikoffer had been slain,
+and Crittenden defeated, at Fishing Creek. Roanoke Island had been
+captured. Forts Henry, Donelson, Pulaski, St. Philip, and Jackson had been
+reduced. Island "No. 10" was taken, and New Orleans had fallen. The bloody
+field of Shiloh had proved disastrous; and now, even Corinth, the boasted
+Gibraltar of rebeldom, fortified by the "best engineer on the continent,"
+and defended by the whole army of the southwest, had been evacuated. What,
+under these circumstances, could resist the progress of Halleck to the
+Gulf? Many saw the cause of these disasters in the fact that the rebel
+generals had made their attacks upon the Union troops upon the Sabbath;
+and all history confirms the truth that the army attacking on the Sabbath
+is almost invariably defeated. Universal gloom and an all-pervading spirit
+of despondency, brooded over the whole southern people. Had the rebel army
+been crushed at Corinth, or had Beauregard been vigorously pursued, and
+forced to fight or surrender, the war in the southwest would have been
+terminated. General Rosecrans informed me that they could have crushed the
+rebels at Corinth, and on my asking him why it was not done, he replied:
+"It would have been done at the cost of many lives on both sides, and it
+is not our desire to sacrifice life unnecessarily. Let Beauregard go down
+to the swamps of Mississippi; he can do us no injury. It is not probable
+that he will ever return to Corinth to attack us, and they must starve out
+in a section which never produced enough to sustain its own population."
+But Beauregard did not remain long in the swamps of Mississippi. He took
+the flower of his army and hastened on to Richmond, to reinforce General
+Lee, who immediately gave battle to McClellan, and drove him from the
+Peninsula. Halleck should never have suffered McClellan to be compelled to
+fight both Lee's forces and Beauregard's, whilst his own army was merely
+protecting rebel property and consuming rations. I think General
+Rosecrans, had he been in chief command, would not have thus acted; and
+his statement to me was a mere apology for the conduct of his superior,
+for his policy has ever been vigorous, and the rebels dread him more than
+any living man. The lamented Lyon also inspired a similar wholesome dread.
+I saw much of General Rosecrans. He is a genial, pleasant gentleman. He
+seems desirous of accomplishing his end by the use of mild means; but if
+these will not effect the object, the reverse policy is resorted to. The
+rebels dread, yet respect him. He will do much to oblige a friend. I
+desired at one time to go with my family beyond the Federal lines. General
+Rosecrans went in person to General Pope to obtain a pass; but Pope's
+orders were that no passes should be issued for a specified time. General
+Rosecrans then asked and obtained permission to send one of his aids with
+us, who conducted us beyond the pickets, a distance of five miles. This
+act, the General remarked, was in consideration of the kindness I had
+shown himself and staff while in Rienzi. The Federal generals committed a
+great mistake in desiring to overrun the country without destroying the
+rebel armies. A physician who drives a disease from one limb only to
+appear in a more aggravated form in another, accomplishes nothing. And
+when a general permits a hostile army to change its location as a
+strategic movement, he has accomplished nothing, except giving aid and
+comfort to the enemy. The rebels estimated their forces at the battle of
+Shiloh at eighty thousand. Though considerable accessions had been
+received, yet in consequence of sickness and desertion, their number was
+about the same at the evacuation of Corinth. They lost about eleven
+thousand, slain, wounded, and prisoners, in the battle.
+
+War has a tendency to engender great bitterness of feeling between the
+belligerents. The secessionists hate the northern people, but not with the
+intensity of hatred which they exercise toward the Union-loving citizens
+of the South. In South Carolina, in the days of nullification, the
+nullifiers and Union men were very bitter in their hostility against each
+other. After the suppression of nullification by General Jackson, the
+cause being removed, the enmity ceased, and in a short time, the odium
+attached to nullification became so great, that few would admit that they
+had been nullifiers. Let the supremacy of the law and the Constitution be
+enforced, and a few years hence, few, even in the South, will be found
+willing to admit that they were secessionists. The descendants of the
+Tories carefully conceal their genealogy; the descendants of the
+secessionists will do the same. Slavery and secession will perish
+together; and the classes of the South who have been fearfully injured by
+both these heresies, will be fully compensated for their present distress
+by the vast blessings which will accrue to themselves and posterity by the
+abolition of an institution which has degraded labour, oppressed the poor
+white man, opposed progress, retarded the development of the country's
+resources, taken away the key of knowledge, caused every species of vice
+to flourish, impoverished the people, enriched a favoured class at the
+expense of the masses, caused woes unnumbered to a whole race--in short,
+has been the prolific parent of fraud, oppression, lust, tyranny, murder,
+and every other crime in the dark catalogue.
+
+  "We are living, we are dwelling
+    In a grand and awful time;
+  In an age, on ages telling,
+    To be living is sublime!
+
+  Hark! the waking up of nations,
+    Gog and Magog to the fray;
+  Hark! what soundeth--is creation
+    Groaning for its latter day?
+
+  Will ye play, then? will ye dally
+    With your music and your wine?
+  Up! it is Jehovah's rally!
+    God's own arm hath need of thine.
+
+  Hark! the onset! will ye fold your
+    Faith-clad arms in lazy lock;
+  Up! oh, up! thou drowsy soldier,
+    Worlds are charging to the shock!
+
+  Worlds are charging; heaven beholding;
+    Thou hast but an hour to fight;
+  Now the blazoned cross unfolding,
+    _On!_ right onward _for the right_.
+
+  _On!_ let all the soul within you,
+    For the truth's sake go abroad;
+  Strike! let every nerve and sinew
+    Tell on ages,--tell for God!"
+
+
+
+
+SEE TO YOUR INTEREST!!
+
+AMSTERDAM, _Jefferson co._, Ohio, _January 1, 1863_.
+
+The undersigned tenders his thanks to his customers for their liberal
+patronage in the past, and respectfully solicits its continuance.
+
+He has recently made considerable additions to his stock of
+
+DRY GOODS AND GROCERIES,
+
+and he will endeavour to make it the interest of the citizens of Amsterdam
+and vicinity to deal with him; nor will he permit his competitors to
+surpass him in the cheapness and quality of his goods.
+
+The _highest price_ will be paid for PRODUCE OF EVERY KIND, and _Cash_
+will not be refused in payment for goods.
+
+A word to the wise is sufficient.
+
+DAVID AUGHEY.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Iron Furnace, by John H. Aughey
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+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Iron Furnace: or, Slavery and Secession, by John H. Aughey&mdash;A Project Gutenberg eBook
+    </title>
+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Iron Furnace, by John H. Aughey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Iron Furnace
+       Slavery and Secession
+
+Author: John H. Aughey
+
+Release Date: February 13, 2012 [EBook #38855]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IRON FURNACE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/frontis.jpg" alt="" /><br />
+<small><i>Engraved by Samuel Sartain, Phil<sup>a</sup>.</i></small></div>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/frontis_sig.jpg" alt="John H. Aughey." /></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="huge">THE IRON FURNACE:</span><br />
+OR,<br />
+<span class="huge">SLAVERY AND SECESSION.</span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center"><small>BY</small><br />
+<span class="large">REV. JOHN H. AUGHEY,</span><br />
+A REFUGEE FROM MISSISSIPPI.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="table">
+<tr><td>Cursed be the men that obeyeth not the words of this covenant, which I<br />
+commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land<br />
+of Egypt, from the <i>Iron Furnace</i>.&mdash;Jer. xi. 3, 4. See also, 1 Kings viii. 51.</td></tr></table>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">PHILADELPHIA:<br />
+WILLIAM S. &amp; ALFRED MARTIEN.<br />
+606 CHESTNUT STREET.<br />
+1863.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1863,<br />
+<span class="smcap">By WILLIAM S. &amp; ALFRED MARTIEN</span>,<br />
+In the office of the Clerk of the District Court for the<br />
+Eastern District of Pennsylvania.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">TO MY PERSONAL FRIENDS<br />
+<br />
+REV. CHARLES C. BEATTY, D.D., LL.D.,<br />
+OF STEUBENVILLE, OHIO,<br />
+Moderator of the General Assembly of the (O.S.) Presbyterian<br />
+Church in the United States of America,<br />
+and long Pastor of the Church in which<br />
+my parents were members, and<br />
+our family worshippers;<br />
+<br />
+REV. WILLIAM PRATT BREED,<br />
+Pastor of the West Spruce Street Presbyterian Church, of<br />
+Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;<br />
+<br />
+GEORGE HAY STUART, <span class="smcap">Esq.</span>,<br />
+OF PHILADELPHIA, PA.,<br />
+The Philanthropist, whose virtues are known and<br />
+appreciated in both hemispheres,<br />
+<br />
+THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p>
+<h2>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+<p>A celebrated author thus writes: &#8220;Posterity is under no obligations to a
+man who is not a parent, who has never planted a tree, built a house, nor
+written a book.&#8221; Having fulfilled all these requisites to insure the
+remembrance of posterity, it remains to be seen whether the author&#8217;s name
+shall escape oblivion.</p>
+
+<p>It may be that a few years will obliterate the name affixed to this
+Preface from the memory of man. This thought is the cause of no concern. I
+shall have accomplished my purpose if I can in some degree be humbly
+instrumental in serving my country and my generation, by promoting the
+well-being of my fellow-men, and advancing the declarative glory of
+Almighty God.</p>
+
+<p>This work was written while suffering intensely from maladies induced by
+the rigours of the Iron Furnace of Secession, whose sevenfold heat is
+reserved for the loyal citizens of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> the South. Let this fact be a
+palliation for whatever imperfections the reader may meet with in its
+perusal.</p>
+
+<p>There are many loyal men in the southern States, who to avoid martyrdom,
+conceal their opinions. They are to be pitied&mdash;not severely censured. All
+those southern ministers and professors of religion who were eminent for
+piety, opposed secession till the States passed the secession ordinance.
+They then advocated reconstruction as long as it comported with their
+safety. They then, in the face of danger and death, became quiescent&mdash;not
+acquiescent, by any means&mdash;and they now &#8220;bide their time,&#8221; in prayerful
+trust that God will, in his own good time, subvert rebellion, and
+overthrow anarchy, by a restoration of the supremacy of constitutional
+
+law. By these, and their name is legion, my book will be warmly approved.
+My fellow-prisoners in the dungeon at Tupelo, who may have survived its
+horrors, and my fellow-sufferers in the Union cause throughout the South,
+will read in my narrative a transcript of their own sufferings. The loyal
+citizens of the whole country will be interested in learning the views of
+one who has been conversant with the rise and progress of secession, from
+its incipiency to its culmination in rebellion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> and treason. It will also
+doubtless be of general interest to learn something of the workings of the
+&#8220;peculiar institution,&#8221; and the various phases which it assumes in
+different sections of the slave States.</p>
+
+<p>Compelled to leave Dixie in haste, I had no time to collect materials for
+my work. I was therefore under the necessity of writing without those aids
+which would have secured greater accuracy. I have done the best that I
+could under the circumstances; and any errors that may have crept into my
+statements of facts, or reports of addresses, will be cheerfully rectified
+as soon as ascertained.</p>
+
+<p>That I might not compromise the safety of my Union friends who rendered me
+assistance, and who are still within the rebel lines, I was compelled to
+omit their names, and for the same reason to describe rather indefinitely
+some localities, especially the portions of Ittawamba, Chickasaw,
+Pontotoc, Tippah, and Tishomingo counties, through which I travelled while
+escaping to the Federal lines. This I hope to be able to correct in future
+editions.</p>
+
+<p>Narratives require a liberal use of the first personal pronoun, which I
+would have gladly avoided, had it been possible without tedious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>
+circumlocution, as its frequent repetition has the appearance of egotism.</p>
+
+<p>I return sincere thanks to my fellow-prisoners who imperilled their own
+lives to save mine, and also to those Mississippi Unionists who so
+generously aided a panting fugitive on his way from chains and death to
+life and liberty. My thanks are also due to Rev. William P. Breed, for
+assistance in preparing my work for the press.</p>
+
+<p>I am also under obligations to Rev. Francis J. Collier, of Philadelphia;
+to Rev. A. D. Smith, D. D., and Rev. J. R. W. Sloane, of New York, and to
+Rev. F. B. Wheeler, of Poughkeepsie, New York.</p>
+
+<p>May the Triune God bless our country, and preserve its integrity!</p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">JOHN HILL AUGHEY.</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">February 1, 1863.</span></p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+<p class="title">CONTENTS.</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table">
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">SECESSION.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Speech of Colonel Drane&mdash;Submission Denounced&mdash;Northern Aggression&mdash;No more Slave States&mdash;Northern <i>isms</i>&mdash;Yankees&#8217;
+Servants&mdash;Yankee inferiority&mdash;Breckinridge, or immediate, complete, and eternal Separation&mdash;A Day of Rejoicing&mdash;Abraham Lincoln,
+President elect&mdash;A Union Speech&mdash;A Southerner&#8217;s Reasons for opposing Secession&mdash;Address by a Radical Secessionist&mdash;Cursing
+and Bitterness&mdash;A Prayer&mdash;Sermon against Secession&mdash;List of Grievances&mdash;Causes which led to Secession</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_13">13&mdash;49</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">VIGILANCE COMMITTEE AND COURT-MARTIAL.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>The election of Delegates to determine the status of Mississippi&mdash;The Vigilance Committee&mdash;Description of its members&mdash;Charges&mdash;Phonography&mdash;No
+formal verdict&mdash;Danger of Assassination&mdash;Passports&mdash;Escape to Rienzi&mdash;Union sentiment&mdash;The Conscript Law&mdash;Summons to attend
+Court-Martial&mdash;Evacuation of Corinth&mdash;Destruction of Cotton&mdash;Suffering poor&mdash;Relieved by General Halleck</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_50">50&mdash;69</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">ARREST, ESCAPE, AND RECAPTURE.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>High price of Provisions&mdash;Holland Lindsay&#8217;s Family&mdash;The arrest&mdash;Captain Hill&mdash;Appearance before Colonel Bradfute
+at Fulton&mdash;Arrest of Benjamin Clarke&mdash;Bradfute&#8217;s <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>Insolence&mdash;General
+Chalmers&mdash;The clerical Spy&mdash;General Pfeifer&mdash;Under guard&mdash;Priceville&mdash;General Gordon&mdash;Bound for Tupelo&mdash;The Prisoners entering
+the Dungeon&mdash;Captain Bruce&mdash;Lieutenant Richard Malone&mdash;Prison Fare and Treatment&mdash;Menial Service&mdash;Resolve to escape&mdash;Plan
+of escape&mdash;Federal Prisoners&mdash;Co-operation of the Prisoners&mdash;Declaration of Independence&mdash;The Escape&mdash;The
+Separation&mdash;Concealment&mdash;Travel on the Underground Railroad&mdash;Pursuit by Cavalry and Bloodhounds&mdash;The Arrest&mdash;Dan Barnes,
+the Mail-robber&mdash;Perfidy&mdash;Heavily ironed&mdash;Return to Tupelo</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_70">70&mdash;112</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">LIFE IN A DUNGEON.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Parson Aughey as Chaplain&mdash;Description of the Prisoners&mdash;Colonel Walter, the Judge Advocate&mdash;Charges and Specifications
+against Parson Aughey, a Citizen of the Confederate States&mdash;Execution of two Tennesseeans&mdash;Enlistment of Union Prisoners&mdash;Colonel Walter&#8217;s second
+visit&mdash;Day of Execution specified&mdash;Farewell Letter to my Wife&mdash;Parson Aughey&#8217;s Obituary penned by himself&mdash;Address to his Soul&mdash;The
+Soul&#8217;s Reply&mdash;Farewell Letter to his Parents&mdash;The Union Prisoners&#8217; Petition to Hon. W. H. Seward&mdash;The two Prisoners and the Oath of
+Allegiance&mdash;Irish Stories</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_113">113&mdash;142</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">EXECUTION OF UNION PRISONERS.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Resolved to Escape&mdash;Mode of Executing Prisoners&mdash;Removal of Chain&mdash;Addition to our Numbers&mdash;Two Prisoners become
+Insane&mdash;Plan of Escape&mdash;Proves a Failure&mdash;Fetters Inspected&mdash;Additional Fetters&mdash;Handcuffs&mdash;A Spy in the Disguise of a
+Prisoner&mdash;Special Police Guard on Duty&mdash;A Prisoner&#8217;s Discovery&mdash;Divine Services&mdash;The General Judgment&mdash;The Judge&mdash;The
+Laws&mdash;The Witnesses&mdash;The <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>Concourse&mdash;The Sentence</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_143">143&mdash;167</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">SUCCESSFUL ESCAPE.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>The Second Plan of Escape&mdash;Under the Jail&mdash;Egress&mdash;Among the Guards&mdash;In the Swamp&mdash;Travelling on the Underground Railroad&mdash;The
+Fare&mdash;Green Corn eaten Raw&mdash;Blackberries and Stagnant Water&mdash;The Bloodhounds&mdash;Tantalizing Dreams&mdash;The Pickets&mdash;The Cows&mdash;Become
+Sick&mdash;Fons Beatus&mdash;Find Friends&mdash;Union Friend No. Two&mdash;The night in the Barn&mdash;Death of Newman by Scalding&mdash;Union Friend No.
+Three&mdash;Bound for the Union Lines&mdash;Rebel Soldiers&mdash;Black Ox&mdash;Pied Ox&mdash;Reach Headquarters in Safety&mdash;Emotions on again beholding
+the Old Flag&mdash;Kindness while Sick&mdash;Meeting with his Family&mdash;Richard Malone again&mdash;The Serenade&mdash;Leave Dixie&mdash;Northward bound</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_168">168&mdash;211</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">SOUTHERN CLASSES&mdash;CRUELTY TO SLAVES.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Sandhillers&mdash;Dirt-eating&mdash;Dipping&mdash;Their Mode of Living&mdash;Patois&mdash;Rain-book&mdash;Wife-trade&mdash;Coming in to see the
+Cars&mdash;Superstition&mdash;Marriage of Kinsfolks&mdash;Hardshell Sermon&mdash;Causes which lead to the Degradation of this Class&mdash;Efforts to Reconcile
+the Poor Whites to the Peculiar Institution&mdash;The Slaveholding Class&mdash;The Middle Class&mdash;Northern <i>isms</i>&mdash;Incident at a Methodist Minister&#8217;s
+House&mdash;Question asked a Candidate for Licensure&mdash;Reason of Southern Hatred toward the North&mdash;Letter to Mr. Jackman&mdash;Barbarities and Cruelties of
+Slavery&mdash;Mulattoes&mdash;Old Cole&mdash;Child Born at Whipping-post&mdash;Advertisement of a Keeper of Bloodhounds&mdash;Getting Rid of Free
+Blacks&mdash;The Doom of Slavery&mdash;Methodist Church South</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_212">212&mdash;248</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">NOTORIOUS REBELS.&mdash;UNION OFFICERS.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Colonel Jefferson Davis&mdash;His Speech at Holly Springs, Mississippi&mdash;His Opposition to Yankee Teachers and Ministers&mdash;A bid for the
+Presidency&mdash;His Ambition&mdash;Burr, Arnold, Davis&mdash;General Beauregard&mdash;Headquarters at Rienzi&mdash;Colonel Elliott&#8217;s
+Raid&mdash;Beauregard&#8217;s Consternation&mdash;Personal description&mdash;His illness&mdash;Popularity waning.&mdash;Rev. Dr. Palmer of New Orleans&mdash;His
+influence&mdash;The Cincinnati Letter&mdash;His Personal Appearance&mdash;His Denunciations of General Butler&mdash;His Radicalism.&mdash;Rev.
+Dr. Waddell of La Grange, Tennessee&mdash;His Prejudices against the North&mdash;President of Memphis Synodical College&mdash;His Talents prostituted.&mdash;Union
+Officers&mdash;General Nelson&mdash;General Sherman</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_249">249&mdash;263</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">CONDITION OF THE SOUTH.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Cause of the Rebellion&mdash;Prevalence of Union Sentiment in the South&mdash;Why not Developed&mdash;Stevenson&#8217;s Views&mdash;Why
+Incorrect&mdash;Cavalry Raids upon Union Citizens&mdash;How the Rebels employ Slaves&mdash;Slaves Whipped and sent out of the Federal Lines&mdash;Resisting
+the Conscript Law&mdash;Kansas Jayhawkers&mdash;Guarding Rebel Property&mdash;Perfidy of Secessionists&mdash;Plea for Emancipation&mdash;The South
+Exhausted&mdash;Failure of Crops&mdash;Southern Merchants Ruined&mdash;Bragg Prohibits the Manufacture and Vending of Intoxicating Liquors&mdash;Its Salutary Effect</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_264">264&mdash;281</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">BATTLES OF LEESBURG, BELMONT, AND SHILOH.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Rebel Cruelty to Prisoners&mdash;The Fratricide&mdash;Grant Defeated&mdash;Saved by Gunboats&mdash;Buell&#8217;s Advance&mdash;Railroad
+Disaster&mdash;The South Despondent&mdash;General Rosecrans&mdash;Secession will become Odious even in the South&mdash;Poem</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_282">282&mdash;296</a></td></tr></table>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="huge">THE IRON FURNACE;</span><br /><small>OR</small><br /><span class="huge">SLAVERY AND SECESSION.</span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+<p class="title">SECESSION.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Speech of Colonel Drane.&mdash;Submission Denounced.&mdash;Northern
+Aggression.&mdash;No more Slave States.&mdash;Northern <i>isms</i>.&mdash;Yankees&#8217;
+Servants.&mdash;Yankee inferiority.&mdash;Breckinridge, or immediate, complete,
+and eternal Separation.&mdash;A Day of Rejoicing.&mdash;Abraham Lincoln
+President elect.&mdash;A Union Speech.&mdash;A Southerner&#8217;s Reasons for opposing
+Secession.&mdash;Address by a Radical Secessionist.&mdash;Cursing and
+Bitterness.&mdash;A Prayer.&mdash;Sermon against Secession.&mdash;List of
+Grievances.&mdash;Causes which led to Secession.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>At the breaking out of the present rebellion, I was engaged in the work of
+an Evangelist in the counties of Choctaw and Attala in Central
+Mississippi. My congregations were large, and my duties onerous. Being
+constantly employed in ministerial labours, I had no time to intermeddle
+with politics, leaving all such questions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> to statesmen, giving the
+complex issues of the day only sufficient attention to enable me to vote
+intelligently. Thus was I engaged when the great political campaign of
+1860 commenced&mdash;a campaign conducted with greater virulence and asperity
+than any I have ever witnessed. During my casual detention at a store,
+Colonel Drane arrived, according to appointment, to address the people of
+Choctaw. He was a member of one of my congregations, and as he had been
+long a leading statesman in Mississippi, having for many years presided
+over the State Senate, I expected to hear a speech of marked ability,
+unfolding the true issues before the people, with all the dignity,
+suavity, and earnestness of a gentleman and patriot; but I found his whole
+speech to be a tirade of abuse against the North, commingled with the bold
+avowal of treasonable sentiments. The Colonel thus addressed the people:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">My Fellow-Citizens</span>&mdash;I appear before you to urge anew resistance
+against the encroachments and aggressions of the Yankees. If the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>
+Black Republicans carry their ticket, and Old Abe is elected, our
+right to carry our slaves into the territories will be denied us; and
+who dare say that he would be a base, craven submissionist, when our
+God-given and constitutional right to carry slavery into the common
+domain is wickedly taken from the South. The Yankees cheated us out of
+Kansas by their infernal Emigrant Aid Societies. They cheated us out
+of California, which our blood-treasure purchased, for the South sent
+ten men to one that was sent by the North to the Mexican war, and thus
+we have no foothold on the Pacific coast; and even now we pay five
+dollars for the support of the general Government where the North pays
+one. We help to pay bounties to the Yankee fishermen in New England;
+indeed <i>we</i> are always paying, paying, paying, and yet the North is
+always crying, Give, give, give. The South has made the North rich,
+and what thanks do we receive? Our rights are trampled on, our slaves
+are spirited by thousands over their underground railroad to Canada,
+our citizens are insulted while travelling in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> North, and their
+servants are tampered with, and by false representations, and often by
+mob violence, forced from them. Douglas, knowing the power of the
+Emigrant Aid Societies, proposes squatter sovereignty, with the
+positive certainty that the scum of Europe and the mudsills of
+Yankeedom can be shipped in in numbers sufficient to control the
+destiny of the embryo State. Since the admission of Texas in 1845,
+there has not been a single foot of slave territory secured to the
+South, while the North has added to their list the extensive States of
+California, Minnesota, and Oregon, and Kansas is as good as theirs;
+while, if Lincoln is elected, the Wilmot proviso will be extended over
+all the common territories, debarring the South for ever from her
+right to share the public domain.</p>
+
+<p>The hypocrites of the North tell us that slaveholding is sinful. Well,
+suppose it is. Upon us and our children let the guilt of this sin
+rest; we are willing to bear it, and it is none of their business. We
+are a more moral people than they are. Who originated <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>Mormonism,
+Millerism, Spirit-rappings, Abolitionism, Free-loveism, and all the
+other abominable <i>isms</i> which curse the world? The reply is, the
+North. Their puritanical fanaticism and hypocrisy is patent to all.
+Talk to us of the sin of slavery, when the only difference between us
+is that our slaves are black and theirs white. They treat their white
+slaves, the Irish and Dutch, in a cruel manner, giving them during
+health just enough to purchase coarse clothing, and when they become
+sick, they are turned off to starve, as they do by hundreds every
+year. A female servant in the North must have a testimonial of good
+character before she will be employed; those with whom she is
+labouring will not give her this so long as they desire her services;
+she therefore cannot leave them, whatever may be her treatment, so
+that she is as much compelled to remain with her employer as the slave
+with his master.</p>
+
+<p>Their servants hate them; our&#8217;s love us. My niggers would fight for me
+and my family. They have been treated well, and they know it. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>And I
+don&#8217;t treat my slaves any better than my neighbours. If ever there
+comes a war between the North and the South, let us do as Abraham
+did&mdash;arm our trained servants, and go forth with them to the battle.
+They hate the Yankees as intensely as we do, and nothing could please
+our slaves better than to fight them. Ah, the perfidious Yankees! I
+cordially hate a Yankee. We have all suffered much at their hands;
+they will not keep faith with us. Have they complied with the
+provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law? The thousands and tens of
+thousands of slaves aided in their escape to Canada, is a sufficient
+answer. We <i>have</i> lost millions, and <i>are</i> losing millions every year,
+by the operations of the underground railroad. How deep the perfidy of
+a people, thus to violate every article of compromise we have made
+with them! The Yankees are an inferior race, descended from the old
+Puritan stock, who enacted the Blue Laws. They are desirous of
+compelling us to submit to laws more iniquitous than ever were the
+Blue Laws. I have travelled in the North, and have seen the depth <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>of
+their depravity. Now, my fellow-citizens, what shall we do to resist
+Northern aggression? Why simply this: if Lincoln or Douglas are
+elected, (as to the Bell-Everett ticket, it stands no sort of chance,)
+let us secede. This remedy will be effectual. I am in favour of no
+more compromises. Let us have Breckinridge, or immediate, complete,
+and eternal separation.</p></div>
+
+<p>The speaker then retired amid the cheers of his audience.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after this there came a day of rejoicing to many in Mississippi. The
+booming of cannon, the joyous greeting, the soul-stirring music, indicated
+that no ordinary intelligence had been received. The lightnings had
+brought the tidings that Abraham Lincoln was President elect of the United
+States, and the South was wild with excitement. Those who had been long
+desirous of a pretext for secession, now boldly advocated their
+sentiments, and joyfully hailed the election of Mr. Lincoln as affording
+that pretext. The conservative men were filled with gloom. They regarded
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> election of Mr. Lincoln, by the majority of the people of the United
+States, in a constitutional way, as affording no cause for secession.
+Secession they regarded as fraught with all the evils of Pandora&#8217;s box,
+and that war, famine, pestilence, and moral and physical desolation would
+follow in its train. A call was made by Governor Pettus for a convention
+to assemble early in January, at Jackson, to determine what course
+Mississippi should pursue, whether her policy should be submission or
+secession.</p>
+
+<p>Candidates, Union and Secession, were nominated for the convention in
+every county. The speeches of two, whom I heard, will serve as a specimen
+of the arguments used <i>pro</i> and <i>con</i>. Captain Love, of Choctaw, thus
+addressed the people.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">My Fellow-Citizens</span>&mdash;I appear before you to advocate the Union&mdash;the
+Union of the States under whose favoring auspices we have long
+prospered. No nation so great, so prosperous, so happy, or so much
+respected by earth&#8217;s thousand kingdoms, as the Great Republic, by
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>which name the United States is known from the rivers to the ends of
+the earth. Our flag, the star-spangled banner, is respected on every
+sea, and affords protection to the citizens of every State, whether
+amid the pyramids of Egypt, the jungles of Asia, or the mighty cities
+of Europe. Our Republican Constitution, framed by the wisdom of our
+Revolutionary fathers, is as free from imperfection as any document
+drawn up by uninspired men. God presided over the councils of that
+convention which framed our glorious Constitution. They asked wisdom
+from on high, and their prayers were answered. Free speech, a free
+press, and freedom to worship God as our conscience dictates, under
+our own vine and fig-tree, none daring to molest or make us afraid,
+are some of the blessings which our Constitution guarantees; and these
+prerogatives, which we enjoy, are features which bless and distinguish
+us from the other nations of the earth. Freedom of speech is unknown
+amongst them; among them a censorship of the press and a national
+church are established.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>Our country, by its physical features, seems fitted for but one
+nation. What ceaseless trouble would be caused by having the source of
+our rivers in one country and the mouth in another. There are no
+natural boundaries to divide us into separate nations. We are all
+descended from the same common parentage, we all speak the same
+language, and we have really no conflicting interests, the statements
+of our opponents to the contrary notwithstanding. Our opponents
+advocate separate State secession. Would not Mississippi cut a sorry
+figure among the nations of the earth? With no harbour, she would be
+dependent on a foreign nation for an outlet. Custom-house duties would
+be ruinous, and the republic of Mississippi would find herself
+compelled to return to the Union. Mississippi, you remember,
+repudiated a large foreign debt some years ago; if she became an
+independent nation, her creditors would influence their government to
+demand payment, which could not be refused by the weak, defenceless,
+navyless, armyless, moneyless, repudiating republic of Mississippi.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+To pay this debt, with the accumulated interest, would ruin the new
+republic, and bankruptcy would stare us in the face.</p>
+
+<p>It is true, Abraham Lincoln is elected President of the United States.
+My plan is to wait till Mr. Lincoln does something unconstitutional.
+Then let the South unanimously seek redress in a constitutional
+manner. The conservatives of the North will join us. If no redress is
+made, let us present our ultimatum. If this, too, is rejected, I for
+one will not advocate submission; and by the co&ouml;peration of all the
+slave States, we will, in the event of the perpetration of wrong, and
+a refusal to redress our grievances, be much abler to secure our
+rights, or to defend them at the cannon&#8217;s mouth and the point of the
+bayonet. The Supreme Court favours the South. In the Dred Scott case,
+the Supreme Court decided that the negro was not a citizen, and that
+the slave was a chattel, as we regard him. The majority of Congress on
+joint ballot is still with the South. Although we have something to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+fear from the views of the President elect and the Chicago platform,
+let us wait till some overt act, trespassing upon our rights, is
+committed, and all redress denied; then, and not till then, will I
+advocate extreme measures.</p>
+
+<p>Let our opponents remember that secession and civil war are
+synonymous. Who ever heard of a government breaking to pieces without
+an arduous struggle for its preservation? I admit the right of
+revolution, when a people&#8217;s rights cannot otherwise be maintained, but
+deny the right of secession. We are told that it is a reserved right.
+The constitution declares that all rights not specified in it are
+reserved to the people of the respective States; but who ever heard of
+the right of total destruction of the government being a reserved
+right in any constitution? The fallacy is evident at a glance. Nine
+millions of people can afford to wait for some overt act. Let us not
+follow the precipitate course which the ultra politicians indicate.
+Let W. L. Yancey urge his treasonable policy of firing the Southern
+heart and precipitating a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> revolution; but let us follow no such
+wicked advice. Let us follow the things which make for peace.</p>
+
+<p>We are often told that the North will not return fugitive slaves. Will
+secession remedy this grievance? Will secession give us any more slave
+territory? No free government ever makes a treaty for the rendition of
+fugitive slaves&mdash;thus recognising the rights of the citizens of a
+foreign nation to a species of property which it denies to its own
+citizens. Even little Mexico will not do it. Mexico and Canada return
+no fugitives. In the event of secession, the United States would
+return no fugitives, and our peculiar institution would, along our
+vast border, become very insecure; we would hold our slaves by a very
+slight tenure. Instead of extending the great Southern institution, it
+would be contracting daily. Our slaves would be held to service at
+their own option, throughout the whole border, and our gulf States
+would soon become border States; and the great insecurity of this
+species of property would work, before twenty years,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> the extinction
+of slavery, and, in consequence, the ruin of the South. Are we
+prepared for such a result? Are we prepared for civil war? Are we
+prepared for all the evils attendant upon a fratricidal contest&mdash;for
+bloodshed, famine, and political and moral desolation? I reply, we are
+not; therefore let us look before we leap, and avoiding the heresy of
+secession&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;Rather bear the ills we have,<br />
+Than fly to others that we know not of.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>A secession speaker was introduced, and thus addressed the people:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Ladies and Gentlemen</span>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Fellow-Citizens</span>&mdash;I am a secessionist out and
+out; voted for Jeff Davis for Governor in 1850, when the same issue
+was before the people; and I have always felt a grudge against the
+<i>free state</i> of Tishomingo for giving H. S. Foote, the Union
+candidate, a majority so great as to elect him, and thus retain the
+State in this accursed Union ten years longer. Who would be a
+craven-hearted, cowardly, villanous <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>submissionist? Lincoln, the
+abominable, white-livered abolitionist, is President elect of the
+United States; shall he be permitted to take his seat on Southern
+soil? No, never! I will volunteer as one of thirty thousand, to
+butcher the villain if ever he sets foot on slave territory. Secession
+or submission! What patriot would hesitate for a moment which to
+choose? No true son of Mississippi would brook the idea of submission
+to the rule of the baboon Abe Lincoln&mdash;a fifth-rate lawyer, a
+broken-down hack of a politician, a fanatic, an abolitionist. I, for
+one, would prefer an hour of virtuous liberty to a whole eternity of
+bondage under northern, Yankee, wooden-nutmeg rule. The halter is the
+only argument that should be used against the submissionists, and I
+predict that it will soon, very soon, be in force.</p>
+
+<p>We have glorious news from Tallahatchie. Seven tory-submissionists
+were hanged there in one day, and the so-called Union candidates,
+having the wholesome dread of hemp before their eyes, are not
+canvassing the county; therefore the heretical dogma of submission,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
+under any circumstances, disgraces not their county. Compromise! let
+us have no such word in our vocabulary. Compromise with the Yankees,
+after the election of Lincoln, is treason against the South; and still
+its syren voice is listened to by the demagogue submissionists. We
+should never have made any compromise, for in every case we
+surrendered rights for the sake of peace. No concession of the scared
+Yankees will now prevent secession. They now understand that the South
+is in earnest, and in their alarm they are proposing to yield us much;
+but the die is cast, the Rubicon is crossed, and our determination
+shall ever be, No union with the flat-headed, nigger-stealing,
+fanatical Yankees.</p>
+
+<p>We are now threatened with internecine war. The Yankees are an
+inferior race; they are cowardly in the extreme. They are descended
+from the Puritan stock, who never bore rule in any nation. We, the
+descendants of the Cavaliers, are the Patricians, they the Plebeians.
+The Cavaliers have always been the rulers, the Puritans the ruled. The
+dastardly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> Yankees will never fight us; but if they, in their
+presumption and audacity, venture to attack us, let the war come&mdash;I
+repeat it&mdash;let it come! The conflagration of their burning cities, the
+desolation of their country, and the slaughter of their inhabitants,
+will strike the nations of the earth dumb with astonishment, and serve
+as a warning to future ages, that the slaveholding Cavaliers of the
+sunny South are terrible in their vengeance. I am in favour of
+immediate, independent, and eternal separation from the vile Union
+which has so long oppressed us. After separation, I am in favour of
+non-intercourse with the United States so long as time endures. We
+will raise the tariff, to the point of prohibition, on all Yankee
+manufactures, including wooden-nutmegs, wooden clocks, quack nostrums,
+&amp;c. We will drive back to their own inhospitable clime every Yankee
+who dares to pollute our shores with his cloven feet. Go he must, and
+if necessary, with the bloodhounds on his track. The scum of Europe
+and the mudsills of Yankeedom shall never be permitted to advance a
+step<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> south of 36&deg; 30&#8242;. South of that latitude is ours&mdash;westward to
+the Pacific. With my heart of hearts I hate a Yankee, and I will make
+my children swear eternal hatred to the whole Yankee race. A mongrel
+breed&mdash;Irish, Dutch, Puritans, Jews, free niggers, &amp;c.&mdash;they scarce
+deserve the notice of the descendants of the Huguenots, the old
+Castilians, and the Cavaliers. Cursed be the day when the South
+consented to this iniquitous league&mdash;the Federal Union&mdash;which has long
+dimmed her nascent glory.</p>
+
+<p>In battle, one southron is equivalent to ten northern hirelings; but I
+regard it a waste of time to speak of Yankees&mdash;they deserve not our
+attention. It matters not to us what they think of secession, and we
+would not trespass upon your time and patience, were it not for the
+tame, tory submissionists with which our country is cursed. A fearful
+retribution is in waiting for the whole crew, if the war which they
+predict, should come. Were they then to advocate the same views, I
+would not give a fourpence for their lives. We would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> hang them
+quicker than old Heath would hang a tory. Our Revolutionary fathers
+set us a good example in their dealings with the tories. They sent
+them to the shades infernal from the branches of the nearest tree. The
+North has sent teachers and preachers amongst us, who have insidiously
+infused the leaven of Abolitionism into the minds of their students
+and parishioners; and this submissionist policy is a lower development
+of the doctrine of Wendell Philips, Gerritt Smith, Horace Greely, and
+others of that ilk. We have a genial clime, a soil of uncommon
+fertility. We have free institutions, freedom for the white man,
+bondage for the black man, as nature and nature&#8217;s God designed. We
+have fair women and brave men. The lines have truly fallen to us in
+pleasant places. We have indeed a goodly heritage. The only evil we
+can complain of is our bondage to the Yankees through the Federal
+Union. Let us burst these shackles from our limbs, and we will be free
+indeed.</p>
+
+<p>Let all who desire complete and eternal emancipation from Yankee
+thraldom, come to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> the polls on the &mdash;&mdash; day of December, prepared not
+to vote the cowardly submissionist ticket, but to vote the secession
+ticket; and their children, and their children&#8217;s children, will owe
+them a debt of gratitude which they can never repay. The day of our
+separation and vindication of States&#8217; rights, will be the happiest day
+of our lives. Yankee domination will have ceased for ever, and the
+haughty southron will spurn them from all association, both
+governmental and social. So mote it be!</p></div>
+
+<p>This address was received with great eclat.</p>
+
+<p>On the next Sabbath after this meeting, I preached in the Poplar Creek
+Presbyterian church, in Choctaw county, from Romans xiii. 1: &#8220;Let every
+soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God:
+the powers that be, are ordained of God.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Previous to the sermon a prayer was offered, of which the following is the
+conclusion:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Almighty God</span>&mdash;We would present our country, the United States of
+America, before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> thee. When our political horizon is overcast with
+clouds and darkness, when the strong-hearted are becoming fearful for
+the permanence of our free institutions, and the prosperity, yea, the
+very existence of our great Republic, we pray thee, O God, when flesh
+and heart fail, when no human arm is able to save us from the fearful
+vortex of disunion and revolution, that thou wouldst interpose and
+save us. We confess our national sins, for we have, as a nation,
+sinned grievously. We have been highly favoured, we have been greatly
+prospered, and have taken our place amongst the leading powers of the
+earth. A gospel-enlightened nation, our sins are therefore more
+heinous in thy sight. They are sins of deep ingratitude and
+presumption. We confess that drunkenness has abounded amongst all
+classes of our citizens. Rulers and ruled have been alike guilty; and
+because of its wide-spreading prevalence, and because our legislators
+have enacted no sufficient laws for its suppression, it is a national
+sin. Profanity abounds amongst us; Sabbath-breaking is rife; and we
+have <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>elevated unworthy men to high positions of honour and trust. We
+are not, as a people, free from the crime of tyranny and oppression.
+For these great and aggravated offences, we pray thee to give us
+repentance and godly sorrow, and then, O God, avert the threatened and
+imminent judgments which impend over our beloved country. Teach our
+Senators wisdom. Grant them that wisdom which is able to make them
+wise unto salvation; and grant also that wisdom which is profitable to
+direct, so that they may steer the ship of State safely through the
+troubled waters which seem ready to engulf it on every side. Lord,
+hear us, and answer in mercy, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.
+Amen and Amen!</p></div>
+
+<p>The following is a synopsis of my sermon:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Israel had been greatly favoured as a nation. No weapon formed against
+them prospered, so long as they loved and served the Lord their God.
+They were blessed in their basket and their store. They were set on
+high above all the nations of the earth. * * * * <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>When all Israel
+assembled, ostensibly to make Rehoboam king, they were ripe for
+rebellion. Jeroboam and other wicked men had fomented and cherished
+the sparks of treason, till, on this occasion, it broke out into the
+flame of open rebellion. The severity of Solomon&#8217;s rule was the
+pretext, but it was only a pretext, for during his reign the nation
+prospered, grew rich and powerful. Jeroboam wished a disruption of the
+kingdom, that he might bear rule; and although God permitted it as a
+punishment for Israel&#8217;s idolatry, yet he frowned upon the wicked men
+who were instrumental in bringing this great evil upon his chosen
+people.</p>
+
+<p>The loyal division took the name of Judah, though composed of the two
+tribes, Judah and Benjamin. The revolted ten tribes took the name of
+their leading tribe, Ephraim. Ephraim continued to wax weaker and
+weaker. Filled with envy against Judah, they often warred against that
+loyal kingdom, until they themselves were greatly reduced. At last,
+after various vicissitudes, the ten tribes were carried away, and
+scattered and lost. We often hear<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> of the lost ten tribes. What became
+of them is a mystery. Their secession ended in their being blotted out
+of existence, or lost amidst the heathen. God alone knows what did
+become of them. They resisted the powers that be&mdash;the ordinance of
+God&mdash;and received to themselves damnation and annihilation.</p>
+
+<p>As God dealt with Israel, so will he deal with us. If we are exalted
+by righteousness, we will prosper; if we, as the ten tribes, resist
+the ordinance of God, we will perish. At this time, many are
+advocating the course of the ten tribes. Secession is a word of
+frequent occurrence. It is openly advocated by many. Nullification and
+rebellion, secession and treason, are convertible terms, and no good
+citizen will mention them with approval. Secession is resisting the
+powers that be, and therefore it is a violation of God&#8217;s command.
+Where do we obtain the right of secession? Clearly not from the word
+of God, which enjoins obedience to all that are in authority, to whom
+we must be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience&#8217; sake.
+The following scriptural <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>argument for secession is often used, 1 Tim.
+vi. 1&mdash;5. In these verses Paul was addressing believing servants, and
+commanding them to absent themselves from the teaching of those who
+taught not the doctrine which is according to godliness. In a former
+epistle he had commanded Christians not to keep company with the
+incestuous person who had his father&#8217;s wife. He directed that they
+should not keep company with any man who was called a brother, if he
+were a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a
+drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one no not to eat; but he
+expressly declares that he does not allude to those who belong to the
+above classes that have made no profession of religion. He does not
+judge them that are without, for them that are without, God judgeth.
+He afterwards exhorts that the church confirm their love toward the
+incestuous person as he had repented of his wickedness. This direction
+of the Apostle to believers to withdraw from a brother who walked
+disorderly, till he had manifested proper repentance; and his
+exhortation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> to believing servants to absent themselves from the
+teachings of errorists, cannot logically be construed as a scriptural
+argument in favour of secession. Were the President of the United
+States an unbeliever, a profane swearer, a Sabbath-breaker, or a
+drunkard, this fact would not, <i>per se</i>, give us the right to secede
+or rebel against the government.</p>
+
+<p>There is no provision made in the Constitution of the United States
+for secession. The wisest statesmen, who made politics their study,
+regarded secession as a political heresy, dangerous in its tendencies,
+and destructive of all government in its practical application.
+Mississippi, purchased from France with United States gold, fostered
+by the nurturing care, and made prosperous by the wise administration
+of the general government, proposes to secede. Her political status
+would then be anomalous. Would her territory revert to France? Does
+she propose to refund the purchase-money? Would she become a territory
+under the jurisdiction of the United States Congress?</p>
+
+<p>Henry Clay, the great statesman, Daniel <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>Webster, the expounder of the
+Constitution, General Jackson, George Washington, and a mighty host,
+whose names would fill a volume, regarded secession as treason. One of
+our smallest States, which swarmed with tories in the Revolution,
+whose descendants still live, invented the doctrine of nullification,
+the first treasonable step, which soon culminated in the advocacy of
+secession. Why should we secede, and thus destroy the best, the
+freest, and most prosperous government on the face of the earth? the
+government which our patriot fathers fought and bled to secure. What
+has Mississippi lost by the Union? I have resided seven years in this
+State, and have an extensive personal acquaintance, and yet I know not
+a single individual who has lost a slave through northern influence. I
+have, it is true, known of some ten slaves who have run away, and have
+not been found. They may have been aided in their escape to Canada by
+northern and southern citizens, for there are many in the South who
+have given aid and comfort to the fugitive; but the probability is
+that they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> perished in the swamps, or were destroyed by the
+bloodhounds.</p>
+
+<p>The complaint is made that the North regards slavery as a moral,
+social, and political evil, and that many of them denounce, in no
+measured terms, both slavery and slaveholders. To be thus denounced is
+regarded as a great grievance. Secession would not remedy this evil.
+In order to cure it effectually, we must seize and gag all who thus
+denounce our peculiar institution. We must also muzzle their press. As
+this is impracticable, it would be well to come to this
+conclusion:&mdash;If we are verily guilty of the evils charged upon us, let
+us set about rectifying those evils; if not, the denunciations of
+slanderers should not affect us so deeply. If our northern brethren
+are honest in their convictions of the sin of slavery, as no doubt
+many of them are, let us listen to their arguments without the dire
+hostility so frequently manifested. They take the position that
+slavery is opposed to the inalienable rights of the human race; that
+it originated in piracy and robbery; that manifold cruelties and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>barbarities are inflicted upon the defenceless slaves; that they are
+debarred from intellectual culture by State laws, which send to the
+penitentiary those who are guilty of instructing them; that they are
+put upon the block and sold; parent and child, husband and wife being
+separated, so that they never again see each other&#8217;s face in the
+flesh; that the law of chastity cannot be observed, as there are no
+laws punishing rape on the person of a female slave; that when they
+escape from the threatened cat-o&#8217;-nine-tails, or overseer&#8217;s whip, they
+are hunted down by bloodhounds, and bloodier men; that often they are
+half-starved and half-clad, and are furnished with mere hovels to live
+in; that they are often murdered by cruel overseers, who whip them to
+death, or overtask them, until disease is induced, which results in
+death; that masters practically ignore the marriage relation among
+slaves, inasmuch as they frequently separate husband and wife, by sale
+or removal; that they discourage the formation of that relation,
+preferring that the offspring of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> their female slaves should be
+illegitimate, from the mistaken notion that it would be more numerous.
+They charge, also, that slavery induces in the masters, pride,
+arrogance, tyranny, laziness, profligacy, and every form of vice.</p>
+
+<p>The South takes the position, that if slavery is sinful, the North is
+not responsible for that sin; that it is a State institution, and that
+to interfere with slavery in the States in any way, even by censure,
+is a violation of the rights of the States. The language of our
+politicians is, Upon us and our children rest the evil! We are willing
+to take the responsibility, and to risk the penalty! You will find
+evil and misery enough in the North to excite your philanthropy, and
+employ your beneficence. You have purchased our cotton; you have used
+our sugar; you have eaten our rice; you have smoked and chewed our
+tobacco&mdash;all of which are the products of slave-labour. You have grown
+rich by traffic in these articles; you have monopolized the carrying
+trade, and borne our slave-produced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> products to your shores. Your
+northern ships, manned by northern men, brought from Africa the
+greater part of the slaves which came to our continent, and they are
+still smuggling them in. When, finding slavery unprofitable, the
+northern States passed laws for gradual emancipation, but few obtained
+their freedom, the majority of them being shipped South and sold, so
+that but few, comparatively, were manumitted. If the slave trade and
+slavery are great sins, the North is <i>particeps criminis</i>, and has
+been from the beginning.</p>
+
+<p>These bitter accusations are hurled back and forth through the
+newspapers; and in Congress, crimination and recrimination occur every
+day of the session. Instead of endeavouring to calm the troubled
+waters, politicians are striving to render them turbid and boisterous.
+Sectional bitterness and animosity prevail to a fearful extent; but
+secession is not the proper remedy. To cure one evil by perpetrating a
+greater, renders a double cure necessary. In order to cure a disease,
+the cause should be known, that we may treat it intelligently, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+apply a proper remedy. Having observed, during the last eleven years,
+that sectional strife and bitterness were increasing with fearful
+rapidity, I have endeavoured to stem the torrent, so far as it was
+possible for individual effort to do so. I deem it the imperative duty
+of all patriots, of all Christians, to throw oil upon the troubled
+waters, and thus save the ship of State from wreck among the
+vertiginous billows.</p>
+
+<p>Most of our politicians are demagogues. They care not for the people,
+so that they accomplish their own selfish and ambitious schemes. Give
+them power, give them money, and they are satisfied. Deprive them of
+these, and they are ready to sacrifice the best interests of the
+nation to secure them. They excite sectional animosity and party
+strife, and are willing to kindle the flames of civil war to
+accomplish their unhallowed purposes. They tell us that there is a
+conflict of interest between the free and slave States, and endeavour
+to precipitate a revolution, that they may be leaders, and obtain
+positions of trust and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> profit in the new government which they hope
+to establish. The people would be dupes indeed to abet these wicked
+demagogues in their nefarious designs. Let us not break God&#8217;s command,
+by resisting the ordinance of God&mdash;the powers that be. I am not
+discussing the right of revolution, which I deem a sacred right. When
+human rights are invaded, when life is endangered, when liberty is
+taken away, when we are not left free to pursue our own happiness in
+our own chosen way&mdash;so far as we do not trespass upon the rights of
+others&mdash;we have a right, and it becomes our imperative duty to resist
+to the bitter end, the tyranny which would deprive us and our children
+of our inalienable rights. Our lives are secure; we have freedom to
+worship God. Our liberty is sacred; we may pursue happiness to our
+hearts&#8217; content. We do not even charge upon the general Government
+that it has infringed these rights. Whose life has been endangered, or
+who has lost his liberty by the action of the Government? If that man
+lives, in all this fair domain of ours, he has the right to complain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
+But neither you nor I have ever heard of or seen the individual who
+has thus suffered. We have therefore clearly no right of revolution.</p>
+
+<p>Treason is no light offence. God, who rules the nations, and who has
+established governments, will punish severely those who attempt to
+overthrow them. Damnation is stated to be the punishment which those
+who resist the powers that be, will suffer. Who wishes to endure it? I
+hope none of my charge will incur this penalty by the perpetration of
+treason. You yourselves can bear me witness that I have not heretofore
+introduced political issues into the pulpit, but at this time I could
+not acquit my conscience were I not to warn you against the great sin
+some of you, I fear, are ready to commit.</p>
+
+<p>Were I to discuss the policy of a high or low tariff, or descant upon
+the various merits attached to one or another form of banking, I
+should be justly obnoxious to censure. Politics and religion, however,
+are not always separate. When the political issue is made, shall we,
+or shall we not, grant license to sell<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> intoxicating liquors as a
+beverage? the minister&#8217;s duty is plain; he must urge his people to use
+their influence against granting any such license. The minister must
+enforce every moral and religious obligation, and point out the path
+of truth and duty, even though the principles he advocates are by
+statesmen introduced into the arena of political strife, and made
+issues by the great parties of the day. I see the sword coming, and
+would be derelict in duty not to give you faithful warning. I must
+reveal the whole counsel of God. I have a message from God unto you,
+which I must deliver, whether you will hear, or whether you will
+forbear. If the sword come, and you perish, I shall then be guiltless
+of your blood. As to the great question at issue, my honest conviction
+is (and I think I have the Spirit of God,) that you should with your
+whole heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, oppose secession. You
+should talk against it, you should write against it, you should vote
+against it, and, if need be, you should fight against it.</p>
+
+<p>I have now declared what I believe to be your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> high duty in this
+emergency. Do not destroy the government which has so long protected
+you, and which has never in a single instance oppressed you. Pull not
+down the fair fabric which our patriot fathers reared at vast expense
+of blood and treasure. Do not, like the blind Samson, pull down the
+pillars of our glorious edifice, and cause death, desolation, and
+ruin. Perish the hand that would thus destroy the source of all our
+political prosperity and happiness. Let the parricide who attempts it
+receive the just retribution which a loyal people demand, even his
+execution on a gallows, high as Haman&#8217;s. Let us also set about
+rectifying the causes which threaten the overthrow of our government.
+As we are proud, let us pray for the grace of humility. As a State,
+and as individuals, we too lightly regard its most solemn obligations;
+let us, therefore, pray for the grace of repentance and godly sorrow,
+and hereafter in this respect sin no more. As many transgressions have
+been committed by us, let the time past of our lives suffice us to
+have wrought the will of the flesh,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> and now let us break off our sins
+by righteousness, and our transgressions by turning unto the Lord, and
+he will avert his threatened judgments, and save us from dissolution,
+anarchy, and desolation.</p>
+
+<p>If our souls are filled with hatred against the people of any section
+of our common country, let us ask from the Great Giver the grace of
+charity, which suffereth long and is kind, which envieth not, which
+vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself
+unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no
+evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth
+all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all
+things, and which never faileth; then shall we be in a suitable frame
+for an amicable adjustment of every difficulty; oil will soon be
+thrown upon the troubled waters, and peace, harmony, and prosperity
+would ever attend us; and our children, and our children&#8217;s children
+will rejoice in the possession of a beneficent and stable government,
+securing to them all the natural and inalienable rights of man.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+<p class="title">VIGILANCE COMMITTEE AND COURT-MARTIAL.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">The election of Delegates to determine the status of Mississippi&mdash;The
+Vigilance Committee&mdash;Description of its
+members&mdash;Charges&mdash;Phonography&mdash;No formal verdict&mdash;Danger of
+Assassination&mdash;Passports&mdash;Escape to Rienzi&mdash;Union sentiment&mdash;The
+Conscript Law&mdash;Summons to attend Court-Martial&mdash;Evacuation of
+Corinth&mdash;Destruction of Cotton&mdash;Suffering poor&mdash;Relieved by General
+Halleck.</p></div>
+
+<p>Soon after this sermon was preached, the election was held. Approaching
+the polls, I asked for a Union ticket, and was informed that none had been
+printed, and that it would be advisable to vote the secession ticket. I
+thought otherwise, and going to a desk, wrote out a Union ticket, and
+voted it amidst the frowns and suppressed murmurs of the judges and
+bystanders, and, as the result proved, I had the honour of depositing the
+only vote in favour of the Union which was polled in that precinct. I knew
+of many who were in favour of the Union, who were intimidated by threats,
+and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> by the odium attending it from voting at all. A majority of secession
+candidates were elected. The convention assembled, and on the 9th of
+January, 1861, Mississippi had the unenviable reputation of being the
+first to follow her twin sister, South Carolina, into the maelstrom of
+secession and treason. Being the only States in which the slaves were more
+numerous than the whites, it became them to lead the van in the
+slave-holders&#8217; rebellion. Before the 4th of March, Florida, Alabama,
+Georgia, Louisiana and Texas had followed in the wake, and were engulfed
+in the whirlpool of secession.</p>
+
+<p>It was now dangerous to utter a word in favour of the Union. Many
+suspected of Union sentiments were lynched. An old gentleman in Winston
+county was arrested for an act committed twenty years before, which was
+construed as a proof of his abolition proclivities. The old gentleman had
+several daughters, and his mother-in-law had given him a negro girl.
+Observing that his daughters were becoming lazy, and were imposing all the
+labour upon the slave, he sent her back to the donor,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> with a statement of
+the cause for returning her. This was now the ground of his arrest, but
+escaping from their clutches, a precipitate flight alone saved his life.</p>
+
+<p>Self-constituted vigilance committees sprang up all over the country, and
+a reign of terror began; all who had been Union men, and who had not given
+in their adhesion to the new order of things by some public proclamation,
+were supposed to be disaffected. The so-called Confederate States, the new
+power, organized for the avowed purpose of extending and perpetuating
+African slavery, was now in full blast. These <i>soi-disant</i> vigilance
+committees professed to carry out the will of Jeff. Davis. All who were
+considered disaffected were regarded as being tinctured with abolitionism.
+My opposition to the disruption of the Union being notorious, I was
+summoned to appear before one of these august tribunals to answer the
+charge of being an abolitionist. My wife was very much alarmed, knowing
+that were I found guilty of the charge, there was no hope for mercy.
+Flight was impossible, and I deemed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> it the safest plan to appear before
+the committee. I found it to consist of twelve persons, five of whom I
+knew, viz., Parson Locke, Armstrong, Cartledge, Simpson, and Wilbanks.
+Parson Locke, the chief speaker, or rather the inquisitor-general, was a
+Methodist minister, though he had fallen into disrepute among his
+brethren, and was engaged in a tedious strife with the church which he
+left in Holmes county. The parson was a real Nimrod. He boasted that in
+five months he had killed forty-eight raccoons, two hundred squirrels, and
+ten deer; he had followed the bloodhounds, and assisted in the capture of
+twelve runaway negroes. W. H. Simpson was a ruling elder in my church.
+Wilbanks was a clever sort of old gentleman, who had little to say in the
+matter. Armstrong was a monocular Hard-shell-Baptist. Cartledge was an
+illiterate, conceited individual. The rest were a motley crew, not one of
+whom, I feel confident, knew a letter in the alphabet. The committee
+assembled in an old carriage-shop. Parson Locke acted, as chairman, and
+conducted the trial, as follows.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>&#8220;Parson Aughey, you have been reported to us as holding abolition
+sentiments, and as being disloyal to the Confederate States.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who reported me, and where are your witnesses?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Any one has a right to report, and it is optional whether he confronts
+the accused or not. The proceedings of vigilance committees are somewhat
+informal.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Proceed, then, with the trial, in your own way.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We propose to ask you a few questions, and in your answers you may defend
+yourself, or admit your guilt. In the first place, did you ever say that
+you did not believe that God ordained the institution of slavery?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I believe that God did not ordain the institution of slavery.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did not God command the Israelites to buy slaves from the Canaanitish
+nations, and to hold them as their property for ever?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Canaanites had filled their cup of iniquity to overflowing, and God
+commanded the Israelites to exterminate them; this, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> violation of God&#8217;s
+command, they failed to do. God afterwards permitted the Hebrews to reduce
+them to a state of servitude; but the punishment visited upon those seven
+wicked nations by the command of God, does not justify war or the
+slave-trade.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did you say that you were opposed to the slavery which existed in the
+time of Christ?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I did, because the system of slavery prevailing in Christ&#8217;s day was cruel
+in the extreme; it conferred the power of life and death upon the master,
+and was attended with innumerable evils. The slave had the same complexion
+as his master; and by changing his servile garb for the citizen dress, he
+could not be recognised as a slave. You yourself profess to be opposed to
+white slavery.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did you state that you believed Paul, when he sent Onesimus back to
+Philemon, had no idea that he would be regarded as a slave, and treated as
+such after his return?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I did. My proof is in Philemon, verses 15 and 16, where the apostle asks
+that Onesimus<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> be received, not as a servant, but as a brother beloved?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did you tell Mr. Creath that you knew some negroes who were better, in
+every respect, than some white men?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I said that I knew some negroes who were better classical scholars than
+any white men I had as yet met with in Choctaw county, and that I had
+known some who were pre-eminent for virtue and holiness. As to natural
+rights, I made no comparison; nor did I say anything about superiority or
+inferiority of race; I also stated my belief in the unity of the races.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Have you any abolition works in your library, and a poem in your
+scrap-book, entitled &#8216;The Fugitive Slave,&#8217; with this couplet as a refrain,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;The hounds are baying on my track;<br />
+Christian, will you send me back?&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have not Mrs. Stowe&#8217;s nor Helper&#8217;s work; they are contraband in this
+region, and I could not get them if I wished. I have many works in my
+library containing sentiments adverse to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> the institution of slavery. All
+the works in common use amongst us, on law, physic, and divinity, all the
+text-books in our schools&mdash;in a word, all the works on every subject read
+and studied by us, were, almost without exception, written by men opposed
+to the peculiar institution. I am not alone in this matter.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Parson, I saw Cowper&#8217;s works in your library, and Cowper says:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;I would not have a slave to fan me when I sleep,<br />
+And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth<br />
+That sinews bought and sold have ever earned.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You have Wesley&#8217;s writings, and Wesley says that &#8216;Human slavery is the
+sum of all villany.&#8217; You have a work which has this couplet:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;Two deep, dark stains, mar all our country&#8217;s bliss:<br />
+Foul slavery one, and one, loathed drunkenness.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>You have the work of an English writer of high repute, who says, &#8216;Forty
+years ago, some in England doubted whether slavery were a sin, and
+regarded adultery as a venial offence; but behold the progress of truth!
+Who now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> doubts that he who enslaves his fellow-man is guilty of a fearful
+crime, and that he who violates the seventh commandment is a great sinner
+in the sight of God?&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are known to be an adept in Phonography, and you are reported to be a
+correspondent of an abolition Phonographic journal.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I understand the science of Phonography, and I am a correspondent of a
+Phonographic journal, but the journal eschews politics.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Another member of the committee then interrogated me.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Parson Aughey, what is Funnyography?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Phonography, sir, is a system of writing by means of a philosophic
+alphabet, composed of the simplest geometrical signs, in which one mark is
+used to represent one and invariably the same sound.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Kin you talk Funnyography? and where does them folks live what talks it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, sir, I converse fluently in Phonography, and those who speak the
+language live in Columbia.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In the Destrict?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>&#8220;No, sir, in the poetical Columbia.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I was next interrogated by another member of the committee.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Parson Aughey, is Phonography a Abolition fixin?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, sir; Phonography, abstractly considered, has no political complexion;
+it may be used to promote either side of any question, sacred or profane,
+mental, moral, physical, or political.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, you ought to write and talk plain English, what common folks can
+understand, or we&#8217;ll have to say of you, what Agrippa said of Paul, &#8216;Much
+learning hath made thee mad.&#8217; Suppose you was to preach in Phonography,
+who&#8217;d understand it?&mdash;who&#8217;d know what was piped or harped? I&#8217;ll bet high
+some Yankee invented it to spread his abolition notions underhandedly. I,
+for one, would be in favour of makin&#8217; the parson promise to write and talk
+no more in Phonography. I&#8217;ll bet Phonography is agin slavery, tho&#8217; I never
+hearn tell of it before. I&#8217;m agin all secret societies. I&#8217;m agin the
+Odd-fellers, Free-masons,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> Sons of Temperance, Good Templars and
+Phonography. I want to know what&#8217;s writ and what&#8217;s talked. You can&#8217;t throw
+dust in my eyes. Phonography, from what I&#8217;ve found out about it to-day, is
+agin the Confederate States, and we ought to be agin it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Parson Locke then resumed:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I must stop this digression. Parson Aughey, are you in favour of the
+South?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am in favour of the South, and have always endeavoured to promote the
+best interests of the South. However, I never deemed it for the best
+interests of the South to secede. I talked against secession, and voted
+against secession, because I thought that the best interests of the South
+would be put in jeopardy by the secession of the Southern States. I was
+honest in my convictions, and acted accordingly. Could the sacrifice of my
+life have stayed the swelling tide of secession, it would gladly have been
+made.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is said that you have never prayed for the Southern Confederacy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>&#8220;I have prayed for the whole world, though it is true that I have never
+named the Confederate States in prayer.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You may retire.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>After I had retired, the committee held a long consultation. My answers
+were not satisfactory. I never learned all that transpired. They brought
+in no formal verdict. The majority considered me a dangerous man, but
+feared to take my life, as they were, with one exception, adherents of
+other denominations, and they knew that my people were devotedly attached
+to me before the secession movement. Some of the secessionists swore that
+they would go to my house and murder me, when they learned that the
+committee had not hanged me. My friends provided me secretly with arms,
+and I determined to defend myself to the last. I slept with a
+double-barrelled shot-gun at my head, and was prepared to defend myself
+against a dozen at least.</p>
+
+<p>Learning that I was not acceptable to many of the members of my church,
+whilst my life<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> was in continual jeopardy, and my family in a state of
+constant alarm, I abandoned my field of labour, and sought for safety in a
+more congenial clime. I intended to go North. Jeff. Davis and his Congress
+had granted permission to all who so desired, to leave the South. Several
+Union men of my acquaintance applied for passports, but were refused. The
+proclamation to grant permits was an act of perfidy; all those, so far as
+I am informed, who made application for them, were refused. The design in
+thus acting was to get Union men to declare themselves as such, and
+afterwards to punish them for their sentiments by forcing them into the
+army, confining them in prison, shooting them, or lynching them by mob
+violence. Finding that were I to demand a passport to go north, I would be
+placed on the proscribed list, and my life endangered still more, I
+declared my intention of going back to Tishomingo county, in which I owned
+property, and which was the home of many of my relatives. I knew that I
+would be safer there, for this county had elected<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> Union delegates by a
+majority of over fourteen hundred, and a strong Union sentiment had always
+prevailed.</p>
+
+<p>On my arrival in Tishomingo, I found that the great heart of the county
+still beat true to the music of the Union. Being thrown out of employment
+I deemed it my duty, in every possible way, to sustain the Union cause and
+the enforcement of the laws. It was impossible to go north. Union
+sentiments could be expressed with safety in many localities. Corinth,
+Iuka, and Rienzi had, from the commencement of the war, been camps of
+instruction for the training of Confederate soldiers. These three towns in
+the county being thus occupied, Union men found it necessary to be more
+cautious, as the cavalry frequently made raids through the county,
+arresting and maltreating those suspected of disaffection. After the
+reduction of Forts Henry and Donelson, and the surrender of Nashville, the
+Confederates made the Memphis and Charleston railroad the base of their
+operations, their armies extending from Memphis to Chattanooga. Soon,
+however, they were all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> concentrated at Corinth, a town in Tishomingo
+county, at the junction of the Memphis and Charleston railroad with the
+Mobile and Ohio. After the battle of Shiloh, which was fought on the 6th
+and 7th of April, the Federal troops held their advance at Farmington,
+four miles from Corinth, while the Confederates occupied Corinth, their
+rear guard holding Rienzi, twelve miles south, on the Mobile and Ohio
+railroad.</p>
+
+<p>Thus there were two vast armies encamped in Tishomingo county. Being
+within the Confederate lines, I, in common with many others, found it
+difficult to evade the conscript law. Knowing that in a multitude of
+counsellors there is wisdom, we held secret meetings, in order to devise
+the best method of resisting the law. We met at night, and had our
+countersigns to prevent detection. Often our wives, sisters, and daughters
+met with us. Our meeting-place was some ravine, or secluded glen, as far
+as possible from the haunts of the secessionists; all were armed; even the
+ladies had revolvers, and could use them too. The crime of treason we were
+resolved not to commit. Our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> counsels were somewhat divided, some
+advocating, as a matter of policy, the propriety of attending the militia
+musters, others opposing it for conscience&#8217; sake, and for the purpose of
+avoiding every appearance of evil. Many who would not muster as
+conscripts, resolved to escape to the Federal lines; and making the
+attempt two or three at a time, succeeded in crossing the Tennessee river,
+and reaching the Union army, enlisted under the old flag, and have since
+done good service as patriot warriors. Some who were willing to muster as
+conscripts, were impressed into the Confederate service, and I know not
+whether they ever found an opportunity to desert. Others, myself among the
+number, were saved by the timely arrival of the Federal troops, and the
+occupation of the county by them, after Beauregard&#8217;s evacuation of
+Corinth. I had received three citations to attend muster, but disregarding
+them, I was summoned to attend a court-martial on the first day of June,
+at the house of Mr. Jim Mock. The following is a copy of the citation.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>
+Ma the 22d. 1862</p>
+
+<p><i>Parson Awhay</i>, You havent tended nun of our mustters as a konskrip.
+Now you is her bi sumenzd to attend a kort marshal on Jun the fust at
+Jim Mock.</p></div>
+
+<p>When I received the summons, I resolved to attempt reaching the Union
+lines at Farmington. Two of my friends, who had received a similar
+summons, expected to accompany me. On the 29th of May, I left for Rienzi,
+where my two friends were to meet me. I had not been many hours in Rienzi
+when it became evident that the Confederates were evacuating Corinth. On
+the 1st of June, (the day the court-martial was to convene,) I had the
+pleasure of once more beholding the star-spangled banner as it was borne
+in front of General Granger&#8217;s command, which led the van of the pursuing
+army. Had I remained and attended the court-martial, I would have been
+forced into the army. Were I then to declare that I would not take up arms
+against the United States, I would have been shot, as many<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> have been, for
+their refusal thus to act. General Rosecrans, on his arrival, made his
+head-quarters at my brother&#8217;s house, where I had the pleasure of forming
+his acquaintance, together with that of Generals Smith, Granger, and Pope.
+As this county was now occupied by the Federal army, I returned to my
+father-in-law&#8217;s, within five miles of which place the court-martial had
+been ordered to convene, considering myself comparatively safe. I learned
+that the court-martial never met, as Colonel Elliott, in his successful
+raid upon Boonville, had passed Jim Mock&#8217;s, scaring him to such a degree,
+that he did not venture to sleep in his house for two weeks. The Union
+cavalry scoured the country in all directions, daily, and we were
+rejoicing at the prospect of continuous safety, and freedom from outrage.</p>
+
+<p>The Rebels, during their retreat, had burned all the cotton which was
+accessible to their cavalry, on their route. At night, the flames of the
+burning cotton lighted up the horizon for miles around. These baleful
+pyres, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> their lurid glare, bore sad testimony to the horrors of war.
+In this wanton destruction of the great southern staple, many poor
+families lost their whole staff of bread, and starvation stared them in
+the face. Many would have perished, had it not been for the liberal
+contributions of the North; for, learning the sufferings of the poor of
+the South, whose whole labour had been destroyed by pretended friends,
+they sent provisions and money, and thus many who were left in utter
+destitution, were saved by this timely succor. I have heard the rejoicings
+of the poor, who, abandoned by their supposed friends, were saved, with
+their children, from death, by the beneficence of those whom they had been
+taught to regard as enemies the most bitter, implacable, unmerciful, and
+persistent. Their prayer may well be, Save us from our friends, whose
+tender mercies are cruel! I have never known a man to burn his own cotton,
+but I have heard their bitter anathemas hurled against those who thus
+robbed them, and their denunciations were loud and deep against the
+government which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> authorized such cruelty. It is true that those who thus
+lose their cotton, if secessionists, receive a &#8220;promise to pay,&#8221; which all
+regard as not worth the paper on which it is written. Ere pay-day, those
+who are dependent on their cotton for the necessaries of life, would have
+passed the bourne whence no traveller returns. &#8217;Tis like the Confederate
+bonds&mdash;at first they were made payable two years after date, and printed
+upon paper which would be worn out entirely in six months, and would have
+become illegible in half that time. The succeeding issues were made
+payable six months after the ratification of a treaty of peace between the
+United States and the Confederate States. Though not a prophet, nor a
+prophet&#8217;s son, I venture the prediction that those bonds will never be
+due. The war of elements, the wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds,
+announcing the end of all things, will be heard sooner.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+<p class="title">ARREST, ESCAPE, AND RECAPTURE.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">High price of Provisions&mdash;Holland Lindsay&#8217;s Family&mdash;The
+arrest&mdash;Captain Hill&mdash;Appearance before Colonel Bradfute at
+Fulton&mdash;Arrest of Benjamin Clarke&mdash;Bradfute&#8217;s Insolence&mdash;General
+Chalmers&mdash;The clerical Spy&mdash;General Pfeifer&mdash;Under
+guard&mdash;Priceville&mdash;General Gordon&mdash;Bound for Tupelo&mdash;The Prisoners
+entering the Dungeon&mdash;Captain Bruce&mdash;Lieutenant Richard Malone&mdash;Prison
+Fare and Treatment&mdash;Menial Service&mdash;Resolve to escape&mdash;Plan of
+escape&mdash;Federal Prisoners&mdash;Co-operation of the Prisoners&mdash;Declaration
+of Independence&mdash;The Escape&mdash;The Separation&mdash;Concealment&mdash;Travel on
+the Underground Railroad&mdash;Pursuit by Cavalry and Bloodhounds&mdash;The
+Arrest&mdash;Dan Barnes, the Mail-robber&mdash;Perfidy&mdash;Heavily ironed&mdash;Return
+to Tupelo.</p></div>
+
+<p>At this time&mdash;May and June, 1862&mdash;all marketable commodities were
+commanding fabulous prices; as a lady declared, it would soon be
+necessary, on going to a store, to carry two baskets, one to hold the
+money, and the other the goods purchased. Flour was thirty dollars per
+barrel, bacon forty cents per pound, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> coffee one dollar per pound.
+Salt was nominally one hundred dollars per sack of one hundred pounds, or
+one dollar per pound, but there was none to be obtained even at that
+price. Ladies were compelled to dispense with salt in their culinary
+operations; even the butter was unsalted. Cotton-cards, an article used in
+every house at the South, the ordinary price of which is fifty cents per
+pair, were selling at twenty-five dollars per pair, and wool-cards at
+fifteen dollars per pair, the usual price being thirty-eight cents. All
+the cotton used in the manufacture of home-made cloth, is carded into
+rolls upon these cotton-cards, which are brought from the North, there
+being not a single manufactory of them in the South. When the supply on
+hand becomes exhausted, the southern home manufacture of cloth must cease,
+no one as yet having been able to suggest a substitute for the
+cotton-card. There are only three factories in Mississippi, which must
+cease running as soon as their machinery wears out, as the most important
+parts of the machinery in those factories are supplied from the North. The
+people<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> are fully aware of these difficulties, but they can devise no
+remedy, hence the high price of all articles used in the manufacture of
+all kinds of cloths. All manufactured goods were commanding fabulous
+prices. On the occupation of the county by Federal troops, goods could be
+obtained at reasonable prices, but our money was all gone, except
+Confederate bonds, which were worthless. Planters who were beyond the
+lines of the retreating army had cotton, but many of them feared to sell
+it, as the Rebels professed to regard it treason to trade with the
+invaders, and threatened to execute the penalty in every case. As there
+was no penalty attached to the selling of cotton by one citizen of
+Mississippi to another, some of my friends offered to sell me their cotton
+for a reasonable price.</p>
+
+<p>I was solicited also to act as their agent in the purchase of commodities.
+I agreed to this risk, because of the urgent need of my friends, many of
+whom were suffering greatly for the indispensable necessaries of life. I
+thought it was better that one should suffer, than that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> whole people
+should perish. By this arrangement my Union friends would escape the
+punishment meted out to those who were found guilty of trading with the
+Yankees; if discovered, I alone would be amenable to their unjust and
+cruel law, and they would thus save their cotton, which was liable to be
+destroyed at any moment by a dash of rebel cavalry. I now hired a large
+number of wagons to haul cotton into Eastport and Iuka, that I might ship
+it to the loyal States. On the 2d of June the wagons were to rendezvous at
+a certain point; there were a sufficient number to haul one hundred bales
+per trip. I hoped to keep them running for some time.</p>
+
+<p>On the first of June I rode to Mr. Holland Lindsay&#8217;s on business. I had
+learned that he was a rabid secessionist, but supposed that no rebel
+cavalry had come so far north as his house since the evacuation of
+Corinth. Mr. Lindsay had gone to a neighbour&#8217;s. His wife was weaving; she
+was a coarse, masculine woman, and withal possessed of strong prejudice
+against all whom she did not like, but especially the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> Yankees. I sat down
+to await the arrival of her husband, and it was not long before Mrs.
+Lindsay broached the exciting topic of the day, the war. She thus vented
+her spleen against the Yankees.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There was some Yankee calvary passed here last week&mdash;they asked me if
+there wos ony rebels scoutin round here lately. I jest told em it want
+none of ther bizness. Them nasty, good for nothin scamps callen our men
+rebels. Them nigger-stealin, triflin scoundrels. They runs off our
+niggers, and wont let us take em to Mexico and the other territories.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I ventured to remark, &#8220;The Yankees are mean, indeed, not to let <i>us</i> take
+<i>our</i> negroes to the Territories, and not to help catch them for <i>us</i> when
+they run off.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The emphatic <i>us</i> and <i>our</i> nettled her, as none of the Lindsays ever
+owned a negro, being classed by the southern nabobs as among the <i>poor
+white trash</i>; nor did I ever own a slave. Her husband, however, had once
+been sent to the Legislature, which led the family to ape the manners, and
+studiously copy the ultraism of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> the classes above them. Mrs. Lindsay
+became morose. I concluded to ride over and see her husband.</p>
+
+<p>On my way I met a member of Hill&#8217;s cavalry. He halted me, inquired my name
+and business, which I gave. He said that, years ago, he had heard me
+preach, and that he was well acquainted with my brothers-in-law, who were
+officers in the Rebel army. He informed me that his uncle, Mr. Lindsay,
+had gone across the field home, and that he himself was on his way there.
+I returned with him, but fearing arrest, my business was hastily attended
+to, and I at once started for my horse. By this time one or two other
+cavalry-men rode up. I heard Mrs. Lindsay informing her nephew that I was
+a Union man, and advising my arrest. When I had reached my horse, Mr.
+Davis, Lindsay&#8217;s nephew arrested me, and sent my horse to the stable.
+After supper, my horse was brought, and I was taken to camp. Four men were
+detached to guard me during the night. They ordered me to lie down on the
+ground and sleep. As it had rained during the day, and I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> had no blanket,
+I insisted upon going to a Mr. Spigener&#8217;s, about fifty yards distant, to
+secure a bed. After some discussion they consented, the guards remaining
+in the room, and guarding me by turns during the night. The next morning I
+sought Captain Hill, and asked permission to return home, when the
+following colloquy ensued.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you a Union man?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I voted the Union ticket, sir.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That is not a fair answer. I voted the Union ticket myself, and am now
+warring against the Union.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have seen no good reason for changing my sentiments.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You confess, then, that you are a Union man?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do; I regard the union of these States as of paramount importance to
+the welfare of the people inhabiting them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You must go to head-quarters, where you will be dealt with as we are
+accustomed to deal with all the abettors of an Abolition government.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>A heavy guard was then detached to take charge of me, and the company set
+off for Fulton, the county seat of Ittawamba county, Mississippi, distant
+thirty miles. After going about ten miles, we halted, and two men were
+detached to go forward with the prisoners, a Mr. Benjamin Clarke and
+myself. Our guards were Dr. Crossland, of Burnsville, Tishomingo county,
+Mississippi, and Ferdinand Woodruff. They were under the influence of
+liquor, and talked incessantly, cursing and insulting us, on every
+occasion, by abusive language. They detailed to each other a history of
+their licentious amours. We halted for dinner at one o&#8217;clock, and being
+out of money, they asked me to pay their bill, which I did, they promising
+to refund the amount when they reached Fulton. This they forgot to do.</p>
+
+<p>On our arrival at Fulton, we were taken into the office of the commander
+of the post, Colonel Bradfute. My fellow-prisoner was examined first.
+Woodruff stated that they had played off on Mr. Clarke&mdash;calling on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> him,
+as he was plowing in the field, stating that they were Federal soldiers.
+They asked Clarke what were his political views. He replied that he always
+had been a Union man&mdash;had voted the Union ticket, and would do it again,
+if another election were held; that he hated the secession principles, and
+would enlist in the Federal army as soon as he got his crop in such a
+condition that his family could attend to it. On hearing this statement,
+Bradfute became very angry, swearing that Clarke ought to be taken out and
+shot then, but that a few days&#8217; respite would make but little difference.
+Said he, addressing the guards, had you hung Clarke, you would have saved
+us some trouble, and have done your country good service. The Colonel,
+turning round, glared upon me with eyes inflamed with passion and liquor,
+and thus addressed me:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you a Union man too?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am, sir. I have never denied it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where do you reside?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>&#8220;I consider Rienzi my home, but have been staying for some time at my
+father-in-law&#8217;s, in the south-eastern part of Tishomingo county.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is your father-in-law&#8217;s name?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Alexander Paden.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I know the old gentleman and his three sons. They are all in the
+Confederate service. They are brave men, and have done some hard fighting
+in our cause. How happens it that you look at matters in a different light
+from your relatives?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am not guided in my opinions by the views of my friends.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is your profession?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am a minister of the gospel.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose, then, that you go to the Bible for your politics, and that you
+are a sort of higher-law man.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My Bible teaches, &#8216;Let every soul be subject to the higher powers, for
+there is no power but of God; the powers that be, are ordained of God.
+Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God;
+and they that resist shall receive to themselves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> damnation.&#8217; I have seen
+no reason for resistance to the government under which we have, as a
+nation, so long prospered.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I command you to hush, sir; you shan&#8217;t preach treason to me, and if you
+get your deserts you will be hung immediately. Have you ever been within
+the Federal lines?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have, sir.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;At what points?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;At Rienzi and Iuka.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;When were you at Iuka?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;On last Saturday.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Had the Federals a large force at that place, and who was in command?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They have a large force, and Generals Thomas and Steadman are in
+command.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That is contrary to the reports of our scouts, who say that there are but
+two regiments in the town. I fear you are purposely trying to mislead us.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;General Steadman has but two regiments in the town, but General Thomas is
+within striking distance with a large force.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What was your business in Iuka?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>&#8220;I went there to pay a debt of fifty dollars which a widow owed, as she
+wished it to be paid in Confederate money before it became worthless.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Have you a Federal pass?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have none with me, but I have one at home.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How does it read?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It was given by General Nelson, and reads thus: &#8216;The bearer, Rev. John H.
+Aughey, has permission to pass backward and forward through the lines of
+this division at will.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where were you born?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was born in New Hartford, Oneida county, New York.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yankee born,&#8221; said the Colonel, with a sneer; &#8220;you deserve death at the
+rope&#8217;s-end, and if I had the power I would hang all Yankees who are among
+us, for they are all tories, whatever may be their pretensions.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My being born north of the nigger-line, Colonel, if a crime worthy of
+death, was certainly not my fault, but the fault of my parents. They did
+not so much as consult me in regard<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> to any preference I might have
+concerning the place of my nativity.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Woodruff, one of my guards, now informed the Colonel that I was a spy,
+and, while the Confederates were at Corinth, had, to his certain
+knowledge, been three times at Nashville, carrying information. I told
+Woodruff that his statement was false, and that he knew it; that I had
+never been at Nashville in my life. General Chalmers, who was present, and
+Colonel Bradfute, at the conclusion of the examination, spent fifteen or
+twenty minutes in bitterly cursing all Yankees, tories, and traitors, as
+they termed us. All the conversation of the rebel officers was interlarded
+with the most horrid profanity. General Chalmers, in speaking, invariably
+called me the clerical spy. We were placed under guard, and sent to
+Brooksville, ten miles distant, the head-quarters of General Pfeifer.
+Immediately after our arrival, we were soundly berated by General Pfeifer,
+and then sent out to the camp, half a mile from the town, where we were
+placed under guard for the night, in a small plot of ground surrounded by
+a chain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> We had no supper, and no blankets to sleep on. Our bed was the
+cold ground, our covering the blue canopy of heaven. The next morning we
+were started, without breakfast, under a heavy guard, numbering fourteen
+cavalry, to Priceville, six miles west of Brooksville. Priceville was
+named in honour of General Sterling Price, or rather the little village
+where he encamped had its name changed in his honour. When we reached
+Priceville we were taken to the head-quarters of General Jordan, and
+immediately brought into his presence. After reading the letter handed to
+him by one of the guard, he said, looking sternly at me,</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are charged with sedition.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I asked him what sedition meant, to which he replied:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It means enough to hang you, you villanous tory!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He also asked me where I was born. My reply was, in the State of New York,
+near Utica, in Oneida county.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then you doubly deserve death,&#8221; said he.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>&#8220;As to the guilt of my nativity,&#8221; said I, &#8220;it is not my fault, for I could
+not have helped it if I had tried. But I glory in my native State. She has
+never done anything to disgrace her. She never repudiated her just debts,
+nor committed any other disgraceful act.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, you ought to have staid there, or have gone back when Mississippi
+seceded.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Give me an opportunity, and I will go instanter.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The first <i>going</i> you will do, will be to go to hell, where, if the devil
+had his due, you would have been long ago; and before you leave us, we
+will give you a free ticket to the shades infernal.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thank you for your kind offer to give me a free pass to the infernal
+regions. I did not know before that you were the devil&#8217;s ticket-agent. You
+have me in your power, and may destroy my life; but when you have done
+that, there is no more that you can do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Very little was said to my fellow-prisoner, Clarke. A few curses for a
+traitor, tory, &amp;c., was about all. We were now placed under<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> guard, and
+conducted to Tupelo, and after visiting the provost-marshal&#8217;s office and
+the office of the commander of the post, whose names were Peden and Clare,
+we were committed to the Central Military Prison. As we entered, Captain
+Bruce and Lieutenant Malone (two gentlemen who had been elected to those
+offices by their fellow-prisoners) received us with a cordial greeting.
+Captain Bruce thus addressed us:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Welcome, gentlemen, thrice welcome. I am rejoiced to see you at my hotel.
+We are now doing a land-office business, as the large number of my
+boarders, whom you see, will testify. We have numerous arrivals daily,
+whilst the departures are very few, giving evidence that all are satisfied
+with their treatment. The bill of fare is not very extensive. In these war
+times we must not expect the luxuries of life, but be content with the
+necessaries. It is true, we cannot furnish you with coffee, or molasses,
+or sugar, or salt, or beef, or vegetables; but we have something more
+substantial&mdash;we have flour, rather dark in colour, to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> sure, but people
+must not be squeamish. The boarders are required to do their own cooking,
+as they could otherwise have but little exercise; we consider it a
+sanitary measure, exercise being indispensable to health. We furnish the
+boarders, also, with meat&mdash;none of your lean meat, either, but fat
+middling, with a streak of lean in it. The Bible promises the righteous
+that their bread shall be given, and their water sure; but we go beyond
+the promise, and give not only bread (or rather the flour to make it) and
+water, but also fat, strong meat. What room will you be pleased to have?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I replied, that as they seemed to be crowded, I would choose number 199.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said the Captain, &#8220;it shall be prepared. Lieutenant Malone, have
+room number 199 fitted up for the reception of these gentlemen.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Lieutenant Malone replied, that the room designated would be fitted up in
+style for our reception. He asked us if we had dined.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; replied Clarke; &#8220;we have not tasted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> food since yesterday at noon,
+when the Parson paid for his own dinner and the dinner of the guards. We
+asked for something to eat, but were as often refused, and now we are in a
+starving condition.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I pity you,&#8221; said Malone, laying aside his facetious style; &#8220;you shall
+have something to eat as soon as it can be cooked.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He then went to some of the prisoners, and set them to cooking, and we
+were soon furnished with the best repast the poor fellows could supply.</p>
+
+<p>We entered the prison July 3d, 1862, at two o&#8217;clock, P. M. Our prison was
+a grocery-house, its dimensions about twenty-five by fifty feet. When we
+were incarcerated, there were about seventy prisoners in the building,
+whites, mulattoes and negroes. The prison was filthy in the extreme, and
+filled with vermin; even our food was infested with them. No brooms were
+furnished us, and we could not sweep the floor. No beds were furnished,
+and we were compelled to lie upon the floor, with no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> covering, and
+nothing but the hard planks beneath us.</p>
+
+<p>Several times a day officers would come in and order a specified number of
+men to go and work, under a strong guard. We were made to clean the
+streets, roll barrels, and clean the hospital; but our own prison we were
+not permitted to clean. Every kind of drudgery, and the most menial
+services, were imposed upon us.</p>
+
+<p>The crimes charged upon the prisoners were desertion, trading with the
+Yankees, adhesion to the United States government or Unionism, acting as
+spies, refusing Confederate bonds, and piloting the Yankees. The crime of
+the negroes and mulattoes was endeavouring to escape on the underground
+railroad from Dixie land and the Iron Furnace. These remained till their
+masters were informed of their arrest, and came for and released them. On
+the evening preceding our imprisonment, two prisoners had been led out and
+shot, and I soon learned that this was no unusual occurrence. Nearly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
+every day witnessed the execution of one or more of us. Those who were
+doomed to die were heavily ironed. In some cases, however, those who were
+not in fetters were taken out and shot or hanged, often with no previous
+warning; though sometimes a few hours warning was given.</p>
+
+<p>Our privations were so great from a want of proper food and water&mdash;for the
+scanty amount of water furnished us was tepid and foul&mdash;and from a lack of
+beds, cots, couches, or something better than a filthy floor whereon to
+sleep, that I resolved to attempt an escape at the risk of my life. I felt
+confident that I could not long survive such cruel treatment. As soon as
+my arrest was known to the thirty-second Mississippi regiment, encamped in
+the suburbs of Tupelo, the colonel, major, adjutant, and one of the
+captains called upon me. This regiment was raised in Tishomingo county,
+one of the companies, the Zollicoffer Avengers, being from Rienzi, where I
+had been for years proprietor and Principal of the Rienzi Female Seminary.
+The daughters of many of the officers of this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> regiment had been educated
+at this Seminary during my superintendence. Some of these officers had
+expressed themselves under great obligations to me, for the thorough,
+moral, mental, and physical training of their children while under my
+care. As proof of this, I have their own statements, as published in the
+public journals of the day. Owing me a debt of gratitude, as they
+professed, could I expect less than the manifestation of deep sympathy for
+me in my sad condition&mdash;confined in a gloomy dungeon, deprived of the
+comforts, yea, even the necessaries of life, menaced and insulted by the
+officers in whose power I was? Whatever may have been my hopes, they were
+doomed to be blasted. These summer friends, so obsequious in my
+prosperity, conversed for a while on indifferent topics, never alluding to
+my condition, and as I did not obtrude it upon their attention, they left,
+promising to call again. I said, &#8220;Do so, gentlemen; you will always find
+me <i>at home</i>.&#8221; Adjutant Irion, as he passed out, asked Lieutenant Malone
+what the charge was against me. Malone replied that I was charged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> with
+being a Union man. The adjutant said, in a bitter and sarcastic tone, that
+I should never have been brought to Tupelo, but on my arrest should have
+been sent to hell from the lowest limb of the nearest tree.</p>
+
+<p>Having determined to escape at all hazards, I sought out an accomplice, a
+<i>compagnon de voyage</i>; that person was Richard Malone; his piercing eye,
+his intellectual physiognomy, led me to believe that if he consented to
+make the attempt with me, our chances for escape would be good. I drew
+Malone to one side, and covertly introduced the matter. He soon got my
+idea, and drawing from his pocket a paper, showed me the route mapped out
+which he intended to pursue, as he had for some days determined to escape,
+or die in the attempt. He was charged with being a spy, and there was
+little doubt that they would establish his guilt by false testimony. We
+went out now under every possible pretext. We no longer shunned the guard
+who came to obtain prisoners to do servile labour. Our object being to
+reconnoitre, in order to learn where guards were stationed, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> to
+determine the best method of escape through the town after leaving the
+prison. During the day we made these observations: that there were two
+guards stationed at the back door, who were very verdant; that they would,
+after relief, come on duty again at midnight; that there was a building on
+the south side of the prison, extending beyond the prison and beyond the
+guards; that the moon would set about eleven o&#8217;clock, P. M.; that there
+were no guards stationed on the south side of the prison during the day;
+that one of the planks in the floor could be easily removed; and that
+there were several holes, when we were once under the floor, by which
+egress might be made either on the north or south side; that the coast was
+probably clearest in the direction of a corn-field some two hundred yards
+distant in a northwest direction.</p>
+
+<p>At four o&#8217;clock P. M., our plan was fully matured. At midnight, (the moon
+being down, and the verdant guards on duty) we would raise the plank, get
+under the floor, and myself in the advance, make our exit through one of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+the holes on the south side of the jail, then crawl to the building, some
+fifteen feet distant, and continue crawling till we passed the guards;
+then rise and make our way as cautiously as possible, to a point in the
+corn-field, a short distance in the rear of a garment which was hanging
+upon the fence. The one who first arrived must await the other. A signal
+was agreed upon, to prevent mistake. If the guards ordered us to halt, we
+had resolved to risk their fire, our watchword being, Liberty or death!</p>
+
+<p>About this time the prisoners chose me their chaplain by acclamation.
+During the day, we made known our intention of escaping to several
+fellow-prisoners, who promised us all the assistance in their power. All
+the prisoners who knew of the matter, earnestly desired our escape, and
+co-operated with us in effecting it. Clarke and Robinson begged us to take
+them along, averring there was no doubt that they would be shot. Malone
+told them that no more than two could go<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> together; that if they wished to
+escape, they could make the attempt half an hour after us, which they
+agreed to. Clarke, however, came to me, and desired me to take him along,
+as he would rather go with us than with Robinson. He had a wife and five
+small children dependent on him for support, and if he perished, they must
+perish too. I consulted Malone, but he would not agree to have Clarke go
+with us. Three would be too many for safety, and he doubted whether Clarke
+had sufficient nerve to face the glittering bayonet, or tact enough to
+pass through the camps without detection. He might commit some blunder
+which would endanger our safety. I informed Clarke that the arrangement
+made, in which he and Robinson were to go together, must be adhered to. He
+begged me, by all that was sacred, to take him along. But Malone was
+inexorable, and I thought it best to acquiesce in his judgment.</p>
+
+<p>Night drew on apace. Thick darkness gathered around us, and murky clouds
+covered the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> sky, as we sat down with the Federal prisoners to our scanty
+allowance. While partaking of our rude fare, Malone thus spoke:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This day is the 4th of July, 1862, the anniversary of our patriot
+fathers&#8217; declaration of independence of British tyranny and oppression.
+They had much to complain of. They suffered grievous wrongs and cruel
+bondage. But eighty-six years ago to-day they declared themselves to be a
+free and independent people, who would rather die than be again enslaved.
+Of what worth was their declaration if they had remained inactive?
+Supineness would not have saved them. But trusting in our God, who gives
+success to the righteous cause, they imperilled their lives, they hazarded
+their fortunes, and with untiring energy and sleepless vigilance they
+contested to the bitter end against all efforts to deprive them of their
+inalienable rights. Success crowned their efforts, and they rid themselves
+of tyrants&#8217; chains. We (I allude to my friend, Parson Aughey, and myself,)
+degenerate sons of these noble sires, have suffered wrong, nay, gross
+outrage. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>Citizens of the sunny South, guilty of no offence whatever, not
+even of constructive crime, we are immured in a loathsome dungeon,
+deprived of the comforts of life, separated from our families, and
+suffered to have no communication with them; dragging out a miserable
+existence, which an ignominious death on the scaffold must soon end. We,
+therefore, John H. Aughey and Richard Malone, in view of these accumulated
+wrongs and outrages, solemnly swear before High Heaven, and in presence of
+these witnesses, that we will be free, or perish in the attempt. Appealing
+to the God of liberty, of truth, and of righteousness, for the rectitude
+of our motives and the justness of our cause, we commit ourselves into his
+hands, and implore his protection amid the dangers through which we are
+about to pass, and humbly pray that he will give us success, and restore
+us speedily to our families and friends, and to the enjoyment of our
+inalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Grasping the Lieutenant by the hand, I consented to this Declaration of
+Independence of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> rebel thraldom. We gave our respective addresses to our
+friends, who promised, that if they were ever liberated, and we were
+killed by the guards, they would write to our families, informing them of
+the manner of our death.</p>
+
+<p>About ten o&#8217;clock, Malone raised the plank, and I went under to
+reconnoitre. I remained under the floor about ten minutes, having learned
+that there were no guards patroling the south side of the house, as we
+feared might be the case after night. We had learned, from observation,
+that there were none during the day. Just at the noon of night, we heard
+the relief called. Malone and I endeavoured to find the prisoners who were
+to raise the plank, but not being able readily to do so, we raised the
+plank ourselves, and both got under without difficulty. Malone getting
+under first, was, contrary to agreement, compelled to take the lead. As he
+was passing out, he made considerable noise. To warn him of the danger, I
+patted him on the back. Reaching back, he gave my hand a warm pressure, to
+assure me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> that all was right, and passed out. I followed, and reached the
+designated point in the corn-field in about half an hour, having to use
+the utmost precaution, and in some cases to pass the guards by crawling in
+a serpentine manner. When I arrived, I gave the preconcerted signal, but
+Malone was nowhere to be seen. I waited for him two hours at least, when I
+was compelled to seek my safety alone.</p>
+
+<p>Not being able to meet with my friend, I regarded as a great misfortune,
+because, after reaching a point ten miles north of Tupelo, he would be
+familiar with the country. I had frequently passed through the town on the
+railroad, but knew nothing of the country through which I must travel.
+Somewhat depressed in spirits at the loss of my <i>compagnon de voyage</i>, I
+resolved to reach my family by the safest and most practicable route.
+Still in the midst of camps, I had considerable difficulty in making my
+way out of them. When I thought that this had been effected, I found that
+day was brightening in the east. Looking around for some place to hide, I
+soon found a dense,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> though small thicket, in which I secreted myself as
+covertly as possible. Having slept but little since my arrest, I
+endeavoured to compose myself to slumber, and partially succeded; but soon
+the noise and confusion of soldiers passing and re-passing near, awoke and
+alarmed me. I soon learned that I was near a camp, and that the soldiers
+had found a suitable place for bathing in a creek which ran within thirty
+yards of my place of concealment. There were two paths by which they
+reached the creek. On one, they passed within fifteen feet of me; on the
+other, within six or seven. About nine o&#8217;clock, I heard the booming of
+cannon all around me, proceeding from the different camps. The soldiers
+who passed me stated, in their conversation, that the cannon were firing
+in honour of a great victory obtained over General McClellan, in Virginia.
+According to their statement, his whole army, after a succession of
+losses, during eight days&#8217; fighting, had been completely annihilated, and
+that Stonewall Jackson would be in Washington city before the close of the
+week.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>The day passed slowly away. At one time two soldiers came within a few
+feet of me in search of blackberries, but passed out without detecting me.
+At another time two soldiers sat down to converse, so near that their
+lowest tones were distinctly audible. One informed the other that he had
+been in town in the morning, and had learned that the <i>Clerical Spy</i>,
+Parson Aughey, and a fellow by the name of Malone, had broke jail, but
+that they would soon be brought in, as a company of cavalry had been put
+on their track, with a pack of bloodhounds. Soon after this, one of them
+arose and struck a bush several times, which seemed to be but a very short
+distance above my head. I thought that he had discovered me, and was about
+to rise and run, when I heard him say to his companion, that he had
+attempted to kill a very large snake, which had escaped to the bushes. I
+began to feel somewhat uncomfortably situated when I learned that I was in
+close proximity to a large snake, though I would have preferred meeting
+with an anaconda, boa-constrictor, rattlesnake, or even the deadly cobra<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+di capello, rather than with those vile secessionists thirsting for
+innocent blood.</p>
+
+<p>I thought this 5th of July was the longest day I had ever known. The sun
+was so long in reaching the zenith, and so slow in passing down the steep
+ecliptic way to the occident. The twilight, too, seemed of endless
+duration. But as all long days have had an end, so had this. The stars
+came glittering one by one. I soon recognised that old staunch and
+immovable friend of all travellers on the underground railroad, the
+polar-star.</p>
+
+<p>Rising from my lair, I was soon homeward bound, guided by the north-star
+and an oriental constellation. Plunging into a dense wood I found my rapid
+advance impeded by the undergrowth, and great difficulty in following my
+guiding stars, as the boughs of the great oaks rendered them invisible, or
+dimly seen. Fatigued, hungry, and sleepy, I at length lay down at the foot
+of a large swamp-oak tree, intending to take a nap, and then rise and
+pursue my journey. When I awoke the sun was just rising. I arose filled
+with regret for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> time I had lost. Though somewhat refreshed by my
+sound sleep, yet I was very hungry and almost famished with thirst.</p>
+
+<p>After travelling about half a mile I came to a small log-house on a
+road-side. Feeling sick and faint, I resolved to go to the house to obtain
+water, and, if I liked the appearance of the inmates, to reveal my
+condition and ask for aid. Upon reaching the house I met the proprietor,
+but did not like his physiognomy. He looked the villain; a sinister
+expression, a countenance revealing no intellectuality, except a sort of
+low cunning, bore testimony that it would be foolish to repose confidence
+in the possessor of such villanous looks. I asked for water, intending to
+drink and leave. He pointed to the bucket; I drank and bade him good
+morning, and turned to leave. I had proceeded but a few steps, when I was
+ordered, in a stentorian tone, to halt. On looking round, I saw a soldier
+within a few steps, presenting a double-barrelled gun; another soldier was
+standing near, heavily armed. I asked by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> what authority he halted me. To
+which he replied:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I know you, sir; I have heard you preach frequently. You are Parson
+Aughey, and you were arrested and confined in prison at Tupelo. I was in
+Lowrey&#8217;s regiment yesterday, and learned that you had broken jail; and
+now, sir, you must return. My name is Dan Barnes. You may have heard of
+me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I had indeed heard of him. He had been guilty of robbing the United States
+mail, had fled to Napoleon or Helena, Arkansas, where he was arrested,
+brought back, and incarcerated in jail at Pontotoc, and confined there for
+nearly a year. As the evidence against him was positive, he would have
+been sent to the penitentiary; but, fortunately for him, at this juncture
+Mississippi seceded. There being then no United States officers to execute
+the laws, he was liberated, and soon after joined the army.</p>
+
+<p>After breakfast, which I paid for, Barnes called me to one side, and told
+me that he felt sorry for me, and would afford me an opportunity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> of
+escaping, if I would pay him a reasonable sum. He had been in a tight
+place himself, and would have been glad had some friend been near to aid
+him. He named two hundred and forty dollars as the <i>reasonable sum</i> for
+permitting me to escape. After getting my money, their horses were
+saddled, and telling me he was playing-off on me, said I must go to
+General Jordan&#8217;s head-quarters at Priceville, to which place he and Huff,
+the proprietor of the log cabin, conducted me.</p>
+
+<p>On my arrival, General Jordan ordered me to be put in irons, and placed
+under guard. I was taken to a blacksmith&#8217;s shop in the town, the General
+accompanying the guard, and heavy iron bands were put around my ankles,
+and connected by a chain. The bands were put on hot, and my boots were
+burnt in the operation. The blacksmith seemed averse to the order, and
+only obeyed it upon compulsion. The General stood by, and saw that it was
+well done. &#8220;Iron him securely&mdash;securely, sir,&#8221; was his oft repeated order.
+The ironing caused me much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> pain. My ankles were long discoloured from
+the effects of it.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img01.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p class="center">&#8220;I was taken to a blacksmith&#8217;s shop, and heavy iron bands put around my ankles.&#8221; Page 104.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>After my manacles were put on, I was taken back to Tupelo by Barnes and
+another guard. On my arrival, the commander of the post and the Provost
+Marshal were filled with joy. Barnes gave them the history of the arrest,
+stating that I had attempted to bribe him; that he listened to my
+proposition with indignation, and when he had got the money, performed
+what he regarded his duty. The commander replied that all the property of
+traitors was theirs, and that he did right in deceiving me, after
+accepting the bribe. He also recommended Barnes for promotion for his
+heroic and patriotic act in arresting me. (Perhaps it secured for him a
+captaincy.) The following colloquy now took place between the commander of
+the post, the Provost Marshal, and myself:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why did you attempt to leave us?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Because, sir, your prison was so filthy, and your fare so meagre and
+unwholesome, that I could not endure it long, and live.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>&#8220;Parson, you know the Bible says, the wicked flee when no man pursueth,
+but the righteous are as bold as a lion. You must have been guilty of
+crime, or you would not have tried to escape.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I may have been guilty of the offence charged against me, and yet
+innocent of real <i>guilt</i>.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You shall never be taken back to the prison you left, rest assured of
+that. Did any of the prisoners know of or aid you in your escape?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, sir; none of them knew anything about it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you telling the truth?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where is Malone?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I never saw him after I left the building.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He cannot escape; the cavalry are after him, and he will be brought in
+soon, dead or alive.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why did you attempt to bribe Barnes?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It was his own offer. I knew that his cupidity was great, and thought it
+no harm to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> accept his offer. If Barnes had his deserts, he would now be
+hard at work in the penitentiary.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did the jury that tried him, acquit him?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No. The secession of Mississippi saved him. I refer you to Colonel Tison,
+who is in Tupelo, for the particulars. He being marshal of North
+Mississippi, arrested Barnes, and knows all about it. He found on his
+person the evidence of his guilt, the money and checks stolen when he
+robbed the mail.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Parson, you will not be immediately executed, but you will, without
+doubt, hang in a week or two, so that, if you have any word to send your
+family, you have permission to do so.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;May I write a letter to my wife?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You may, and I will see that it is forwarded to her.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I sat down and wrote a letter, a very common-place letter, to my wife,
+inserting, occasionally, a word in phonography, which, taken in
+connection, read thus: &#8220;If possible, inform General Rosecrans or Nelson of
+my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> arrest.&#8221; While inspecting the letter, Lieutenant Peden noticed the
+phonography, and asked me to read it. I read it thus: &#8220;My dear wife, I
+hope to be at home soon. Do not grieve.&#8221; This letter they never sent. It
+was merely an act of duplicity on their part, to obtain some concession,
+which might be used against me. The guard, receiving orders, now conducted
+me to a hotel, and placed me in a small room, two guards remaining inside,
+and two at the door outside, with orders to shoot me if I made the least
+attempt at escape. I remained in this room only a few hours, after which I
+was taken to my old prison. As I entered, my old friends, the prisoners,
+crowded around me, and Captain Bruce addressed me in his facetious manner.
+In prison, his wit had beguiled many a tedious hour. His humour was the
+pure Attic salt.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Parson Aughey, you are welcome back to my house, though you have played
+us rather a scurvy trick in leaving without giving me the least inkling of
+the matter, or settling your bill.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>I replied: &#8220;Captain, it was hardly right; but I did not like your fare,
+and your beds were filled with vermin.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, you do not seem to have fared better since you left, for you have
+returned.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Captain, my return is the result of coercion. Some who oppose this
+principle when applied to themselves, have no scruples in enforcing it
+upon others.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;No rogue e&#8217;er felt the halter draw,<br />
+With good opinion of the law;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>is an old saw, and the truth of proverbs is seldom affected by time. I am
+your guest upon compulsion; but remember, I will leave you the first
+opportunity.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Upon hearing this, an officer present swore that when I again left that
+building, it would be to cross the railroad, (the place of execution.)</p>
+
+<p>The prisoners gathered around me, and I related to them my adventures.
+They then informed me of what had transpired during my absence. Clarke was
+taken out of prison to guide a cavalry company in search of me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> Clarke
+informed me that they scoured the country, and then went to my
+father-in-law&#8217;s; and after searching the premises, returned, believing
+that I had gone due north towards Rienzi, in which direction another
+company had been despatched. On their return, Clarke was remanded to jail.
+At roll-call&mdash;seven o&#8217;clock, A. M., we were missed. The cavalry were
+immediately sent in pursuit. All the guards on duty during the night were
+put under arrest. Our method of escape was soon discovered, and the guards
+were released, as they were not at fault. A large number of spikes were
+hammered in the floor, the guards were doubled, and greater vigilance
+enjoined. The prisoners were questioned, strictly and individually, to
+learn whether any of them knew of our intention to escape, or had rendered
+us any assistance. They all positively denied any knowledge of the matter.
+They asked me whether I had given the officers any information about their
+knowledge of our designs, and co&ouml;peration in effecting them. I replied
+that I had positively denied that any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> except Malone and myself were privy
+to our plans.</p>
+
+<p>I may state here that it is difficult to justify a falsehood. We ought to
+utter truth always, without exaggeration or prevarication, leaving
+consequences with God. We should do right without regard to results, for
+with consequences we have no business; but in this case the temptation to
+utter an untruth was great. These wicked men, thirsting for my blood, had
+no right to make me criminate myself or my coadjutors. It would have been
+wrong for me to give them the information they desired. Truth is too
+precious for a secessionist, thirsting for innocent blood. Had I refused
+to answer, they would have suspected that some of my fellow-prisoners
+aided us, and would have either forced me to tell who they were, or would
+have hanged me instantly for my refusal. If I had given information, and
+criminated those who had befriended us, they would have been severely
+punished, and I have been guilty of the basest ingratitude; I would have
+been shunned by the prisoners, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> regarded as one of the meanest of men,
+one of the veriest wretches in existence; I could never again ask nor
+expect aid in a similar attempt to save myself from a violent death.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+<p class="title">LIFE IN A DUNGEON.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Parson Aughey as Chaplain&mdash;Description of the Prisoners&mdash;Colonel
+Walter, the Judge Advocate&mdash;Charges and Specifications against Parson
+Aughey&mdash;A Citizen of the Confederate States&mdash;Execution of two
+Tennesseeans&mdash;Enlistment of Union Prisoners&mdash;Colonel Walter&#8217;s second
+visit&mdash;Day of Execution specified&mdash;Farewell Letter to my Wife&mdash;Parson
+Aughey&#8217;s Obituary penned by himself&mdash;Address to his Soul&mdash;The Soul&#8217;s
+Reply&mdash;Farewell Letter to his Parents&mdash;The Union Prisoners&#8217; Petition
+to Hon. W. H. Seward&mdash;The two Prisoners and the Oath of
+Allegiance&mdash;Irish Stories.</p></div>
+
+<p>I was remanded to jail on Sabbath, the 6th of July, 1862. On the day of my
+escape I had been elected chaplain. Captain Bruce asked permission for me
+to hold divine service, to which no special objection was made. I
+conducted the services as I would have done were I in my own pulpit. The
+best order was maintained by the prisoners, and a deep seriousness
+prevailed. The songs of Zion resounded through the prison-house, and a
+great <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>concourse of soldiers assembled outside the guards in front of the
+door, causing considerable interruption by their noise and insulting
+language. Several officers, also, saw fit to come in and interrupt the
+services by conversing in a loud tone, and asking me how I liked my
+jewelry, referring to my fetters. The prisoners protested against their
+rude and ungentlemanly conduct, but with little effect. They sent a
+remonstrance to the commander of the post, but he treated it with silent
+contempt.</p>
+
+<p>As the prisoners insisted upon it, I persisted in preaching,
+notwithstanding the persecutions endured, as long as I remained with them.
+We were a motley assemblage. Some were dressed in cloth of finest texture;
+others were clad in filthy rags. There were present the learned and the
+illiterate, the rowdy and the minister of the gospel, the holy and the
+profane, the saint and the sinner. All the Southern States, and every
+prominent religious denomination were represented. The youth in his
+nonage, and the gray-haired and very aged man were there. The superior and
+the subordinate were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> with us. The descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth,
+were here on the same common level, for in our prison were Afric&#8217;s
+dark-browed sons, the descendants of Pocahontas, and the pure Circassian.
+Death is said to be <span class="smcaplc">THE</span> great leveller; the dungeon at Tupelo was <i>a</i>
+great leveller. A fellow-feeling made us wondrous kind; none shared his
+morsel alone, and a deep and abiding sympathy for each other&#8217;s woes
+pervaded every bosom. When our fellow-prisoners were called to die, and
+were led through us with pallid brows, and agony depicted on their
+countenances, our expressions of sorrow and commiseration were not loud
+(through fear) but deep.</p>
+
+<p>On Monday morning an officer entered; my name was called, and I arose from
+the floor on which I had been reclining. I recognised him as my old
+friend, Colonel H. W. Walter, of Holly Springs, Mississippi. After the
+ordinary salutations, he informed me that he was Judge Advocate, and that
+my trial would take place in a few days, and inquired whether I wished to
+summon any witnesses. I gave him the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> names and residences of several
+witnesses, but he refused to send for them, upon the plea that they were
+too near the Federal lines, and their cavalry might be in danger of
+capture were they to proceed thither. I told him that the cavalry which
+went in pursuit of me had visited that locality. He then wished to know
+what I desired to prove by those witnesses. I replied that I wished to
+prove that the specifications in the charge of being a spy were false.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Your own admissions are sufficient to cause you to lose your life,&#8221; said
+the Colonel, &#8220;and I will not send for those witnesses.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I replied: &#8220;I know that I must die, and you need not go through the
+formality of a trial. If condemned as a spy, I must be hanged. I only
+wished the witnesses to prove that Woodruff is a man of no moral worth,
+that his testimony is false; that Barnes is a mail-robber, and that his
+testimony, therefore, should be rejected. Proving these facts, the other
+charges which I admit, will cause me to be shot. I hope I am prepared to
+die, but do not wish to die a dog&#8217;s death. Promise me that I shall be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>
+shot, and not hanged, and I will cavil no more.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Parson Aughey, your chances for living are very slender. The proof
+against you on both charges will be established; the testimony as to your
+guilt is positive, and spies are always hanged.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He then stated the charges and specifications against me as follows:</p>
+
+<p>First charge&mdash;<i>Treason</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Specification 1st. That said Aughey stated to a member of Hill&#8217;s cavalry,
+that if McClellan were defeated, the North could raise a much larger army
+in a very short time; that the North would eventually conquer the South,
+and that he was a Union man&mdash;this for the purpose of giving aid and
+comfort to the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Specification 2d. That when said Aughey was requested to take the oath of
+allegiance to the Confederate States, he refused, giving as a reason, that
+England, France, and himself, had not yet recognised the Southern
+Confederacy, stating, also, that he had voluntarily taken the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> oath of
+allegiance to the United States Government, which he regarded as
+binding&mdash;this in North Mississippi.</p>
+
+<p>Specification 3d. That said Aughey was acting as a Federal agent in the
+purchase of cotton, and had received from the United States Government a
+large amount of gold, to pay for the cotton purchased.</p>
+
+<p>Second charge&mdash;<i>Acting as a spy</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Specification 1st. That said Aughey, while a citizen of the Confederate
+States, repeatedly came into our lines for the purpose of obtaining
+information for the benefit of the enemy, and that he passed through the
+lines of the enemy at pleasure, holding an unlimited pass from General
+Nelson, granting that privilege&mdash;this in the vicinity of Corinth,
+Mississippi.</p>
+
+<p>Witnesses, &mdash;&mdash; Wallace, Dan Barnes, Ferdinand Woodruff, &mdash;&mdash; Williams,
+David Huff.</p>
+
+<p>I demanded a copy of the charges, which Colonel Walter promised to
+furnish.</p>
+
+<p>About three o&#8217;clock in the afternoon, I went to a couple of prisoners who
+were heavily ironed; they were handcuffed, had a chain on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> their legs
+similar to mine, and were chained together to a post, or to some fixture
+at the side of the jail. I inquired for what offence they were
+incarcerated.</p>
+
+<p>The prisoner whom I addressed was a tall gentleman, with a very
+intellectual countenance, and of prepossessing manners. He was somewhat
+pale, and wore a sad countenance. He replied:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We are charged with desertion.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did you desert?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I enlisted in the Confederate service for twelve months. At the
+expiration of my term of service, I asked permission to return home,
+stating that my family were suffering for the necessaries of life; that
+they lived in Tennessee, which is occupied by Federal troops. Confederate
+bonds are there not worth the paper on which they are printed; provisions
+are scarce, and my family have not the means of purchasing. I wish to
+relieve their wants, and as my term of service has expired, I wish a
+discharge. This they refused, stating that the Confederate Congress had
+passed a law requiring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> all troops who had enlisted for any term, however
+short, to be held to service during the war, and all who left before that
+time would be considered guilty of desertion, and if arrested, would be
+shot. I attempted to return to my family, regarding the law a tyrannical
+enactment. I was arrested and committed to this prison.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What will be your fate?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I know not, but fear the worst.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I learned that the other prisoner had about the same statement to make,
+and was also in dread of capital punishment. I left them and walked to the
+opposite side of the prison, when I observed a file of soldiers drawn up
+in front of the building. Two officers entered, and walking up to the two
+prisoners whom I had just left, unfastened their chains, and ordered them
+to follow. One of the prisoners asked whether he should bring his blanket.
+&#8220;No,&#8221; replied the officer, in a jocular tone; &#8220;you have no more need for a
+blanket in this world.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>On reaching the door, the soldiers separated, received the prisoners in
+their midst, closed up,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> and marching them across the railroad, shot them.
+As the officers passed Captain Bruce, he asked where the prisoners were
+going. They replied, &#8220;Going to be shot!&#8221; and showed him the warrant for
+their execution, having written across it, in red letters, &#8220;<i>Condemned to
+death!</i>&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Thus was perpetrated an act of cruel tyranny, which cries loudly to Heaven
+for vengeance. Two families, helpless and destitute, were thus each
+deprived of its head, on whom they were dependent for support, and
+abandoned to the cold charity of a selfish world. The wages they earned by
+a year&#8217;s faithful service in behalf of the wicked, cruel, and vindictive
+Confederate States, was an ignominious death and a dishonoured grave. Will
+not God visit for this? The widow and the fatherless cry to Heaven for
+vengeance, and their cries have entered into the ears of the Lord of
+Sabaoth.</p>
+
+<p>On Tuesday morning, six young men, who had been arrested for their Union
+sentiments, resolved to escape. Their plan was to enlist in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> the
+Confederate service, then to desert on the first opportunity, and make
+their way to the Federal lines. They consulted me as to the propriety of
+taking the oath of allegiance under these circumstances. Such a step would
+give them another chance for life; but were they to profess adherence to
+their Union principles, they had no hope of living many days. If permitted
+to enlist, they thought there was little doubt of their escape in a few
+days; and should a battle take place, no Federal soldiers would be injured
+by them, and an opportunity to desert might occur during the engagement. I
+drew up a paper for them, requesting permission to enlist in a company
+which they specified. Their petition was granted by the authorities, and
+they were removed from prison to the camp. I feel confident that ere this,
+they are safe in the Federal lines, for they knew the whole country, so as
+to be able to travel by night or by day, with little danger of detection.
+They had all been arrested at their homes by the Rebel cavalry. They were
+bitter in sentiment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> against the military usurpation, self-styled the
+Confederate States of America.</p>
+
+<p>This (Tuesday) evening, Colonel Walter called again, to give me a copy of
+the charges against me. He informed me that my trial had been deferred
+till Monday, the 15th inst. He also informed me in advance, that I must
+die, and that, doubtless, on the day after the trial. I asked and obtained
+permission to send for the Rev. Dr. Lyon, of Columbus, Mississippi, to be
+present at my execution. Dr. Lyon and I were co-presbyters, both being
+members of the Tombeckbee Presbytery. Colonel Walter was a renegade
+Yankee. Coming from Michigan to Mississippi, he married the daughter of a
+wealthy slave-holder. Obtaining through her the control of a large number
+of slaves, he became a very ultra advocate of the peculiar institution,
+and a rabid secessionist.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after Colonel Walter left, Colonel Ware came in, and asked me if I
+had been President of a Female College in Rienzi. I replied in the
+affirmative. &#8217;Tis strange, said he, that one who has been so favoured, and
+one who has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> accumulated property in the South, should prove a traitor to
+the land of his adoption, and side with his enemies. I replied that I had
+given a fair equivalent for every dollar I had obtained from the citizens
+of the South; that for eleven years I had laboured faithfully as a teacher
+and minister of the gospel to promote the educational and spiritual
+interests of the Southern people; and that now I was receiving my reward
+in being chained, starved, and insulted; and that they intended soon to
+pay the last instalment by putting me to death ignominiously on the
+scaffold; I also denied being an enemy to the South. I regarded those who
+imperilled all her best interests, and plunged her into a protracted and
+desolating war, as the real enemies of the South. If my advice had been
+followed, the South and the whole country would now be enjoying its wonted
+peace and prosperity. He only replied with cursing and vituperation.</p>
+
+<p>Believing my end to be near, I sat down upon the floor of my dungeon, and
+penned the following letter to my wife.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>
+<span class="smcap">Tupelo Military Dungeon</span>, July 10th, 1862.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Mary</span>&mdash;The Confederate authorities announce to me that I have
+only a few more days to live. When you receive this letter, the hand
+that penned it will be cold in death. My soul will have passed the
+solemn test before the bar of God; I have a good hope through grace
+that I will be then rejoicing amid the sacramental host of God&#8217;s
+elect, singing the new song of redeeming love in the presence of Him
+who is the Chief among ten thousand, and the one altogether lovely.
+Mary, meet me in heaven, where sorrow, and crying, and sin are not
+known, and where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at
+rest. I will request your brother Ramsey, and cousin, Captain
+Tankersley, to convey my body to you. Bury me in the graveyard at
+Bethany. Plant an evergreen&mdash;a cedar&mdash;at my head, and one at my feet,
+and there let me repose in peace, till the Archangel&#8217;s trump shall
+sound, calling the dead to the judgment of the great day, and
+vouchsafing to saints the long wished-for &#8220;redemption of the body.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>As to my property, it has all been confiscated; and after years of
+incessant toil, I leave you penniless and dependent; but trust in God.
+To his protecting care I commit you and our dear little Kate, who has
+promised that he will be the widow&#8217;s husband, and the father of the
+fatherless. Rest assured, the Lord will provide. Only trust in him,
+and love him with your whole heart, and soul, and mind, and strength.
+&#8220;I know that it shall be well with those that love God.&#8221; Be not
+faithless, but believing, and though clouds and thick darkness
+surround you at present, a more auspicious day will dawn, and God will
+bring you safely to your journey&#8217;s end, and our reunion in heaven will
+be sweet.</p>
+
+<p>Our dear little daughter, Kate, bring up in the nurture and admonition
+of the Lord. Teach her to walk in wisdom&#8217;s ways, for her ways are ways
+of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. Her mind may be compared
+to wax, in its susceptibility for receiving impressions, and to
+marble, for its power of retaining those impressions. O that she may
+be satisfied early<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> with the mercy of God, that she may rejoice and be
+glad all her days! Teach her to remember her Creator in the days of
+her youth, before the evil days come, in which she shall say, I have
+no pleasure in thee. Make the Bible her constant study, and let its
+words be as household words to her. Inspire her mind with a reverence
+for <i>the Book</i> which is able to make wise unto salvation. See to it
+that the words of Christ dwell richly in her soul, that she may be
+filled with wisdom, and knowledge, and spiritual understanding. Pray
+for the Holy Spirit to bless your labours and instructions, without
+which all your efforts would be in vain, and pray that the Third
+Person of the adorable Trinity may take up his abode in her heart, and
+dwell with her for ever.</p>
+
+<p>As my duties in regard to instructing our child, will devolve solely
+on you, take for your guidance, in this respect, Deut. vi. 5-9. Let
+your example be such as you would wish her to follow. Children are
+much more inclined to follow example than precept. Exercise care in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>
+this respect, for, &#8220;as is the mother, so is her daughter.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I regret my family will, from the force of circumstances, be compelled
+to remain in a land where my death will be considered disgraceful, but
+it cannot be avoided. The time may come when, even in Mississippi, I
+may be regarded as a patriot martyr. My conscience is void of offence,
+as regards the guilt attached to the charges made against me. I am
+charged with treason against the Confederate States. The charge and
+the specifications are true, except that I was not a Federal agent in
+the purchase of cotton. That was a private arrangement altogether. I
+am also charged with acting as a spy. The specifications under this
+charge are false. I think that this accusation was made to prevent
+retaliation by the Federal generals; and in the Rebel army they are
+not at a loss to prove any charge, however false. Ferdinand Woodruff
+is their tool to prove me a spy, and he will do it, though he knows
+his testimony to be as false as that of the suborned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> witnesses who
+bore testimony against the Saviour.</p>
+
+<p>How long shall the wicked triumph? How long will God forbear to
+execute that vengeance which is his, and which he will repay sooner or
+later! I feel confident that the right cause will prevail, and though
+I will not live to see it, for my days are numbered, yet I firmly
+believe that the rebel power will be destroyed utterly.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The eternal years of God are hers;</span><br />
+But error, wounded, writhes in pain,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And dies amid her worshippers.&#8221;</span></p>
+
+<p>I write this letter amid the din and confusion incident to a large
+number of men crowded into a narrow compass, and free from all
+restraint. This letter will be transmitted to you by friends. The
+names of those friends you will know hereafter. They will present your
+case to General Rosecrans or Nelson, who may obtain a pension for you.
+My services heretofore in the Union cause are known to them, and I
+think they will see that you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> do not suffer; all my real estate will
+be restored to you if the Union cause triumphs, and I think there is
+no doubt as to its success. Give my love to all my friends. Remember
+that I have prayed for you unceasingly during my imprisonment, and my
+last utterances on earth will be prayers for your welfare.</p>
+
+<p>Farewell. God bless you, and preserve you and our dear little Kate.</p>
+
+<p>Your affectionate husband,</p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="smcap">John H. Aughey.</span></span></p></div>
+
+<p>I next wrote my obituary, which I placed in the hands of a Union soldier
+who expected soon to be exchanged. By him it was to be sent to the editors
+of <i>The Presbyterian</i>, published in Philadelphia, with a request that it
+should appear in their columns.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">OBITUARY.</p>
+
+<p>Died, in Tupelo, Ittawamba county, Mississippi, July &mdash;, 1862, the
+Rev. John H. Aughey. The subject of the above notice was executed on
+the gallows, by authority of the Confederate States, on the charges of
+treason and acting as a spy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>John H. Aughey was born in New Hartford, Oneida county, New York, May
+8th, 1828; removed with his parents to Steubenville, Ohio, in 1837; is
+an alumnus of Franklin College, New Athens, Harrison county, Ohio;
+studied theology in Memphis, Tennessee, under the Rev. John H. Gray,
+D. D., President of Memphis Synodical College&mdash;also under the care of
+the Rev. S. I. Reid of Holly Springs, Mississippi; was licensed to
+preach the gospel by the Presbytery of Chickasaw, October 4th, 1856;
+was ordained to the full work of the gospel ministry by the Presbytery
+of Tombeckbee, at its session in Winston county, Mississippi, in
+April, 1861. God blessed his labours by giving him many seals to his
+ministry. After labouring eleven years in the South as a teacher and
+minister of the gospel, having never injured a citizen of the South
+either in person or property, he suffered a felon&#8217;s death for
+attachment to the Federal Union, because he would not turn traitor to
+the government which had never in a single instance oppressed, but had
+always afforded him protection. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> rests in peace, and in the hope of
+a blessed immortality.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;Leaves have their time to fall,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And flowers to wither in the north wind&#8217;s breath,</span><br />
+And stars to set; but all&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!&#8221;</span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">ADDRESS TO MY SOUL.</p>
+
+<p>O my soul! thou art about to appear in the presence of thy Creator, who is
+infinite, eternal, unchangeable in his being, power, wisdom, holiness,
+justice, goodness, and truth. He cannot look upon sin. He is a
+sin-avenging God, and thou art stained with sin. Thy transgressions are as
+numerous as the stars of heaven, and the sand that is upon the sea-shore.
+Thou art totally debased by sin, and thy iniquities abound. Thou art
+guilty of sins of omission and of commission. Justice would consign thee
+to everlasting burnings, to dwell with devouring fire, even to everlasting
+destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power.
+Guilty, helpless, wretched as thou art, what is thy plea why sentence of
+eternal death should not be pronounced against thee?</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center">THE SOUL&#8217;S REPLY.</p>
+
+<p>I plead the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood cleanses from
+<i>all</i> sin, even from sins of the deepest dye. I plead the sufferings of
+Him who bore my sins in his own body, on the tree, and wrought out a
+perfect righteousness, which I may obtain by simple faith. No money, no
+price is demanded. This I could not pay, for all my righteousness is as
+filthy rags, and I must perish, were any part of the price demanded.
+Nothing in my hand I bring. My salvation must be <i>all</i> of grace, or to me
+it would be hopeless. I trust that Christ will clothe me in the spotless
+robes of his own righteousness, and present me faultless before his
+Father. With this trust, I go to the judgment-seat, assured that the soul
+which trusts in Christ shall never be put to shame. God is faithful who
+has promised.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right"><span style="padding-right: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Military Dungeon</span>, Tupelo,</span><br />
+Ittawamba Co., Miss., July 11th, 1862.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Parents</span>&mdash;&#8220;Life is sweet, and it is a pleasant thing to behold the
+sun.&#8221; &#8220;All that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> a man hath, will he give for his life.&#8221; &#8220;Having
+promise of the life that now is.&#8221; &#8220;The life is more than meat.&#8221; &#8220;They
+hunt for the <i>precious</i> life.&#8221; The above quotations from the Word of
+Life, show the high estimate that is placed upon life. My life is not
+&#8220;<i>precious</i>&#8221; in the eyes of the Secessionists, for their authorities
+declare that &#8220;my chances for living long are extremely slender.&#8221; &#8220;Yet
+a few days, and me the all-beholding sun shall see no more in all his
+course.&#8221; Mourn not for me, my dear parents, as those who have no hope.
+&#8220;For me to live, is Christ; but to die, is gain.&#8221; I fear not those
+who, when they have killed the body, have no more that they can do.
+But I fear Him whose fear casteth out every other fear. When these
+lines are read by you, their author will be an inhabitant of the
+Celestial City, the New Jerusalem, and will be reposing in Abraham&#8217;s
+bosom, in the midst of the Paradise of God. Next to God, my thanks are
+due to you, for guiding my infant feet in the paths of wisdom and
+virtue. In riper years, by precept, I have been warned and instructed.
+By example I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> have been led, until my habits were fixed, and then,
+accompanied by your parental blessing, I sought a distant home, to
+engage in the arduous duties of life. Whatever success I have met
+with, whatever influence for good I may have exerted, are all due to
+your pious training. I owe you a debt of gratitude which I can never
+repay. Though I cannot, God will grant you a reward lasting as
+eternity. It will add to that exceeding and eternal weight of glory
+which will be conferred on you in that day when the heavens shall be
+dissolved, and the elements melt with fervent heat. I die for my
+loyalty to the Federal Government. I know that you would not have me
+turn traitor to save my life. Life is precious, but death, even death
+on the scaffold, is preferable to dishonour. Remember me kindly to all
+my friends. Tell sisters Sallie, Mary, and Emma, to meet me in heaven.
+I know that <i>my</i> Redeemer liveth. Dying is but going home. I have
+taught many how to live, and now I am called to teach them how to die.
+May God grant that as my day is, so may my strength be, and that, in
+my last<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> moments, I may not bring dishonour upon my Master&#8217;s cause,
+but may glorify him in the fires!</p>
+
+<p>My dear parents, farewell till we meet beyond the river.</p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Your affectionate son,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><span class="smcap">John H. Aughey</span>.</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">To David and Elizabeth Aughey</span>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Amsterdam, Jefferson Co., Ohio.</span></p></div>
+
+<p>The following letter was written to the Hon. William H. Seward in behalf
+of the Union men in prison and within the rebel lines.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right"><span style="padding-right: 1.5em;"><span class="smcap">Central Military Prison</span>, Tupelo,</span><br />
+Ittawamba Co., Mississippi, July 11th, 1862.</p>
+
+<p>Hon. William H. Seward:</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>&mdash;A large number of citizens of Mississippi, holding Union
+sentiments, and who recognise no such military usurpation as the
+so-called Confederate States of America, are confined in a filthy
+prison, swarming with vermin, and are famishing from hunger&mdash;a
+sufficient quantity of food not being furnished us. We are separated
+from our families, and suffered to hold no communication with them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
+We are compelled, under a strong guard, to perform the most menial
+services, and are insulted on every occasion by the officers and
+guards of the prison. The nights are very cool; we are furnished with
+no bedding, and are compelled to lie down on the floor of our dungeon,
+where sleep seldom visits us, until exhausted nature can hold out no
+longer; then our slumbers are broken, restless, and of short duration.
+Our property is confiscated, and our families left destitute of the
+necessaries of life; all that they have, yea, all their living, being
+seized upon by the Confederates, and converted to their own use. Heavy
+fetters are placed upon our limbs, and daily some of us are led to the
+scaffold, or to death by shooting. Many of us are forced into the
+army, instant death being the penalty in case of refusal; thus
+constraining us to bear arms against our country, to become the
+executioners of our friends and brethren, or to fall ourselves by
+their hands.</p>
+
+<p>These evils are intolerable, and we ask protection, through you, from
+the United States Government. The Federal Government may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> not be able
+to release us, but we ask the protection which the Federal prisoner
+receives. Were his life taken, swift retribution would be visited upon
+the rebels by a just retaliation&mdash;a rebel prisoner would suffer death
+for every Federal prisoner whom they destroyed. Let this rule hold
+good in the case of Union men who are citizens of the South. The loyal
+Mississippian deserves protection as much as the loyal native of
+Massachusetts. We ask, also, that our confiscated property be restored
+to us, or, in case of our death, to our families. If it be destroyed,
+let reparation be demanded from the rebels, or the property of known
+and avowed secessionists sequestered to that use.</p>
+
+<p>Before this letter reaches its destination, the majority of us will
+have ceased to be. The writer has been informed by the officers that
+&#8220;his chances for living long are very slender;&#8221; that he has confessed
+enough to cause him to lose his life, and the Judge Advocate has
+specified Tuesday, the 15th inst., as the day of his execution. We
+have, therefore, little hope that we, individually, can receive any
+benefit from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> this petition, though you regard it favourably, and
+consent to its suggestions; but our families, who have been so cruelly
+robbed of all their substance, may, in after time, receive
+remuneration for their great losses. And if citizens of avowed
+secession proclivities, who are within the Federal lines, are arrested
+and held as hostages for the safety of Union men who are and may be
+hereafter incarcerated in the prison in Tupelo and elsewhere, the
+rebels will not dare put another Union man to death.</p>
+
+<p>Hoping that you will deem it proper to take the matters presented in
+our petition under advisement, we remain, with high considerations of
+respect and esteem, your oppressed and imprisoned fellow-citizens,</p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;"><span class="smcap">John H. Aughey</span>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><span class="smcap">Benjamin Clarke</span>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><span class="smcap">John Robinson</span>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">and thirty-seven others.</span></p></div>
+
+<p>Two young men informed me to-day that they had been forced into the rebel
+service. They had been taken prisoners at Corinth by General Pope, and had
+taken the oath of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>allegiance to the Federal Government, to which their
+hearts had always been loyal. Recently they had been arrested, and on
+refusing to rejoin their regiment, were immured in this dungeon. From the
+threats of the officers, they expected to be shot at any moment. They had
+used every means to banish the thoughts of death&mdash;had forced themselves to
+engage in pleasantry and mirth to drive away the sadness and gloom which
+oppressed them when alone, and recalled the pleasures of their happy
+homes&mdash;homes which they would never see again. I counselled them to
+prepare to meet their God in peace; to wisely improve the short time
+granted them to make their calling and election sure. They replied that
+they hoped all would be well. They had long since confessed Christ before
+men, and hoped for salvation through his merits. Still, they could not
+help feeling sad in the near prospect of death. They left me to mingle
+with a group of prisoners, who were endeavouring to dissipate the tedium,
+and vary the monotonous routine of prison life, by &#8220;telling stories.&#8221;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>Captain Bruce led off by telling the following Irish story:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Once upon a time, an Irishman, who rejoiced in the possession of a fine
+mare and a colt, wished to cross the Mississippi river at Baton Rouge with
+them. By some mishap, they were all precipitated from the ferry-boat into
+the water. The Irishman, being unable to swim, grasped the colt&#8217;s tail,
+hoping thus to be carried to the shore. Some of the passengers called out
+to him: &#8216;Halloo, Pat, why don&#8217;t you take hold of the mare&#8217;s tail; she is
+much stronger, and much more able to carry you safely to the shore.&#8217; &#8216;O,
+be jabers!&#8217; says Pat, &#8216;this is no time for swapping horses.&#8217;&#8221; This tale
+was received with applause.</p>
+
+<p>Baltimore Bill, a real Plug-ugly, told his story next, as follows: &#8220;Two
+Irishmen, immediately after their arrival in America, found a gun. After
+long inspection, they concluded it was some kind of musical instrument,
+and wishing to hear the music, it was agreed that Jimmie should blow at
+the muzzle, while Pat worked with the &#8216;fixins&#8217; at the breech. At it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> they
+went. Soon the gun went off, and Jimmie fell down, shot dead. &#8216;Och!&#8217; says
+Pat, &#8216;are you charmed at the first note?&#8217;&#8221; This story was received with
+loud bursts of laughter. An officer then entered, and ordered us to be
+quiet, forbidding us to narrate any more tales.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+<p class="title">EXECUTION OF UNION PRISONERS.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Resolved to Escape&mdash;Mode of Executing Prisoners&mdash;Removal of
+Chain&mdash;Addition to our Numbers&mdash;Two Prisoners become Insane&mdash;Plan of
+Escape&mdash;Proves a Failure&mdash;Fetters Inspected&mdash;Additional
+Fetters&mdash;Handcuffs&mdash;A Spy in the Disguise of a Prisoner&mdash;Special
+Police Guard on Duty&mdash;A Prisoner&#8217;s Discovery&mdash;Divine Services&mdash;The
+General Judgment&mdash;The Judge&mdash;The Laws&mdash;The Witnesses&mdash;The
+Concourse&mdash;The Sentence.</p></div>
+
+<p>On Friday morning, the twelfth of July, as I lay restless and sore,
+endeavouring to find some position which would be sufficiently easy to
+permit me to enjoy, even for a few moments, the benefit of &#8220;Tired nature&#8217;s
+sweet restorer, balmy sleep,&#8221; the thought occurred that it would be well
+to attempt an escape, though it should result in death from the fire of
+the guards, which would be far preferable to death by strangling at the
+rope&#8217;s end, and in the presence of a large concourse of rebel enemies.
+Their method of shooting was, to dig a hole,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> and make the victim sit with
+his legs hanging in it. The soldiers would fire three balls through the
+brain, and three through the heart; then the mangled and bleeding body
+fell into the grave, and was immediately covered with earth. At first,
+coffins were used, but of late, these had been dispensed with, owing to
+the increased expense, and the increasing number of executions.</p>
+
+<p>I had not long meditated upon this subject, when I arose, fully resolved
+on death or liberty. My intentions were communicated to several prisoners,
+who promised me all the aid in their power. My fetters were examined, and
+it was concluded, that with proper instruments my bands could be divested
+of the iron which secured the chain-rings. A long-handled iron spoon, a
+knife, and an old file, were obtained, and two were detached at a time to
+work on my fetters. We went to one side of the building, and a sufficient
+number of prisoners stood in front of us, to prevent the guard from
+noticing our proceedings. Our locations were changed frequently, to
+prevent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> detection; and when an officer entered, labour was suspended till
+his exit.</p>
+
+<p>We called General Bragg, Robespierre; General Jordan, Marat; and General
+Hardee, Danton. Several prisoners were led out and shot to-day. The
+majority of them were Union men. Six Union men were committed to jail
+to-day. The horrors of our situation were sufficient to render two of
+these victims insane. A reign of terror had been inaugurated, only
+equalled, in its appalling enormity, by the memorable French Revolution.
+Spies and informers, in the pay of the Rebel government, prowl through the
+country, using every artifice and strategy to lead Union men to criminate
+themselves, after which they are dragged to prison and to death. The
+cavalry dash through the country, burning cotton, carrying off the
+property of loyal citizens, and committing depredations of every kind.</p>
+
+<p>Several prisoners resolved to attempt an escape with me. Our plan was, to
+bring in the axe with which we split wood for cooking, and raise a plank
+in the floor, a sufficient<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> number to stand around those who lifted it, to
+prevent observation, and then make our way out among the guards, who were
+off duty on the north side of the building. At this time there were three
+guards in front of each door, and two on the south side of the building.
+On the north side of the building, there were no guards on duty, for, if
+the other three sides were securely guarded, the prisoners could not
+escape on the north side. There were, however, several hundred guards,
+who, when off duty, slept on this side of the prison. When their turn
+came, they went on duty; and those who were relieved, came there to sleep.
+They were coming and going all the time, and during the whole night, they
+kept up an incessant noise.</p>
+
+<p>After the unremitting labour of my friends during the day, I found that I
+could slip my chain off and on at pleasure. The sun was now setting, but
+the axe had not been brought in. At this time a guard was stationed in
+each door; the favourable moment had passed; none dared to bring the axe
+past<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> the guard. While deliberating on the best course to pursue&mdash;as
+raising a plank had proved a failure for the present&mdash;General Jordan and
+Colonel Clare entered. I was standing with others in the middle of the
+floor. General Jordan came directly to me; either accidentally or
+intentionally, he held up a light to my face. &#8220;Ah! you are here yet,&#8221; said
+he. I gave an affirmative nod. &#8220;Well,&#8221; said he to Colonel Clare, &#8220;I must
+examine this fellow&#8217;s irons.&#8221; Putting his hand down, and ascertaining that
+they had been tampered with, he endeavoured, ineffectually, to pull the
+bands off; he did not notice that I could slip the chain-rings off. &#8220;These
+irons,&#8221; said he, &#8220;are very insecure; who helped you to put them in this
+condition?&#8221; I made no reply. After waiting until he found I intended none,
+he continued: &#8220;Colonel Clare, have these irons secured in the morning;
+also put handcuffs on him, and chain him, so as to confine him to one
+locality; the gallows shall not be cheated of their due.&#8221; Having given
+these orders, they passed out. As soon as they were gone, the prisoners
+who had aided<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> me crowded around, stating that they believed there was a
+spy in the house, in the guise of a prisoner, and declaring that I must
+escape that night, or it would be too late. All realized that on to-morrow
+there would be no hope.</p>
+
+<p>There were eleven guards on duty&mdash;three in front of each door, one in each
+door, two on the south side of the building, and at night one passing back
+and forth through the centre of the prison, which was lighted during the
+whole night. There was also a special police guard on duty that night, as
+five Federal prisoners, who remained in our prison until some formalities
+were gone through with, would be sent in the morning to the prison at
+Columbus, Mississippi, and it was feared they might attempt to escape ere
+they were sent further south.</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture, a young man ran up and informed me that he had made a
+discovery which might result in my escape; I must go alone, however, and
+though they would aid me, they would run great risk in doing so.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> Only
+four could assist, and he would volunteer to be one of them. Several
+others immediately volunteered, of whom three were selected by M&mdash;&mdash;, and
+the plan then communicated. At this moment, Captain Bruce announced that
+the hour for divine worship had arrived. I asked my friends whether I
+should plead indisposition, and dispense with the services for that time.
+They replied that it might lead to suspicion, and advised me to give them
+a short sermon. I went to my usual place of standing, clanking my chains
+as heretofore. I give a synopsis of the sermon.</p>
+
+<p>The text was 2 Cor. v. 10: &#8220;We must all appear before the judgment-seat of
+Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according
+to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The doctrine of a general judgment was revealed to mankind at a very early
+period of the world&#8217;s history. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied,
+saying, &#8220;Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to
+execute judgment upon all, and to convince all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> that are ungodly among
+them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of
+all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.&#8221;
+Job declares: &#8220;I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at
+the latter day upon the earth.&#8221; Daniel also speaks of a general judgment:
+&#8220;I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did
+sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the
+pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning
+fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand
+thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood
+before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.&#8221; The New
+Testament is also explicit in its declarations that God hath appointed a
+day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he
+hath ordained. The text declares that we must all appear before the
+judgment-seat of Christ.</p>
+
+<p>The scenes which will usher in the judgment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> of the great day will be of
+the most magnificent character. &#8220;The heavens shall pass away with a great
+noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and
+the works that are therein, shall be burned up.&#8221; This does not indicate
+annihilation. God will never annihilate any of his creatures, animate or
+inanimate.</p>
+
+<p>The inquiry is often made, what becomes of the soul after death, and where
+does it await the general judgment? A sect called the Soul-sleepers, take
+the position that the soul, after death, goes into a torpid state, like
+bears in winter, and thus remains till the sounding of the Archangel&#8217;s
+trump. There is no Scripture to sustain this view, and it is only assumed,
+to avoid the objection that God would not judge a soul, and send it to
+reward or punishment, and then bring it back, to be again judged. That the
+soul, at death, passes immediately into glory or torment, is proved by
+many scriptures. Paul &#8220;desired to depart, and be with Christ, which was
+far better,&#8221; than remaining on earth. He declares that to be present with
+the body, is to be absent from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> the Lord. The dying Stephen calls upon the
+Lord Jesus to receive his spirit. These holy men would not thus have
+spoken, if they supposed that ages must elapse ere they entered heaven.
+God is not the God of the dead or torpid, but of the living. Moses and
+Elias appeared on the mount of transfiguration in a state far from
+torpidity. The dying thief received the promise, &#8220;This day shalt thou be
+with me in paradise.&#8221; No mention is made of Purgatory or torpidity. The
+objector urges that paradise is not heaven. We are told that the river of
+life flows from the throne of God, that the tree of life grows on both
+sides of the river, and that the tree of life grows in the midst of the
+paradise of God. The paradise of God is where he is seated on his throne,
+which is heaven. Paradise is where Christ is. The thief would be with
+Christ in paradise. He who regards the Lord Jesus as the Chief among ten
+thousand, the One altogether lovely, will deem his presence heaven indeed.
+As to the wicked, it is said of the rich man, that in hell he lifted up
+his eyes, being in torment. If,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> after being judged, the souls of
+believers, do pass immediately into glory, and the wicked into torment,
+what use is there of another or general judgment. I reply, We are
+responsible not only for our acts, but for the influence which those acts
+exert through all time. Gibbon, Hume, Rosseau, Paine, and other infidel
+writers, wrote works which, during the life of the authors, did great
+evil. If those wicked men passed away from earth impenitent, they are now
+suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. But the influence for evil, of
+those wicked works, did not cease with the death of their authors.
+Thousands of young men every year are led into pernicious and hurtful
+errors by their perusal. At the general judgment, the accumulated guilt,
+for the baleful influence exerted through their writings in all time, will
+sink them deeper in the flames of perdition. The sainted Alexander, and
+other pious men who are now in heaven, wrote many works whose influence
+for good was great while their authors lived; and since their death they
+are, and will continue to be, instrumental in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> hand of God in turning
+many to righteousness. All the good accomplished by their writings,
+through all time, will, at the judgment, add to their exceeding and
+eternal weight of glory.</p>
+
+<p>In this life, we often see the righteous man contending with life&#8217;s
+unnumbered woes; all the dealings of Providence seem to be adverse. While
+the wicked are in great power, they flourish in life, like the green
+bay-tree, and have no bands in their death. These things are strange and
+mysterious. We understand them not now; but we shall learn, in that great
+day, when all mysteries are made plain, that God&#8217;s dealings were just,
+both with the righteous and the wicked.</p>
+
+<p>The text declares that <i>we</i> must all appear before the judgment-seat of
+Christ. This <i>we</i> includes all who are now within the sound of my voice,
+and not only us, but all who live upon the face of the earth; and the
+Archangel&#8217;s trump will wake the pale nations of the dead, and summon them
+to judgment. The dark domain of hell will be vacated, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> angels that
+kept not their first estate, and are now reserved in chains of darkness,
+will appear in the presence of the Judge. Heaven&#8217;s holy inhabitants will
+be present. Thus heaven, earth, and hell, will be represented in that
+august assemblage. The scene will bear some resemblance to that which
+takes place in our earthly courts. The Lord Jesus Christ will be the
+Judge, and the angels and saints will be the jurors, who will consent to
+and approve of the acts of the Judge. The angels will be the officers who
+will summon, from the prison-house of hell, the devils, to the trial, and
+also those wicked men who will call upon the rocks and mountains to fall
+upon them, and hide them from the face of the Lamb. Nor, as is so often
+the case with earthly officers, will any be able to elude the vigilance of
+these. They will be clothed with ample power to compel the attendance of
+all; none will escape. We <i>must all</i> appear before the judgment-seat. As
+in earthly courts, law is the basis of judgment, so we shall be judged
+according to law in that day. The heathen will be judged by the law of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>
+nature&mdash;the law written in their hearts, and on their consciences. The
+light of nature teaches the being, wisdom, power, and goodness of God. For
+a violation of this law, they will be beaten with few stripes. The Jews
+will be judged by both the law of nature, which they have, in common with
+the heathen and the Mosaic law. But we who live in the nineteenth century,
+in the full blaze of gospel light, will be judged not only by the light of
+nature and the Mosaic law, which we possess in common with the heathen and
+the Jew, but also by the glorious gospel of the Son of God, which brought
+life and immortality to light; and if condemned, how fearful our doom, who
+are so highly favoured! In earthly courts, we are judged for our overt
+acts alone; but in the court of heaven, the commandment is exceeding
+broad; it reaches every thought. Our words, too, are taken into account.
+We must give an account for every idle word. By our words, we shall be
+justified, and by our words we shall be condemned. Our thoughts, our
+words, our deeds, will all be taken into account.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>As in our courts there are witnesses, so also there will be at the bar of
+God. Our pious relatives and friends will bear this testimony, that they
+have prayed with us and for us; that they had a deep concern for our
+souls, and that we who are found on the left hand of the Judge, refused
+all their counsel, and despised their admonitions. Ministers of the gospel
+will testify that they came as ambassadors from the King of kings, and
+beseeching you, in Christ&#8217;s stead, to be reconciled to God, pointing to
+the coming wrath, and warning you from that wrath to flee; and yet their
+labour of love ye despised, and scorned the message from on high. The
+Bible will be a witness against you. Its teachings are able to make wise
+unto salvation. It is the chart which is given to guide us through this
+wilderness-world, to fairer worlds on high. It tells of the Lamb of God,
+who taketh away the sin of the world. It is truth without any mixture of
+error, and yet you have despised this necessary revelation, and chosen to
+perish, with the Word of Life open before you. God, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> Father, will be a
+swift witness against you. In the greatness of his love for you, in the
+counsels of eternity, he devised the plan of salvation, and sent his only
+begotten Son to suffer and die, that you might live, and yet you have
+despised that love, and rejected that Saviour. God, the Son, will bear
+this testimony, that he came from the shining abodes of glory, where
+seraphim and cherubim fell prostrate at his feet, in humble adoration, and
+emptying himself of his glory, bore all the ills of life&mdash;the persecutions
+of wicked men, and the accursed death of the cross, that salvation might
+be yours, and yet ye refused it, and trod the blood of the Son of God
+under foot, and put him to an open shame. The Holy Spirit, the Third
+Person of the adorable Trinity, will bear witness that he often knocked at
+the door of your hearts for admittance; that he wooed you to embrace his
+love, offering to abide with you for ever, and yet you rejected the offer,
+and did despite to the Spirit of grace, till, in sorrow, he took his
+everlasting flight.</p>
+
+<p>The devil is now going about as a roaring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> lion, seeking whom he may
+devour, and sometimes transforming himself into an angel of light. He is
+tempting you to sin, by presenting before your minds the superior charms
+of the riches and pleasures of earth, to things that are unseen and
+eternal. He has no power to compel you to sin. His evil suggestions are
+whispered in your oft too willing ears, and then it remains with you to
+accept or reject. He has no power of compulsion. Your sin must be an act
+of your own will, or it is not sin. When you consent to the wiles of this
+arch enemy, and sin against God, remember that with eager desire and base
+ingratitude he will fiercely accuse in the great day of God Almighty, and
+urge these very sins of his suggestion as a reason why he should have you
+to torment you for ever in the bottomless pit.</p>
+
+<p>That internal monitor, that light which enlightens every man that cometh
+into the world&mdash;the moral sense, or conscience&mdash;will be a swift witness
+against you. By it you have been enlightened and warned; and in the case
+of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> many who have denied a future state of punishment, the goadings of
+remorse have convinced them that there is a hell, the kindlings of whose
+fires they have felt in their own bosoms. Conscience will compel you to
+confess that your doom is just, though for ever debarred from the joys and
+happiness of heaven. O! my fellow-prisoners and travellers to the bar of
+God, listen to her warning voice to-day, before it be too late, and you
+are compelled mournfully to exclaim, &#8220;The harvest is past, the summer is
+ended, and I am not saved!&#8221; The conscience of the sinner will be compelled
+to admit the truth of the testimony. In earthly courts, oftentimes
+witnesses are suborned, and their testimony false. Not so at the grand
+assize. Not a scrap of false testimony will be admitted. The evidence will
+be in truth, and the judgment in righteousness.</p>
+
+<p>After all these scenes have occurred, the Judge will render a verdict, and
+pronounce the sentence, which will be irreversible and eternal. With
+regard to the righteous, though they have been guilty of many sins, both
+of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>omission and commission, and have no merits of their own to plead, and
+consider themselves justly obnoxious to eternal banishment, their
+Advocate, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom, while in the flesh, they
+exercised a true and living faith, will now present them, clad in the
+white robes of his perfect righteousness, faultless before his Father, and
+they will now hear the welcome plaudit, &#8220;Come ye blessed, inherit the
+kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.&#8221; But those on
+the left hand, who all their life rejected the mercy offered&mdash;the great
+salvation proffered without money and without price&mdash;will now hear the
+dread sentence, &#8220;Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for
+the devil and his angels!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>O my dear, impenitent fellow-prisoners! how can ye take up your abode,
+your eternal abode, in everlasting burnings? How can ye dwell with
+devouring fire? How can ye endure everlasting destruction from the
+presence of the Lord and the glory of his power, shut up for ever in the
+fearful pit out of which there is no egress except for the vision of the
+damned,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> and the smoke of its torment? Be wise to-day, &#8217;tis madness to
+defer. Procrastination is the thief of time. Delay is fraught with awful
+danger. Trust not in promises of future amendment. The way to hell is
+paved with good resolutions, which are never kept. The future convenient
+season never arrives. Like Felix, we may tremble when the minister reasons
+of a judgment to come; and like Agrippa, we may be almost persuaded to be
+a Christian, and yet come short of the glory of God through
+procrastination. Procrastination has populated hell. All the doomed and
+damned from Christian lands are victims of this pernicious and destructive
+wile of the devil. It is foolish to procrastinate. Though the Bible teems
+with rich and glorious promises of a hundred-fold blessings in this life,
+and eternal glory in the world to come, to those who break off their sins
+by righteousness, and their transgressions by turning unto the Lord, yet
+all these promises are limited to the present tense. There is not a single
+blessing promised the future penitent. He procrastinates at the risk of
+losing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> all. Behold, <i>now</i> is the accepted time, and now is the day of
+salvation. <i>To-day</i> if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
+&#8220;Ho, every one that thirsteth, <i>come</i> ye to the waters; and he that hath
+no money, <i>come</i> ye, <i>buy</i> and <i>eat</i>; yea, <i>come buy</i> wine and milk
+without money and without price.&#8221; &#8220;Seek ye <i>first</i> the kingdom of God and
+his righteousness.&#8221; &#8220;And the Spirit and the Bride say, <i>come</i>; let him
+that heareth say, <i>come</i>; and let him that is athirst <i>come</i>: and
+whosoever will, let him <i>take</i> the water of life freely.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Choose ye <i>this day</i> whom ye will serve. There is no warrant for deferring
+till to-morrow the momentous and eternal interests of the immortal soul.
+The shortness and uncertainty of life furnish a strong reason why we
+should not procrastinate. In the Bible, life is compared to everything
+that is swift, transient, and fleeting in its nature. It is compared to
+the swoop of the eagle hasting to the prey; to the swift post, to the
+bubble on the river. Life is compared in its duration to a year, a day,
+and to nothing, yea, less than nothing, and vanity.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> All these comparisons
+indicate that it is very brief and evanescent. We have no lease of life;
+we hold it by a very slight tenure; and this is especially true of us in
+our present condition. Confined in prison, some of us led to death every
+day without a moment&#8217;s warning, every evening I address some who, before
+the next evening, are in eternity. Myself in chains, my life declared
+forfeited, ought we not all to be deeply impressed with the necessity of
+immediate preparation to meet our God? I feel that I am preaching as a
+dying man to dying men, and I beseech you in Christ&#8217;s stead, be ye
+reconciled to God. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and ye shall be
+saved. Trust in him for salvation, for he is faithful who has promised.
+God has never said to any, seek ye my face in vain. By the love and mercy
+of God, by the terrors of the judgment, by the sympathy and compassion of
+Jesus, I entreat you, my fellow-prisoners, to seek an interest, a present
+interest, in the great salvation!</p>
+
+<p>I close for the present. We shall never all engage in divine service
+together again on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> earth. We separate&mdash;some to go to a distant prison, and
+some to death. May God grant that when we are done with earthly scenes, we
+may all meet in the realms of bliss, where there is in God&#8217;s presence
+fulness of joy, and at his right hand pleasures for evermore! And may the
+love of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the communion of the
+Holy Spirit, rest and abide with us, and all the Israel of God, now,
+henceforth, and for ever, Amen!</p>
+
+<p>The following hymn was then sung:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">In the sun, and moon, and stars,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Signs and wonders there shall be;</span><br />
+Earth shall quake with inward wars,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nations with perplexity.</span><br />
+<br />
+Soon shall ocean&#8217;s hoary deep,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tossed with stronger tempests, rise;</span><br />
+Wilder storms the mountains sweep,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Louder thunders rock the skies.</span><br />
+<br />
+Dread alarms shall shake the proud,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pale amazement, restless fear;</span><br />
+And, amid the thunder-cloud,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shall the Judge of men appear.</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span><br />
+But though from his awful face,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Heaven shall fade, and earth shall fly,</span><br />
+Fear not ye, his chosen race,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your redemption draweth nigh.</span></p>
+
+<p>I preached longer than I had intended, having become so fully engrossed
+with the subject as to forget my chains and my frustrated plans. My
+fellow-prisoners were listening apparently with interest; great solemnity
+prevailed, and penitential tears were flowing. It was evident that the
+Spirit of the living God was in our midst; and though danger and death
+were before our eyes, the consolations of the glorious gospel of the
+blessed God caused our peace to flow like a river. The precious seed was
+sown in tears. May we not entertain a good hope that he who cast the seed
+into this soil, prepared by affliction, shall come again with rejoicing,
+bringing his sheaves with him. By my side stood two in chains, who
+appeared deeply moved. During the day I had conversed with them about
+their souls. They expressed regret that they had not heretofore given this
+matter the attention its importance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> demanded. Since their imprisonment,
+however, they had been led to feel that they were great sinners, and had,
+as they hoped, put their trust in Christ alone for salvation. I have since
+learned that on the morrow they were shot.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+<p class="title">SUCCESSFUL ESCAPE.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">The Second Plan of Escape&mdash;Under the Jail&mdash;Egress&mdash;Among the
+Guards&mdash;In the Swamp&mdash;Travelling on the Underground Railroad&mdash;The
+Fare&mdash;Green Corn eaten Raw&mdash;Blackberries and Stagnant Water&mdash;The
+Bloodhounds&mdash;Tantalizing Dreams&mdash;The Pickets&mdash;The Cows&mdash;Become
+Sick&mdash;Fons Beatus&mdash;Find Friends&mdash;Union Friend No. Two&mdash;The night in
+the Barn&mdash;Death of Newman by Scalding&mdash;Union Friend No. Three&mdash;Bound
+for the Union Lines&mdash;Rebel Soldiers&mdash;Black Ox&mdash;Pied Ox&mdash;Reach
+Headquarters in Safety&mdash;Emotions on again beholding the Old
+Flag&mdash;Kindness while Sick&mdash;Meeting with his Family&mdash;Richard Malone
+again&mdash;The Serenade&mdash;Leave Dixie&mdash;Northward bound.</p></div>
+
+<p>After the sermon was concluded, the preparations for my escape were
+commenced. The building used for our prison was built with the front
+toward the east. The doors were at the eastern and western extremities,
+which were the gable ends, one door being in each end. There were also two
+windows at each end, the door being between them. The doors and
+window-sashes had been removed, to allow the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> guards stationed in front an
+unobstructed view of the interior. At night the apartment was lighted, and
+a guard patrolled the floor; it was, therefore, nearly impossible for a
+person to escape the observation of the guards, either within or without
+the jail. In the North, the houses are usually built with a cellar
+underneath; at the South, such a thing is very rare, the houses being
+built upon the ground, or upon piles. Our prison was built upon piles, the
+floor being elevated about eighteen inches above the ground. The boards
+were nailed upon the building perpendicularly, and in some cases did not
+quite reach to the ground. Small openings were thus left between the floor
+and the ground, through which a person could crawl underneath the
+building. Around each door was an enclosure, formed by stakes surmounted
+with poles, in the shape of a parallelogram, whose dimensions were about
+ten by sixteen feet. In each of these enclosures four guards were
+stationed, one of them being seated in the doorway. The rear enclosure was
+used for cooking purposes; and into both<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> enclosures we were permitted to
+go at pleasure during all hours of the day, and as late at night as ten
+o&#8217;clock. Only three prisoners were allowed to be in an enclosure at one
+time.</p>
+
+<p>M&mdash;&mdash; had discovered a hole by the side of the steps within the front
+enclosure, by which I could get under the building. I felt unwilling to
+make such an attempt, as the aperture was in the immediate vicinity of the
+guards. M&mdash;&mdash; stated that four others would aid me, though at considerable
+risk on their part. &#8220;I&#8217;ll take the risk,&#8221; was the individual response of
+all present. M&mdash;&mdash; selected three, who with himself assumed the perilous
+task, in which discovery would have cost them their lives. M&mdash;&mdash;, who had
+devised the plan of escape, now instructed us in the respective parts we
+were to perform. All promised implicit obedience. At half-past nine, three
+prisoners and myself were to go into the enclosure. They would stand up
+and converse with the guards, whilst I sat upon the ground by the hole, to
+wait for an opportunity to crawl under the building unobserved. This
+opportunity we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> expected to occur at ten o&#8217;clock, when the relief-guard
+came on duty. The duty of one prisoner was to remain inside and engage the
+attention of the guard who sat in the doorway, while the other three would
+go into the enclosure, and entertain the other guards, according to the
+previously devised plan. At half-past nine o&#8217;clock, we placed ourselves in
+the designated positions. I readily removed my chain, coiled it up, and
+laid it by the side of a little stump. The moon shone with great
+brilliancy, revealing the tents which surrounded us on every side.
+Officers and soldiers passed hurriedly to and fro. We were in the midst of
+the noise and confusion of a great encampment, as there were in and around
+Tupelo some fifteen thousand soldiers. Mingled sounds of mirth and
+contention proceeded from the surrounding tents. My prisoner friends were
+engaged in a fierce argument with the guards as to the comparative merits
+of Tennessee and Mississippi troops. This was done to divert their
+attention, and I observed with pleasure that they were meeting with
+success. I reflected<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> that a few more moments would decide my fate. If
+detected, my life must end ignominiously and on the gallows. In the
+morning, my anklets would be securely welded. I would also be handcuffed
+and chained to a post. Then all hope must end, and soon my corpse would be
+borne into the presence of her whose tears were flowing, and who refused
+to be comforted because of my ominous absence.</p>
+
+<p>The order for the relief-guard now came loud and clear. I heard their
+hurried tramp, and saw their glittering bayonets in the bright moonlight.
+The set time, the appointed moment, big with my fate, had arrived. I
+offered an ejaculatory prayer to Him who sits upon the throne of heaven
+for protection at this critical moment. The guard stood within ten feet of
+me, with their eyes constantly upon me. Just as they were turning to
+receive the advancing relief-guard, I crawled backward under the building,
+and disappeared from their view. The relief-guard went on duty, and those
+relieved retired. The prisoners were ordered into the house, and as the
+new guards<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> did not know that four were in the enclosure, I was not
+missed.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img02.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p class="center">&#8220;Just as they were turning to receive the relief-guard, I crawled backward under the building,<br />and disappeared from view.&#8221; Page 172.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>I was now under the prison, but there were guards on every side, and the
+jail was in the midst of a camp, so that I was still in great danger of
+detection. I saw, through the crevices in the floor, the guard who
+patrolled the prison. I heard the murmurings and mutterings of the
+prisoners, as he occasionally trod upon them in his carelessness. I could
+hear, though not distinctly, the conversation of the prisoners. One of my
+assistants was detailing to his companions their success in getting me off
+unnoticed. The prisoners slept but little that night, owing to their
+anxiety for my safety, and I frequently heard my name mentioned, and hopes
+for my safety expressed. I occasionally fell into uneasy slumbers, but the
+fleas and other vermin were so annoying, that my sleep refreshed me but
+little. I could distinctly hear the new guard conversing, and among other
+topics, one remarked that he had forgotten the countersign; the other
+replied that it was <i>Braxton</i>. Well, said the former, I thought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> it was
+Bragg, or Braxton, or something like that. Knowing the countersign
+emboldened me, as I could, if halted, give it, and pass on. I soon crawled
+to the north side of the prison, and found that there were three apertures
+sufficiently large to admit of my egress. Upon reaching the first one, I
+found a number of guards, some sitting and some lying so close to it, that
+I dared not make the attempt at that point.</p>
+
+<p>Crawling to the second, I remained till there was comparative quiet; but
+at the instant I was about to pass out, a soldier, who was lying with his
+face toward me, commenced to cough, and continued to do so, at intervals,
+for more than an hour. Finding it unadvisable to run the risk of detection
+at this point, I made my way, with considerable difficulty, to the third
+and last aperture, near the rear of the building, and not very distant
+from the rear-guards. I remained at this aperture till I heard one guard
+say to another that it was three o&#8217;clock, and that they must soon go on
+duty. I felt confident that then was my time, or never, as morning would
+find me under the house, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> I would be re-arrested in that situation.
+Committing myself into the hands of God, and asking him to keep me from
+detection, and grant me a safe escape, I arose from under the building,
+passed by two sleeping guards, who were lying within three or four feet of
+the prison. As it was my first essay at walking without chains, I reeled,
+as if under the influence of strong drink, striking my foot against the
+head of one of those sleeping guards, who, awaking, turned over, and
+uttering some exclamation of disapprobation, took no further notice of me,
+doubtless mistaking me for one of his companions. After proceeding a few
+steps, I sat down upon the ground among some of the guards. I took out my
+knife, and whistling, to appear as unconcerned as possible, commenced
+whittling a stump, around which they were collected&mdash;some sitting, some
+standing, and others reclining. I readily passed for one of them, as I was
+wearing a colored shirt, which resembled that worn by the guards. I soon,
+however, arose, and wound my way among the various groups, endeavouring
+to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> reach the corn-field, to which I had made my first escape. After
+passing the guards off duty, a sentinel arose a short distance in front of
+me, evidently with the intention of halting me, if I advanced farther.
+Stopping a few minutes, to avoid suspicion, I changed my direction,
+bearing southwest, and after a time, got into the woods. Kneeling down, I
+returned God thanks for thus crowning my efforts with success, and prayed
+for his continuous protection, and that he would choose out my path, that
+I might escape detection, and rejoin my family and friends in safety.</p>
+
+<p>I now pursued my journey rapidly in a southwest direction, choosing that
+which led directly from my home, for two reasons. The cavalry and
+bloodhounds would not be so likely to follow in that direction, and after
+listening, while in prison, to the drum-beat morning and evening, in the
+various surrounding camps, I noticed that it had ceased in the southwest
+for several mornings; hence I supposed that the camp in that direction had
+been broken up, and that, in taking that route,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> I could more readily get
+beyond the rebel pickets, and then I could change my course, and bear
+northward, and reach the Federal lines at some point on the Memphis and
+Charleston railroad. I hastened on till the sun arose, having passed
+through woods and corn-fields, studiously avoiding all roads, when, as I
+was rapidly travelling along a narrow path, I met a negro. The suddenness
+of our meeting alarmed both. I, in a peremptory tone, addressed him, in
+quick succession, the following interrogatories:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where are you going? To whom do you belong? Where have you been? Have you
+a pass?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I belong,&#8221; said the boy, trembling, &#8220;to Mr. &mdash;&mdash;. I have been to wife&#8217;s
+house; am gwine back home, but I haint got nary pass.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose it is all right with you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes, master! it&#8217;s all right wid me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Concluding that it was not all right &#8220;wid&#8221; myself, I hurried on, soon
+leaving the path, and turning into a dense woods. Travelling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> on till
+about one P. M., I came to an open country, so extensive that I could not
+go round it, neither could I, in daylight, travel through it with safety.
+I sought out a place to hide, and finding a ditch which bisected a
+corn-field, I concealed myself in that. During the day, negroes and whites
+passed near, without discovering me. Becoming hungry, I ate a small piece
+of the bread which one of my fellow-prisoners had given me, but it made me
+quite sick. On my former escape, I had, just before leaving the house,
+traded pants with a fellow-prisoner, without his knowledge or consent. On
+my return, he refused to trade back. My reason for trading was, to get a
+dark pair, as mine were so light-coloured, I feared the guards would
+discover me more readily. Their owner had been accustomed to use tobacco,
+and the bread had become tinctured with it. Tobacco being very offensive
+to me, its presence on my bread caused me to lose it.</p>
+
+<p>The day passed away, and the night came. The stars came out in silent
+glory, one by one. Fixing my eye upon the pole-star, the underground<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>
+railroad travellers&#8217; guide, I set out, bearing a little to the west of
+north. I soon reached the thick woods, and found it very difficult to make
+rapid progress, in consequence of the dense under-growth and obscure
+light. The bushes would strike me in the eyes, and often the top of a
+fallen tree would cause me to make quite a circuit. Soon, however, the
+moon arose in her brightness&mdash;the old silver moon. But her light I found
+to be far less brilliant than that of the sun, and her rays were much
+obscured by the dense foliage overhead; hence my progress was necessarily
+slow, laboured, and toilsome. I slept but little during the day, in
+consequence of the proximity of those who might be bitter foes, and also
+the unpleasant position I occupied, as the ditch in which I had concealed
+myself was muddy, and proved an uncomfortable bed. I therefore became
+weary, my limbs stiff from travel and from the pressure of the heavy iron
+bands. Sleep overpowered me, and I laid down in the leaves, and slept till
+the cold awoke me, which, judging from the moon&#8217;s descent,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> must have been
+an hour and a half. The nights in Mississippi are invariably cool, however
+hot the days may be. Arising from my uneasy slumber, I pressed on. My
+thirst, which for some time had been increasing, now became absolutely
+unendurable. I knew not where to obtain water, not daring to go near a
+well, through fear of being arrested. At length I heard some suckling pigs
+and their dam, at a short distance from me, in the woods. There seemed to
+be no alternative. I must either perish, or obtain some fluid to slake my
+raging thirst; so I resolved to catch a little pig, cut its throat, and
+drink the blood. I searched for my knife, but I had lost it. I was,
+therefore, reluctantly compelled to abandon my design on the suckling&#8217;s
+life. As I went forward, the sow and her brood started up alarmed, and in
+their flight, plunged into water. I immediately followed, and found a
+mud-hole. Removing the green scum, I drank deep of the stagnant pool. My
+thirst was only partially quenched by this draught, and soon returned. As
+day dawned, I found some sassafras leaves, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> I chewed, to allay the
+pangs of hunger; but they formed a paste which I could not swallow.</p>
+
+<p>I soon after came to an old field, where I obtained an abundant supply of
+blackberries, which not only served to check the gnawings of hunger, but
+also to allay my intolerable thirst. I reflected that this day was the
+holy Sabbath, but it brought neither rest to my weary frame, nor composure
+to my agitated and excited mind. Like Salathiel, the Wandering Jew, the
+word <i>March!</i> was ringing in my ears. Onward! was my motto; Liberty or
+death! my watchword. About ten o&#8217;clock I came to an open country, and
+sought out a ditch, in which to conceal myself. Here I fell into a
+troubled sleep. I saw, in dreams, tables groaning under the weight of the
+most delicious viands, and brooks of crystal waters, bubbling and
+sparkling as they rushed onward in their meandering course; but when I
+attempted to grasp them, they served me as they did Tantalus, of olden
+time, by vanishing into thin air, or receding beyond my reach. While lying
+here, I was now and then aroused by the trampling of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> horses grazing in
+the field, which I feared might be bringing on my pursuers. And once the
+voices of men, mingled with the sounds of horses&#8217; feet upon a little
+bridge, some twenty feet distant, induced me to look out from my
+hiding-place, and lo! two cavalry-men&mdash;perhaps hunting for my life!&mdash;rode
+along.</p>
+
+<p>When the sun had reached the zenith, I was again startled by voices, which
+approached nearer and nearer my place of concealment, till at length the
+cause was discovered. Several children, both black and white, had come
+from a farm-house, about a quarter of a mile distant, to gather
+blackberries along the margin of the ditch. They soon discovered me, and
+seemed somewhat startled and alarmed at my appearance. I soon saw them
+gazing down upon me, in my moist bed, with evident amazement and alarm.
+Pallid, haggard, unshaven, and covered with mud, I must have presented a
+frightful picture.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the children passed me, fearing the report they would carry
+home, I arose from my lair, and hurried on, though I had to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> pass in sight
+of several houses. After travelling three or four miles through an open
+champaign country, I came to a dense woods, bordering a stream which had
+ceased running, in consequence of the great drought that had, for a long
+time, prevailed throughout this section of Mississippi. The creek had been
+a large one, and in the deep holes, some water still remained, though
+warm, and covered with a heavy scum, and mingled with the spawn of frogs.
+I drank it, however, from sheer necessity, tepid and unhealthy as it was.
+It did not allay my thirst, but created a nausea, which was very
+unpleasant.</p>
+
+<p>About four o&#8217;clock P. M., I was startled by the baying of bloodhounds
+behind me, and apparently on my track. Before escaping from jail, I had
+been advised by the prisoners to obtain some onions, as these, rubbed on
+the soles of my boots, would destroy the scent. They could only be
+procured, however, by a visit to some garden-patch, and I feared to go so
+near a house. I had left no clothes in prison from which the hounds could
+obtain the scent in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> order to find my track, and my starting in a
+southwest direction was an additional precaution against bloodhounds.
+Their baying soon became alarmingly distinct. Having heard them almost
+every night for years, as they hunted down the fugitive slave, I could not
+mistake the fearful import of their howling. I could devise no plan for
+breaking the trail. Dan Boone, when pursued by Indians, succeeded in
+baffling the hounds by catching at some overhanging branches, and swinging
+himself forward. Negroes often destroy the scent by carrying matches, and
+setting the leaves on fire. One negro of whom I heard, ran along the brink
+of a precipice, and dug a recess back from the narrow path. Crawling into
+it, he remained till the hounds reached that point, when he thrust them
+from the path. They fell and were dashed to pieces on the jagged rocks
+below.</p>
+
+<p>None of these plans were practicable to me, and I supposed death imminent,
+either from being torn to pieces by the hounds, or by being shot by the
+cavalry, who were following them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> Climbing a tree, I resolved to await
+the arrival of the cavalry, and having determined to die rather than be
+taken back again to Tupelo, I would refuse to obey any summons to descend.
+O, how I wished for my navy repeater, that I might sell my life as dearly
+as possible! that I might make some secessionist bite the dust ere I was
+slain! I often thought of the couplet in the old song&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;The hounds are baying on my track,<br />
+Christian, will you send me back?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A feeling of strong sympathy arose in my bosom for the poor African, who,
+in his endeavour to escape from the Iron Furnace of Southern slavery,
+often encountered the bloodhounds, and was torn to pieces by them. &#8220;A
+fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I had remained but a short time in the tree, when I ascertained that the
+hounds were bearing eastward, and they soon passed at a distance. They
+were on the track of some other poor fugitive, and I rejoiced again in the
+hope of safety. Coming to a corn-field, I plucked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> two ears of corn, and
+ate them raw, having no matches wherewith to kindle a fire, which, indeed,
+would have increased my peril, as the smoke might advertise my presence to
+bitter and unrelenting foes.</p>
+
+<p>Toward night I lay down in the woods, and fell asleep. Visions of
+abundance, both to eat and drink, haunted me, and every unusual sound
+would startle me. A fly peculiar to the South, whose buzz sounded like the
+voice of an old man, often awoke me with the fear that my enemies were
+near. As soon as Ursa Minor appeared, I took up my line of march. The
+night was very dark, and I became somewhat bewildered. At length I reached
+a crossroads, and as I was emerging from the wood, I saw two pickets a few
+yards from me. Stooping down, I crawled on my hands and knees back into
+the woods. As I retired, I heard one picket say to the other, &#8220;Who is
+that?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He replied, &#8220;It is the lieutenant of the guard.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What does he want?&#8221; said the first.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>&#8220;He is slipping round to see if we are asleep.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>After I got a safe distance in the bushes, I lay down and slept till the
+moon arose. To the surprise of my bewildered brain, it seemed to rise in
+the west. Taking my course, I hastened on, sometimes through woods,
+sometimes through cornfields, and sometimes through swamps. Coming to a
+large pasture, in which a number of cows were grazing, I tried to obtain
+some milk, but none of them would allow me to approach near enough to
+effect my purpose. My face was not of the right colour, and my costume
+belonged to a sex that never milked them. I travelled until day-break,
+when I concealed myself in a thicket of cane, and had scarcely fallen
+asleep when I heard the sound of the reveille, in a camp close at hand.
+Arising, I hurriedly beat a retreat, and travelled several hours before I
+dared take any rest. I at length lay down amid the branches of a fallen
+tree, and slept. Visions of home and friends flitted before me. Voices
+sweet and kind greeted me on all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> sides. The bitter taunts of cruel
+officers no longer assailed my ears. The loved ones at home were present,
+and the joys of the past were renewed. But, alas! the falling of a limb
+dissipated all my fancied pleasures. The reality returned, and I was still
+a fugitive escaping for life, and in the midst of a hostile country.</p>
+
+<p>To-day my mock trial would have taken place, and I fancied the
+disappointment of Woodruff, who had stated that to his knowledge I was a
+spy, and to-day would have sworn it. And Barnes, the mail-robber,
+recommended for promotion because of his heroism in re-arresting me, how
+sad he must feel, that the bird had flown, and that he would not have the
+pleasure of witnessing my execution. I thanked God and took courage.
+Though faint and weary, I was still hopeful and trusting, often repeating,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;&#8217;Tis God has led me safe thus far,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And he will bring me home.&#8221;</span></p>
+
+<p>On this (Monday) night, I travelled steadily, crossing swamps,
+corn-fields, woods, and pastures. I came to only one cotton-field during<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>
+the night. I passed through several wheat-fields, where the wheat had been
+harvested; I pulled a handful from a shock, and rubbed out some of the
+grain, but it was so bitter I could not eat it. I suspected every bush a
+secessionist, though I felt much more secure at night than in daylight. I
+avoided roads as much as possible, travelling on none except to cross
+them, which was done with great rapidity. The rising sun still found me
+pressing onward, and thirst and hunger were now consuming me. To satisfy
+hunger, I had recourse to the corn-field; but I could find no water. I
+would gladly have drank any kind of beverage, however filthy, so that my
+thirst might be allayed. About nine o&#8217;clock, when I had almost despaired
+of getting water at all, I came to a copious fountain in a gorge of the
+hills, and from its appearance, I seemed to be the discoverer. Around it
+there was no trace of human foot, nor hoof of cattle. On beholding it, I
+wept with joy. I remained by it about four hours, quaffing its cool and
+crystal waters, the first running water I had tasted since leaving<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>
+prison. I also bathed my body and washed my clothes, drying them in the
+sun, and endeavoured to rid them of vermin, in which I only partially
+succeeded. I named this fountain <i>Fons Beatus</i>, and left it with sincere
+sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>Three o&#8217;clock, P. M., arrived, and I felt bewildered. I knew not where I
+was. I might be near friends, I might be near bloodthirsty foes. I could
+scarcely walk. My iron bands had become very irksome. I felt that I was
+becoming childish. I could tell all my bones. I tried to pray, but could
+only utter, &#8220;Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner!&#8221; Still I felt thankful
+that it was so well with me as it was.</p>
+
+<p>At that very hour, had I not escaped, I should have been either on the
+scaffold at Tupelo, or suspended between heaven and earth, surrounded by
+an insulting and jeering army. This reflection made me thankful to God,
+even though I should die in the swamps. The sky became overcast, and I
+found it impossible to distinguish north from south. I therefore concealed
+myself and slept. It was night when I awoke, and the clouds still<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> covered
+the sky threateningly, concealing my guiding star, and rendering it
+impossible for me to proceed. Thus, when I wished most to go forward, my
+progress was arrested, and my distressing suspense prolonged. During the
+whole night I was asleep and awake alternately, but could not at any time
+discern either moon or stars. Once, while sleeping behind a fallen tree by
+the roadside, a horseman passed by. His dog, a large and ferocious-looking
+animal, came running along by the side of the tree where I was lying. When
+he reached me, I raised up suddenly and brandishing a club menacingly, the
+alarmed and howling dog incontinently and ingloriously fled, leaving me
+master of the field.</p>
+
+<p>On Wednesday morning the sun was still obscured until nine o&#8217;clock. I was
+then sick. There was a ringing in my ears, and I was affected with
+vertigo, a dimness of vision and faintness, which rendered me absolutely
+unfit for travel. It required an hour to walk a quarter of a mile. I found
+a good supply of blackberries, which very much refreshed me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> Before me
+was a hill, the top of which I reached after two hours&#8217; laborious ascent.
+I despaired of getting much further. I thought I must perish in the Iron
+Furnace of secession, which was heated very hot for me. Feeling confident
+that I must be near Tippah county, and knowing that there were many Union
+men in that county, I resolved to call at the first house on my route. If
+I remained where I was, I must perish, as I could go no further, and if I
+met with a Union family, I should be saved; if with &#8220;a secesh,&#8221; I might
+possibly impose upon their credulity, and get refreshment without being
+arrested. They might, however, cause my arrest. It was a dilemma such as I
+hope never to be placed in again. About an hour before sunset I came to a
+house, and remained near it for some time. At length I saw a negro girl
+come to the door. Knowing that where there were negroes, in nine cases out
+of ten there were secessionists near, I left the house as quickly as my
+enfeebled condition would permit. Going to another house, I remained near
+it till I was satisfied there were no negroes held by that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> family. I then
+went boldly up, knocked, gained admittance, and asked for some water,
+which was given me. The lady of the house, scrutinizing me closely, asked
+me if I were from Tupelo. I replied in the affirmative. She then inquired
+my name. I gave her my Christian name, John Hill, suppressing the surname.
+Her husband was sitting near, a man of Herculean frame; and as the wife&#8217;s
+inquisitiveness was beginning to alarm me, I turned to him and said: &#8220;My
+friend, you are a man of great physical powers, and at this time you ought
+to be in the army. The Yankees are overrunning all our country, and the
+service of every man is needed.&#8221; His wife replied that he was not in the
+army, nor would he go into it, unless he was forced to go. They had been
+told that the cavalry would be after him in a few days, to take him as a
+conscript; but she considered the conscript law, base and tyrannical.
+Overjoyed at the utterance of such sentiments as these, I then revealed my
+true character. I told them that I had recently made my escape from
+Tupelo, where I was doomed to execution on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> the gallows, and that I was
+now flying from prison and from death. I then exhibited the iron bands
+upon my ankles. Both promised all the aid in their power. The lady at once
+proposed to prepare supper, but I was too near the point of starvation to
+await the slow process of cooking. She therefore turned down the
+tablecloth, which covered the fragments remaining from dinner, and
+disclosed some corn bread and Irish potatoes. Though I never liked corn
+bread, I must confess I thought that was the sweetest morsel I had ever
+tasted.</p>
+
+<p>After eating a little, however, I became very sick, and was compelled to
+desist. It was so long since I had partaken of any substantial food, that
+my stomach now could not bear it. The lady soon prepared supper,
+consisting of broiled chicken, and other delicacies. The fowl was quite
+small, and I ate nearly the whole of it, much to the chagrin of a little
+daughter of mine host, whom I heard complaining to her mother, afterward,
+in an adjoining room, saying, &#8220;Ma, all I got of that chicken was a little
+piece of the wing,&#8221; and &#8220;aint that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> gentleman a hoss to eat?&#8221; with other
+remarks by no means complimentary to my voracious appetite.</p>
+
+<p>After supper, mine host endeavoured to remove the heavy iron bands by
+which my ankles were clasped. This was accomplished after considerable
+labour. I asked him to retain the bands till called for, which he promised
+to do. The good lady furnished me with water and a suit of her husband&#8217;s
+clothes. After performing a thorough ablution, I donned the suit, and felt
+completely metamorphosed, and was thoroughly disguised, as my new suit had
+been made for a man of vastly larger physical proportions. I spent the
+night with my new friends, during which a heavy thunder-storm passed over.
+Had I been out in the drenching rain in my wretched condition, I must
+surely have perished. In the morning my host informed me of a Union man
+who knew the country in the direction of Rienzi, the point which I now
+determined to reach. This gentleman lived half a mile distant, and my host
+accompanied me to a thicket<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> near his house, where I concealed myself till
+he brought Mr. &mdash;&mdash; to me. Said my friend No. 2, &#8220;I am not familiar with
+the route to Rienzi, but will go with you to friend No. 3, who I am
+positive is well acquainted with the road. He can take you through the
+woods, so as to avoid the Confederate cavalry. As I undertake this at the
+risk of my life, we must wait till night. I would gladly have you come to
+my house, but I fear that it might transpire through my children that I
+had helped you to escape. I have a large family, and most of &#8217;em is gals,
+and you know gals will talk. You can stay in my barn till I come for you.
+I will carry you provisions during the day, and to-night we will go to my
+friend&#8217;s.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>About three o&#8217;clock in the morning, he came with two horses, one of which
+he mounted, and I the other. The horse I rode was a blooded animal, and to
+use my friend&#8217;s expression, could run like a streak of lightning. I
+provided myself with a good whip, resolving, in case of danger, to put my
+horse to his utmost speed. A short time after daylight, we reached friend<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>
+No. 3, who promised to conduct me to Rienzi. While at his house, I learned
+that a Unionist, Mr. N&mdash;&mdash;, had been killed under circumstances of the
+greatest cruelty. His sentiments had become known to the rebels. He was
+arrested by their cavalry, and refusing to take the oath, they resolved to
+put him to death on the spot. He had a large family of small children,
+who, together with his wife, begged that his life might be spared. He
+himself had no favours to ask of the secessionists. Among his foes, the
+only point of dispute was, as to the mode of his death. Some favoured
+shooting, some hanging; but the prevailing majority were in favour of
+scalding him to death. And there, in the presence of his weeping and
+helpless family, these fiends in human form <i>deliberately heated water,
+with which they scalded to death their chained and defenceless victim</i>.
+Thus perished a patriot of whom the State was not worthy. The corpse was
+then suspended from a tree, with a label on the breast, stating that
+whoever cut him down and buried him, should suffer the same fate. My
+companions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> cut down the corpse by night, and buried it in the forest. May
+God reward them!</p>
+
+<p>My friend No. 3 thought that it would be best to travel in daylight. He
+could follow by-paths, and avoid the rebel cavalry. We started about eight
+o&#8217;clock on Friday morning, and met with no incident worth narrating until
+we reached a mill; here we fell in with some six or seven rebel soldiers,
+who had been out on sick furlough, and were returning. They scanned us
+closely, and inquired whence we came, and whither bound. My friend
+specified a neighbourhood from which he affirmed we came, and stated that
+we were hunting stray oxen, asking whether they had seen a black ox and a
+pied ox in their travels. They replied in the negative; and in turn asked
+him who I was. He replied that I was his wife&#8217;s brother, who had come from
+Alabama about three months ago. They said I looked like &#8220;death on a pale
+hoss,&#8221; and wished to know what was the matter with me&mdash;if I were
+consumptive. My friend replied that I had had the chills for several
+months; and as there was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> no quinine in the country, it was impossible to
+stop them.</p>
+
+<p>During this inquisition, I was ready at any moment to put spur to my
+horse, and run a race for life, had any attempt been made to arrest me, or
+if I had been recognised by any of the soldiers. We were, however,
+permitted to pass on, not without some suspicious glances. We at length
+reached a point ten miles from Rienzi. My guide now insisted on returning.
+It would be morning ere he reached home, and if met by cavalry, he must
+invent some plausible excuse for having a led horse. Nor did he dare
+return by the same route. Knowing the country, I permitted him to return.
+I then set out on foot, and at length reached the Federal pickets, three
+miles from Rienzi, where a horse was furnished me; and about ten o&#8217;clock I
+reached the head-quarters of Colonel Misner in Rienzi. When I gazed upon
+the star-spangled banner, beneath whose ample folds there was safety and
+protection&mdash;when I saw around me the Union hosts&mdash;I shed tears of joy, and
+from the depths of my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> heart returned thanks to Almighty God, who had
+given me my life at my request, preserving me, amid dangers seen and
+unseen, till I now was safe amid hosts of friends.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Misner requested me to report all that would be of service to
+General Rosecrans, which I did, he copying my report as I gave it. I
+reported, so far as I was informed, the probable number of troops in and
+around Tupelo, the topography of the country, the probable designs of the
+rebels, the number of troops sent to Richmond under Beauregard, &amp;c. The
+Colonel requested me to go with him to head-quarters in the morning; but
+at the hour specified I was sick, and my physician, Dr. Holley, of the
+Thirty-sixth Illinois, thought it would not be advisable for me to go,
+even in an ambulance. My report, however, was carried up to General
+Rosecrans.</p>
+
+<p>Through proper treatment I recovered in a few days, so as to be able to go
+into Jacinto, the nearest point in the Federal lines to my family. I
+called on General Jefferson C. Davis, who was in command of that post. The
+General<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> had heard of my arrest, and expressed gratification at my safe
+return. I informed him of my desire to get my family within the lines. The
+General immediately proffered me all the cavalry at his command, and
+ordered them to prepare for the expedition. I thankfully accepted his kind
+offer, but after reflection concluded to send a messenger first, with a
+letter to my wife; if he were not intercepted, I knew that she would come
+in as soon as possible. The order to the cavalry was countermanded until
+this plan would be tried. The messenger was not intercepted, and on the
+next day I had the pleasure of beholding my wife and child, whose faces, a
+short time before, I had given up all hope of ever beholding on earth.</p>
+
+<p>While here, I called on my friend, Lieutenant Richard Malone, who resides
+in Jacinto. On inquiring at his house for him, he heard my voice, and ran
+out to the gate to meet me. Grasping my hand, he could not for some time
+control his emotions so as to speak.</p>
+
+<p>Malone gave me his history since we had parted at the outer wall of the
+prison. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> reached the corn-field at the point designated, and anxiously
+awaited my arrival until near daylight, when he was compelled to seek
+safety in flight. We had agreed to meet in the corn-field at a place where
+there was a garment suspended upon the fence. We think there must have
+been two garments suspended at different points, and hence our mistake. We
+could not signal loud in consequence of the nearness of the pickets, and
+therefore did not meet. Soon after daylight, Malone found himself in the
+midst of a cavalry company which had encamped there during the night; they
+were making preparations for departure, and the majority of them were
+gathering blackberries. Joining them, he passed as a citizen, and when he
+reached the rear of the company, he gathered some sticks in his arms, and
+started towards a small cabin at a short distance, as if it were his
+residence. Before reaching it, he made a detour to the right, and passed
+into the dense woods. On the next day, about ten o&#8217;clock, A. M., he
+reached an open champaign country, through which it would have been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>
+dangerous to travel. To the west, about three hundred yards distant, was a
+dense woods, which he hoped to reach without detection. While travelling
+down a road for this purpose, four cavalrymen who were in pursuit dashed
+towards him, and ordered him to return with them to Tupelo. Malone
+replied, that as it was useless to resist, he must submit. He asked for
+some water; they had none in their canteens, but went to a house in the
+distance to obtain some. Malone was ordered to march before them, which he
+was compelled to do, though famishing from hunger and thirst. On reaching
+the house, they all went to the well and drew a bucket of water. There
+being no dipper, Malone remarked that he would go into the house and get
+one. One of the guards followed, and stationed himself at the door with
+his gun. Malone went into the house, and immediately passed out at the
+back door. The garden gate being open, he passed into the garden, when he
+commenced running. Two women in the house noticed his running, and
+clapping their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> hands exclaimed, &#8220;Your Yankee&#8217;s gone! Your Yankee&#8217;s gone!&#8221;
+The guards immediately followed, ordering him to halt, and firing at him
+with their revolvers. Malone quickly reached a corn-field, and soon after
+a swamp, whence he made good his escape, and after various vicissitudes
+reached his family in Jacinto, where I now found him.</p>
+
+<p>I returned to Rienzi with my family, resolved to leave for the North. My
+wife, before leaving her father&#8217;s, learned, through a letter sent by a
+rebel officer to his wife, that all the guards who were on duty during the
+night I escaped from prison, were placed under close arrest, and were
+still in the dungeon at the time of his writing. There were eleven guards
+on each relief, and three reliefs during the night; there were, therefore,
+thirty-three guards placed under arrest because of my escape.</p>
+
+<p>On the night previous to our departure from Rienzi, we were honoured with
+a serenade, through the politeness of General Granger, of the cavalry, and
+Colonel Bryner, of the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>Forty-seventh Illinois Regiment. Being called on
+for a speech, I thus responded:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span>&mdash;I return you sincere thanks for the honour intended myself
+and family. In the language of the last tune played by your band, I
+truly feel at &#8220;home again,&#8221; and it fills my soul with joy to meet my
+friends once more. What a vast difference a few miles makes! Tupelo is
+about forty miles south of Rienzi, on an air-line. There I was
+regarded as a base ingrate, as a despicable traitor, as an enemy to
+the country, chained as a felon, doomed to die, and before the
+execution of the sentence, subjected to every species of insult and
+contumely. Here I meet with the kindest expressions of sympathy from
+officers of all ranks, from the subaltern to the general, and there is
+not a private soldier who has heard my tale of woe, who does not
+manifest a kindly sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>I hope that you will soon pass south of Tupelo; but in your march to
+the Gulf, may you fare better than I did in my journey to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> this place.
+Green corn eaten raw, berries, and stagnant water, would soon cause
+you to present the emaciated appearance that I do. On your route, call
+upon the secession sympathizers, and compel them to furnish you with
+better and more substantial food. My horse I left at Tupelo. He is a
+valuable animal. The rebel General Hardee, in the true spirit of
+secession, appropriated&mdash;that is, stole&mdash;him. However, I did not call
+to demand him when I left. Being in haste, I did not choose to spare
+the time, and leaving in the night, I did not wish to disturb the
+slumbers of the Tupelonians. He is a bright bay. If you meet with him,
+you may have him for nothing. I would much prefer that he serve the
+Federal army.</p>
+
+<p>If you take General Jordan prisoner, send me word, and I will furnish
+you with the iron bands that he put on me, by which you may secure him
+till he meets the just award of his crimes, which would be death, for
+destroying the lives of so many Union men.</p>
+
+<p>I hope that you may soon plant the stars and stripes on the shores of
+the Gulf of Mexico, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> play the &#8220;Star-spangled Banner&#8221; within
+hearing of its vertiginous billows, after having conquered every foe
+to the permanence of the glorious Union. I close with the sentiment of
+the immortal Jackson, which I wish you to bear constantly in mind, in
+your victorious progress&mdash;&#8220;The Federal Union&mdash;it must and shall be
+preserved!&#8221; Relying upon the God of battles, rest assured that the
+right cause will triumph, and that after having secured the great
+object of your warfare, the preservation of the Union, your children
+and your children&#8217;s children will rise up and call you blessed,
+rejoicing in the enjoyment of a free, united, and happy country.</p>
+
+<p>Wishing you abundant success, I beg leave to retire.</p></div>
+
+<p>On Saturday, the 2d of August, 1862, we left Rienzi, <i>en route</i> for the
+North, in company with William H. Hubbard, Esq., and family, who were also
+refugees. From the moment I reached the Federal lines I experienced
+nothing but kindness. I could not mention all who are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> deserving of thanks
+from myself and family. I am under special obligations to Generals Nelson,
+Rosecrans, Granger, Davis, and Asboth; also to Colonel Bryner and
+Lieutenant Colonel Thrush, of the Forty-seventh Illinois, and Surgeon
+Lucas, of same regiment, and to Dr. Holley, of the Thirty-sixth Illinois
+Volunteers; to Josiah King, Esq., of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Dr.
+McCook, of Steubenville, Ohio; also Mrs. Ann Wheelwright, of Newburyport,
+Massachusetts, whose kind letter will ever be remembered, and whose
+&#8220;material aid&#8221; entitles her to lasting gratitude; and to Rev. George
+Potts, D. D., of New York; and Mr. William E. Dubois, of Philadelphia;
+Rev. Dr. Sprole, Newburgh, New York; Rev. N. Hewitt, D. D., Bridgeport,
+Connecticut; and Rev. F. N. Ewing, Chicago, Illinois; Rev. J. M. Krebs, D.
+D., New York; Rev. A. D. Smith, D. D., New York; and Rev. F. Reck
+Harbaugh, Philadelphia, and many others.</p>
+
+<p>Before closing this chapter I would mention the following incident:</p>
+
+<p>On Wednesday evening, November 19th, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> addressed the citizens of
+Philadelphia at the Sixth Presbyterian Church, (Rev. F. Reck Harbaugh&#8217;s.)
+A report of this address found its way into the city papers. Two days
+afterwards, while in conversation with Mr. Martien, at his book-store, two
+soldiers entered, one of whom approached, and thus addressed me:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you know me, sir?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I replied: &#8220;Your face is familiar, but I do not remember your name. It is
+my misfortune not to be able to remember proper names.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I read the report of your address in the newspaper, and through the aid
+of my comrade, I have succeeded in finding you. We have met before, at
+Tupelo.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At the mention of Tupelo, I immediately recognised in the speaker the man
+who, after labouring with the others in sundering my chain, engaged the
+guard, who sat in the doorway, in conversation, while I watched an
+opportunity to disappear under the prison. Grasping him warmly by the
+hand, I said: &#8220;I now recognise you. You are Mr. Howell Trogdon, of
+Missouri, late my fellow-prisoner in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> Tupelo. How and when did you succeed
+in leaving that prison?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Being a Federal prisoner, I was removed from Tupelo to Mobile, and there
+parolled on the 26th of August last.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;When was I missed after my escape, and how did the officers act when they
+learned that I was gone?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You were missed at roll-call, the next morning, and in a short time, many
+officers came into the prison. They were greatly enraged at this, your
+second flight. The prisoners were closely questioned as to their
+complicity in your escape, but they denied all knowledge of the matter.
+Soon all the prison-guards on duty during the night, thirty-three in
+number, were brought into the prison in chains. The cavalry was ordered
+out in search of you, and directed to shoot you down wherever found. The
+mode of your escape was not discovered, and the officers were of the
+opinion that you had bribed the guards. <i>From that time, the officers
+became more cruel than ever, and in two weeks, thirty-two of our
+fellow-prisoners<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> were taken out and shot!</i> We never learned whether you
+had succeeded in escaping to the Union lines. We feared that you were
+overtaken and shot, or that you perished in the swamps from hunger,
+thirst, and fatigue. I hope soon to see McHatten, Speer, De Grummond, and
+Soper, who are also parolled, and they will rejoice to learn that you
+still live. During the night of your escape, we slept but little, through
+fear that <i>our chaplain</i> might be shot by the guards, and I assure you
+many fervent prayers ascended to Heaven for your safety.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+<p class="title">SOUTHERN CLASSES&mdash;CRUELTY TO SLAVES.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Sandhillers&mdash;Dirt-eating&mdash;Dipping&mdash;Their Mode of
+Living&mdash;Patois&mdash;Rain-book&mdash;Wife-trade&mdash;Coming in to see the
+Cars&mdash;Superstition&mdash;Marriage of Kinsfolks&mdash;Hardshell Sermon&mdash;Causes
+which lead to the Degradation of this Class&mdash;Efforts to Reconcile the
+Poor Whites to the Peculiar Institution&mdash;The Slaveholding Class&mdash;The
+Middle Class&mdash;Northern Isms&mdash;Incident at a Methodist Minister&#8217;s
+House&mdash;Question asked a Candidate for Licensure&mdash;Reason of Southern
+Hatred toward the North&mdash;Letter to Mr. Jackman&mdash;Barbarities and
+Cruelties of Slavery&mdash;Mulattoes&mdash;Old Cole&mdash;Child Born at
+Whipping-post&mdash;Advertisement of a Keeper of Bloodhounds&mdash;Getting Rid
+of Free Blacks&mdash;The Doom of Slavery&mdash;Methodist Church South.</p></div>
+
+<p>The sojourner in the Slave States is struck with the wretched and degraded
+appearance of a class of people called by the slaveholders, &#8220;poor white
+folks,&#8221; and &#8220;the tallow-faced gentry,&#8221; from their pallid complexion. They
+live in wretched hovels, dress slatternly, and are exceedingly filthy in
+their habits. Many of them are clay or dirt-eaters, which is said to cause
+their peculiar complexion. Their <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>children, at a very early age, form this
+filthy and disgusting habit; and mere infants may be found with their
+mouths filled with dirt. The mud with which they daub the interstices
+between the logs of their rude domicils, must be frequently renewed, as
+the occupants pick it all out in a very short time, and eat it. This
+pernicious practice induces disease. The complexion becomes pale, similar
+to that occasioned by chronic ague and fever.</p>
+
+<p>Akin to this is the practice of snuff-dipping, which is not confined
+exclusively to females of the poor white caste, though scarcely one in
+fifty of this class is exempt from the disgusting habit. The method is
+this: The female snuff-dipper takes a short stick, and wetting it with her
+saliva, dips it into her snuff-box, and then rubs the gathered dust all
+about her mouth, and into the interstices of her teeth, where she allows
+it to remain until its strength has been fully absorbed. Others hold the
+stick thus loaded with snuff in the cheek, <i>a la quid</i> of tobacco, and
+suck it with a decided relish, while engaged in their ordinary
+avocations;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> while others simply fill the mouth with the snuff, and
+imitate, to all intents and purposes, the chewing propensities of the men.
+In the absence of snuff, tobacco in the plug or leaf is invariably
+resorted to as a substitute. Oriental betel-chewing, and the Japanese
+fashion of blacking the teeth of married ladies, are the height of
+elegance compared with snuff-dipping. The habit leads to a speedy decay of
+the teeth, and to nervous disorders of every kind. Those who indulge in it
+become haggard at a very early age.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Petersburg</i> (Va.) <i>Express</i> estimates the number of women in that
+State as one hundred and twenty-five thousand, one hundred thousand of
+whom are snuff-dippers. Every five of these will use a two-ounce paper of
+snuff per day; that is, to the hundred thousand dippers, two thousand five
+hundred pounds a day, amounting, in one year, to the enormous quantity of
+nine hundred and twelve thousand pounds. This practice prevails generally,
+it says, among the poor whites, though some females of the higher classes
+are guilty of it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>The poor whites obtain their subsistence, as far as practicable, in the
+primitive aboriginal mode, viz., by hunting and fishing. When these
+methods fail to afford a supply, they cultivate a truck-patch, and some of
+them raise a bale or two of cotton, with the proceeds of the sale of which
+they buy whiskey, tobacco, and a few necessary articles. When all other
+methods fail, they resort to stealing, to which many of them are addicted
+from choice, as well as from necessity. They are exceeding slovenly in
+their habits, cleanliness being a rare virtue. Indolence is a prevailing
+vice, and its lamentable effects are everywhere visible. They fully obey
+the scriptural injunction, take no thought for the morrow. A present
+supply, sufficient to satisfy nature&#8217;s most urgent demands, being
+obtained, their care ceases, and they relapse into listless inactivity.
+They herd together upon the poor sand-hills, the refuse land of the
+country, which the rich slaveholder will not purchase, for which reason,
+they are sometimes called sand-hillers, and here they live, and their
+children, and their children&#8217;s children, through<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> successive generations,
+in the same deplorable condition of wretchedness and degradation.</p>
+
+<p>They are exceedingly ignorant; not one adult in fifty can write; not one
+in twenty can read. They can scarcely be said to speak the English
+language, using a patois which is scarcely intelligible. An old lady thus
+related an incident of which her daughter &#8220;<i>Sal</i>&#8221; was the heroine. &#8220;My
+darter Sal yisterday sot the lather to the damsel tree, and clim up, and
+knocked some of the nicest saftest damsels I ever seed in my born days.&#8221; I
+once called to make some inquiry about the road, at a small log tenement,
+inhabited by a sand-hiller and family. A sheet was hanging upon the wall,
+containing the portraits of the Presidents of the United States. I
+remarked to the lady of the house that those were, I believed, the
+pictures of the Presidents.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes!&#8221; she replied; &#8220;they is, and I&#8217;ve hearn tell of &#8217;em a long time. They
+must be gittin&#8217; mighty old, ef some of &#8217;em aint dead. That top one,&#8221; she
+continued, &#8220;is Gineral Washington. I&#8217;ve hearn of him ever sence I was a
+gal.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> He must be gittin&#8217; up in years, ef he aint dead. Him and Gineral
+Jackson fit the British and Tories at New Orleans, and whipped &#8217;em, too.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She seemed to pride herself greatly on her historical knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>One of these geniuses once informed me of a peculiar kind of book &#8220;he&#8217;d
+hearn tell on,&#8221; that the Yankees had. He had forgotten its name, but thus
+described it: &#8220;It told the day of the week the month come in on. It told
+when we was a gwine to have rain, and what kind of wether we was gwine to
+have in gineral. May-be they call it a rain-book.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I replied that I had heard of the book, and I believed that it was called
+an Almanac.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ve said it now,&#8221; remarked the man. &#8220;It&#8217;s a alminick, and I&#8217;d give
+half I&#8217;s wuth to have one. I&#8217;d no when to take a umberell, and if I
+haddent nary one, I&#8217;d no when I could go a huntin&#8217; without gittin&#8217; wet.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Two of these semi-savages had resolved to remove to the West, in hope of
+bettering their condition. One wished to remove to Arkansas, the other to
+Texas. The wife of the former<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> wished to go to Texas, the latter to
+Arkansas. The husbands were desirous of gratifying their spouses, but
+could devise no plan that seemed likely to prove satisfactory, till one
+day when hunting, finding game scarce, they sat down upon a log, when the
+following dialogue took place:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Kit, I&#8217;m sort o&#8217; pestered about Dilsie. She swars to Rackensack she&#8217;ll
+go, and no whar else. I allers had a hankerin&#8217; arter Texas. Plague take
+Rackensack, I say! Ef a man war thar, the ager and the airthquakes ed
+shake him out on it quicker en nothin&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;When a woman&#8217;s set on a gwine anywhar, they&#8217;re a gwine. It&#8217;s jest no use
+to talk. I&#8217;ve coaxed Minnie more&#8217;n a little to go long with me to
+Arkansas, and the more I coax, the more she wont go.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, Kit, &#8217;sposen we swap women.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, Sam, what trade&#8217;ll ye gin?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! a gentleman&#8217;s trade, of course!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Shucks, Sam! &#8217;sposen I had a young filly, and you a old mar, ye wouldn&#8217;t
+ax an even trade, would ye?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>&#8220;No; it &#8217;ud be too hard. I tell you what I&#8217;ll do,
+Kit. Here&#8217;s a shot-gun that&#8217;s wuth ten dollars, ef it&#8217;s wuth a red. I&#8217;ll give it and that ar
+b&#8217;ar-skin hangin&#8217; on the side of my shanty, to boot, and say it&#8217;s a trade.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nuff sed, ef the women&#8217;s agreed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Home they went, and stated the case to the women, who, <i>after due
+deliberation</i>, acceded to the proposition, having also made a satisfactory
+arrangement about the children, and they all soon went on their way
+rejoicing to their respective destinations in that</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;American&#8217;s haven of eternal rest,<br />
+Found a little farther West.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>On the Sabbath after the completion of the Memphis and Charleston
+railroad, a large number of the sand-hillers came to Iuka Springs, to
+witness the passing of the cars. Arriving too early, they visited a church
+where divine service was progressing. Whilst the minister was in the midst
+of his sermon, the locomotive whistle sounded, when a stampede took place
+to the railroad. The exodus left the parson<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> almost alone in his glory.
+The passing train caused the most extravagant expressions and gestures of
+wonder and astonishment by these rude observers. It was an era in their
+life.</p>
+
+<p>Once while standing on the railroad-track, I observed a crowd of these
+people coming to see the &#8220;<i>elephant</i>.&#8221; They came so near, that I overheard
+their conversation. One young lass, of sweet sixteen, with slattern dress
+and dishevelled hair, looking up the road, which was visible for a great
+distance, thus expressed her astonishment at what she saw: &#8220;O, dad! what a
+long piece of iron!&#8221; Soon the whistle sounded; this they had never heard
+before, and came to the conclusion that it was a dinner-horn. As soon as
+the cars came in sight, they scattered like frightened sheep, some on one
+side of the road, and some on the other. Nor did they halt till they had
+placed fifty yards at least between them and the track.</p>
+
+<p>Superstition prevails amongst them to a fearful extent. Almost every hut
+has a horse-shoe nailed above the door, or on the threshold, to keep out
+witches. In sickness, charms and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> incantations are used to drive away
+disease. Their physicians are chiefly what are termed faith-doctors, who
+are said to work miraculous cures. They are strong believers in luck. If a
+rabbit cross their path, they will turn round to change their luck. If, on
+setting out on a journey, an owl hoot on the left hand, they will return
+and set out anew. If the new moon is seen through brush, or on the left
+hand, it is a bad omen. They will have trouble during the lunar month.
+When the whippoorwill is first heard in the spring, they turn head over
+heels thrice, to prevent back-ache during the year. Dreams are harbingers
+of joy or wo. To dream of snakes, is ominous. To dream of seeing a coffin,
+or conversing with the dead, is a sign of approaching dissolution, and
+many have no doubt perished through terror, occasioned by such dreams.
+Fortune-tellers are rife amongst them&mdash;those sages whose comprehensive
+view knows the past, the present, and the future. They seek unto familiar
+spirits, that peep and mutter, for the living to the dead.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>They have many deformed, and blind, and deaf among them, in consequence of
+the intermarriage of relatives. Cousins often marry, and occasionally they
+marry within the degrees of consanguinity prohibited by the law of God.
+Perhaps this divine law forbids the marriage of cousins when it declares,
+&#8220;Thou shalt not marry any that is near of kin.&#8221; The sad effects on
+posterity, both mentally and physically, lead to the conviction that if
+the law of God does not condemn it, physiological law does.</p>
+
+<p>These sand-hillers do not (when no serious preventive occurs) fail to
+attend the elections, where the highest bidder obtains their vote.
+Sometimes their vote will command cash, and sometimes only whiskey. It is
+sad to witness the elective franchise, that highest and most glorious
+badge of a freeman, thus prostituted.</p>
+
+<p>The proverb holds good&mdash;Like people, like priest. Their ministers are
+ignorant, ranting fanatics. They despise literature, and every Sabbath
+fulminate censures upon an educated ministry. The following is a specimen
+of their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> preaching. Mr. V&mdash;&mdash; is a Hard-shell Baptist, or, as they term
+themselves, &#8220;Primitive Baptists.&#8221; Entering the pulpit on a warm morning in
+July, he will take off his coat and vest, roll up his sleeves, and then
+begin:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">My Brethering and Sistern</span>&mdash;I air a ignorant man, follered the plough
+all my life, and never rubbed agin nary college. As I said afore, I&#8217;m
+ignorant, and I thank God for it. (Brother Jones responds, &#8220;Passon,
+yer ort to be very thankful, fur yer very ignorant.&#8221;) Well, I&#8217;m agin
+all high larnt fellers what preaches grammar and Greek fur a thousand
+dollars a year. They preaches fur the money, and they gits it, and
+that&#8217;s all they&#8217;ll git. They&#8217;ve got so high larnt they contradicts
+Scripter, what plainly tells us that the sun rises and sets. They seys
+it don&#8217;t, but that the yerth whirls round, like clay to the seal. What
+ud cum of the water in the wells ef it did. Wodent it all spill out,
+and leave &#8217;em dry, and whar ed we be? I may say to them, as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>
+sarpent said unto David, much learning hath made thee mad.</p>
+
+<p>When I preaches, I never takes a tex till I goes inter the pulpit;
+then I preaches a plain sarment, what even women can understand. I
+never premedertates, but what is given to me in that same hour, that I
+sez. Now I&#8217;m a gwine ter open the Bible, and the first verse I sees,
+I&#8217;m a gwine to take it for a tex. (Suiting the action to the word, he
+opened the Bible, and commenced reading and spelling together.) Man is
+f-e-a-r-f-u-l-l-y&mdash;fearfully&mdash;and
+w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l-l-y&mdash;wonderfully&mdash;m-a-d-e&mdash;mad.&mdash;&#8220;Man is fearfully
+and wonderfully made.&#8221; (Pronounced <i>mad</i>.) Well, it&#8217;s a quar tex, but
+I said I&#8217;s a gwine to preach from it, and I&#8217;m a gwine to do it. In the
+fust place, I&#8217;ll divide my sarment into three heads. Fust and
+foremost, I show you that a man will git mad. 2d. That sometimes he&#8217;ll
+git fearfully mad; and thirdly and lastly, when thar&#8217;s lots of things
+to vex and pester him, he&#8217;ll git fearfully and wonderfully mad. And in
+the application I&#8217;ll show you that good men sometimes gits mad,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> for
+the Posle David hisself, who rote the tex, got mad, and called all men
+liars, and cussed his enemies, wishen&#8217; &#8217;em to go down quick into hell;
+and Noah, he got tite, and cussed his nigger boy Ham, just like some
+drunken masters now cusses their niggers. But Noah and David repented;
+and all on us what gits mad must repent, or the devil&#8217;ll git us.</p></div>
+
+<p>Thus he ranted, to the great edification of his hearers, who regard him as
+a perfect Boanerges, to which title his stentorian voice would truly
+entitle him. This exordium will serve as a specimen of the &#8220;sarment,&#8221; as
+it continued in the same strain to the end of the peroration.</p>
+
+<p>Where there is no vision, the people perish. Such blind leaders of the
+blind are liable, with their infatuated followers, to fall into a ditch
+worse than Bunyan&#8217;s Slough of Despond. This minister had undoubtedly run
+when he was not sent, though he &#8220;had hearn a call; a audible voice had,
+while he was a shucken corn, said unto him, Preach.&#8221; Though God does not
+need men&#8217;s learning, yet he has as little use for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> their ignorance.
+Learning is the handmaid of religion, but must not be substituted in its
+stead.</p>
+
+<p>The causes which induce this &#8220;wilderness of mind&#8221; are patent to all who
+make even a cursory examination. There is a tendency in the poor to ape
+the manners of the rich. Those having slaves to labour in their stead,
+toil not physically; hence labour falls into disrepute, and the poorer
+classes, having no slaves to work for them, and not choosing to submit to
+the degradation of labour, incur all the evils resulting from idleness and
+poverty. Ignorance and vice of every kind soon ensue, and a general apathy
+prevails, which destroys in a great measure all mental and physical
+vigour.</p>
+
+<p>The slaveholders buy up all the fertile lands to be cultivated by their
+slaves; hence the poor are crowded out, and if they remain in the vicinity
+of the place of their nativity, they must occupy the poor tracts whose
+sterility does not excite the cupidity of their rich neighbours. The
+slaveholders&#8217; motto is, &#8220;Let us buy more negroes to raise more cotton, to
+buy more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> negroes, and so on <i>ad infinitum</i>.&#8221; To raise more cotton they
+must also buy more land. Small farmers are induced to sell out to them,
+and move further west. For this reason, the white population of the
+fertile sections of the older slave States is constantly on the decrease,
+while the slave population is as constantly increasing. Thus the
+slaveholder often acquires many square miles of land, and hundreds of
+human chattels. He is, as it were, set alone in the earth. Priding himself
+upon his wealth, he will not send his princely sons to the same school
+with the poor white trash; he either sends them to some distant college or
+seminary, or employs a private teacher exclusively for his children. The
+poor whites in the neighbourhood, even should they desire to educate their
+children, have no means to pay for their tuition. Compelled to live on
+poor or worn-out lands, honest toil considered degrading, and forced to
+submit to many inconveniences and disabilities (all the offices of honour
+and profit being monopolized by the slaveholders,) through the workings of
+the &#8220;peculiar institution,&#8221; they find it utterly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> impossible to educate
+their offspring, even in the rudiments of their mother tongue. As the
+power of slavery increases, their condition waxes worse and worse.</p>
+
+<p>The slaveocracy becomes more exacting. Laws are passed by the legislature
+compelling non-slaveholders to patrol the country nightly, to prevent
+insurrections by the negroes. They denounce the law, but coercion is
+resorted to, and the poor whites are forced to obey. When their masters
+call for them, they must leave their labour, by day or by night, patrol
+the country, follow the bloodhounds, arrest the fugitive slave, and do all
+other dirty work which their tyrants demand. If they refuse to obey, they
+are denounced as abolitionists, and are in danger of death at the hands of
+Judge Lynch, the mildest punishment they can hope for being a coat of tar
+and feathers.</p>
+
+<p>The house-negroes feel themselves several degrees above the poor whites,
+as they, from their opportunities for observation amongst the higher
+classes, are possessed of greater information and less rusticity than this
+less favoured<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> class. The poor whites have no love for the institution of
+slavery. They regard it as the instrument of inflicting upon them many
+wrongs, and depriving them of many rights. They dare not express their
+sentiments to the slaveholders, who hold them completely under their
+power. A. G. Brown, United States Senator from Mississippi, to reconcile
+the poor whites to the peculiar institution, used the following arguments
+in a speech at Iuka Springs, Mississippi. He stated, that if the slaves
+were liberated, and suffered to remain in the country, the rich would have
+money to enable them to go to some other clime, and that the poor whites
+would be compelled to remain amongst the negroes, who would steal their
+property, and destroy their lives; and if slavery were abolished, and the
+negroes removed and colonized, the rich would take the poor whites for
+slaves, in their stead, and reduce them to the condition of the Irish and
+Dutch in the North, whose condition he represented to be one of cruel
+bondage. These statements had some effect upon his auditors, who
+believed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> from sad experience, that the rich could oppress the poor as
+they chose, and might, in the contingency specified, reduce them to
+slavery. Labour is considered so degrading, that any argument, based upon
+making labour compulsory on their part, has its weight. Even the beggar
+despises work. A sturdy beggar asked alms at a house at which I was
+lodging. As he appeared to be a man of great physical strength, he was
+advised to go to work, and thus provide for his wants. &#8220;Work!&#8221; said he, in
+disgust; &#8220;niggers do the work in this country&#8221;&mdash;and retired highly
+insulted.</p>
+
+<p>This people form a distinct class, distinguished by as many
+characteristics from the middle and higher classes of Southern society, as
+the Jews are from the nations amongst whom they sojourn. The causes which
+brought about their reduction to their present state of semi-barbarism,
+must be removed, ere they can rise to the condition whence they have
+fallen. They must rise upon the ruins of slavery. When the peculiar
+institution is abolished, then, and not till then, will their disabilities
+be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> removed, and they be in reality what they are nominally&mdash;freemen.</p>
+
+<p>Slaveholders and their families form a distinct class, characterized by
+idleness, vanity, licentiousness, profanity, dissipation, and tyranny.
+There are glorious exceptions, it is true, but those are the
+distinguishing traits of the class. The middle class is the virtuous class
+of the South. They are industrious, frugal, hospitable, simple in their
+habits, plain and unostentatious in their manners. Some of this class are
+small slaveholders, but the great majority own none. The gross vices of
+the higher class are not found among them. They labour regardless of the
+sneers of their aristocratic neighbours. Senator Hammond, of South
+Carolina, may call them mudsills; they regard it not, but pursue the even
+tenor of their way. The slow, unmoving finger of scorn may be pointed at
+them by the sons of pride, yet they refuse to eat the bread of idleness,
+and labour with their <i>own hands</i>, that they may provide things honest in
+the sight of all men. Equidistant from poverty and riches, they enjoy the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>
+golden mean, and immunity from the temptations incident to the extremes of
+abject poverty and great riches.</p>
+
+<p>In the slave States all those born north of the &#8220;nigger line,&#8221; are
+denominated Yankees. This is applied as a term of reproach. When a
+southerner is angry with a man of northern nativity, he does not fail to
+stigmatize him as a Yankee. The slaveholders manifest considerable
+antipathy against the Yankees, which has been increasing during the last
+ten years. In 1858, the Legislature of Mississippi passed resolutions
+recommending non-intercourse with the &#8220;Abolition States,&#8221; and requesting
+the people not to patronize natives of those States residing amongst them,
+and especially to discountenance Yankee ministers and teachers. In the
+educational notice of Memphis Synodical College, at La Grange, Tennessee,
+it is expressly stated that the Faculty are of southern birth and
+education. The principals of the Female Seminaries at Corinth and Iuka,
+Mississippi, give notice that no Yankee teachers will be employed in those
+institutions. While on a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> visit at the house of a Methodist clergyman,
+quite a number of ministers, returning from Conference, called to tarry
+for the night. During the evening, one of them, learning that I was
+&#8220;<i>Yankee born</i>,&#8221; thus interrogated me: &#8220;Why is it, sir, that all kinds of
+delusions originate in the North, such as Millerism, Mormonism,
+Spirit-rappings, and Abolitionism?&#8221; To which I replied: &#8220;The North
+originates everything. All the text-books used in southern schools, all
+the books on law, physic, and divinity, are written and published north of
+Mason &amp; Dixon&#8217;s line. The South does not even print Bibles. The magnetic
+telegraph, the locomotive, Lucifer matches, and even the cotton-gin, are
+all northern inventions. The South, sir, has not sense enough to invent a
+decent humbug. These humbugs once originated, the South is always well
+represented by believers in them. I have known more men to go from this
+county (Shelby county, Tennessee) to the Mormons, than I have known to go
+from the whole State of Ohio.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>When I had thus spoken, my inquisitor was nonplussed, and the laugh went
+against him.</p>
+
+<p>When a candidate before the Presbytery of Chickasaw, in Mississippi, for
+licensure, one of the members of Presbytery, learning that I was a
+&#8220;Yankee,&#8221; asked me the following questions, and received the following
+answers:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Aughey, when will the day of judgment take place?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Millerites have stated that the 30th of June next will be the
+judgment-day. As for myself, I have had no revelation on the subject, and
+expect none.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you believe that any one can call the spirits?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do, sir.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What! believe that the spirits can be called?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do, sir.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I will vote, then, against your licensure, if you have fallen into this
+heresy of the land of your nativity.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Another then said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Brother Aughey, please explain yourself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> I know you do not believe in
+spirit-rapping.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do not, sir, though I believe, as I stated, that any one may call the
+spirits; but I do not believe that they will come in answer to the call.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A lady once remarked to me that she did not believe that a northern man
+would ever become fully reconciled to the institution of slavery, and that
+his influence and sentiments, whatever might be his profession of
+attachment to the peculiar institution, would be against it. The cause of
+the general opposition to northern men is their opposition to slavery.
+Their testimony is against its abominations and barbarities, and hence the
+wish to impair the credibility of the witnesses.</p>
+
+<p>An illustration of the working of the institution may be found in the
+following letter:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right">
+<span class="smcap">Kosciusko, Attala County, Mississippi</span>,<br />
+<span style="padding-right: 4em;">December 25, 1861.</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mr. William Jackman:</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>&mdash;Your last kind and truly welcome letter came to hand in due
+course of mail. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> owe you an apology for delaying an answer so long.
+My apparent neglect was occasioned by no want of respect for you; but
+in consequence of the disturbed state of the country, and difficulty
+of communication with the North, I feared my reply would never reach
+you. Now, however, by directing &#8220;<i>via</i> Norfolk and flag of truce,&#8221;
+letters are sent across the lines to the North. In your letter you
+desired me, from this stand-point, to give you my observations of the
+workings of the peculiar institution, and an expression of my views as
+to its consistency with the eternal principles of rectitude and
+justice. In reply, I will give you a plain narrative of facts.</p>
+
+<p>On my advent to the South, I was at first struck with the fact that
+the busy hum of labour had in some measure ceased. What labour I did
+observe progressing, was done with little skill, and mainly by
+negroes. I called upon the Rev. Dr. R. J. Breckinridge, to whom I had
+a letter of introduction, who treated me with the greatest kindness,
+inviting me to make his house my home when I visited<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> that section of
+country. On leaving his house, he gave me some directions as to the
+road I must travel to reach a certain point. &#8220;You will pass,&#8221; said he,
+&#8220;a blacksmith&#8217;s shop, where a one-eyed man is at work&mdash;my property.&#8221;
+The phrase, &#8220;my property,&#8221; I had never before heard applied to a human
+being, and though I had never been taught to regard the relation of
+master and slave as a sinful relation, yet it grated harshly upon my
+ears to hear a human being, a tradesman, called a chattel; but it
+grated much more harshly, a week after this, to hear the groans of two
+such chattels, as they underwent a severe flagellation, while chained
+to the whipping-post, because they had, by half an hour, overstayed
+their time with their families on an adjoining plantation.</p>
+
+<p>The next peculiar abomination of the peculiar institution which I
+observed, was the licentiousness engendered by it. Mr. D. T&mdash;&mdash;, of
+Madison county, Kentucky, had a white family of children, and a black,
+or rather mulatto family. As his white daughters married, he gave each
+a mulatto half-sister, as a waiting-girl, or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> body-servant. Mr.
+K.&mdash;&mdash;, of Winchester, Kentucky, had a mulatto daughter, and he was
+also the father of her child, thus re-enacting Lot&#8217;s sin. Dr. C&mdash;&mdash;,
+of Tishomingo county, Mississippi, has a negro concubine, and a white
+servant to wait on her. Mr. B.&mdash;&mdash;, of Marshall county, Mississippi,
+lived with his white wife till he had grandchildren, some of whom came
+to school to me, when he repudiated his white wife, and attached
+himself to a very homely old African, who superintends his household,
+and rules his other slaves with rigour. Mr. S&mdash;&mdash;, of Tishomingo
+county, Mississippi, has a negro concubine, and a large family of
+mulatto children. He once brought this woman to church in Rienzi, to
+the great indignation of the white ladies, who removed to a
+respectable distance from her.</p>
+
+<p>I preached recently to a large congregation of slaves, the third of
+whom were as white as myself. Some of them had red hair and blue eyes.
+If there are any marked characteristics of their masters&#8217; families,
+the mulatto slaves are possessed of these characteristics. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> refer to
+physical peculiarities, such as large mouths, humped shoulders, and
+peculiar expressions of countenance. I asked a gentleman how it
+happened that some of his slaves had red hair. He replied that he had
+a red-headed overseer for several years.</p>
+
+<p>I never knew a pious overseer&mdash;never! There may be many, but I never
+saw one. Overseers, as a class, are worse than slaveholders
+themselves. They are cruel, brutal, licentious, dissipated, and
+profane. They always carry a loaded whip, a revolver, and a
+Bowie-knife. These men have the control of women, whom they often whip
+to death. Mr. P&mdash;&mdash;, who resided near Holly Springs, had a negro woman
+whipped to death while I was at his house during a session of
+Presbytery. Mr. C&mdash;&mdash;, of Waterford, Mississippi, had a woman whipped
+to death by his overseer. But such cruel scourgings are of daily
+occurrence. Colonel H&mdash;&mdash;, a member of my church, told me yesterday
+that he ordered a boy, who he supposed was <i>feigning</i> sickness, to the
+whipping-post, but that he had not advanced ten steps<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> toward it, when
+he fell dead!&mdash;and the servant was free from his master. During our
+conversation, a girl passed. &#8220;There is a girl,&#8221; said he, &#8220;who does not
+look very white in the face, owing to exposure; but when I strip her
+to whip her, I find that she has a skin as fair as my wife.&#8221; Mrs.
+F&mdash;&mdash; recently whipped a boy to death within half a mile of my
+residence. A jury of inquest returned a verdict that he came to his
+death by cruelty; but nothing more was done. Mrs. M&mdash;&mdash; and her
+daughter, of Holly Springs, abused a girl repeatedly. She showed her
+bruises to some of my acquaintances, and they believed them fatal. She
+soon after died. Mr. S&mdash;&mdash;, a member of my church, has several maimed
+negroes from abuse on the part of the overseer.</p>
+
+<p>I am residing on the banks of the Yock-a-nookany, which means
+&#8220;meandering,&#8221; when translated from the Indian tongue. In this vicinity
+there are large plantations, cultivated by hundreds of negroes. The
+white population is sparse. Every night the negroes are brought to a
+judgment-seat. The overseer presides.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> If they have not laboured to
+suit him, or if their task is unfulfilled, they are chained to a post,
+and severely whipped. The victims are invariably stripped; to what
+extent, is at the option of the overseer. In Louisiana, women,
+preparatory to whipping, are often stripped to a state of perfect
+nudity. Old Mr. C&mdash;&mdash;, of Waterford, Mississippi, punished his negroes
+<i>by slitting the soles of their feet with his Bowie-knife</i>! One man he
+put into a cotton-press, and turned the screw till life was extinct.
+He stated that he only intended to alarm the man, but carried the joke
+too far. I have heard women thus plead, in piteous accents, when
+chained to the whipping-post, and stripped: &#8220;O, my God, master! don&#8217;t
+whip me! I was sick! indeed I was sick! I had a chill, and the fever
+is on me now! I haven&#8217;t tasted a morsel to-day! You know I works when
+I is well! O for God&#8217;s sake don&#8217;t whip a poor sick nigger! My poor
+chile&#8217;s sick too! Missis thinks it&#8217;s a dyin&#8217;! O master, for the love
+of God, don&#8217;t cut a poor distressed woman wid your whip! I&#8217;ll try to
+do better,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> ef you&#8217;ll only let me off this once!&#8221; These piteous
+plaints only rouse the ire of their cruel task-masters, who sometimes
+knock them down in the midst of their pleadings. I have known an
+instance of a woman giving birth to a child at the whipping-post. The
+fright and pain brought on premature labour.</p>
+
+<p>One beautiful Sabbath morning I stood on the levee at Baton Rouge,
+Louisiana, and counted twenty-seven sugar-houses in full blast. I
+found that the negroes were compelled to labour eighteen hours per
+day, and were not permitted to rest on the Sabbath during the rolling
+season. The negroes on most plantations have a truck-patch, which they
+cultivate on the Sabbath. I have pointed out the sin of thus labouring
+on the Sabbath, but they plead necessity; their children, they state,
+must suffer from hunger if they did not cultivate their truck-patch,
+and their masters would not give them time on any other day.</p>
+
+<p>Negroes, by law, are prohibited from learning to read. This law was
+not strictly enforced in Tennessee and some other States till within<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>
+a few years past. I had charge of a Sabbath-school for the instruction
+of blacks in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1853. This school was put down by
+the strong arm of the law in a short time after my connection with it
+ceased. In Mississippi, a man who taught slaves to read or write would
+be sent to the penitentiary instanter. The popular plea for this
+wickedness is, that if they were taught to read, they would read
+abolition documents; and if they were taught to write, they would
+write themselves passes, and pass northward to Canada.</p>
+
+<p>Such advertisements as the following often greet the eye.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<i>Kansas War.</i>&mdash;The undersind taks this method of makkin it noan that
+he has got a pack of the best nigger hounds in the South. My hounds is
+well trand, and I has had much experience a huntin niggers, having
+follered it for the last fiften year. I will go anywhar that I&#8217;m sent
+for, and will ketch niggers at the follerin raits.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My raits fur ketchin runaway niggers $10 per hed, ef they&#8217;s found in
+the beat whar thar<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> master lives; $15 if they&#8217;s found in the county,
+and $50 if they&#8217;s tuck out on the county.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;N. B.&mdash;Pay is due when the nigger is tuck. Planters ort to send fur
+me as soon as thar niggers runs away, while thar trak is fresh.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Every night the woods resound with the deep-mouthed baying of the
+bloodhounds. The slaves are said by some to love their masters; but it
+requires the terrors of bloodhounds and the fugitive slave law to keep
+them in bondage. You in the North are compelled to act the part of the
+bloodhounds here, and catch the fugitives for the planters of the
+South. Free negroes are sold into bondage for the most trivial
+offences. Slaveholders declare that the presence of free persons of
+colour exerts a pernicious influence upon their slaves, rendering them
+discontented with their condition, and inspiring a desire for freedom.
+They therefore are very desirous of getting rid of these persons,
+either by banishing them from the State or enslaving them. The
+legislature of Mississippi has passed a law for their expulsion, and
+other States have followed in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> wake. The Governor of Missouri has
+vetoed the law for the expulsion of free persons of colour, passed by
+the legislature of that State because of its unconstitutionality.</p>
+
+<p>Were I to recount all the abominations of the peculiar institution,
+and the wrongs inflicted upon the African race, that have come under
+my observation, they would fill a large volume. Slavery is guilty of
+six abominations; yea, seven may justly be charged upon it. It is said
+that the negro is lazy, and will not work except by compulsion. I have
+known negroes who have purchased their freedom by the payment of a
+large sum, and afterward made not only a good living, but a fortune
+beside. It is said Judge W&mdash;&mdash; of South Carolina gave his servants the
+use of his plantation, upon condition that they would support his
+family; and that in three years he was compelled to take the
+management himself, as they did not make a comfortable living for
+themselves and the Judge&#8217;s family. In reply, it might be said that the
+negroes had not a fair trial, as no one had any property he could call
+his own, and they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> were thrown into a sort of Fourierite society,
+having all things in common. In this state of things, while some would
+work, others would be idle. White men do not succeed in such
+communities, and for this reason it was no fair test of the industrial
+energies of Judge W&mdash;&mdash;&#8217;s slaves.</p>
+
+<p>The question is often asked, is slavery sinful in itself? My
+observation has been extensive, embracing eight slave States, and I
+have never yet seen any example of slavery that I did not deem sinful.
+If slavery is not sinful in itself, I must have always seen it out of
+itself. I have observed its workings during eleven years, amongst a
+professedly Christian people, and cannot do otherwise than pronounce
+it an unmitigated curse. It is a curse to the white man, it is a curse
+to the black man. That God will curse it, and blot it out of existence
+ere long, is my firm conviction. The elements of its abolition exist;
+God speed the time when they will be fully developed, and this mother
+of abominations driven from the land of the free! The development of
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> eternal principles of justice and rectitude will abolish this
+hoary monster of fraud and oppression. Slavery subverts all the rights
+of man. It divests him of citizenship, of liberty, of the pursuit of
+happiness, of his children, of his wife, of his property, of
+intellectual culture, reserving to him only the rights of the horse
+and ass, and reducing him to the same chattel condition with them. Not
+a single right does the State law grant him above that of the
+mule&mdash;no, not one. The chastity of the slave has no legal protection.
+The Methodist Church South is expunging from the discipline everything
+inimical to the peculiar institution, whilst I observe that the Church
+North is adding to her testimony and deliverances against the sin of
+slaveholding. The Church South refused to abide by the rules of the
+Church, and hence the guilt of the schism lies with her, and you are
+henceforth free from any guilt in conniving at the sin which the
+founder of your church, the illustrious Wesley, regarded as the &#8220;sum
+of all villany.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Remember me kindly to Mrs. Jackman and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> family. Hoping to hear from
+you soon, I beg leave to subscribe myself,</p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yours fraternally,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><span class="smcap">John H. Aughey</span>.</span></p>
+
+<p>To Mr. William Jackman,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Amsterdam, Jefferson Co., Ohio.</span></p></div>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+<p class="title">NOTORIOUS REBELS.&mdash;UNION OFFICERS.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Colonel Jefferson Davis&mdash;His Speech at Holly Springs, Mississippi&mdash;His
+Opposition to Yankee Teachers and Ministers&mdash;A bid for the
+Presidency&mdash;His Ambition&mdash;Burr, Arnold, Davis&mdash;General
+Beauregard&mdash;Headquarters at Rienzi&mdash;Colonel Elliott&#8217;s
+Raid&mdash;Beauregard&#8217;s Consternation&mdash;Personal description&mdash;His
+illness&mdash;Popularity waning&mdash;Rev. Dr. Palmer of New Orleans&mdash;His
+influence&mdash;The Cincinnati Letter&mdash;His Personal Appearance&mdash;His
+Denunciations of General Butler&mdash;His Radicalism&mdash;Rev. Dr. Waddell of
+La Grange, Tennessee&mdash;His Prejudices against the North&mdash;President of
+Memphis Synodical College&mdash;His Talents prostituted&mdash;Union
+Officers&mdash;General Nelson&mdash;General Sherman.</p></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">COLONEL JEFFERSON DAVIS.</p>
+
+<p>In 1856 I heard Colonel Jefferson Davis deliver an address at Holly
+Springs, Mississippi. The Colonel is about a medium height, of slender
+frame, his nose aquiline, his hair dark, his manners polite. He is no
+orator. His speech was principally a tirade of abuse against the North,
+bitterly inveighing against the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>emigrant aid societies which had
+well-nigh put Kansas upon the list of free States. He advised the people
+to employ no more Yankee teachers. He had been educated in the North, and
+he regarded it as the greatest misfortune of his life. Soon after Colonel
+Davis visited New England, where he eulogized that section in an
+extravagant manner. He was pleased with everything he saw; even &#8220;Noah
+Webster&#8217;s Yankee spelling-book&#8221; received a share of the Colonel&#8217;s fulsome
+flattery. On his return to the South, &#8220;a change came o&#8217;er the spirit of
+his dream,&#8221; and his bile and bitterness against Yankee-land returned in
+all its pristine vigour. The Colonel was making a bid for the Presidency;
+but New England was not so easily gulled; his flimsy professions of
+friendship were too transparent to hide the hate which lay beneath, and
+his aspirations were doomed to disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>Though Colonel Davis is often called Mississippi&#8217;s pet, yet he is not
+regarded as a truthful man, and his reports and messages are received<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>
+with considerable abatement by &#8220;the chivalry.&#8221; His ambition knows no
+bounds. He would rather &#8220;reign in hell than serve in heaven.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Had Jefferson Davis been elected President of the United States, he would
+have been among the last instead of the first to favour secession. Had he
+been slain on the bloody fields of Mexico, his memory would have been
+cherished. History will assign him a place among the infamous. Burr,
+Arnold, and Davis will be names for ever execrated by true patriots. The
+two former died a natural death, though the united voice of their
+countrymen would have approved of their execution on the gallows. The fate
+of the latter lies still in the womb of futurity, though his loyal
+countrymen, without a dissenting voice, declare that he deserves a felon&#8217;s
+doom. An announcement of his death would suffuse no patriot&#8217;s eye with
+tears. What loyalist would weep while he read the news-item&mdash;the arch
+traitor Jeff. Davis is dead.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center">GENERAL G. T. BEAUREGARD.</p>
+
+<p>I met General Beauregard under very peculiar circumstances. I had gone to
+Rienzi for the purpose of escaping to the Federal lines for protection
+from the rigorous and sweeping conscript law. When I arrived, I found the
+rebels evacuating Corinth, and their sick and wounded passing down the
+Mobile and Ohio railroad to the hospitals below. General Beauregard had
+just arrived in Rienzi, and had his headquarters at the house of Mr.
+Sutherland. A rumour had spread through Rienzi that General Beauregard had
+ordered the women and children to leave the town. Many of them, believing
+that the order had been issued, were hastening into the country. In order
+to confirm or refute the statement, I called upon General Beauregard, and
+asked him whether he had issued such an order. He replied, &#8220;I have issued
+no such order, sir.&#8221; Just at that moment a courier arrived with the
+information that the Yankees had attacked the advance of their retreating
+army at Boonville,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> that they had destroyed the depot, and taken many
+prisoners. The General told the courier that he must be mistaken; that it
+was impossible for the Yankees to pass around his army. While he was yet
+speaking a citizen arrived from Boonville, confirming the statement of the
+courier. Beauregard was still incredulous, replying that they must have
+mistaken the Confederates for the Yankees. In a few minutes the explosion
+of shells shook the building. The General then thought that it might be
+true that the Yankees had passed around the army; but on hearing the
+shells, he stated that General Green (of Missouri) was driving them away
+with his cannon. The truth was soon ascertained by the arrival of several
+couriers. Col. Elliott, of the Federal army, had made a raid upon
+Boonville, had fired the depot, and destroyed a large train of cars filled
+with ammunition. The explosions of the shells which we heard was
+occasioned by the fire reaching the ears in which these shells were
+stored. The Colonel also destroyed the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>railroad to such an extent that it
+required several days to repair the track.</p>
+
+<p>General Beauregard is below the medium height, and has a decidedly French
+expression of countenance. His hair is quite gray, though a glance at his
+face will convince the observer that it is prematurely so. The General is
+regarded as taciturn. His countenance is careworn and haggard. During the
+winter of 1861-2, he was attacked with bronchitis and typhoid pneumonia,
+and came near dying; and had not, at my interview, by any means recovered
+his pristine health and vigour. His prestige as an able commander is
+rapidly waning. For some time his military talents were considered of the
+first order; now a third-rate position is assigned him. He is still
+regarded as a first-class engineer. When General Sterling Price arrived at
+Corinth, General Beauregard conducted him around all the fortifications,
+explaining their nature and unfolding their strength; but no word of
+approval could he elicit from the Missouri General. At length he ventured
+to ask what he thought of their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> capacity for resisting an attack. General
+Price replied, &#8220;They may prove effective in resisting an attack. These are
+the second fortifications I ever saw; the first I captured.&#8221; He had
+reference to Colonel Mulligan&#8217;s, at Lexington, Missouri. Sumter and
+Manassas gave Beauregard fame. Since the latter battle his star has
+declined steadily; and if the Federal generals prove themselves competent,
+it will soon go out in total darkness, and the world&#8217;s verdict will be, it
+was a misfortune that Beauregard lived.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">REV. DR. B. M. PALMER.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Palmer has done more than any non-combatant in the South to promote
+the rebellion. He was accessory both before and after the fact. His
+sermons are nearly all abusive of the North. The mudsills of Yankeedom and
+the scum of Europe are phrases of frequent use in his public addresses,
+and they are meant to include all living north of what is more familiarly
+than elegantly termed in the South the &#8220;nigger line,&#8221; although the North
+is the land of his parental nativity.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>A few years ago, Dr. Palmer wrote to a friend in Cincinnati respecting a
+vacant church, in which he gave as one reason, among others, for desiring
+to come North, that he wished to remove his family from the baleful
+influences of slavery. That letter still exists, and ought to be
+published.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Palmer&#8217;s personal appearance is by no means prepossessing. He is small
+of stature, of very dark complexion, dish-faced. His nose is said to have
+been broken when a child; at all events, it is a deformity. He is fluent
+in speech, has a vivid imagination, and has a great influence over a
+promiscuous congregation.</p>
+
+<p>After the reduction of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, and the capture of
+New Orleans, Dr. Palmer came to Corinth, where he preached to the rebel
+army. His text was invariably General Butler&#8217;s &#8220;women-of-the-town order,&#8221;
+which we fully believe he intentionally misconstrued. The conservation and
+extension of slavery is a matter which lies near the Doctor&#8217;s heart. He
+urged secession for the purpose of extending<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> and perpetuating for ever
+the peculiar institution. His views, however, must have undergone a
+radical change since the writing of the Cincinnati letter, as he then
+regarded slavery with little favour. Love of public favour may have much
+to do with his recently expressed views, for no true Christian and patriot
+can wish to perpetuate and extend an institution founded on the total
+subversion of the rights of man.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">REV. DR. JOHN N. WADDELL.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Waddell is a man of considerable talent, but his prejudices are very
+strong against the North. He cordially hates a Yankee, and his poor
+distressed wife, who was a native of New England, was compelled to return
+to her home, where she mourns in virtual widowhood her unfortunate
+connection with a man who detests her land and people. Dr. Waddell&#8217;s
+sermons are very abusive. The North is the theme of animadversion in all
+the published sermons and addresses I have seen from his prolific pen. He
+has prostituted his fine talents, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> his writings are full of cursing
+and bitterness. As President of La Grange College, Tennessee, he might
+wield a great influence for good&mdash;an influence which would tend to calm
+the storm aroused by demagogues, rather than increase its power. His
+memory will rot, for the evil which he has done will live after him.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM NELSON.</p>
+
+<p>I met General Nelson frequently at his head-quarters at Iuka Springs,
+Mississippi. Though the General was quite brusque in his manners, yet he
+always treated me with kindness and marked attention. Once while seated at
+the table with him, several guests being present, the following colloquy
+ensued.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Parson Aughey, I suppose you are well versed in the Scriptures, and in
+order to test your knowledge, permit me to ask a question, which doubtless
+you are able to answer.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Certainly, General, you have permission to ask the question you propose.
+I am not so sure, however, about my ability to answer it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>&#8220;The question I desire to propose is this&mdash;How many preceded Noah in
+leaving the ark?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am unable to answer, sir.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That is strange, as the Bible so plainly and explicitly informs us. We
+are told that Noah went <i>forth</i> out of the ark; therefore <i>three</i> must
+have preceded him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The General&#8217;s wit &#8220;set the table in a roar.&#8221; As soon as the mirth had
+subsided, I addressed the General:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is my turn to ask a question. Do you know, sir, where the witch of
+Endor lived?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I did know, but really I have forgotten.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, sir, she lived at Endor.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The laugh was now against him, but he joined in it heartily himself.</p>
+
+<p>Knowing that General Nelson had visited every quarter of the globe, I
+asked him whether he had ever seen any of the modern Greeks.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I never saw any of the ancient Greeks,&#8221; was his curt reply.</p>
+
+<p>General Nelson was regarded as a brave and skilful officer. He has done
+good service in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> his country&#8217;s cause. At Shiloh his promptness and
+efficiency contributed greatly to retrieve the disaster which befell
+General Grant on the first day of the battle. His rencontre with General
+Davis, which resulted in his own death, is greatly to be regretted, though
+his own ungovernable temper and inexcusable conduct caused his tragic end.</p>
+
+<p>I once visited his headquarters late in the afternoon. On my arrival, he
+informed me that I would confer a great favour upon him by guiding a
+company of cavalry on an expedition to the south-eastern part of the
+county, to which I consented. I rode in front with the officer in command.
+When we had reached a point beyond the pickets, my companion informed me
+that we would meet no more Federals; if we met any soldiers while outward
+bound, we might take it for granted that they were rebels. After riding
+about an hour longer, we encountered a company of cavalry, and were
+ordered to halt by the officer in command. My companion, stating that they
+must be rebels, rode up and gave the countersign. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> felt somewhat uneasy
+at the head of that company at this time, not knowing the moment that
+bullets would be whistling around us. They proved however to be Federals,
+returning from an extended scouting expedition. I conducted our company to
+the house of a Union man, whom we aroused from his bed; and learning that
+we were Federals, he took my place, and I returned to General Nelson. The
+General now desired me to go as a spy, to obtain information as to the
+number of troops stationed at Norman&#8217;s Bridge, which spanned Big Bear
+Creek. I replied that I had ridden sixty miles without sleep, but that I
+would send two Union men of my acquaintance in my stead. This was
+satisfactory, and my Union friends returned with accurate information as
+to the number of rebel troops stationed at the bridge, and the best points
+of attack. The attack was made on the next day after receiving the
+information, and the rebels were surprised and totally defeated; but few
+escaped death or capture.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center">GENERAL W. T. SHERMAN.</p>
+
+<p>On the day that General Sherman reached Rienzi, I supped with him at the
+house of a friend. At table the following dialogue took place between us.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you the person from whom Sherman&#8217;s battery took its name?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am, sir.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Many gentlemen in this county,&#8221; said I, &#8220;and among them my father-in-law,
+have pipes made of the fragments of the gun-carriages of Sherman&#8217;s
+battery, which was captured at Manassas by the Confederates.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Sherman&#8217;s battery was not captured at Manassas,&#8221; replied the General.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The honour of capturing Sherman&#8217;s battery is generally accorded to the
+second regiment of Mississippi volunteers, which went from this county and
+the adjoining county of Tippah, though several regiments claim it, and
+many of my friends declare that they have seen Sherman&#8217;s battery since its
+capture.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I assure you, sir, Sherman&#8217;s battery was not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> captured&mdash;so far from this,
+it came out of the battle of Manassas Plains with two pieces captured from
+the enemy, having itself lost none.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Colonel Fry, who killed Zollikoffer, rode up for orders.
+While receiving them, the horses attached to a battery halted in front of
+us. &#8220;There,&#8221; said the General, &#8220;is every piece of Sherman&#8217;s battery. I
+ought to know that battery, and I assure you there is not a gun missing.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The pipes, canes, and trinkets supposed to be made of the wood of
+Sherman&#8217;s battery, if collected, would form a vast pile; and were you to
+inform the owners of those relics that they were spurious, you would be
+politely informed that you might &#8220;tell that tale to the marines,&#8221; as their
+sons and their neighbours&#8217; sons were the honoured captors of that battery;
+a fact, concerning the truth of which they entertained not even the shadow
+of a doubt.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+<p class="title">CONDITION OF THE SOUTH.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Cause of the Rebellion&mdash;Prevalence of Union Sentiment in the
+South&mdash;Why not Developed&mdash;Stevenson&#8217;s Views&mdash;Why Incorrect&mdash;Cavalry
+Raids upon Union Citizens&mdash;How the Rebels employ Slaves&mdash;Slaves
+Whipped and sent out of the Federal Lines&mdash;Resisting the Conscript
+Law&mdash;Kansas Jayhawkers&mdash;Guarding Rebel Property&mdash;Perfidy of
+Secessionists&mdash;Plea for Emancipation&mdash;The South Exhausted&mdash;Failure of
+Crops&mdash;Southern Merchants Ruined&mdash;Bragg Prohibits the Manufacture and
+Vending of Intoxicating Liquors&mdash;Its Salutary Effect.</p></div>
+
+<p>The following is the substance of addresses delivered by me on October 22d
+and 25th, 1862, at Cooper&#8217;s Institute, New York, and before the Synod of
+New York and New Jersey, at its session in Brooklyn.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I will confine myself to rendering answers to various questions which
+have been asked me since my escape to the North. I have viewed the
+rebellion from a southern stand-point; have been conversant with its
+whole history; have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> been behind the curtains, and have learned the
+motives which impel its instigators in their treasonable designs
+against the Government.</p>
+
+<p>Slavery I believe to have been the sole cause of the rebellion. It is
+true that the slaveholders of the South were becoming strongly
+anti-republican. Rule or ruin was their determination, and they would
+not have listened to any compromise measure after the election of Mr.
+Lincoln; but this feeling, this opposition to republicanism, and lust
+of power, is the offspring of slavery. In 1856 I heard Jeff. Davis
+declare that the people of the North and the South were not
+homogeneous, and that therefore he advocated secession. The reason he
+assigned for this want of homogeneousness was found in the fact that
+the South held slaves; the North did not.</p>
+
+<p>Men accustomed to exercise arbitrary power over their fellow-men, will
+not cease their encroachments upon the rights of all with whom they
+are associated, politically or otherwise, and a temporary suspension
+of the control of the government is regarded by them as a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> <i>casus
+belli</i>. Slavery may therefore be justly regarded as the parent of
+secession. Whilst this cause exists, the South will be the hot-bed of
+treason. Slavery has produced its legitimate fruit, and treason is its
+name. With slavery intact, no compromise, if accepted by the South,
+would prevent another outbreak in a few years.</p>
+
+<p>The question has been asked, is there any Union sentiment in the
+South? I reply that there is a strong Union sentiment, even in
+Mississippi. This sentiment is not found amongst the slaveholders,
+for, as a class, they are firmly united in their hostility to the
+Government. The middle and lower classes are not only opposed to
+secession, but also to slavery itself. Eleven years&#8217; association with
+the southern people has enabled me to form a correct opinion, and to
+know whereof I affirm. I make this statement without fear of
+successful contradiction, that the majority of the white inhabitants
+of the South are Union-loving men. The slaveholders have long ruled
+both the blacks and the whites in the South. When the rebellion was
+determined upon, the slaveholders<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> had the organized force to compel
+acquiescence upon the part of those who favoured the Union, yet wished
+to remain neutral. Their drafts and conscriptions swept them into the
+army, and when once there, they must obey their officers upon pain of
+death. To desert and join the Union army, was to abandon their homes
+and families, and all their youthful associations. Yet many have done
+it, and are now doing good service in their country&#8217;s cause.</p>
+
+<p>The rebels punished with death any who declared himself in favour of
+the Union. In my presence at Tupelo, they were taken out daily and
+shot for the expression of sentiments adverse to the rebellion. If the
+Union troops at any time occupied a place, and the people expressed
+any favourable sentiments to their cause, upon the evacuation of that
+position, those who sided with the Union troops were cruelly treated.
+All these causes, and many others which I might mention, have
+prevented the full development of the true sentiments of the people. I
+could name many localities within the rebel lines where the great
+majority of the people<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> bitterly denounce the Southern Confederacy and
+all connected with it. I could name many individuals who have declared
+to me that they would prefer death to a dishonourable compliance with
+the conscript law. I could name localities within the rebel lines
+where armed resistance to the conscript law has been made; but the
+safety of those loyal citizens forbids it.</p>
+
+<p>I know that there are some who assert that there is no Union feeling
+in the South; but they are mistaken. The author of &#8220;Thirteen Months in
+the Rebel Army&#8221; found but little. His situation was not favourable for
+its discovery. He informs us in his work, that after he had been
+compelled to <i>volunteer</i>, he regarded his oath (an oath much more
+honoured in the breach than in the observance,) of such force that he
+sought to obtain information, rather than to desert. He passed from
+one post of preferment to another, till at length he was on duty under
+the eye of Breckinridge himself, who complimented him upon his
+alacrity in bearing dispatches; and this was truly great, as he rode
+at one time sixty miles in seven hours, and at another,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> fourteen
+miles in less than fifty minutes. He also exhibited a guarded zeal for
+the secession cause. Who would have gone to an officer who was
+apparently aiding and abetting the rebellion, ably and assiduously, to
+communicate his Union sentiments? Any who would thus betray themselves
+could not be sure that they would not be shot in twenty-four hours.
+Had Mr. Stevenson been with me in Tupelo, and looked upon those
+seventy or eighty prisoners who were incarcerated for their adherence
+to the Union&mdash;had he witnessed the daily execution of some of them who
+preferred death to <i>volunteering</i> to defend a cause which they did not
+hesitate to denounce at the peril of their lives&mdash;had he been with me
+while in the midst of a host of Union citizens of Mississippi, who at
+the noon of night had assembled in the deep glens and on the high
+hills, for the purpose of devising means to resist the hated conscript
+law&mdash;he would have come to a far different conclusion. I have seen the
+cavalry go out to arrest Union men. I was at a Mr. William Herron&#8217;s,
+in South Carroll, Carrol county, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>Tennessee, and while there, several
+companies of cavalry came up from Jackson to destroy the loyal
+citizens of that vicinity, and they did destroy some of them and much
+property. They passed within two hundred yards of fortifications
+hastily thrown up to resist them, and would have been fired on had
+they come within range. Before completing their mission, a messenger
+came to inform them that Fort Henry was beleagured. They hastened to
+the fort just in time to take part in the action. After the surrender
+of the fort, they retreated to Fort Donelson, and were all captured at
+the reduction of that fort, to the great joy of those Union citizens
+whom they had driven from their homes, and whose property they had
+destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>The slaves add greatly to the strength of the rebellion. Slave labour
+is extensively employed in the military department. They are the
+sappers and miners, the cooks, the teamsters, the artisans; and there
+are instances where they are forced to shoulder the musket and go into
+the ranks. I have seen and conversed with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> slave soldiers who have
+fought in every battle from Manassas to Shiloh.</p>
+
+<p>Many strong secession counties send more soldiers to the rebel army
+than there are voters in those counties. The slaves who remain at
+home, labour to raise provisions for the sustenance of the families of
+the soldiers, and a surplus for the army; hence every white man is
+available for service in the field. Were this slave labour diverted to
+some other channel, the result would follow, that a great proportion
+of the rebel soldiers would be forced to return home to care for their
+families, or those families must perish. In order to divert this
+labour, it would be only necessary to encourage the negroes to leave
+their masters. Wherever the Federal army has advanced in the
+southwest, the slaves have crowded into their lines by hundreds, and
+only desisted upon learning, much to their regret, that they would not
+be received, many of them being tied up and whipped, and then sent
+southward beyond the limits of the Federal army. Some who had
+travelled seventy miles upon the underground<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> railroad, to reach the
+Union army, being asked by their fellow-servants upon their return,
+how they liked the Yankees, replied that &#8220;General Nelson sort o&#8217;
+hinted that he didn&#8217;t want us.&#8221; Upon being urged to be more explicit,
+and to state more fully what was the nature of the hint which led them
+to infer that General Nelson did not want them, their spokesman
+replied: &#8220;Well, if we must tell, we must. General Nelson tied us up
+and gave us fifty apiece, and sent us off, sw&#8217;arin&#8217; he&#8217;d guv us a
+hundred ef we didn&#8217;t go right straight back home to our masters. He
+said this wa&#8217;n&#8217;t no war got up to set the niggers free.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The Kansas Jayhawkers liberate all the slaves with whom they come in
+contact. I passed four regiments of their cavalry last August, on
+their way to Rienzi, Mississippi. They had about two thousand slaves
+with them, of every age and sex. Those slaves groomed their horses,
+drove their wagons, cooked their victuals, and made themselves useful
+in a variety of ways, leaving every white man free to go into the
+battle when the hour of contest arrived.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>Slavery is a strong prop to the rebellion. Four millions of labourers
+are able to furnish supplies for eight millions. Subtract that vast
+resource from the rebellion, add it to the support of the Government,
+and its stunning effect would be speedily demonstrated in the complete
+paralysis of the Southern Confederacy. In order to supply the loss of
+the slaves, half the soldiers in the army must return, or famine would
+sweep both the army and the families of the soldiers from the face of
+the earth. One cause of the long continuance of the war is, that the
+Union army has endeavoured to conciliate the South, rather than crush
+the rebellion. They have guarded the property of the rebels; they have
+returned promptly their fugitive slaves; they have put down servile
+insurrection with an iron hand, and in every possible way have shown
+clemency instead of severity. But their kindness has been abused,
+their clemency regarded as evidence of imbecility, and the humane
+policy of the Government totally misconstrued. Captain John Rainey, of
+Cambridge, Ohio, while on duty at Corinth, Mississippi, received<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> an
+application from a notorious secessionist for a guard to protect his
+premises, which was obtained for him from the colonel, three soldiers
+being detached for that purpose, who proceeded to the station assigned
+them. About four o&#8217;clock in the afternoon they saw the owner of the
+premises they were guarding, mount his horse and ride off. Supposing
+him to be going on some ordinary errand, they took no further notice
+of it. About nine o&#8217;clock, one of the guard who had strayed into the
+orchard, some three hundred yards from the house, heard an unusual
+sound, as of cavalry approaching. Concealing himself, he saw, by the
+bright moonlight, this secessionist ride up with seven or eight rebel
+cavalrymen, who, seizing his two companions, rode off with them as
+prisoners. The ingrate who committed this base and perfidious act then
+went into his house and retired to rest. As speedily as possible the
+third picket returned to his company, and informed them of the
+occurrence. Fired with indignation, twenty men volunteered to visit
+summary punishment upon the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>perpetrator of this villany. Hastening to
+his house, they aroused him from his slumbers, and in a few minutes
+suspended him by the neck between the heavens and the earth. On their
+return they reported to their companions what they had done, and,
+through fear of punishment, took every precaution to prevent the act
+reaching the colonel&#8217;s ears. It was reported to the colonel, however,
+whose reply to his informant was, &#8220;Served him right!&#8221; This policy of
+guarding rebel property by Union troops must be abandoned, or the war
+will never terminate. The Union army has been attacked by the rebels
+when large numbers of the soldiers were absent as guards to protect
+the plantations and all the interests of secessionists. Such gingerly
+warfare must end, or the days of the Republic are numbered. Carrying
+the war into the enemy&#8217;s country has thus far proved a mere farce. The
+retreating rebels destroyed tenfold more property than the pursuing
+Federals. I would not counsel cruelty. I would not advise the
+unnecessary destruction of life or property, for all wanton
+destruction<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> tends to weaken rather than to strengthen the cause of
+those who perpetrate it. Vandalism is everywhere reprehensible. The
+proper policy I believe to be this: Let the Union army be supplied
+with provisions, so far as practicable, from the territory occupied.
+Let the slaves find protection and employment on their arrival within
+the Union lines. Despise not their valuable services. Let it be
+proclaimed that for every Union citizen of the South who is slain for
+his adherence to the old flag, a rebel prisoner shall be executed, and
+that the confiscated property of Union men shall be restored, at the
+cost of rebel sympathizers in the vicinity. Let these necessary
+measures be carried out, and no well-informed person can doubt that
+the war will cease before the end of six months. With slavery, the
+rebels are powerful; without it, they are powerless. With slavery,
+every white man between the ages of eighteen and sixty is available as
+a soldier, and vast supplies are procured by servile labour. Abolish
+slavery, and the army would be immediately reduced one-half, and
+supplies would be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> diminished to a destructive extent. Slaves armed
+and drilled would make effective soldiers. With a perfect knowledge of
+the country, with an intense desire to liberate themselves and their
+brethren from bondage, with an ardent hatred of their cruel masters
+and overseers, (and the majority of them are cruel,) they would render
+a willing and powerful aid in crushing the great rebellion. After the
+war is ended, give them as much land as their necessities require,
+either in New Mexico or Arizona, and they will furnish more sugar,
+rice, and cotton, than were extorted from them by compulsory labour in
+the house of bondage.</p>
+
+<p>The desire for freedom on the part of the slaves is universal. It is,
+according to my observation and full belief, a rule without exception.
+These aspirations are constantly increasing as the rigours of slavery
+are increased, and the slaves are as well prepared for freedom as they
+would be a hundred years hence. The <i>Iron Furnace</i> of slavery does not
+tend to the elevation of its victims. There are better methods of
+elevating a race than by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> enslaving it. The moral elevation of the
+slave is no part of the reason why he is held in bondage; but the
+convenience and profit of the master is the sole end and aim of the
+peculiar institution. All attempts on the part of the slaves to obtain
+their liberty are resisted by the slaveholders, by the infliction of
+appalling and barbarous cruelties. Thirty-two negroes were executed at
+Natchez, Mississippi, recently, because they expressed a determination
+&#8220;to go to Lincoln.&#8221; Six were hanged in Hoxubee county, and one burned
+in the streets of Macon. The southern papers state that Hon. Mr. Orr,
+of South Carolina, attempted to drive his slaves into the interior, to
+prevent their escaping to the Yankees, and upon their refusal to go,
+he ordered them to be driven at the point of the bayonet, and in the
+execution of the order, fifty of them were slain. There are instances
+in which the slave is greatly attached to his master&#8217;s family, but his
+love of liberty is greater than that attachment. It often transcends
+his love for his own family, which he abandons for its sake, risking
+his life on the underground <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>railroad, and enduring the rigours of a
+Canadian winter, that he may enjoy his inalienable rights.</p>
+
+<p>The southwest is already nearly exhausted. The troops which first went
+into the service were well supplied with clothing, provisions, and
+money; but the conscripts were poorly clad, and received their wages
+in Confederate bonds, which have so depreciated, that ten dollars in
+gold will purchase one hundred dollars of the bonds. Great suffering
+is the consequence, and desertions are of daily occurrence. While I
+was in prison at Tupelo, eighty-seven of the Arkansas infantry
+deserted in a body. One hundred cavalry were sent to arrest them, but
+they defeated the cavalry in a fair fight, and went on their way
+rejoicing. Tennesseeans and Kentuckians could not be trusted on picket
+duty, their proclivity for desertion being notorious. They suffered no
+opportunity to escape them, and often went off in squads. Many of them
+being forced into the service, did not consider their involuntary oath
+binding.</p>
+
+<p>The wheat crop of 1862, in the southwest, was almost totally destroyed
+by the rust, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> corn crop by the drought. Salt could not be
+obtained at any cost, and every marketable commodity had reached a
+fabulous price. Southern merchants feel that they are ruined. At the
+commencement of the war they had made large purchases in the North,
+mainly on credit. The rebel Congress passed a law that all who were
+indebted to the North must pay two-thirds of the amount of their
+indebtedness to the Southern Confederacy. This the merchants did. They
+then sold their goods, taking cotton and Confederate money in pay. The
+cotton was destroyed by order of Beauregard, and the Confederate scrip
+is worthless, and the Federal generals are enforcing the payment of
+Northern claims. This fourfold loss will beggar every southern
+merchant subjected to it.</p>
+
+<p>At the commencement of the war, strong drink was abundant, and it was
+freely used by the soldiers. Drunkenness was fearfully prevalent. This
+vice increased to such a degree that the army was rapidly becoming
+demoralized. A large amount of grain was wasted in the manufacture of
+liquor. At this juncture the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> rebel government wisely prohibited the
+manufacture and sale of all that would intoxicate. Soon the wisdom of
+this measure was apparent. For a time this contraband article was
+smuggled in, yet it was only in limited quantities, and at the present
+time a drunken soldier is a <i>rara avis</i> in the army. At the first
+promulgation of the law, a cunning countryman perforated a large
+number of eggs, withdrew the contents, filled the shells with whiskey,
+closed them up, and carrying them to the camp at Rienzi, sold them at
+an exorbitant price. Others resorted to filling coffee-pots with
+whisky, stopping up the bottom of the spout, filling it with
+buttermilk, and if asked by the guards what they had for sale, would
+pour out some of the milk in the spout, and by this deception gain an
+entrance to the camp, and supply the soldiers with liquor. But all
+these tricks were discovered, and since the manufacture, as well as
+the sale, was prohibited, the supply on hand became exhausted, and
+drunkenness ceased.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+<p class="title">BATTLES OF LEESBURG, BELMONT, AND SHILOH.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Rebel Cruelty to Prisoners&mdash;The Fratricide&mdash;Grant Defeated&mdash;Saved by
+Gunboats&mdash;Buell&#8217;s Advance&mdash;Railroad Disaster&mdash;The South
+Despondent&mdash;General Rosecrans&mdash;Secession will become Odious even in
+the South&mdash;Poem.</p></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">BATTLE OF LEESBURG.</p>
+
+<p>The battle of Leesburg was fought on the 21st of October, 1861. The
+southern accounts of this battle were so contradictory, that I will not
+give the various versions. One statement, however, all concur in&mdash;that
+when the Federal troops retreated to the river, after being overpowered by
+superior numbers, and had thrown down their arms, calling for quarter, no
+mercy was shown them. Hundreds were bayoneted, or forced into the river
+and drowned. The rebels clubbed their guns, and dashed out the brains of
+many while kneeling at their feet and imploring mercy. I saw one ruffian
+who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> boasted that he had bayoneted seven Yankee prisoners captured on that
+occasion.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">BATTLE OF BELMONT.</p>
+
+<p>The battle of Belmont was fought on the 7th of November, 1861. I have
+heard repeatedly from southern officers their version of the events which
+occurred on that occasion. General McClernand, for the purpose of breaking
+up the rebel camp at Belmont, attacked it in force at an early hour, and
+completely routed the enemy, pursuing them to a considerable distance.
+Returning, he destroyed completely the camp, but delaying too long, large
+reinforcements were thrown over the river from Columbus, and the Federals
+were compelled to retreat precipitately to their boats, not, however, till
+they had fully accomplished the object of their mission. A scene occurred
+on this field which exhibits one of the saddest phases of this internecine
+strife. The incident was related to me by Mr. Tomlin, a lawyer of Jackson,
+Tennessee, not unknown even in the North, who was personally acquainted
+with the actors. Colonel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> Rogers, of an Illinois regiment, led his command
+into action early in the contest. A Tennessee regiment opposed him with
+fierceness for some time. At length they began to waver and exhibit
+symptoms of disorder. At this moment their colonel, who had been unhorsed,
+mounted a stump, and by an energetic and fervid address, rallied his men.
+Again they began to falter, and again his burning words restored order.
+Colonel Rogers believing that the safety of himself and regiment depended
+upon the death of the Tennessee colonel, drew a pistol from his holsters,
+rode up and deliberately shot him through the brain. The Tennesseeans
+seeing their colonel fall, fled precipitately. On the return of the
+Illinois troops, Colonel Rogers, impelled by curiosity, dismounted, and
+scanning the features of the colonel whom his own hand had slain,
+recognised his own brother. As the tide of battle had rolled past for the
+moment, he ordered the corpse to be conveyed to a transport, on which it
+was brought to Cairo, and thence borne to the stricken parents, who
+mourned over and buried the remains<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> of their brave but erring child, who
+had met his fate at his brother&#8217;s unconsciously fratricidal hand.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">BATTLE OF SHILOH.</p>
+
+<p>On April 6th, 1862, the sun rose clear; not a cloud was discernible in the
+sky; it was truly a lovely Sabbath, even for a southern clime. Early in
+the morning I took a walk with my little daughter, a child four years of
+age, in whose prattle I was taking great interest. We had gone about one
+hundred yards when my child exclaimed, &#8220;Pa, we must go back! it&#8217;s going to
+rain; don&#8217;t you hear the thunder?&#8221; The sharp and stunning reports I soon
+recognised to be the sound of cannon on the field of battle. The
+cannonading continued incessantly during the day. The whole country became
+intensely excited, and many citizens hastened to the battlefield, the
+majority bent upon plunder. On Monday the battle still raged with
+increasing fury. On Sabbath, General Grant had been completely surprised,
+and would have lost his whole army but for the gunboats in the river.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>
+These gunboats shelled the pursuing rebels, checking their advance, and
+saving the discomfitted Federals. Buell arrived with his division on
+Sabbath night, and on Monday the rebels were driven at every point during
+the whole day, with great loss. When I heard the rebel officers state that
+the gunboats lying in the Tennessee river had checked their pursuit, and
+had committed great havoc amongst their troops, at the distance of nearly
+three miles, I supposed that the rebel army had continued the pursuit till
+they came in sight of the gunners on the boats, who then threw their
+shells into their advancing columns, and my mistake was not corrected till
+I saw the scene of action. A plateau extended from the river, where the
+gunboats lay, to the hills, a distance of about one-quarter of a mile. The
+hills rose to a considerable height, and were covered with a large growth,
+and on their frowning summits the lofty trees seemed to intercept the
+passing clouds. Grant&#8217;s discomfitted and shattered army had taken refuge
+on the plateau. Some had even thrown themselves into the river, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> swam
+across. Such was the position of affairs when the gunners threw their
+shells over those lofty hills, and beyond them a distance of two miles,
+into the midst of the rebels, checking their advance, and destroying them
+by scores. Couriers constantly passed to and fro to give information of
+the position of the enemy. All night long their shelling continued,
+causing Beauregard to change his camp thrice. Thus,</p>
+
+<p class="poem"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8220;Bombs bursting in air,</span><br />
+Gave proof through the night<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That our flag was still there.&#8221;</span></p>
+
+<p>On Monday morning Buell&#8217;s division advanced, and the tide was turned. The
+rebels were driven from every position, and their loss was fearful; and
+had pursuit been continued to Corinth, their whole army must have been
+annihilated. General A. S. Johnson fell about three o&#8217;clock on the
+Sabbath. The tibial artery had been severed&mdash;a wound not necessarily
+fatal; but he remained in the saddle till he fainted from loss of blood,
+and when borne from his horse by Governor Harris and others, survived but
+twenty minutes. On Sabbath<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> night Beauregard occupied, for a time, an old
+Presbyterian church&mdash;a rude log edifice. The church was named Shiloh;
+hence both Beauregard and General Grant, in their dispatches, named the
+engagement the battle of Shiloh. I was in Rienzi as the wounded passed
+down on the cars to the various hospitals below. They passed continually
+for a month. On the 18th of April I went down to Macon, in Noxubee county.
+A large number of wounded were on the train. A lady from the Female
+Seminary in Aberdeen had been placed under my care. When we reached a
+point six miles from Crawfordsville, I noticed a young man looking out in
+an excited manner, and immediately after he jumped out and rolled down an
+embankment. I was much surprised at his conduct, but soon the crashing of
+the cars explained the cause. The train had been thrown from the track,
+and was rushing down an embankment. Jumping from the cars now became
+general. My lady friend arose, declaring that she also would leap from the
+car. I caught and held her till the danger was over, and thus <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>prevented
+perhaps serious injury to her person, as all who jumped from the train
+were more or less injured. On extricating ourselves from the debris of the
+cars, an appalling sight met our view. The sick, wounded, dying, and dead,
+were scattered promiscuously in every direction. Their groans and piercing
+shrieks were heart-rending. The heavy fragments of the broken cars were
+thrown upon their mangled limbs, and in many instances this disaster
+completed what Shiloh had commenced. As we came down, I passed through the
+train amongst the wounded. Some had lost an arm, several an upper lip, as
+many an under lip. Through the body of one six balls had passed. They were
+wounded in the feet, the hands, the head, and the body; and some who had
+not been touched by ball or bullet were paralyzed by their proximity to
+the exploding shells. Truly every battle is with confused noise and
+garments rolled in blood. I remained some time at the destroyed train,
+aiding in extricating those buried beneath the ruins. The extent of the
+damage and destruction of life, I never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> accurately learned. It must,
+however, have been great. The catastrophe was occasioned by a stick of
+wood falling from the tender before the wheels of the adjacent car, which,
+being thrown from the track, precipitated the whole train down the
+embankment.</p>
+
+<p>For weeks after the battle of Shiloh, little was done by Federals or
+Confederates. The rebels firmly believed that Corinth could not be taken.
+Its evacuation discouraged the people exceedingly. Nothing but disasters
+had befallen them since the year commenced. Zollikoffer had been slain,
+and Crittenden defeated, at Fishing Creek. Roanoke Island had been
+captured. Forts Henry, Donelson, Pulaski, St. Philip, and Jackson had been
+reduced. Island &#8220;No. 10&#8221; was taken, and New Orleans had fallen. The bloody
+field of Shiloh had proved disastrous; and now, even Corinth, the boasted
+Gibraltar of rebeldom, fortified by the &#8220;best engineer on the continent,&#8221;
+and defended by the whole army of the southwest, had been evacuated. What,
+under these circumstances, could resist the progress of Halleck to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>
+Gulf? Many saw the cause of these disasters in the fact that the rebel
+generals had made their attacks upon the Union troops upon the Sabbath;
+and all history confirms the truth that the army attacking on the Sabbath
+is almost invariably defeated. Universal gloom and an all-pervading spirit
+of despondency, brooded over the whole southern people. Had the rebel army
+been crushed at Corinth, or had Beauregard been vigorously pursued, and
+forced to fight or surrender, the war in the southwest would have been
+terminated. General Rosecrans informed me that they could have crushed the
+rebels at Corinth, and on my asking him why it was not done, he replied:
+&#8220;It would have been done at the cost of many lives on both sides, and it
+is not our desire to sacrifice life unnecessarily. Let Beauregard go down
+to the swamps of Mississippi; he can do us no injury. It is not probable
+that he will ever return to Corinth to attack us, and they must starve out
+in a section which never produced enough to sustain its own population.&#8221;
+But Beauregard did not remain long in the swamps<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> of Mississippi. He took
+the flower of his army and hastened on to Richmond, to reinforce General
+Lee, who immediately gave battle to McClellan, and drove him from the
+Peninsula. Halleck should never have suffered McClellan to be compelled to
+fight both Lee&#8217;s forces and Beauregard&#8217;s, whilst his own army was merely
+protecting rebel property and consuming rations. I think General
+Rosecrans, had he been in chief command, would not have thus acted; and
+his statement to me was a mere apology for the conduct of his superior,
+for his policy has ever been vigorous, and the rebels dread him more than
+any living man. The lamented Lyon also inspired a similar wholesome dread.
+I saw much of General Rosecrans. He is a genial, pleasant gentleman. He
+seems desirous of accomplishing his end by the use of mild means; but if
+these will not effect the object, the reverse policy is resorted to. The
+rebels dread, yet respect him. He will do much to oblige a friend. I
+desired at one time to go with my family beyond the Federal lines. General
+Rosecrans went in person to General<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> Pope to obtain a pass; but Pope&#8217;s
+orders were that no passes should be issued for a specified time. General
+Rosecrans then asked and obtained permission to send one of his aids with
+us, who conducted us beyond the pickets, a distance of five miles. This
+act, the General remarked, was in consideration of the kindness I had
+shown himself and staff while in Rienzi. The Federal generals committed a
+great mistake in desiring to overrun the country without destroying the
+rebel armies. A physician who drives a disease from one limb only to
+appear in a more aggravated form in another, accomplishes nothing. And
+when a general permits a hostile army to change its location as a
+strategic movement, he has accomplished nothing, except giving aid and
+comfort to the enemy. The rebels estimated their forces at the battle of
+Shiloh at eighty thousand. Though considerable accessions had been
+received, yet in consequence of sickness and desertion, their number was
+about the same at the evacuation of Corinth. They lost about eleven
+thousand, slain, wounded, and prisoners, in the battle.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>War has a tendency to engender great bitterness of feeling between the
+belligerents. The secessionists hate the northern people, but not with the
+intensity of hatred which they exercise toward the Union-loving citizens
+of the South. In South Carolina, in the days of nullification, the
+nullifiers and Union men were very bitter in their hostility against each
+other. After the suppression of nullification by General Jackson, the
+cause being removed, the enmity ceased, and in a short time, the odium
+attached to nullification became so great, that few would admit that they
+had been nullifiers. Let the supremacy of the law and the Constitution be
+enforced, and a few years hence, few, even in the South, will be found
+willing to admit that they were secessionists. The descendants of the
+Tories carefully conceal their genealogy; the descendants of the
+secessionists will do the same. Slavery and secession will perish
+together; and the classes of the South who have been fearfully injured by
+both these heresies, will be fully compensated for their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> present distress
+by the vast blessings which will accrue to themselves and posterity by the
+abolition of an institution which has degraded labour, oppressed the poor
+white man, opposed progress, retarded the development of the country&#8217;s
+resources, taken away the key of knowledge, caused every species of vice
+to flourish, impoverished the people, enriched a favoured class at the
+expense of the masses, caused woes unnumbered to a whole race&mdash;in short,
+has been the prolific parent of fraud, oppression, lust, tyranny, murder,
+and every other crime in the dark catalogue.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;We are living, we are dwelling<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In a grand and awful time;</span><br />
+In an age, on ages telling,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To be living is sublime!</span><br />
+<br />
+Hark! the waking up of nations,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gog and Magog to the fray;</span><br />
+Hark! what soundeth&mdash;is creation<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Groaning for its latter day?</span><br />
+<br />
+Will ye play, then? will ye dally<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With your music and your wine?</span><br />
+Up! it is Jehovah&#8217;s rally!<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">God&#8217;s own arm hath need of thine.</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span><br />
+Hark! the onset! will ye fold your<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Faith-clad arms in lazy lock;</span><br />
+Up! oh, up! thou drowsy soldier,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Worlds are charging to the shock!</span><br />
+<br />
+Worlds are charging; heaven beholding;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou hast but an hour to fight;</span><br />
+Now the blazoned cross unfolding,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>On!</i> right onward <i>for the right</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>On!</i> let all the soul within you,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For the truth&#8217;s sake go abroad;</span><br />
+Strike! let every nerve and sinew<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tell on ages,&mdash;tell for God!&#8221;</span></p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<div class="note">
+<p class="title">SEE TO YOUR INTEREST!!</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Amsterdam</span>, <i>Jefferson co.</i>, Ohio, <i>January 1, 1863</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The undersigned tenders his thanks to his customers for their liberal
+patronage in the past, and respectfully solicits its continuance.</p>
+
+<p>He has recently made considerable additions to his stock of</p>
+
+<p class="center">DRY GOODS AND GROCERIES,</p>
+
+<p>and he will endeavour to make it the interest of the citizens of Amsterdam
+and vicinity to deal with him; nor will he permit his competitors to
+surpass him in the cheapness and quality of his goods.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>highest price</i> will be paid for PRODUCE OF EVERY KIND, and <i>Cash</i>
+will not be refused in payment for goods.</p>
+
+<p>A word to the wise is sufficient.</p>
+
+<p class="right">DAVID AUGHEY.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Iron Furnace, by John H. Aughey
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Iron Furnace, by John H. Aughey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Iron Furnace
+       Slavery and Secession
+
+Author: John H. Aughey
+
+Release Date: February 13, 2012 [EBook #38855]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IRON FURNACE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: John H. Aughey. _Engraved by Samuel Sartain, Phila._]
+
+
+
+
+  THE IRON FURNACE:
+  OR,
+  SLAVERY AND SECESSION.
+
+
+  BY REV. JOHN H. AUGHEY,
+  A REFUGEE FROM MISSISSIPPI.
+
+
+  Cursed be the men that obeyeth not the words
+  of this covenant, which I commanded your
+  fathers in the day that I brought them forth
+  out of the land of Egypt, from the _Iron
+  Furnace_.--Jer. xi. 3, 4. See also, 1 Kings
+  viii. 51.
+
+
+  PHILADELPHIA:
+  WILLIAM S. & ALFRED MARTIEN.
+  606 CHESTNUT STREET.
+  1863.
+
+
+
+
+  Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1863,
+  BY WILLIAM S. & ALFRED MARTIEN,
+  In the office of the Clerk of the District Court for the
+  Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
+
+
+
+
+  TO MY PERSONAL FRIENDS
+
+  REV. CHARLES C. BEATTY, D.D., LL.D.,
+  OF STEUBENVILLE, OHIO,
+  Moderator of the General Assembly of the (O.S.) Presbyterian
+  Church in the United States of America,
+  and long Pastor of the Church in which
+  my parents were members, and
+  our family worshippers;
+
+  REV. WILLIAM PRATT BREED,
+  Pastor of the West Spruce Street Presbyterian Church, of
+  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;
+
+  GEORGE HAY STUART, ESQ.,
+  OF PHILADELPHIA, PA.,
+  The Philanthropist, whose virtues are known and
+  appreciated in both hemispheres,
+
+  THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+A celebrated author thus writes: "Posterity is under no obligations to a
+man who is not a parent, who has never planted a tree, built a house, nor
+written a book." Having fulfilled all these requisites to insure the
+remembrance of posterity, it remains to be seen whether the author's name
+shall escape oblivion.
+
+It may be that a few years will obliterate the name affixed to this
+Preface from the memory of man. This thought is the cause of no concern. I
+shall have accomplished my purpose if I can in some degree be humbly
+instrumental in serving my country and my generation, by promoting the
+well-being of my fellow-men, and advancing the declarative glory of
+Almighty God.
+
+This work was written while suffering intensely from maladies induced by
+the rigours of the Iron Furnace of Secession, whose sevenfold heat is
+reserved for the loyal citizens of the South. Let this fact be a
+palliation for whatever imperfections the reader may meet with in its
+perusal.
+
+There are many loyal men in the southern States, who to avoid martyrdom,
+conceal their opinions. They are to be pitied--not severely censured. All
+those southern ministers and professors of religion who were eminent for
+piety, opposed secession till the States passed the secession ordinance.
+They then advocated reconstruction as long as it comported with their
+safety. They then, in the face of danger and death, became quiescent--not
+acquiescent, by any means--and they now "bide their time," in prayerful
+trust that God will, in his own good time, subvert rebellion, and
+overthrow anarchy, by a restoration of the supremacy of constitutional
+law. By these, and their name is legion, my book will be warmly approved.
+My fellow-prisoners in the dungeon at Tupelo, who may have survived its
+horrors, and my fellow-sufferers in the Union cause throughout the South,
+will read in my narrative a transcript of their own sufferings. The loyal
+citizens of the whole country will be interested in learning the views of
+one who has been conversant with the rise and progress of secession, from
+its incipiency to its culmination in rebellion and treason. It will also
+doubtless be of general interest to learn something of the workings of the
+"peculiar institution," and the various phases which it assumes in
+different sections of the slave States.
+
+Compelled to leave Dixie in haste, I had no time to collect materials for
+my work. I was therefore under the necessity of writing without those aids
+which would have secured greater accuracy. I have done the best that I
+could under the circumstances; and any errors that may have crept into my
+statements of facts, or reports of addresses, will be cheerfully rectified
+as soon as ascertained.
+
+That I might not compromise the safety of my Union friends who rendered me
+assistance, and who are still within the rebel lines, I was compelled to
+omit their names, and for the same reason to describe rather indefinitely
+some localities, especially the portions of Ittawamba, Chickasaw,
+Pontotoc, Tippah, and Tishomingo counties, through which I travelled while
+escaping to the Federal lines. This I hope to be able to correct in future
+editions.
+
+Narratives require a liberal use of the first personal pronoun, which I
+would have gladly avoided, had it been possible without tedious
+circumlocution, as its frequent repetition has the appearance of egotism.
+
+I return sincere thanks to my fellow-prisoners who imperilled their own
+lives to save mine, and also to those Mississippi Unionists who so
+generously aided a panting fugitive on his way from chains and death to
+life and liberty. My thanks are also due to Rev. William P. Breed, for
+assistance in preparing my work for the press.
+
+I am also under obligations to Rev. Francis J. Collier, of Philadelphia;
+to Rev. A. D. Smith, D. D., and Rev. J. R. W. Sloane, of New York, and to
+Rev. F. B. Wheeler, of Poughkeepsie, New York.
+
+May the Triune God bless our country, and preserve its integrity!
+
+JOHN HILL AUGHEY.
+
+FEBRUARY 1, 1863.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  CHAPTER I.
+
+  SECESSION.
+
+  Speech of Colonel Drane--Submission Denounced--Northern
+  Aggression--No more Slave States--Northern _isms_--Yankees'
+  Servants--Yankee inferiority--Breckinridge, or immediate,
+  complete, and eternal Separation--A Day of Rejoicing--Abraham
+  Lincoln, President elect--A Union Speech--A Southerner's
+  Reasons for opposing Secession--Address by a Radical
+  Secessionist--Cursing and Bitterness--A Prayer--Sermon
+  against Secession--List of Grievances--Causes which led to
+  Secession                                                         13--49
+
+
+  CHAPTER II.
+
+  VIGILANCE COMMITTEE AND COURT-MARTIAL.
+
+  The election of Delegates to determine the status of
+  Mississippi--The Vigilance Committee--Description of its
+  members--Charges--Phonography--No formal verdict--Danger of
+  Assassination--Passports--Escape to Rienzi--Union sentiment--
+  The Conscript Law--Summons to attend Court-Martial--
+  Evacuation of Corinth--Destruction of Cotton--Suffering
+  poor--Relieved by General Halleck                                 50--69
+
+
+  CHAPTER III.
+
+  ARREST, ESCAPE, AND RECAPTURE.
+
+  High price of Provisions--Holland Lindsay's Family--The
+  arrest--Captain Hill--Appearance before Colonel Bradfute at
+  Fulton--Arrest of Benjamin Clarke--Bradfute's Insolence--
+  General Chalmers--The clerical Spy--General Pfeifer--Under
+  guard--Priceville--General Gordon--Bound for Tupelo--The
+  Prisoners entering the Dungeon--Captain Bruce--Lieutenant
+  Richard Malone--Prison Fare and Treatment--Menial Service--
+  Resolve to escape--Plan of escape--Federal Prisoners--
+  Co-operation of the Prisoners--Declaration of Independence--
+  The Escape--The Separation--Concealment--Travel on the
+  Underground Railroad--Pursuit by Cavalry and Bloodhounds--The
+  Arrest--Dan Barnes, the Mail-robber--Perfidy--Heavily
+  ironed--Return to Tupelo                                         70--112
+
+
+  CHAPTER IV.
+
+  LIFE IN A DUNGEON.
+
+  Parson Aughey as Chaplain--Description of the Prisoners--
+  Colonel Walter, the Judge Advocate--Charges and
+  Specifications against Parson Aughey, a Citizen of the
+  Confederate States--Execution of two Tennesseeans--Enlistment
+  of Union Prisoners--Colonel Walter's second visit--Day of
+  Execution specified--Farewell Letter to my Wife--Parson
+  Aughey's Obituary penned by himself--Address to his Soul--The
+  Soul's Reply--Farewell Letter to his Parents--The Union
+  Prisoners' Petition to Hon. W. H. Seward--The two Prisoners
+  and the Oath of Allegiance--Irish Stories                       113--142
+
+
+  CHAPTER V.
+
+  EXECUTION OF UNION PRISONERS.
+
+  Resolved to Escape--Mode of Executing Prisoners--Removal of
+  Chain--Addition to our Numbers--Two Prisoners become Insane--
+  Plan of Escape--Proves a Failure--Fetters Inspected--
+  Additional Fetters--Handcuffs--A Spy in the Disguise of a
+  Prisoner--Special Police Guard on Duty--A Prisoner's
+  Discovery--Divine Services--The General Judgment--The Judge--
+  The Laws--The Witnesses--The Concourse--The Sentence            143--167
+
+
+  CHAPTER VI.
+
+  SUCCESSFUL ESCAPE.
+
+  The Second Plan of Escape--Under the Jail--Egress--Among the
+  Guards--In the Swamp--Travelling on the Underground
+  Railroad--The Fare--Green Corn eaten Raw--Blackberries and
+  Stagnant Water--The Bloodhounds--Tantalizing Dreams--The
+  Pickets--The Cows--Become Sick--Fons Beatus--Find Friends--
+  Union Friend No. Two--The night in the Barn--Death of Newman
+  by Scalding--Union Friend No. Three--Bound for the Union
+  Lines--Rebel Soldiers--Black Ox--Pied Ox--Reach Headquarters
+  in Safety--Emotions on again beholding the Old Flag--Kindness
+  while Sick--Meeting with his Family--Richard Malone again--
+  The Serenade--Leave Dixie--Northward bound                      168--211
+
+
+  CHAPTER VII.
+
+  SOUTHERN CLASSES--CRUELTY TO SLAVES.
+
+  Sandhillers--Dirt-eating--Dipping--Their Mode of Living--
+  Patois--Rain-book--Wife-trade--Coming in to see the Cars--
+  Superstition--Marriage of Kinsfolks--Hardshell Sermon--Causes
+  which lead to the Degradation of this Class--Efforts to
+  Reconcile the Poor Whites to the Peculiar Institution--The
+  Slaveholding Class--The Middle Class--Northern _isms_--
+  Incident at a Methodist Minister's House--Question asked a
+  Candidate for Licensure--Reason of Southern Hatred toward the
+  North--Letter to Mr. Jackman--Barbarities and Cruelties of
+  Slavery--Mulattoes--Old Cole--Child Born at Whipping-post--
+  Advertisement of a Keeper of Bloodhounds--Getting Rid of Free
+  Blacks--The Doom of Slavery--Methodist Church South             212--248
+
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.
+
+  NOTORIOUS REBELS.--UNION OFFICERS.
+
+  Colonel Jefferson Davis--His Speech at Holly Springs,
+  Mississippi--His Opposition to Yankee Teachers and
+  Ministers--A bid for the Presidency--His Ambition--Burr,
+  Arnold, Davis--General Beauregard--Headquarters at Rienzi--
+  Colonel Elliott's Raid--Beauregard's Consternation--Personal
+  description--His illness--Popularity waning.--Rev. Dr. Palmer
+  of New Orleans--His influence--The Cincinnati Letter--His
+  Personal Appearance--His Denunciations of General Butler--His
+  Radicalism.--Rev. Dr. Waddell of La Grange, Tennessee--His
+  Prejudices against the North--President of Memphis Synodical
+  College--His Talents prostituted.--Union Officers--General
+  Nelson--General Sherman                                         249--263
+
+
+  CHAPTER IX.
+
+  CONDITION OF THE SOUTH.
+
+  Cause of the Rebellion--Prevalence of Union Sentiment in the
+  South--Why not Developed--Stevenson's Views--Why Incorrect--
+  Cavalry Raids upon Union Citizens--How the Rebels employ
+  Slaves--Slaves Whipped and sent out of the Federal Lines--
+  Resisting the Conscript Law--Kansas Jayhawkers--Guarding
+  Rebel Property--Perfidy of Secessionists--Plea for
+  Emancipation--The South Exhausted--Failure of Crops--Southern
+  Merchants Ruined--Bragg Prohibits the Manufacture and Vending
+  of Intoxicating Liquors--Its Salutary Effect                    264--281
+
+
+  CHAPTER X.
+
+  BATTLES OF LEESBURG, BELMONT, AND SHILOH.
+
+  Rebel Cruelty to Prisoners--The Fratricide--Grant Defeated--
+  Saved by Gunboats--Buell's Advance--Railroad Disaster--The
+  South Despondent--General Rosecrans--Secession will become
+  Odious even in the South--Poem                                  282--296
+
+
+
+
+THE IRON FURNACE; OR SLAVERY AND SECESSION.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+SECESSION.
+
+    Speech of Colonel Drane.--Submission Denounced.--Northern
+    Aggression.--No more Slave States.--Northern _isms_.--Yankees'
+    Servants.--Yankee inferiority.--Breckinridge, or immediate, complete,
+    and eternal Separation.--A Day of Rejoicing.--Abraham Lincoln
+    President elect.--A Union Speech.--A Southerner's Reasons for opposing
+    Secession.--Address by a Radical Secessionist.--Cursing and
+    Bitterness.--A Prayer.--Sermon against Secession.--List of
+    Grievances.--Causes which led to Secession.
+
+
+At the breaking out of the present rebellion, I was engaged in the work of
+an Evangelist in the counties of Choctaw and Attala in Central
+Mississippi. My congregations were large, and my duties onerous. Being
+constantly employed in ministerial labours, I had no time to intermeddle
+with politics, leaving all such questions to statesmen, giving the
+complex issues of the day only sufficient attention to enable me to vote
+intelligently. Thus was I engaged when the great political campaign of
+1860 commenced--a campaign conducted with greater virulence and asperity
+than any I have ever witnessed. During my casual detention at a store,
+Colonel Drane arrived, according to appointment, to address the people of
+Choctaw. He was a member of one of my congregations, and as he had been
+long a leading statesman in Mississippi, having for many years presided
+over the State Senate, I expected to hear a speech of marked ability,
+unfolding the true issues before the people, with all the dignity,
+suavity, and earnestness of a gentleman and patriot; but I found his whole
+speech to be a tirade of abuse against the North, commingled with the bold
+avowal of treasonable sentiments. The Colonel thus addressed the people:
+
+    MY FELLOW-CITIZENS--I appear before you to urge anew resistance
+    against the encroachments and aggressions of the Yankees. If the
+    Black Republicans carry their ticket, and Old Abe is elected, our
+    right to carry our slaves into the territories will be denied us; and
+    who dare say that he would be a base, craven submissionist, when our
+    God-given and constitutional right to carry slavery into the common
+    domain is wickedly taken from the South. The Yankees cheated us out of
+    Kansas by their infernal Emigrant Aid Societies. They cheated us out
+    of California, which our blood-treasure purchased, for the South sent
+    ten men to one that was sent by the North to the Mexican war, and thus
+    we have no foothold on the Pacific coast; and even now we pay five
+    dollars for the support of the general Government where the North pays
+    one. We help to pay bounties to the Yankee fishermen in New England;
+    indeed _we_ are always paying, paying, paying, and yet the North is
+    always crying, Give, give, give. The South has made the North rich,
+    and what thanks do we receive? Our rights are trampled on, our slaves
+    are spirited by thousands over their underground railroad to Canada,
+    our citizens are insulted while travelling in the North, and their
+    servants are tampered with, and by false representations, and often by
+    mob violence, forced from them. Douglas, knowing the power of the
+    Emigrant Aid Societies, proposes squatter sovereignty, with the
+    positive certainty that the scum of Europe and the mudsills of
+    Yankeedom can be shipped in in numbers sufficient to control the
+    destiny of the embryo State. Since the admission of Texas in 1845,
+    there has not been a single foot of slave territory secured to the
+    South, while the North has added to their list the extensive States of
+    California, Minnesota, and Oregon, and Kansas is as good as theirs;
+    while, if Lincoln is elected, the Wilmot proviso will be extended over
+    all the common territories, debarring the South for ever from her
+    right to share the public domain.
+
+    The hypocrites of the North tell us that slaveholding is sinful. Well,
+    suppose it is. Upon us and our children let the guilt of this sin
+    rest; we are willing to bear it, and it is none of their business. We
+    are a more moral people than they are. Who originated Mormonism,
+    Millerism, Spirit-rappings, Abolitionism, Free-loveism, and all the
+    other abominable _isms_ which curse the world? The reply is, the
+    North. Their puritanical fanaticism and hypocrisy is patent to all.
+    Talk to us of the sin of slavery, when the only difference between us
+    is that our slaves are black and theirs white. They treat their white
+    slaves, the Irish and Dutch, in a cruel manner, giving them during
+    health just enough to purchase coarse clothing, and when they become
+    sick, they are turned off to starve, as they do by hundreds every
+    year. A female servant in the North must have a testimonial of good
+    character before she will be employed; those with whom she is
+    labouring will not give her this so long as they desire her services;
+    she therefore cannot leave them, whatever may be her treatment, so
+    that she is as much compelled to remain with her employer as the slave
+    with his master.
+
+    Their servants hate them; our's love us. My niggers would fight for me
+    and my family. They have been treated well, and they know it. And I
+    don't treat my slaves any better than my neighbours. If ever there
+    comes a war between the North and the South, let us do as Abraham
+    did--arm our trained servants, and go forth with them to the battle.
+    They hate the Yankees as intensely as we do, and nothing could please
+    our slaves better than to fight them. Ah, the perfidious Yankees! I
+    cordially hate a Yankee. We have all suffered much at their hands;
+    they will not keep faith with us. Have they complied with the
+    provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law? The thousands and tens of
+    thousands of slaves aided in their escape to Canada, is a sufficient
+    answer. We _have_ lost millions, and _are_ losing millions every year,
+    by the operations of the underground railroad. How deep the perfidy of
+    a people, thus to violate every article of compromise we have made
+    with them! The Yankees are an inferior race, descended from the old
+    Puritan stock, who enacted the Blue Laws. They are desirous of
+    compelling us to submit to laws more iniquitous than ever were the
+    Blue Laws. I have travelled in the North, and have seen the depth of
+    their depravity. Now, my fellow-citizens, what shall we do to resist
+    Northern aggression? Why simply this: if Lincoln or Douglas are
+    elected, (as to the Bell-Everett ticket, it stands no sort of chance,)
+    let us secede. This remedy will be effectual. I am in favour of no
+    more compromises. Let us have Breckinridge, or immediate, complete,
+    and eternal separation.
+
+The speaker then retired amid the cheers of his audience.
+
+Soon after this there came a day of rejoicing to many in Mississippi. The
+booming of cannon, the joyous greeting, the soul-stirring music, indicated
+that no ordinary intelligence had been received. The lightnings had
+brought the tidings that Abraham Lincoln was President elect of the United
+States, and the South was wild with excitement. Those who had been long
+desirous of a pretext for secession, now boldly advocated their
+sentiments, and joyfully hailed the election of Mr. Lincoln as affording
+that pretext. The conservative men were filled with gloom. They regarded
+the election of Mr. Lincoln, by the majority of the people of the United
+States, in a constitutional way, as affording no cause for secession.
+Secession they regarded as fraught with all the evils of Pandora's box,
+and that war, famine, pestilence, and moral and physical desolation would
+follow in its train. A call was made by Governor Pettus for a convention
+to assemble early in January, at Jackson, to determine what course
+Mississippi should pursue, whether her policy should be submission or
+secession.
+
+Candidates, Union and Secession, were nominated for the convention in
+every county. The speeches of two, whom I heard, will serve as a specimen
+of the arguments used _pro_ and _con_. Captain Love, of Choctaw, thus
+addressed the people.
+
+    MY FELLOW-CITIZENS--I appear before you to advocate the Union--the
+    Union of the States under whose favoring auspices we have long
+    prospered. No nation so great, so prosperous, so happy, or so much
+    respected by earth's thousand kingdoms, as the Great Republic, by
+    which name the United States is known from the rivers to the ends of
+    the earth. Our flag, the star-spangled banner, is respected on every
+    sea, and affords protection to the citizens of every State, whether
+    amid the pyramids of Egypt, the jungles of Asia, or the mighty cities
+    of Europe. Our Republican Constitution, framed by the wisdom of our
+    Revolutionary fathers, is as free from imperfection as any document
+    drawn up by uninspired men. God presided over the councils of that
+    convention which framed our glorious Constitution. They asked wisdom
+    from on high, and their prayers were answered. Free speech, a free
+    press, and freedom to worship God as our conscience dictates, under
+    our own vine and fig-tree, none daring to molest or make us afraid,
+    are some of the blessings which our Constitution guarantees; and these
+    prerogatives, which we enjoy, are features which bless and distinguish
+    us from the other nations of the earth. Freedom of speech is unknown
+    amongst them; among them a censorship of the press and a national
+    church are established.
+
+    Our country, by its physical features, seems fitted for but one
+    nation. What ceaseless trouble would be caused by having the source of
+    our rivers in one country and the mouth in another. There are no
+    natural boundaries to divide us into separate nations. We are all
+    descended from the same common parentage, we all speak the same
+    language, and we have really no conflicting interests, the statements
+    of our opponents to the contrary notwithstanding. Our opponents
+    advocate separate State secession. Would not Mississippi cut a sorry
+    figure among the nations of the earth? With no harbour, she would be
+    dependent on a foreign nation for an outlet. Custom-house duties would
+    be ruinous, and the republic of Mississippi would find herself
+    compelled to return to the Union. Mississippi, you remember,
+    repudiated a large foreign debt some years ago; if she became an
+    independent nation, her creditors would influence their government to
+    demand payment, which could not be refused by the weak, defenceless,
+    navyless, armyless, moneyless, repudiating republic of Mississippi.
+    To pay this debt, with the accumulated interest, would ruin the new
+    republic, and bankruptcy would stare us in the face.
+
+    It is true, Abraham Lincoln is elected President of the United States.
+    My plan is to wait till Mr. Lincoln does something unconstitutional.
+    Then let the South unanimously seek redress in a constitutional
+    manner. The conservatives of the North will join us. If no redress is
+    made, let us present our ultimatum. If this, too, is rejected, I for
+    one will not advocate submission; and by the cooperation of all the
+    slave States, we will, in the event of the perpetration of wrong, and
+    a refusal to redress our grievances, be much abler to secure our
+    rights, or to defend them at the cannon's mouth and the point of the
+    bayonet. The Supreme Court favours the South. In the Dred Scott case,
+    the Supreme Court decided that the negro was not a citizen, and that
+    the slave was a chattel, as we regard him. The majority of Congress on
+    joint ballot is still with the South. Although we have something to
+    fear from the views of the President elect and the Chicago platform,
+    let us wait till some overt act, trespassing upon our rights, is
+    committed, and all redress denied; then, and not till then, will I
+    advocate extreme measures.
+
+    Let our opponents remember that secession and civil war are
+    synonymous. Who ever heard of a government breaking to pieces without
+    an arduous struggle for its preservation? I admit the right of
+    revolution, when a people's rights cannot otherwise be maintained, but
+    deny the right of secession. We are told that it is a reserved right.
+    The constitution declares that all rights not specified in it are
+    reserved to the people of the respective States; but who ever heard of
+    the right of total destruction of the government being a reserved
+    right in any constitution? The fallacy is evident at a glance. Nine
+    millions of people can afford to wait for some overt act. Let us not
+    follow the precipitate course which the ultra politicians indicate.
+    Let W. L. Yancey urge his treasonable policy of firing the Southern
+    heart and precipitating a revolution; but let us follow no such
+    wicked advice. Let us follow the things which make for peace.
+
+    We are often told that the North will not return fugitive slaves. Will
+    secession remedy this grievance? Will secession give us any more slave
+    territory? No free government ever makes a treaty for the rendition of
+    fugitive slaves--thus recognising the rights of the citizens of a
+    foreign nation to a species of property which it denies to its own
+    citizens. Even little Mexico will not do it. Mexico and Canada return
+    no fugitives. In the event of secession, the United States would
+    return no fugitives, and our peculiar institution would, along our
+    vast border, become very insecure; we would hold our slaves by a very
+    slight tenure. Instead of extending the great Southern institution, it
+    would be contracting daily. Our slaves would be held to service at
+    their own option, throughout the whole border, and our gulf States
+    would soon become border States; and the great insecurity of this
+    species of property would work, before twenty years, the extinction
+    of slavery, and, in consequence, the ruin of the South. Are we
+    prepared for such a result? Are we prepared for civil war? Are we
+    prepared for all the evils attendant upon a fratricidal contest--for
+    bloodshed, famine, and political and moral desolation? I reply, we are
+    not; therefore let us look before we leap, and avoiding the heresy of
+    secession--
+
+        "Rather bear the ills we have,
+        Than fly to others that we know not of."
+
+A secession speaker was introduced, and thus addressed the people:
+
+    LADIES AND GENTLEMEN--FELLOW-CITIZENS--I am a secessionist out and
+    out; voted for Jeff Davis for Governor in 1850, when the same issue
+    was before the people; and I have always felt a grudge against the
+    _free state_ of Tishomingo for giving H. S. Foote, the Union
+    candidate, a majority so great as to elect him, and thus retain the
+    State in this accursed Union ten years longer. Who would be a
+    craven-hearted, cowardly, villanous submissionist? Lincoln, the
+    abominable, white-livered abolitionist, is President elect of the
+    United States; shall he be permitted to take his seat on Southern
+    soil? No, never! I will volunteer as one of thirty thousand, to
+    butcher the villain if ever he sets foot on slave territory. Secession
+    or submission! What patriot would hesitate for a moment which to
+    choose? No true son of Mississippi would brook the idea of submission
+    to the rule of the baboon Abe Lincoln--a fifth-rate lawyer, a
+    broken-down hack of a politician, a fanatic, an abolitionist. I, for
+    one, would prefer an hour of virtuous liberty to a whole eternity of
+    bondage under northern, Yankee, wooden-nutmeg rule. The halter is the
+    only argument that should be used against the submissionists, and I
+    predict that it will soon, very soon, be in force.
+
+    We have glorious news from Tallahatchie. Seven tory-submissionists
+    were hanged there in one day, and the so-called Union candidates,
+    having the wholesome dread of hemp before their eyes, are not
+    canvassing the county; therefore the heretical dogma of submission,
+    under any circumstances, disgraces not their county. Compromise! let
+    us have no such word in our vocabulary. Compromise with the Yankees,
+    after the election of Lincoln, is treason against the South; and still
+    its syren voice is listened to by the demagogue submissionists. We
+    should never have made any compromise, for in every case we
+    surrendered rights for the sake of peace. No concession of the scared
+    Yankees will now prevent secession. They now understand that the South
+    is in earnest, and in their alarm they are proposing to yield us much;
+    but the die is cast, the Rubicon is crossed, and our determination
+    shall ever be, No union with the flat-headed, nigger-stealing,
+    fanatical Yankees.
+
+    We are now threatened with internecine war. The Yankees are an
+    inferior race; they are cowardly in the extreme. They are descended
+    from the Puritan stock, who never bore rule in any nation. We, the
+    descendants of the Cavaliers, are the Patricians, they the Plebeians.
+    The Cavaliers have always been the rulers, the Puritans the ruled. The
+    dastardly Yankees will never fight us; but if they, in their
+    presumption and audacity, venture to attack us, let the war come--I
+    repeat it--let it come! The conflagration of their burning cities, the
+    desolation of their country, and the slaughter of their inhabitants,
+    will strike the nations of the earth dumb with astonishment, and serve
+    as a warning to future ages, that the slaveholding Cavaliers of the
+    sunny South are terrible in their vengeance. I am in favour of
+    immediate, independent, and eternal separation from the vile Union
+    which has so long oppressed us. After separation, I am in favour of
+    non-intercourse with the United States so long as time endures. We
+    will raise the tariff, to the point of prohibition, on all Yankee
+    manufactures, including wooden-nutmegs, wooden clocks, quack nostrums,
+    &c. We will drive back to their own inhospitable clime every Yankee
+    who dares to pollute our shores with his cloven feet. Go he must, and
+    if necessary, with the bloodhounds on his track. The scum of Europe
+    and the mudsills of Yankeedom shall never be permitted to advance a
+    step south of 36 deg. 30'. South of that latitude is ours--westward to
+    the Pacific. With my heart of hearts I hate a Yankee, and I will make
+    my children swear eternal hatred to the whole Yankee race. A mongrel
+    breed--Irish, Dutch, Puritans, Jews, free niggers, &c.--they scarce
+    deserve the notice of the descendants of the Huguenots, the old
+    Castilians, and the Cavaliers. Cursed be the day when the South
+    consented to this iniquitous league--the Federal Union--which has long
+    dimmed her nascent glory.
+
+    In battle, one southron is equivalent to ten northern hirelings; but I
+    regard it a waste of time to speak of Yankees--they deserve not our
+    attention. It matters not to us what they think of secession, and we
+    would not trespass upon your time and patience, were it not for the
+    tame, tory submissionists with which our country is cursed. A fearful
+    retribution is in waiting for the whole crew, if the war which they
+    predict, should come. Were they then to advocate the same views, I
+    would not give a fourpence for their lives. We would hang them
+    quicker than old Heath would hang a tory. Our Revolutionary fathers
+    set us a good example in their dealings with the tories. They sent
+    them to the shades infernal from the branches of the nearest tree. The
+    North has sent teachers and preachers amongst us, who have insidiously
+    infused the leaven of Abolitionism into the minds of their students
+    and parishioners; and this submissionist policy is a lower development
+    of the doctrine of Wendell Philips, Gerritt Smith, Horace Greely, and
+    others of that ilk. We have a genial clime, a soil of uncommon
+    fertility. We have free institutions, freedom for the white man,
+    bondage for the black man, as nature and nature's God designed. We
+    have fair women and brave men. The lines have truly fallen to us in
+    pleasant places. We have indeed a goodly heritage. The only evil we
+    can complain of is our bondage to the Yankees through the Federal
+    Union. Let us burst these shackles from our limbs, and we will be free
+    indeed.
+
+    Let all who desire complete and eternal emancipation from Yankee
+    thraldom, come to the polls on the ---- day of December, prepared not
+    to vote the cowardly submissionist ticket, but to vote the secession
+    ticket; and their children, and their children's children, will owe
+    them a debt of gratitude which they can never repay. The day of our
+    separation and vindication of States' rights, will be the happiest day
+    of our lives. Yankee domination will have ceased for ever, and the
+    haughty southron will spurn them from all association, both
+    governmental and social. So mote it be!
+
+This address was received with great eclat.
+
+On the next Sabbath after this meeting, I preached in the Poplar Creek
+Presbyterian church, in Choctaw county, from Romans xiii. 1: "Let every
+soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God:
+the powers that be, are ordained of God."
+
+Previous to the sermon a prayer was offered, of which the following is the
+conclusion:
+
+    ALMIGHTY GOD--We would present our country, the United States of
+    America, before thee. When our political horizon is overcast with
+    clouds and darkness, when the strong-hearted are becoming fearful for
+    the permanence of our free institutions, and the prosperity, yea, the
+    very existence of our great Republic, we pray thee, O God, when flesh
+    and heart fail, when no human arm is able to save us from the fearful
+    vortex of disunion and revolution, that thou wouldst interpose and
+    save us. We confess our national sins, for we have, as a nation,
+    sinned grievously. We have been highly favoured, we have been greatly
+    prospered, and have taken our place amongst the leading powers of the
+    earth. A gospel-enlightened nation, our sins are therefore more
+    heinous in thy sight. They are sins of deep ingratitude and
+    presumption. We confess that drunkenness has abounded amongst all
+    classes of our citizens. Rulers and ruled have been alike guilty; and
+    because of its wide-spreading prevalence, and because our legislators
+    have enacted no sufficient laws for its suppression, it is a national
+    sin. Profanity abounds amongst us; Sabbath-breaking is rife; and we
+    have elevated unworthy men to high positions of honour and trust. We
+    are not, as a people, free from the crime of tyranny and oppression.
+    For these great and aggravated offences, we pray thee to give us
+    repentance and godly sorrow, and then, O God, avert the threatened and
+    imminent judgments which impend over our beloved country. Teach our
+    Senators wisdom. Grant them that wisdom which is able to make them
+    wise unto salvation; and grant also that wisdom which is profitable to
+    direct, so that they may steer the ship of State safely through the
+    troubled waters which seem ready to engulf it on every side. Lord,
+    hear us, and answer in mercy, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.
+    Amen and Amen!
+
+The following is a synopsis of my sermon:
+
+    Israel had been greatly favoured as a nation. No weapon formed against
+    them prospered, so long as they loved and served the Lord their God.
+    They were blessed in their basket and their store. They were set on
+    high above all the nations of the earth. * * * * When all Israel
+    assembled, ostensibly to make Rehoboam king, they were ripe for
+    rebellion. Jeroboam and other wicked men had fomented and cherished
+    the sparks of treason, till, on this occasion, it broke out into the
+    flame of open rebellion. The severity of Solomon's rule was the
+    pretext, but it was only a pretext, for during his reign the nation
+    prospered, grew rich and powerful. Jeroboam wished a disruption of the
+    kingdom, that he might bear rule; and although God permitted it as a
+    punishment for Israel's idolatry, yet he frowned upon the wicked men
+    who were instrumental in bringing this great evil upon his chosen
+    people.
+
+    The loyal division took the name of Judah, though composed of the two
+    tribes, Judah and Benjamin. The revolted ten tribes took the name of
+    their leading tribe, Ephraim. Ephraim continued to wax weaker and
+    weaker. Filled with envy against Judah, they often warred against that
+    loyal kingdom, until they themselves were greatly reduced. At last,
+    after various vicissitudes, the ten tribes were carried away, and
+    scattered and lost. We often hear of the lost ten tribes. What became
+    of them is a mystery. Their secession ended in their being blotted out
+    of existence, or lost amidst the heathen. God alone knows what did
+    become of them. They resisted the powers that be--the ordinance of
+    God--and received to themselves damnation and annihilation.
+
+    As God dealt with Israel, so will he deal with us. If we are exalted
+    by righteousness, we will prosper; if we, as the ten tribes, resist
+    the ordinance of God, we will perish. At this time, many are
+    advocating the course of the ten tribes. Secession is a word of
+    frequent occurrence. It is openly advocated by many. Nullification and
+    rebellion, secession and treason, are convertible terms, and no good
+    citizen will mention them with approval. Secession is resisting the
+    powers that be, and therefore it is a violation of God's command.
+    Where do we obtain the right of secession? Clearly not from the word
+    of God, which enjoins obedience to all that are in authority, to whom
+    we must be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake.
+    The following scriptural argument for secession is often used, 1 Tim.
+    vi. 1--5. In these verses Paul was addressing believing servants, and
+    commanding them to absent themselves from the teaching of those who
+    taught not the doctrine which is according to godliness. In a former
+    epistle he had commanded Christians not to keep company with the
+    incestuous person who had his father's wife. He directed that they
+    should not keep company with any man who was called a brother, if he
+    were a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a
+    drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one no not to eat; but he
+    expressly declares that he does not allude to those who belong to the
+    above classes that have made no profession of religion. He does not
+    judge them that are without, for them that are without, God judgeth.
+    He afterwards exhorts that the church confirm their love toward the
+    incestuous person as he had repented of his wickedness. This direction
+    of the Apostle to believers to withdraw from a brother who walked
+    disorderly, till he had manifested proper repentance; and his
+    exhortation to believing servants to absent themselves from the
+    teachings of errorists, cannot logically be construed as a scriptural
+    argument in favour of secession. Were the President of the United
+    States an unbeliever, a profane swearer, a Sabbath-breaker, or a
+    drunkard, this fact would not, _per se_, give us the right to secede
+    or rebel against the government.
+
+    There is no provision made in the Constitution of the United States
+    for secession. The wisest statesmen, who made politics their study,
+    regarded secession as a political heresy, dangerous in its tendencies,
+    and destructive of all government in its practical application.
+    Mississippi, purchased from France with United States gold, fostered
+    by the nurturing care, and made prosperous by the wise administration
+    of the general government, proposes to secede. Her political status
+    would then be anomalous. Would her territory revert to France? Does
+    she propose to refund the purchase-money? Would she become a territory
+    under the jurisdiction of the United States Congress?
+
+    Henry Clay, the great statesman, Daniel Webster, the expounder of the
+    Constitution, General Jackson, George Washington, and a mighty host,
+    whose names would fill a volume, regarded secession as treason. One of
+    our smallest States, which swarmed with tories in the Revolution,
+    whose descendants still live, invented the doctrine of nullification,
+    the first treasonable step, which soon culminated in the advocacy of
+    secession. Why should we secede, and thus destroy the best, the
+    freest, and most prosperous government on the face of the earth? the
+    government which our patriot fathers fought and bled to secure. What
+    has Mississippi lost by the Union? I have resided seven years in this
+    State, and have an extensive personal acquaintance, and yet I know not
+    a single individual who has lost a slave through northern influence. I
+    have, it is true, known of some ten slaves who have run away, and have
+    not been found. They may have been aided in their escape to Canada by
+    northern and southern citizens, for there are many in the South who
+    have given aid and comfort to the fugitive; but the probability is
+    that they perished in the swamps, or were destroyed by the
+    bloodhounds.
+
+    The complaint is made that the North regards slavery as a moral,
+    social, and political evil, and that many of them denounce, in no
+    measured terms, both slavery and slaveholders. To be thus denounced is
+    regarded as a great grievance. Secession would not remedy this evil.
+    In order to cure it effectually, we must seize and gag all who thus
+    denounce our peculiar institution. We must also muzzle their press. As
+    this is impracticable, it would be well to come to this
+    conclusion:--If we are verily guilty of the evils charged upon us, let
+    us set about rectifying those evils; if not, the denunciations of
+    slanderers should not affect us so deeply. If our northern brethren
+    are honest in their convictions of the sin of slavery, as no doubt
+    many of them are, let us listen to their arguments without the dire
+    hostility so frequently manifested. They take the position that
+    slavery is opposed to the inalienable rights of the human race; that
+    it originated in piracy and robbery; that manifold cruelties and
+    barbarities are inflicted upon the defenceless slaves; that they are
+    debarred from intellectual culture by State laws, which send to the
+    penitentiary those who are guilty of instructing them; that they are
+    put upon the block and sold; parent and child, husband and wife being
+    separated, so that they never again see each other's face in the
+    flesh; that the law of chastity cannot be observed, as there are no
+    laws punishing rape on the person of a female slave; that when they
+    escape from the threatened cat-o'-nine-tails, or overseer's whip, they
+    are hunted down by bloodhounds, and bloodier men; that often they are
+    half-starved and half-clad, and are furnished with mere hovels to live
+    in; that they are often murdered by cruel overseers, who whip them to
+    death, or overtask them, until disease is induced, which results in
+    death; that masters practically ignore the marriage relation among
+    slaves, inasmuch as they frequently separate husband and wife, by sale
+    or removal; that they discourage the formation of that relation,
+    preferring that the offspring of their female slaves should be
+    illegitimate, from the mistaken notion that it would be more numerous.
+    They charge, also, that slavery induces in the masters, pride,
+    arrogance, tyranny, laziness, profligacy, and every form of vice.
+
+    The South takes the position, that if slavery is sinful, the North is
+    not responsible for that sin; that it is a State institution, and that
+    to interfere with slavery in the States in any way, even by censure,
+    is a violation of the rights of the States. The language of our
+    politicians is, Upon us and our children rest the evil! We are willing
+    to take the responsibility, and to risk the penalty! You will find
+    evil and misery enough in the North to excite your philanthropy, and
+    employ your beneficence. You have purchased our cotton; you have used
+    our sugar; you have eaten our rice; you have smoked and chewed our
+    tobacco--all of which are the products of slave-labour. You have grown
+    rich by traffic in these articles; you have monopolized the carrying
+    trade, and borne our slave-produced products to your shores. Your
+    northern ships, manned by northern men, brought from Africa the
+    greater part of the slaves which came to our continent, and they are
+    still smuggling them in. When, finding slavery unprofitable, the
+    northern States passed laws for gradual emancipation, but few obtained
+    their freedom, the majority of them being shipped South and sold, so
+    that but few, comparatively, were manumitted. If the slave trade and
+    slavery are great sins, the North is _particeps criminis_, and has
+    been from the beginning.
+
+    These bitter accusations are hurled back and forth through the
+    newspapers; and in Congress, crimination and recrimination occur every
+    day of the session. Instead of endeavouring to calm the troubled
+    waters, politicians are striving to render them turbid and boisterous.
+    Sectional bitterness and animosity prevail to a fearful extent; but
+    secession is not the proper remedy. To cure one evil by perpetrating a
+    greater, renders a double cure necessary. In order to cure a disease,
+    the cause should be known, that we may treat it intelligently, and
+    apply a proper remedy. Having observed, during the last eleven years,
+    that sectional strife and bitterness were increasing with fearful
+    rapidity, I have endeavoured to stem the torrent, so far as it was
+    possible for individual effort to do so. I deem it the imperative duty
+    of all patriots, of all Christians, to throw oil upon the troubled
+    waters, and thus save the ship of State from wreck among the
+    vertiginous billows.
+
+    Most of our politicians are demagogues. They care not for the people,
+    so that they accomplish their own selfish and ambitious schemes. Give
+    them power, give them money, and they are satisfied. Deprive them of
+    these, and they are ready to sacrifice the best interests of the
+    nation to secure them. They excite sectional animosity and party
+    strife, and are willing to kindle the flames of civil war to
+    accomplish their unhallowed purposes. They tell us that there is a
+    conflict of interest between the free and slave States, and endeavour
+    to precipitate a revolution, that they may be leaders, and obtain
+    positions of trust and profit in the new government which they hope
+    to establish. The people would be dupes indeed to abet these wicked
+    demagogues in their nefarious designs. Let us not break God's command,
+    by resisting the ordinance of God--the powers that be. I am not
+    discussing the right of revolution, which I deem a sacred right. When
+    human rights are invaded, when life is endangered, when liberty is
+    taken away, when we are not left free to pursue our own happiness in
+    our own chosen way--so far as we do not trespass upon the rights of
+    others--we have a right, and it becomes our imperative duty to resist
+    to the bitter end, the tyranny which would deprive us and our children
+    of our inalienable rights. Our lives are secure; we have freedom to
+    worship God. Our liberty is sacred; we may pursue happiness to our
+    hearts' content. We do not even charge upon the general Government
+    that it has infringed these rights. Whose life has been endangered, or
+    who has lost his liberty by the action of the Government? If that man
+    lives, in all this fair domain of ours, he has the right to complain.
+    But neither you nor I have ever heard of or seen the individual who
+    has thus suffered. We have therefore clearly no right of revolution.
+
+    Treason is no light offence. God, who rules the nations, and who has
+    established governments, will punish severely those who attempt to
+    overthrow them. Damnation is stated to be the punishment which those
+    who resist the powers that be, will suffer. Who wishes to endure it? I
+    hope none of my charge will incur this penalty by the perpetration of
+    treason. You yourselves can bear me witness that I have not heretofore
+    introduced political issues into the pulpit, but at this time I could
+    not acquit my conscience were I not to warn you against the great sin
+    some of you, I fear, are ready to commit.
+
+    Were I to discuss the policy of a high or low tariff, or descant upon
+    the various merits attached to one or another form of banking, I
+    should be justly obnoxious to censure. Politics and religion, however,
+    are not always separate. When the political issue is made, shall we,
+    or shall we not, grant license to sell intoxicating liquors as a
+    beverage? the minister's duty is plain; he must urge his people to use
+    their influence against granting any such license. The minister must
+    enforce every moral and religious obligation, and point out the path
+    of truth and duty, even though the principles he advocates are by
+    statesmen introduced into the arena of political strife, and made
+    issues by the great parties of the day. I see the sword coming, and
+    would be derelict in duty not to give you faithful warning. I must
+    reveal the whole counsel of God. I have a message from God unto you,
+    which I must deliver, whether you will hear, or whether you will
+    forbear. If the sword come, and you perish, I shall then be guiltless
+    of your blood. As to the great question at issue, my honest conviction
+    is (and I think I have the Spirit of God,) that you should with your
+    whole heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, oppose secession. You
+    should talk against it, you should write against it, you should vote
+    against it, and, if need be, you should fight against it.
+
+    I have now declared what I believe to be your high duty in this
+    emergency. Do not destroy the government which has so long protected
+    you, and which has never in a single instance oppressed you. Pull not
+    down the fair fabric which our patriot fathers reared at vast expense
+    of blood and treasure. Do not, like the blind Samson, pull down the
+    pillars of our glorious edifice, and cause death, desolation, and
+    ruin. Perish the hand that would thus destroy the source of all our
+    political prosperity and happiness. Let the parricide who attempts it
+    receive the just retribution which a loyal people demand, even his
+    execution on a gallows, high as Haman's. Let us also set about
+    rectifying the causes which threaten the overthrow of our government.
+    As we are proud, let us pray for the grace of humility. As a State,
+    and as individuals, we too lightly regard its most solemn obligations;
+    let us, therefore, pray for the grace of repentance and godly sorrow,
+    and hereafter in this respect sin no more. As many transgressions have
+    been committed by us, let the time past of our lives suffice us to
+    have wrought the will of the flesh, and now let us break off our sins
+    by righteousness, and our transgressions by turning unto the Lord, and
+    he will avert his threatened judgments, and save us from dissolution,
+    anarchy, and desolation.
+
+    If our souls are filled with hatred against the people of any section
+    of our common country, let us ask from the Great Giver the grace of
+    charity, which suffereth long and is kind, which envieth not, which
+    vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself
+    unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no
+    evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth
+    all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all
+    things, and which never faileth; then shall we be in a suitable frame
+    for an amicable adjustment of every difficulty; oil will soon be
+    thrown upon the troubled waters, and peace, harmony, and prosperity
+    would ever attend us; and our children, and our children's children
+    will rejoice in the possession of a beneficent and stable government,
+    securing to them all the natural and inalienable rights of man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+VIGILANCE COMMITTEE AND COURT-MARTIAL.
+
+    The election of Delegates to determine the status of Mississippi--The
+    Vigilance Committee--Description of its
+    members--Charges--Phonography--No formal verdict--Danger of
+    Assassination--Passports--Escape to Rienzi--Union sentiment--The
+    Conscript Law--Summons to attend Court-Martial--Evacuation of
+    Corinth--Destruction of Cotton--Suffering poor--Relieved by General
+    Halleck.
+
+
+Soon after this sermon was preached, the election was held. Approaching
+the polls, I asked for a Union ticket, and was informed that none had been
+printed, and that it would be advisable to vote the secession ticket. I
+thought otherwise, and going to a desk, wrote out a Union ticket, and
+voted it amidst the frowns and suppressed murmurs of the judges and
+bystanders, and, as the result proved, I had the honour of depositing the
+only vote in favour of the Union which was polled in that precinct. I knew
+of many who were in favour of the Union, who were intimidated by threats,
+and by the odium attending it from voting at all. A majority of secession
+candidates were elected. The convention assembled, and on the 9th of
+January, 1861, Mississippi had the unenviable reputation of being the
+first to follow her twin sister, South Carolina, into the maelstrom of
+secession and treason. Being the only States in which the slaves were more
+numerous than the whites, it became them to lead the van in the
+slave-holders' rebellion. Before the 4th of March, Florida, Alabama,
+Georgia, Louisiana and Texas had followed in the wake, and were engulfed
+in the whirlpool of secession.
+
+It was now dangerous to utter a word in favour of the Union. Many
+suspected of Union sentiments were lynched. An old gentleman in Winston
+county was arrested for an act committed twenty years before, which was
+construed as a proof of his abolition proclivities. The old gentleman had
+several daughters, and his mother-in-law had given him a negro girl.
+Observing that his daughters were becoming lazy, and were imposing all the
+labour upon the slave, he sent her back to the donor, with a statement of
+the cause for returning her. This was now the ground of his arrest, but
+escaping from their clutches, a precipitate flight alone saved his life.
+
+Self-constituted vigilance committees sprang up all over the country, and
+a reign of terror began; all who had been Union men, and who had not given
+in their adhesion to the new order of things by some public proclamation,
+were supposed to be disaffected. The so-called Confederate States, the new
+power, organized for the avowed purpose of extending and perpetuating
+African slavery, was now in full blast. These _soi-disant_ vigilance
+committees professed to carry out the will of Jeff. Davis. All who were
+considered disaffected were regarded as being tinctured with abolitionism.
+My opposition to the disruption of the Union being notorious, I was
+summoned to appear before one of these august tribunals to answer the
+charge of being an abolitionist. My wife was very much alarmed, knowing
+that were I found guilty of the charge, there was no hope for mercy.
+Flight was impossible, and I deemed it the safest plan to appear before
+the committee. I found it to consist of twelve persons, five of whom I
+knew, viz., Parson Locke, Armstrong, Cartledge, Simpson, and Wilbanks.
+Parson Locke, the chief speaker, or rather the inquisitor-general, was a
+Methodist minister, though he had fallen into disrepute among his
+brethren, and was engaged in a tedious strife with the church which he
+left in Holmes county. The parson was a real Nimrod. He boasted that in
+five months he had killed forty-eight raccoons, two hundred squirrels, and
+ten deer; he had followed the bloodhounds, and assisted in the capture of
+twelve runaway negroes. W. H. Simpson was a ruling elder in my church.
+Wilbanks was a clever sort of old gentleman, who had little to say in the
+matter. Armstrong was a monocular Hard-shell-Baptist. Cartledge was an
+illiterate, conceited individual. The rest were a motley crew, not one of
+whom, I feel confident, knew a letter in the alphabet. The committee
+assembled in an old carriage-shop. Parson Locke acted, as chairman, and
+conducted the trial, as follows.
+
+"Parson Aughey, you have been reported to us as holding abolition
+sentiments, and as being disloyal to the Confederate States."
+
+"Who reported me, and where are your witnesses?"
+
+"Any one has a right to report, and it is optional whether he confronts
+the accused or not. The proceedings of vigilance committees are somewhat
+informal."
+
+"Proceed, then, with the trial, in your own way."
+
+"We propose to ask you a few questions, and in your answers you may defend
+yourself, or admit your guilt. In the first place, did you ever say that
+you did not believe that God ordained the institution of slavery?"
+
+"I believe that God did not ordain the institution of slavery."
+
+"Did not God command the Israelites to buy slaves from the Canaanitish
+nations, and to hold them as their property for ever?"
+
+"The Canaanites had filled their cup of iniquity to overflowing, and God
+commanded the Israelites to exterminate them; this, in violation of God's
+command, they failed to do. God afterwards permitted the Hebrews to reduce
+them to a state of servitude; but the punishment visited upon those seven
+wicked nations by the command of God, does not justify war or the
+slave-trade."
+
+"Did you say that you were opposed to the slavery which existed in the
+time of Christ?"
+
+"I did, because the system of slavery prevailing in Christ's day was cruel
+in the extreme; it conferred the power of life and death upon the master,
+and was attended with innumerable evils. The slave had the same complexion
+as his master; and by changing his servile garb for the citizen dress, he
+could not be recognised as a slave. You yourself profess to be opposed to
+white slavery."
+
+"Did you state that you believed Paul, when he sent Onesimus back to
+Philemon, had no idea that he would be regarded as a slave, and treated as
+such after his return?"
+
+"I did. My proof is in Philemon, verses 15 and 16, where the apostle asks
+that Onesimus be received, not as a servant, but as a brother beloved?"
+
+"Did you tell Mr. Creath that you knew some negroes who were better, in
+every respect, than some white men?"
+
+"I said that I knew some negroes who were better classical scholars than
+any white men I had as yet met with in Choctaw county, and that I had
+known some who were pre-eminent for virtue and holiness. As to natural
+rights, I made no comparison; nor did I say anything about superiority or
+inferiority of race; I also stated my belief in the unity of the races."
+
+"Have you any abolition works in your library, and a poem in your
+scrap-book, entitled 'The Fugitive Slave,' with this couplet as a refrain,
+
+  'The hounds are baying on my track;
+  Christian, will you send me back?'"
+
+"I have not Mrs. Stowe's nor Helper's work; they are contraband in this
+region, and I could not get them if I wished. I have many works in my
+library containing sentiments adverse to the institution of slavery. All
+the works in common use amongst us, on law, physic, and divinity, all the
+text-books in our schools--in a word, all the works on every subject read
+and studied by us, were, almost without exception, written by men opposed
+to the peculiar institution. I am not alone in this matter."
+
+"Parson, I saw Cowper's works in your library, and Cowper says:
+
+  'I would not have a slave to fan me when I sleep,
+  And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
+  That sinews bought and sold have ever earned.'"
+
+"You have Wesley's writings, and Wesley says that 'Human slavery is the
+sum of all villany.' You have a work which has this couplet:
+
+  'Two deep, dark stains, mar all our country's bliss:
+  Foul slavery one, and one, loathed drunkenness.'
+
+You have the work of an English writer of high repute, who says, 'Forty
+years ago, some in England doubted whether slavery were a sin, and
+regarded adultery as a venial offence; but behold the progress of truth!
+Who now doubts that he who enslaves his fellow-man is guilty of a fearful
+crime, and that he who violates the seventh commandment is a great sinner
+in the sight of God?'"
+
+"You are known to be an adept in Phonography, and you are reported to be a
+correspondent of an abolition Phonographic journal."
+
+"I understand the science of Phonography, and I am a correspondent of a
+Phonographic journal, but the journal eschews politics."
+
+Another member of the committee then interrogated me.
+
+"Parson Aughey, what is Funnyography?"
+
+"Phonography, sir, is a system of writing by means of a philosophic
+alphabet, composed of the simplest geometrical signs, in which one mark is
+used to represent one and invariably the same sound."
+
+"Kin you talk Funnyography? and where does them folks live what talks it?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I converse fluently in Phonography, and those who speak the
+language live in Columbia."
+
+"In the Destrict?"
+
+"No, sir, in the poetical Columbia."
+
+I was next interrogated by another member of the committee.
+
+"Parson Aughey, is Phonography a Abolition fixin?"
+
+"No, sir; Phonography, abstractly considered, has no political complexion;
+it may be used to promote either side of any question, sacred or profane,
+mental, moral, physical, or political."
+
+"Well, you ought to write and talk plain English, what common folks can
+understand, or we'll have to say of you, what Agrippa said of Paul, 'Much
+learning hath made thee mad.' Suppose you was to preach in Phonography,
+who'd understand it?--who'd know what was piped or harped? I'll bet high
+some Yankee invented it to spread his abolition notions underhandedly. I,
+for one, would be in favour of makin' the parson promise to write and talk
+no more in Phonography. I'll bet Phonography is agin slavery, tho' I never
+hearn tell of it before. I'm agin all secret societies. I'm agin the
+Odd-fellers, Free-masons, Sons of Temperance, Good Templars and
+Phonography. I want to know what's writ and what's talked. You can't throw
+dust in my eyes. Phonography, from what I've found out about it to-day, is
+agin the Confederate States, and we ought to be agin it."
+
+Parson Locke then resumed:
+
+"I must stop this digression. Parson Aughey, are you in favour of the
+South?"
+
+"I am in favour of the South, and have always endeavoured to promote the
+best interests of the South. However, I never deemed it for the best
+interests of the South to secede. I talked against secession, and voted
+against secession, because I thought that the best interests of the South
+would be put in jeopardy by the secession of the Southern States. I was
+honest in my convictions, and acted accordingly. Could the sacrifice of my
+life have stayed the swelling tide of secession, it would gladly have been
+made."
+
+"It is said that you have never prayed for the Southern Confederacy."
+
+"I have prayed for the whole world, though it is true that I have never
+named the Confederate States in prayer."
+
+"You may retire."
+
+After I had retired, the committee held a long consultation. My answers
+were not satisfactory. I never learned all that transpired. They brought
+in no formal verdict. The majority considered me a dangerous man, but
+feared to take my life, as they were, with one exception, adherents of
+other denominations, and they knew that my people were devotedly attached
+to me before the secession movement. Some of the secessionists swore that
+they would go to my house and murder me, when they learned that the
+committee had not hanged me. My friends provided me secretly with arms,
+and I determined to defend myself to the last. I slept with a
+double-barrelled shot-gun at my head, and was prepared to defend myself
+against a dozen at least.
+
+Learning that I was not acceptable to many of the members of my church,
+whilst my life was in continual jeopardy, and my family in a state of
+constant alarm, I abandoned my field of labour, and sought for safety in a
+more congenial clime. I intended to go North. Jeff. Davis and his Congress
+had granted permission to all who so desired, to leave the South. Several
+Union men of my acquaintance applied for passports, but were refused. The
+proclamation to grant permits was an act of perfidy; all those, so far as
+I am informed, who made application for them, were refused. The design in
+thus acting was to get Union men to declare themselves as such, and
+afterwards to punish them for their sentiments by forcing them into the
+army, confining them in prison, shooting them, or lynching them by mob
+violence. Finding that were I to demand a passport to go north, I would be
+placed on the proscribed list, and my life endangered still more, I
+declared my intention of going back to Tishomingo county, in which I owned
+property, and which was the home of many of my relatives. I knew that I
+would be safer there, for this county had elected Union delegates by a
+majority of over fourteen hundred, and a strong Union sentiment had always
+prevailed.
+
+On my arrival in Tishomingo, I found that the great heart of the county
+still beat true to the music of the Union. Being thrown out of employment
+I deemed it my duty, in every possible way, to sustain the Union cause and
+the enforcement of the laws. It was impossible to go north. Union
+sentiments could be expressed with safety in many localities. Corinth,
+Iuka, and Rienzi had, from the commencement of the war, been camps of
+instruction for the training of Confederate soldiers. These three towns in
+the county being thus occupied, Union men found it necessary to be more
+cautious, as the cavalry frequently made raids through the county,
+arresting and maltreating those suspected of disaffection. After the
+reduction of Forts Henry and Donelson, and the surrender of Nashville, the
+Confederates made the Memphis and Charleston railroad the base of their
+operations, their armies extending from Memphis to Chattanooga. Soon,
+however, they were all concentrated at Corinth, a town in Tishomingo
+county, at the junction of the Memphis and Charleston railroad with the
+Mobile and Ohio. After the battle of Shiloh, which was fought on the 6th
+and 7th of April, the Federal troops held their advance at Farmington,
+four miles from Corinth, while the Confederates occupied Corinth, their
+rear guard holding Rienzi, twelve miles south, on the Mobile and Ohio
+railroad.
+
+Thus there were two vast armies encamped in Tishomingo county. Being
+within the Confederate lines, I, in common with many others, found it
+difficult to evade the conscript law. Knowing that in a multitude of
+counsellors there is wisdom, we held secret meetings, in order to devise
+the best method of resisting the law. We met at night, and had our
+countersigns to prevent detection. Often our wives, sisters, and daughters
+met with us. Our meeting-place was some ravine, or secluded glen, as far
+as possible from the haunts of the secessionists; all were armed; even the
+ladies had revolvers, and could use them too. The crime of treason we were
+resolved not to commit. Our counsels were somewhat divided, some
+advocating, as a matter of policy, the propriety of attending the militia
+musters, others opposing it for conscience' sake, and for the purpose of
+avoiding every appearance of evil. Many who would not muster as
+conscripts, resolved to escape to the Federal lines; and making the
+attempt two or three at a time, succeeded in crossing the Tennessee river,
+and reaching the Union army, enlisted under the old flag, and have since
+done good service as patriot warriors. Some who were willing to muster as
+conscripts, were impressed into the Confederate service, and I know not
+whether they ever found an opportunity to desert. Others, myself among the
+number, were saved by the timely arrival of the Federal troops, and the
+occupation of the county by them, after Beauregard's evacuation of
+Corinth. I had received three citations to attend muster, but disregarding
+them, I was summoned to attend a court-martial on the first day of June,
+at the house of Mr. Jim Mock. The following is a copy of the citation.
+
+    Ma the 22d. 1862
+
+    _Parson Awhay_, You havent tended nun of our mustters as a konskrip.
+    Now you is her bi sumenzd to attend a kort marshal on Jun the fust at
+    Jim Mock.
+
+When I received the summons, I resolved to attempt reaching the Union
+lines at Farmington. Two of my friends, who had received a similar
+summons, expected to accompany me. On the 29th of May, I left for Rienzi,
+where my two friends were to meet me. I had not been many hours in Rienzi
+when it became evident that the Confederates were evacuating Corinth. On
+the 1st of June, (the day the court-martial was to convene,) I had the
+pleasure of once more beholding the star-spangled banner as it was borne
+in front of General Granger's command, which led the van of the pursuing
+army. Had I remained and attended the court-martial, I would have been
+forced into the army. Were I then to declare that I would not take up arms
+against the United States, I would have been shot, as many have been, for
+their refusal thus to act. General Rosecrans, on his arrival, made his
+head-quarters at my brother's house, where I had the pleasure of forming
+his acquaintance, together with that of Generals Smith, Granger, and Pope.
+As this county was now occupied by the Federal army, I returned to my
+father-in-law's, within five miles of which place the court-martial had
+been ordered to convene, considering myself comparatively safe. I learned
+that the court-martial never met, as Colonel Elliott, in his successful
+raid upon Boonville, had passed Jim Mock's, scaring him to such a degree,
+that he did not venture to sleep in his house for two weeks. The Union
+cavalry scoured the country in all directions, daily, and we were
+rejoicing at the prospect of continuous safety, and freedom from outrage.
+
+The Rebels, during their retreat, had burned all the cotton which was
+accessible to their cavalry, on their route. At night, the flames of the
+burning cotton lighted up the horizon for miles around. These baleful
+pyres, with their lurid glare, bore sad testimony to the horrors of war.
+In this wanton destruction of the great southern staple, many poor
+families lost their whole staff of bread, and starvation stared them in
+the face. Many would have perished, had it not been for the liberal
+contributions of the North; for, learning the sufferings of the poor of
+the South, whose whole labour had been destroyed by pretended friends,
+they sent provisions and money, and thus many who were left in utter
+destitution, were saved by this timely succor. I have heard the rejoicings
+of the poor, who, abandoned by their supposed friends, were saved, with
+their children, from death, by the beneficence of those whom they had been
+taught to regard as enemies the most bitter, implacable, unmerciful, and
+persistent. Their prayer may well be, Save us from our friends, whose
+tender mercies are cruel! I have never known a man to burn his own cotton,
+but I have heard their bitter anathemas hurled against those who thus
+robbed them, and their denunciations were loud and deep against the
+government which authorized such cruelty. It is true that those who thus
+lose their cotton, if secessionists, receive a "promise to pay," which all
+regard as not worth the paper on which it is written. Ere pay-day, those
+who are dependent on their cotton for the necessaries of life, would have
+passed the bourne whence no traveller returns. 'Tis like the Confederate
+bonds--at first they were made payable two years after date, and printed
+upon paper which would be worn out entirely in six months, and would have
+become illegible in half that time. The succeeding issues were made
+payable six months after the ratification of a treaty of peace between the
+United States and the Confederate States. Though not a prophet, nor a
+prophet's son, I venture the prediction that those bonds will never be
+due. The war of elements, the wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds,
+announcing the end of all things, will be heard sooner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ARREST, ESCAPE, AND RECAPTURE.
+
+    High price of Provisions--Holland Lindsay's Family--The
+    arrest--Captain Hill--Appearance before Colonel Bradfute at
+    Fulton--Arrest of Benjamin Clarke--Bradfute's Insolence--General
+    Chalmers--The clerical Spy--General Pfeifer--Under
+    guard--Priceville--General Gordon--Bound for Tupelo--The Prisoners
+    entering the Dungeon--Captain Bruce--Lieutenant Richard Malone--Prison
+    Fare and Treatment--Menial Service--Resolve to escape--Plan of
+    escape--Federal Prisoners--Co-operation of the Prisoners--Declaration
+    of Independence--The Escape--The Separation--Concealment--Travel on
+    the Underground Railroad--Pursuit by Cavalry and Bloodhounds--The
+    Arrest--Dan Barnes, the Mail-robber--Perfidy--Heavily ironed--Return
+    to Tupelo.
+
+
+At this time--May and June, 1862--all marketable commodities were
+commanding fabulous prices; as a lady declared, it would soon be
+necessary, on going to a store, to carry two baskets, one to hold the
+money, and the other the goods purchased. Flour was thirty dollars per
+barrel, bacon forty cents per pound, and coffee one dollar per pound.
+Salt was nominally one hundred dollars per sack of one hundred pounds, or
+one dollar per pound, but there was none to be obtained even at that
+price. Ladies were compelled to dispense with salt in their culinary
+operations; even the butter was unsalted. Cotton-cards, an article used in
+every house at the South, the ordinary price of which is fifty cents per
+pair, were selling at twenty-five dollars per pair, and wool-cards at
+fifteen dollars per pair, the usual price being thirty-eight cents. All
+the cotton used in the manufacture of home-made cloth, is carded into
+rolls upon these cotton-cards, which are brought from the North, there
+being not a single manufactory of them in the South. When the supply on
+hand becomes exhausted, the southern home manufacture of cloth must cease,
+no one as yet having been able to suggest a substitute for the
+cotton-card. There are only three factories in Mississippi, which must
+cease running as soon as their machinery wears out, as the most important
+parts of the machinery in those factories are supplied from the North. The
+people are fully aware of these difficulties, but they can devise no
+remedy, hence the high price of all articles used in the manufacture of
+all kinds of cloths. All manufactured goods were commanding fabulous
+prices. On the occupation of the county by Federal troops, goods could be
+obtained at reasonable prices, but our money was all gone, except
+Confederate bonds, which were worthless. Planters who were beyond the
+lines of the retreating army had cotton, but many of them feared to sell
+it, as the Rebels professed to regard it treason to trade with the
+invaders, and threatened to execute the penalty in every case. As there
+was no penalty attached to the selling of cotton by one citizen of
+Mississippi to another, some of my friends offered to sell me their cotton
+for a reasonable price.
+
+I was solicited also to act as their agent in the purchase of commodities.
+I agreed to this risk, because of the urgent need of my friends, many of
+whom were suffering greatly for the indispensable necessaries of life. I
+thought it was better that one should suffer, than that the whole people
+should perish. By this arrangement my Union friends would escape the
+punishment meted out to those who were found guilty of trading with the
+Yankees; if discovered, I alone would be amenable to their unjust and
+cruel law, and they would thus save their cotton, which was liable to be
+destroyed at any moment by a dash of rebel cavalry. I now hired a large
+number of wagons to haul cotton into Eastport and Iuka, that I might ship
+it to the loyal States. On the 2d of June the wagons were to rendezvous at
+a certain point; there were a sufficient number to haul one hundred bales
+per trip. I hoped to keep them running for some time.
+
+On the first of June I rode to Mr. Holland Lindsay's on business. I had
+learned that he was a rabid secessionist, but supposed that no rebel
+cavalry had come so far north as his house since the evacuation of
+Corinth. Mr. Lindsay had gone to a neighbour's. His wife was weaving; she
+was a coarse, masculine woman, and withal possessed of strong prejudice
+against all whom she did not like, but especially the Yankees. I sat down
+to await the arrival of her husband, and it was not long before Mrs.
+Lindsay broached the exciting topic of the day, the war. She thus vented
+her spleen against the Yankees.
+
+"There was some Yankee calvary passed here last week--they asked me if
+there wos ony rebels scoutin round here lately. I jest told em it want
+none of ther bizness. Them nasty, good for nothin scamps callen our men
+rebels. Them nigger-stealin, triflin scoundrels. They runs off our
+niggers, and wont let us take em to Mexico and the other territories."
+
+I ventured to remark, "The Yankees are mean, indeed, not to let _us_ take
+_our_ negroes to the Territories, and not to help catch them for _us_ when
+they run off."
+
+The emphatic _us_ and _our_ nettled her, as none of the Lindsays ever
+owned a negro, being classed by the southern nabobs as among the _poor
+white trash_; nor did I ever own a slave. Her husband, however, had once
+been sent to the Legislature, which led the family to ape the manners, and
+studiously copy the ultraism of the classes above them. Mrs. Lindsay
+became morose. I concluded to ride over and see her husband.
+
+On my way I met a member of Hill's cavalry. He halted me, inquired my name
+and business, which I gave. He said that, years ago, he had heard me
+preach, and that he was well acquainted with my brothers-in-law, who were
+officers in the Rebel army. He informed me that his uncle, Mr. Lindsay,
+had gone across the field home, and that he himself was on his way there.
+I returned with him, but fearing arrest, my business was hastily attended
+to, and I at once started for my horse. By this time one or two other
+cavalry-men rode up. I heard Mrs. Lindsay informing her nephew that I was
+a Union man, and advising my arrest. When I had reached my horse, Mr.
+Davis, Lindsay's nephew arrested me, and sent my horse to the stable.
+After supper, my horse was brought, and I was taken to camp. Four men were
+detached to guard me during the night. They ordered me to lie down on the
+ground and sleep. As it had rained during the day, and I had no blanket,
+I insisted upon going to a Mr. Spigener's, about fifty yards distant, to
+secure a bed. After some discussion they consented, the guards remaining
+in the room, and guarding me by turns during the night. The next morning I
+sought Captain Hill, and asked permission to return home, when the
+following colloquy ensued.
+
+"Are you a Union man?"
+
+"I voted the Union ticket, sir."
+
+"That is not a fair answer. I voted the Union ticket myself, and am now
+warring against the Union."
+
+"I have seen no good reason for changing my sentiments."
+
+"You confess, then, that you are a Union man?"
+
+"I do; I regard the union of these States as of paramount importance to
+the welfare of the people inhabiting them."
+
+"You must go to head-quarters, where you will be dealt with as we are
+accustomed to deal with all the abettors of an Abolition government."
+
+A heavy guard was then detached to take charge of me, and the company set
+off for Fulton, the county seat of Ittawamba county, Mississippi, distant
+thirty miles. After going about ten miles, we halted, and two men were
+detached to go forward with the prisoners, a Mr. Benjamin Clarke and
+myself. Our guards were Dr. Crossland, of Burnsville, Tishomingo county,
+Mississippi, and Ferdinand Woodruff. They were under the influence of
+liquor, and talked incessantly, cursing and insulting us, on every
+occasion, by abusive language. They detailed to each other a history of
+their licentious amours. We halted for dinner at one o'clock, and being
+out of money, they asked me to pay their bill, which I did, they promising
+to refund the amount when they reached Fulton. This they forgot to do.
+
+On our arrival at Fulton, we were taken into the office of the commander
+of the post, Colonel Bradfute. My fellow-prisoner was examined first.
+Woodruff stated that they had played off on Mr. Clarke--calling on him,
+as he was plowing in the field, stating that they were Federal soldiers.
+They asked Clarke what were his political views. He replied that he always
+had been a Union man--had voted the Union ticket, and would do it again,
+if another election were held; that he hated the secession principles, and
+would enlist in the Federal army as soon as he got his crop in such a
+condition that his family could attend to it. On hearing this statement,
+Bradfute became very angry, swearing that Clarke ought to be taken out and
+shot then, but that a few days' respite would make but little difference.
+Said he, addressing the guards, had you hung Clarke, you would have saved
+us some trouble, and have done your country good service. The Colonel,
+turning round, glared upon me with eyes inflamed with passion and liquor,
+and thus addressed me:
+
+"Are you a Union man too?"
+
+"I am, sir. I have never denied it."
+
+"Where do you reside?"
+
+"I consider Rienzi my home, but have been staying for some time at my
+father-in-law's, in the south-eastern part of Tishomingo county."
+
+"What is your father-in-law's name?"
+
+"Mr. Alexander Paden."
+
+"I know the old gentleman and his three sons. They are all in the
+Confederate service. They are brave men, and have done some hard fighting
+in our cause. How happens it that you look at matters in a different light
+from your relatives?"
+
+"I am not guided in my opinions by the views of my friends."
+
+"What is your profession?"
+
+"I am a minister of the gospel."
+
+"I suppose, then, that you go to the Bible for your politics, and that you
+are a sort of higher-law man."
+
+"My Bible teaches, 'Let every soul be subject to the higher powers, for
+there is no power but of God; the powers that be, are ordained of God.
+Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God;
+and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.' I have seen
+no reason for resistance to the government under which we have, as a
+nation, so long prospered."
+
+"I command you to hush, sir; you shan't preach treason to me, and if you
+get your deserts you will be hung immediately. Have you ever been within
+the Federal lines?"
+
+"I have, sir."
+
+"At what points?"
+
+"At Rienzi and Iuka."
+
+"When were you at Iuka?"
+
+"On last Saturday."
+
+"Had the Federals a large force at that place, and who was in command?"
+
+"They have a large force, and Generals Thomas and Steadman are in
+command."
+
+"That is contrary to the reports of our scouts, who say that there are but
+two regiments in the town. I fear you are purposely trying to mislead us."
+
+"General Steadman has but two regiments in the town, but General Thomas is
+within striking distance with a large force."
+
+"What was your business in Iuka?"
+
+"I went there to pay a debt of fifty dollars which a widow owed, as she
+wished it to be paid in Confederate money before it became worthless."
+
+"Have you a Federal pass?"
+
+"I have none with me, but I have one at home."
+
+"How does it read?"
+
+"It was given by General Nelson, and reads thus: 'The bearer, Rev. John H.
+Aughey, has permission to pass backward and forward through the lines of
+this division at will.'"
+
+"Where were you born?"
+
+"I was born in New Hartford, Oneida county, New York."
+
+"Yankee born," said the Colonel, with a sneer; "you deserve death at the
+rope's-end, and if I had the power I would hang all Yankees who are among
+us, for they are all tories, whatever may be their pretensions."
+
+"My being born north of the nigger-line, Colonel, if a crime worthy of
+death, was certainly not my fault, but the fault of my parents. They did
+not so much as consult me in regard to any preference I might have
+concerning the place of my nativity."
+
+Woodruff, one of my guards, now informed the Colonel that I was a spy,
+and, while the Confederates were at Corinth, had, to his certain
+knowledge, been three times at Nashville, carrying information. I told
+Woodruff that his statement was false, and that he knew it; that I had
+never been at Nashville in my life. General Chalmers, who was present, and
+Colonel Bradfute, at the conclusion of the examination, spent fifteen or
+twenty minutes in bitterly cursing all Yankees, tories, and traitors, as
+they termed us. All the conversation of the rebel officers was interlarded
+with the most horrid profanity. General Chalmers, in speaking, invariably
+called me the clerical spy. We were placed under guard, and sent to
+Brooksville, ten miles distant, the head-quarters of General Pfeifer.
+Immediately after our arrival, we were soundly berated by General Pfeifer,
+and then sent out to the camp, half a mile from the town, where we were
+placed under guard for the night, in a small plot of ground surrounded by
+a chain. We had no supper, and no blankets to sleep on. Our bed was the
+cold ground, our covering the blue canopy of heaven. The next morning we
+were started, without breakfast, under a heavy guard, numbering fourteen
+cavalry, to Priceville, six miles west of Brooksville. Priceville was
+named in honour of General Sterling Price, or rather the little village
+where he encamped had its name changed in his honour. When we reached
+Priceville we were taken to the head-quarters of General Jordan, and
+immediately brought into his presence. After reading the letter handed to
+him by one of the guard, he said, looking sternly at me,
+
+"You are charged with sedition."
+
+I asked him what sedition meant, to which he replied:
+
+"It means enough to hang you, you villanous tory!"
+
+He also asked me where I was born. My reply was, in the State of New York,
+near Utica, in Oneida county.
+
+"Then you doubly deserve death," said he.
+
+"As to the guilt of my nativity," said I, "it is not my fault, for I could
+not have helped it if I had tried. But I glory in my native State. She has
+never done anything to disgrace her. She never repudiated her just debts,
+nor committed any other disgraceful act."
+
+"Well, you ought to have staid there, or have gone back when Mississippi
+seceded."
+
+"Give me an opportunity, and I will go instanter."
+
+"The first _going_ you will do, will be to go to hell, where, if the devil
+had his due, you would have been long ago; and before you leave us, we
+will give you a free ticket to the shades infernal."
+
+"Thank you for your kind offer to give me a free pass to the infernal
+regions. I did not know before that you were the devil's ticket-agent. You
+have me in your power, and may destroy my life; but when you have done
+that, there is no more that you can do."
+
+Very little was said to my fellow-prisoner, Clarke. A few curses for a
+traitor, tory, &c., was about all. We were now placed under guard, and
+conducted to Tupelo, and after visiting the provost-marshal's office and
+the office of the commander of the post, whose names were Peden and Clare,
+we were committed to the Central Military Prison. As we entered, Captain
+Bruce and Lieutenant Malone (two gentlemen who had been elected to those
+offices by their fellow-prisoners) received us with a cordial greeting.
+Captain Bruce thus addressed us:
+
+"Welcome, gentlemen, thrice welcome. I am rejoiced to see you at my hotel.
+We are now doing a land-office business, as the large number of my
+boarders, whom you see, will testify. We have numerous arrivals daily,
+whilst the departures are very few, giving evidence that all are satisfied
+with their treatment. The bill of fare is not very extensive. In these war
+times we must not expect the luxuries of life, but be content with the
+necessaries. It is true, we cannot furnish you with coffee, or molasses,
+or sugar, or salt, or beef, or vegetables; but we have something more
+substantial--we have flour, rather dark in colour, to be sure, but people
+must not be squeamish. The boarders are required to do their own cooking,
+as they could otherwise have but little exercise; we consider it a
+sanitary measure, exercise being indispensable to health. We furnish the
+boarders, also, with meat--none of your lean meat, either, but fat
+middling, with a streak of lean in it. The Bible promises the righteous
+that their bread shall be given, and their water sure; but we go beyond
+the promise, and give not only bread (or rather the flour to make it) and
+water, but also fat, strong meat. What room will you be pleased to have?"
+
+I replied, that as they seemed to be crowded, I would choose number 199.
+
+"Well," said the Captain, "it shall be prepared. Lieutenant Malone, have
+room number 199 fitted up for the reception of these gentlemen."
+
+Lieutenant Malone replied, that the room designated would be fitted up in
+style for our reception. He asked us if we had dined.
+
+"No," replied Clarke; "we have not tasted food since yesterday at noon,
+when the Parson paid for his own dinner and the dinner of the guards. We
+asked for something to eat, but were as often refused, and now we are in a
+starving condition."
+
+"I pity you," said Malone, laying aside his facetious style; "you shall
+have something to eat as soon as it can be cooked."
+
+He then went to some of the prisoners, and set them to cooking, and we
+were soon furnished with the best repast the poor fellows could supply.
+
+We entered the prison July 3d, 1862, at two o'clock, P. M. Our prison was
+a grocery-house, its dimensions about twenty-five by fifty feet. When we
+were incarcerated, there were about seventy prisoners in the building,
+whites, mulattoes and negroes. The prison was filthy in the extreme, and
+filled with vermin; even our food was infested with them. No brooms were
+furnished us, and we could not sweep the floor. No beds were furnished,
+and we were compelled to lie upon the floor, with no covering, and
+nothing but the hard planks beneath us.
+
+Several times a day officers would come in and order a specified number of
+men to go and work, under a strong guard. We were made to clean the
+streets, roll barrels, and clean the hospital; but our own prison we were
+not permitted to clean. Every kind of drudgery, and the most menial
+services, were imposed upon us.
+
+The crimes charged upon the prisoners were desertion, trading with the
+Yankees, adhesion to the United States government or Unionism, acting as
+spies, refusing Confederate bonds, and piloting the Yankees. The crime of
+the negroes and mulattoes was endeavouring to escape on the underground
+railroad from Dixie land and the Iron Furnace. These remained till their
+masters were informed of their arrest, and came for and released them. On
+the evening preceding our imprisonment, two prisoners had been led out and
+shot, and I soon learned that this was no unusual occurrence. Nearly
+every day witnessed the execution of one or more of us. Those who were
+doomed to die were heavily ironed. In some cases, however, those who were
+not in fetters were taken out and shot or hanged, often with no previous
+warning; though sometimes a few hours warning was given.
+
+Our privations were so great from a want of proper food and water--for the
+scanty amount of water furnished us was tepid and foul--and from a lack of
+beds, cots, couches, or something better than a filthy floor whereon to
+sleep, that I resolved to attempt an escape at the risk of my life. I felt
+confident that I could not long survive such cruel treatment. As soon as
+my arrest was known to the thirty-second Mississippi regiment, encamped in
+the suburbs of Tupelo, the colonel, major, adjutant, and one of the
+captains called upon me. This regiment was raised in Tishomingo county,
+one of the companies, the Zollicoffer Avengers, being from Rienzi, where I
+had been for years proprietor and Principal of the Rienzi Female Seminary.
+The daughters of many of the officers of this regiment had been educated
+at this Seminary during my superintendence. Some of these officers had
+expressed themselves under great obligations to me, for the thorough,
+moral, mental, and physical training of their children while under my
+care. As proof of this, I have their own statements, as published in the
+public journals of the day. Owing me a debt of gratitude, as they
+professed, could I expect less than the manifestation of deep sympathy for
+me in my sad condition--confined in a gloomy dungeon, deprived of the
+comforts, yea, even the necessaries of life, menaced and insulted by the
+officers in whose power I was? Whatever may have been my hopes, they were
+doomed to be blasted. These summer friends, so obsequious in my
+prosperity, conversed for a while on indifferent topics, never alluding to
+my condition, and as I did not obtrude it upon their attention, they left,
+promising to call again. I said, "Do so, gentlemen; you will always find
+me _at home_." Adjutant Irion, as he passed out, asked Lieutenant Malone
+what the charge was against me. Malone replied that I was charged with
+being a Union man. The adjutant said, in a bitter and sarcastic tone, that
+I should never have been brought to Tupelo, but on my arrest should have
+been sent to hell from the lowest limb of the nearest tree.
+
+Having determined to escape at all hazards, I sought out an accomplice, a
+_compagnon de voyage_; that person was Richard Malone; his piercing eye,
+his intellectual physiognomy, led me to believe that if he consented to
+make the attempt with me, our chances for escape would be good. I drew
+Malone to one side, and covertly introduced the matter. He soon got my
+idea, and drawing from his pocket a paper, showed me the route mapped out
+which he intended to pursue, as he had for some days determined to escape,
+or die in the attempt. He was charged with being a spy, and there was
+little doubt that they would establish his guilt by false testimony. We
+went out now under every possible pretext. We no longer shunned the guard
+who came to obtain prisoners to do servile labour. Our object being to
+reconnoitre, in order to learn where guards were stationed, and to
+determine the best method of escape through the town after leaving the
+prison. During the day we made these observations: that there were two
+guards stationed at the back door, who were very verdant; that they would,
+after relief, come on duty again at midnight; that there was a building on
+the south side of the prison, extending beyond the prison and beyond the
+guards; that the moon would set about eleven o'clock, P. M.; that there
+were no guards stationed on the south side of the prison during the day;
+that one of the planks in the floor could be easily removed; and that
+there were several holes, when we were once under the floor, by which
+egress might be made either on the north or south side; that the coast was
+probably clearest in the direction of a corn-field some two hundred yards
+distant in a northwest direction.
+
+At four o'clock P. M., our plan was fully matured. At midnight, (the moon
+being down, and the verdant guards on duty) we would raise the plank, get
+under the floor, and myself in the advance, make our exit through one of
+the holes on the south side of the jail, then crawl to the building, some
+fifteen feet distant, and continue crawling till we passed the guards;
+then rise and make our way as cautiously as possible, to a point in the
+corn-field, a short distance in the rear of a garment which was hanging
+upon the fence. The one who first arrived must await the other. A signal
+was agreed upon, to prevent mistake. If the guards ordered us to halt, we
+had resolved to risk their fire, our watchword being, Liberty or death!
+
+About this time the prisoners chose me their chaplain by acclamation.
+During the day, we made known our intention of escaping to several
+fellow-prisoners, who promised us all the assistance in their power. All
+the prisoners who knew of the matter, earnestly desired our escape, and
+co-operated with us in effecting it. Clarke and Robinson begged us to take
+them along, averring there was no doubt that they would be shot. Malone
+told them that no more than two could go together; that if they wished to
+escape, they could make the attempt half an hour after us, which they
+agreed to. Clarke, however, came to me, and desired me to take him along,
+as he would rather go with us than with Robinson. He had a wife and five
+small children dependent on him for support, and if he perished, they must
+perish too. I consulted Malone, but he would not agree to have Clarke go
+with us. Three would be too many for safety, and he doubted whether Clarke
+had sufficient nerve to face the glittering bayonet, or tact enough to
+pass through the camps without detection. He might commit some blunder
+which would endanger our safety. I informed Clarke that the arrangement
+made, in which he and Robinson were to go together, must be adhered to. He
+begged me, by all that was sacred, to take him along. But Malone was
+inexorable, and I thought it best to acquiesce in his judgment.
+
+Night drew on apace. Thick darkness gathered around us, and murky clouds
+covered the sky, as we sat down with the Federal prisoners to our scanty
+allowance. While partaking of our rude fare, Malone thus spoke:
+
+"This day is the 4th of July, 1862, the anniversary of our patriot
+fathers' declaration of independence of British tyranny and oppression.
+They had much to complain of. They suffered grievous wrongs and cruel
+bondage. But eighty-six years ago to-day they declared themselves to be a
+free and independent people, who would rather die than be again enslaved.
+Of what worth was their declaration if they had remained inactive?
+Supineness would not have saved them. But trusting in our God, who gives
+success to the righteous cause, they imperilled their lives, they hazarded
+their fortunes, and with untiring energy and sleepless vigilance they
+contested to the bitter end against all efforts to deprive them of their
+inalienable rights. Success crowned their efforts, and they rid themselves
+of tyrants' chains. We (I allude to my friend, Parson Aughey, and myself,)
+degenerate sons of these noble sires, have suffered wrong, nay, gross
+outrage. Citizens of the sunny South, guilty of no offence whatever, not
+even of constructive crime, we are immured in a loathsome dungeon,
+deprived of the comforts of life, separated from our families, and
+suffered to have no communication with them; dragging out a miserable
+existence, which an ignominious death on the scaffold must soon end. We,
+therefore, John H. Aughey and Richard Malone, in view of these accumulated
+wrongs and outrages, solemnly swear before High Heaven, and in presence of
+these witnesses, that we will be free, or perish in the attempt. Appealing
+to the God of liberty, of truth, and of righteousness, for the rectitude
+of our motives and the justness of our cause, we commit ourselves into his
+hands, and implore his protection amid the dangers through which we are
+about to pass, and humbly pray that he will give us success, and restore
+us speedily to our families and friends, and to the enjoyment of our
+inalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
+
+Grasping the Lieutenant by the hand, I consented to this Declaration of
+Independence of rebel thraldom. We gave our respective addresses to our
+friends, who promised, that if they were ever liberated, and we were
+killed by the guards, they would write to our families, informing them of
+the manner of our death.
+
+About ten o'clock, Malone raised the plank, and I went under to
+reconnoitre. I remained under the floor about ten minutes, having learned
+that there were no guards patroling the south side of the house, as we
+feared might be the case after night. We had learned, from observation,
+that there were none during the day. Just at the noon of night, we heard
+the relief called. Malone and I endeavoured to find the prisoners who were
+to raise the plank, but not being able readily to do so, we raised the
+plank ourselves, and both got under without difficulty. Malone getting
+under first, was, contrary to agreement, compelled to take the lead. As he
+was passing out, he made considerable noise. To warn him of the danger, I
+patted him on the back. Reaching back, he gave my hand a warm pressure, to
+assure me that all was right, and passed out. I followed, and reached the
+designated point in the corn-field in about half an hour, having to use
+the utmost precaution, and in some cases to pass the guards by crawling in
+a serpentine manner. When I arrived, I gave the preconcerted signal, but
+Malone was nowhere to be seen. I waited for him two hours at least, when I
+was compelled to seek my safety alone.
+
+Not being able to meet with my friend, I regarded as a great misfortune,
+because, after reaching a point ten miles north of Tupelo, he would be
+familiar with the country. I had frequently passed through the town on the
+railroad, but knew nothing of the country through which I must travel.
+Somewhat depressed in spirits at the loss of my _compagnon de voyage_, I
+resolved to reach my family by the safest and most practicable route.
+Still in the midst of camps, I had considerable difficulty in making my
+way out of them. When I thought that this had been effected, I found that
+day was brightening in the east. Looking around for some place to hide, I
+soon found a dense, though small thicket, in which I secreted myself as
+covertly as possible. Having slept but little since my arrest, I
+endeavoured to compose myself to slumber, and partially succeded; but soon
+the noise and confusion of soldiers passing and re-passing near, awoke and
+alarmed me. I soon learned that I was near a camp, and that the soldiers
+had found a suitable place for bathing in a creek which ran within thirty
+yards of my place of concealment. There were two paths by which they
+reached the creek. On one, they passed within fifteen feet of me; on the
+other, within six or seven. About nine o'clock, I heard the booming of
+cannon all around me, proceeding from the different camps. The soldiers
+who passed me stated, in their conversation, that the cannon were firing
+in honour of a great victory obtained over General McClellan, in Virginia.
+According to their statement, his whole army, after a succession of
+losses, during eight days' fighting, had been completely annihilated, and
+that Stonewall Jackson would be in Washington city before the close of the
+week.
+
+The day passed slowly away. At one time two soldiers came within a few
+feet of me in search of blackberries, but passed out without detecting me.
+At another time two soldiers sat down to converse, so near that their
+lowest tones were distinctly audible. One informed the other that he had
+been in town in the morning, and had learned that the _Clerical Spy_,
+Parson Aughey, and a fellow by the name of Malone, had broke jail, but
+that they would soon be brought in, as a company of cavalry had been put
+on their track, with a pack of bloodhounds. Soon after this, one of them
+arose and struck a bush several times, which seemed to be but a very short
+distance above my head. I thought that he had discovered me, and was about
+to rise and run, when I heard him say to his companion, that he had
+attempted to kill a very large snake, which had escaped to the bushes. I
+began to feel somewhat uncomfortably situated when I learned that I was in
+close proximity to a large snake, though I would have preferred meeting
+with an anaconda, boa-constrictor, rattlesnake, or even the deadly cobra
+di capello, rather than with those vile secessionists thirsting for
+innocent blood.
+
+I thought this 5th of July was the longest day I had ever known. The sun
+was so long in reaching the zenith, and so slow in passing down the steep
+ecliptic way to the occident. The twilight, too, seemed of endless
+duration. But as all long days have had an end, so had this. The stars
+came glittering one by one. I soon recognised that old staunch and
+immovable friend of all travellers on the underground railroad, the
+polar-star.
+
+Rising from my lair, I was soon homeward bound, guided by the north-star
+and an oriental constellation. Plunging into a dense wood I found my rapid
+advance impeded by the undergrowth, and great difficulty in following my
+guiding stars, as the boughs of the great oaks rendered them invisible, or
+dimly seen. Fatigued, hungry, and sleepy, I at length lay down at the foot
+of a large swamp-oak tree, intending to take a nap, and then rise and
+pursue my journey. When I awoke the sun was just rising. I arose filled
+with regret for the time I had lost. Though somewhat refreshed by my
+sound sleep, yet I was very hungry and almost famished with thirst.
+
+After travelling about half a mile I came to a small log-house on a
+road-side. Feeling sick and faint, I resolved to go to the house to obtain
+water, and, if I liked the appearance of the inmates, to reveal my
+condition and ask for aid. Upon reaching the house I met the proprietor,
+but did not like his physiognomy. He looked the villain; a sinister
+expression, a countenance revealing no intellectuality, except a sort of
+low cunning, bore testimony that it would be foolish to repose confidence
+in the possessor of such villanous looks. I asked for water, intending to
+drink and leave. He pointed to the bucket; I drank and bade him good
+morning, and turned to leave. I had proceeded but a few steps, when I was
+ordered, in a stentorian tone, to halt. On looking round, I saw a soldier
+within a few steps, presenting a double-barrelled gun; another soldier was
+standing near, heavily armed. I asked by what authority he halted me. To
+which he replied:
+
+"I know you, sir; I have heard you preach frequently. You are Parson
+Aughey, and you were arrested and confined in prison at Tupelo. I was in
+Lowrey's regiment yesterday, and learned that you had broken jail; and
+now, sir, you must return. My name is Dan Barnes. You may have heard of
+me."
+
+I had indeed heard of him. He had been guilty of robbing the United States
+mail, had fled to Napoleon or Helena, Arkansas, where he was arrested,
+brought back, and incarcerated in jail at Pontotoc, and confined there for
+nearly a year. As the evidence against him was positive, he would have
+been sent to the penitentiary; but, fortunately for him, at this juncture
+Mississippi seceded. There being then no United States officers to execute
+the laws, he was liberated, and soon after joined the army.
+
+After breakfast, which I paid for, Barnes called me to one side, and told
+me that he felt sorry for me, and would afford me an opportunity of
+escaping, if I would pay him a reasonable sum. He had been in a tight
+place himself, and would have been glad had some friend been near to aid
+him. He named two hundred and forty dollars as the _reasonable sum_ for
+permitting me to escape. After getting my money, their horses were
+saddled, and telling me he was playing-off on me, said I must go to
+General Jordan's head-quarters at Priceville, to which place he and Huff,
+the proprietor of the log cabin, conducted me.
+
+On my arrival, General Jordan ordered me to be put in irons, and placed
+under guard. I was taken to a blacksmith's shop in the town, the General
+accompanying the guard, and heavy iron bands were put around my ankles,
+and connected by a chain. The bands were put on hot, and my boots were
+burnt in the operation. The blacksmith seemed averse to the order, and
+only obeyed it upon compulsion. The General stood by, and saw that it was
+well done. "Iron him securely--securely, sir," was his oft repeated order.
+The ironing caused me much pain. My ankles were long discoloured from
+the effects of it.
+
+[Illustration: "I was taken to a blacksmith's shop, and heavy iron bands
+put around my ankles." Page 104.]
+
+After my manacles were put on, I was taken back to Tupelo by Barnes and
+another guard. On my arrival, the commander of the post and the Provost
+Marshal were filled with joy. Barnes gave them the history of the arrest,
+stating that I had attempted to bribe him; that he listened to my
+proposition with indignation, and when he had got the money, performed
+what he regarded his duty. The commander replied that all the property of
+traitors was theirs, and that he did right in deceiving me, after
+accepting the bribe. He also recommended Barnes for promotion for his
+heroic and patriotic act in arresting me. (Perhaps it secured for him a
+captaincy.) The following colloquy now took place between the commander of
+the post, the Provost Marshal, and myself:
+
+"Why did you attempt to leave us?"
+
+"Because, sir, your prison was so filthy, and your fare so meagre and
+unwholesome, that I could not endure it long, and live."
+
+"Parson, you know the Bible says, the wicked flee when no man pursueth,
+but the righteous are as bold as a lion. You must have been guilty of
+crime, or you would not have tried to escape."
+
+"I may have been guilty of the offence charged against me, and yet
+innocent of real _guilt_."
+
+"You shall never be taken back to the prison you left, rest assured of
+that. Did any of the prisoners know of or aid you in your escape?"
+
+"No, sir; none of them knew anything about it."
+
+"Are you telling the truth?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"Where is Malone?"
+
+"I never saw him after I left the building."
+
+"He cannot escape; the cavalry are after him, and he will be brought in
+soon, dead or alive."
+
+"Why did you attempt to bribe Barnes?"
+
+"It was his own offer. I knew that his cupidity was great, and thought it
+no harm to accept his offer. If Barnes had his deserts, he would now be
+hard at work in the penitentiary."
+
+"Did the jury that tried him, acquit him?"
+
+"No. The secession of Mississippi saved him. I refer you to Colonel Tison,
+who is in Tupelo, for the particulars. He being marshal of North
+Mississippi, arrested Barnes, and knows all about it. He found on his
+person the evidence of his guilt, the money and checks stolen when he
+robbed the mail."
+
+"Parson, you will not be immediately executed, but you will, without
+doubt, hang in a week or two, so that, if you have any word to send your
+family, you have permission to do so."
+
+"May I write a letter to my wife?"
+
+"You may, and I will see that it is forwarded to her."
+
+I sat down and wrote a letter, a very common-place letter, to my wife,
+inserting, occasionally, a word in phonography, which, taken in
+connection, read thus: "If possible, inform General Rosecrans or Nelson of
+my arrest." While inspecting the letter, Lieutenant Peden noticed the
+phonography, and asked me to read it. I read it thus: "My dear wife, I
+hope to be at home soon. Do not grieve." This letter they never sent. It
+was merely an act of duplicity on their part, to obtain some concession,
+which might be used against me. The guard, receiving orders, now conducted
+me to a hotel, and placed me in a small room, two guards remaining inside,
+and two at the door outside, with orders to shoot me if I made the least
+attempt at escape. I remained in this room only a few hours, after which I
+was taken to my old prison. As I entered, my old friends, the prisoners,
+crowded around me, and Captain Bruce addressed me in his facetious manner.
+In prison, his wit had beguiled many a tedious hour. His humour was the
+pure Attic salt.
+
+"Parson Aughey, you are welcome back to my house, though you have played
+us rather a scurvy trick in leaving without giving me the least inkling of
+the matter, or settling your bill."
+
+I replied: "Captain, it was hardly right; but I did not like your fare,
+and your beds were filled with vermin."
+
+"Well, you do not seem to have fared better since you left, for you have
+returned."
+
+"Captain, my return is the result of coercion. Some who oppose this
+principle when applied to themselves, have no scruples in enforcing it
+upon others.
+
+  "No rogue e'er felt the halter draw,
+  With good opinion of the law;"
+
+is an old saw, and the truth of proverbs is seldom affected by time. I am
+your guest upon compulsion; but remember, I will leave you the first
+opportunity."
+
+Upon hearing this, an officer present swore that when I again left that
+building, it would be to cross the railroad, (the place of execution.)
+
+The prisoners gathered around me, and I related to them my adventures.
+They then informed me of what had transpired during my absence. Clarke was
+taken out of prison to guide a cavalry company in search of me. Clarke
+informed me that they scoured the country, and then went to my
+father-in-law's; and after searching the premises, returned, believing
+that I had gone due north towards Rienzi, in which direction another
+company had been despatched. On their return, Clarke was remanded to jail.
+At roll-call--seven o'clock, A. M., we were missed. The cavalry were
+immediately sent in pursuit. All the guards on duty during the night were
+put under arrest. Our method of escape was soon discovered, and the guards
+were released, as they were not at fault. A large number of spikes were
+hammered in the floor, the guards were doubled, and greater vigilance
+enjoined. The prisoners were questioned, strictly and individually, to
+learn whether any of them knew of our intention to escape, or had rendered
+us any assistance. They all positively denied any knowledge of the matter.
+They asked me whether I had given the officers any information about their
+knowledge of our designs, and cooperation in effecting them. I replied
+that I had positively denied that any except Malone and myself were privy
+to our plans.
+
+I may state here that it is difficult to justify a falsehood. We ought to
+utter truth always, without exaggeration or prevarication, leaving
+consequences with God. We should do right without regard to results, for
+with consequences we have no business; but in this case the temptation to
+utter an untruth was great. These wicked men, thirsting for my blood, had
+no right to make me criminate myself or my coadjutors. It would have been
+wrong for me to give them the information they desired. Truth is too
+precious for a secessionist, thirsting for innocent blood. Had I refused
+to answer, they would have suspected that some of my fellow-prisoners
+aided us, and would have either forced me to tell who they were, or would
+have hanged me instantly for my refusal. If I had given information, and
+criminated those who had befriended us, they would have been severely
+punished, and I have been guilty of the basest ingratitude; I would have
+been shunned by the prisoners, and regarded as one of the meanest of men,
+one of the veriest wretches in existence; I could never again ask nor
+expect aid in a similar attempt to save myself from a violent death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+LIFE IN A DUNGEON.
+
+    Parson Aughey as Chaplain--Description of the Prisoners--Colonel
+    Walter, the Judge Advocate--Charges and Specifications against Parson
+    Aughey--A Citizen of the Confederate States--Execution of two
+    Tennesseeans--Enlistment of Union Prisoners--Colonel Walter's second
+    visit--Day of Execution specified--Farewell Letter to my Wife--Parson
+    Aughey's Obituary penned by himself--Address to his Soul--The Soul's
+    Reply--Farewell Letter to his Parents--The Union Prisoners' Petition
+    to Hon. W. H. Seward--The two Prisoners and the Oath of
+    Allegiance--Irish Stories.
+
+
+I was remanded to jail on Sabbath, the 6th of July, 1862. On the day of my
+escape I had been elected chaplain. Captain Bruce asked permission for me
+to hold divine service, to which no special objection was made. I
+conducted the services as I would have done were I in my own pulpit. The
+best order was maintained by the prisoners, and a deep seriousness
+prevailed. The songs of Zion resounded through the prison-house, and a
+great concourse of soldiers assembled outside the guards in front of the
+door, causing considerable interruption by their noise and insulting
+language. Several officers, also, saw fit to come in and interrupt the
+services by conversing in a loud tone, and asking me how I liked my
+jewelry, referring to my fetters. The prisoners protested against their
+rude and ungentlemanly conduct, but with little effect. They sent a
+remonstrance to the commander of the post, but he treated it with silent
+contempt.
+
+As the prisoners insisted upon it, I persisted in preaching,
+notwithstanding the persecutions endured, as long as I remained with them.
+We were a motley assemblage. Some were dressed in cloth of finest texture;
+others were clad in filthy rags. There were present the learned and the
+illiterate, the rowdy and the minister of the gospel, the holy and the
+profane, the saint and the sinner. All the Southern States, and every
+prominent religious denomination were represented. The youth in his
+nonage, and the gray-haired and very aged man were there. The superior and
+the subordinate were with us. The descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth,
+were here on the same common level, for in our prison were Afric's
+dark-browed sons, the descendants of Pocahontas, and the pure Circassian.
+Death is said to be THE great leveller; the dungeon at Tupelo was _a_
+great leveller. A fellow-feeling made us wondrous kind; none shared his
+morsel alone, and a deep and abiding sympathy for each other's woes
+pervaded every bosom. When our fellow-prisoners were called to die, and
+were led through us with pallid brows, and agony depicted on their
+countenances, our expressions of sorrow and commiseration were not loud
+(through fear) but deep.
+
+On Monday morning an officer entered; my name was called, and I arose from
+the floor on which I had been reclining. I recognised him as my old
+friend, Colonel H. W. Walter, of Holly Springs, Mississippi. After the
+ordinary salutations, he informed me that he was Judge Advocate, and that
+my trial would take place in a few days, and inquired whether I wished to
+summon any witnesses. I gave him the names and residences of several
+witnesses, but he refused to send for them, upon the plea that they were
+too near the Federal lines, and their cavalry might be in danger of
+capture were they to proceed thither. I told him that the cavalry which
+went in pursuit of me had visited that locality. He then wished to know
+what I desired to prove by those witnesses. I replied that I wished to
+prove that the specifications in the charge of being a spy were false.
+
+"Your own admissions are sufficient to cause you to lose your life," said
+the Colonel, "and I will not send for those witnesses."
+
+I replied: "I know that I must die, and you need not go through the
+formality of a trial. If condemned as a spy, I must be hanged. I only
+wished the witnesses to prove that Woodruff is a man of no moral worth,
+that his testimony is false; that Barnes is a mail-robber, and that his
+testimony, therefore, should be rejected. Proving these facts, the other
+charges which I admit, will cause me to be shot. I hope I am prepared to
+die, but do not wish to die a dog's death. Promise me that I shall be
+shot, and not hanged, and I will cavil no more."
+
+"Parson Aughey, your chances for living are very slender. The proof
+against you on both charges will be established; the testimony as to your
+guilt is positive, and spies are always hanged."
+
+He then stated the charges and specifications against me as follows:
+
+First charge--_Treason_.
+
+Specification 1st. That said Aughey stated to a member of Hill's cavalry,
+that if McClellan were defeated, the North could raise a much larger army
+in a very short time; that the North would eventually conquer the South,
+and that he was a Union man--this for the purpose of giving aid and
+comfort to the enemy.
+
+Specification 2d. That when said Aughey was requested to take the oath of
+allegiance to the Confederate States, he refused, giving as a reason, that
+England, France, and himself, had not yet recognised the Southern
+Confederacy, stating, also, that he had voluntarily taken the oath of
+allegiance to the United States Government, which he regarded as
+binding--this in North Mississippi.
+
+Specification 3d. That said Aughey was acting as a Federal agent in the
+purchase of cotton, and had received from the United States Government a
+large amount of gold, to pay for the cotton purchased.
+
+Second charge--_Acting as a spy_.
+
+Specification 1st. That said Aughey, while a citizen of the Confederate
+States, repeatedly came into our lines for the purpose of obtaining
+information for the benefit of the enemy, and that he passed through the
+lines of the enemy at pleasure, holding an unlimited pass from General
+Nelson, granting that privilege--this in the vicinity of Corinth,
+Mississippi.
+
+Witnesses, ---- Wallace, Dan Barnes, Ferdinand Woodruff, ---- Williams,
+David Huff.
+
+I demanded a copy of the charges, which Colonel Walter promised to
+furnish.
+
+About three o'clock in the afternoon, I went to a couple of prisoners who
+were heavily ironed; they were handcuffed, had a chain on their legs
+similar to mine, and were chained together to a post, or to some fixture
+at the side of the jail. I inquired for what offence they were
+incarcerated.
+
+The prisoner whom I addressed was a tall gentleman, with a very
+intellectual countenance, and of prepossessing manners. He was somewhat
+pale, and wore a sad countenance. He replied:
+
+"We are charged with desertion."
+
+"Did you desert?"
+
+"I enlisted in the Confederate service for twelve months. At the
+expiration of my term of service, I asked permission to return home,
+stating that my family were suffering for the necessaries of life; that
+they lived in Tennessee, which is occupied by Federal troops. Confederate
+bonds are there not worth the paper on which they are printed; provisions
+are scarce, and my family have not the means of purchasing. I wish to
+relieve their wants, and as my term of service has expired, I wish a
+discharge. This they refused, stating that the Confederate Congress had
+passed a law requiring all troops who had enlisted for any term, however
+short, to be held to service during the war, and all who left before that
+time would be considered guilty of desertion, and if arrested, would be
+shot. I attempted to return to my family, regarding the law a tyrannical
+enactment. I was arrested and committed to this prison."
+
+"What will be your fate?"
+
+"I know not, but fear the worst."
+
+I learned that the other prisoner had about the same statement to make,
+and was also in dread of capital punishment. I left them and walked to the
+opposite side of the prison, when I observed a file of soldiers drawn up
+in front of the building. Two officers entered, and walking up to the two
+prisoners whom I had just left, unfastened their chains, and ordered them
+to follow. One of the prisoners asked whether he should bring his blanket.
+"No," replied the officer, in a jocular tone; "you have no more need for a
+blanket in this world."
+
+On reaching the door, the soldiers separated, received the prisoners in
+their midst, closed up, and marching them across the railroad, shot them.
+As the officers passed Captain Bruce, he asked where the prisoners were
+going. They replied, "Going to be shot!" and showed him the warrant for
+their execution, having written across it, in red letters, "_Condemned to
+death!_"
+
+Thus was perpetrated an act of cruel tyranny, which cries loudly to Heaven
+for vengeance. Two families, helpless and destitute, were thus each
+deprived of its head, on whom they were dependent for support, and
+abandoned to the cold charity of a selfish world. The wages they earned by
+a year's faithful service in behalf of the wicked, cruel, and vindictive
+Confederate States, was an ignominious death and a dishonoured grave. Will
+not God visit for this? The widow and the fatherless cry to Heaven for
+vengeance, and their cries have entered into the ears of the Lord of
+Sabaoth.
+
+On Tuesday morning, six young men, who had been arrested for their Union
+sentiments, resolved to escape. Their plan was to enlist in the
+Confederate service, then to desert on the first opportunity, and make
+their way to the Federal lines. They consulted me as to the propriety of
+taking the oath of allegiance under these circumstances. Such a step would
+give them another chance for life; but were they to profess adherence to
+their Union principles, they had no hope of living many days. If permitted
+to enlist, they thought there was little doubt of their escape in a few
+days; and should a battle take place, no Federal soldiers would be injured
+by them, and an opportunity to desert might occur during the engagement. I
+drew up a paper for them, requesting permission to enlist in a company
+which they specified. Their petition was granted by the authorities, and
+they were removed from prison to the camp. I feel confident that ere this,
+they are safe in the Federal lines, for they knew the whole country, so as
+to be able to travel by night or by day, with little danger of detection.
+They had all been arrested at their homes by the Rebel cavalry. They were
+bitter in sentiment against the military usurpation, self-styled the
+Confederate States of America.
+
+This (Tuesday) evening, Colonel Walter called again, to give me a copy of
+the charges against me. He informed me that my trial had been deferred
+till Monday, the 15th inst. He also informed me in advance, that I must
+die, and that, doubtless, on the day after the trial. I asked and obtained
+permission to send for the Rev. Dr. Lyon, of Columbus, Mississippi, to be
+present at my execution. Dr. Lyon and I were co-presbyters, both being
+members of the Tombeckbee Presbytery. Colonel Walter was a renegade
+Yankee. Coming from Michigan to Mississippi, he married the daughter of a
+wealthy slave-holder. Obtaining through her the control of a large number
+of slaves, he became a very ultra advocate of the peculiar institution,
+and a rabid secessionist.
+
+Soon after Colonel Walter left, Colonel Ware came in, and asked me if I
+had been President of a Female College in Rienzi. I replied in the
+affirmative. 'Tis strange, said he, that one who has been so favoured, and
+one who has accumulated property in the South, should prove a traitor to
+the land of his adoption, and side with his enemies. I replied that I had
+given a fair equivalent for every dollar I had obtained from the citizens
+of the South; that for eleven years I had laboured faithfully as a teacher
+and minister of the gospel to promote the educational and spiritual
+interests of the Southern people; and that now I was receiving my reward
+in being chained, starved, and insulted; and that they intended soon to
+pay the last instalment by putting me to death ignominiously on the
+scaffold; I also denied being an enemy to the South. I regarded those who
+imperilled all her best interests, and plunged her into a protracted and
+desolating war, as the real enemies of the South. If my advice had been
+followed, the South and the whole country would now be enjoying its wonted
+peace and prosperity. He only replied with cursing and vituperation.
+
+Believing my end to be near, I sat down upon the floor of my dungeon, and
+penned the following letter to my wife.
+
+    TUPELO MILITARY DUNGEON, July 10th, 1862.
+
+    MY DEAR MARY--The Confederate authorities announce to me that I have
+    only a few more days to live. When you receive this letter, the hand
+    that penned it will be cold in death. My soul will have passed the
+    solemn test before the bar of God; I have a good hope through grace
+    that I will be then rejoicing amid the sacramental host of God's
+    elect, singing the new song of redeeming love in the presence of Him
+    who is the Chief among ten thousand, and the one altogether lovely.
+    Mary, meet me in heaven, where sorrow, and crying, and sin are not
+    known, and where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at
+    rest. I will request your brother Ramsey, and cousin, Captain
+    Tankersley, to convey my body to you. Bury me in the graveyard at
+    Bethany. Plant an evergreen--a cedar--at my head, and one at my feet,
+    and there let me repose in peace, till the Archangel's trump shall
+    sound, calling the dead to the judgment of the great day, and
+    vouchsafing to saints the long wished-for "redemption of the body."
+
+    As to my property, it has all been confiscated; and after years of
+    incessant toil, I leave you penniless and dependent; but trust in God.
+    To his protecting care I commit you and our dear little Kate, who has
+    promised that he will be the widow's husband, and the father of the
+    fatherless. Rest assured, the Lord will provide. Only trust in him,
+    and love him with your whole heart, and soul, and mind, and strength.
+    "I know that it shall be well with those that love God." Be not
+    faithless, but believing, and though clouds and thick darkness
+    surround you at present, a more auspicious day will dawn, and God will
+    bring you safely to your journey's end, and our reunion in heaven will
+    be sweet.
+
+    Our dear little daughter, Kate, bring up in the nurture and admonition
+    of the Lord. Teach her to walk in wisdom's ways, for her ways are ways
+    of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. Her mind may be compared
+    to wax, in its susceptibility for receiving impressions, and to
+    marble, for its power of retaining those impressions. O that she may
+    be satisfied early with the mercy of God, that she may rejoice and be
+    glad all her days! Teach her to remember her Creator in the days of
+    her youth, before the evil days come, in which she shall say, I have
+    no pleasure in thee. Make the Bible her constant study, and let its
+    words be as household words to her. Inspire her mind with a reverence
+    for _the Book_ which is able to make wise unto salvation. See to it
+    that the words of Christ dwell richly in her soul, that she may be
+    filled with wisdom, and knowledge, and spiritual understanding. Pray
+    for the Holy Spirit to bless your labours and instructions, without
+    which all your efforts would be in vain, and pray that the Third
+    Person of the adorable Trinity may take up his abode in her heart, and
+    dwell with her for ever.
+
+    As my duties in regard to instructing our child, will devolve solely
+    on you, take for your guidance, in this respect, Deut. vi. 5-9. Let
+    your example be such as you would wish her to follow. Children are
+    much more inclined to follow example than precept. Exercise care in
+    this respect, for, "as is the mother, so is her daughter."
+
+    I regret my family will, from the force of circumstances, be compelled
+    to remain in a land where my death will be considered disgraceful, but
+    it cannot be avoided. The time may come when, even in Mississippi, I
+    may be regarded as a patriot martyr. My conscience is void of offence,
+    as regards the guilt attached to the charges made against me. I am
+    charged with treason against the Confederate States. The charge and
+    the specifications are true, except that I was not a Federal agent in
+    the purchase of cotton. That was a private arrangement altogether. I
+    am also charged with acting as a spy. The specifications under this
+    charge are false. I think that this accusation was made to prevent
+    retaliation by the Federal generals; and in the Rebel army they are
+    not at a loss to prove any charge, however false. Ferdinand Woodruff
+    is their tool to prove me a spy, and he will do it, though he knows
+    his testimony to be as false as that of the suborned witnesses who
+    bore testimony against the Saviour.
+
+    How long shall the wicked triumph? How long will God forbear to
+    execute that vengeance which is his, and which he will repay sooner or
+    later! I feel confident that the right cause will prevail, and though
+    I will not live to see it, for my days are numbered, yet I firmly
+    believe that the rebel power will be destroyed utterly.
+
+        "Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again;
+          The eternal years of God are hers;
+        But error, wounded, writhes in pain,
+          And dies amid her worshippers."
+
+    I write this letter amid the din and confusion incident to a large
+    number of men crowded into a narrow compass, and free from all
+    restraint. This letter will be transmitted to you by friends. The
+    names of those friends you will know hereafter. They will present your
+    case to General Rosecrans or Nelson, who may obtain a pension for you.
+    My services heretofore in the Union cause are known to them, and I
+    think they will see that you do not suffer; all my real estate will
+    be restored to you if the Union cause triumphs, and I think there is
+    no doubt as to its success. Give my love to all my friends. Remember
+    that I have prayed for you unceasingly during my imprisonment, and my
+    last utterances on earth will be prayers for your welfare.
+
+    Farewell. God bless you, and preserve you and our dear little Kate.
+
+    Your affectionate husband,
+
+        JOHN H. AUGHEY.
+
+I next wrote my obituary, which I placed in the hands of a Union soldier
+who expected soon to be exchanged. By him it was to be sent to the editors
+of _The Presbyterian_, published in Philadelphia, with a request that it
+should appear in their columns.
+
+OBITUARY.
+
+Died, in Tupelo, Ittawamba county, Mississippi, July --, 1862, the Rev.
+John H. Aughey. The subject of the above notice was executed on the
+gallows, by authority of the Confederate States, on the charges of treason
+and acting as a spy.
+
+John H. Aughey was born in New Hartford, Oneida county, New York, May 8th,
+1828; removed with his parents to Steubenville, Ohio, in 1837; is an
+alumnus of Franklin College, New Athens, Harrison county, Ohio; studied
+theology in Memphis, Tennessee, under the Rev. John H. Gray, D. D.,
+President of Memphis Synodical College--also under the care of the Rev. S.
+I. Reid of Holly Springs, Mississippi; was licensed to preach the gospel
+by the Presbytery of Chickasaw, October 4th, 1856; was ordained to the
+full work of the gospel ministry by the Presbytery of Tombeckbee, at its
+session in Winston county, Mississippi, in April, 1861. God blessed his
+labours by giving him many seals to his ministry. After labouring eleven
+years in the South as a teacher and minister of the gospel, having never
+injured a citizen of the South either in person or property, he suffered a
+felon's death for attachment to the Federal Union, because he would not
+turn traitor to the government which had never in a single instance
+oppressed, but had always afforded him protection. He rests in peace, and
+in the hope of a blessed immortality.
+
+      "Leaves have their time to fall,
+  And flowers to wither in the north wind's breath,
+      And stars to set; but all--
+  Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!"
+
+ADDRESS TO MY SOUL.
+
+O my soul! thou art about to appear in the presence of thy Creator, who is
+infinite, eternal, unchangeable in his being, power, wisdom, holiness,
+justice, goodness, and truth. He cannot look upon sin. He is a
+sin-avenging God, and thou art stained with sin. Thy transgressions are as
+numerous as the stars of heaven, and the sand that is upon the sea-shore.
+Thou art totally debased by sin, and thy iniquities abound. Thou art
+guilty of sins of omission and of commission. Justice would consign thee
+to everlasting burnings, to dwell with devouring fire, even to everlasting
+destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power.
+Guilty, helpless, wretched as thou art, what is thy plea why sentence of
+eternal death should not be pronounced against thee?
+
+THE SOUL'S REPLY.
+
+I plead the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood cleanses from
+_all_ sin, even from sins of the deepest dye. I plead the sufferings of
+Him who bore my sins in his own body, on the tree, and wrought out a
+perfect righteousness, which I may obtain by simple faith. No money, no
+price is demanded. This I could not pay, for all my righteousness is as
+filthy rags, and I must perish, were any part of the price demanded.
+Nothing in my hand I bring. My salvation must be _all_ of grace, or to me
+it would be hopeless. I trust that Christ will clothe me in the spotless
+robes of his own righteousness, and present me faultless before his
+Father. With this trust, I go to the judgment-seat, assured that the soul
+which trusts in Christ shall never be put to shame. God is faithful who
+has promised.
+
+    MILITARY DUNGEON, Tupelo,
+    Ittawamba Co., Miss., July 11th, 1862.
+
+    DEAR PARENTS--"Life is sweet, and it is a pleasant thing to behold the
+    sun." "All that a man hath, will he give for his life." "Having
+    promise of the life that now is." "The life is more than meat." "They
+    hunt for the _precious_ life." The above quotations from the Word of
+    Life, show the high estimate that is placed upon life. My life is not
+    "_precious_" in the eyes of the Secessionists, for their authorities
+    declare that "my chances for living long are extremely slender." "Yet
+    a few days, and me the all-beholding sun shall see no more in all his
+    course." Mourn not for me, my dear parents, as those who have no hope.
+    "For me to live, is Christ; but to die, is gain." I fear not those
+    who, when they have killed the body, have no more that they can do.
+    But I fear Him whose fear casteth out every other fear. When these
+    lines are read by you, their author will be an inhabitant of the
+    Celestial City, the New Jerusalem, and will be reposing in Abraham's
+    bosom, in the midst of the Paradise of God. Next to God, my thanks are
+    due to you, for guiding my infant feet in the paths of wisdom and
+    virtue. In riper years, by precept, I have been warned and instructed.
+    By example I have been led, until my habits were fixed, and then,
+    accompanied by your parental blessing, I sought a distant home, to
+    engage in the arduous duties of life. Whatever success I have met
+    with, whatever influence for good I may have exerted, are all due to
+    your pious training. I owe you a debt of gratitude which I can never
+    repay. Though I cannot, God will grant you a reward lasting as
+    eternity. It will add to that exceeding and eternal weight of glory
+    which will be conferred on you in that day when the heavens shall be
+    dissolved, and the elements melt with fervent heat. I die for my
+    loyalty to the Federal Government. I know that you would not have me
+    turn traitor to save my life. Life is precious, but death, even death
+    on the scaffold, is preferable to dishonour. Remember me kindly to all
+    my friends. Tell sisters Sallie, Mary, and Emma, to meet me in heaven.
+    I know that _my_ Redeemer liveth. Dying is but going home. I have
+    taught many how to live, and now I am called to teach them how to die.
+    May God grant that as my day is, so may my strength be, and that, in
+    my last moments, I may not bring dishonour upon my Master's cause,
+    but may glorify him in the fires!
+
+    My dear parents, farewell till we meet beyond the river.
+
+        Your affectionate son,
+        JOHN H. AUGHEY.
+
+    TO DAVID AND ELIZABETH AUGHEY,
+    Amsterdam, Jefferson Co., Ohio.
+
+The following letter was written to the Hon. William H. Seward in behalf
+of the Union men in prison and within the rebel lines.
+
+    CENTRAL MILITARY PRISON, Tupelo,
+    Ittawamba Co., Mississippi, July 11th, 1862.
+
+    Hon. William H. Seward:
+
+    DEAR SIR--A large number of citizens of Mississippi, holding Union
+    sentiments, and who recognise no such military usurpation as the
+    so-called Confederate States of America, are confined in a filthy
+    prison, swarming with vermin, and are famishing from hunger--a
+    sufficient quantity of food not being furnished us. We are separated
+    from our families, and suffered to hold no communication with them.
+    We are compelled, under a strong guard, to perform the most menial
+    services, and are insulted on every occasion by the officers and
+    guards of the prison. The nights are very cool; we are furnished with
+    no bedding, and are compelled to lie down on the floor of our dungeon,
+    where sleep seldom visits us, until exhausted nature can hold out no
+    longer; then our slumbers are broken, restless, and of short duration.
+    Our property is confiscated, and our families left destitute of the
+    necessaries of life; all that they have, yea, all their living, being
+    seized upon by the Confederates, and converted to their own use. Heavy
+    fetters are placed upon our limbs, and daily some of us are led to the
+    scaffold, or to death by shooting. Many of us are forced into the
+    army, instant death being the penalty in case of refusal; thus
+    constraining us to bear arms against our country, to become the
+    executioners of our friends and brethren, or to fall ourselves by
+    their hands.
+
+    These evils are intolerable, and we ask protection, through you, from
+    the United States Government. The Federal Government may not be able
+    to release us, but we ask the protection which the Federal prisoner
+    receives. Were his life taken, swift retribution would be visited upon
+    the rebels by a just retaliation--a rebel prisoner would suffer death
+    for every Federal prisoner whom they destroyed. Let this rule hold
+    good in the case of Union men who are citizens of the South. The loyal
+    Mississippian deserves protection as much as the loyal native of
+    Massachusetts. We ask, also, that our confiscated property be restored
+    to us, or, in case of our death, to our families. If it be destroyed,
+    let reparation be demanded from the rebels, or the property of known
+    and avowed secessionists sequestered to that use.
+
+    Before this letter reaches its destination, the majority of us will
+    have ceased to be. The writer has been informed by the officers that
+    "his chances for living long are very slender;" that he has confessed
+    enough to cause him to lose his life, and the Judge Advocate has
+    specified Tuesday, the 15th inst., as the day of his execution. We
+    have, therefore, little hope that we, individually, can receive any
+    benefit from this petition, though you regard it favourably, and
+    consent to its suggestions; but our families, who have been so cruelly
+    robbed of all their substance, may, in after time, receive
+    remuneration for their great losses. And if citizens of avowed
+    secession proclivities, who are within the Federal lines, are arrested
+    and held as hostages for the safety of Union men who are and may be
+    hereafter incarcerated in the prison in Tupelo and elsewhere, the
+    rebels will not dare put another Union man to death.
+
+    Hoping that you will deem it proper to take the matters presented in
+    our petition under advisement, we remain, with high considerations of
+    respect and esteem, your oppressed and imprisoned fellow-citizens,
+
+        JOHN H. AUGHEY,
+        BENJAMIN CLARKE,
+        JOHN ROBINSON,
+        and thirty-seven others.
+
+Two young men informed me to-day that they had been forced into the rebel
+service. They had been taken prisoners at Corinth by General Pope, and had
+taken the oath of allegiance to the Federal Government, to which their
+hearts had always been loyal. Recently they had been arrested, and on
+refusing to rejoin their regiment, were immured in this dungeon. From the
+threats of the officers, they expected to be shot at any moment. They had
+used every means to banish the thoughts of death--had forced themselves to
+engage in pleasantry and mirth to drive away the sadness and gloom which
+oppressed them when alone, and recalled the pleasures of their happy
+homes--homes which they would never see again. I counselled them to
+prepare to meet their God in peace; to wisely improve the short time
+granted them to make their calling and election sure. They replied that
+they hoped all would be well. They had long since confessed Christ before
+men, and hoped for salvation through his merits. Still, they could not
+help feeling sad in the near prospect of death. They left me to mingle
+with a group of prisoners, who were endeavouring to dissipate the tedium,
+and vary the monotonous routine of prison life, by "telling stories."
+Captain Bruce led off by telling the following Irish story:
+
+"Once upon a time, an Irishman, who rejoiced in the possession of a fine
+mare and a colt, wished to cross the Mississippi river at Baton Rouge with
+them. By some mishap, they were all precipitated from the ferry-boat into
+the water. The Irishman, being unable to swim, grasped the colt's tail,
+hoping thus to be carried to the shore. Some of the passengers called out
+to him: 'Halloo, Pat, why don't you take hold of the mare's tail; she is
+much stronger, and much more able to carry you safely to the shore.' 'O,
+be jabers!' says Pat, 'this is no time for swapping horses.'" This tale
+was received with applause.
+
+Baltimore Bill, a real Plug-ugly, told his story next, as follows: "Two
+Irishmen, immediately after their arrival in America, found a gun. After
+long inspection, they concluded it was some kind of musical instrument,
+and wishing to hear the music, it was agreed that Jimmie should blow at
+the muzzle, while Pat worked with the 'fixins' at the breech. At it they
+went. Soon the gun went off, and Jimmie fell down, shot dead. 'Och!' says
+Pat, 'are you charmed at the first note?'" This story was received with
+loud bursts of laughter. An officer then entered, and ordered us to be
+quiet, forbidding us to narrate any more tales.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+EXECUTION OF UNION PRISONERS.
+
+    Resolved to Escape--Mode of Executing Prisoners--Removal of
+    Chain--Addition to our Numbers--Two Prisoners become Insane--Plan of
+    Escape--Proves a Failure--Fetters Inspected--Additional
+    Fetters--Handcuffs--A Spy in the Disguise of a Prisoner--Special
+    Police Guard on Duty--A Prisoner's Discovery--Divine Services--The
+    General Judgment--The Judge--The Laws--The Witnesses--The
+    Concourse--The Sentence.
+
+
+On Friday morning, the twelfth of July, as I lay restless and sore,
+endeavouring to find some position which would be sufficiently easy to
+permit me to enjoy, even for a few moments, the benefit of "Tired nature's
+sweet restorer, balmy sleep," the thought occurred that it would be well
+to attempt an escape, though it should result in death from the fire of
+the guards, which would be far preferable to death by strangling at the
+rope's end, and in the presence of a large concourse of rebel enemies.
+Their method of shooting was, to dig a hole, and make the victim sit with
+his legs hanging in it. The soldiers would fire three balls through the
+brain, and three through the heart; then the mangled and bleeding body
+fell into the grave, and was immediately covered with earth. At first,
+coffins were used, but of late, these had been dispensed with, owing to
+the increased expense, and the increasing number of executions.
+
+I had not long meditated upon this subject, when I arose, fully resolved
+on death or liberty. My intentions were communicated to several prisoners,
+who promised me all the aid in their power. My fetters were examined, and
+it was concluded, that with proper instruments my bands could be divested
+of the iron which secured the chain-rings. A long-handled iron spoon, a
+knife, and an old file, were obtained, and two were detached at a time to
+work on my fetters. We went to one side of the building, and a sufficient
+number of prisoners stood in front of us, to prevent the guard from
+noticing our proceedings. Our locations were changed frequently, to
+prevent detection; and when an officer entered, labour was suspended till
+his exit.
+
+We called General Bragg, Robespierre; General Jordan, Marat; and General
+Hardee, Danton. Several prisoners were led out and shot to-day. The
+majority of them were Union men. Six Union men were committed to jail
+to-day. The horrors of our situation were sufficient to render two of
+these victims insane. A reign of terror had been inaugurated, only
+equalled, in its appalling enormity, by the memorable French Revolution.
+Spies and informers, in the pay of the Rebel government, prowl through the
+country, using every artifice and strategy to lead Union men to criminate
+themselves, after which they are dragged to prison and to death. The
+cavalry dash through the country, burning cotton, carrying off the
+property of loyal citizens, and committing depredations of every kind.
+
+Several prisoners resolved to attempt an escape with me. Our plan was, to
+bring in the axe with which we split wood for cooking, and raise a plank
+in the floor, a sufficient number to stand around those who lifted it, to
+prevent observation, and then make our way out among the guards, who were
+off duty on the north side of the building. At this time there were three
+guards in front of each door, and two on the south side of the building.
+On the north side of the building, there were no guards on duty, for, if
+the other three sides were securely guarded, the prisoners could not
+escape on the north side. There were, however, several hundred guards,
+who, when off duty, slept on this side of the prison. When their turn
+came, they went on duty; and those who were relieved, came there to sleep.
+They were coming and going all the time, and during the whole night, they
+kept up an incessant noise.
+
+After the unremitting labour of my friends during the day, I found that I
+could slip my chain off and on at pleasure. The sun was now setting, but
+the axe had not been brought in. At this time a guard was stationed in
+each door; the favourable moment had passed; none dared to bring the axe
+past the guard. While deliberating on the best course to pursue--as
+raising a plank had proved a failure for the present--General Jordan and
+Colonel Clare entered. I was standing with others in the middle of the
+floor. General Jordan came directly to me; either accidentally or
+intentionally, he held up a light to my face. "Ah! you are here yet," said
+he. I gave an affirmative nod. "Well," said he to Colonel Clare, "I must
+examine this fellow's irons." Putting his hand down, and ascertaining that
+they had been tampered with, he endeavoured, ineffectually, to pull the
+bands off; he did not notice that I could slip the chain-rings off. "These
+irons," said he, "are very insecure; who helped you to put them in this
+condition?" I made no reply. After waiting until he found I intended none,
+he continued: "Colonel Clare, have these irons secured in the morning;
+also put handcuffs on him, and chain him, so as to confine him to one
+locality; the gallows shall not be cheated of their due." Having given
+these orders, they passed out. As soon as they were gone, the prisoners
+who had aided me crowded around, stating that they believed there was a
+spy in the house, in the guise of a prisoner, and declaring that I must
+escape that night, or it would be too late. All realized that on to-morrow
+there would be no hope.
+
+There were eleven guards on duty--three in front of each door, one in each
+door, two on the south side of the building, and at night one passing back
+and forth through the centre of the prison, which was lighted during the
+whole night. There was also a special police guard on duty that night, as
+five Federal prisoners, who remained in our prison until some formalities
+were gone through with, would be sent in the morning to the prison at
+Columbus, Mississippi, and it was feared they might attempt to escape ere
+they were sent further south.
+
+At this juncture, a young man ran up and informed me that he had made a
+discovery which might result in my escape; I must go alone, however, and
+though they would aid me, they would run great risk in doing so. Only
+four could assist, and he would volunteer to be one of them. Several
+others immediately volunteered, of whom three were selected by M----, and
+the plan then communicated. At this moment, Captain Bruce announced that
+the hour for divine worship had arrived. I asked my friends whether I
+should plead indisposition, and dispense with the services for that time.
+They replied that it might lead to suspicion, and advised me to give them
+a short sermon. I went to my usual place of standing, clanking my chains
+as heretofore. I give a synopsis of the sermon.
+
+The text was 2 Cor. v. 10: "We must all appear before the judgment-seat of
+Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according
+to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad."
+
+The doctrine of a general judgment was revealed to mankind at a very early
+period of the world's history. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied,
+saying, "Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to
+execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among
+them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of
+all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him."
+Job declares: "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at
+the latter day upon the earth." Daniel also speaks of a general judgment:
+"I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did
+sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the
+pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning
+fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand
+thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood
+before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened." The New
+Testament is also explicit in its declarations that God hath appointed a
+day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he
+hath ordained. The text declares that we must all appear before the
+judgment-seat of Christ.
+
+The scenes which will usher in the judgment of the great day will be of
+the most magnificent character. "The heavens shall pass away with a great
+noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and
+the works that are therein, shall be burned up." This does not indicate
+annihilation. God will never annihilate any of his creatures, animate or
+inanimate.
+
+The inquiry is often made, what becomes of the soul after death, and where
+does it await the general judgment? A sect called the Soul-sleepers, take
+the position that the soul, after death, goes into a torpid state, like
+bears in winter, and thus remains till the sounding of the Archangel's
+trump. There is no Scripture to sustain this view, and it is only assumed,
+to avoid the objection that God would not judge a soul, and send it to
+reward or punishment, and then bring it back, to be again judged. That the
+soul, at death, passes immediately into glory or torment, is proved by
+many scriptures. Paul "desired to depart, and be with Christ, which was
+far better," than remaining on earth. He declares that to be present with
+the body, is to be absent from the Lord. The dying Stephen calls upon the
+Lord Jesus to receive his spirit. These holy men would not thus have
+spoken, if they supposed that ages must elapse ere they entered heaven.
+God is not the God of the dead or torpid, but of the living. Moses and
+Elias appeared on the mount of transfiguration in a state far from
+torpidity. The dying thief received the promise, "This day shalt thou be
+with me in paradise." No mention is made of Purgatory or torpidity. The
+objector urges that paradise is not heaven. We are told that the river of
+life flows from the throne of God, that the tree of life grows on both
+sides of the river, and that the tree of life grows in the midst of the
+paradise of God. The paradise of God is where he is seated on his throne,
+which is heaven. Paradise is where Christ is. The thief would be with
+Christ in paradise. He who regards the Lord Jesus as the Chief among ten
+thousand, the One altogether lovely, will deem his presence heaven indeed.
+As to the wicked, it is said of the rich man, that in hell he lifted up
+his eyes, being in torment. If, after being judged, the souls of
+believers, do pass immediately into glory, and the wicked into torment,
+what use is there of another or general judgment. I reply, We are
+responsible not only for our acts, but for the influence which those acts
+exert through all time. Gibbon, Hume, Rosseau, Paine, and other infidel
+writers, wrote works which, during the life of the authors, did great
+evil. If those wicked men passed away from earth impenitent, they are now
+suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. But the influence for evil, of
+those wicked works, did not cease with the death of their authors.
+Thousands of young men every year are led into pernicious and hurtful
+errors by their perusal. At the general judgment, the accumulated guilt,
+for the baleful influence exerted through their writings in all time, will
+sink them deeper in the flames of perdition. The sainted Alexander, and
+other pious men who are now in heaven, wrote many works whose influence
+for good was great while their authors lived; and since their death they
+are, and will continue to be, instrumental in the hand of God in turning
+many to righteousness. All the good accomplished by their writings,
+through all time, will, at the judgment, add to their exceeding and
+eternal weight of glory.
+
+In this life, we often see the righteous man contending with life's
+unnumbered woes; all the dealings of Providence seem to be adverse. While
+the wicked are in great power, they flourish in life, like the green
+bay-tree, and have no bands in their death. These things are strange and
+mysterious. We understand them not now; but we shall learn, in that great
+day, when all mysteries are made plain, that God's dealings were just,
+both with the righteous and the wicked.
+
+The text declares that _we_ must all appear before the judgment-seat of
+Christ. This _we_ includes all who are now within the sound of my voice,
+and not only us, but all who live upon the face of the earth; and the
+Archangel's trump will wake the pale nations of the dead, and summon them
+to judgment. The dark domain of hell will be vacated, and the angels that
+kept not their first estate, and are now reserved in chains of darkness,
+will appear in the presence of the Judge. Heaven's holy inhabitants will
+be present. Thus heaven, earth, and hell, will be represented in that
+august assemblage. The scene will bear some resemblance to that which
+takes place in our earthly courts. The Lord Jesus Christ will be the
+Judge, and the angels and saints will be the jurors, who will consent to
+and approve of the acts of the Judge. The angels will be the officers who
+will summon, from the prison-house of hell, the devils, to the trial, and
+also those wicked men who will call upon the rocks and mountains to fall
+upon them, and hide them from the face of the Lamb. Nor, as is so often
+the case with earthly officers, will any be able to elude the vigilance of
+these. They will be clothed with ample power to compel the attendance of
+all; none will escape. We _must all_ appear before the judgment-seat. As
+in earthly courts, law is the basis of judgment, so we shall be judged
+according to law in that day. The heathen will be judged by the law of
+nature--the law written in their hearts, and on their consciences. The
+light of nature teaches the being, wisdom, power, and goodness of God. For
+a violation of this law, they will be beaten with few stripes. The Jews
+will be judged by both the law of nature, which they have, in common with
+the heathen and the Mosaic law. But we who live in the nineteenth century,
+in the full blaze of gospel light, will be judged not only by the light of
+nature and the Mosaic law, which we possess in common with the heathen and
+the Jew, but also by the glorious gospel of the Son of God, which brought
+life and immortality to light; and if condemned, how fearful our doom, who
+are so highly favoured! In earthly courts, we are judged for our overt
+acts alone; but in the court of heaven, the commandment is exceeding
+broad; it reaches every thought. Our words, too, are taken into account.
+We must give an account for every idle word. By our words, we shall be
+justified, and by our words we shall be condemned. Our thoughts, our
+words, our deeds, will all be taken into account.
+
+As in our courts there are witnesses, so also there will be at the bar of
+God. Our pious relatives and friends will bear this testimony, that they
+have prayed with us and for us; that they had a deep concern for our
+souls, and that we who are found on the left hand of the Judge, refused
+all their counsel, and despised their admonitions. Ministers of the gospel
+will testify that they came as ambassadors from the King of kings, and
+beseeching you, in Christ's stead, to be reconciled to God, pointing to
+the coming wrath, and warning you from that wrath to flee; and yet their
+labour of love ye despised, and scorned the message from on high. The
+Bible will be a witness against you. Its teachings are able to make wise
+unto salvation. It is the chart which is given to guide us through this
+wilderness-world, to fairer worlds on high. It tells of the Lamb of God,
+who taketh away the sin of the world. It is truth without any mixture of
+error, and yet you have despised this necessary revelation, and chosen to
+perish, with the Word of Life open before you. God, the Father, will be a
+swift witness against you. In the greatness of his love for you, in the
+counsels of eternity, he devised the plan of salvation, and sent his only
+begotten Son to suffer and die, that you might live, and yet you have
+despised that love, and rejected that Saviour. God, the Son, will bear
+this testimony, that he came from the shining abodes of glory, where
+seraphim and cherubim fell prostrate at his feet, in humble adoration, and
+emptying himself of his glory, bore all the ills of life--the persecutions
+of wicked men, and the accursed death of the cross, that salvation might
+be yours, and yet ye refused it, and trod the blood of the Son of God
+under foot, and put him to an open shame. The Holy Spirit, the Third
+Person of the adorable Trinity, will bear witness that he often knocked at
+the door of your hearts for admittance; that he wooed you to embrace his
+love, offering to abide with you for ever, and yet you rejected the offer,
+and did despite to the Spirit of grace, till, in sorrow, he took his
+everlasting flight.
+
+The devil is now going about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may
+devour, and sometimes transforming himself into an angel of light. He is
+tempting you to sin, by presenting before your minds the superior charms
+of the riches and pleasures of earth, to things that are unseen and
+eternal. He has no power to compel you to sin. His evil suggestions are
+whispered in your oft too willing ears, and then it remains with you to
+accept or reject. He has no power of compulsion. Your sin must be an act
+of your own will, or it is not sin. When you consent to the wiles of this
+arch enemy, and sin against God, remember that with eager desire and base
+ingratitude he will fiercely accuse in the great day of God Almighty, and
+urge these very sins of his suggestion as a reason why he should have you
+to torment you for ever in the bottomless pit.
+
+That internal monitor, that light which enlightens every man that cometh
+into the world--the moral sense, or conscience--will be a swift witness
+against you. By it you have been enlightened and warned; and in the case
+of many who have denied a future state of punishment, the goadings of
+remorse have convinced them that there is a hell, the kindlings of whose
+fires they have felt in their own bosoms. Conscience will compel you to
+confess that your doom is just, though for ever debarred from the joys and
+happiness of heaven. O! my fellow-prisoners and travellers to the bar of
+God, listen to her warning voice to-day, before it be too late, and you
+are compelled mournfully to exclaim, "The harvest is past, the summer is
+ended, and I am not saved!" The conscience of the sinner will be compelled
+to admit the truth of the testimony. In earthly courts, oftentimes
+witnesses are suborned, and their testimony false. Not so at the grand
+assize. Not a scrap of false testimony will be admitted. The evidence will
+be in truth, and the judgment in righteousness.
+
+After all these scenes have occurred, the Judge will render a verdict, and
+pronounce the sentence, which will be irreversible and eternal. With
+regard to the righteous, though they have been guilty of many sins, both
+of omission and commission, and have no merits of their own to plead, and
+consider themselves justly obnoxious to eternal banishment, their
+Advocate, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom, while in the flesh, they
+exercised a true and living faith, will now present them, clad in the
+white robes of his perfect righteousness, faultless before his Father, and
+they will now hear the welcome plaudit, "Come ye blessed, inherit the
+kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." But those on
+the left hand, who all their life rejected the mercy offered--the great
+salvation proffered without money and without price--will now hear the
+dread sentence, "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for
+the devil and his angels!"
+
+O my dear, impenitent fellow-prisoners! how can ye take up your abode,
+your eternal abode, in everlasting burnings? How can ye dwell with
+devouring fire? How can ye endure everlasting destruction from the
+presence of the Lord and the glory of his power, shut up for ever in the
+fearful pit out of which there is no egress except for the vision of the
+damned, and the smoke of its torment? Be wise to-day, 'tis madness to
+defer. Procrastination is the thief of time. Delay is fraught with awful
+danger. Trust not in promises of future amendment. The way to hell is
+paved with good resolutions, which are never kept. The future convenient
+season never arrives. Like Felix, we may tremble when the minister reasons
+of a judgment to come; and like Agrippa, we may be almost persuaded to be
+a Christian, and yet come short of the glory of God through
+procrastination. Procrastination has populated hell. All the doomed and
+damned from Christian lands are victims of this pernicious and destructive
+wile of the devil. It is foolish to procrastinate. Though the Bible teems
+with rich and glorious promises of a hundred-fold blessings in this life,
+and eternal glory in the world to come, to those who break off their sins
+by righteousness, and their transgressions by turning unto the Lord, yet
+all these promises are limited to the present tense. There is not a single
+blessing promised the future penitent. He procrastinates at the risk of
+losing all. Behold, _now_ is the accepted time, and now is the day of
+salvation. _To-day_ if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
+"Ho, every one that thirsteth, _come_ ye to the waters; and he that hath
+no money, _come_ ye, _buy_ and _eat_; yea, _come buy_ wine and milk
+without money and without price." "Seek ye _first_ the kingdom of God and
+his righteousness." "And the Spirit and the Bride say, _come_; let him
+that heareth say, _come_; and let him that is athirst _come_: and
+whosoever will, let him _take_ the water of life freely."
+
+Choose ye _this day_ whom ye will serve. There is no warrant for deferring
+till to-morrow the momentous and eternal interests of the immortal soul.
+The shortness and uncertainty of life furnish a strong reason why we
+should not procrastinate. In the Bible, life is compared to everything
+that is swift, transient, and fleeting in its nature. It is compared to
+the swoop of the eagle hasting to the prey; to the swift post, to the
+bubble on the river. Life is compared in its duration to a year, a day,
+and to nothing, yea, less than nothing, and vanity. All these comparisons
+indicate that it is very brief and evanescent. We have no lease of life;
+we hold it by a very slight tenure; and this is especially true of us in
+our present condition. Confined in prison, some of us led to death every
+day without a moment's warning, every evening I address some who, before
+the next evening, are in eternity. Myself in chains, my life declared
+forfeited, ought we not all to be deeply impressed with the necessity of
+immediate preparation to meet our God? I feel that I am preaching as a
+dying man to dying men, and I beseech you in Christ's stead, be ye
+reconciled to God. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and ye shall be
+saved. Trust in him for salvation, for he is faithful who has promised.
+God has never said to any, seek ye my face in vain. By the love and mercy
+of God, by the terrors of the judgment, by the sympathy and compassion of
+Jesus, I entreat you, my fellow-prisoners, to seek an interest, a present
+interest, in the great salvation!
+
+I close for the present. We shall never all engage in divine service
+together again on earth. We separate--some to go to a distant prison, and
+some to death. May God grant that when we are done with earthly scenes, we
+may all meet in the realms of bliss, where there is in God's presence
+fulness of joy, and at his right hand pleasures for evermore! And may the
+love of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the communion of the
+Holy Spirit, rest and abide with us, and all the Israel of God, now,
+henceforth, and for ever, Amen!
+
+The following hymn was then sung:
+
+  In the sun, and moon, and stars,
+    Signs and wonders there shall be;
+  Earth shall quake with inward wars,
+    Nations with perplexity.
+
+  Soon shall ocean's hoary deep,
+    Tossed with stronger tempests, rise;
+  Wilder storms the mountains sweep,
+    Louder thunders rock the skies.
+
+  Dread alarms shall shake the proud,
+    Pale amazement, restless fear;
+  And, amid the thunder-cloud,
+    Shall the Judge of men appear.
+
+  But though from his awful face,
+    Heaven shall fade, and earth shall fly,
+  Fear not ye, his chosen race,
+    Your redemption draweth nigh.
+
+I preached longer than I had intended, having become so fully engrossed
+with the subject as to forget my chains and my frustrated plans. My
+fellow-prisoners were listening apparently with interest; great solemnity
+prevailed, and penitential tears were flowing. It was evident that the
+Spirit of the living God was in our midst; and though danger and death
+were before our eyes, the consolations of the glorious gospel of the
+blessed God caused our peace to flow like a river. The precious seed was
+sown in tears. May we not entertain a good hope that he who cast the seed
+into this soil, prepared by affliction, shall come again with rejoicing,
+bringing his sheaves with him. By my side stood two in chains, who
+appeared deeply moved. During the day I had conversed with them about
+their souls. They expressed regret that they had not heretofore given this
+matter the attention its importance demanded. Since their imprisonment,
+however, they had been led to feel that they were great sinners, and had,
+as they hoped, put their trust in Christ alone for salvation. I have since
+learned that on the morrow they were shot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+SUCCESSFUL ESCAPE.
+
+    The Second Plan of Escape--Under the Jail--Egress--Among the
+    Guards--In the Swamp--Travelling on the Underground Railroad--The
+    Fare--Green Corn eaten Raw--Blackberries and Stagnant Water--The
+    Bloodhounds--Tantalizing Dreams--The Pickets--The Cows--Become
+    Sick--Fons Beatus--Find Friends--Union Friend No. Two--The night in
+    the Barn--Death of Newman by Scalding--Union Friend No. Three--Bound
+    for the Union Lines--Rebel Soldiers--Black Ox--Pied Ox--Reach
+    Headquarters in Safety--Emotions on again beholding the Old
+    Flag--Kindness while Sick--Meeting with his Family--Richard Malone
+    again--The Serenade--Leave Dixie--Northward bound.
+
+
+After the sermon was concluded, the preparations for my escape were
+commenced. The building used for our prison was built with the front
+toward the east. The doors were at the eastern and western extremities,
+which were the gable ends, one door being in each end. There were also two
+windows at each end, the door being between them. The doors and
+window-sashes had been removed, to allow the guards stationed in front an
+unobstructed view of the interior. At night the apartment was lighted, and
+a guard patrolled the floor; it was, therefore, nearly impossible for a
+person to escape the observation of the guards, either within or without
+the jail. In the North, the houses are usually built with a cellar
+underneath; at the South, such a thing is very rare, the houses being
+built upon the ground, or upon piles. Our prison was built upon piles, the
+floor being elevated about eighteen inches above the ground. The boards
+were nailed upon the building perpendicularly, and in some cases did not
+quite reach to the ground. Small openings were thus left between the floor
+and the ground, through which a person could crawl underneath the
+building. Around each door was an enclosure, formed by stakes surmounted
+with poles, in the shape of a parallelogram, whose dimensions were about
+ten by sixteen feet. In each of these enclosures four guards were
+stationed, one of them being seated in the doorway. The rear enclosure was
+used for cooking purposes; and into both enclosures we were permitted to
+go at pleasure during all hours of the day, and as late at night as ten
+o'clock. Only three prisoners were allowed to be in an enclosure at one
+time.
+
+M---- had discovered a hole by the side of the steps within the front
+enclosure, by which I could get under the building. I felt unwilling to
+make such an attempt, as the aperture was in the immediate vicinity of the
+guards. M---- stated that four others would aid me, though at considerable
+risk on their part. "I'll take the risk," was the individual response of
+all present. M---- selected three, who with himself assumed the perilous
+task, in which discovery would have cost them their lives. M----, who had
+devised the plan of escape, now instructed us in the respective parts we
+were to perform. All promised implicit obedience. At half-past nine, three
+prisoners and myself were to go into the enclosure. They would stand up
+and converse with the guards, whilst I sat upon the ground by the hole, to
+wait for an opportunity to crawl under the building unobserved. This
+opportunity we expected to occur at ten o'clock, when the relief-guard
+came on duty. The duty of one prisoner was to remain inside and engage the
+attention of the guard who sat in the doorway, while the other three would
+go into the enclosure, and entertain the other guards, according to the
+previously devised plan. At half-past nine o'clock, we placed ourselves in
+the designated positions. I readily removed my chain, coiled it up, and
+laid it by the side of a little stump. The moon shone with great
+brilliancy, revealing the tents which surrounded us on every side.
+Officers and soldiers passed hurriedly to and fro. We were in the midst of
+the noise and confusion of a great encampment, as there were in and around
+Tupelo some fifteen thousand soldiers. Mingled sounds of mirth and
+contention proceeded from the surrounding tents. My prisoner friends were
+engaged in a fierce argument with the guards as to the comparative merits
+of Tennessee and Mississippi troops. This was done to divert their
+attention, and I observed with pleasure that they were meeting with
+success. I reflected that a few more moments would decide my fate. If
+detected, my life must end ignominiously and on the gallows. In the
+morning, my anklets would be securely welded. I would also be handcuffed
+and chained to a post. Then all hope must end, and soon my corpse would be
+borne into the presence of her whose tears were flowing, and who refused
+to be comforted because of my ominous absence.
+
+The order for the relief-guard now came loud and clear. I heard their
+hurried tramp, and saw their glittering bayonets in the bright moonlight.
+The set time, the appointed moment, big with my fate, had arrived. I
+offered an ejaculatory prayer to Him who sits upon the throne of heaven
+for protection at this critical moment. The guard stood within ten feet of
+me, with their eyes constantly upon me. Just as they were turning to
+receive the advancing relief-guard, I crawled backward under the building,
+and disappeared from their view. The relief-guard went on duty, and those
+relieved retired. The prisoners were ordered into the house, and as the
+new guards did not know that four were in the enclosure, I was not
+missed.
+
+[Illustration: "Just as they were turning to receive the relief-guard, I
+crawled backward under the building, and disappeared from view." Page
+172.]
+
+I was now under the prison, but there were guards on every side, and the
+jail was in the midst of a camp, so that I was still in great danger of
+detection. I saw, through the crevices in the floor, the guard who
+patrolled the prison. I heard the murmurings and mutterings of the
+prisoners, as he occasionally trod upon them in his carelessness. I could
+hear, though not distinctly, the conversation of the prisoners. One of my
+assistants was detailing to his companions their success in getting me off
+unnoticed. The prisoners slept but little that night, owing to their
+anxiety for my safety, and I frequently heard my name mentioned, and hopes
+for my safety expressed. I occasionally fell into uneasy slumbers, but the
+fleas and other vermin were so annoying, that my sleep refreshed me but
+little. I could distinctly hear the new guard conversing, and among other
+topics, one remarked that he had forgotten the countersign; the other
+replied that it was _Braxton_. Well, said the former, I thought it was
+Bragg, or Braxton, or something like that. Knowing the countersign
+emboldened me, as I could, if halted, give it, and pass on. I soon crawled
+to the north side of the prison, and found that there were three apertures
+sufficiently large to admit of my egress. Upon reaching the first one, I
+found a number of guards, some sitting and some lying so close to it, that
+I dared not make the attempt at that point.
+
+Crawling to the second, I remained till there was comparative quiet; but
+at the instant I was about to pass out, a soldier, who was lying with his
+face toward me, commenced to cough, and continued to do so, at intervals,
+for more than an hour. Finding it unadvisable to run the risk of detection
+at this point, I made my way, with considerable difficulty, to the third
+and last aperture, near the rear of the building, and not very distant
+from the rear-guards. I remained at this aperture till I heard one guard
+say to another that it was three o'clock, and that they must soon go on
+duty. I felt confident that then was my time, or never, as morning would
+find me under the house, and I would be re-arrested in that situation.
+Committing myself into the hands of God, and asking him to keep me from
+detection, and grant me a safe escape, I arose from under the building,
+passed by two sleeping guards, who were lying within three or four feet of
+the prison. As it was my first essay at walking without chains, I reeled,
+as if under the influence of strong drink, striking my foot against the
+head of one of those sleeping guards, who, awaking, turned over, and
+uttering some exclamation of disapprobation, took no further notice of me,
+doubtless mistaking me for one of his companions. After proceeding a few
+steps, I sat down upon the ground among some of the guards. I took out my
+knife, and whistling, to appear as unconcerned as possible, commenced
+whittling a stump, around which they were collected--some sitting, some
+standing, and others reclining. I readily passed for one of them, as I was
+wearing a colored shirt, which resembled that worn by the guards. I soon,
+however, arose, and wound my way among the various groups, endeavouring
+to reach the corn-field, to which I had made my first escape. After
+passing the guards off duty, a sentinel arose a short distance in front of
+me, evidently with the intention of halting me, if I advanced farther.
+Stopping a few minutes, to avoid suspicion, I changed my direction,
+bearing southwest, and after a time, got into the woods. Kneeling down, I
+returned God thanks for thus crowning my efforts with success, and prayed
+for his continuous protection, and that he would choose out my path, that
+I might escape detection, and rejoin my family and friends in safety.
+
+I now pursued my journey rapidly in a southwest direction, choosing that
+which led directly from my home, for two reasons. The cavalry and
+bloodhounds would not be so likely to follow in that direction, and after
+listening, while in prison, to the drum-beat morning and evening, in the
+various surrounding camps, I noticed that it had ceased in the southwest
+for several mornings; hence I supposed that the camp in that direction had
+been broken up, and that, in taking that route, I could more readily get
+beyond the rebel pickets, and then I could change my course, and bear
+northward, and reach the Federal lines at some point on the Memphis and
+Charleston railroad. I hastened on till the sun arose, having passed
+through woods and corn-fields, studiously avoiding all roads, when, as I
+was rapidly travelling along a narrow path, I met a negro. The suddenness
+of our meeting alarmed both. I, in a peremptory tone, addressed him, in
+quick succession, the following interrogatories:
+
+"Where are you going? To whom do you belong? Where have you been? Have you
+a pass?"
+
+"I belong," said the boy, trembling, "to Mr. ----. I have been to wife's
+house; am gwine back home, but I haint got nary pass."
+
+"I suppose it is all right with you?"
+
+"Oh, yes, master! it's all right wid me."
+
+Concluding that it was not all right "wid" myself, I hurried on, soon
+leaving the path, and turning into a dense woods. Travelling on till
+about one P. M., I came to an open country, so extensive that I could not
+go round it, neither could I, in daylight, travel through it with safety.
+I sought out a place to hide, and finding a ditch which bisected a
+corn-field, I concealed myself in that. During the day, negroes and whites
+passed near, without discovering me. Becoming hungry, I ate a small piece
+of the bread which one of my fellow-prisoners had given me, but it made me
+quite sick. On my former escape, I had, just before leaving the house,
+traded pants with a fellow-prisoner, without his knowledge or consent. On
+my return, he refused to trade back. My reason for trading was, to get a
+dark pair, as mine were so light-coloured, I feared the guards would
+discover me more readily. Their owner had been accustomed to use tobacco,
+and the bread had become tinctured with it. Tobacco being very offensive
+to me, its presence on my bread caused me to lose it.
+
+The day passed away, and the night came. The stars came out in silent
+glory, one by one. Fixing my eye upon the pole-star, the underground
+railroad travellers' guide, I set out, bearing a little to the west of
+north. I soon reached the thick woods, and found it very difficult to make
+rapid progress, in consequence of the dense under-growth and obscure
+light. The bushes would strike me in the eyes, and often the top of a
+fallen tree would cause me to make quite a circuit. Soon, however, the
+moon arose in her brightness--the old silver moon. But her light I found
+to be far less brilliant than that of the sun, and her rays were much
+obscured by the dense foliage overhead; hence my progress was necessarily
+slow, laboured, and toilsome. I slept but little during the day, in
+consequence of the proximity of those who might be bitter foes, and also
+the unpleasant position I occupied, as the ditch in which I had concealed
+myself was muddy, and proved an uncomfortable bed. I therefore became
+weary, my limbs stiff from travel and from the pressure of the heavy iron
+bands. Sleep overpowered me, and I laid down in the leaves, and slept till
+the cold awoke me, which, judging from the moon's descent, must have been
+an hour and a half. The nights in Mississippi are invariably cool, however
+hot the days may be. Arising from my uneasy slumber, I pressed on. My
+thirst, which for some time had been increasing, now became absolutely
+unendurable. I knew not where to obtain water, not daring to go near a
+well, through fear of being arrested. At length I heard some suckling pigs
+and their dam, at a short distance from me, in the woods. There seemed to
+be no alternative. I must either perish, or obtain some fluid to slake my
+raging thirst; so I resolved to catch a little pig, cut its throat, and
+drink the blood. I searched for my knife, but I had lost it. I was,
+therefore, reluctantly compelled to abandon my design on the suckling's
+life. As I went forward, the sow and her brood started up alarmed, and in
+their flight, plunged into water. I immediately followed, and found a
+mud-hole. Removing the green scum, I drank deep of the stagnant pool. My
+thirst was only partially quenched by this draught, and soon returned. As
+day dawned, I found some sassafras leaves, which I chewed, to allay the
+pangs of hunger; but they formed a paste which I could not swallow.
+
+I soon after came to an old field, where I obtained an abundant supply of
+blackberries, which not only served to check the gnawings of hunger, but
+also to allay my intolerable thirst. I reflected that this day was the
+holy Sabbath, but it brought neither rest to my weary frame, nor composure
+to my agitated and excited mind. Like Salathiel, the Wandering Jew, the
+word _March!_ was ringing in my ears. Onward! was my motto; Liberty or
+death! my watchword. About ten o'clock I came to an open country, and
+sought out a ditch, in which to conceal myself. Here I fell into a
+troubled sleep. I saw, in dreams, tables groaning under the weight of the
+most delicious viands, and brooks of crystal waters, bubbling and
+sparkling as they rushed onward in their meandering course; but when I
+attempted to grasp them, they served me as they did Tantalus, of olden
+time, by vanishing into thin air, or receding beyond my reach. While lying
+here, I was now and then aroused by the trampling of horses grazing in
+the field, which I feared might be bringing on my pursuers. And once the
+voices of men, mingled with the sounds of horses' feet upon a little
+bridge, some twenty feet distant, induced me to look out from my
+hiding-place, and lo! two cavalry-men--perhaps hunting for my life!--rode
+along.
+
+When the sun had reached the zenith, I was again startled by voices, which
+approached nearer and nearer my place of concealment, till at length the
+cause was discovered. Several children, both black and white, had come
+from a farm-house, about a quarter of a mile distant, to gather
+blackberries along the margin of the ditch. They soon discovered me, and
+seemed somewhat startled and alarmed at my appearance. I soon saw them
+gazing down upon me, in my moist bed, with evident amazement and alarm.
+Pallid, haggard, unshaven, and covered with mud, I must have presented a
+frightful picture.
+
+As soon as the children passed me, fearing the report they would carry
+home, I arose from my lair, and hurried on, though I had to pass in sight
+of several houses. After travelling three or four miles through an open
+champaign country, I came to a dense woods, bordering a stream which had
+ceased running, in consequence of the great drought that had, for a long
+time, prevailed throughout this section of Mississippi. The creek had been
+a large one, and in the deep holes, some water still remained, though
+warm, and covered with a heavy scum, and mingled with the spawn of frogs.
+I drank it, however, from sheer necessity, tepid and unhealthy as it was.
+It did not allay my thirst, but created a nausea, which was very
+unpleasant.
+
+About four o'clock P. M., I was startled by the baying of bloodhounds
+behind me, and apparently on my track. Before escaping from jail, I had
+been advised by the prisoners to obtain some onions, as these, rubbed on
+the soles of my boots, would destroy the scent. They could only be
+procured, however, by a visit to some garden-patch, and I feared to go so
+near a house. I had left no clothes in prison from which the hounds could
+obtain the scent in order to find my track, and my starting in a
+southwest direction was an additional precaution against bloodhounds.
+Their baying soon became alarmingly distinct. Having heard them almost
+every night for years, as they hunted down the fugitive slave, I could not
+mistake the fearful import of their howling. I could devise no plan for
+breaking the trail. Dan Boone, when pursued by Indians, succeeded in
+baffling the hounds by catching at some overhanging branches, and swinging
+himself forward. Negroes often destroy the scent by carrying matches, and
+setting the leaves on fire. One negro of whom I heard, ran along the brink
+of a precipice, and dug a recess back from the narrow path. Crawling into
+it, he remained till the hounds reached that point, when he thrust them
+from the path. They fell and were dashed to pieces on the jagged rocks
+below.
+
+None of these plans were practicable to me, and I supposed death imminent,
+either from being torn to pieces by the hounds, or by being shot by the
+cavalry, who were following them. Climbing a tree, I resolved to await
+the arrival of the cavalry, and having determined to die rather than be
+taken back again to Tupelo, I would refuse to obey any summons to descend.
+O, how I wished for my navy repeater, that I might sell my life as dearly
+as possible! that I might make some secessionist bite the dust ere I was
+slain! I often thought of the couplet in the old song--
+
+  "The hounds are baying on my track,
+  Christian, will you send me back?"
+
+A feeling of strong sympathy arose in my bosom for the poor African, who,
+in his endeavour to escape from the Iron Furnace of Southern slavery,
+often encountered the bloodhounds, and was torn to pieces by them. "A
+fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind."
+
+I had remained but a short time in the tree, when I ascertained that the
+hounds were bearing eastward, and they soon passed at a distance. They
+were on the track of some other poor fugitive, and I rejoiced again in the
+hope of safety. Coming to a corn-field, I plucked two ears of corn, and
+ate them raw, having no matches wherewith to kindle a fire, which, indeed,
+would have increased my peril, as the smoke might advertise my presence to
+bitter and unrelenting foes.
+
+Toward night I lay down in the woods, and fell asleep. Visions of
+abundance, both to eat and drink, haunted me, and every unusual sound
+would startle me. A fly peculiar to the South, whose buzz sounded like the
+voice of an old man, often awoke me with the fear that my enemies were
+near. As soon as Ursa Minor appeared, I took up my line of march. The
+night was very dark, and I became somewhat bewildered. At length I reached
+a crossroads, and as I was emerging from the wood, I saw two pickets a few
+yards from me. Stooping down, I crawled on my hands and knees back into
+the woods. As I retired, I heard one picket say to the other, "Who is
+that?"
+
+He replied, "It is the lieutenant of the guard."
+
+"What does he want?" said the first.
+
+"He is slipping round to see if we are asleep."
+
+After I got a safe distance in the bushes, I lay down and slept till the
+moon arose. To the surprise of my bewildered brain, it seemed to rise in
+the west. Taking my course, I hastened on, sometimes through woods,
+sometimes through cornfields, and sometimes through swamps. Coming to a
+large pasture, in which a number of cows were grazing, I tried to obtain
+some milk, but none of them would allow me to approach near enough to
+effect my purpose. My face was not of the right colour, and my costume
+belonged to a sex that never milked them. I travelled until day-break,
+when I concealed myself in a thicket of cane, and had scarcely fallen
+asleep when I heard the sound of the reveille, in a camp close at hand.
+Arising, I hurriedly beat a retreat, and travelled several hours before I
+dared take any rest. I at length lay down amid the branches of a fallen
+tree, and slept. Visions of home and friends flitted before me. Voices
+sweet and kind greeted me on all sides. The bitter taunts of cruel
+officers no longer assailed my ears. The loved ones at home were present,
+and the joys of the past were renewed. But, alas! the falling of a limb
+dissipated all my fancied pleasures. The reality returned, and I was still
+a fugitive escaping for life, and in the midst of a hostile country.
+
+To-day my mock trial would have taken place, and I fancied the
+disappointment of Woodruff, who had stated that to his knowledge I was a
+spy, and to-day would have sworn it. And Barnes, the mail-robber,
+recommended for promotion because of his heroism in re-arresting me, how
+sad he must feel, that the bird had flown, and that he would not have the
+pleasure of witnessing my execution. I thanked God and took courage.
+Though faint and weary, I was still hopeful and trusting, often repeating,
+
+  "'Tis God has led me safe thus far,
+    And he will bring me home."
+
+On this (Monday) night, I travelled steadily, crossing swamps,
+corn-fields, woods, and pastures. I came to only one cotton-field during
+the night. I passed through several wheat-fields, where the wheat had been
+harvested; I pulled a handful from a shock, and rubbed out some of the
+grain, but it was so bitter I could not eat it. I suspected every bush a
+secessionist, though I felt much more secure at night than in daylight. I
+avoided roads as much as possible, travelling on none except to cross
+them, which was done with great rapidity. The rising sun still found me
+pressing onward, and thirst and hunger were now consuming me. To satisfy
+hunger, I had recourse to the corn-field; but I could find no water. I
+would gladly have drank any kind of beverage, however filthy, so that my
+thirst might be allayed. About nine o'clock, when I had almost despaired
+of getting water at all, I came to a copious fountain in a gorge of the
+hills, and from its appearance, I seemed to be the discoverer. Around it
+there was no trace of human foot, nor hoof of cattle. On beholding it, I
+wept with joy. I remained by it about four hours, quaffing its cool and
+crystal waters, the first running water I had tasted since leaving
+prison. I also bathed my body and washed my clothes, drying them in the
+sun, and endeavoured to rid them of vermin, in which I only partially
+succeeded. I named this fountain _Fons Beatus_, and left it with sincere
+sorrow.
+
+Three o'clock, P. M., arrived, and I felt bewildered. I knew not where I
+was. I might be near friends, I might be near bloodthirsty foes. I could
+scarcely walk. My iron bands had become very irksome. I felt that I was
+becoming childish. I could tell all my bones. I tried to pray, but could
+only utter, "Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner!" Still I felt thankful
+that it was so well with me as it was.
+
+At that very hour, had I not escaped, I should have been either on the
+scaffold at Tupelo, or suspended between heaven and earth, surrounded by
+an insulting and jeering army. This reflection made me thankful to God,
+even though I should die in the swamps. The sky became overcast, and I
+found it impossible to distinguish north from south. I therefore concealed
+myself and slept. It was night when I awoke, and the clouds still covered
+the sky threateningly, concealing my guiding star, and rendering it
+impossible for me to proceed. Thus, when I wished most to go forward, my
+progress was arrested, and my distressing suspense prolonged. During the
+whole night I was asleep and awake alternately, but could not at any time
+discern either moon or stars. Once, while sleeping behind a fallen tree by
+the roadside, a horseman passed by. His dog, a large and ferocious-looking
+animal, came running along by the side of the tree where I was lying. When
+he reached me, I raised up suddenly and brandishing a club menacingly, the
+alarmed and howling dog incontinently and ingloriously fled, leaving me
+master of the field.
+
+On Wednesday morning the sun was still obscured until nine o'clock. I was
+then sick. There was a ringing in my ears, and I was affected with
+vertigo, a dimness of vision and faintness, which rendered me absolutely
+unfit for travel. It required an hour to walk a quarter of a mile. I found
+a good supply of blackberries, which very much refreshed me. Before me
+was a hill, the top of which I reached after two hours' laborious ascent.
+I despaired of getting much further. I thought I must perish in the Iron
+Furnace of secession, which was heated very hot for me. Feeling confident
+that I must be near Tippah county, and knowing that there were many Union
+men in that county, I resolved to call at the first house on my route. If
+I remained where I was, I must perish, as I could go no further, and if I
+met with a Union family, I should be saved; if with "a secesh," I might
+possibly impose upon their credulity, and get refreshment without being
+arrested. They might, however, cause my arrest. It was a dilemma such as I
+hope never to be placed in again. About an hour before sunset I came to a
+house, and remained near it for some time. At length I saw a negro girl
+come to the door. Knowing that where there were negroes, in nine cases out
+of ten there were secessionists near, I left the house as quickly as my
+enfeebled condition would permit. Going to another house, I remained near
+it till I was satisfied there were no negroes held by that family. I then
+went boldly up, knocked, gained admittance, and asked for some water,
+which was given me. The lady of the house, scrutinizing me closely, asked
+me if I were from Tupelo. I replied in the affirmative. She then inquired
+my name. I gave her my Christian name, John Hill, suppressing the surname.
+Her husband was sitting near, a man of Herculean frame; and as the wife's
+inquisitiveness was beginning to alarm me, I turned to him and said: "My
+friend, you are a man of great physical powers, and at this time you ought
+to be in the army. The Yankees are overrunning all our country, and the
+service of every man is needed." His wife replied that he was not in the
+army, nor would he go into it, unless he was forced to go. They had been
+told that the cavalry would be after him in a few days, to take him as a
+conscript; but she considered the conscript law, base and tyrannical.
+Overjoyed at the utterance of such sentiments as these, I then revealed my
+true character. I told them that I had recently made my escape from
+Tupelo, where I was doomed to execution on the gallows, and that I was
+now flying from prison and from death. I then exhibited the iron bands
+upon my ankles. Both promised all the aid in their power. The lady at once
+proposed to prepare supper, but I was too near the point of starvation to
+await the slow process of cooking. She therefore turned down the
+tablecloth, which covered the fragments remaining from dinner, and
+disclosed some corn bread and Irish potatoes. Though I never liked corn
+bread, I must confess I thought that was the sweetest morsel I had ever
+tasted.
+
+After eating a little, however, I became very sick, and was compelled to
+desist. It was so long since I had partaken of any substantial food, that
+my stomach now could not bear it. The lady soon prepared supper,
+consisting of broiled chicken, and other delicacies. The fowl was quite
+small, and I ate nearly the whole of it, much to the chagrin of a little
+daughter of mine host, whom I heard complaining to her mother, afterward,
+in an adjoining room, saying, "Ma, all I got of that chicken was a little
+piece of the wing," and "aint that gentleman a hoss to eat?" with other
+remarks by no means complimentary to my voracious appetite.
+
+After supper, mine host endeavoured to remove the heavy iron bands by
+which my ankles were clasped. This was accomplished after considerable
+labour. I asked him to retain the bands till called for, which he promised
+to do. The good lady furnished me with water and a suit of her husband's
+clothes. After performing a thorough ablution, I donned the suit, and felt
+completely metamorphosed, and was thoroughly disguised, as my new suit had
+been made for a man of vastly larger physical proportions. I spent the
+night with my new friends, during which a heavy thunder-storm passed over.
+Had I been out in the drenching rain in my wretched condition, I must
+surely have perished. In the morning my host informed me of a Union man
+who knew the country in the direction of Rienzi, the point which I now
+determined to reach. This gentleman lived half a mile distant, and my host
+accompanied me to a thicket near his house, where I concealed myself till
+he brought Mr. ---- to me. Said my friend No. 2, "I am not familiar with
+the route to Rienzi, but will go with you to friend No. 3, who I am
+positive is well acquainted with the road. He can take you through the
+woods, so as to avoid the Confederate cavalry. As I undertake this at the
+risk of my life, we must wait till night. I would gladly have you come to
+my house, but I fear that it might transpire through my children that I
+had helped you to escape. I have a large family, and most of 'em is gals,
+and you know gals will talk. You can stay in my barn till I come for you.
+I will carry you provisions during the day, and to-night we will go to my
+friend's."
+
+About three o'clock in the morning, he came with two horses, one of which
+he mounted, and I the other. The horse I rode was a blooded animal, and to
+use my friend's expression, could run like a streak of lightning. I
+provided myself with a good whip, resolving, in case of danger, to put my
+horse to his utmost speed. A short time after daylight, we reached friend
+No. 3, who promised to conduct me to Rienzi. While at his house, I learned
+that a Unionist, Mr. N----, had been killed under circumstances of the
+greatest cruelty. His sentiments had become known to the rebels. He was
+arrested by their cavalry, and refusing to take the oath, they resolved to
+put him to death on the spot. He had a large family of small children,
+who, together with his wife, begged that his life might be spared. He
+himself had no favours to ask of the secessionists. Among his foes, the
+only point of dispute was, as to the mode of his death. Some favoured
+shooting, some hanging; but the prevailing majority were in favour of
+scalding him to death. And there, in the presence of his weeping and
+helpless family, these fiends in human form _deliberately heated water,
+with which they scalded to death their chained and defenceless victim_.
+Thus perished a patriot of whom the State was not worthy. The corpse was
+then suspended from a tree, with a label on the breast, stating that
+whoever cut him down and buried him, should suffer the same fate. My
+companions cut down the corpse by night, and buried it in the forest. May
+God reward them!
+
+My friend No. 3 thought that it would be best to travel in daylight. He
+could follow by-paths, and avoid the rebel cavalry. We started about eight
+o'clock on Friday morning, and met with no incident worth narrating until
+we reached a mill; here we fell in with some six or seven rebel soldiers,
+who had been out on sick furlough, and were returning. They scanned us
+closely, and inquired whence we came, and whither bound. My friend
+specified a neighbourhood from which he affirmed we came, and stated that
+we were hunting stray oxen, asking whether they had seen a black ox and a
+pied ox in their travels. They replied in the negative; and in turn asked
+him who I was. He replied that I was his wife's brother, who had come from
+Alabama about three months ago. They said I looked like "death on a pale
+hoss," and wished to know what was the matter with me--if I were
+consumptive. My friend replied that I had had the chills for several
+months; and as there was no quinine in the country, it was impossible to
+stop them.
+
+During this inquisition, I was ready at any moment to put spur to my
+horse, and run a race for life, had any attempt been made to arrest me, or
+if I had been recognised by any of the soldiers. We were, however,
+permitted to pass on, not without some suspicious glances. We at length
+reached a point ten miles from Rienzi. My guide now insisted on returning.
+It would be morning ere he reached home, and if met by cavalry, he must
+invent some plausible excuse for having a led horse. Nor did he dare
+return by the same route. Knowing the country, I permitted him to return.
+I then set out on foot, and at length reached the Federal pickets, three
+miles from Rienzi, where a horse was furnished me; and about ten o'clock I
+reached the head-quarters of Colonel Misner in Rienzi. When I gazed upon
+the star-spangled banner, beneath whose ample folds there was safety and
+protection--when I saw around me the Union hosts--I shed tears of joy, and
+from the depths of my heart returned thanks to Almighty God, who had
+given me my life at my request, preserving me, amid dangers seen and
+unseen, till I now was safe amid hosts of friends.
+
+Colonel Misner requested me to report all that would be of service to
+General Rosecrans, which I did, he copying my report as I gave it. I
+reported, so far as I was informed, the probable number of troops in and
+around Tupelo, the topography of the country, the probable designs of the
+rebels, the number of troops sent to Richmond under Beauregard, &c. The
+Colonel requested me to go with him to head-quarters in the morning; but
+at the hour specified I was sick, and my physician, Dr. Holley, of the
+Thirty-sixth Illinois, thought it would not be advisable for me to go,
+even in an ambulance. My report, however, was carried up to General
+Rosecrans.
+
+Through proper treatment I recovered in a few days, so as to be able to go
+into Jacinto, the nearest point in the Federal lines to my family. I
+called on General Jefferson C. Davis, who was in command of that post. The
+General had heard of my arrest, and expressed gratification at my safe
+return. I informed him of my desire to get my family within the lines. The
+General immediately proffered me all the cavalry at his command, and
+ordered them to prepare for the expedition. I thankfully accepted his kind
+offer, but after reflection concluded to send a messenger first, with a
+letter to my wife; if he were not intercepted, I knew that she would come
+in as soon as possible. The order to the cavalry was countermanded until
+this plan would be tried. The messenger was not intercepted, and on the
+next day I had the pleasure of beholding my wife and child, whose faces, a
+short time before, I had given up all hope of ever beholding on earth.
+
+While here, I called on my friend, Lieutenant Richard Malone, who resides
+in Jacinto. On inquiring at his house for him, he heard my voice, and ran
+out to the gate to meet me. Grasping my hand, he could not for some time
+control his emotions so as to speak.
+
+Malone gave me his history since we had parted at the outer wall of the
+prison. He reached the corn-field at the point designated, and anxiously
+awaited my arrival until near daylight, when he was compelled to seek
+safety in flight. We had agreed to meet in the corn-field at a place where
+there was a garment suspended upon the fence. We think there must have
+been two garments suspended at different points, and hence our mistake. We
+could not signal loud in consequence of the nearness of the pickets, and
+therefore did not meet. Soon after daylight, Malone found himself in the
+midst of a cavalry company which had encamped there during the night; they
+were making preparations for departure, and the majority of them were
+gathering blackberries. Joining them, he passed as a citizen, and when he
+reached the rear of the company, he gathered some sticks in his arms, and
+started towards a small cabin at a short distance, as if it were his
+residence. Before reaching it, he made a detour to the right, and passed
+into the dense woods. On the next day, about ten o'clock, A. M., he
+reached an open champaign country, through which it would have been
+dangerous to travel. To the west, about three hundred yards distant, was a
+dense woods, which he hoped to reach without detection. While travelling
+down a road for this purpose, four cavalrymen who were in pursuit dashed
+towards him, and ordered him to return with them to Tupelo. Malone
+replied, that as it was useless to resist, he must submit. He asked for
+some water; they had none in their canteens, but went to a house in the
+distance to obtain some. Malone was ordered to march before them, which he
+was compelled to do, though famishing from hunger and thirst. On reaching
+the house, they all went to the well and drew a bucket of water. There
+being no dipper, Malone remarked that he would go into the house and get
+one. One of the guards followed, and stationed himself at the door with
+his gun. Malone went into the house, and immediately passed out at the
+back door. The garden gate being open, he passed into the garden, when he
+commenced running. Two women in the house noticed his running, and
+clapping their hands exclaimed, "Your Yankee's gone! Your Yankee's gone!"
+The guards immediately followed, ordering him to halt, and firing at him
+with their revolvers. Malone quickly reached a corn-field, and soon after
+a swamp, whence he made good his escape, and after various vicissitudes
+reached his family in Jacinto, where I now found him.
+
+I returned to Rienzi with my family, resolved to leave for the North. My
+wife, before leaving her father's, learned, through a letter sent by a
+rebel officer to his wife, that all the guards who were on duty during the
+night I escaped from prison, were placed under close arrest, and were
+still in the dungeon at the time of his writing. There were eleven guards
+on each relief, and three reliefs during the night; there were, therefore,
+thirty-three guards placed under arrest because of my escape.
+
+On the night previous to our departure from Rienzi, we were honoured with
+a serenade, through the politeness of General Granger, of the cavalry, and
+Colonel Bryner, of the Forty-seventh Illinois Regiment. Being called on
+for a speech, I thus responded:
+
+    GENTLEMEN--I return you sincere thanks for the honour intended myself
+    and family. In the language of the last tune played by your band, I
+    truly feel at "home again," and it fills my soul with joy to meet my
+    friends once more. What a vast difference a few miles makes! Tupelo is
+    about forty miles south of Rienzi, on an air-line. There I was
+    regarded as a base ingrate, as a despicable traitor, as an enemy to
+    the country, chained as a felon, doomed to die, and before the
+    execution of the sentence, subjected to every species of insult and
+    contumely. Here I meet with the kindest expressions of sympathy from
+    officers of all ranks, from the subaltern to the general, and there is
+    not a private soldier who has heard my tale of woe, who does not
+    manifest a kindly sympathy.
+
+    I hope that you will soon pass south of Tupelo; but in your march to
+    the Gulf, may you fare better than I did in my journey to this place.
+    Green corn eaten raw, berries, and stagnant water, would soon cause
+    you to present the emaciated appearance that I do. On your route, call
+    upon the secession sympathizers, and compel them to furnish you with
+    better and more substantial food. My horse I left at Tupelo. He is a
+    valuable animal. The rebel General Hardee, in the true spirit of
+    secession, appropriated--that is, stole--him. However, I did not call
+    to demand him when I left. Being in haste, I did not choose to spare
+    the time, and leaving in the night, I did not wish to disturb the
+    slumbers of the Tupelonians. He is a bright bay. If you meet with him,
+    you may have him for nothing. I would much prefer that he serve the
+    Federal army.
+
+    If you take General Jordan prisoner, send me word, and I will furnish
+    you with the iron bands that he put on me, by which you may secure him
+    till he meets the just award of his crimes, which would be death, for
+    destroying the lives of so many Union men.
+
+    I hope that you may soon plant the stars and stripes on the shores of
+    the Gulf of Mexico, and play the "Star-spangled Banner" within
+    hearing of its vertiginous billows, after having conquered every foe
+    to the permanence of the glorious Union. I close with the sentiment of
+    the immortal Jackson, which I wish you to bear constantly in mind, in
+    your victorious progress--"The Federal Union--it must and shall be
+    preserved!" Relying upon the God of battles, rest assured that the
+    right cause will triumph, and that after having secured the great
+    object of your warfare, the preservation of the Union, your children
+    and your children's children will rise up and call you blessed,
+    rejoicing in the enjoyment of a free, united, and happy country.
+
+    Wishing you abundant success, I beg leave to retire.
+
+On Saturday, the 2d of August, 1862, we left Rienzi, _en route_ for the
+North, in company with William H. Hubbard, Esq., and family, who were also
+refugees. From the moment I reached the Federal lines I experienced
+nothing but kindness. I could not mention all who are deserving of thanks
+from myself and family. I am under special obligations to Generals Nelson,
+Rosecrans, Granger, Davis, and Asboth; also to Colonel Bryner and
+Lieutenant Colonel Thrush, of the Forty-seventh Illinois, and Surgeon
+Lucas, of same regiment, and to Dr. Holley, of the Thirty-sixth Illinois
+Volunteers; to Josiah King, Esq., of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Dr.
+McCook, of Steubenville, Ohio; also Mrs. Ann Wheelwright, of Newburyport,
+Massachusetts, whose kind letter will ever be remembered, and whose
+"material aid" entitles her to lasting gratitude; and to Rev. George
+Potts, D. D., of New York; and Mr. William E. Dubois, of Philadelphia;
+Rev. Dr. Sprole, Newburgh, New York; Rev. N. Hewitt, D. D., Bridgeport,
+Connecticut; and Rev. F. N. Ewing, Chicago, Illinois; Rev. J. M. Krebs, D.
+D., New York; Rev. A. D. Smith, D. D., New York; and Rev. F. Reck
+Harbaugh, Philadelphia, and many others.
+
+Before closing this chapter I would mention the following incident:
+
+On Wednesday evening, November 19th, I addressed the citizens of
+Philadelphia at the Sixth Presbyterian Church, (Rev. F. Reck Harbaugh's.)
+A report of this address found its way into the city papers. Two days
+afterwards, while in conversation with Mr. Martien, at his book-store, two
+soldiers entered, one of whom approached, and thus addressed me:
+
+"Do you know me, sir?"
+
+I replied: "Your face is familiar, but I do not remember your name. It is
+my misfortune not to be able to remember proper names."
+
+"I read the report of your address in the newspaper, and through the aid
+of my comrade, I have succeeded in finding you. We have met before, at
+Tupelo."
+
+At the mention of Tupelo, I immediately recognised in the speaker the man
+who, after labouring with the others in sundering my chain, engaged the
+guard, who sat in the doorway, in conversation, while I watched an
+opportunity to disappear under the prison. Grasping him warmly by the
+hand, I said: "I now recognise you. You are Mr. Howell Trogdon, of
+Missouri, late my fellow-prisoner in Tupelo. How and when did you succeed
+in leaving that prison?"
+
+"Being a Federal prisoner, I was removed from Tupelo to Mobile, and there
+parolled on the 26th of August last."
+
+"When was I missed after my escape, and how did the officers act when they
+learned that I was gone?"
+
+"You were missed at roll-call, the next morning, and in a short time, many
+officers came into the prison. They were greatly enraged at this, your
+second flight. The prisoners were closely questioned as to their
+complicity in your escape, but they denied all knowledge of the matter.
+Soon all the prison-guards on duty during the night, thirty-three in
+number, were brought into the prison in chains. The cavalry was ordered
+out in search of you, and directed to shoot you down wherever found. The
+mode of your escape was not discovered, and the officers were of the
+opinion that you had bribed the guards. _From that time, the officers
+became more cruel than ever, and in two weeks, thirty-two of our
+fellow-prisoners were taken out and shot!_ We never learned whether you
+had succeeded in escaping to the Union lines. We feared that you were
+overtaken and shot, or that you perished in the swamps from hunger,
+thirst, and fatigue. I hope soon to see McHatten, Speer, De Grummond, and
+Soper, who are also parolled, and they will rejoice to learn that you
+still live. During the night of your escape, we slept but little, through
+fear that _our chaplain_ might be shot by the guards, and I assure you
+many fervent prayers ascended to Heaven for your safety."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+SOUTHERN CLASSES--CRUELTY TO SLAVES.
+
+    Sandhillers--Dirt-eating--Dipping--Their Mode of
+    Living--Patois--Rain-book--Wife-trade--Coming in to see the
+    Cars--Superstition--Marriage of Kinsfolks--Hardshell Sermon--Causes
+    which lead to the Degradation of this Class--Efforts to Reconcile the
+    Poor Whites to the Peculiar Institution--The Slaveholding Class--The
+    Middle Class--Northern Isms--Incident at a Methodist Minister's
+    House--Question asked a Candidate for Licensure--Reason of Southern
+    Hatred toward the North--Letter to Mr. Jackman--Barbarities and
+    Cruelties of Slavery--Mulattoes--Old Cole--Child Born at
+    Whipping-post--Advertisement of a Keeper of Bloodhounds--Getting Rid
+    of Free Blacks--The Doom of Slavery--Methodist Church South.
+
+
+The sojourner in the Slave States is struck with the wretched and degraded
+appearance of a class of people called by the slaveholders, "poor white
+folks," and "the tallow-faced gentry," from their pallid complexion. They
+live in wretched hovels, dress slatternly, and are exceedingly filthy in
+their habits. Many of them are clay or dirt-eaters, which is said to cause
+their peculiar complexion. Their children, at a very early age, form this
+filthy and disgusting habit; and mere infants may be found with their
+mouths filled with dirt. The mud with which they daub the interstices
+between the logs of their rude domicils, must be frequently renewed, as
+the occupants pick it all out in a very short time, and eat it. This
+pernicious practice induces disease. The complexion becomes pale, similar
+to that occasioned by chronic ague and fever.
+
+Akin to this is the practice of snuff-dipping, which is not confined
+exclusively to females of the poor white caste, though scarcely one in
+fifty of this class is exempt from the disgusting habit. The method is
+this: The female snuff-dipper takes a short stick, and wetting it with her
+saliva, dips it into her snuff-box, and then rubs the gathered dust all
+about her mouth, and into the interstices of her teeth, where she allows
+it to remain until its strength has been fully absorbed. Others hold the
+stick thus loaded with snuff in the cheek, _a la quid_ of tobacco, and
+suck it with a decided relish, while engaged in their ordinary
+avocations; while others simply fill the mouth with the snuff, and
+imitate, to all intents and purposes, the chewing propensities of the men.
+In the absence of snuff, tobacco in the plug or leaf is invariably
+resorted to as a substitute. Oriental betel-chewing, and the Japanese
+fashion of blacking the teeth of married ladies, are the height of
+elegance compared with snuff-dipping. The habit leads to a speedy decay of
+the teeth, and to nervous disorders of every kind. Those who indulge in it
+become haggard at a very early age.
+
+The _Petersburg_ (Va.) _Express_ estimates the number of women in that
+State as one hundred and twenty-five thousand, one hundred thousand of
+whom are snuff-dippers. Every five of these will use a two-ounce paper of
+snuff per day; that is, to the hundred thousand dippers, two thousand five
+hundred pounds a day, amounting, in one year, to the enormous quantity of
+nine hundred and twelve thousand pounds. This practice prevails generally,
+it says, among the poor whites, though some females of the higher classes
+are guilty of it.
+
+The poor whites obtain their subsistence, as far as practicable, in the
+primitive aboriginal mode, viz., by hunting and fishing. When these
+methods fail to afford a supply, they cultivate a truck-patch, and some of
+them raise a bale or two of cotton, with the proceeds of the sale of which
+they buy whiskey, tobacco, and a few necessary articles. When all other
+methods fail, they resort to stealing, to which many of them are addicted
+from choice, as well as from necessity. They are exceeding slovenly in
+their habits, cleanliness being a rare virtue. Indolence is a prevailing
+vice, and its lamentable effects are everywhere visible. They fully obey
+the scriptural injunction, take no thought for the morrow. A present
+supply, sufficient to satisfy nature's most urgent demands, being
+obtained, their care ceases, and they relapse into listless inactivity.
+They herd together upon the poor sand-hills, the refuse land of the
+country, which the rich slaveholder will not purchase, for which reason,
+they are sometimes called sand-hillers, and here they live, and their
+children, and their children's children, through successive generations,
+in the same deplorable condition of wretchedness and degradation.
+
+They are exceedingly ignorant; not one adult in fifty can write; not one
+in twenty can read. They can scarcely be said to speak the English
+language, using a patois which is scarcely intelligible. An old lady thus
+related an incident of which her daughter "_Sal_" was the heroine. "My
+darter Sal yisterday sot the lather to the damsel tree, and clim up, and
+knocked some of the nicest saftest damsels I ever seed in my born days." I
+once called to make some inquiry about the road, at a small log tenement,
+inhabited by a sand-hiller and family. A sheet was hanging upon the wall,
+containing the portraits of the Presidents of the United States. I
+remarked to the lady of the house that those were, I believed, the
+pictures of the Presidents.
+
+"Yes!" she replied; "they is, and I've hearn tell of 'em a long time. They
+must be gittin' mighty old, ef some of 'em aint dead. That top one," she
+continued, "is Gineral Washington. I've hearn of him ever sence I was a
+gal. He must be gittin' up in years, ef he aint dead. Him and Gineral
+Jackson fit the British and Tories at New Orleans, and whipped 'em, too."
+
+She seemed to pride herself greatly on her historical knowledge.
+
+One of these geniuses once informed me of a peculiar kind of book "he'd
+hearn tell on," that the Yankees had. He had forgotten its name, but thus
+described it: "It told the day of the week the month come in on. It told
+when we was a gwine to have rain, and what kind of wether we was gwine to
+have in gineral. May-be they call it a rain-book."
+
+I replied that I had heard of the book, and I believed that it was called
+an Almanac.
+
+"You've said it now," remarked the man. "It's a alminick, and I'd give
+half I's wuth to have one. I'd no when to take a umberell, and if I
+haddent nary one, I'd no when I could go a huntin' without gittin' wet."
+
+Two of these semi-savages had resolved to remove to the West, in hope of
+bettering their condition. One wished to remove to Arkansas, the other to
+Texas. The wife of the former wished to go to Texas, the latter to
+Arkansas. The husbands were desirous of gratifying their spouses, but
+could devise no plan that seemed likely to prove satisfactory, till one
+day when hunting, finding game scarce, they sat down upon a log, when the
+following dialogue took place:
+
+"Kit, I'm sort o' pestered about Dilsie. She swars to Rackensack she'll
+go, and no whar else. I allers had a hankerin' arter Texas. Plague take
+Rackensack, I say! Ef a man war thar, the ager and the airthquakes ed
+shake him out on it quicker en nothin'."
+
+"When a woman's set on a gwine anywhar, they're a gwine. It's jest no use
+to talk. I've coaxed Minnie more'n a little to go long with me to
+Arkansas, and the more I coax, the more she wont go."
+
+"Well, Kit, 'sposen we swap women."
+
+"Well, Sam, what trade'll ye gin?"
+
+"Oh! a gentleman's trade, of course!"
+
+"Shucks, Sam! 'sposen I had a young filly, and you a old mar, ye wouldn't
+ax an even trade, would ye?"
+
+"No; it 'ud be too hard. I tell you what I'll do, Kit. Here's a shot-gun
+that's wuth ten dollars, ef it's wuth a red. I'll give it and that ar
+b'ar-skin hangin' on the side of my shanty, to boot, and say it's a
+trade."
+
+"Nuff sed, ef the women's agreed."
+
+Home they went, and stated the case to the women, who, _after due
+deliberation_, acceded to the proposition, having also made a satisfactory
+arrangement about the children, and they all soon went on their way
+rejoicing to their respective destinations in that
+
+  "American's haven of eternal rest,
+  Found a little farther West."
+
+On the Sabbath after the completion of the Memphis and Charleston
+railroad, a large number of the sand-hillers came to Iuka Springs, to
+witness the passing of the cars. Arriving too early, they visited a church
+where divine service was progressing. Whilst the minister was in the midst
+of his sermon, the locomotive whistle sounded, when a stampede took place
+to the railroad. The exodus left the parson almost alone in his glory.
+The passing train caused the most extravagant expressions and gestures of
+wonder and astonishment by these rude observers. It was an era in their
+life.
+
+Once while standing on the railroad-track, I observed a crowd of these
+people coming to see the "_elephant_." They came so near, that I overheard
+their conversation. One young lass, of sweet sixteen, with slattern dress
+and dishevelled hair, looking up the road, which was visible for a great
+distance, thus expressed her astonishment at what she saw: "O, dad! what a
+long piece of iron!" Soon the whistle sounded; this they had never heard
+before, and came to the conclusion that it was a dinner-horn. As soon as
+the cars came in sight, they scattered like frightened sheep, some on one
+side of the road, and some on the other. Nor did they halt till they had
+placed fifty yards at least between them and the track.
+
+Superstition prevails amongst them to a fearful extent. Almost every hut
+has a horse-shoe nailed above the door, or on the threshold, to keep out
+witches. In sickness, charms and incantations are used to drive away
+disease. Their physicians are chiefly what are termed faith-doctors, who
+are said to work miraculous cures. They are strong believers in luck. If a
+rabbit cross their path, they will turn round to change their luck. If, on
+setting out on a journey, an owl hoot on the left hand, they will return
+and set out anew. If the new moon is seen through brush, or on the left
+hand, it is a bad omen. They will have trouble during the lunar month.
+When the whippoorwill is first heard in the spring, they turn head over
+heels thrice, to prevent back-ache during the year. Dreams are harbingers
+of joy or wo. To dream of snakes, is ominous. To dream of seeing a coffin,
+or conversing with the dead, is a sign of approaching dissolution, and
+many have no doubt perished through terror, occasioned by such dreams.
+Fortune-tellers are rife amongst them--those sages whose comprehensive
+view knows the past, the present, and the future. They seek unto familiar
+spirits, that peep and mutter, for the living to the dead.
+
+They have many deformed, and blind, and deaf among them, in consequence of
+the intermarriage of relatives. Cousins often marry, and occasionally they
+marry within the degrees of consanguinity prohibited by the law of God.
+Perhaps this divine law forbids the marriage of cousins when it declares,
+"Thou shalt not marry any that is near of kin." The sad effects on
+posterity, both mentally and physically, lead to the conviction that if
+the law of God does not condemn it, physiological law does.
+
+These sand-hillers do not (when no serious preventive occurs) fail to
+attend the elections, where the highest bidder obtains their vote.
+Sometimes their vote will command cash, and sometimes only whiskey. It is
+sad to witness the elective franchise, that highest and most glorious
+badge of a freeman, thus prostituted.
+
+The proverb holds good--Like people, like priest. Their ministers are
+ignorant, ranting fanatics. They despise literature, and every Sabbath
+fulminate censures upon an educated ministry. The following is a specimen
+of their preaching. Mr. V---- is a Hard-shell Baptist, or, as they term
+themselves, "Primitive Baptists." Entering the pulpit on a warm morning in
+July, he will take off his coat and vest, roll up his sleeves, and then
+begin:
+
+    MY BRETHERING AND SISTERN--I air a ignorant man, follered the plough
+    all my life, and never rubbed agin nary college. As I said afore, I'm
+    ignorant, and I thank God for it. (Brother Jones responds, "Passon,
+    yer ort to be very thankful, fur yer very ignorant.") Well, I'm agin
+    all high larnt fellers what preaches grammar and Greek fur a thousand
+    dollars a year. They preaches fur the money, and they gits it, and
+    that's all they'll git. They've got so high larnt they contradicts
+    Scripter, what plainly tells us that the sun rises and sets. They seys
+    it don't, but that the yerth whirls round, like clay to the seal. What
+    ud cum of the water in the wells ef it did. Wodent it all spill out,
+    and leave 'em dry, and whar ed we be? I may say to them, as the
+    sarpent said unto David, much learning hath made thee mad.
+
+    When I preaches, I never takes a tex till I goes inter the pulpit;
+    then I preaches a plain sarment, what even women can understand. I
+    never premedertates, but what is given to me in that same hour, that I
+    sez. Now I'm a gwine ter open the Bible, and the first verse I sees,
+    I'm a gwine to take it for a tex. (Suiting the action to the word, he
+    opened the Bible, and commenced reading and spelling together.) Man is
+    f-e-a-r-f-u-l-l-y--fearfully--and
+    w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l-l-y--wonderfully--m-a-d-e--mad.--"Man is fearfully
+    and wonderfully made." (Pronounced _mad_.) Well, it's a quar tex, but
+    I said I's a gwine to preach from it, and I'm a gwine to do it. In the
+    fust place, I'll divide my sarment into three heads. Fust and
+    foremost, I show you that a man will git mad. 2d. That sometimes he'll
+    git fearfully mad; and thirdly and lastly, when thar's lots of things
+    to vex and pester him, he'll git fearfully and wonderfully mad. And in
+    the application I'll show you that good men sometimes gits mad, for
+    the Posle David hisself, who rote the tex, got mad, and called all men
+    liars, and cussed his enemies, wishen' 'em to go down quick into hell;
+    and Noah, he got tite, and cussed his nigger boy Ham, just like some
+    drunken masters now cusses their niggers. But Noah and David repented;
+    and all on us what gits mad must repent, or the devil'll git us.
+
+Thus he ranted, to the great edification of his hearers, who regard him as
+a perfect Boanerges, to which title his stentorian voice would truly
+entitle him. This exordium will serve as a specimen of the "sarment," as
+it continued in the same strain to the end of the peroration.
+
+Where there is no vision, the people perish. Such blind leaders of the
+blind are liable, with their infatuated followers, to fall into a ditch
+worse than Bunyan's Slough of Despond. This minister had undoubtedly run
+when he was not sent, though he "had hearn a call; a audible voice had,
+while he was a shucken corn, said unto him, Preach." Though God does not
+need men's learning, yet he has as little use for their ignorance.
+Learning is the handmaid of religion, but must not be substituted in its
+stead.
+
+The causes which induce this "wilderness of mind" are patent to all who
+make even a cursory examination. There is a tendency in the poor to ape
+the manners of the rich. Those having slaves to labour in their stead,
+toil not physically; hence labour falls into disrepute, and the poorer
+classes, having no slaves to work for them, and not choosing to submit to
+the degradation of labour, incur all the evils resulting from idleness and
+poverty. Ignorance and vice of every kind soon ensue, and a general apathy
+prevails, which destroys in a great measure all mental and physical
+vigour.
+
+The slaveholders buy up all the fertile lands to be cultivated by their
+slaves; hence the poor are crowded out, and if they remain in the vicinity
+of the place of their nativity, they must occupy the poor tracts whose
+sterility does not excite the cupidity of their rich neighbours. The
+slaveholders' motto is, "Let us buy more negroes to raise more cotton, to
+buy more negroes, and so on _ad infinitum_." To raise more cotton they
+must also buy more land. Small farmers are induced to sell out to them,
+and move further west. For this reason, the white population of the
+fertile sections of the older slave States is constantly on the decrease,
+while the slave population is as constantly increasing. Thus the
+slaveholder often acquires many square miles of land, and hundreds of
+human chattels. He is, as it were, set alone in the earth. Priding himself
+upon his wealth, he will not send his princely sons to the same school
+with the poor white trash; he either sends them to some distant college or
+seminary, or employs a private teacher exclusively for his children. The
+poor whites in the neighbourhood, even should they desire to educate their
+children, have no means to pay for their tuition. Compelled to live on
+poor or worn-out lands, honest toil considered degrading, and forced to
+submit to many inconveniences and disabilities (all the offices of honour
+and profit being monopolized by the slaveholders,) through the workings of
+the "peculiar institution," they find it utterly impossible to educate
+their offspring, even in the rudiments of their mother tongue. As the
+power of slavery increases, their condition waxes worse and worse.
+
+The slaveocracy becomes more exacting. Laws are passed by the legislature
+compelling non-slaveholders to patrol the country nightly, to prevent
+insurrections by the negroes. They denounce the law, but coercion is
+resorted to, and the poor whites are forced to obey. When their masters
+call for them, they must leave their labour, by day or by night, patrol
+the country, follow the bloodhounds, arrest the fugitive slave, and do all
+other dirty work which their tyrants demand. If they refuse to obey, they
+are denounced as abolitionists, and are in danger of death at the hands of
+Judge Lynch, the mildest punishment they can hope for being a coat of tar
+and feathers.
+
+The house-negroes feel themselves several degrees above the poor whites,
+as they, from their opportunities for observation amongst the higher
+classes, are possessed of greater information and less rusticity than this
+less favoured class. The poor whites have no love for the institution of
+slavery. They regard it as the instrument of inflicting upon them many
+wrongs, and depriving them of many rights. They dare not express their
+sentiments to the slaveholders, who hold them completely under their
+power. A. G. Brown, United States Senator from Mississippi, to reconcile
+the poor whites to the peculiar institution, used the following arguments
+in a speech at Iuka Springs, Mississippi. He stated, that if the slaves
+were liberated, and suffered to remain in the country, the rich would have
+money to enable them to go to some other clime, and that the poor whites
+would be compelled to remain amongst the negroes, who would steal their
+property, and destroy their lives; and if slavery were abolished, and the
+negroes removed and colonized, the rich would take the poor whites for
+slaves, in their stead, and reduce them to the condition of the Irish and
+Dutch in the North, whose condition he represented to be one of cruel
+bondage. These statements had some effect upon his auditors, who
+believed, from sad experience, that the rich could oppress the poor as
+they chose, and might, in the contingency specified, reduce them to
+slavery. Labour is considered so degrading, that any argument, based upon
+making labour compulsory on their part, has its weight. Even the beggar
+despises work. A sturdy beggar asked alms at a house at which I was
+lodging. As he appeared to be a man of great physical strength, he was
+advised to go to work, and thus provide for his wants. "Work!" said he, in
+disgust; "niggers do the work in this country"--and retired highly
+insulted.
+
+This people form a distinct class, distinguished by as many
+characteristics from the middle and higher classes of Southern society, as
+the Jews are from the nations amongst whom they sojourn. The causes which
+brought about their reduction to their present state of semi-barbarism,
+must be removed, ere they can rise to the condition whence they have
+fallen. They must rise upon the ruins of slavery. When the peculiar
+institution is abolished, then, and not till then, will their disabilities
+be removed, and they be in reality what they are nominally--freemen.
+
+Slaveholders and their families form a distinct class, characterized by
+idleness, vanity, licentiousness, profanity, dissipation, and tyranny.
+There are glorious exceptions, it is true, but those are the
+distinguishing traits of the class. The middle class is the virtuous class
+of the South. They are industrious, frugal, hospitable, simple in their
+habits, plain and unostentatious in their manners. Some of this class are
+small slaveholders, but the great majority own none. The gross vices of
+the higher class are not found among them. They labour regardless of the
+sneers of their aristocratic neighbours. Senator Hammond, of South
+Carolina, may call them mudsills; they regard it not, but pursue the even
+tenor of their way. The slow, unmoving finger of scorn may be pointed at
+them by the sons of pride, yet they refuse to eat the bread of idleness,
+and labour with their _own hands_, that they may provide things honest in
+the sight of all men. Equidistant from poverty and riches, they enjoy the
+golden mean, and immunity from the temptations incident to the extremes of
+abject poverty and great riches.
+
+In the slave States all those born north of the "nigger line," are
+denominated Yankees. This is applied as a term of reproach. When a
+southerner is angry with a man of northern nativity, he does not fail to
+stigmatize him as a Yankee. The slaveholders manifest considerable
+antipathy against the Yankees, which has been increasing during the last
+ten years. In 1858, the Legislature of Mississippi passed resolutions
+recommending non-intercourse with the "Abolition States," and requesting
+the people not to patronize natives of those States residing amongst them,
+and especially to discountenance Yankee ministers and teachers. In the
+educational notice of Memphis Synodical College, at La Grange, Tennessee,
+it is expressly stated that the Faculty are of southern birth and
+education. The principals of the Female Seminaries at Corinth and Iuka,
+Mississippi, give notice that no Yankee teachers will be employed in those
+institutions. While on a visit at the house of a Methodist clergyman,
+quite a number of ministers, returning from Conference, called to tarry
+for the night. During the evening, one of them, learning that I was
+"_Yankee born_," thus interrogated me: "Why is it, sir, that all kinds of
+delusions originate in the North, such as Millerism, Mormonism,
+Spirit-rappings, and Abolitionism?" To which I replied: "The North
+originates everything. All the text-books used in southern schools, all
+the books on law, physic, and divinity, are written and published north of
+Mason & Dixon's line. The South does not even print Bibles. The magnetic
+telegraph, the locomotive, Lucifer matches, and even the cotton-gin, are
+all northern inventions. The South, sir, has not sense enough to invent a
+decent humbug. These humbugs once originated, the South is always well
+represented by believers in them. I have known more men to go from this
+county (Shelby county, Tennessee) to the Mormons, than I have known to go
+from the whole State of Ohio."
+
+When I had thus spoken, my inquisitor was nonplussed, and the laugh went
+against him.
+
+When a candidate before the Presbytery of Chickasaw, in Mississippi, for
+licensure, one of the members of Presbytery, learning that I was a
+"Yankee," asked me the following questions, and received the following
+answers:
+
+"Mr. Aughey, when will the day of judgment take place?"
+
+"The Millerites have stated that the 30th of June next will be the
+judgment-day. As for myself, I have had no revelation on the subject, and
+expect none."
+
+"Do you believe that any one can call the spirits?"
+
+"I do, sir."
+
+"What! believe that the spirits can be called?"
+
+"I do, sir."
+
+"I will vote, then, against your licensure, if you have fallen into this
+heresy of the land of your nativity."
+
+Another then said:
+
+"Brother Aughey, please explain yourself. I know you do not believe in
+spirit-rapping."
+
+"I do not, sir, though I believe, as I stated, that any one may call the
+spirits; but I do not believe that they will come in answer to the call."
+
+A lady once remarked to me that she did not believe that a northern man
+would ever become fully reconciled to the institution of slavery, and that
+his influence and sentiments, whatever might be his profession of
+attachment to the peculiar institution, would be against it. The cause of
+the general opposition to northern men is their opposition to slavery.
+Their testimony is against its abominations and barbarities, and hence the
+wish to impair the credibility of the witnesses.
+
+An illustration of the working of the institution may be found in the
+following letter:
+
+    KOSCIUSKO, ATTALA COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI,
+    December 25, 1861.
+
+    MR. WILLIAM JACKMAN:
+
+    DEAR SIR--Your last kind and truly welcome letter came to hand in due
+    course of mail. I owe you an apology for delaying an answer so long.
+    My apparent neglect was occasioned by no want of respect for you; but
+    in consequence of the disturbed state of the country, and difficulty
+    of communication with the North, I feared my reply would never reach
+    you. Now, however, by directing "_via_ Norfolk and flag of truce,"
+    letters are sent across the lines to the North. In your letter you
+    desired me, from this stand-point, to give you my observations of the
+    workings of the peculiar institution, and an expression of my views as
+    to its consistency with the eternal principles of rectitude and
+    justice. In reply, I will give you a plain narrative of facts.
+
+    On my advent to the South, I was at first struck with the fact that
+    the busy hum of labour had in some measure ceased. What labour I did
+    observe progressing, was done with little skill, and mainly by
+    negroes. I called upon the Rev. Dr. R. J. Breckinridge, to whom I had
+    a letter of introduction, who treated me with the greatest kindness,
+    inviting me to make his house my home when I visited that section of
+    country. On leaving his house, he gave me some directions as to the
+    road I must travel to reach a certain point. "You will pass," said he,
+    "a blacksmith's shop, where a one-eyed man is at work--my property."
+    The phrase, "my property," I had never before heard applied to a human
+    being, and though I had never been taught to regard the relation of
+    master and slave as a sinful relation, yet it grated harshly upon my
+    ears to hear a human being, a tradesman, called a chattel; but it
+    grated much more harshly, a week after this, to hear the groans of two
+    such chattels, as they underwent a severe flagellation, while chained
+    to the whipping-post, because they had, by half an hour, overstayed
+    their time with their families on an adjoining plantation.
+
+    The next peculiar abomination of the peculiar institution which I
+    observed, was the licentiousness engendered by it. Mr. D. T----, of
+    Madison county, Kentucky, had a white family of children, and a black,
+    or rather mulatto family. As his white daughters married, he gave each
+    a mulatto half-sister, as a waiting-girl, or body-servant. Mr.
+    K.----, of Winchester, Kentucky, had a mulatto daughter, and he was
+    also the father of her child, thus re-enacting Lot's sin. Dr. C----,
+    of Tishomingo county, Mississippi, has a negro concubine, and a white
+    servant to wait on her. Mr. B.----, of Marshall county, Mississippi,
+    lived with his white wife till he had grandchildren, some of whom came
+    to school to me, when he repudiated his white wife, and attached
+    himself to a very homely old African, who superintends his household,
+    and rules his other slaves with rigour. Mr. S----, of Tishomingo
+    county, Mississippi, has a negro concubine, and a large family of
+    mulatto children. He once brought this woman to church in Rienzi, to
+    the great indignation of the white ladies, who removed to a
+    respectable distance from her.
+
+    I preached recently to a large congregation of slaves, the third of
+    whom were as white as myself. Some of them had red hair and blue eyes.
+    If there are any marked characteristics of their masters' families,
+    the mulatto slaves are possessed of these characteristics. I refer to
+    physical peculiarities, such as large mouths, humped shoulders, and
+    peculiar expressions of countenance. I asked a gentleman how it
+    happened that some of his slaves had red hair. He replied that he had
+    a red-headed overseer for several years.
+
+    I never knew a pious overseer--never! There may be many, but I never
+    saw one. Overseers, as a class, are worse than slaveholders
+    themselves. They are cruel, brutal, licentious, dissipated, and
+    profane. They always carry a loaded whip, a revolver, and a
+    Bowie-knife. These men have the control of women, whom they often whip
+    to death. Mr. P----, who resided near Holly Springs, had a negro woman
+    whipped to death while I was at his house during a session of
+    Presbytery. Mr. C----, of Waterford, Mississippi, had a woman whipped
+    to death by his overseer. But such cruel scourgings are of daily
+    occurrence. Colonel H----, a member of my church, told me yesterday
+    that he ordered a boy, who he supposed was _feigning_ sickness, to the
+    whipping-post, but that he had not advanced ten steps toward it, when
+    he fell dead!--and the servant was free from his master. During our
+    conversation, a girl passed. "There is a girl," said he, "who does not
+    look very white in the face, owing to exposure; but when I strip her
+    to whip her, I find that she has a skin as fair as my wife." Mrs.
+    F---- recently whipped a boy to death within half a mile of my
+    residence. A jury of inquest returned a verdict that he came to his
+    death by cruelty; but nothing more was done. Mrs. M---- and her
+    daughter, of Holly Springs, abused a girl repeatedly. She showed her
+    bruises to some of my acquaintances, and they believed them fatal. She
+    soon after died. Mr. S----, a member of my church, has several maimed
+    negroes from abuse on the part of the overseer.
+
+    I am residing on the banks of the Yock-a-nookany, which means
+    "meandering," when translated from the Indian tongue. In this vicinity
+    there are large plantations, cultivated by hundreds of negroes. The
+    white population is sparse. Every night the negroes are brought to a
+    judgment-seat. The overseer presides. If they have not laboured to
+    suit him, or if their task is unfulfilled, they are chained to a post,
+    and severely whipped. The victims are invariably stripped; to what
+    extent, is at the option of the overseer. In Louisiana, women,
+    preparatory to whipping, are often stripped to a state of perfect
+    nudity. Old Mr. C----, of Waterford, Mississippi, punished his negroes
+    _by slitting the soles of their feet with his Bowie-knife_! One man he
+    put into a cotton-press, and turned the screw till life was extinct.
+    He stated that he only intended to alarm the man, but carried the joke
+    too far. I have heard women thus plead, in piteous accents, when
+    chained to the whipping-post, and stripped: "O, my God, master! don't
+    whip me! I was sick! indeed I was sick! I had a chill, and the fever
+    is on me now! I haven't tasted a morsel to-day! You know I works when
+    I is well! O for God's sake don't whip a poor sick nigger! My poor
+    chile's sick too! Missis thinks it's a dyin'! O master, for the love
+    of God, don't cut a poor distressed woman wid your whip! I'll try to
+    do better, ef you'll only let me off this once!" These piteous
+    plaints only rouse the ire of their cruel task-masters, who sometimes
+    knock them down in the midst of their pleadings. I have known an
+    instance of a woman giving birth to a child at the whipping-post. The
+    fright and pain brought on premature labour.
+
+    One beautiful Sabbath morning I stood on the levee at Baton Rouge,
+    Louisiana, and counted twenty-seven sugar-houses in full blast. I
+    found that the negroes were compelled to labour eighteen hours per
+    day, and were not permitted to rest on the Sabbath during the rolling
+    season. The negroes on most plantations have a truck-patch, which they
+    cultivate on the Sabbath. I have pointed out the sin of thus labouring
+    on the Sabbath, but they plead necessity; their children, they state,
+    must suffer from hunger if they did not cultivate their truck-patch,
+    and their masters would not give them time on any other day.
+
+    Negroes, by law, are prohibited from learning to read. This law was
+    not strictly enforced in Tennessee and some other States till within
+    a few years past. I had charge of a Sabbath-school for the instruction
+    of blacks in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1853. This school was put down by
+    the strong arm of the law in a short time after my connection with it
+    ceased. In Mississippi, a man who taught slaves to read or write would
+    be sent to the penitentiary instanter. The popular plea for this
+    wickedness is, that if they were taught to read, they would read
+    abolition documents; and if they were taught to write, they would
+    write themselves passes, and pass northward to Canada.
+
+    Such advertisements as the following often greet the eye.
+
+    "_Kansas War._--The undersind taks this method of makkin it noan that
+    he has got a pack of the best nigger hounds in the South. My hounds is
+    well trand, and I has had much experience a huntin niggers, having
+    follered it for the last fiften year. I will go anywhar that I'm sent
+    for, and will ketch niggers at the follerin raits.
+
+    "My raits fur ketchin runaway niggers $10 per hed, ef they's found in
+    the beat whar thar master lives; $15 if they's found in the county,
+    and $50 if they's tuck out on the county.
+
+    "N. B.--Pay is due when the nigger is tuck. Planters ort to send fur
+    me as soon as thar niggers runs away, while thar trak is fresh."
+
+    Every night the woods resound with the deep-mouthed baying of the
+    bloodhounds. The slaves are said by some to love their masters; but it
+    requires the terrors of bloodhounds and the fugitive slave law to keep
+    them in bondage. You in the North are compelled to act the part of the
+    bloodhounds here, and catch the fugitives for the planters of the
+    South. Free negroes are sold into bondage for the most trivial
+    offences. Slaveholders declare that the presence of free persons of
+    colour exerts a pernicious influence upon their slaves, rendering them
+    discontented with their condition, and inspiring a desire for freedom.
+    They therefore are very desirous of getting rid of these persons,
+    either by banishing them from the State or enslaving them. The
+    legislature of Mississippi has passed a law for their expulsion, and
+    other States have followed in the wake. The Governor of Missouri has
+    vetoed the law for the expulsion of free persons of colour, passed by
+    the legislature of that State because of its unconstitutionality.
+
+    Were I to recount all the abominations of the peculiar institution,
+    and the wrongs inflicted upon the African race, that have come under
+    my observation, they would fill a large volume. Slavery is guilty of
+    six abominations; yea, seven may justly be charged upon it. It is said
+    that the negro is lazy, and will not work except by compulsion. I have
+    known negroes who have purchased their freedom by the payment of a
+    large sum, and afterward made not only a good living, but a fortune
+    beside. It is said Judge W---- of South Carolina gave his servants the
+    use of his plantation, upon condition that they would support his
+    family; and that in three years he was compelled to take the
+    management himself, as they did not make a comfortable living for
+    themselves and the Judge's family. In reply, it might be said that the
+    negroes had not a fair trial, as no one had any property he could call
+    his own, and they were thrown into a sort of Fourierite society,
+    having all things in common. In this state of things, while some would
+    work, others would be idle. White men do not succeed in such
+    communities, and for this reason it was no fair test of the industrial
+    energies of Judge W----'s slaves.
+
+    The question is often asked, is slavery sinful in itself? My
+    observation has been extensive, embracing eight slave States, and I
+    have never yet seen any example of slavery that I did not deem sinful.
+    If slavery is not sinful in itself, I must have always seen it out of
+    itself. I have observed its workings during eleven years, amongst a
+    professedly Christian people, and cannot do otherwise than pronounce
+    it an unmitigated curse. It is a curse to the white man, it is a curse
+    to the black man. That God will curse it, and blot it out of existence
+    ere long, is my firm conviction. The elements of its abolition exist;
+    God speed the time when they will be fully developed, and this mother
+    of abominations driven from the land of the free! The development of
+    the eternal principles of justice and rectitude will abolish this
+    hoary monster of fraud and oppression. Slavery subverts all the rights
+    of man. It divests him of citizenship, of liberty, of the pursuit of
+    happiness, of his children, of his wife, of his property, of
+    intellectual culture, reserving to him only the rights of the horse
+    and ass, and reducing him to the same chattel condition with them. Not
+    a single right does the State law grant him above that of the
+    mule--no, not one. The chastity of the slave has no legal protection.
+    The Methodist Church South is expunging from the discipline everything
+    inimical to the peculiar institution, whilst I observe that the Church
+    North is adding to her testimony and deliverances against the sin of
+    slaveholding. The Church South refused to abide by the rules of the
+    Church, and hence the guilt of the schism lies with her, and you are
+    henceforth free from any guilt in conniving at the sin which the
+    founder of your church, the illustrious Wesley, regarded as the "sum
+    of all villany."
+
+    Remember me kindly to Mrs. Jackman and family. Hoping to hear from
+    you soon, I beg leave to subscribe myself,
+
+        Yours fraternally,
+        JOHN H. AUGHEY.
+
+    To Mr. William Jackman,
+    Amsterdam, Jefferson Co., Ohio.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+NOTORIOUS REBELS.--UNION OFFICERS.
+
+    Colonel Jefferson Davis--His Speech at Holly Springs, Mississippi--His
+    Opposition to Yankee Teachers and Ministers--A bid for the
+    Presidency--His Ambition--Burr, Arnold, Davis--General
+    Beauregard--Headquarters at Rienzi--Colonel Elliott's
+    Raid--Beauregard's Consternation--Personal description--His
+    illness--Popularity waning--Rev. Dr. Palmer of New Orleans--His
+    influence--The Cincinnati Letter--His Personal Appearance--His
+    Denunciations of General Butler--His Radicalism--Rev. Dr. Waddell of
+    La Grange, Tennessee--His Prejudices against the North--President of
+    Memphis Synodical College--His Talents prostituted--Union
+    Officers--General Nelson--General Sherman.
+
+
+COLONEL JEFFERSON DAVIS.
+
+In 1856 I heard Colonel Jefferson Davis deliver an address at Holly
+Springs, Mississippi. The Colonel is about a medium height, of slender
+frame, his nose aquiline, his hair dark, his manners polite. He is no
+orator. His speech was principally a tirade of abuse against the North,
+bitterly inveighing against the emigrant aid societies which had
+well-nigh put Kansas upon the list of free States. He advised the people
+to employ no more Yankee teachers. He had been educated in the North, and
+he regarded it as the greatest misfortune of his life. Soon after Colonel
+Davis visited New England, where he eulogized that section in an
+extravagant manner. He was pleased with everything he saw; even "Noah
+Webster's Yankee spelling-book" received a share of the Colonel's fulsome
+flattery. On his return to the South, "a change came o'er the spirit of
+his dream," and his bile and bitterness against Yankee-land returned in
+all its pristine vigour. The Colonel was making a bid for the Presidency;
+but New England was not so easily gulled; his flimsy professions of
+friendship were too transparent to hide the hate which lay beneath, and
+his aspirations were doomed to disappointment.
+
+Though Colonel Davis is often called Mississippi's pet, yet he is not
+regarded as a truthful man, and his reports and messages are received
+with considerable abatement by "the chivalry." His ambition knows no
+bounds. He would rather "reign in hell than serve in heaven."
+
+Had Jefferson Davis been elected President of the United States, he would
+have been among the last instead of the first to favour secession. Had he
+been slain on the bloody fields of Mexico, his memory would have been
+cherished. History will assign him a place among the infamous. Burr,
+Arnold, and Davis will be names for ever execrated by true patriots. The
+two former died a natural death, though the united voice of their
+countrymen would have approved of their execution on the gallows. The fate
+of the latter lies still in the womb of futurity, though his loyal
+countrymen, without a dissenting voice, declare that he deserves a felon's
+doom. An announcement of his death would suffuse no patriot's eye with
+tears. What loyalist would weep while he read the news-item--the arch
+traitor Jeff. Davis is dead.
+
+
+GENERAL G. T. BEAUREGARD.
+
+I met General Beauregard under very peculiar circumstances. I had gone to
+Rienzi for the purpose of escaping to the Federal lines for protection
+from the rigorous and sweeping conscript law. When I arrived, I found the
+rebels evacuating Corinth, and their sick and wounded passing down the
+Mobile and Ohio railroad to the hospitals below. General Beauregard had
+just arrived in Rienzi, and had his headquarters at the house of Mr.
+Sutherland. A rumour had spread through Rienzi that General Beauregard had
+ordered the women and children to leave the town. Many of them, believing
+that the order had been issued, were hastening into the country. In order
+to confirm or refute the statement, I called upon General Beauregard, and
+asked him whether he had issued such an order. He replied, "I have issued
+no such order, sir." Just at that moment a courier arrived with the
+information that the Yankees had attacked the advance of their retreating
+army at Boonville, that they had destroyed the depot, and taken many
+prisoners. The General told the courier that he must be mistaken; that it
+was impossible for the Yankees to pass around his army. While he was yet
+speaking a citizen arrived from Boonville, confirming the statement of the
+courier. Beauregard was still incredulous, replying that they must have
+mistaken the Confederates for the Yankees. In a few minutes the explosion
+of shells shook the building. The General then thought that it might be
+true that the Yankees had passed around the army; but on hearing the
+shells, he stated that General Green (of Missouri) was driving them away
+with his cannon. The truth was soon ascertained by the arrival of several
+couriers. Col. Elliott, of the Federal army, had made a raid upon
+Boonville, had fired the depot, and destroyed a large train of cars filled
+with ammunition. The explosions of the shells which we heard was
+occasioned by the fire reaching the ears in which these shells were
+stored. The Colonel also destroyed the railroad to such an extent that it
+required several days to repair the track.
+
+General Beauregard is below the medium height, and has a decidedly French
+expression of countenance. His hair is quite gray, though a glance at his
+face will convince the observer that it is prematurely so. The General is
+regarded as taciturn. His countenance is careworn and haggard. During the
+winter of 1861-2, he was attacked with bronchitis and typhoid pneumonia,
+and came near dying; and had not, at my interview, by any means recovered
+his pristine health and vigour. His prestige as an able commander is
+rapidly waning. For some time his military talents were considered of the
+first order; now a third-rate position is assigned him. He is still
+regarded as a first-class engineer. When General Sterling Price arrived at
+Corinth, General Beauregard conducted him around all the fortifications,
+explaining their nature and unfolding their strength; but no word of
+approval could he elicit from the Missouri General. At length he ventured
+to ask what he thought of their capacity for resisting an attack. General
+Price replied, "They may prove effective in resisting an attack. These are
+the second fortifications I ever saw; the first I captured." He had
+reference to Colonel Mulligan's, at Lexington, Missouri. Sumter and
+Manassas gave Beauregard fame. Since the latter battle his star has
+declined steadily; and if the Federal generals prove themselves competent,
+it will soon go out in total darkness, and the world's verdict will be, it
+was a misfortune that Beauregard lived.
+
+
+REV. DR. B. M. PALMER.
+
+Dr. Palmer has done more than any non-combatant in the South to promote
+the rebellion. He was accessory both before and after the fact. His
+sermons are nearly all abusive of the North. The mudsills of Yankeedom and
+the scum of Europe are phrases of frequent use in his public addresses,
+and they are meant to include all living north of what is more familiarly
+than elegantly termed in the South the "nigger line," although the North
+is the land of his parental nativity.
+
+A few years ago, Dr. Palmer wrote to a friend in Cincinnati respecting a
+vacant church, in which he gave as one reason, among others, for desiring
+to come North, that he wished to remove his family from the baleful
+influences of slavery. That letter still exists, and ought to be
+published.
+
+Dr. Palmer's personal appearance is by no means prepossessing. He is small
+of stature, of very dark complexion, dish-faced. His nose is said to have
+been broken when a child; at all events, it is a deformity. He is fluent
+in speech, has a vivid imagination, and has a great influence over a
+promiscuous congregation.
+
+After the reduction of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, and the capture of
+New Orleans, Dr. Palmer came to Corinth, where he preached to the rebel
+army. His text was invariably General Butler's "women-of-the-town order,"
+which we fully believe he intentionally misconstrued. The conservation and
+extension of slavery is a matter which lies near the Doctor's heart. He
+urged secession for the purpose of extending and perpetuating for ever
+the peculiar institution. His views, however, must have undergone a
+radical change since the writing of the Cincinnati letter, as he then
+regarded slavery with little favour. Love of public favour may have much
+to do with his recently expressed views, for no true Christian and patriot
+can wish to perpetuate and extend an institution founded on the total
+subversion of the rights of man.
+
+
+REV. DR. JOHN N. WADDELL.
+
+Dr. Waddell is a man of considerable talent, but his prejudices are very
+strong against the North. He cordially hates a Yankee, and his poor
+distressed wife, who was a native of New England, was compelled to return
+to her home, where she mourns in virtual widowhood her unfortunate
+connection with a man who detests her land and people. Dr. Waddell's
+sermons are very abusive. The North is the theme of animadversion in all
+the published sermons and addresses I have seen from his prolific pen. He
+has prostituted his fine talents, and his writings are full of cursing
+and bitterness. As President of La Grange College, Tennessee, he might
+wield a great influence for good--an influence which would tend to calm
+the storm aroused by demagogues, rather than increase its power. His
+memory will rot, for the evil which he has done will live after him.
+
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM NELSON.
+
+I met General Nelson frequently at his head-quarters at Iuka Springs,
+Mississippi. Though the General was quite brusque in his manners, yet he
+always treated me with kindness and marked attention. Once while seated at
+the table with him, several guests being present, the following colloquy
+ensued.
+
+"Parson Aughey, I suppose you are well versed in the Scriptures, and in
+order to test your knowledge, permit me to ask a question, which doubtless
+you are able to answer."
+
+"Certainly, General, you have permission to ask the question you propose.
+I am not so sure, however, about my ability to answer it."
+
+"The question I desire to propose is this--How many preceded Noah in
+leaving the ark?"
+
+"I am unable to answer, sir."
+
+"That is strange, as the Bible so plainly and explicitly informs us. We
+are told that Noah went _forth_ out of the ark; therefore _three_ must
+have preceded him."
+
+The General's wit "set the table in a roar." As soon as the mirth had
+subsided, I addressed the General:
+
+"It is my turn to ask a question. Do you know, sir, where the witch of
+Endor lived?"
+
+"I did know, but really I have forgotten."
+
+"Well, sir, she lived at Endor."
+
+The laugh was now against him, but he joined in it heartily himself.
+
+Knowing that General Nelson had visited every quarter of the globe, I
+asked him whether he had ever seen any of the modern Greeks.
+
+"I never saw any of the ancient Greeks," was his curt reply.
+
+General Nelson was regarded as a brave and skilful officer. He has done
+good service in his country's cause. At Shiloh his promptness and
+efficiency contributed greatly to retrieve the disaster which befell
+General Grant on the first day of the battle. His rencontre with General
+Davis, which resulted in his own death, is greatly to be regretted, though
+his own ungovernable temper and inexcusable conduct caused his tragic end.
+
+I once visited his headquarters late in the afternoon. On my arrival, he
+informed me that I would confer a great favour upon him by guiding a
+company of cavalry on an expedition to the south-eastern part of the
+county, to which I consented. I rode in front with the officer in command.
+When we had reached a point beyond the pickets, my companion informed me
+that we would meet no more Federals; if we met any soldiers while outward
+bound, we might take it for granted that they were rebels. After riding
+about an hour longer, we encountered a company of cavalry, and were
+ordered to halt by the officer in command. My companion, stating that they
+must be rebels, rode up and gave the countersign. I felt somewhat uneasy
+at the head of that company at this time, not knowing the moment that
+bullets would be whistling around us. They proved however to be Federals,
+returning from an extended scouting expedition. I conducted our company to
+the house of a Union man, whom we aroused from his bed; and learning that
+we were Federals, he took my place, and I returned to General Nelson. The
+General now desired me to go as a spy, to obtain information as to the
+number of troops stationed at Norman's Bridge, which spanned Big Bear
+Creek. I replied that I had ridden sixty miles without sleep, but that I
+would send two Union men of my acquaintance in my stead. This was
+satisfactory, and my Union friends returned with accurate information as
+to the number of rebel troops stationed at the bridge, and the best points
+of attack. The attack was made on the next day after receiving the
+information, and the rebels were surprised and totally defeated; but few
+escaped death or capture.
+
+
+GENERAL W. T. SHERMAN.
+
+On the day that General Sherman reached Rienzi, I supped with him at the
+house of a friend. At table the following dialogue took place between us.
+
+"Are you the person from whom Sherman's battery took its name?"
+
+"I am, sir."
+
+"Many gentlemen in this county," said I, "and among them my father-in-law,
+have pipes made of the fragments of the gun-carriages of Sherman's
+battery, which was captured at Manassas by the Confederates."
+
+"Sherman's battery was not captured at Manassas," replied the General.
+
+"The honour of capturing Sherman's battery is generally accorded to the
+second regiment of Mississippi volunteers, which went from this county and
+the adjoining county of Tippah, though several regiments claim it, and
+many of my friends declare that they have seen Sherman's battery since its
+capture."
+
+"I assure you, sir, Sherman's battery was not captured--so far from this,
+it came out of the battle of Manassas Plains with two pieces captured from
+the enemy, having itself lost none."
+
+At this moment Colonel Fry, who killed Zollikoffer, rode up for orders.
+While receiving them, the horses attached to a battery halted in front of
+us. "There," said the General, "is every piece of Sherman's battery. I
+ought to know that battery, and I assure you there is not a gun missing."
+
+The pipes, canes, and trinkets supposed to be made of the wood of
+Sherman's battery, if collected, would form a vast pile; and were you to
+inform the owners of those relics that they were spurious, you would be
+politely informed that you might "tell that tale to the marines," as their
+sons and their neighbours' sons were the honoured captors of that battery;
+a fact, concerning the truth of which they entertained not even the shadow
+of a doubt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CONDITION OF THE SOUTH.
+
+    Cause of the Rebellion--Prevalence of Union Sentiment in the
+    South--Why not Developed--Stevenson's Views--Why Incorrect--Cavalry
+    Raids upon Union Citizens--How the Rebels employ Slaves--Slaves
+    Whipped and sent out of the Federal Lines--Resisting the Conscript
+    Law--Kansas Jayhawkers--Guarding Rebel Property--Perfidy of
+    Secessionists--Plea for Emancipation--The South Exhausted--Failure of
+    Crops--Southern Merchants Ruined--Bragg Prohibits the Manufacture and
+    Vending of Intoxicating Liquors--Its Salutary Effect.
+
+
+The following is the substance of addresses delivered by me on October 22d
+and 25th, 1862, at Cooper's Institute, New York, and before the Synod of
+New York and New Jersey, at its session in Brooklyn.
+
+    I will confine myself to rendering answers to various questions which
+    have been asked me since my escape to the North. I have viewed the
+    rebellion from a southern stand-point; have been conversant with its
+    whole history; have been behind the curtains, and have learned the
+    motives which impel its instigators in their treasonable designs
+    against the Government.
+
+    Slavery I believe to have been the sole cause of the rebellion. It is
+    true that the slaveholders of the South were becoming strongly
+    anti-republican. Rule or ruin was their determination, and they would
+    not have listened to any compromise measure after the election of Mr.
+    Lincoln; but this feeling, this opposition to republicanism, and lust
+    of power, is the offspring of slavery. In 1856 I heard Jeff. Davis
+    declare that the people of the North and the South were not
+    homogeneous, and that therefore he advocated secession. The reason he
+    assigned for this want of homogeneousness was found in the fact that
+    the South held slaves; the North did not.
+
+    Men accustomed to exercise arbitrary power over their fellow-men, will
+    not cease their encroachments upon the rights of all with whom they
+    are associated, politically or otherwise, and a temporary suspension
+    of the control of the government is regarded by them as a _casus
+    belli_. Slavery may therefore be justly regarded as the parent of
+    secession. Whilst this cause exists, the South will be the hot-bed of
+    treason. Slavery has produced its legitimate fruit, and treason is its
+    name. With slavery intact, no compromise, if accepted by the South,
+    would prevent another outbreak in a few years.
+
+    The question has been asked, is there any Union sentiment in the
+    South? I reply that there is a strong Union sentiment, even in
+    Mississippi. This sentiment is not found amongst the slaveholders,
+    for, as a class, they are firmly united in their hostility to the
+    Government. The middle and lower classes are not only opposed to
+    secession, but also to slavery itself. Eleven years' association with
+    the southern people has enabled me to form a correct opinion, and to
+    know whereof I affirm. I make this statement without fear of
+    successful contradiction, that the majority of the white inhabitants
+    of the South are Union-loving men. The slaveholders have long ruled
+    both the blacks and the whites in the South. When the rebellion was
+    determined upon, the slaveholders had the organized force to compel
+    acquiescence upon the part of those who favoured the Union, yet wished
+    to remain neutral. Their drafts and conscriptions swept them into the
+    army, and when once there, they must obey their officers upon pain of
+    death. To desert and join the Union army, was to abandon their homes
+    and families, and all their youthful associations. Yet many have done
+    it, and are now doing good service in their country's cause.
+
+    The rebels punished with death any who declared himself in favour of
+    the Union. In my presence at Tupelo, they were taken out daily and
+    shot for the expression of sentiments adverse to the rebellion. If the
+    Union troops at any time occupied a place, and the people expressed
+    any favourable sentiments to their cause, upon the evacuation of that
+    position, those who sided with the Union troops were cruelly treated.
+    All these causes, and many others which I might mention, have
+    prevented the full development of the true sentiments of the people. I
+    could name many localities within the rebel lines where the great
+    majority of the people bitterly denounce the Southern Confederacy and
+    all connected with it. I could name many individuals who have declared
+    to me that they would prefer death to a dishonourable compliance with
+    the conscript law. I could name localities within the rebel lines
+    where armed resistance to the conscript law has been made; but the
+    safety of those loyal citizens forbids it.
+
+    I know that there are some who assert that there is no Union feeling
+    in the South; but they are mistaken. The author of "Thirteen Months in
+    the Rebel Army" found but little. His situation was not favourable for
+    its discovery. He informs us in his work, that after he had been
+    compelled to _volunteer_, he regarded his oath (an oath much more
+    honoured in the breach than in the observance,) of such force that he
+    sought to obtain information, rather than to desert. He passed from
+    one post of preferment to another, till at length he was on duty under
+    the eye of Breckinridge himself, who complimented him upon his
+    alacrity in bearing dispatches; and this was truly great, as he rode
+    at one time sixty miles in seven hours, and at another, fourteen
+    miles in less than fifty minutes. He also exhibited a guarded zeal for
+    the secession cause. Who would have gone to an officer who was
+    apparently aiding and abetting the rebellion, ably and assiduously, to
+    communicate his Union sentiments? Any who would thus betray themselves
+    could not be sure that they would not be shot in twenty-four hours.
+    Had Mr. Stevenson been with me in Tupelo, and looked upon those
+    seventy or eighty prisoners who were incarcerated for their adherence
+    to the Union--had he witnessed the daily execution of some of them who
+    preferred death to _volunteering_ to defend a cause which they did not
+    hesitate to denounce at the peril of their lives--had he been with me
+    while in the midst of a host of Union citizens of Mississippi, who at
+    the noon of night had assembled in the deep glens and on the high
+    hills, for the purpose of devising means to resist the hated conscript
+    law--he would have come to a far different conclusion. I have seen the
+    cavalry go out to arrest Union men. I was at a Mr. William Herron's,
+    in South Carroll, Carrol county, Tennessee, and while there, several
+    companies of cavalry came up from Jackson to destroy the loyal
+    citizens of that vicinity, and they did destroy some of them and much
+    property. They passed within two hundred yards of fortifications
+    hastily thrown up to resist them, and would have been fired on had
+    they come within range. Before completing their mission, a messenger
+    came to inform them that Fort Henry was beleagured. They hastened to
+    the fort just in time to take part in the action. After the surrender
+    of the fort, they retreated to Fort Donelson, and were all captured at
+    the reduction of that fort, to the great joy of those Union citizens
+    whom they had driven from their homes, and whose property they had
+    destroyed.
+
+    The slaves add greatly to the strength of the rebellion. Slave labour
+    is extensively employed in the military department. They are the
+    sappers and miners, the cooks, the teamsters, the artisans; and there
+    are instances where they are forced to shoulder the musket and go into
+    the ranks. I have seen and conversed with slave soldiers who have
+    fought in every battle from Manassas to Shiloh.
+
+    Many strong secession counties send more soldiers to the rebel army
+    than there are voters in those counties. The slaves who remain at
+    home, labour to raise provisions for the sustenance of the families of
+    the soldiers, and a surplus for the army; hence every white man is
+    available for service in the field. Were this slave labour diverted to
+    some other channel, the result would follow, that a great proportion
+    of the rebel soldiers would be forced to return home to care for their
+    families, or those families must perish. In order to divert this
+    labour, it would be only necessary to encourage the negroes to leave
+    their masters. Wherever the Federal army has advanced in the
+    southwest, the slaves have crowded into their lines by hundreds, and
+    only desisted upon learning, much to their regret, that they would not
+    be received, many of them being tied up and whipped, and then sent
+    southward beyond the limits of the Federal army. Some who had
+    travelled seventy miles upon the underground railroad, to reach the
+    Union army, being asked by their fellow-servants upon their return,
+    how they liked the Yankees, replied that "General Nelson sort o'
+    hinted that he didn't want us." Upon being urged to be more explicit,
+    and to state more fully what was the nature of the hint which led them
+    to infer that General Nelson did not want them, their spokesman
+    replied: "Well, if we must tell, we must. General Nelson tied us up
+    and gave us fifty apiece, and sent us off, sw'arin' he'd guv us a
+    hundred ef we didn't go right straight back home to our masters. He
+    said this wa'n't no war got up to set the niggers free."
+
+    The Kansas Jayhawkers liberate all the slaves with whom they come in
+    contact. I passed four regiments of their cavalry last August, on
+    their way to Rienzi, Mississippi. They had about two thousand slaves
+    with them, of every age and sex. Those slaves groomed their horses,
+    drove their wagons, cooked their victuals, and made themselves useful
+    in a variety of ways, leaving every white man free to go into the
+    battle when the hour of contest arrived.
+
+    Slavery is a strong prop to the rebellion. Four millions of labourers
+    are able to furnish supplies for eight millions. Subtract that vast
+    resource from the rebellion, add it to the support of the Government,
+    and its stunning effect would be speedily demonstrated in the complete
+    paralysis of the Southern Confederacy. In order to supply the loss of
+    the slaves, half the soldiers in the army must return, or famine would
+    sweep both the army and the families of the soldiers from the face of
+    the earth. One cause of the long continuance of the war is, that the
+    Union army has endeavoured to conciliate the South, rather than crush
+    the rebellion. They have guarded the property of the rebels; they have
+    returned promptly their fugitive slaves; they have put down servile
+    insurrection with an iron hand, and in every possible way have shown
+    clemency instead of severity. But their kindness has been abused,
+    their clemency regarded as evidence of imbecility, and the humane
+    policy of the Government totally misconstrued. Captain John Rainey, of
+    Cambridge, Ohio, while on duty at Corinth, Mississippi, received an
+    application from a notorious secessionist for a guard to protect his
+    premises, which was obtained for him from the colonel, three soldiers
+    being detached for that purpose, who proceeded to the station assigned
+    them. About four o'clock in the afternoon they saw the owner of the
+    premises they were guarding, mount his horse and ride off. Supposing
+    him to be going on some ordinary errand, they took no further notice
+    of it. About nine o'clock, one of the guard who had strayed into the
+    orchard, some three hundred yards from the house, heard an unusual
+    sound, as of cavalry approaching. Concealing himself, he saw, by the
+    bright moonlight, this secessionist ride up with seven or eight rebel
+    cavalrymen, who, seizing his two companions, rode off with them as
+    prisoners. The ingrate who committed this base and perfidious act then
+    went into his house and retired to rest. As speedily as possible the
+    third picket returned to his company, and informed them of the
+    occurrence. Fired with indignation, twenty men volunteered to visit
+    summary punishment upon the perpetrator of this villany. Hastening to
+    his house, they aroused him from his slumbers, and in a few minutes
+    suspended him by the neck between the heavens and the earth. On their
+    return they reported to their companions what they had done, and,
+    through fear of punishment, took every precaution to prevent the act
+    reaching the colonel's ears. It was reported to the colonel, however,
+    whose reply to his informant was, "Served him right!" This policy of
+    guarding rebel property by Union troops must be abandoned, or the war
+    will never terminate. The Union army has been attacked by the rebels
+    when large numbers of the soldiers were absent as guards to protect
+    the plantations and all the interests of secessionists. Such gingerly
+    warfare must end, or the days of the Republic are numbered. Carrying
+    the war into the enemy's country has thus far proved a mere farce. The
+    retreating rebels destroyed tenfold more property than the pursuing
+    Federals. I would not counsel cruelty. I would not advise the
+    unnecessary destruction of life or property, for all wanton
+    destruction tends to weaken rather than to strengthen the cause of
+    those who perpetrate it. Vandalism is everywhere reprehensible. The
+    proper policy I believe to be this: Let the Union army be supplied
+    with provisions, so far as practicable, from the territory occupied.
+    Let the slaves find protection and employment on their arrival within
+    the Union lines. Despise not their valuable services. Let it be
+    proclaimed that for every Union citizen of the South who is slain for
+    his adherence to the old flag, a rebel prisoner shall be executed, and
+    that the confiscated property of Union men shall be restored, at the
+    cost of rebel sympathizers in the vicinity. Let these necessary
+    measures be carried out, and no well-informed person can doubt that
+    the war will cease before the end of six months. With slavery, the
+    rebels are powerful; without it, they are powerless. With slavery,
+    every white man between the ages of eighteen and sixty is available as
+    a soldier, and vast supplies are procured by servile labour. Abolish
+    slavery, and the army would be immediately reduced one-half, and
+    supplies would be diminished to a destructive extent. Slaves armed
+    and drilled would make effective soldiers. With a perfect knowledge of
+    the country, with an intense desire to liberate themselves and their
+    brethren from bondage, with an ardent hatred of their cruel masters
+    and overseers, (and the majority of them are cruel,) they would render
+    a willing and powerful aid in crushing the great rebellion. After the
+    war is ended, give them as much land as their necessities require,
+    either in New Mexico or Arizona, and they will furnish more sugar,
+    rice, and cotton, than were extorted from them by compulsory labour in
+    the house of bondage.
+
+    The desire for freedom on the part of the slaves is universal. It is,
+    according to my observation and full belief, a rule without exception.
+    These aspirations are constantly increasing as the rigours of slavery
+    are increased, and the slaves are as well prepared for freedom as they
+    would be a hundred years hence. The _Iron Furnace_ of slavery does not
+    tend to the elevation of its victims. There are better methods of
+    elevating a race than by enslaving it. The moral elevation of the
+    slave is no part of the reason why he is held in bondage; but the
+    convenience and profit of the master is the sole end and aim of the
+    peculiar institution. All attempts on the part of the slaves to obtain
+    their liberty are resisted by the slaveholders, by the infliction of
+    appalling and barbarous cruelties. Thirty-two negroes were executed at
+    Natchez, Mississippi, recently, because they expressed a determination
+    "to go to Lincoln." Six were hanged in Hoxubee county, and one burned
+    in the streets of Macon. The southern papers state that Hon. Mr. Orr,
+    of South Carolina, attempted to drive his slaves into the interior, to
+    prevent their escaping to the Yankees, and upon their refusal to go,
+    he ordered them to be driven at the point of the bayonet, and in the
+    execution of the order, fifty of them were slain. There are instances
+    in which the slave is greatly attached to his master's family, but his
+    love of liberty is greater than that attachment. It often transcends
+    his love for his own family, which he abandons for its sake, risking
+    his life on the underground railroad, and enduring the rigours of a
+    Canadian winter, that he may enjoy his inalienable rights.
+
+    The southwest is already nearly exhausted. The troops which first went
+    into the service were well supplied with clothing, provisions, and
+    money; but the conscripts were poorly clad, and received their wages
+    in Confederate bonds, which have so depreciated, that ten dollars in
+    gold will purchase one hundred dollars of the bonds. Great suffering
+    is the consequence, and desertions are of daily occurrence. While I
+    was in prison at Tupelo, eighty-seven of the Arkansas infantry
+    deserted in a body. One hundred cavalry were sent to arrest them, but
+    they defeated the cavalry in a fair fight, and went on their way
+    rejoicing. Tennesseeans and Kentuckians could not be trusted on picket
+    duty, their proclivity for desertion being notorious. They suffered no
+    opportunity to escape them, and often went off in squads. Many of them
+    being forced into the service, did not consider their involuntary oath
+    binding.
+
+    The wheat crop of 1862, in the southwest, was almost totally destroyed
+    by the rust, and the corn crop by the drought. Salt could not be
+    obtained at any cost, and every marketable commodity had reached a
+    fabulous price. Southern merchants feel that they are ruined. At the
+    commencement of the war they had made large purchases in the North,
+    mainly on credit. The rebel Congress passed a law that all who were
+    indebted to the North must pay two-thirds of the amount of their
+    indebtedness to the Southern Confederacy. This the merchants did. They
+    then sold their goods, taking cotton and Confederate money in pay. The
+    cotton was destroyed by order of Beauregard, and the Confederate scrip
+    is worthless, and the Federal generals are enforcing the payment of
+    Northern claims. This fourfold loss will beggar every southern
+    merchant subjected to it.
+
+    At the commencement of the war, strong drink was abundant, and it was
+    freely used by the soldiers. Drunkenness was fearfully prevalent. This
+    vice increased to such a degree that the army was rapidly becoming
+    demoralized. A large amount of grain was wasted in the manufacture of
+    liquor. At this juncture the rebel government wisely prohibited the
+    manufacture and sale of all that would intoxicate. Soon the wisdom of
+    this measure was apparent. For a time this contraband article was
+    smuggled in, yet it was only in limited quantities, and at the present
+    time a drunken soldier is a _rara avis_ in the army. At the first
+    promulgation of the law, a cunning countryman perforated a large
+    number of eggs, withdrew the contents, filled the shells with whiskey,
+    closed them up, and carrying them to the camp at Rienzi, sold them at
+    an exorbitant price. Others resorted to filling coffee-pots with
+    whisky, stopping up the bottom of the spout, filling it with
+    buttermilk, and if asked by the guards what they had for sale, would
+    pour out some of the milk in the spout, and by this deception gain an
+    entrance to the camp, and supply the soldiers with liquor. But all
+    these tricks were discovered, and since the manufacture, as well as
+    the sale, was prohibited, the supply on hand became exhausted, and
+    drunkenness ceased.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+BATTLES OF LEESBURG, BELMONT, AND SHILOH.
+
+    Rebel Cruelty to Prisoners--The Fratricide--Grant Defeated--Saved by
+    Gunboats--Buell's Advance--Railroad Disaster--The South
+    Despondent--General Rosecrans--Secession will become Odious even in
+    the South--Poem.
+
+
+BATTLE OF LEESBURG.
+
+The battle of Leesburg was fought on the 21st of October, 1861. The
+southern accounts of this battle were so contradictory, that I will not
+give the various versions. One statement, however, all concur in--that
+when the Federal troops retreated to the river, after being overpowered by
+superior numbers, and had thrown down their arms, calling for quarter, no
+mercy was shown them. Hundreds were bayoneted, or forced into the river
+and drowned. The rebels clubbed their guns, and dashed out the brains of
+many while kneeling at their feet and imploring mercy. I saw one ruffian
+who boasted that he had bayoneted seven Yankee prisoners captured on that
+occasion.
+
+
+BATTLE OF BELMONT.
+
+The battle of Belmont was fought on the 7th of November, 1861. I have
+heard repeatedly from southern officers their version of the events which
+occurred on that occasion. General McClernand, for the purpose of breaking
+up the rebel camp at Belmont, attacked it in force at an early hour, and
+completely routed the enemy, pursuing them to a considerable distance.
+Returning, he destroyed completely the camp, but delaying too long, large
+reinforcements were thrown over the river from Columbus, and the Federals
+were compelled to retreat precipitately to their boats, not, however, till
+they had fully accomplished the object of their mission. A scene occurred
+on this field which exhibits one of the saddest phases of this internecine
+strife. The incident was related to me by Mr. Tomlin, a lawyer of Jackson,
+Tennessee, not unknown even in the North, who was personally acquainted
+with the actors. Colonel Rogers, of an Illinois regiment, led his command
+into action early in the contest. A Tennessee regiment opposed him with
+fierceness for some time. At length they began to waver and exhibit
+symptoms of disorder. At this moment their colonel, who had been unhorsed,
+mounted a stump, and by an energetic and fervid address, rallied his men.
+Again they began to falter, and again his burning words restored order.
+Colonel Rogers believing that the safety of himself and regiment depended
+upon the death of the Tennessee colonel, drew a pistol from his holsters,
+rode up and deliberately shot him through the brain. The Tennesseeans
+seeing their colonel fall, fled precipitately. On the return of the
+Illinois troops, Colonel Rogers, impelled by curiosity, dismounted, and
+scanning the features of the colonel whom his own hand had slain,
+recognised his own brother. As the tide of battle had rolled past for the
+moment, he ordered the corpse to be conveyed to a transport, on which it
+was brought to Cairo, and thence borne to the stricken parents, who
+mourned over and buried the remains of their brave but erring child, who
+had met his fate at his brother's unconsciously fratricidal hand.
+
+
+BATTLE OF SHILOH.
+
+On April 6th, 1862, the sun rose clear; not a cloud was discernible in the
+sky; it was truly a lovely Sabbath, even for a southern clime. Early in
+the morning I took a walk with my little daughter, a child four years of
+age, in whose prattle I was taking great interest. We had gone about one
+hundred yards when my child exclaimed, "Pa, we must go back! it's going to
+rain; don't you hear the thunder?" The sharp and stunning reports I soon
+recognised to be the sound of cannon on the field of battle. The
+cannonading continued incessantly during the day. The whole country became
+intensely excited, and many citizens hastened to the battlefield, the
+majority bent upon plunder. On Monday the battle still raged with
+increasing fury. On Sabbath, General Grant had been completely surprised,
+and would have lost his whole army but for the gunboats in the river.
+These gunboats shelled the pursuing rebels, checking their advance, and
+saving the discomfitted Federals. Buell arrived with his division on
+Sabbath night, and on Monday the rebels were driven at every point during
+the whole day, with great loss. When I heard the rebel officers state that
+the gunboats lying in the Tennessee river had checked their pursuit, and
+had committed great havoc amongst their troops, at the distance of nearly
+three miles, I supposed that the rebel army had continued the pursuit till
+they came in sight of the gunners on the boats, who then threw their
+shells into their advancing columns, and my mistake was not corrected till
+I saw the scene of action. A plateau extended from the river, where the
+gunboats lay, to the hills, a distance of about one-quarter of a mile. The
+hills rose to a considerable height, and were covered with a large growth,
+and on their frowning summits the lofty trees seemed to intercept the
+passing clouds. Grant's discomfitted and shattered army had taken refuge
+on the plateau. Some had even thrown themselves into the river, and swam
+across. Such was the position of affairs when the gunners threw their
+shells over those lofty hills, and beyond them a distance of two miles,
+into the midst of the rebels, checking their advance, and destroying them
+by scores. Couriers constantly passed to and fro to give information of
+the position of the enemy. All night long their shelling continued,
+causing Beauregard to change his camp thrice. Thus,
+
+    "Bombs bursting in air,
+  Gave proof through the night
+    That our flag was still there."
+
+On Monday morning Buell's division advanced, and the tide was turned. The
+rebels were driven from every position, and their loss was fearful; and
+had pursuit been continued to Corinth, their whole army must have been
+annihilated. General A. S. Johnson fell about three o'clock on the
+Sabbath. The tibial artery had been severed--a wound not necessarily
+fatal; but he remained in the saddle till he fainted from loss of blood,
+and when borne from his horse by Governor Harris and others, survived but
+twenty minutes. On Sabbath night Beauregard occupied, for a time, an old
+Presbyterian church--a rude log edifice. The church was named Shiloh;
+hence both Beauregard and General Grant, in their dispatches, named the
+engagement the battle of Shiloh. I was in Rienzi as the wounded passed
+down on the cars to the various hospitals below. They passed continually
+for a month. On the 18th of April I went down to Macon, in Noxubee county.
+A large number of wounded were on the train. A lady from the Female
+Seminary in Aberdeen had been placed under my care. When we reached a
+point six miles from Crawfordsville, I noticed a young man looking out in
+an excited manner, and immediately after he jumped out and rolled down an
+embankment. I was much surprised at his conduct, but soon the crashing of
+the cars explained the cause. The train had been thrown from the track,
+and was rushing down an embankment. Jumping from the cars now became
+general. My lady friend arose, declaring that she also would leap from the
+car. I caught and held her till the danger was over, and thus prevented
+perhaps serious injury to her person, as all who jumped from the train
+were more or less injured. On extricating ourselves from the debris of the
+cars, an appalling sight met our view. The sick, wounded, dying, and dead,
+were scattered promiscuously in every direction. Their groans and piercing
+shrieks were heart-rending. The heavy fragments of the broken cars were
+thrown upon their mangled limbs, and in many instances this disaster
+completed what Shiloh had commenced. As we came down, I passed through the
+train amongst the wounded. Some had lost an arm, several an upper lip, as
+many an under lip. Through the body of one six balls had passed. They were
+wounded in the feet, the hands, the head, and the body; and some who had
+not been touched by ball or bullet were paralyzed by their proximity to
+the exploding shells. Truly every battle is with confused noise and
+garments rolled in blood. I remained some time at the destroyed train,
+aiding in extricating those buried beneath the ruins. The extent of the
+damage and destruction of life, I never accurately learned. It must,
+however, have been great. The catastrophe was occasioned by a stick of
+wood falling from the tender before the wheels of the adjacent car, which,
+being thrown from the track, precipitated the whole train down the
+embankment.
+
+For weeks after the battle of Shiloh, little was done by Federals or
+Confederates. The rebels firmly believed that Corinth could not be taken.
+Its evacuation discouraged the people exceedingly. Nothing but disasters
+had befallen them since the year commenced. Zollikoffer had been slain,
+and Crittenden defeated, at Fishing Creek. Roanoke Island had been
+captured. Forts Henry, Donelson, Pulaski, St. Philip, and Jackson had been
+reduced. Island "No. 10" was taken, and New Orleans had fallen. The bloody
+field of Shiloh had proved disastrous; and now, even Corinth, the boasted
+Gibraltar of rebeldom, fortified by the "best engineer on the continent,"
+and defended by the whole army of the southwest, had been evacuated. What,
+under these circumstances, could resist the progress of Halleck to the
+Gulf? Many saw the cause of these disasters in the fact that the rebel
+generals had made their attacks upon the Union troops upon the Sabbath;
+and all history confirms the truth that the army attacking on the Sabbath
+is almost invariably defeated. Universal gloom and an all-pervading spirit
+of despondency, brooded over the whole southern people. Had the rebel army
+been crushed at Corinth, or had Beauregard been vigorously pursued, and
+forced to fight or surrender, the war in the southwest would have been
+terminated. General Rosecrans informed me that they could have crushed the
+rebels at Corinth, and on my asking him why it was not done, he replied:
+"It would have been done at the cost of many lives on both sides, and it
+is not our desire to sacrifice life unnecessarily. Let Beauregard go down
+to the swamps of Mississippi; he can do us no injury. It is not probable
+that he will ever return to Corinth to attack us, and they must starve out
+in a section which never produced enough to sustain its own population."
+But Beauregard did not remain long in the swamps of Mississippi. He took
+the flower of his army and hastened on to Richmond, to reinforce General
+Lee, who immediately gave battle to McClellan, and drove him from the
+Peninsula. Halleck should never have suffered McClellan to be compelled to
+fight both Lee's forces and Beauregard's, whilst his own army was merely
+protecting rebel property and consuming rations. I think General
+Rosecrans, had he been in chief command, would not have thus acted; and
+his statement to me was a mere apology for the conduct of his superior,
+for his policy has ever been vigorous, and the rebels dread him more than
+any living man. The lamented Lyon also inspired a similar wholesome dread.
+I saw much of General Rosecrans. He is a genial, pleasant gentleman. He
+seems desirous of accomplishing his end by the use of mild means; but if
+these will not effect the object, the reverse policy is resorted to. The
+rebels dread, yet respect him. He will do much to oblige a friend. I
+desired at one time to go with my family beyond the Federal lines. General
+Rosecrans went in person to General Pope to obtain a pass; but Pope's
+orders were that no passes should be issued for a specified time. General
+Rosecrans then asked and obtained permission to send one of his aids with
+us, who conducted us beyond the pickets, a distance of five miles. This
+act, the General remarked, was in consideration of the kindness I had
+shown himself and staff while in Rienzi. The Federal generals committed a
+great mistake in desiring to overrun the country without destroying the
+rebel armies. A physician who drives a disease from one limb only to
+appear in a more aggravated form in another, accomplishes nothing. And
+when a general permits a hostile army to change its location as a
+strategic movement, he has accomplished nothing, except giving aid and
+comfort to the enemy. The rebels estimated their forces at the battle of
+Shiloh at eighty thousand. Though considerable accessions had been
+received, yet in consequence of sickness and desertion, their number was
+about the same at the evacuation of Corinth. They lost about eleven
+thousand, slain, wounded, and prisoners, in the battle.
+
+War has a tendency to engender great bitterness of feeling between the
+belligerents. The secessionists hate the northern people, but not with the
+intensity of hatred which they exercise toward the Union-loving citizens
+of the South. In South Carolina, in the days of nullification, the
+nullifiers and Union men were very bitter in their hostility against each
+other. After the suppression of nullification by General Jackson, the
+cause being removed, the enmity ceased, and in a short time, the odium
+attached to nullification became so great, that few would admit that they
+had been nullifiers. Let the supremacy of the law and the Constitution be
+enforced, and a few years hence, few, even in the South, will be found
+willing to admit that they were secessionists. The descendants of the
+Tories carefully conceal their genealogy; the descendants of the
+secessionists will do the same. Slavery and secession will perish
+together; and the classes of the South who have been fearfully injured by
+both these heresies, will be fully compensated for their present distress
+by the vast blessings which will accrue to themselves and posterity by the
+abolition of an institution which has degraded labour, oppressed the poor
+white man, opposed progress, retarded the development of the country's
+resources, taken away the key of knowledge, caused every species of vice
+to flourish, impoverished the people, enriched a favoured class at the
+expense of the masses, caused woes unnumbered to a whole race--in short,
+has been the prolific parent of fraud, oppression, lust, tyranny, murder,
+and every other crime in the dark catalogue.
+
+  "We are living, we are dwelling
+    In a grand and awful time;
+  In an age, on ages telling,
+    To be living is sublime!
+
+  Hark! the waking up of nations,
+    Gog and Magog to the fray;
+  Hark! what soundeth--is creation
+    Groaning for its latter day?
+
+  Will ye play, then? will ye dally
+    With your music and your wine?
+  Up! it is Jehovah's rally!
+    God's own arm hath need of thine.
+
+  Hark! the onset! will ye fold your
+    Faith-clad arms in lazy lock;
+  Up! oh, up! thou drowsy soldier,
+    Worlds are charging to the shock!
+
+  Worlds are charging; heaven beholding;
+    Thou hast but an hour to fight;
+  Now the blazoned cross unfolding,
+    _On!_ right onward _for the right_.
+
+  _On!_ let all the soul within you,
+    For the truth's sake go abroad;
+  Strike! let every nerve and sinew
+    Tell on ages,--tell for God!"
+
+
+
+
+SEE TO YOUR INTEREST!!
+
+AMSTERDAM, _Jefferson co._, Ohio, _January 1, 1863_.
+
+The undersigned tenders his thanks to his customers for their liberal
+patronage in the past, and respectfully solicits its continuance.
+
+He has recently made considerable additions to his stock of
+
+DRY GOODS AND GROCERIES,
+
+and he will endeavour to make it the interest of the citizens of Amsterdam
+and vicinity to deal with him; nor will he permit his competitors to
+surpass him in the cheapness and quality of his goods.
+
+The _highest price_ will be paid for PRODUCE OF EVERY KIND, and _Cash_
+will not be refused in payment for goods.
+
+A word to the wise is sufficient.
+
+DAVID AUGHEY.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Iron Furnace, by John H. Aughey
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