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diff --git a/old/51777-0.txt b/old/51777-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 0caa864..0000000 --- a/old/51777-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7173 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Other Fools and Their Doings, by Anonymous - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Other Fools and Their Doings - or, Life among the Freedmen - -Author: Anonymous - -Release Date: April 17, 2016 [EBook #51777] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OTHER FOOLS AND THEIR DOINGS *** - - - - -Produced by Giovanni Fini, Suzanne Shell and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: - -—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected. - - -[Illustration: “HAM STERNS, I RECKON YOU KNOW ME.”—Page 190.] - - - - - OTHER FOOLS - AND THEIR DOINGS, - - OR, - - LIFE AMONG THE FREEDMEN. - - BY ONE WHO HAS SEEN IT. - - NEW YORK: - J. S. OGILVIE & COMPANY, - 29 ROSE STREET. - - - - - COPYRIGHT - 1880. - BY J. S. OGILVIE & CO. - - - - - CONTENTS. - - - CHAP. PAGE - - I. THE BEAN ISLAND PEOPLE 7 - - II. DISTRUST 28 - - III. THE GLORIOUS FOURTH 45 - - IV. LEGAL REDRESS 60 - - V. PREPARATIONS 74 - - VI. THE CLOUD THICKENS 87 - - VII. PORTENTOUS DARKNESS 108 - - VIII. MEMORY AND EXPERIENCE 129 - - IX. THE SITUATION 148 - - X. THE ATTACK 157 - - XI. A MASSACRE 179 - - XII. INCIDENTS AND PARTICULARS 197 - - XIII. THE SCALLAWAG 219 - - - - - OTHER FOOLS - AND THEIR DOINGS. - - - - -CHAPTER I. - -THE BEAN ISLAND PEOPLE. - - “O Tam! hadst thou but been sae wise - As ta’en thy ain wife Kate’s advice!” - - —TAM O’SHANTER. - - -IT was April, 1876, and Deacon Atwood and Captain Black were riding -along the sandy highway in the sparsely settled vicinity of Bean -Island, in the State of South Carolina. - -Though the sun shone uncomfortably hot, neither the men nor the horses -they bestrode seemed anxious to escape its rays, for they traveled -quite leisurely several miles, till they reached a point where the road -forked. - -There they paused a few moments, and continued their conversation in -the same low, earnest tones they had previously employed. - -The Deacon was fifty years of age, large, broad-chested, red-faced, -with full fiery red beard and thin brown hair, which gathered in -sodden, tapering hanks about his short neck and large ears; and his -pale-blue eyes looked out of little triangular orifices on either -side of a pyramidal nose, upon the apex of which was balanced a -narrow forehead of a “quirked ogee” pattern. His hands were large and -freckled, and he kept them in constant motion, like his huge feet, -which seemed even too heavy for his clumsy legs. His snuff-colored -suit, and the slouched hat he wore on the back part of his head, were -dusty with travel. - -His companion was younger, taller, and less stoutly built than he. His -eyes were large and dark, and his head, crowned with bushy black hair, -was poised upon a long, slim neck. His manners indicated more culture -than the Deacon had received. - -“Well, Deacon,” said he, rising in his stirrups, “we have submitted -long enough, and too long, and there must be a change: and I am bound -to do my share to secure it.” - -“And I won’t be behind yo’, Cap’n,” replied Deacon Atwood. “These -niggers must be put down where they belong, and the carpet-baggers -driven back where they came from.” - -“It’s doubtful whether many of them would be received there. I -apprehend that the most of them “left their country for their country’s -good” when they came here. A man don’t emigrate for nothing, and I -expect they have been run out of the North for some mean acts, and have -come to the South to prey upon a conquered people.” - -“I reckon that’s so, and I wonder how yo’ men that ’a’n’t no church -obligations on yo’ ken keep from swearing when yo’ think of it. I -declar, when I get to turning it over in my mind I get so mad that -I can’t hardly keep from it myself. As yo’ war saying, it reaches -everywhere. Less than half the people is white to be sure, but then -we own nine-tenths o’ the land, and yet we must be taxed to support -nigger schools, and niggers and carpet-baggers in all the offices, and -new offices trumped up where there a’n’t enough to serve them as wants -’em—health officers in every little town, and scavengers even, under -pretense of fear of yellow fever, to give salaries to dumb niggers as -don’t know nothing only how to rob Southern gentlemen, and all sorts of -yankee “public improvements” as they call ’em! Why, I’m taxed this year -to mend a road that runs down past me there, and nobody but niggers -never travels on it. It is positively insulting and oppressive!” - -“Well, Deacon, I suppose your statement that niggers and carpet-baggers -are in all the offices might be called a slight exaggeration, but then -we could sit here till dark and not finish enumerating the grievances -this State government, backed by that Cæsar Grant, at Washington, -imposes upon the people of South Carolina—those that ought to be the -ruling class—the South Carolinians. - -“But the best thing we can do is to take hold of these military clubs -and work them; and in that way bring about a better state of things. -I, for one, am determined this State shall go Democratic this coming -fall; and if we unite in this method I’ve been explaining to you, we -can effect it. Just bring this Mississippi method up in your club -to-night—or support Lamb, if he does—and we’ll whip the rascals. -Nigger voters are too thick—must be weeded out!” - -“That’s just what I’m going to do,” replied Deacon Atwood; “and in -order to do it, I reckon we’ll have to go on.” - -“Yes; my sabre club meets this evening, too, for drill. So good -evening!” - -“Good evening, Captain.” And the two men separated. The Captain kept -the main road, and the Deacon took a sort of back, plantation route, -seldom traveled except by the farmers residing upon it, where he soon -fell into deep meditation, his chin dropping upon his breast, and his -respiration becoming slow and heavy. His old white horse, even, seeming -to pass into a similar state of somnambulency, walked dreamily along, -till his nose, far down towards the ground, came in contact with a -fresh and tender shrub, around which his long tongue instinctively -wrapped itself, and he came to a full stop. - -“Hud up!” said the startled Deacon, gathering up his bridle with a -nervous jerk; and his small eyes quickly swept a circle around him. - -With something like a shudder and an audible sigh of relief, he -composed himself again, for only a quiet landscape had met his vision. - -A swampy forest was on his left hand, and long stretches of scrub -palmettos, interspersed with cotton-patches, on his right. - -Seeing two colored men at work in one of the latter, and probably -feeling a need of human companionship, he rode up to the crooked rail -fence, and shouted “Howdy?” - -“Why, howdy? Deacon, howdy?” was the friendly response, as one of the -men laid down his heavy cotton hoe, and approached the fence. - -“How is work, January?” asked Deacon Atwood, pleasantly. - -“I gets along mighty well, I thank yo’. I hope yo’ do,” said the -freedman, who, though about the age of his neighbor, was too much -accustomed to being addressed as a boy, and by his Christian name, to -take offense at the familiarity. - -“Well, I’ll be blamed if yo’ niggers don’t get along better’n the white -folks! These confounded carpet-baggers are larnin’ yo’ how to fleece us -that owns the land, and blowed if yo’ ain’t doing it!” - -“Why, Deacon, I don’t know what yo’ mean. I ha’n’t been fleecing -nobody, I’m shor’. If God Almighty gives me my freedom, and gives -me strength to work what land I’m able, and makes the crops grow, -why ha’n’t I a right to get ’long? I can’t see who’s hurt, not to my -serious knowledge?” - -“It a’n’t yo’r working, it’s yo’r voting. Yo’ vote them villains into -office, and they’re bleeding the country to death with taxes. Now, we -a’n’t gwine to stand it. All the gentleman has agreed together that -yo’ve got to come over to our side. It’s for yo’r interest to be thar.” - -“Can’t do it, nohow, Deacon,” replied the negro, smiling good-humoredly. - -“If yo’ don’t there’ll lots of yo’ be killed,” said Deacon A., kindling. - -“Now, Deacon Atwood,” said January Kelly, deliberately, “I think a -parcel of gentleman that was raised and been college-bred, men that -would undertake to ride over things by killing out a few niggers—well, -I think its a very small idea for an educated man. I think they must -have lost all conscience of heart; I think all conscience of heart -are gone when they come to do that, _I do_; but you a’n’t in earnest, -Deacon? You’re a Christian man. I ha’nt got _no neighbors_ as would -hurt me. I’m a honest man as works hard, and minds my own business, and -takes care o’ my family; and nobody ain’t gwoine to kill me, nohow.” - -“Oh, no, January; nobody won’t hurt honest, hard-working darkies like -you, if they let politics alone; but then there’ll be lots of the -leaders be killed, ’fo’ election, if just such men as yo’ don’t come -over and help us save the State,” said the Deacon. - -“Why the State is all here. I don’t see as it’s lost, nor gwoine to -smash, either; and if we have a Government we’ve got to have leaders. -If all the men stayed to home and worked land like I do, there wouldn’t -be no Government.” - -“So much the better,” snapped the Deacon. “The strong could take care -of themselves and look out for the weak ones too.” - -“Well, I don’t know about that. The rogues would steal and kill all -the same, and who’d take care of our lives and our property, and -collect the taxes, and build the bridges the war burned down, and the -school-houses, and pay the teachers, and all them things?” - -“There is too many of them now; and South Carolinians shall rule South -Carolina!” broke forth Deacon Atwood, with great vehemence; “and I want -you to come over to the democratic party where you won’t get hurt. -We’ll all help you if you will.” - -“Why Deacon, I thought yo’ was just saying we is getting along the -best. I was born in South Car’lina, an’ so was mos’ all the collud -people in the State to-day, and ain’t we South Carolinians then? Now -all I has got to say is, _that it’s a mighty mean man as won’t stand -to his own_. It war the ’publican party as made me a free man, an’ I -reckon I shall vote ’publican _long as I breaves_! That is all I can -say, Deacon. I don’t know no mo’.” - -“Hud up!” said the Deacon, and he rode abruptly away. - -“What on earth has come over Deacon Atwood, I wonder,” said Mr. Kelley, -to a tall, muscular black man, who, swinging his hoe lazily, had at -length planted his row abreast with the spot where his employer had -dropped his when the Deacon saluted him. - -“Talking ’bout politics, I reckon!” was the drawling reply. - -“Yes, and he did make some awful threats! Why, Pompey, he said they’d -lots of the niggers ’round here get killed ’fo’ election if we didn’t -come ovah to the democratic party! Now I’ve hearn that kind o’ talk -ever since reconstruction, but I never did, myself, hear the Deacon, -nor no such ’spectable and ’ligious men talk it ’fo’; though they say -they did talk it, an’ gone done it, too, in some places. He says it’s a -general thing now, from shor’ to shor’ this time ’mong the gem’men. He -says the taxes is ruining the country, an’ niggers an’ carpet-baggers -is in all the offices, an’ the money is wasted, an’ there’s got to be a -change.” - -“Oh, —— —— him! It’s just the odder way about—shutting up -offices—doing away wid ’em, an’ turning de niggahs out to make room -for old confederate soldiers! I hearn Kanrasp, an’ Striker, an’ -Rathburn, an’ some o’ them big fellahs talkin’ ’bout it dar in Aiken.” - -(Pompey had boarded in a certain public institution at the county seat -for the greater safety of the contents of market-wagons in the town -where he resided.) - -“The land mos’ all b’longs to the white folks, sho nuff, an’ the rent -is so awful high that a nigger has got to work hisself an’ his family -mos’ to death to keep from gittin’ inter debt to de boss, let alone a -decent livin’, an’ now the gem’men is bound to resist the taxes fo’ the -schools, so our chillun can’t have no schools. I thinks it’s toughest -on our side!” said Kelley. - -“Kanrasp said de Governor is doin’ splendid,” continued Pompey, -“cuttin’ down expenses so dey is a gwoine to save a million an’ -seventeen hundred an’ nineteen thousand dollars an’ mo’ in one year; or -he did save it last year.” - -(Pompey had a memory for numbers, though neither gift nor training for -mathematical calculations.) - -“Striker, he was mad cause de Governor made ’em put down an’ print just -ebberyting wouldn’t let ’em buy no “sundies” or somethings—I do’nt -know. De white folks wouldn’t let de niggers have no money in old slave -times, an’ now dis Governor Chamberlain dat ’tends to be a ’publican, -he makes de nigger an’ de Legislature men as come from de North be -mighty careful dey don’t get no cent o’ de white folk’s taxes ’thout -printing jes’what it’s all boughtened.” - -“Well, now, that’s right and honest like,” replied Kelly, “‘cause -they’ve been thieves don’t make it right for us to steal; and then the -niggers pays taxes, too, and don’t ort to be cheated neither; and I’d -like to know if them ways don’t make the taxes easier? They do say -they was a mighty sight o’ stealin’ from the treasury going on thar in -Columbya a while ago. I reckon Governer Chamberlain is a honest man, -and don’t steal hisself neither.” - -“Certainly, de taxes is easier. Lawyer Crafty, dar in Aiken—he’s a -democrat too, you know—he joined in de talk some, and he said it is -easier’n it was; fo’ de taxes used to be thirteen or sixteen mills on a -dollar (if yo’ know what dat means), but now it is only eleven.” - -“I don’t prezackly understood it,” said Kelly, “but I know eleven ain’t -so much as thirteen nor sixteen; and I do reckon it makes it easier. -I reckon it’s mo’ cause the white folks wants all the money and the -offices theirselves, as makes the fuss.” - -“Yes,” drawled Pompey, “and dey makes any man a carpet-bagger dat -wa’n’t baun in de South, an’ some ’publicans as was. De Governor has -been in de State, an’ all he’s got, now ’leven year; Kanrasp said so; -an’ Cummings—de head teacher o’ de big school in Columby—de Versity -dey calls it—he’s been in de South thirty year an’ mo’; an’ dey calls -him a carpet-bagger, too, an’ all his boys; but de boys was baun here. -But den dey is ’publicans an’ teaches niggers, too, I wonder is dey any -carpet-baggers up North or anywhere?” - -“I don’t know, I never did hear tell of ’em; but the No’th beat in -the wa’, you know. But ’bout this killin’ niggers; I’m a thinken, the -Lo’d knows we has had enough o’ that: but I can’t help thinking,” -said Kelly, and the two men entered into a long conversation upon -the subject which we will not follow, as our present interest is -with Deacon Atwood, who had resumed his way with Kelly’s quaint and -expressive phrase “must have lost all conscience of heart,” as his -constant and sole companion, for he had not yet “lost _all_ conscience -of heart.” - -Arrived at home, he ate his evening meal in haste and silence, and -immediately set out for the hall where his Rifle Club met, accompanied -by his eldest son, who was a minor by a few months. - -Mrs. A. shouted after him, admonishing to an early return, as she did -“detest these night meetings, anyhow.” - -The father and son rode in silence, while the short Southern twilight -faded, and night settled upon the picturesque landscape, soft as the -brooding wing of peace; and balmy breezes rustled through the gigantic -long-leaved pines and mammoth live-oaks, and over fields of sprouting -corn and cotton; and the dark soil seemed to sleep calmly and sweetly -under the white moonlight and a sprinkling of white sand, which -sparkled like snow. - -“Watson, my son,” said the Deacon at length. - -“Yes, father.” - -An ominous silence warned the boy of a weighty communication -forthcoming. - -“I’d rather yo’d ’a ’staid to home to-night, but as I’d promised yo’ -going, it couldn’t be helped. I reckon we’ll have an exciting time, -but now as yo’ are a going, _try to keep cool_. Like enough thar’ll be -some things said that better not; but as yo’ll be present, now mind -what I say, and keep cool. Try to be careful. Don’t get excited nor be -imprudent. It’ll do for us to foller the rest. Just let them take the -lead and the responsibility.” - -“Well, father,” replied the youth demurely, well knowing that his -cautious parent would be the first tinder to take fire and lead any -conflagration that might be imminent. - -It is not to our purpose to report the doings of that political Rifle -Club’s meeting—the stirring speeches of citizens of the State, who -forgot that they were also citizens of the Nation against which their -treasonable resolutions were moved, discussed, and voted; nor the -inflammatory harangues of Deacon Atwood; nor the courageous utterances -of one little man of broader intelligence and views than his -neighbors, who urged that the coming political campaign be prosecuted -in a fair, straightforward, lawful and honest manner, which should -command respect everywhere, and convince the hitherto intractable -colored voters that their former masters were disposed to accept the -situation resultant upon the war, and with their support, reconstruct -the politics of the State upon a basis of mutual interests, in place of -the antagonism of races which had prevailed ever since the emancipation -and enfranchisement of the slaves. - -While these discussions relieved over-accumulations of eloquence and -over-wrought imaginations, they also disclosed the true state of -feeling, and the deep smouldering embers of bitterness that once “fired -the Southern heart” to fratricidal war. - -Unfortunately, good and calming counsels often gain least by -interchange of expression with those of passion, and so it came that -young men, and men whose years should have brought them ripe judgment, -but did not, shuddered the next morning at the recollection of words -they had uttered, and decisions made in that club-room, from which it -would be difficult to recede. - -Betrayed by his sanguine temperament and his implacable foe—the love -of strong drink—Deacon Atwood was one of these. - -“It’s a pretty pass when a man at yo’r time of life stays out till two -o’clock in the mornin’ drinkin’, and mercy knows what, I do declar!” -said Mrs. A. as she met her liege lord at the door of their domicile, -“And takin’ his only son out to initiate him, too, and yo’ a church -officer.” - -“Wh—wh—why didn’t yo’ go to bed, Ja—Ja—Janette, I didn’t -ex—ex—expect to find yo’ up.” - -“No, I shouldn’t reckon yo’ did, judging by yo’ exes. Making a fool and -a beast o’ yo’self, and tempting yo’ son, when we’ve been praying for -his conversion so long.” - -“Wal Ja—Janette, yo’ ’ort to ha’ prayed for me, too, fo’ I’ve made a -’nough sight mo’ fool o’ myself than Wat has o’ hissen. But I’ve been -true to the State,” drawled and stammered the Deacon, with thick and -maudlin utterance, “and if I could stand as much w’iskey as some on em, -I’d a’ been true to myself also. But who’s been here, Ja—Janette?” -Vainly trying to stand erect, and pointing with nerveless finger to an -armful of crooked sticks that lay upon the blazing hearth. “Who brung -’em in?” - -“It wa’n’t yo’, Deacon Atwood; I might ha’ froze to death walking this -house, and nigh fainting with fear, thinking some nigger had outened -yo’ smoke fo’ yo’ fo’ allus’ on this earth.” (He was fumbling in his -pocket for an old clay pipe he carried there.) “I do believe uncle -Jesse and aunt Phebe are the best Christians on this plantation. Yo’r -old mother took her toddy, and went to snoring hours ago, thinking -nothing o’ what might happen yo’—her only son, who she’s dependent on -to manage all her thousand acres o’ land; though gracious knows I wish -she’d give yo’ a foot or two of it, without waiting to all eternity -fo’ her to die ’fo’ we can call an earthly thing our own. I couldn’t -get that story I hearn yo’ telling Den Bardon ’to’ther day, out o’ my -head, and I war that scarred I couldn’t go to bed.” - -“What story was that?” asked Watson, as he hung his whip and saddle -upon a wooden peg in a corner of the kitchen where the trio were. - -“Why, about that Texas Jack that is around here, killing niggers and -everybody; and he don’t have more ’n a word with a man till he shoots -him down. If I had a knowed yo’ was coming home tight, father, I’d a -been scarred ’clar to death shor’. A pretty mess yo’ll hev’ in the -church now, Deacon Atwood! Elder Titmouse’ll be after yo’ shor.” - -“Hi, hi, hi,” laughed the Deacon. “Hic, a-hic, a-hic, hi, hi. No danger -o’ that, old gal. He’d have to be after the whole church, and take the -lead of the leaviners hisself. He’s the Chaplain o’ the Club, and the -d-r-u-n-kest man in town to-night. The old bell-sheep jumped the fence -first, and helter skelter! all the flock jumped after him. Hick, a-hic. -But who, hic, taken that wood, hic, from the yard, hic, and brung it -thar?” demanded the head o’ the house, with changed mood, ominous of a -coming domestic storm. “Dina’s gone, and Tom’s gone, and yo’ wouldn’t -do it if yo’ froze.” - -“Wal, now, I was feeling powerful bad, a-walking the house, and crying -and praying mighty hard, and fust I knowed I heard a humming and a -singing, and who should come up to the do’ but Aunt Phebe, and Uncle -Jesse close behind? They reckoned thar was sickness, and they come -to help. Now, I call that Christian, if they be niggers. “Why yo’re -freezing,” says Uncle Jess, “and yo’ll git the fever.” So he brung the -wood and made the fire, and we all prayed for _yo’_, a heap mo’n yo’re -worth; fo’, as I say, I war a thinking o’ Texas Jack. When we heahed -ole Duke whinny they went home, and this minute they’ve blowed their -light out.” - -“Hi! hi! Old gal, we’ve been _making_ Texas Jacks—setting ’em up all -night; and they’ll be thicker ’n bumble bees and yaller jackets ’fo’ -’lection. But they don’t know how to kill nobody but radicals—niggers -and carpet-baggers and scalawags.” - -“Now, Deacon, if yo’ve been setting up anything agin such men as Jesse -and Den, and Penny Loo, I just hope yo’ll git chawed up by yo’re own -Jacks?” said this Southern aristocratic female Christian, in great ire. - -“No danger o’ Texas Jack’s hurting _me_. He won’t chaw his own arms,” -shouted the Deacon, triumphantly. “I’m fo’ defending the State and the -white man’s rights; South Car’linans shall rule South Car’lina,” and he -reeled about the room, swinging his limp arms, and shouting, “Hurrah -for South Car’lina! Hurrah for the old Pal-met-to State!” - -“Come, come father,” said his son, “let me help you to bed. You talk -like a crazy man.” With the assistance of Mrs. A., the Deacon was soon -where his lips were safely guarded by slumber. - -“It is a pity you hadn’t let father join the Good Templers with me, but -may be he wouldn’t ha’ stuck to the pledge,” said the boy, sadly, as -he bade his mother good night. - -Near eleven o’clock the next morning, with nerves unstrung, head sore, -and stomach disordered, and altogether in an irritable condition of -mind and body, Deacon Atwood sauntered out into one of his mother’s -fields, where a large mulatto man was mending a somewhat dilapidated -rail-fence. The hands of the farmer, were keeping time to a succession -of old plantation “spirituals” which rolled from his capacious chest -like the sound of a trumpet. - -“O, believer, go ring that be—l—l.” - - * * * * * - -“Don’t you think I’m gwoine to ring that beautiful bel—l—l?” - - * * * * * - -“This winter’ll soon be ovah.” - - * * * * * - -“When the bride-grooms comes.” - - * * * * * - -“We’ll march through the valley in that field.” - -“Yo’ seem to be mighty happy this morning, Jesse,” growled the Deacon. - -“Well, Deacon, why shouldn’t I be happy? I’m well, and my wife is well, -and my children is well, and we’re all about our business, and the -children in school a learning, and God Almighty is saving my soul, and -raining his spirit into my soul, and raining this beautiful sunshine -down unto the cawn (corn) and the cotton, to make ’em grow, and why -shouldn’t I sing? Why, brother Atwood, I feel like I’d like to ring -that beautiful bell so loud that all the folks in the worl’’d hear it; -a proclaiming that the Lord Jesus’ll save every poor sinnah that’ll let -him,” and the dark face shone with the spirit-beams that glowed within. - -The Deacon winced under the churchly title of brotherhood, and what he -thought a covert reproof, but yielding to the power of a stronger and -more rational nature than his own, he did not remark upon it, though -fondly imagining that he felt himself vastly the superior. - -“It is well enough to be happy if yo’ can, I reckon,” said he, -snappishly, “but I don’t feel so. I confess I’m thinking more about -politics now-a-days than about religion.” - -“That’s no wonder then that yo’ a’n’t happy. It don’t pay to get away -from the Laud into politics—brings trouble.” - -“Oh, a plague on yo’r preaching! We must attend to politics sometime: -we can’t leave it to yo’ niggers all the time. The Democratic Party has -got to beat next fall, or we’ll all be ruined together.” - -“Of course it is right for you to think about politics,” replied Jesse, -“and to talk about politics, and to vote about politics, but you know -“_what-sa-ever_ ye do—whether ye eat, or drink, or _what-sa-ever_ ye -do, you must be a thinking of the glory of the Laud.” - -“We wouldn’t have no trouble in carrying this next election if it -wasn’t for these leading radicals,” said the Deacon, in an angry mood, -which had not been improved by Uncle Jesse’s reproof. “There is not -more than one in a thousand of the niggers that knows how to read and -write, but is an office-seeker; but I tell yo’, Jesse, every one of ’em -will be killed!” - -A silence ensued, during which Deacon Atwood repeatedly thrust his heel -into the soft soil, and turning the toe of his boot about, as though -crushing some reptile, he made a row of circular depressions along the -side of a cotton hill. - -Pausing in his work, and pointing at the busy, great foot, Mr. Roome -(for that was Uncle Jesse’s name) remarked, with a broad smile, “Deacon -Atwood, them is nice looking little places you’re making there, but -allow me to tell you that I reckon your wife won’t like the looks -o’ that black streak you’r making on the bottom of that leg o’ them -light-colored trousers o’ yourn.” - -Vexed beyond control that he could not disturb the equanimity of the -colored man, the irate Deacon now squared himself about, and, thrusting -both his itching fists deep into the pockets of the abused articles of -his apparel, he looked fiercely into the face of the negro, saying: - -“Maybe you don’t believe me, but it is true, and all settled; and I’ll -bet you that Elly and Watta and Kanrasp will be killed before another -’lection, and I can give you the names of twenty more that will be -killed, and among them is ‘Old Bald-head’” (the Governor). - -A shadow passed quickly across the dusky face, and a set of fine teeth -were firmly set together for a moment. But that soon passed, and -the face wore its usual expression: “What are you going to do with -President Grant and his soldiers?” - -“Oh, all the No’th is on our side,” was the prompt response. “And if it -a’n’t, we don’t care for Grant nor his soldiers. I carried a gun once, -and I can again.” - -The farmer had completed his work, and, folding his arms, he now -confronted his “Boss,” and spoke slowly and impressively. - -“Mind, now, what you’re doing, Deacon, for the United States is _mighty -strong_. You recollect once you had two Presidents here, and it cost a -long and bloody war, and the country ha’n’t got over it yet.” - -“Yes, sir, but the No’th is on our side now, I tell yo’, and we shall -be able to carry our point.” - -“May be so, I can’t tell,” said Jesse, dropping his hands by his -sides, “but I shall be very sorry to see another war started here, -and I didn’t live in the No’th from ’61 to ’67 to come back here and -believe that the people there is going to stand by you in killing us -off to carry the election. Maybe they’re tired of protecting us, and -disgusted with our blunders and our ignorance, but they won’t join you -nor nobody, nor uphold nobody in killing us off that way.” - -“Well, you’ll see we shall carry this next ’lection if we have to -carry it with the musket—if we have to wade through blood to our -saddle-girths,” said the Deacon. “And more—this black Militia Company -at Baconsville has got to stop drilling; it has got to be broken up. -It is too much for southern gentlemen to stand—flaunting their flag -and beating their drum right under our noses! It is a general thing -with us now from shor’ to shor’, and the law can’t do nothing with so -many of us if we do break it up, and we’re going to.” - -“Now, just be careful, Mr. Atwood, what you say, and what you do. I -a’n’t going to uphold our colored folks in violating no law, and you -know I ha’n’t, nor nobody else neither. I believe in law, and I say -let’s stick by the law; and,” gathering up his implements of labor, “I -suppose you’ll excuse me, for I’ve got to go around to the other side -of this oat field, by the woods there, and mend that other gap; that -is, if you don’t care to walk around that way.” - -The Deacon did not care to walk that way, and so the conversation -ended for the time; though the subject was frequently renewed during -the subsequent summer months, in the hope of inducing Roome, who was -influential among his people, to declare for the white man’s party, but -in vain. - -A scion of a family that, in the early settlement of the State, had -procured a large tract of land at five cents per acre, and had retained -much of it through unprolific generations by penuriousness that had -been niggardly and cruel in its exactions upon slave labor, Deacon -Atwood was coarse and gross in temperament, and had received little -culture of any kind. All his patrimony had vanished through the war -and its results; for the parsimony of his ancestors had formed no part -of his inheritance, and he had pledged all for the Confederate loan. - -His aged mother—a violent rebel, and a widow before the war—yet -refused to pledge her land to raise funds for what became the “Lost -Cause,” and found means to retain possession of one thousand acres -of cotton land, for the management of which her son was now acting -as her agent. Mrs. Deacon Atwood was what the reader has seen her, -and not an ill-selected specimen of the average planters’ wives, who -but seldom left the schoolless vicinities of their homes; and as her -family had fared no better than her husband’s in the general financial -overthrow, they were quite naturally and rapidly drifting towards their -affinity—the social stratum called in ante-bellum times, “poor white -trash.” - - - - -CHAPTER II. - -DISTRUST. - - “The murky shades o’ care - With starless gloom o’ercast my sullen sky.” - - —BURNS. - - -“WALK in, Mr. Roome; walk in. Glad to see you. Have a chair? Well, what -is the news from Bean Island and Baconsville?” - -“Bad, Mr. Elly, bad!” replied Uncle Jesse, as he seated himself, and -took from his hat a huge red cotton pocket-handkerchief, with which he -proceeded with great deliberation to wipe his dusky face and bald head. - -“I did not know it was so warm out,” said the courteous host. “This -office is such a cool place that I come up here Sunday afternoons to be -cool and quiet. It is a good place to read.” - -“I reckon it is not so warm to most folks. I’m hotter’n I ought to be, -I know; but I’m worreted,” said Uncle Jesse, still wiping industriously -with both hands at once, and then thrusting the handkerchief into his -hat which he had been holding tightly between his knees, he placed it -carefully upon the floor beside him, and putting a hand upon either -knee, he leaned forward, looked earnestly into Mr. Elly’s face, and -with a significant expression, and in a low tone asked, “Is you alone, -Mr. Elly?” - -“Yes; or, but—well, Mr. Watta is in the back office, but I can close -the door”—rising. - -“No, no,” said Uncle Jesse, raising both hands deprecatingly. “Ask him -in; ask him in. Or, why can’t I go in there?” glancing around at doors -and windows. - -“Certainly you can,” replied Elly. “Did you want to see Mr. Watta?” - -“I reckon so; yes. Well, now, this is what I call providential; and -I reckon I wa’n’t fur wrong in coming, if it is Sunday. The folks in -No’thern Ohio don’t do no business on Sundays, and money paid Sunday -a’n’t paid at all—can be collected over again; but work is driving -awfully now. The freshet put the cawn back so for awhile; but it is -ketching up now. But I knowed I ought to come.” - -Handshakings and preliminaries over, the trio were soon seated around -a large writing table—colored men all of them. Both Elly and Watta -were tall and slender—the former quite black, and the latter very -light—and both had enjoyed the blessing of education at a Northern -school established for the benefit of freedmen, and almost sanctified -to the race by bearing the name of “Lincoln.” - -Jesse Roome’s northern experiences had not been with books, save at -evening schools, of which he had eagerly availed himself; but his -naturally well-balanced mind and keen powers of observation had not -been idle; and sensible ideas of common duties and relations of life in -a highly-civilized and enlightened community were his reward. - -Elly was a thriving lawyer and ex-member of the State Legislature, -where he had been “Speaker of the House,” and, ever with an eye to -business, he had already scented a fee in his visitor’s troubled manner -and reply. - -“You must excuse my abruptness, but I leave on the train for Columbia -in half an hour,” said he, “and you and Watta can talk after I am gone. -Now, what can I do for you?” - -“First of all, I want some money for my services as constable; and -second I want to talk about the political situation, and to tell you -some things I have heard men say that is interested. Well, how I got to -know this thing—” - -“What thing?” asked the lawyer. “Why, that Elly and Watta and Kanrasp -and some score of other radicals, has got to be killed,” said Uncle -Jesse, lowering his voice to a husky whisper. - -“Ha! ha! ha?” roared Elly, throwing himself back in his chair, till his -head seemed in danger of getting wedged between the chair-back and a -bookcase behind him. “Why, Roome, I thought you was a sensible man,” -said he, when he had recovered his breath. “The days of the Ku-Klux -Klan’s are over, and all done in this State. When we punished two -hundred and fifty of the fifteen hundred ‘very respectable gentlemen,’ -as they called each other, who were arrested in 1871-’2, the thing was -killed out here, you see.” - -“No, I don’t see,” said Roome. - -“But do you suppose a man really means what he says when he talks like -that now-a-days?” and the two threatened men laughed, and wriggled in -great apparent merriment, and in true negro fashion, though really -quaking with fear. - -“I certainly do believe it, Mr. Elly, and Mr. Watta, and I only hope -the good Laud will show that I’ve been afeared for you for nothing. The -parties was in earnest, and intended it, I’m shor’; and you know I’m -not a old woman, nor a baby to be scart for nothing. - -“I’ve took the trouble to resk my life to tell yo’ to take care of -you’n, and now I’ve done my part. I didn’t tell Watta right there to -home, because I reckon as yo’ is a lawyer, Mr. Elly, I’d best tell you -first, and see what is best to do for your protection. I taken trouble -to do this. But Watta is here now, and I’m done,” said the old man in a -grieved tone. - -“We are much obliged for your kind intentions, though you needn’t have -been so much scared about us.” - -“Well, now, let me tell you,” and the farmer proceeded to narrate -minutely the incidents and facts with which the reader is already -acquainted, and others of similar import. - -“Give me names and I’ll put them through in the law, for threats,” said -Elly. - -“I can’t do that,” said Jesse, folding his arms tightly. - -“Why not?” - -“Because I live in the woods, and my life wouldn’t be worth anything; -and I a’n’t going to tell yo’, though you’ll believe me yet.” - -“I believe _you_ now, but I don’t believe you’re a white man.” - -“You will yet though, I ha’n’t nothing more to say now, but just mind -what I tell you. You is both men that is marked to be killed, because -you is leading radicals; so the white folks says they is gwine to kill -you and a score more right round here close; I can’t help it, but I’ve -done my duty, and you must take car’ of yourselves. It wouldn’t be no -use to prosecute this man. It would only make the whole of ’em mad, and -worse than ever ’em open a hornet’s nest; but I want to ax you this -favor, just remember my life now, as I’ve remembered your’n, and not -tell that I told you this.” - -“Oh, we won’t tell, and we’re much obliged to you for your good -intentions but we don’t scare worth a cent, after all.” - -Uncle Jesse left the office, and the other men walked down to the -railroad station to meet the through train going north. - -“What do you think of the old man’s story?” asked Watta. - -“I don’t think much of it. He has maintained such an equivocal attitude -that it is hard to tell whose hands he is playing into. He has been on -one side and then on the other—with the colored people and then with -the whites, till there is no telling where he is now.” - -“Elly, you are unfair. That man is just as true as steel; he is solid -gold all through. He is with the side that is right, that is all, -only he has more courage to speak out than some of us have. I reckon -the fact is that the right hasn’t _always_ been the colored side. I’m -afraid it hasn’t, though we’ve had so much the worst chance since -we’ve had a chance at all, and such an outrageous list of grievances to -remember, and to bear, that it isn’t an ordinary man that can look at -things fairly here.” - -Now, I have a mind to think there is something serious in this matter, -and that there will be more and more as election approaches. The white -men at Baconsville are _awful mad_, because our Militia Company has -been reorganized lately, and has been preparing for the centennial -Fourth of July. One would think they expected to be massacred in their -beds; and so they go to work and do things that might make every nigger -mad at them. Sensible, isn’t it? - -“They are just raving, the white men are, some of them, and they do -talk dreadfully. Old man Bob Baker there, gets into a passion whenever -he sees us drilling on Market street. He hates to see a nigger he has -hunted in the swamps before the war, and his dogs couldn’t catch, or -could, practicing the use of arms with a State gun in his hands, and -the Union flag over his head. He is like a mad bull, and “the stars -and stripes” is the red rag that sets him a roaring and tearing up the -ground.” - -Here Watta, the speaker, slapped his companion’s shoulder, and both -broke into a loud laugh. - -“He has got an idea,” he resumed, “that all the roads within five miles -of his plantation belong to _him_, I reckon, by the way he swears -whenever he meets or passes the Company. I tell the boys to give the -flag an extra spread whenever he is in sight, and we have it out.” - -“It is the flag of the Union that you carry, and you are the National -Guards of South Carolina, too,” replied Elly. - -“Well, it _is cutting_ to the old rebel and slave-hunter!” he -continued. His occupation is gone, gone forever; and I don’t suppose he -or his trained blood-hounds take kindly to such cheap game as possoms. -There is a mighty sight of brag and bluster about these southern -whites, though they’ll dodge quick enough at sight of a United States -musket with a Yankee behind it. They hav’n’t forgotten their whipping -yet.” - -“Yes, but they’ll dodge back again just as quick, when the musket and -Yankee soldier are withdrawn, and they are fast forgetting the past; -and this centennial year and celebration are unwelcome reminders of it -which they would like to resent.” - -“Well, yes, I reckon so. You see the mention of the rebellion as one of -the hard strains which the Union has survived cannot well be avoided, -and so the “red rag,” as you call it, is in their faces pretty often if -they take a newspaper, or steal the reading of one. There are only five -white men, ‘gentlemen,’ who call upon me regularly to get the reading -of my papers, free of course, and call me a ‘nigger.’ They don’t take a -single paper themselves, nor buy one, nor say ‘thank ye’ for mine; nor -always think to ask if I have read it myself. - -“Ah, there she comes! right on time;” and Elly closed and pocketed his -gold watch, while the train approached the platform. - -“You’ll see, Jesse? Please get that name out of him, and I’ll put the -rascal through for threats; though I’m not afraid of him. Good day,” -and with the grace of a courtier he waved adieu to his friend, as the -train moved away. - -He was soon comfortably seated, and gazing out at the window. He was -very well dressed, in strong contrast with a large majority of his race -in the southern States. His tall shining hat lay beside him upon the -crimson plush cushion of the seat, leaving his crisp and glossy frizzed -hair the only covering of his shapely head. - -Among the occupants of the car were many “northerners” returning from -winter residences in Florida. - -“We talk of the receding foreheads and projecting jaws of the African,” -said a lady sitting opposite, in a subdued tone to her masculine -companion, “but just imagine those two men with hair and complexions -exchanged,” indicating Elly and a man in the seat immediately in front -of him, who was in a double sense, a fair specimen of southern “poor -white trash.” - - “‘Now, deil-ma-care about their jaws, - The senseless, gawky million,’ - -“As Burns says, - - ‘I’ll cock my nose aboon them a’,’ - -“For I’m bound for dear New England, away from this land of rags -and dirt, slatterly ways, lazy habits, flowing whiskey and tobacco, -narrow brows and wide mouths, and people of all imaginable shades, -from ebony to cream-color or white,” replied the gentleman. “If you -like to continue studying and comparing these faces, do so; but don’t -suggest it to me, for I long to be where the very air is not darkened -with—‘nigger, _nigger_’ and my ears shall rest from the sound of their -uncouth voices.” - -“Their voices are expressive. You should call out the smooth tones.” - -“But I can’t always. I’m sure I can’t forget the night of our arrival -at Jacksonville,” he continued, “Thirty, weren’t there _fifty_ -black men standing near that train, all _barking_ their loudest for -passengers? Yes, you may reprove me, I know these don’t sound like -the words of an abolitionist. But I am one, I insist; but if upon -oath describing that sound that greeted our arrival in that city, I -must say the voices of ‘thirty yelping curs;’ and to pass through -among them, with their grabbing for one’s baggage, and those frightful -sounds in one’s ears, and the knowledge of the unsettled state of the -country—the antagonism between the races—I’d as lief—well, I don’t -know what I wouldn’t choose!” - -“Yes, but if, when that big-mouthed, two-fisted fellow grabbed your -satchel, you, instead of striking him with your cane and umbrella, -had looked kindly into his great-rolling eyes, and mildly said you -preferred to walk and carry it yourself, I think he would have dropped -it as quickly, and more quietly, and been more likely to remember -you kindly. I remember quite similar scenes in the North, with Irish -hackmen. But we have outgrown them; and so will the South, and the -negroes out-grow these scenes; and for me, the more I see these colored -faces, the more that is intelligent and agreeable I see in them.” - -Elly’s face had been singularly bright and cheerful before over-hearing -this colloquy; but then a change came, and presently he leaned out -of the window, gazing at a large dilapidated mansion (it could not -worthily be called a ruin,) which stood some rods from the railroad. - -Many a day he had played about the door of a poor little cabin in its -rear, or ran at the bidding of his young mistress as she walked in a -small grove the train was just then entering; or had held the bridles -for the gentlemen mounting at the door of “the great house,” watching -well their movements, least, as is the habit of some men to cut their -dogs with their whips and laugh at their yelps and leaps, they should -thus enjoy an exhibition of his agility. - -Under that great tree, in the edge of yonder cornfield, his mother -writhed under the lash, for complaining that her task was too heavy; -and obliged to witness the rising of the great welts upon her naked -back, his father had snatched the instrument of torture from the hand -that wielded it, and on an attempt being made to dispossess him of it, -had dealt the overseer a smart blow across the back of his hand. - -Then had followed a gathering of “the hands” from that and neighboring -plantations, to witness the “maintenance of discipline,” and Elly’s -father—a valuable specimen of plantation stock—was made, under the -cat o’ nine tails, a physical wreck. - -Beside that old decaying cotton-house, now scarcely visible, his oldest -sister was once hung up by her hands and severely whipped, because she -preferred field labor by the side of the father of her child, who was -called her husband, to what was called an easier life—in “the big -house after Missus got sick, and was agwoine’ to die.” - -Next, the train rattled over a long stretch of spiling though a -cane-brake, where were familiar trees, under which Elly had paused for -breath, and standing upon their knotted roots, listened to the baying -of pursuing blood-hounds; and so vivid was his recollection of this, -his first attempt to escape from slavery, that the sick, cringing, -trembling feeling returned as he observed the bent canes leaning away -from the half-submerged ties of the railroad track; an involuntarily -moving of his feet upon the car floor, as if again seeking a footing -upon their bent stalks, a semiconsciousness of present circumstances -was restored, through which his mind leaped over the terrible capture -and chastisement, and he seemed again to hear the sounds of the “Yankee -Camp,” and felt the joy of his happy entrance there, a “Contraband of -war,” but a chattel slave no longer. - -Then came a realization of the inestimable service the “Yankee -Governess” had rendered him when she stealthily taught him to read, -and spurred his young master’s lazy efforts, by contrasting his -acquirements with those of the listening slave boy. - -Through that poor beginning, made in weakness and danger on the -part of both pupil and teacher, when it was a crime, punishable by -imprisonment in the State’s Prison, he had made his way to positions of -honor and emolument. - -What meekness, humility and honesty must not a man of such experiences -possess, if, conning them over, pride did not lift up his heart, -resentment make his arm restless, and a sense of robbery long-endured, -make his present powerful position seem a providential opportunity -for retaliation and self-reimbursement! From an abyss of enforced -degradation and ignorance and despair he had emerged into the light and -life of personal and political liberty, equality, respectability and -honor; and the young master whose opportunities he once so earnestly -coveted, and before whose absolute will he was forced to bow, now sued -for favors at his hands, and found “none so poor to do him reverence.” -Was ever the nobility of human nature put to stronger tests than in -these two peoples? - -“Good evening, Mr. Elly,” said a broad-browed, florid-faced, red-haired -man in the aisle beside him. - -“Good evening, Marmor, good evening;” was the hearty response. “Take a -seat?” removing his hat to make room. - -“I will gladly take the seat, if you will just step out and let me -turn over the back of this one in front, so that we can have the use -of the two sofas, for my feet are at their old tricks and troubling -me a good deal. They are easier when I lay them up. One might as well -personate ‘Young America’ in this Centennial year when it makes him -more comfortable.” - -“Mind you don’t get them too high now,” said Elly, as they seated -themselves after the change, and he spread a newspaper upon the cushion -before them, to protect it from Marmor’s boot-blacking. “You might -share the misfortune of Ike Partington; and if all your brains _should_ -run down into your head, what would become of “The Times?” and Elly -laughed and wriggled, in strange and silly contrast with his usually -dignified manner. - -“I don’t furnish brains for “The Times”, said Marmor, “I only publish -it. But what is the campaign going to be, do you think?” - -“Oh, of course we shall win.” - -Marmor kept his eyes fixed upon his middle finger nail, which he was -carefully cutting, and did not reply. - -Elly scrutinized his face awhile, and then asked, “Don’t you think so?” - -“I am not so positive as I wish I was.” - -“You don’t think the colored voters of the State are going back on the -party that gave them freedom, and the only one that will preserve it -for them? They’ll all vote the Republican ticket, of course.” - -“Yes, unless they are intimidated.” - -“Now, Marmor, I’ve seen a hint—or what I take for one—in your paper; -but I hope you don’t really think there will be trouble.” - -“I _am_ afraid there will be trouble. Hanson Baker told me the other -day that there are fifteen hundred men ready and waiting to come there -and break up the Militia Company in Baconsville, and that they are -going to do it; and it is a frequent boast among the men—the white -Southerners, I mean—that they will carry the election if they have to -do it at the point of the bayonet. They can’t do it honestly, that’s -shor’; but I’m afraid there will be trouble.” - -A pause ensued, after which Marmor resumed. “I’m almost tired of -this State, and if my business could be squared up I’d get away; but -I shan’t be driven out. I wish the colored people had the spunk to -emigrate to some of the idle western land. It is a heap better and -richer than this here, by all accounts; and though it might be some -colder, it would make them stronger and smarter, and they’d be heaps -better off than they are here.” - -“There _are_ a great many _talking about it_, don’t you know—going by -colonies? It would be a deal better than going to Africa. I shall go -myself if the old Confederates ever get into power here again.” - -“See you stick to that, Elly; and, as for me, I reckon I shall have -to go by that time, or before. I was born in South Carolina, and shed -my blood in defense of her (as I thought then), at Fort Sumter, got -wounded there, and I was as good as any of them till I consented to -accept a clerical office under a Republican administration; and then -the old Confederates persecuted me and my wife, till I found out how it -felt to others, and I have seen under what tyranny a man lives here. -He dares not think for himself at all. I served under Hampton in the -war, before I got my eyes open. Like most of the private soldiers, -and plenty of commissioned officers, I was made to believe a lie, or -I never would have raised a hand against the National Government in -the world. I used to say just this way: If the No’th would only let us -manage our State matters ourselves, and would let our slaves alone (you -know I owned a few slaves), I didn’t care if the Territories and new -States were free. But Lincoln, and Garrison, and Greeley shouldn’t come -down here, and take our nigger property away from us; they shouldn’t -be emancipated by the United States Government—the slaves shouldn’t. -Enough others said the same, and dozens of our speakers said it on -the stump and platform, and plenty of the great leaders were right -there—consenting by their silence, if not saying the same things, when -_they_ knew well enough that these were just the principles of the -Republican party—the ‘Unionists’ who elected Lincoln. What did _we_ -care for their ‘sympathy for the slaves,’ or their _wishes_ for the -‘constitutional right’ to liberate them, so long as they admitted they -hadn’t got it, and we knew they couldn’t get it short of a two-thirds -indorsement by the States through a direct vote of the people? There -was slave property enough in sixteen of the thirty-four States to make -us pretty sure on that score, in addition to the interests of cotton -manufacturers and sugar dealers in the No’th who wanted our products -and no interruption of business. Then we had the Fugitive Slave Law for -the return of our runaways.” - -“But you know the Republican idea was that the new States coming -in, being all free, they could at last secure the constitutional -two-thirds.” - -“Yes, at _last_” said Marmor, derisively, “_at the last great day_, -while slave-owners had each a vote for three out of every five of his -slaves without asking their assent. But our hot-headed course hastened -emancipation about a hundred years; and now that it is over I’m glad -of it, though it did cost an ocean of blood and treasure. Slavery -cursed the whites as well as the blacks, and ought to. When I think of -all I saw in that war—I got this difficulty in my feet there (moving -them with a grimace), and of the horrible sufferings it brought on our -people, and how those leading villains knew all the time that they were -deceiving us, I can’t think what wouldn’t be too good for them! And -when that war was over, and the No’th had us in her hand as helpless as -a trapped mouse, she not only spared their lives, but gave everything -back to them which they had forfeited; and now you hear them go on -about the National Government and the northern people, especially any -that come and settle among us and try to develop the resources of the -State, in a way that is simply outrageous! You would think the South -was the magnanimous _patron_ of the stiff-necked and rebellious No’th. -I verily believe the South would have liked the No’th better if it had -put its foot upon her after she fell. Conquer your rebellious child or -yield to his dictation without demur. - -“There are some who know no such thing as equality. Somebody must be -the ‘Boss’, in their practice.” - -“But republican principles would not allow the government to hold these -States as provinces,” remarked lawyer Elly. - -“They should have been held as territories,” said Marmor, “consistently -or not. My blood is German (my father emigrated from Germany to -Charleston when a small boy), but it has got the South Car’lina heat in -it. I’m for _efficiency_.” - -“Nineteen-twentieths of what they call carpet-baggers, and make folks -believe are just adventurers, are northern men, capitalists generally, -who in emigrating did not leave their manhood behind. It matters -not how heavy taxes they may pay, nor how long they remain in the -State; if they vote the Republican ticket and maintain the principles -and practice of equal justice for all men in the State, they are -‘carpet-baggers;’ and if they vote Democratic, according to the will -of the confederate whites, though they vote ‘early and often,’ and -at points far removed from each other, they escape the opprobious -epithet.” - - - - -CHAPTER III. - -THE GLORIOUS FOURTH. - - “Plumes himself in Freedom’s pride - Tyrant stern to all beside.” - - —BURNS. - - -ON an insignificant little village built on a narrow flat beside the -Savannah river, the sun had been pouring his red hot rays all day, with -even greater intensity than was usual at that season of the year. - -The inhabitants, however, paid little heed to the extreme heat, and -only when the sun sank to the western horizon did they leave their -fields and workshops and wend their ways homewards. - -Two railroad bridges, and another for the public highway, connected -this little village with the city of A——, on the opposite side of the -river, and in the neighboring State of Georgia. - -A long low trestle carried one of those railroad tracks two or three -squares or streets back from the stream towards the hills a half-mile -away. - -Not far from this trestle, on a broad street which ran parallel with -and along the brink of the stream, stood a strong, two-story brick -building. Its uses had been various; but at the time of which we write -it did service as an armory or drill room for Co. A of the Eighteenth -Regiment of National Guards of South Carolina; and also as a dwelling -for the Captain of the Company, who, having just returned from his -day’s work in the city, now sat with his chair tilted back against the -post of the open door, tossing his infant and conversing with his wife, -who was preparing their evening meal. - -It might be mentioned that the parties in this little domestic scene -were of African descent. - -“Howdy? Cap’n Doc, Howdy?” shouted a negro teamster, driving up to the -door with a great dash and rattling of wheels. - -“Hello! That yo’, Dan?” replied the Captain, letting the front legs of -his chair down upon the floor with a bump that came near unseating him. -“Come in, won’t ye?” - -“I’m obliged to yo’, but I couldn’t nohow. I just wants, to know what -sort of a combustification is we gwoine to hev to-morrow; and when does -de militia come out?” - -The speaker was evidently “the worse for the drink,” which must account -for his forgetfulmess of what he had been well informed of, and he -wriggled and giggled as if greatly tickled. - -“The militia,” said Captain Doc, “has got to faum (form) and march down -to the grounds, when the doings begin, and stand guard; and after the -speeches and all is ovah, we shall go through the usual everlutions, -accompanied with music and the flag. I’m sorry we didn’t get that -shooting-match I tried to have, so we could ha’ got some unifaum; but -I shall inspeck yo’s guns and accouterments mighty close, and put yo’ -through mighty sharp on the drill.” - -“But a nigger that don’t car’ ’nough ’bout the Centennial fo’th o’ July -to get to know all ’bout the doings fo’ the third o’ July, don’t ’zerve -to be baun free and ekil.” - -“Wal, I wa’n’t baun free an’ ekil, an’ I don’t ’speck to be baun free -an’ ekil, nuther, but ’fo’ I done gone ovah to ’Gusta wid dis ere load -o’ truck, I knowed all ’bout it. But I met dat are _magnifishent_ young -gem’man, Tom Bakah, and, oh, laws!” (spreading his horny palms, with -fingers extended and rolling his head and eyes from side to side), -“‘mose put my eyes out o’ my head! All upsot my idees! His nose turned -up, ’pears like six feet high; no, six inches high; and he drove he -horse so scrumbunctious like, ’mose upset my little ambulancer,” and -Dan turned to his two little rats of donkeys in harness of knotted -raw-hides, which resembled old and assorted clothes lines. - -The little creatures stood meekly before an indescribable vehicle, a -ridiculous cross between a rude hay-rick and a huge crockery-crate on -wheels. It was all out of proportion to the little team, whose backs -were scarcely as high as the waist-bands of stumpy Dan. - -“Tough little fellahs, dese is,” said the teamster, patting them -affectionately, “but mighty feared o’ Mars’ Tom, a’n’t yo’,—Eigh, -Jack?” - -“See dat nigh critter cock his eye now, and wag dat off ear,” continued -Dan, winking at Captain Doc, and giggling and wriggling as before. - -“Don’t like Mars’ Tom, do yo’, Jack?” again addressing the intelligent -donkey, which not only wagged his off ear, but shook his head in a -most decided manner, to the great amusement of his owner. - -“Oh, Dan, you musn’t mind the antics of that boy Tom,” said a voice -behind him; whereupon Dan wriggled and jumped, and whirled about, and -bowed himself double, and made grimaces, and giggled and wriggled, and -danced a jig; and finally, with another low bow and long scrape of his -right foot, he shook hands with the speaker, who was no other than -our friend Marmor. “Tom is only just home from school, you know, and -of course the man who knew more before he was born than could ever be -cudgeled into that knowledge-box of hissen, is _nothing_ to him! Let -him alone, and let him swell though, just as big as he can, he’ll bust -the quicker, and we’ll find out the quicker how big he really is when -the vacuum is gone, and what is left is packed down solid.” - -“‘Pears like dis yere young Tom cat tinks he smell a mice, or a niggah -he’s huntin,” said Dan, “an’ he’s gwoine fo’ to _chaw ’im up_ mighty -quick!” (suiting his gesture to his words by a long sniff, and a quick -motion of his jaws.) - -Dan’s buffoonery was irresistible, and the half dozen persons who -had gathered at the captain’s door manifested their appreciation by -hilarious applause. - -“‘Pears like I couldn’t leave such ’stinguished comp’ny, nohow,” he -continued, “but dey is a panoramia fo’ my vishum which am decomrated by -hoe cakes an’ hominy, an’ lasses an’ bacon, an’ sich tings;” and with -his hands upon his empty stomach, Dan bowed very low and obsequiously, -and mounting his “ambulancer,” gathered up the ragged ends of his -raw-hide ribbons, touched Jack with his long green stick, and rattled -away, while Captain Doc shouted after him, “Two o’clock, and no tipsy -men on parade.” - -The queer little turnout, which would have been a spectacle in any part -of the northern states, though common enough in the southern, crept -slowly up the steep hill in the rear of the village, where buildings of -curious and indescribable styles were scattered without order or taste, -and few indications of thrift. Stopping on the outskirts of the town, -and before a small cabin built of one thickness of rough boards, the -vertical cracks between which would nearly receive the fingers of an -adult, and the windows of which, without sash or glazing, were closed -only by clumsy wooden shutters—the usual style of cabin inhabited by -the southern negro—Dan leaped from his vehicle, and entering, sniffed -and looked about searchingly, till a tall, angular mulatto woman -entered from the back door with an armful of wood. - -“Any suppah yet, Mira?” - -“No, sah. Yo’ suppah ha’n’t ready yit, but I’s cookin’ it. I’s mighty -tired. I’s done done all dat whole big cotton field.” - -“Good, chile! good, chile!” said the husband, approaching and -attempting to kiss her as she stooped to replenish the open fire. - -No sooner had his breath touched her face than she turned, with a stick -of wood in one hand, and confronted him, while the smoke and flame -leaped out in alarming proximity to her dress. - -“See here now, yo’ Dan; yo’ been drinkin’ gin,” fixing her dark eyes -reprovingly upon his silly face. “Dat’s de way yo’ been spendin’ yo’ -money.” - -“Mira Pipsie, yo’s de smartest woman in de whole worl’. Yo’s got ’em -zackly, I reckon” (wriggling and curveting about the room and back to -her side again). “I nebber boughtened me no finery o’ no kind; no new -bonnet, nor nuffin. Yo’ buys what yo’ wants, an’ so does I.” - -“Yes; but yo’ comes home an’ wants suppah, an’ it’s de cotton o’ my -raisin’ as buys yo’ suppah.” - -“Yah! yah! yah! I’s a lucky dog, shor!” and he executed a jig followed -by a double shuffle, knocking his heels upon the bare floor with what -vigor he could command, and at the same time improvising as follows: - - “I’s de smartest little wife - Ebber seen in all yo’ life; - She marks her cotton-bag - Wid a little calico rag, - An’ gits de biggis’ price, - An’ as slick as any mice - She smiles, an’ bows, an’ flies aroun’, - An’ totes her cotton off to town. - Home she comes, an’ O my! - See de new bonnet! _Oh, my eye!_ - Away to church she sing an’ pray, - Hallelujah! look dis way! - Dina Duncan’s in de shade, - Mira beats all on dress parade. - But jes’ see Dina’s _bran new shawl_! - Can’t heah no mo’ preachin’ af’er all. - Elder, I’m gone nex’ Sunday sho’, - Can’t wear dis here ole shawl o’ mine no mo’!” - -Here the song abruptly terminated, for the “smartest little wife,” -who was some inches taller than her husband, and by no means slender, -took her liege lord by the damp, unstarched collar of his soiled blue -shirt, and marching him to the door, seated him upon the step, saying -in a low, decided, and well recognized tone, “Now yo’ jes’ set dar, -yo’ drunk niggah, yo’, an’ don’t yo’ open dat big red mouf o’ yo’n no -mo’ till I git some hominy to fill it up. I don’t want no niggah’s -heels scratchin’ roun’ on my flo’. Ef yo’d buy bettah finery ’n dem -ole trowsahs, an’ go to church, an’ let whiskey ’lone, yo’ cotton’d be -some good. Ef I didn’t mark my cotton o’ my raisin’, an’ toat de money -myself, I’d jes like t’ know whar yo’d git yo’ tea, an’ coffee, an’ -flou’h, an’ all dem tings?” - -With an admonitory shake of her finger, she entered the house, and -resumed her culinary operations; but soon reappeared, bearing a gun and -accoutrements, and sundry materials for polishing them; having first -dexterously examined it, and found it without charge. - -“Heah now, yo’ Pipsie; yo’ got sense ’nough t’ clean dis ’ere gun?” she -asked. “Reckon you’ll be mighty proud o’ dis ’ere ‘finery,’ marchin’ up -an’ down long o’ de res’, an’ de folks all lookin’ on.” - -“He, he! Didn’t I say ‘smartest little wife’? Reckon I kin do dat are. -Reckon I’ll p’rade on de fo’th, an’ yo’ll wait till Sunday.” - -Two of his neighbors presently joined Mr. Pipsie, with whom he was soon -discussing the anticipated celebration, which was quite a novelty in -the locality. Suddenly a loud sound of wheels was heard. - -“Hello!” cried Dan, springing from his seat. “Heah comes my friend -Bakah! Hello, Babe! Bett’ take car, dat team, else yo’ git toated clean -off, an gone to smash ’fo’ yo’ muddah knows nuffin ’bout it. Reckon yo’ -didn’t ax her mout yo’ gwout alone?” - -The sound of the jolting wagon rendered this speech inaudible to the -youthful driver, who was passing without a “Howdy!” (an offense in that -locality) but the loud, derisive “guffaw” of the three colored men, -which followed Dan’s sally, did not fail to reach him, and he paused -suddenly, just past the door. - -He was tall and large, but unusually boyish for a youth of twenty -years. In an angry tone he shouted: - -“Dan Pipsie, come out here! I want to see yer.” - -That individual made his way, quite deliberately, to the side of the -vehicle, and with a strange mixture of timidity and bravado in his -manner. - -“What do you mean by cursing me in that way? I ha’n’t done nothing to -you,” said the boy. - -“Oh, laws! I’s jest in fun, an’ I’s shor’ yo’ didn’t heah yo’r name -mixin’ up in it. A man’s a right to talk or cuss on his own do’,” -(door) “an’ nothin’ to no man no’ his boy gwoine ’long de road.” - -The youngster’s eyes flashed, and his face was pale with rage. -What! _he_ to be called a _boy_ by a “nigger?” He looked down upon -the diminutive black figure beside him, in whose hands was one of -Remington’s best rifles, and that alone restrained him from laying the -long lash of his driving-whip close about the “black biped,” as he -mentally called him. He did venture to retort with some asperity. - -The altercation was brief, but heated, and soon the whip was cracked -decidedly closer to Pipsie’s left ear than was comfortable to its owner. - -“Yo’ jes be little mo’ ca’ful, yo’ young man!” said Pipsie, rubbing -the ear briskly. “Yo’ not got no runaway niggah slave heah now. I’se a -free man, an’ got as much rights as yo’, an’ mo’n dat, too, I’se got -a United States gun heah, an’ I knows how to shoot, too. Yo’ needn’t -’sult no National Guards fo’ nuffin’. Ef yo’ ha’n’t got no mo’ yo’ -want say t’ me, yo’ bes’ jes’ git ’long ’bout yo’ business, or yo’ may -git hurt!” and he made a feint to raise the empty gun to his eye, when -young Tom Baker rode away in great haste. - -Baconsville had never witnessed such a “celebration” as it enjoyed the -next day, which came bright and beautiful. - -Though usually tardy in morning rising—possibly from dread of the -malaria, which the sun dissipates by nine o’clock, on this memorable -day, the inhabitants of the village were astir at an early hour, for, -through the heavy fog which crept up from the river, and shrouded the -whole valley, the red-haired and fair-skinned Marmor, and the largest, -strongest, and blackest citizen, with a few followers, were dimly -visible, dragging a blacksmith’s anvil along the principal streets. - -They paused frequently in front of the residences and shops of the -chief citizens to salute them by an explosion of gunpowder upon the -anvil—the nearest approach to a cannonade possible in the impecuneous -little city. But not earlier than four o’clock in the afternoon was -the excitement at its height. At that time the brass band was playing -national airs under a great oak tree on a vacant plot of ground on -which a platform had been erected; and a few seats placed in front -of it for the accommodation of the gentler sex were rapidly filling; -for, at a safe distance, thirteen explosions upon the anvil, in -commemoration of the thirteen original colonies, were being followed by -thirty-seven, in honor of the then existing States of the Union. - -These were the recognized signals for the commencement of the most -important exercises of the day; and the militia having formed at the -armory, marched to the rostrum, bearing the “Stars and Stripes,” and -were disposed on either side of the speaker’s stand, while other free -and patriotic citizens stood in compact groups near and about the -well-filled seats. - -All being ready, a chairman elected, the glass of water and bouquet -of flowers placed before the speaker, and the band having duly -discoursed, a short, smooth-voiced negro—an accredited preacher of -the Methodist persuasion, and member of the State Legislature from -that district—was introduced. He made a long, peculiarly energetic, -interesting and instructive address, rich in metaphor and quaint -expressions, glowing with native eloquence, and abounding in graphic -description, wholesome counsel, and eulogy of the “United States.” - -Not an allusion was made to the past relations of the races in the -South, unless an exhortation to gratitude towards the United States -be so construed, in view of the fact that the very few whites present -acknowledged no such debt. - -After the address, music followed, and then Marmor was formally -introduced to his neighbors, and read in clear, loud tones the -inevitable “Preamble and Declaration of Independence,” to the manifest -disgust of a small group of men who stood in the rear of the crowd. - -A tall, muscular man, with iron-gray hair and bushy beard, turned upon -his heel with an oath, saying: “Marmor, the contemptible radical, takes -too much pleasure in reading that preamble to me, and I’m a fool to -hear it any way. _All men created equal!_ It is a self-evident lie!” -and he strode away, followed by the boyish young man, Tom, to whom the -reader has already been introduced. - -“Father,” said he, “that red-headed fool acts like a Yankee. You -wouldn’t suppose he fought for the Lost Cause.” - -“It is the cursed German blood in him!” replied “the old man Baker,” as -his neighbors called him. “He hasn’t been in the State long enough to -get the Republican taint out of it. His father wasn’t born here.” - -“It is a pity that a Yankee bullet hadn’t hit _him_, instead of brother -Will.” He’s a scalawag and a carpet-bagger, both in one.” - -“Yes, I’d like to rid the State of his presence, and the niggers of -one leader. If it wasn’t for the leaders, we could manage the ignorant -ones.” - -The exercises at “the stand” closed at five o’clock, and the Militia -soon formed, thirty or forty strong, and marched off up Market street; -which being over one hundred and fifty feet in width, afforded ample -space for the evolutions which the men performed with commendable -precision for nearly an hour. - -At length they stood resting at the upper end of the street. - -“Have you noticed the clouds, Captain?” asked the tall -second-lieutenant, approaching his superior with raised cap, “That’s -so, Watta,” replied Captain Doc, glancing at the clouds, “We’ll march -down to the armory and dismiss. Attention, Company.” - -The necessary orders being given, they proceeded by fours, interval -march, open order, with guns across their shoulders, and arms over -their guns; thus occupying little over one third of the width of the -street. - -Soon after they had thus started, a single buggy occupied by two young -men, turned from Main street into Market street, entering it two or -three streets in front of them and approached the advancing Militia-men -at a slow trot. The horse was old and steady, and neither the -glittering guns, nor flag, nor fife and drum disturbed his equanimity; -and, urged by his driver, he did not pause nor turn aside till in the -very face of the soldiers, who had already halted. - -The road was broad and level, but the travel had been confined mostly -to one track, and the remainder of the surface was overgrown with grass -and May weeds. - -Just at the place of their meeting, a well occupied a few feet in the -centre of the street; and a shallow ditch crossed the half of the -street at the right of the vehicle. Yet fully fifteen feet of the level -highway was unoccupied at the right of the Militia, and the driver -could easily have passed around the Company, had he chosen to do so, -instead of urging his horse directly upon the advancing column. - -The discourtesy of this act was aggravated by the fact that the young -men had, during a half-hour previously, been driving leisurely from -one bar-room to another, or sitting in their carriage and watching -the movements of the Company in common with a large number of -other citizens, both white and colored, during which time frequent -opportunities had occurred in which they might have driven up the then -totally unoccupied street. - -These young men were Tom Baker and his sister’s husband, Harry Gaston, -who, like his father-in-law, had often expressed his aversion to “the -Nigger Militia Company.” - -Captain Doc left his position, and approaching them said: - -“Mr. Gaston, I do not know for what reason you treat me in this manner.” - -“What manner?” - -“Aiming to drive through my company when you have room enough on the -outside to drive in the road.” - -“Well, this is the rut I always travel in,” was the contemptuous reply, -made with an oath. - -“That may be true,” replied the Captain, “but if ever you had a company -out here, I should not have treated you in this kind of a manner. I -should have gone around, and showed some respect to you.” - -“Well,” retorted Gaston, “this is the rut I always travel in, and I -don’t intend to get out of it for no niggers!” - -“You don’t intend to break up our drill do you?” asked Lieutenant -Watta; his yellow face growing visibly pale. - -“All I want is to pass through and go home.” - -“But you want to drive through our ranks.” - -“No! ——. He can’t go through here,” said another voice. - -“We will stay here all night before we will give way to them,” said -Watta, the conversation with lawyer Elly and Uncle Jesse recurring to -his memory. - -“Never mind,” said Gaston with an oath, “you won’t always be insulting -me. You had better stop now, for you’ll find you’ve got to.” - -“Egh, Watta, don’t yos’ mind what Mann Harris said—tole that Hanson -Baker, Tom’s brother, said a month ago that there’s gwoine to be the -—— to pay in Baconsville pretty soon? Reckon the white folks is begun -that p’ogramme he tole ’bout,” said another militia man. “He said -fifteen hundred of ’em was ready to break us up, an’ of co’se Gasten’s -one of ’em.” - -A volley of oaths and abusive epithets was rolling from Tommy Baker’s -lips; which was indeed their most familiar utterance when addressing -persons of color; and some members of the company began to return the -charge in kind. - -“Attention, company!” shouted Capt. Doc. “It is going to rain, and we -had best house our guns. We won’t hold any contention with these men. -Now, yo’ hush up! I’ll settle this matter. Open order, and let them go -through.” - -The command was obeyed, but not without murmurs of discontent, which, -however, were soon quieted, as a slight shower descended, and they -hastened off to the armory. - -Marmor, with his two little children, had been standing a few rods -away, watching and praising the exercise. - -When the altercation occurred, being a Warden of the town, he sent John -Carr, the Town Marshal, or Chief of Police, to ascertain its cause; but -it was passed before his arrival at the scene. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - -LEGAL REDRESS. - - ‘O thou dread Power! whose empire-giving hand - Has oft been stretched to shield the honored land!’ - - -SO trivial a quarrel as that narrated in the closing part of our last -chapter, had it occurred elsewhere than in a community in which the -inhabitants had so recently sustained the relations of masters and -slaves, would scarcely have elicited remark upon a subsequent day; -but over the three or four hundred colored, and forty or fifty white -residents of Baconsville there settled a dark cloud of anxiety and -apprehension of coming evil. - -Angry looks and threats of violence on the part of the whites were -recalled and anxiously discussed by the colored people, as were also -the recent and frequently expressed determination to “carry the next -election for the Democratic Party, if even through blood waist deep,” -though the colored voters were largely in the majority, and almost -without exception, if unintimidated, voted the Republican ticket. - -These, with the oft-repeated boast that the illegal Rifle Clubs, -trained cavalry companies, were ready to co-operate for the suppression -and utter dispersion of this colored company of State militia, with the -fact that similar acts of violence were by no means new experiences to -the ex-slaves in the South, but were even then being perpetrated in -the surrounding country, made the outlook for the colored population -gloomy, indeed. - -On the other hand, the officers of the town, with the single exception -of our friend Marmor, were all of the colored race, and as he was a -Republican native, he was even more repugnant to his white neighbors -than a “nigger.” - -On the other hand, during the two months preceding this encounter, -these militia-men were known to have been drilling as often as once or -twice a week, though the law required such practice but once a month. -This alarmed the whites, with whom anticipations of “insurrections” are -still either congenital or feigned. - -In the days of slavery, and also by the South Carolina “Black -Code” (the only exclusively white legislation in the State since -reconstruction), arms were strictly forbidden to the negroes, and under -heavy penalties; yet, through the subsequent Republican legislation, -they rejoiced in being the “National Guards,” bearing the same flag -which Sherman “carried down to the sea,” and under which Captain Doc -learned tactics and heroism in the “Black Regiment,” which once swept -over Fort Fisher, and closed the last port of the rebellious States. - -What signified it to those conscience-accused whites that these were -poor men maneuvering by the light of the moon to save the expense of -lighting their drill room; and, unable to spare time from their toil, -they took it from the hours of their rest, to prepare for a creditable -performance on the Nation’s Centennial birthday? So much the worse. The -Fourth of July was the birthday of the “national nonsense” that “all -men are created equal;” and it was not the fault or credit of these -white men that there was left a nation to celebrate its Centennial. - -Now that the sole militia of the State was enrolled from this -emancipated race (white men would not enlist under charters, because -unassured that they should not be subordinated to colored officers, and -they might be required to sustain a State government of the colored -majority), how should one expect the former masters to be content and -at ease, even though no concerted outbreak had ever occurred among -the freedmen, whose temper is naturally peaceable and timid even to -servility? - -Undoubtedly, the fears of those once reputed hard masters, or who -still find it difficult to conform to the new conditions, are often -distressing. They are also nature’s incontrovertible testimony to the -wisdom and divine origin of equal rights. - -Great was the excitement of the Baker families when the young men -arrived with the tale of their “narrow escape from the militia men.” - -Early the next morning, the old slave-hunter and his three sons set -out for the office of Trial Justice Rives, who, though a colored man, -it was thought could be more easily induced to meet out punishment to -those miserable offenders, than Louis Marmor, who was the only other -competent magistrate in the town. - -Of course, as has been the custom of the whites there, from the -earliest settlement of that country, these gentlemen all wore their -side-arms, and for greater safety these were put into the very best -condition, and fully loaded, as they suspected the Town Marshal, who -ran after them on the previous evening, might attempt a counter-arrest -for the same offense. - -Young Tommy did not feel quite safe from Dan Pipsie without his -eighteen-shooting rifle in addition; and so, with it in hand, he -mounted his young bay horse, while beside him rode his brother-in-law, -Harry Gaston,—the best shot in town, bearing also his carbine; while -the father and his eldest son, Hanson, were seated in a light wagon in -which were placed additional firearms, lightly covered with a lap-robe. - -Thus equipped, they proceeded in safety, through the quiet little -village to the Justice’s office; and finding it closed, went two miles -further on, to his plantation, and returned with him to his office; -quite a formidable party to be sure. Arrived there, they entered -complaints against Dan Pipsie for threats to kill, and against the -officers of the Militia Company for “obstructing the highway.” - -The Justice, being himself Major-general of that division of the State -Militia, after thoughtfully scratching his crispy locks awhile, said: - -“I reckon it is best to hear a _statement_ of the testimony, and then -decide whether it is a case for court-martialing, or for trial under -the _civil law_.” - -Ten o’clock of the next morning was fixed as the time for hearing the -case. - -At that hour Justice Rives was found seated behind his desk, and busily -examining papers and documents. - -The Bakers made their appearance, accompanied by a few friends, among -whom were two professional men—a Reverend, and an M. D.; though -not with compresses and consolations for the possible wounded and -dying, (for South Carolina chivalry does not fight its duels with -“niggers,”) but with bail money (modified from bullets), should that -counter-arrest, which they feared, be attempted. - -Automatically, or through force of habit, each race in the southern -States still assumes, in assemblies, the positions and attitudes -imposed in the days of slavery. In the churches of the colored people -one or more of the most desirable seats are reserved for whites, and -these often remain vacant, or nearly so, during a lengthy service, -while church members stand to exhaustion for want of seats. - -Hence, the front seats of Gen. Justice Rives’ court-room were occupied -by the plaintiffs and their friends, and the defendants and their -friends sat at a respectful distance in the rear, while a number of -boys and women of color gathered outside of the door. - -The magistrate, who had not altogether escaped the envy of his less -fortunate neighbors, had often been accused by them of a sycophantic -weakness for the approval of the whites; while the latter declared -that justice could not be obtained by them before a colored officer, -and that, as a political canvass was approaching, they would not again -submit to negro magistrates. - -He therefore felt his position peculiarly trying, especially when he -saw that they were all thoroughly armed. - -He held both his official positions by appointments of the Governor, -to be sure; yet he knew that the preponderance of wealth, intelligence -and bravery was with the white race; while at the same time he did not -forget that if “a traitor to his race,” he would probably, through -ostracism and insult, reap a bitter retribution from his own people. - -A peace warrant was, however, soon issued against Dan Pipsie, his -“Daddy” being present to give bail for his future good behavior. Then, -with some apparent reluctance and nervousness, the Justice called the -principal case. - -Mr. Watta arose and announced that lawyer Kanrasp, from the county seat -would appear for the defense. - -To this Robert Baker strenuously objected, as, not having been advised -that attorneys would be employed, he had none. He therefore asked a -postponement of the case. - -Kanrasp then suggested to his client that inasmuch as the proceedings -had thus far been very informal—the paper served being neither a writ -nor summons, and not at all a legal paper—he would withdraw from the -case, and let Rives take judgment if he chose, when the case could be -appealed to the Superior Court, where justice might be had. - -This he did on account of the extreme indignation manifested by the -Bakers and their friends. - -Gaston, who was a shriveled, weason-faced specimen of the _genus homo_, -with sandy hair, flaming whiskers, and a face in which whiskey held a -profusion of freckles in purple solution, was the first to testify, -which he did in accordance with his views of the affair. - -“Now, Captain,” said the Judge, when Gaston had finished, “as you have -no counsel, you may question the witness if you want to.” - -Captain Doc was a well-made, medium sized and shrewd man, little -less than forty years of age, with very dark complexion, having -three-fourths African blood. - -He arose from his seat quite slowly, and squarely fronting Gaston, -asked: - -“Mr. Gaston, did I treat yo’ with any disrespect when I spoke to yo’? -Didn’t I treat yo’ politely?” - -“I ca’n’t say that you treated me with any disrespect; but I can say -this much, that there was two or three members of your company that -showed some impudence to me, and I also saw them load their guns.” - -“Mr. Gaston,” replied the Captain, looking searchingly in the eyes of -the little man, “didn’t yo’ see me examining the cartridge-boxes and -the pockets of the company, to see if they had any ammunition before we -went on drill?” - -“Yes, I did.” - -“Did yo’ see any?” - -“No.” - -“_I_ did. I found one man with a cartridge in his pocket, and I took it -away, and scolded him about it.” - -Gaston replied, “Yes, I saw that.” - -“Well then, are yo’ _certain_ that these men loaded their guns?” - -“I saw them moving them, and I thought they were loading them.” - -“And so yo’ came here to _swear_ that we wanted to kill yo’? That’s -about as much as a colored man can get for his care not to give -offense. A man is a fool to go out of his way for any of yo’ white -folks anyway. Yo’ had no right to aim to drive through our Company as -yo’ did; but when I gave in and got out of yo’r way, and let you go -‘long—gave yo’ the road that b’longed to us—yo’ just come heah with -such a lie as that against us.” - -“Captain, I don’t want you to treat my court with contempt,” said -Rives, severely. “If you can’t address the gentleman more politely you -must sit down.” - -“Judge, I don’t mean no contempt,” said Doc, in a conciliatory tone, -“not if I know myself. I never expect to treat no lawful court with -any contempt. I was only asking questions, but if the questions is not -legal, then I don’t want to ask him. I won’t ask no mo’, but leave it -to yo’r discretion,” and he sat down. - -“Well, sir, to sit down without permission is contempt of court.” - -With such an air of drollery as only a negro can assume, Doc sprung to -his feet again, saying— - -“Yo’ mus’ pardon me sah. I’s not accustomed to law offices. If sitting -down or anything else is contempt, I’m asking yo’r pardon this minute; -for I didn’t mean to contempt this court.” - -“It is contempt, sir!” thundered the judge, “and I put you under -arrest, and dismiss this court till July the 8th at four o’clock in the -evening.” - -Some protestations were made on account of the lateness of the hour, -but Rives insisted he could not leave his plantation labor earlier, and -immediately declared the court adjourned. - -Neither the day nor hour was satisfactory to the complainants, as it -was on Saturday afternoon, when many country negroes were certain to -visit the village shops, stores, and market; but as the whites were -more generally masters of their own time, it is possible Rives feared -he might need the presence and support of his own race should he not -condemn the accused. - -Harry Gaston was enraged and strutted about like a bantam cock; his -face became almost livid, and his hands nervously bobbed in and out -of the breast pockets of his short coat, where rested a well-prepared -pistol on one side, and a flask of whiskey on the other. Alas, the -_flask_ knew little rest. - -“I pray you be calm, my dear nephew,” said the Reverend Mr. Mealy, -who, though inwardly _seething_, was so enswathed in his own innate -mealiness, that he was measurably cool. “Do not allow this degraded -black to disturb you. Remember your position in society. You have -been raised by me as my own son. Do not disgrace yourself and me by -condescending to dispute with one in his station, and of his color,” -and grasping the young man’s arm, he moved towards the door. - -Lieutenant Watta, who had been sitting beside his Captain, now -sprung to his feet, and grasping Doc’s arm, rushed towards the door, -attempting to lead him out. - -Doc, however, hung back, and having extricated himself, said in a low -tone, “Watta, keep cool!” and he sat down again. - -“I won’t keep cool!” retorted the lieutenant. This white-livered judge -has shown partiality. Look at the arms in this court room! and Rives -is afraid!” (with a sneer.) “They may shed my blood if they can, but I -won’t keep still and see my captain arrested for contempt just because -in questioning, he got ahead of these unrebuked and cowardly bullies -when you humbled us all, on the Fourth of July, to avoid a fuss and -concilliate their lordships;” and the enraged man strode out of the -building, threw the gate back upon its hinges, and standing in the -opening thus made, drew himself to his full height, and threw out his -empty palms exclaiming - -“I carry no arms; but we’ve got arms.” - -“Yes, you’ve got arms, but you’ll see how it’ll be yourselves!” said -Hanson Baker, who had been haranguing the people outside the court -house. “There’s a fellow from Texas here, two or more of ’em, and -they’re going to kill that Town Marshall, and nobody isn’t going to -know who done it, and then they’ll leave.” - -“What does he or they know about John Carr, the Marshall?” asked a very -large, but irresolute-looking black man. - -“He’s been informed of his character, and I tell you John Carr won’t be -living in this town three months, neither will some o’ the rest.” - -“How about that Harmony Case?” asked the same voice (a case of massacre -of blacks). - -“Well, I wasn’t there, but they done it, and there’s a programme laid -down for the white folks _this_ year.” - -“That is wrong,” said a voice. - -“Well, if it _is_ wrong, it is no matter; it’ll be done all the same. -There is no laws now.” - -“Ha! ha!” laughed the crowd, the whites applauding, and the blacks -deriding the threats. - -“Does yo’ pretend to say there a’n’t no law in the State now?” - -“No, there a’n’t no law in this State, nor any other State. It’s been -a hundred years since the Constitution of the United States, and it’s -played out now, and every man can do as he likes. We’re going to get -Chamberlain and his crowd out o’ the State House.” - -“How about Grant? You know he’s President.” - -“By——! we’ll have him too.” - -“Take care, that is treason,” said another. - -Harrison Baker and Watta proceeded, each with his harangue, and paid no -heed to each other, till the plaintiffs and their friends crowded out -of the building, pistols in hand, ready for instantaneous use. - -A frightened old mammy bawled out, with great eyes rolling, and great -hands waving, “See the pistols and guns! See the pistols and guns! Oh, -Lor’! they ort to be shot down theirselves!” but the next instant she -cowered under the same fierce gaze of the “old man Baker,” which had -made many a stalwart runaway stand tamely after the dogs were taken off -and while the shackles were put on. - -“Uncle, Uncle, let me go,” said Gaston impatiently, striving to free -himself from that worthy’s grasp. “I want to shut that yellow chap’s -mouth with this little bit of lead. The judge ought to arrest _him_, -but I’ll take his case if you’ll let me go, I’ll give him a mouthful to -chaw!” - -“Shut my mouth, would you?” retorted Watta, who had caught the words -as the two men approached the door. “You’ll find that hard business -before you are through with it, if you try. The whites have ruled us -long enough. Two hundred and fifty years they bought and sold us like -cattle, till the United States set us free; and since then, colored -citizens have been tied and whipped, and shot, and murdered in cold -blood, and driven from their homes, and their property destroyed, to -this day. But it is all no matter here before this white-livered judge. -It’ll take a regiment to tie and whip _me_, or spill what black blood -_I_ have.” - -“Do not speak to him, my nephew,” said the Rev. Mr. Mealy. - -“A regiment!” cried Gaston, with a sneer. “Let me go and whip him -myself;” but the readiness with which he yielded to the pressure of his -uncle’s hands, was amusingly in contrast with his words. - -“We will have this matter settled by law now, and know whether we -are to be run over in this way. We will know which are to rule this -place—the blacks or the whites,” said Rev. Mr. Mealy. “We’ll know what -rights this militia company have. They have got an idea that they can -do whatever they please. We’ll have it settled now.” - -“This court is a mockery of justice,” continued Watta. “Look at those -arms on the side of wealth, and an unarmed poor man arrested for -contempt, because he has a dark skin and cornered his opponent by -lawful questions. The next time a white swell rides into our ranks -while we are on parade we will see that he doesn’t take us to court for -obstructing his way.” - -Rev. Mr. Mealy, Dr. Shall, and General Rives were active and nearest -in efforts to control the now highly incensed Baker family and Gaston; -and an influential colored man succeeded in getting Watta out of the -street. With deep muttered threats and oaths, the Bakers and their -friends at length betook themselves to their conveyances and their -homes. - -Captain Doc conversed with the constable, in the justice’s office, -while the latter official went to his dinner and returned. Re-entering, -Rives approached, and extending his hand said good-humoredly, “Shake -hands Doc.” - -“I don’t know,” replied he, with averted eyes. - -“Yes, you will. I couldn’t help it. You was bearing on so hard that -they would have shot you in two minutes more. I did it to save you.” - -“Is that so, judge? Then here’s my hand. I didn’t mean no contempt; but -if I’ve contempted you, or your court I’m sorry.” - -“That’s all right now, and I’ll remit the fine. Now let me tell you, -you’d best settle this matter somehow, if it is possible. I’m afraid -trouble will come of this. I wish Watta had ’a’ kept still.” - -“So do I. He’s a marked man now, shor’, and his life an’t worth much,” -said Nat Wellman, the constable. - -“Settle it?” said Capt. Doc. “Major General Rives, nothing will settle -it but to let the company be broken up. I won’t do that, and my oath to -the State, that I have taken as Captain, wonldn’t let me if I wanted -to.” - -“I can’t see the end of this yet, I can’t,” said the Judge, with a -sigh, as the trio separated. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - -PREPARATIONS. - - “Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world, - Like a Colossus; and we petty men - Walk under his huge legs, and peep about - To find ourselves dishonorable graves.” - - CASCA, IN JULIUS CAESAR. - - -THE 8th of July, 1876, was an exceedingly hot day, and few white -residents of the State of South Carolina ventured out of doors in the -hotter hours, though, as is usual, the colored race needed less caution -to avoid sunstroke. - -About nine o’clock, A. M., two gentlemen issued from an attractive -residence, which was situated on a slight eminence on the outskirts of -a little village called Enfield Court-House. Leaving the broad piazza, -they walked leisurely down the gently sloping lawn to the street. As -they closed the gate behind them a covered buggy passed, in which was -seated a middle-aged man who bore a decidedly commanding air. - -His hat lay upon the seat beside him, and the light hot breeze lifted -the long iron-gray hair which lay upon his shoulders, and fluttered his -linen duster and the loose flapping curtains of the carriage with a -cool and comfortable appearance. - -His horse was fresh, and so spirited that the neatly-gloved hands of -the gentleman were well-exercised in controlling him. - -He found time to gaze at the two gentlemen upon the ground, however, -but gave no sign of recognition, save possibly a little more lofty -elevation of the head. - -“The General is off on professional business, judging from his manner -and duster,” remarked the elder of the two pedestrians. - -“I often find it hard to repress a smile, even in his presence, at -his _wondrous pomposity_. What kind of a business would he do in the -North—Ohio, say—with all his airs? He wouldn’t have a client.” - -“Oh, yes, he would. There are plenty of people everywhere, who never -know what estimate to put upon others till they, or some one else tell -them. But the General’s “airs,” as you call them, are his stock in -trade here.” - -Both men laughed heartily. - -“But to think of a man passing his neighbor and State Senator as he did -you, Mr. Cone! He should respect your office, at least.” - -“Ah! that’s what he does not do when a radical is the incumbent. He was -once quite condescending and affable to me, when I let politics and -education alone, and didn’t meddle with them at all.” - -“Meddle! Senator! Who has a better right than you to take an interest -in politics?” - -“Young man you forget yourself, you must learn meekness and -discretion—not to put too fine a point on it—or you will get into -trouble.” - -“But we are immensely in the majority,—the State is really in our -hands. Why should we cringle and bow to this haughty minority just -because the blood of their families, is in our veins, mixed with -various proportions of African?” - -“But you’re a ‘nigger’!” - -“True, and they used to say that black men had no rights that white men -were bound to respect. That was their day. This is ours.” - -“Ah, but I want a better pattern for my life than they have been. I -say, because we are in the majority, let us take all the honors and -offices we can, but wear them meekly for our safety’s sake, and fill -them honorably for conscience’s sake. Good morning!” and the twain -separated to go, the one to his law studies, and the other to his -duties as planter and legislator. - -We will accompany the General. Right through the torrid heat he kept -on, over hill and valley, only stopping occasionally to cool his -reeking horse in the shade of some friendly tree, or to converse with -some white man whose house he entered briefly, or whom he beckoned to -his carriage if within call. - -At length he descended a long hill, and, reining his horse below the -bridge, he drove into a small stream, where, in the shade of some -overhanging trees, he paused a few moments, allowing his horse to drink -while he hastily pencilled a few figures in his notebook. Adding them -up he shook his head thoughtfully, and said, in a low tone: “That will -not do. Which way next?” - -On looking up, he descried a horseman descending the hill before him. -Driving out of the water, and regaining the road, he awaited his -approach. - -“Howdy do, General?” said the equestrian, pausing beside the carriage. -“Hot day this.” - -“Infernally hot, Dr. Wise!” and he grasped the extended hand, as he -wiped the perspiration from his face and neck with his left, and, -though apparently irritated by the heat, he shook hands cordially. - -“It _is_ hot here, hot as that hottest of all places, and I hear they -are going to have that over here in Baconsville pretty soon; I hear -so,” and the Doctor shook his fat sides with a chuckling laugh, adding: -“You must have important business to call you out to-day.” - -“It is quite important, _quite_,” replied General Baker. “I have got a -suit on hand in Baconsville that is quite important, and if that other -place you are talking about comes there, I hope I shall not find it -hotter than this hollow is. Niggers may stand it, but I cannot.” - -Both gentlemen were delighted and laughed loudly. - -“I’ve just come from there,” said Dr. Wise. - -“From where—Baconsville? or the other hot place?” - -“Oh, from Baconsville,” replied the medical man, laughing. “I couldn’t -have got away from the other place with all this fat.” - -The laugh again subsiding, he continued: “You see I have a patient I -am watching over there; and being in the neighborhood, was called in -to see two or three of the better class of colored people. I’m afraid -you’ll have trouble, there, at that suit. The niggers are saucy, and -very angry about that collision between the Bakers and the militia.” - -“Well, Doctor, the colored people in South Carolina have become so -insolent and insurrectionary, and intractable, and have taken on so -many intolerable airs, that they must be made to know their places. -You will see their wenches on the streets of Augusta and Charleston, -and all our cities, with their “pin-backs” and “button shoes,” and -“bustles,” and indeed imitating our ladies in everything; and they -even act as though they expected a white man to step aside and let -them pass, as if they were the ladies themselves. I saw an affair in -Charleston the other day that _made my blood boil_, and I involuntarily -laid my hand upon my pistol, but fortunately I was preserved from using -it. - -“Three great black—_creatures_, I suppose I must call them _men_—were -walking up the street, and met three young ladies whom I know to be -members of one of our best families. What do you think but that these -impudent brutes actually crowded our ladies into the gutter—made -them actually step off the pavement for want of room to pass! Quite -fortunately the ditch was dry, and not deep—four or five inches, at -most. But such indignities are too great a tax on the forbearance of a -gentleman of gallantry! Only one of the ladies actually stepped off, -but then, time was when I could have blown out the brains of all three -of the rascals, and the community and the State would have sustained -me. But those were days of “home rule.” Alas! when shall we ever see -them again! - -“I do not know what they are meditating at Baconsville, but I hear they -have been performing military evolutions, with arms in their hands, two -or three times a week, recently, and at night too; and I am called over -to put a stop to it. Why, we are not safe in our beds! It is one of the -atrocities of our carpet-bag government that they are allowed arms _at -all_, and now they have attacked our people.” - -“Now, you don’t say so, General!” exclaimed the Doctor. - -“To be sure! This case of mine would bear that construction; though Mr. -Robert Baker has, in the absence of counsel, very mildly, and I fear -unwisely, put it on the ground of ‘obstructing the highway.’ He might -have made a case much stronger, for they obstructed the way with their -guns and bayonets, and Gaston says some of them, at least, were seen to -load their guns on the spot.” - -“It is a case of positive violence, then, and insurrection?” - -“Oh, positive insubordination,” said the General, with great emphasis -and indignation. “And they have been making such threats that I’m -called over to see if there is any redress possible—any law or means -by which they can be restrained.” - -“If anybody can straighten them out, _you_ can, General; whether it -is to be done by law or by force of arms. We haven’t forgotten your -record in the Confederate service. But have you no help? You will need -backing, I fear.” - -“I have called upon several gentlemen along the way, and interested -them and their clubs, I think; and the club at Enfield promise to come -over to my assistance one hundred strong at least. But I have just been -computing and could desire even a larger force, especially should the -Judge decide adversely to us; for something _must_ be done to insure -our protection. I confess I feel some concern.” - -“On reflection, I think you need not, General, for the community is -fully aroused by a report that the negroes intend to _mob_ those young -men.” - -“Mob them!” ejaculated General Baker, with an oath. “They will scarcely -dare to do that. They know my military reputation too well to try that, -and I shall be prepared for them, now that you have kindly forewarned -me. But to be so Doctor, I must bid you good-day, and hasten forward, -for a good seven miles lies before me yet.” - -“I have great confidence in your ability to command success, and am -sure the darkies have a wholesome respect for the same. So, wishing you -all success, I also bid you good-day.” - -The General now called more frequently upon the white people along the -way, but soon found them anticipating his coming and ready to join him -soon; forming quite an escort of cavalry as they proceeded. - -It was two o’clock and intensely hot when they arrived at Sommer Hill, -and found about one hundred and fifty men grouped in the shade of two -wide-spreading oak trees near a church there, and around a grog shop -opposite. - -The General’s arrival was greeted with three cheers, three times -repeated, and three “tigers;” and the men, anxious to do him honor, -pressed around his carriage to shake his hand and assure him that they -still cherished the recollections of his gallantry on behalf of the -“lost cause.” - -Though quite animated, this scene was brief, for courteously declining -the scores of invitations to “drink,” General Baker informed his -followers that the call to duty was still more imperative to his mind -than those to eat or drink, and he must hasten forward to consult with -his clients before the hour for court arrived. - -Directing them to remain there till signaled, and to keep an outlook -from the brow of the hill overlooking Baconsville, two miles away, -he bravely rode thitherward entirely unattended, notwithstanding the -earnest protestations of his numerous friends. - -“So brave a man who can decline such entreaties to drink, and as -gracefully as the General did, ought to be at the head of a temperance -society,” said a young man, lounging near the church. - -“That’s so, Jimminy!” replied a comrade. “Wonder if he isn’t.” - -“I’m afraid not. I suppose he takes his wine, and probably something -stronger sometimes; though he wants a cool head now. I wish those -fellows over there wouldn’t drink so. I’m for breaking up the nigger -militia; but we want cool heads for it. We can _scare_ the niggers out -of it if we work it right, and all keep sober.” - -“That’s what I think, but you see already how it will be. I would go -home and give it up, but they’ll say I was afraid. I don’t want to get -into no collisions with the United States, for my part; and if a lot -of them get drunk, I’m afraid something will be done that will lead to -that.” - -Less than half a mile from where this conversation was passing, Harry -Gaston sat in his shady porch. - -“Don’t set there doing nothing but watching,” said a tall lean young -woman who sat just inside of the door, busying herself by rocking in an -easy chair. “The General will think yo’ reckon on ’im awfully, an’ he’s -conceited enough now, mercy knows! There, take them old papers of yo’re -uncle’s, and make as if yo’ was studying politics on yo’ own hook;” and -she tossed a handful of newspapers upon the floor beside him. - -He took up a copy of that celebrated democratic organ of the South, the -Charleston _News and Courier_, dated May, 1875, and read— - -“Governor Chamberlain richly deserves the confidence of the people of -this State. The people of South Carolina, who have all at stake, who -see and hear what persons outside the State cannot know, are satisfied -with his honesty. They believe in him as well they may.” - -“Bah! the contemptible carpet-bagger!” said Gaston, dashing the paper -on the floor; and picking up another, dated February, 1876, he read -again— - -“We believe that, without regard to consequences or to his party, he -(the Governor) will go on in the narrow path of right.” - -Another—“January, 1876. In South Carolina the conspicuous leader in -the fight for reform, the one man who has made reform possible at an -early day, is Governor Chamberlain, whose election was the greatest -blessing in disguise that this people has ever known.” - -“The greatest curse!” exclaimed Gaston kicking the paper off the porch. - -“That the _Courier_?” drawled Mrs. Gaston. “I thought that used to be -the best paper in the South—true to the Confederacy all through the -war. Has it gone over to the Radicals?” - -“It don’t pretend so, but it has been bribed, I reckon.” - -A voice from the highway, now called the husband away to hold a brief -colloquy with General Baker. - -“My horse is very tired and warm, and I myself am in need of -refreshment; so, Mr. Gaston, I shall be obliged if you will strike -across the fields and notify your father-in-law of my arrival, and -bring him and your brother-in-law, Tom, to the store of Mr. Dunn to -meet me for conference about the suit we have in hand,” and the great -man drove on. - -“Mary, General Baker wants me to go across the fields to your father’s -for him,” said the young man, with a demure countenance, on re-entering -the house. - -“Well, I reckon yo’ won’t do no such a thing!” she replied, forcibly. -“A mighty easy thing it would be for some nigger to pop you over, and -nobody to see. Yo’ won’t go that way.” - -“I’ll just gallop down the other road and get to the village ahead o’ -the General; Tom’s thar’, we can go together after the old man; though -I a’n’t afraid of the niggers.” - -“See! see! Meester Dunn,” said that worthy’s helpful “frau,” as they -sat at their dinner in a room immediately in the rear of their grocery. -“Dar is Shinneral Paker from Enefield, an’ er pe shtopping right here! -Pe quick, now. My laws! but dis vill pe ine goot ebening by de bar! -De Shenneral shtop ’ere, an’ all de gem’mans and companies come, too! -Hurry, now Shorge!” - -“Dat alle right now. I fix ’m mit ole Bob gester-tag,” said the -shrewd though moderate husband, George, arising from the table, and -shuffling through the glass door by which the dining-room and grocery -(or more accurately _groggery_), communicated, he greeted the great -military dignity with a volume of broken English that was almost -incomprehensible. - -Shaking the dust from his apparel, the distinguished guest ordered food -and drink for his beast, after time given him to cool; adding that he -would refresh himself while waiting for the appearance of his clients. - -“Alle right! alle right! De ole voman vill serve you,” replied Dunn, as -he followed his colored servant and the weary horse to the stables. - -Gaston and Tommy were by this time crossing the great truck-farm of -Robert Baker, every rood of which was purchased with the earnings of -trained blood-hounds, chasing fugitives from justice or labor, and -mainly the latter. - -In a sag of land, between the hills on the right and the river on the -left, was a brickyard, in the office of which Mr. Robert Baker and his -son Hanson were found. - -The four men were soon _en route_ for Baconsville. A colored boy, bound -apprentice to the older Baker, skulked along the crooked fence by the -wayside. - -“Joe,” said the old man, stopping the horse, “Joe, come here.” The -personal appearance and reputation of the old man, and recollections of -a recent chastisement for drumming for the militia company, made little -Joe’s dark skin quiver as he timidly approached the vehicle. - -“Get in,” said the same gruff voice, as room was made for the child -at Baker’s feet, where he gathered himself into the smallest possible -ball, from which two great, soft, timid eyes looked from one face to -another, and from the two glittering guns of the young men who rode on -either side, and the pistol-shaped lumps on the left breasts of their -thin coats, to the breasts of the two men fronting him in the carriage, -where he could see two more bright and shining “nine-shooters” peeping -out. - -The wind presently raised a paper from a basket standing beside him, -and disclosed two great horse-pistols lying on a clean white napkin. - -“I wonder is dey gwoine to shoot Doc and Watta wid dem ’ar’, as Ned -Dunn said dey is?” thought the child. “Dat looks like dar’s a mighty -nice lunch undah ’em, anyhow?” - -Hanson Baker jerked the lap-robe from his knees, and covered the basket -from view. - -They soon reached Dunn’s store, and alighted, and removing the basket, -bade Joe return with the horse and carriage, and remember to stay there -closely. - -As they sat in close conversation in the back part of that groggery, -while the General partook of the “nice lunch” the basket did contain, -it was plain that “Old Bob Baker, the slave catcher,” and the -aristocratic General had little in common except their patronymic and -their political opinions and ideas. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -THE CLOUD THICKENS. - - “Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look; - He thinks too much: such men are dangerous. - Fear him not, Cæsar, he’s not dangerous; - He is a noble Roman and well given.” - - —JULIUS CÆSAR. - - -THE State of South Carolina was settled by political refugees and -desperadoes of every description and from every nation, with no unity -of ideas or interests; and African slavery was introduced but two years -after the first settlement had secured a permanent footing. Hence, -arrogance and oppression, rapacity and murder, early became the rule -and occupation of the people. - -The existence and perpetuation of slavery during more than eight -generations caused and necessitated an arrest of progress in -civilization, and the war which resulted in the emancipation of -the slaves and the re-establishment of the Union, found the whites -in several of the Southern States, in many respects not far in -advance of the people of England in the sixteenth century; and as -those feudalistic and inharmonious families—the descendants of the -earliest settlers—are still recognized as “the first families,” the -“aristocracy of the State”—in the year of our Lord 1876, and of -the Republic one hundred—boasting and bravado were accomplishments -ostentatiously displayed there, and often sustained by such brutal -assault and lawless violence and outrage, as those of the worst days of -feudalism. - -This state of society alone explains the temerity of the threats and -preparations for violence, and their fearful consummation, which -blacken the history of the Republic’s centennial year. - -While Robert Baker and his sons were in Dunn’s groggery, informing -their counsel respecting the particulars of the suit he was about -to conduct for them, many exciting scenes were transpiring in the -vicinity, and the streets of the doomed village were becoming lively -with the presence of armed men, who were freely imbibing whisky, and -threatening to “kill every —— nigger in Baconsville that day.” -Especially loud and frequent were the threats against the Captain and -Second Lieutenant of the militia company. - -As soon as half-past three o’clock, quite a crowd had gathered around -George Dunn’s store, and the bar was evidently reaping the rich harvest -Mrs. D. had anticipated; while with loud and excessively revolting -profanity, the case shortly to be tried was canvassed, and rumors of a -“negro insurrection” rehearsed. - -“Who is that coming?” asked one, as a quiet man of medium size -approached. - -“Oh, that is Judge Kanrasp of the county seat, he is a cursed Northern -Republican,” was the reply, accompanied by a shocking oath. - -The wrathful eyes of the entire crowd were fixed upon him as he came -up, and, entering the store, approached the place where the two Bakers -sat, and addressing the General said, “Mr. Gaston informed me that you -wished to see me.” - -This was not his first interview with Mr. _Robert_ Baker in connection -with this difficulty. The latter had stopped him that morning upon the -streets of the city opposite, to speak of the pending trial. - -The Judge had then stated his opinion that Gaston’s testimony had -thus far developed no legal case against the colored men, and urged -the abandonment of the case, as to push it further, would merely -excite ill-feeling between the two races at a time when it was most -undesirable—at the commencement of a political campaign—and even -should the plaintiffs secure a judgment, it was a matter which could be -appealed, and in a higher court their case could not stand a moment. - -“I shall do no such thing,” replied Mr. Baker. “The negroes of -Baconsville have been very offensive; they have interfered with my -sons, and I am _determined that they shall be punished. The case shall -be prosecuted_, and so far as any feeling is concerned, I don’t care -for that. Some of my friends and neighbors from the country have been -informed that the trial will take place this evening, and they will be -present, not less than twenty-five or thirty of them.” - -“Mr. Baker, perhaps there will be two or three hundred,” said Kanrasp. - -“Well, yes (with an oath), two or three thousand!” and the two men -separated, and the Judge at once crossed the river to Baconsville, and -confidentially communicated all to a discreet colored man there, in -whose cool, quiet determination he had great confidence; commissioning -him to see the officers of the militia company, and instruct them -to present themselves at the Court, submit to judgment whatever it -might be, and then, by an appeal to a higher court, find an easy way -out of the difficulty; as the “precept” or informal paper which had -been served upon them, must cause the judgment to fail there; and -stating that in case of an attempted defense before Justice Rives, he -apprehended serious trouble from the throng that would undoubtedly be -present. - -Other important business detained both Kanrasp and his influential -friend Springer till the middle of the afternoon, when, on re-entering -the street, they saw the village thickly besprinkled with squads of men -from the rifle clubs of the vicinity. These clubs or military companies -existed in open defiance of law and the Governor’s prohibitive -proclamation. - -“This looks like trouble,” said Judge Kanrasp to his friend. “Strange -way to attend a simple trial! Now go right up and see those officers -_immediately_, and urge them to be on hand at court, and stand -judgment.” So saying he went to Marmor’s office upon other business, -where Gaston soon rode up, bringing Gen. Baker’s request for the -interview, to which we find him responding. - -“I am here to represent my cousin, Mr. Robert Baker, in this matter,” -said the General, “and wish you, Mr. Kanrasp, to sit down and tell me -what it is.” - -Judge K. complied, adding the advice he had given his clients. - -“We have been annoyed a great deal by the negroes about here, and I am -determined to get satisfaction, and Gen. Baker has been brought here as -my attorney, to see that satisfaction is given us,” said Robert Baker, -in a loud and vehement tone. - -“Now, Judge Kanrasp,” said the General, “will you not go and see those -officers of this company and request them to call upon me? I desire -to tell them what I think is necessary for them to do to prevent the -possibility of difficulty in the future. A great deal of feeling has -been growing between Mr. Robert Baker’s family and immediate neighbors, -and these colored people in Baconsville.” - -“What proposition do you make them?” - -“Well, I think it will be necessary for them to apologize to my cousin -and surrender their arms.” - -As he did not say to whom their arms should be surrendered, the Judge -replied—— - -“Well, General, you know I am, like yourself, merely an incident -in Baconsville; and whilst I have, of course, a certain amount -of influence with the colored people, on account of my political -affiliations with them, I cannot undertake to say that they will -respond to your request. I will do what I can to induce them to do so. -But suppose these negotiations and propositions fail, is it likely -that that there will be a collision?” - -“I think there will.” - -“Well, as I am one of a very few white ‘radicals’ here, if a collision -takes place I suppose I shall stand a pretty poor chance.” - -“I have no doubt that you will.” - -Shortly after Judge K. left Mr. Marmor’s office (which adjoined -his dwelling), Capt. Doc, Lieut. Watta, Mr. Springer and Rev. Mr. -Jackson (the Legislative member who had delivered the oration on the -4th), entered. Mr. Jackson was much excited, and walked up and down -the room, interlarding questions and ejaculations and prayers quite -promiscuously; unheeding the kindly solicitude of a bright little boy -of five years, with shining auburn ringlets, and great, soft, spiritual -eyes, which looked eagerly towards “the Elder’s” face as he went -tugging a large Bible back and forth behind him. - -“Ha! Jackson, hear that boy now,” said Doc. “The child is the best -Christian of the two, come to the pinch.” - -“What? What was you saying Doc?” asked the Reverend Honorable. - -“Why, just see what that boy has got, and hear what he’s saying. _He_ -don’t scare worth a cent. Do you Bub? You’ll make a soldier some day, -won’t you?” - -“No sir, I reckon I won’t, cause soldiers kill. ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ -That’s the sixth commandment.” - -“What about the book, sonny,” asked Elder Jackson. - -“My Sunday school teacher says when I’m afraid, I must ask God what to -do; and this is His letter, He wrote it. It’s big,” tugging to raise it -to the level of the man’s hand. - -The Elder took the Bible, sat down, drew the child to his side, opened -it at random, and read, Isaiah xviii: 7: “In that time shall the -present be brought unto the Lord of hosts of a people scattered and -peeled, and from a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a -nation meted out and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have -spoiled, to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, the Mount Zion.” - -He closed the book muttering, “Yes, the freshet came clear up to the -church, clear up to the church.” - -“The whole matter is that the Bakers are determined to break up this -drilling,” said Marmor. “You’re too good a drill master, Doc. The old -man himself told me that it was wrong, and that the niggers shouldn’t -have no militia company, and that it was wrong for you to drill by -moonlight. I told him that the white militia over here in Georgia -drilled on the streets every night. ‘Well, it’s wrong for the niggers -to drill at _all_,’ says he.” - -“Well, now, it does ’pear to me like the white folks is determined -to put the devil into the colored people’s heads anyhow. Now, we’re -honest in this matter, and only want to have a nice militia company -like the white folks does, and like free citizens has got a right -to, and to protect the State when it needs it and the Governor calls -for us; but they just goes to work, and by talking about what they -pretend the colored people is a going, or _intending_ to do, they just -makes the colored people mad, and puts these bad ideas into their -heads, and by-and-by the colored people, maybe will get courage enough -to undertake to do as they is really instructing us to do. And then -there’s more’n that in it too. Mor’n two months ago Hanson Baker tole -me and John Peters, Press Wells, and John Bade, and if I mistake not, -Lem Panesly, that the Democrats had made it up in their own minds, -and they had gone over the State, and also had about thirty men from -Texas and Mississippi to come into this State, and they were feeding -them, and organizing all the white men into certain different clubs; -and before election that there had to be a certain number of negroes -killed—leading men; and if after that they found out they couldn’t -carry the State that way, they was gwoine to kill enough so that they -could carry the majority. He said it is a fact that that has to be -done, and he said in the presence of these men, that it had to start -right here in Baconsville. He said Baconsville is the leading place in -the county (for the niggers, you know), and if they could be successful -in killing them that they wanted to in Baconsville, they could carry -the county; but the same has to be done in all the counties, that there -was no way to prevent it. I told him we had some laws, and a Governor -and a President. He says he didn’t belong to none o’ the clubs, and -hadn’t nothing to do with it, but it would be done, shor. I says, -‘Suppose the colored men have a poll to themselves, and the white men -to themselves,’ and he said, ‘It don’t make a bit o’ difference what -sort o’ polls they have; it is the voting we want to stop; and these -voting niggers has got to be killed. The white men has declared that -the State has got to be ruled by white men again, and we have got to -have just such a government as we had before the war; and when we git -it, all the poor men and the niggers has got to be disfranchised, and -the rich men will rule! And he tole me then that our town marshal, -John Carr and Dan will certainly be killed. I asked why? and he said -there was plenty of men that had plenty against them, and they would -kill them _shor_. Says I, ‘Mr. Baker will I be in that number?’ he -says, ‘No, I don’t know whether yo’r name is down or no, but it depends -on how yo’ behave yo’self.’ He’d been drinking some, or he wouldn’t -ha’ been so free to tell. Well, then I received a note the other -day—a letter with my name, and specifying a dozen or more in this -neighborhood that have to be killed; and _I was shor_ to be killed. -Now, this is the beginning of it shor. They want to disband this -company so that the Governor won’t have nothing to call on to put them -down, and we can’t get no protection till the United States can send -soldiers from somewhere, after we can get word to the Governor, and he -can git it to Grant. They must think we’re just cowards and fools if -we’ll let ’em break us up, though I’ll agree that the men ha’n’t got -much fight in ’em, but I have, and I wish _they_ had,” and Captain Doc -tossed a newspaper to the extreme end of the room. - -“Scattered and peeled!” “Scattered and peeled!” said the Elder, as he -resumed his striding about the apartment. - -While these excited men thus conversed, there were borne from the -street to their ears the sound of blood-curdling oaths, and shouts of -“We’ll carry the State about the time we’ve killed four or five hundred -of these niggers and their carpet-bag cronies.” We’ve got to have South -Carolina.” “The white men have got to rule.” “This shall be a white -man’s government again.” - -“Just hear that chap singing,” said Marmor with a ghastly smile: - -“We’re going to redeem South Carolina to-day. This is the beginning of -the redemption of my Caroline.” The poor, maudlin fellow sat upon his -horse near the corner of the street hard by, and improvised a lengthy -political madrigal evidently to his own exquisite delight. - -“I reckon you’ve got the right of it Doc,” said Marmor; “the political -side of this fuss swallows up all the rest. The fuss on the Fourth, was -only got up for making a spot to strike at.” - -“Well,” said Doe, both goes together; for all the politics they know is -to put the niggers down, and themselves up atop; and they are trying to -fool the ignorant ones into believing that the constitutions has all -run out, so they won’t try to take the law on ’em.” - -“They’d better look out, or they may feel the law themselves. If -Chamberlain can’t enforce it, there is a United States, they’ll find!” - -“I reckon so! I reckon so!” chimed in all present. - -“Capt. Doc,” said Elder Jackson, “you must remember that it is not your -own life and your company’s lives that is in danger, but that of every -colored individual in town; and the happiness and prosperity of all -will be at their mercy if a fight takes place; and so I beg you to come -to terms with Baker. Bend and apologize a little for the sake of them -that had nothing to do with the Fourth of July difficulty.” - -“What can _I_ do? Just tell me. I haven’t failed to think of that, I -tell you. That part of it is the biggest trouble to me now.” - -“It is Watta that has offended them the most,” said Springer; “for he -got so mad last Thursday. He’s got too much white blood in him to stand -their abuse, and he was nigh about as abusive as Hanson Baker himself, -that day. - -It was all true enough what he said, but that didn’t make it no better -for them to take.” - -“Now, Brother Watta, just you go, as you know you ought to, and -acknowledge you ought to have kept your temper, and that’ll make the -whole thing right, and Doc’ll apologize too,” said the apparently -confiding Elder. - -“Do you think so? Well, suppose you come along with us,” said Watta, a -slight veil of credulity scarcely concealing a sarcasm that bordered -upon contempt for the self-loving simplicity of the Elder. “I’d rather -get on my knees to them,” he added more seriously, “bad as I hate them, -than have my wife and children as scared as they are to-day. But I -doubt the success of even that, unless I would give them my gun, and -promise to lie there, and let them kick me when they chose, or shoot -me if they like, and I’m afraid my _temper_ would rise _then_, if I -didn’t.” - -In defiance of fears, the men all laughed at the ludicrous picture -of this tall, genteel-appearing, light yellow _gentleman_, brimful -of the same “spirit” that fired some of the noblest heroes the South -ever boasted of, and in whose veins coursed much of the same ancestral -blood, cringing in such a pusillanimous fashion. - -“It is no time for fun,” said Springer. “Will you go with _me_, Adam -Watta, and see General Baker?” - -“If you say you think it’ll do any good, I will go.” - -“You can but perish if you go,” said Elder Jackson, who was, like many -another, very courageous for his neighbors, and quite willing to bid -them Godspeed in any efforts for the safety of the town, including -Elder J. and his possessions. - -But the men paused in the doorway. “Ask a man to run the gauntlet of -all those armed and half-drunken enemies? I tell you I can’t do it; I’m -not prepared to die, and I sha’n’t go. I could _fight_, but to go right -into a crowd to be _murdered_, I’m not ready,” and Watta turned back. -Looking out upon the constantly increasing mob, Springer did not urge -him. - -“I’m going to Prince Rives’s house,” said Doc, and strode out of the -office and down the street. - -The cry of an infant was heard in an adjoining room, followed by the -sound of a rocking cradle, and the voice of the little boy singing in -chanting style, “You must not cry, little sister; for the wicked men is -all agoing around to kill all the little children, ‘from two years old -and under,’ and they will shoot your papa, and make your mamma cry. So -take this rattle and be still.” - -“Louie,” called Marmor, from the office. “Don’t say such things. -Nobody’ll hurt you, nor the baby. Where is your mamma?” - -“She is here crying—sitting right here crying.” - -“The man arose quickly, and entered the room. “Why, Jane,” said he, -“what are you crying about? It will be all settled, and there’ll be no -fuss.” - -“Don’t you wish you could make me believe that, when you know you don’t -believe it yourself? I do wish you would go away over to the city, and -take the train somewhere. I know they will be after you. You know they -want you killed, because you are a radical leader; and now will be -their time.” - -“Do you suppose I would go and leave you and the children?” - -“You know you couldn’t defend us, and we don’t need it. We’re a great -deal safer without you than with you. I should fret all the time for -fear that you had fallen into their hands, to be sure; but I _know_ -there is no chance for you to escape death if you stay here.” - -Marmor returned to his office, and found that his friends had all left. -He saw them approaching Rives’s house. There they found Captain Doc -and the Trial Justice in earnest conversation. - -“I can’t appear before your court, Judge Rives—not to-day,” said the -captain; “for I feel that your court is unable to protect my life, and -I believe my life is unsafe. I am willing that yo’ should go to work -and draw up a bond, that yo’ think proper, and I am willing to give -bonds to a higher court, where I think my life will be safe. The reason -I come to yo’ to tell yo’, is because I don’t want yo’ to suppose that -I treat yo’r court with no disrespect by not coming; but it is because -I don’t think my life is safe.” - -The Justice reflected. - -“Well, you must use your own judgment,” said he. “Of course, if your -life is unsafe, and if these men intend to take your life, of course, -I can’t protect you. I haven’t protection enough to protect you; my -constables can’t do much!” - -“That is my belief,” replied Doc, “and for that reason I don’t want to -go befo’ yo’r court without yo’ force me to; and then if I am killed, -yo’ will be responsible.” - -“You can use your own judgment, Captain. I shall go to court at the -proper time. Your name, of course, will be called, and if you don’t -answer to your name—well, _you won’t be there to answer_. It’s a pity -but this thing couldn’t be settled without going to court. I’m afraid -once at the court room it will be impossible to get along without -trouble.” - -“Well, I want it settled,” said Doc. “And I,” “And I,” said the two -Lieutenants. - -“Well, then, suppose I go for you, and ask what will give -satisfaction,” said Springer. - -“All right,” was the ready response from all. - -Mr. Springer met Judge Kanrasp coming down the street, from his -interview with the General, and each communicated the message he bore, -and thought the best thing for the safety of the town, was to get the -parties together with the crowd excluded. - -“Who is to take the guns?” asked Mr. Springer. - -“I don’t know. The Governor, I suppose. If not, that may alter the -case.” - -“If Gen. Baker will guarantee the safety of the men, I believe they -will be safe, but he should guarantee the safety of the town also.” - -“So say I,” replied Judge Kanrasp, and each passed on his errand. - -Judge K. reported to the officers only Gen. Baker’s request for an -interview, and withheld his proposition for a settlement. - -Soon Mr. Springer returned with the same request from the General. -They all approached the door, and Doc went out upon the street, but -re-entered immediately. - -“There is no one more readier than I am to settle, but I see a great -crowd down there at Dunn’s store, all armed, and drunk, or playing off -drunk. Springer, yo’ tell Gen. Baker that I would meet him, but that I -would like for him to come away from where them men are, and that I am -willing to meet him at yo’r house, if that is agreeable.” - -The aspect of things became more gloomy very soon. A company of -twenty-five or thirty thoroughly-armed and mounted men had entered the -village some time before, since which squads had been seen coming in -from all directions. - -Several leading citizens had joined the group at Rives’s house, and all -united in urging the officers to comply with Gen. Baker’s request; but -they were more and more reluctant to go, fearing it was only a ruse to -decoy them there, secure, disarm, and then murder them. - -The suspicion was but natural, as similar transactions had been far -from rare since reconstruction. At length, after it had been reported -that Gen. Baker had sworn to lay the town in ashes if they did not -comply with his demands, all the members of the company again consented -to go, but on approaching the door, fell back again. - -“You must go to save the town,” said Springer; “but don’t take your -guns.” - -“We won’t go without them,” said all the men. - -“But he’ll make a demand for their surrender. Better leave them behind.” - -“Yes, that is just it,” said Watta. “You men have been keeping that -back. Why should we go to General Baker? Why doesn’t he come to us if -he wants to see us? There are no drunken rowdies here for him to fear. -Two men drove into our ranks, an organized a legally chartered company -of the State militia, with loyal guns in our loyal hands, and a flag -which brought us freedom from these old masters—the right to stand -up like men, and not fear their nigger-catching blood-hounds; and we -have sworn to be true to that flag—to the United States, and to the -State, and ourselves, and to take care of these guns that belong to -the State, and to yield them up only to lawful authority. These two -nigger-catchers whose occupation is gone, drove into our ranks; and we, -like a set of cowards, opened ranks and let them go through; and now -they bring this ex-confederate General, who got the only title he has -and of which he and they are so proud, in fighting the United States; -they bring this General Baker here, and he asks us to go down to old -Baker’s feet and apologize—for what? _I_ don’t know; and to give up -our guns that we have sworn to protect from all enemies of the Union, -and all unauthorized persons—to give them to this ex-confederate -General, who boasts to-day, and is applauded by these, his old -confederate soldiers around him to-day, for what he did against the -Government. _He_, surrounded by those who love and revere him for what -he did to destroy the Union and keep us and our parents and children in -slavery—he demands our guns and ourselves! Pretty _National Guards_!! -Which are we, men, cowards or traitors?” - -“Don’t take your guns, and may be possible you can get along without -giving the guns up. I surely don’t want you to be traitors,” said the -Elder; “but I trust an apology will do.” - -“And I trust no such thing,” said Doc. “And where shall we be after -this, living or dead? It won’t make much difference. They want to break -us up! that’s it—and enslave us!” - -“Where shall we be? On our knees forever at their feet,” replied Watta; -“that is, if a single man of us ever got away alive, which I’ll warrant -we never should if we refused to give up our guns.” - -“But remember, there’ll be bloodshed if you don’t go,” said Elder -Jackson. “Better humble yourselves than be killed.” - -“And remember, too, the women and children, and the property,” added -Springer. - -“You men is mighty thoughtful; suppose yo’ ’go yo’selves. ’Twouldn’t -be no blood shed if _they_ got killed, I reckon yo’ think,” said a man -from the ranks. - -They had retired to an upper room, and Kanrasp approached a window -looking towards Dunn’s store. Doc followed, and then Watta, and then -others. - -Still more armed men were seen coming into the town, and the mob around -the General’s headquarters was more dense and disorderly. - -“You all know that it would be only my dead body that would ever leave -that place, if I went there,” said Watta. “I should be riddled with -bullets in no time. Those men standing outside of that groggery are -thirsting for my blood this minute.” - -[Illustration: “BUT I ‘AM ONLY A NIGGER,’ (BARING HIS YELLOW ARM TO HIS -ELBOW.)”—Page 105.] - -“I have known Gen. Baker for several years, and I believe he is an -honorable man, and he will protect you,” said Judge K——. - -“An honorable man?” repeated Watta. “‘An honorable man’ he may be when -dealing with those he acknowledges his equals, if there are any such; -but I am ‘only a nigger’ (baring his yellow arm to his elbow.) “Honor? -He’ll ventilate no honor when a nigger or politics is concerned. I -don’t mean any disrespect to you, Judge; but Gen. Baker doesn’t hold -the same views about colored people that you do, as you know.” - -“Well, I’m going,” said the First Lieutenant, “and I talked as bad as -any of you on the Fourth. I’ll apologize.” - -“But they hate me more than all the rest of you,” resumed Watta, still -inspecting his bare arm. “I’m nearer their color, and the best thing -they can say of a man of my complexion is that he’s a smart fellow, -but needs watching. And they do watch us, and they magnify everything -we do or say, and misconstrue it, and lie about us. And then you know -I’m that heinous offender—a ‘nigger school teacher, and a Republican -newspaper correspondent.’ Why, Gen. Baker _can’t protect me_. I should -be shot a dozen times before he knew I was coming. And then he’d regret -it. That wouldn’t do me much good, nor my family. I tell you it is only -a trap, a decoy, to get us up there and massacre us. If they kill me, -they must come after me, I a’n’t fool enough to go to them to get shot.” - -“If the General could get shet of them armed men, would you go?” asked -Springer. - -“Yes, certainly.” - -“Then, I’ll try if he will go to my house,” and he slipped cautiously -out of the dwelling, for the whites thought the officers were in the -Armory, and he did not wish to undeceive them. - -He was successful on his mission, and soon returned; but the officers -had seen the shouting throng surround and follow their General, and as -the streets were rife with warlike menaces, _all_ now utterly refused -to go to a house so near Dunn’s store and the main crowd. - -“See! see!” they exclaimed. “They are coming down the street to meet -us! Gen. Baker can’t protect us!” All of which Springer could not -dispute, so he sadly returned to Gen. Baker, who, on his approaching, -called out: - -“I suppose you couldn’t get those fellows to meet me?” - -“No, General, they are too afraid of these armed bodies of men you have -around you. That is the only reason.” - -“Armed men? armed men? I don’t see any armed men!” and that military -dignitary rolled his eyes about as if in pantomime. “Well Sam, there’s -no use parleying any longer. Now, by —— I want those guns, and I’ll -be —— if I don’t have them!” - -A movement of expectancy swayed the throng as these words were heard -and passed from lip to lip, and then a shout rent the air. - -Mr. Springer wended his way back through the crowd of men on horseback, -and men on foot, whose fingers fidgeted upon the triggers of their -firearms, and he sought the house of Justice Rives with a heavier heart -than he had ever borne before; while General Baker entered his carriage -again, as the hour for court drew near. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -PORTENTIOUS DARKNESS. - - “Ye gods, it doth amaze me! - A man of such feeble temper should - So get the start of the majestic world.” - - —CASCA. - - -A SMALL, dark man, with a lithe form and sparkling eyes, had been busy -preparing Justice Rives’s office for the expected court, as he had been -previously directed, and was unaware of the excitement prevailing in -other parts of the village. His task completed, he seated himself in an -armchair, adjusted his feet high upon the post of the open door, and -with his coat off and fan in hand, sat leisurely reading. - -About half past three o’clock he was startled by an imperative voice, -asking, “Where is Rives?” - -On looking up from his newspaper, he saw Robert Baker and his legal -counsel seated in the latter’s carriage, which stood before the door. - -“Mr. Rives is at his house, I reckon; but he’ll be here directly,” was -the reply. - -“Go and tell him to come here to me,” commanded the General. - -“I’m not Mr. Rives’s office-boy. I am a constable, and am here -attending to my business. He told me he would be here by four o’clock, -and he won’t come any quicker by my going after him.” - -General B.—“Do you know who you are talking to?” - -Constable Newton.—“I’m talking to General Baker, I believe.” - -Gen. B.—“Well, you scamp! bring me some paper here.” - -Newton.—“Here is the office, and here is the chairs, and here is -the paper, and pen and ink, sir; and here is the chairs for all the -attorneys that wants to do business here to come in and sit down.” - -Gen. B. (with an oath).—“Bring it to me, sir!” - -Newton.—“I won’t do it. Come in, sir, and sit at the table.” - -The irate General sprang from his carriage, and, followed by the -ever-ready Gaston, rushed into the court room in a menacing manner. But -the imperturbable constable did not move, nor show signs of disturbance. - -Gen. B. (with a vile epithet and oaths, which the reader should -imagine, thickly strewn throughout this colloquy).—“Give me that -chair!” - -Newton.—“There is a chair.” - -General B. thundered.—“_Give me that chair you are sitting on!_ Get -out of that chair, and give it to me! I want this chair and intend to -have it!” - -“All right,” replied Newton, after a pause; “if this chair suits you -better than the others, take it.” - -Gen. B.—“You —— leatherhead radical! You sitting down there fanning -yourself!” - -Newton.—“I am fanning myself, sitting in my own office, and attending -to my own business.” - -Gen. B.—“You vile brute, you! You want to have a bullet-hole put -through you before you can move!” - -At this juncture old man Baker and one of his followers, pistols in -hand, reinforced the General, and Tommy rode as close to the door as -possible, with his trusty carbine, while others appeared outside. - -Newton arose, and taking his chair by the back, turned the seat of it -toward General Baker, and, still holding the back with both hands, said: - -“There it is, Gen. Baker, if you want it; and you can shoot me, if you -want to. Mr. Robert Baker, you know what sort of a man I am. I have -always tried to behave myself when you came in the office.” - -Robert B.—“Yes, but” (with an oath) “this drilling has got to stop. I -want you to go for Rives.” - -Newton.—“I’ve got no right to go for Rives, and I’m not going.” - -Robert B.—“Well you’ll be a dead man, and you’ll wish you had gone.” - -Newton.—“I am but one man.” - -Gen. B. (with oaths and sneers of contempt).—“Sitting down there with -your feet cocked up!” - -Newton.—“Well, General, I’m not dead; but if you’re going to kill me, -why kill me; and that is all you can do.” - -Gen. B.—“We’ll take our time about that. We’ll show you, you insolent -darkie!—you contemptible nigger!” - -The Bakers returned to their carriages in high dudgeon. - -“There is Justice Rives’ private secretary,” said the old man, as they -were about leaving the premises. “If you will speak to him, I think he -will go for Rives.” - -“No,” replied the incensed General, “I am not going to be insulted -again. You can do so if you choose.” - -Robert Baker did choose, for he preferred to reserve resentment, rather -than allow it to thwart or hinder his purposes. Gaston, however, -‘halted’ the secretary, and undertook the mission himself. - -Can the reader imagine the scene in that upper room in Rives’ house, -when a female servant announced that Gaston was at the door below, -urging the presence of Judge Rives at the court-room, as Gen. Baker and -his clients were waiting there; though the hour had not yet arrived? - -Noiselessly the entire group descended to the ground floor, and, -screened from view, listened breathlessly to the collocution which, -however, was brief and courteous, as the young man naturally wished to -conciliate the favor of the Judge. He was dismissed with the assurance -that the court should be opened promptly. - -Prince Rives (the Judge’s baptismal name was Prince—it might seem -sacrilege to designate a name given in slavery as “Christian”) stepped -quietly into his sitting-room—a perfect bower of flowers, ferns -growing under glass, and singing-birds, where his wife and eldest -daughter were anxiously watching the crowd gathering in the streets. - -“I’m going down to the office now,” said he, “and if any trouble should -occur, stay right here in the house, and keep the children in, and you -will all be safe.” - -Alas! these were assurances false even to the heart of him who made -them. - -Has the reader ever laid a kiss upon a loved one’s brow, and then -watched the dear form passing beyond recall, perhaps, (oh, that -terrible _perhaps_!) if returning at all, to come a lifeless thing—an -uninhabited tenement—or in agony and blood; while the ever active -imagination chafed and chid the hands and feet that fain would do -its bidding and follow that loved form, though duty fettered them to -inactivity? - -Or has he gone out under the benediction of love, to meet a hate that -might hold him in its deadly grasp, forbidding his return? - -To such we need not describe the adieus exchanged in that little -sitting-room; for the sweet influences of love take no cognizance of -complexion. - -Trial Justice Prince Rives soon issued from the front door of his -house, book in hand, erect and commanding, looking the true ideal -African General as he was, and walked leisurely up the street, -unattended, and apparently unarmed; as if to show the mob that at least -one negro was not afraid. - -Tall, straight, powerful, his black and shining visage perfectly calm, -he strode through the throng of armed and angry men that surrounded the -door of his office, and crowded the court-room. - -Kanrasp and Springer followed at some distance to witness should any -disturbance arise; and while attention was thus attracted towards the -court-room, the officers all made their way to the armory, whither -many other members of the Company and other citizens had already -hastened for safety behind its strong walls, doors and window-shutters. -Women and children fled across the long bridge to the city, or to -the surrounding country; though many remained to guard their small -possessions, and share the fate of husbands and fathers, should the -worst come. - -Armed men were still coming in, and yet more rapidly, and the sinking -sun heralded a brief, southern twilight and a moonless night; while a -great terror took possession of the inhabitants of the doomed village. - -A few straggling members of the Company appearing with their guns, -which they had formerly taken to their homes for cleaning, became the -unfortunate subjects of a hue and cry as they hurried along towards the -rendezvous, and were marked for the night’s barbarities. - -No small exhibition of nerve was now required of that African -Major-General of the obnoxious “National Guards,”—one of the very men -whose high military position was so offensive to the white men now -surrounding him, and thronging his court-room, that, though notably -fond of the practice of arms, they utterly disregarded the law -requiring their enrollment as State Militia-men, lest they might be -subordinated to him. - -Yet with measured step and dignified mien he passed the carriage where -the Bakers still sat, greeting them with easy politeness. - -“I should like to know whether you are sitting in the capacity of -Major-General of State Militia, or as a Trial Justice?” said Gen. -Baker, when all was in readiness. - -“That will depend upon the nature of the testimony. I am sitting as a -peace officer; and if the facts are such as to justify my sitting as a -Trial Justice, I will do so; if not, it will be otherwise.” - -“It is immaterial to me; I merely wanted to know. I want to investigate -the facts of this matter, and either capacity will be agreeable to me,” -replied the General. - -At this juncture the Intendant (Mayor), approached, and whispered to -the General, “I think if you would suspend this trial for awhile, we -could settle it.” - -“Just ask the Judge. If he suspends I am willing.” - -A brief conference ensued, after which the Judge announced a suspension -for ten minutes. - -This caused dissatisfaction among the spectators, as a peaceful -adjustment would be but a tame issue of all their military preparations. - -Intendant Garndon then conducted the plaintiffs and their attorney to -the council chamber, which was separated from Dunn’s shop on the corner -or Main Street by only one half the width of a narrow street. - -At this time the largest and most unruly part of the cavalry was -gathered about this corner groggery, and a less suitable place for the -conference could not have been selected; but each would-be peacemaker -seemed to think peace most attainable on his own premises. - -Though the distance was less than four squares, as they could proceed -but slowly through the throng, it sufficed Gen. Baker to administer a -lecture to the dusky official upon his personal culpability in having -allowed “this so-called militia company,” to train “upon Mr. Robert -Baker’s road,” and with arms in their hands—though, doubtless the -poor, berated mayor found difficulty in understanding how a public -highway could be “Mr. Robert Baker’s road,” or how he could have -disarmed the State’s militia. - -As has already been stated, quite a number of colored citizens, and of -the rank and file of the militia men, had gathered in and about the -armory, hoping to find protection there. - -Among them was Dan Pipsie, who was quite sober, and his own plucky self. - -“Well, if I war Captain Doc, I’d do anyt’ing on earth to settle dis -myself,” said Dan. “I wouldn’t have de blood of all dese collo’d -families on _my_ head. When I die, I don’t want no man’s wife cussin’ -me, noh blamin’ me fo’ his death.” - -“Capt. Doc a’n’t a bit to blame now,” replied Mann Harris. “I was ’bout -two hundred yards from ’em at the time of the fuss. I saw Gaston and -Tom Baker drive down, and get out and go into Nunberger’s store. I saw -the company coming back, an’ they was a gwoine up then, and they met -and talked awhile, an’ the company divided an’ let them go through. -Let’s go down, an’ see Rives about this, Ned O’Bran, an’ git him to -send a dispatch to the Governor to help us.” - -“Well, come on,” replied Ned. - -They entered the quiet office of the Justice, and found him sitting -there alone, and looking over books and papers. - -“General, what _is_ you doing?” asked Harris, with emphasis. - -“I am waiting for people to come into court again.” - -“If you wait here awhile longer, they’ll make you jump out o’ here -entirely!” - -“What is the matter?” - -“Well, there’s about four hundred men out there with guns and pistols.” - -“Ah! I’ll go out and see—Well, really, this is surprising! What is all -this about?” - -“I don’t know,” said the excited Harris. “They’re gwoine to take the -guns away from the armory.” - -The three men walked up the street conversing. Meanwhile Captain Doc -entered his own apartments, which it will be remembered, were in the -same building as the armory or drill room. - -“I’ve been in my shirt sleeves,” said he to his wife, “ever since I -left my bench at noon; but, (with a grim smile,) if I’m gwoine to see -such big men as General Baker or the Laud, I reckon I’d best put my -coat on.” - -“Oh, Doc, don’t talk so ’bout de Laud! I’m awful scarred to have yo’ -go.” - -“I’ve got a right to go. They say General Baker’s gone up to the -Council Chamber, and he and Garndon’ll be expecting us.” - -“I’m awful scarred fo’ yo’, an’ I’m a mind to go ’way myself. ’Spex -they’ll be shootin’ ’round yere so the baby couldn’t sleep no how. -Mann Harris, he’s taken his wife off, ’bout an hour by sun, or so, -poor soul! sick as she’s been, now mighty nigh on to a year. Mann tole -me he’d positive his word thar’ would be no fuss nor killin’; but I’d -positive my word he war’ ’feared, else he wouldn’t come totin’ Dinah -down all dem stairs, an hauled ’er off up to Miss Pipton’s; fo’ it’s -mighty nigh on to fo’ mile ovah da; and Dinah has determined to me that -it hurt her tolerable bad to stir at all.” - -The Captain had been looking out of the window while she spoke, towards -Dunn’s store and the Council Chambers, Turning abruptly, he asked— - -“Where is the baby?” - -“I done toted ’er ovah to Elder Jackson’s but I can’t let ’er stay dar. -I’ll jes lock up de house, an’ git de baby, an’ clar out ovah de rivah, -fo’ de scar o’ stayin’ in dis yere house’ll perish me out, if I’m de -onus one fo’ a quarter hour mo’.” - -“Now, Debby, yo’ get the baby, and take ’er over to Rives’s, and stay -thar, he’s been so conciliating to ’em, and they think a heap o’ him. -Blamed but I wish the baby was here a minute till I kiss ’er ’fo’ I -go up to see General Baker. Don’t get scared now. They won’t hurt the -women, I reckon. It’s only them as votes an’ can manage a gun they’re -after. Take care yo’rself,” and he kissed her. - -“Oh, ain’t yo’ scarred to go, Doc?” sobbed she, clinging to him. “I -spex yo’re forced to by persuasion; but I’m feared they’ll put a bullet -into yo’, and maybe fifty.” Here she broke down entirely, and wept -aloud, sobbing, “Oh, don’t go, Doc! don’t go!” - -“But I’ve got a right to, to save the town. He’ll lay it in ashes. I -wouldn’t like to tell yo, all the way they’re talking, and making big -threats, and abusing us to everything yo’ can think.” - -“To my knowance they’re mighty bad; and I’m mighty glad Mann Harris -sent his wife off.” - -“Well, Debby, yo’ go and get the baby, and take good care of her. I -reckon you’d best tote her ovah to your mother’s ’cross the river. Some -on ’em might hurt her if they knowed she was mine.” - -They left the house together, and Doc locked the door, and put the key -in his pocket. - -“Oh, my lawses!” exclaimed Mrs. Doc. “Don’t yo’ go up thar, Doc! Jes -see such heaps o’ men! Jes lots and piles of ’em! _Now yo’ sha’n’t go!_” - -“No mo’ I won’t! They picks out all the hardest places for a man to go -to; but his soldiers ’d follow the General anywhere. There he is now. -_He_ ain’t gwoine to meet _me_. See! He knows I’m here well enough, but -he won’t look at me. Ah! He’s gwoine over to the city. P’raps he’ll -just clar out, now he’s got the rest agoing. There’s Kanrasp, and Rives -too.” - -General Rives and his two neighbors met General Baker at the next -corner. The latter was on horseback and rode up to General Rives and -demanded the name of the Colonel of the Eighteenth Regiment. - -“Colonel Williams,” was the reply. - -“Where is he?” - -“At his house, I reckon.” - -“I want him. I want those guns, and by——I’ve got to have them.” - -“General Baker, I don’t know what to do about them. I’ll go up and see -the Captain, and consult with him, and see if he says to give them up.” - -A moment later and he met Judge Kanrasp, who was earnestly urging the -colored men, women, and children who were huddled in knots upon the -street, to go home and remain quietly in their houses. - -“Kanrasp,” said Judge Rives, “It is no use for you to stay here and get -killed; and you will be killed if you stay,—a ‘carpet-bagger and a -radical,’ like you.” - -“That’s so,” added Marmor, and Doc, and Watta, who now joined the -group; and they hastily accompanied him down to the Rail Road platform -nearly opposite the armory, and urged him to flee, as one who would be -first attacked. Rapidly crossing the river, upon the Rail Road bridge, -the train, which arrived, in ten minutes took him homewards; too soon -for the accomplishment of his purpose to learn Gen. Baker’s mission to -the city. - -Never were the combative characteristics of the whites and colored -races in the Southern States more clearly exhibited than in the scenes -at Baconsville that day, though leading colored men, whose exceptional -energy, and perhaps assertion, had made them such, were necessarily -prominent. Not bravery, so much as skill in its exercise, constitutes -the white man a leader among his fellows. - -In general terms it may be said that timidity, with extremely rare acts -of rashness, characterizes the colored race, bravado and arbitrary -assumption, of the white and both are the victims of mutual suspicion -and distrust, which often _cause_ the dreaded ill. - -Gen. Baker was absent half an hour, and on his return a general -remounting took place, while over the hill at the back of the village, -came a large company of horsemen, all well armed. - -Down Main street they rode, two abreast, and were at once distributed -throughout the town; a squad upon each street corner, attended by an -equal number of infantry; all with weapons in hand ready for immediate -action. - -Look which way they would, the distracted freedmen saw armed men, and -re-enforcements constantly arriving from all directions. - -Darkness was approaching, and though the hills around were still -touched by the glow of the setting sun, its refracted rays seemed to -exaggerate the squalor, and magnify the deformities of the little town -in the valley; and, exalting the warlike preparations, to clothe them -with every imaginable horror; while the humidity of the evening air -intensified the sounds of blood-thirsty riot. - -Justice Marmor now closed and locked his office door, and began at this -tardy moment, to think of adopting Mrs. M’s advice. - -Stepping out of his own back door, he leaped the fence into his -neighbor’s yard, and, mounting his doorsteps, stood in a closely -latticed corner of a porch, and took observations. - -The square was surrounded by the Rifle-clubs,—the remnants -and second-growth of the cropped, but not uprooted Confederate -cavalry,—standing thick, two abreast, with guns resting upon each left -arm. - -In the vernacular of the South, Marmor was “a _scallawag_,” for, though -once a brave Confederate soldier, he had become a consistent advocate -of the idea that the “all men” who are “created free and equal” -includes the colored race; and probably no man in the devoted town -stood in greater danger than he. - -“Co im ’s house, Meester Marmor:——i’m ’s house quick!” said Dan -Lemfield, opening the back-door of his dwelling. You be mine neighbor, -and shall not be shot on mine dreshold. Co hide self! Co!” - -Marmor did not decline the invitation, but stepped quickly in, and -passing to the parlor in front, peeped from behind the window shades, -which Mrs. Lemfield had drawn closely down. - -At the opposite corner of the street, his most implacable enemy, the -eldest son of Col. Baker, sat upon his horse, with self-complacent -manner waiting the appearance of his prey, or the word of command from -the great General. He was supported by eight or ten other men, not less -vigilant. - -“Oh, Mr. Marmor!” besought Mrs. Lemfield, “do go up stairs, and keep -out of sight. They have threatened about you so much that some of them -will surely come in here, and kill you! Do go up, quick! quick!” - -Marmor obeyed, and immediately the host, who had been out, re-entered -with wild eyes and white lips. - -“Vo ish dat mon, Sarah?” - -She signed with her hand, in reply; at the same time saying, in an -indifferent tone, “Oh, he’s gone up, he is not here,” for their little -child had entered, and she feared it might betray their guest. - -The excited Jew (for Lemfield was a Jew) leaped up the stairs, calling -out as he ran, “Don’t shoot! It’s me—jist me. Oh, moine goot freund! -Vat vill dese men to? Shenneral Paker say he vill hab de guns, oder he -vill pekin to fire in von half hour. Colonel A. P., dat ole man you -seen sthrapping on dem pig bistols by’me Post Office, he tole me close -up mine par in’ leetle sthore. Vell, dey ish hab too much visky now; -so I mind quick, I tell you! He tole same ting yo’ mudda, an’ she pe -shut up.” - -“Where is she?” asked Marmor. - -“My golly! Se ist plucky ole voman. Se im leetle sthore—all ’lone by -self. She not come avay.” - -“Where are my wife and children?” - -“Im house—your house. Dat ish pest blace. Nicht wahr? Pest not pe mit -you.” - -“I don’t know,” replied Marmor, absently. - -“Oh, ya! Mon come here, mon sag, ‘Meester dare sure.’ Now co dis vay,” -and he led the way to a loft; “Here co om roof van dey get you. Hark! -Vat dat noise down stair ish?” - -The next instant Mrs. Marmor rushed into the chamber and threw her arms -about her husband’s neck in a paroxysm of weeping. - -He folded her to his breast, and commanding a calm and cheerful tone, -said, “Jane, Jane, don’t give way so. Why, I’m not afraid; I shall come -off all right, and nobody will hurt you or the children. Our people are -chivalrous, and won’t hurt a woman.” - -“Oh, you don’t know! you don’t know!” she sobbed. “Capt. Baker just -now told me, as I was coming to bid you good-bye,” (here her sobs -interrupted her speech) “he told me,” she resumed, “if I wanted to -save my children from getting killed, to go into the house and lock -the doors. And so I must go and save my poor babies. Duck got scared -and ran off and left me all alone,” and she placed her cold trembling -hands on either side of her husband’s face, and kissed him. Then -pressing them upon her heart, she descended the stairs, moaning aloud. - -“Great heavens! Am I a _man_?” exclaimed Marmor, “to let my wife go -like that, and I hiding to save my own life!” and he sprang to the -stairs to follow her. - -Quick as thought, the Jew placed himself before him, and held him back. - -“She be not cry for self; just for _you_. You co da, she cry more. Man -not touch her, noh leetle kinder. Yo’ co hide now, quick!” - -Five minutes later, the same Col. Baker, her husband’s enemy, rapped -loudly upon Mrs. Marmor’s door, with the loaded handle of his -riding-whip. - -Almost too much frightened to stand, she opened the door, and peeped -out. - -“You must take your children, and leave this house if you do not want -to be killed,” said the gallant Colonel. - -“Oh, where shall I go? What shall I do?” cried the distracted mother. - -“You must get out of here, and that is all I can tell you,” said he, -with an oath. “No use to lock your door—leave it open, I tell you, and -go!” - -Nearly all the colored people had, by this time, taken the advice of -Judge Kanrasp, or of their fears, and fled the streets. Like timid -conies, some sought the vain shelter of their homes, others that of the -neighboring cornfields or river-banks and bridges, and still others -fled to the surrounding country. - -Doc, Watta and Sems went across the street after Kanrasp left, taking -about thirty or forty men with them to the drill-room on the second -floor. - -About this time four colored men were seen to issue from an humble -dwelling, and, with heroic purpose as their only visible weapon, -they quietly made their way along the fortified streets. They were -frequently halted and their business demanded, when their uniform reply -was “To see Gen. Baker;” and the moral sublimity of their position -seemed to impress even the conscienceless rioters, for only verbal -abuse was hurled at them. - -Arm-in-arm walked Gen. Justice Rives and the Methodist preacher—Elder -Jackson—(visibly quaking within his spotless linen, and coat of snowy -whiteness). Behind this worthy pair came Springer, the chief man of -money and of business in the town, with Lem Picksley, a well-known, -peaceable, and long-time resident; the best educated and best-liked -citizen. - -At length they found the man they sought—armed, mounted and surrounded -by cavalry arranged in warlike attitude, who appeared to reverence him -as their chief. - -“Gen. Baker,” said Rives, “we have come to ask if there is _anything_ -we can do to make peace.” - -“Nothing will satisfy me but the surrender of the men and their guns.” - -“We have no authority to surrender them, as you very well know. -The men are not criminals convicted, and you have no warrant or -authority of law; and the men say their oaths to the State forbid -their surrendering the arms to you. If you can show any authority for -receiving them, that you have more than any other private citizen, they -will give them up at once; but they say they cannot otherwise, because, -if they should voluntarily yield them up to you or any other private -citizen, especially surrounded by such an armed body as this, without -authority of law—well, General, you’re a lawyer, and you know what the -law calls it. The law and their oath of office will not allow them.” - -“Rives,” replied this great chieftain, “you are the Major General of -the State Militia in this district, and can demand them.” - -“Not without cause, or order from my superior!” - -“By ——!” said the negro-catcher, Baker, who stood near, “you had -better do something, for there’s going to be —— to pay here, if those -officers and guns are not delivered up.” - -“I want to see the Colonel of this regiment. I want these officers and -these guns,” said Gen. Baker with great vehemence. - -Ned O’Bran, who had joined the four peace-makers, now slipped through -the crowd and back to the armory. - -“How does it look, Ned?” asked Lieut. Watta from a window above his -head. - -“It looks squally. Now, Watta, you men just bar the windows and doors, -and let nothing nor nobody in the world in there; and by this means -they will have nothing nor nobody in the world to fight, if they want -to fight, but themselves. There’s bound to be a fuss; for I heard Gen. -Baker say myself, that what he intended to do this evening won’t stop -till after the seventh of next November, and that is election day, you -know. So shut yourselves up, and keep still.” - -Watta closed the window, and Ned returned to the place of conference. - -A horse pushed against Springer’s companion, and he mildly laid his -hand upon the animal’s shoulder and said, addressing it, “Take care, -sir!” - -Quick as thought the rider’s whip cut a smart gash upon the dusky cheek. - -The chivalrous Gen. Baker, looking on, took out his own pocket -handkerchief, and wiped the perspiration from his own face, while -the unoffending mulatto wiped the blood from his; and Springer’s -unflinching eye arrested the hand of another of the General’s aids, as -he was about to send a bullet through his (Springer’s) brain. - -Neither the attack nor menace elicited rebuke nor notice from the -“high-toned” General, who disdainfully turned and rode away. - -“If we will box the guns up,” said Rives, following him, “and return -them to the Governor, will _that_ be satisfactory?” - -“—— the Governor! I am not here as the Governor of South Carolina, -nor his agent, but as General Baker!” - -“Well, we are sorry if there is nothing we can do to make peace, -General, but (turning to his companions) we must return without it, and -each do the best he can for himself.” - -“Here’s Ned O’Bran,” said Springer in an undertone, “Brother Jackson, -you had better go with him, for his house is outside of the picket -lines; and as you’re a member of the Legislature, you must look -out—they’ll be after you shor.” - -“I was just going down to the drill room to be safe myself,” said -O’Bran. “My family went on so that I am on my way back to the armory.” - -“You can’t get through this way. The pickets are everywhere. You had -best go home. It’s every man for himself, and the Lord for us all,” -said Springer, and the men separated. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - -MEMORY AND EXPERIENCE. - - “Oh! the blessed hope of freedom how with joy and glad surprise, - For an instant throbs her bosom, for an instant beam her eyes! - - * * * * * - - Oh, my people! O my brothers! let us choose the righteous side.” -—WHITTIER’S VOICES OF FREEDOM. - -THE sun was sinking in the west, when the sound of Aunt Phoebe’s -dinner-horn was heard, followed by Uncle Jesse’s cheery response. - -Auntie was the model-housekeeper of the neighborhood, (not a high -compliment, some readers might think, could they see many of the homes -there, where the women spend most of their strength and time at field -labor), she having been raised a house-servant, and, by rare chance, -blessed with a mistress who gave her personal attention to the comfort -of her household. - -Auntie’s house boasted glazed windows, two rooms and a loft; and the -broad boards of her floors were so clean and white that her kitchen was -quite inviting as dining-room and sitting-room also. - -Her iron tea-kettle shone and steamed beside a small cherry back-log -upon the great hearth, which spread below the wide “Dutch-back” -chimney, while the hoe-cakes were “keeping” between a blue-edged -earthen plate, and a bright tin pan, upon a hot stone near by, and a -kettle of boiling corn, filled the room with its sweet aroma. - -The snowy cloth spread upon the table in the middle of the floor, was -set about with crockery almost antique,—the gift of “old Missus’” when -she “broke up,” because the great plantation was sold for taxes. - -During the war the Confederate and Union armies had swept over the -region in alternation, like swarms of locusts, taking every marketable -thing; Abraham Lincoln’s Proclamation of Emancipation had freed every -“hand,” and, as the old lady had lost all her sons in the war, and all -her means to hire laborers, and would not lease to niggers, she folded -her hands and let her remaining possessions drift from her, and finally -died a pensioner upon her friends. - -Many a time had Aunt Phoebe’s childish hands washed these same cups and -plates, while her mother cooked for “the great house;” and as she now -brought an extra large plate, she paused, and with eyes fixed upon it, -a long stretch of years seemed to pass before her. - -“Make hay while the sun shines,” she spelled around the sunny picture -of hay-makers in the centre of the plate; and before her seemed to -arise the placid face of her poor mother; and again she heard her -say,—“Dat’s ’de way ’dey do at ‘de North, chile’. ’Taint ’de colored -folks as does all ’de work dar’. Oh Lord! oh Lord!” I was ’mos’ -free——thought I _was_ free shor’ ’dat time Missus tuck me ’not’h wid’ -her. Mighty nice gem’men tole’ me I war free;—I needn’t go back South -no ’mo’. So I jes walks off: but, oh laws! He didn’t know ’nuffin ’bout -’dem United States Marshal ’dey call ’em, I ’reckon; but may be ’dey -didn’t ’blong to no United States, nohow. Spex’ ’dey come from South -Caroline. ’Dey tole’ I ’jes got go ’long back wid Missus, or ’de whole -’dem United States ’sogers’d he afe’r me, shor; Wal, Wal, ’pears like -’day didn’t none of ’em know nohow; fo’ nother gem’men said ’dem United -States Marshals hadn’t got ’nuffin to do wid me, nohow, ’cause Missus’ -brung me ’long herself. I didn’t run away ’nohow, ’cause I neber was so -low as a runaway nigger. ’Pears like I didn’t know who ’t believe, an -so I came back ’long wid’ Missus to make shor’. - -“Po’re ole’ Lize, she lived nex’ do’ to Missus’ hotel. She used to set -by ’de pump in ’de back yard, evenings, and smoke and smoke. “Dar was -a young miss ’dar, used to come too, ’an talk ’wid us, ’an she tole’ -Lize war free, and I war’ free, ’cause we didn’t _runned away_ from -’de South. ’Reckon she war right, now; but I didn’t know, an’ she war’ -young.” Lize was ole an’ been sick aheap, an’ wan’t ’woth much. She -was ’gwoine to be sold in St. Loo, an’ all her chillun,—five chillun. -’_Dey_ sold right smart, but no body didn’t want Lize; but a bad man -said he’d give twenty dollah.” - -“Lize seen a mighty nice gem’man from de No’th da, an’ she got hold his -feet, an’ roared an’ cried till he bought her. - -“Wal, ’pears like he didn’t know what t’do wid her af’r all; hadn’t -got no wife, no nothin’ but lots o’ money. Well, shoo’ ’nuff’ dat bery -night he tuck mighty sick. Ole Lize nussed ’im night and day, six, -eight weeks or mo’, till he got well, Doctah said ’Dar’s de ole creatur -dat save yo’ life. It wa’nt me, nohow.’ Wal, Mars’ Sam war mighty -good den to ole Lize. He tuck ’er off No’th, and spex cause he hadn’t -got nothin’ nor no place, he coaxed ’er to stay wid ’is sistah. But, -laws! she wa’n’t like he. She’s cross, an’ scold ole Lize a heap, when -she’s crying ’bout her boys jes’ been sole ’way down t’ New Orleans, -’cause dey war so high spirited like, an’ Lize wa’n’t dar to keep ’im -quiet like. Lize wanted t’ go back to St. Loo, an’ see ’er girls. -Cross woman! She tole ole Lize all dat to make ’er fret; an’ Mars Sam -’ad writ dat, dat war why he didn’t wan’r Lize to come back, cause he -didn’t want ’er to fret. Poor soul! couldn’t write to Mars’ Sam. - -“Laws, I’s young an’ spry den, an’ wanted to be free _powerful bad_; -but de Laud he say, I mus’ stay right yere, an’ cook for Missus, a -slave all my life, maybe.” Fresh and clear as when first spoken, Aunt -Phebe seemed to hear these tales which once impressed her youthful mind. - -And then right between the hay-makers and Auntie’s eyes there came -another picture. She could see the great smoke rolling up over the -woods beyond the cotton field, and hear the cannon’s roar, and the -shells screeching and crashing through the trees, and see “old Missus” -wringing her hands and weeping, and praying the good Lord to spare -her four sons who were fighting in the confederate ranks; and all the -slaves were praying for the “Yankees,” while they exhausted every -means to soothe and comfort “old missus.” - -That same night, when the house servants were all in her cabin except -Lucy, who was “staying wid Missus,” Uncle Tim, the plantation preacher, -was repeating what scripture passages he could remember, there came a -loud rap on the closed door behind. - -“If yo’ de Laud o’ de Debbil,” said Uncle Tim, “in de name ob de Laud, -I tell yo’ come in,” and a Yankee soldier entered. - -There she could see him stand in the light of the “fat pine” which Tim -put on the fire—the “Lincom Soger”—repeating the Proclamation of -Emancipation. How plainly he stood out now! and the great light that -shone around him seemed almost to smite her blind as it did then. - -There was dear old granddaddy, with wrinkled hands that had toiled -without recompense for nearly a century, clasped tightly together. How -slowly and easily he slipped from his chair onto the floor! She thought -he was kneeling; but when she bent to help him, she heard his whisper, -“Free into glory! Free into glory! ’Tain’t no niggah _slave_ yo’ comin’ -fo’, Angel!” and his withered lips closed forever on earth, while his -“new song,” broke forth from lips of fadeless bloom, in a land where -love makes slavery impossible. - -And there she saw “Mammy”—the dear form swaying backwards and forwards -as she wept and moaned, “Oh, wicked, cruel man to cheat poor slaves! It -is too good for true! _too good for true!_” - -And then, before Aunt Phebe, opened the two deep graves where they -buried them side by side, father and daughter, grandfather and mother. -The tardy emancipation that had opened slavery’s dungeon had opened -also the pearly gates for the aged and the invalid. - -The big hot tears were rolling slowly down Auntie’s cheeks and -threatening a briny shower upon the hay-makers, when Uncle Jesse’s step -upon the threshold startled her, and the plate fell to the floor and -broke into a score of pieces. - -She dropped into a chair, threw her apron over her head, and wept aloud. - -“Wal! wal! wal!” said her husband, as he scraped the soil from his -shoes at the door, “crying that way about a broked up plate? Oh! it’s -one old Missus gave yo’,” he added, as he approached the fragments. - -As suddenly as her grief had seemed to come, she flung her apron from -her face, tossed up both her arms, and broke into a loud, clear strain; -laughing, clapping her hands, shrieking and stamping her feet: - - “Glory and honor, praise King Jesus! - “Glory and honor, praise de Lamb! - “Oh Jesus comin’ dis way - “Don’t let your chariot wheels delay! - “Jesus Christ comin’ in his own time; - “Take away de mudder leabe the baby behind.” - -“Oh you got that wrong,” said Uncle Jesse, who, with his two workmen -had joined lustily in the chorus. It’s “Take away the baby, leave the -mother behind.” - -“I sings it jes as I wants it,” replied his wife. “De Laud he tuck my -mudder, an’ he lef’ me behind.” - - “Give me grace fo’ to run dat race, - “Heaben shall be my hidin’-place; - “Wet or dry, I means to try - “To get up into heaben when I die. - “If yo’ get dar befo’ I do, - “Tell dem I am comin’ too. - “Glory and honor, praise &c. - - “God be callin,’ trumpet be soundin’; - “Don’t dat look like judgment day? - “De tombs be bustin’, de dead be risin’, - “De wheels ob time shall not be no mo. - “Glory and honor, praise, &c. - - “Chariot dartin’ to de new grabe-yard; - “Go down angels and veil wid de sun; - “Go down angels and veil wid the moon, - “Fo’ the wheels ob time shall not be no mo.” - “Glory and honor, praise, &c. - -“It’s de Debbil’s bad luck! fo’ I _seen_ dat plate gwoine down on de -flo’; but I sung to de Laud, an’ He’ll break de cha’m,” said Auntie, -with the evident satisfaction of one who has been at once shrewd and -dutiful. (It is thought an ill omen to see crockery fall, if it breaks.) - -“Auntie, I shall like mighty well to see dat chariot comin’, when I -sho’ de Laud is in it, said Brother Johnson,” the class leader, who -was one of the workmen, “but jes at dis pertickeler time I wants to be -gnawin’ one o’ dem cawn-cobs in dat skillet.” - -“A wicked an’ a glutton man de Laud He despise,” she retorted, as she -arose, and casting a reproving glance upon the offender proceeded to -“dish up” the repast. Meanwhile Brother Gibson struck up the following: - - “I lub my sistah, dat I do! - “Hope my sistah may lub me too: - “If yo’ get dar yo’ gwoine to sing an’ tell - “De fo’ arch-angels to tune de bell.” - -Supper was announced just as the sun reached the “hour mark” upon -the cabin floor, which had done duty as indicator of the time for -the evening meal for many months; and further musical exercises were -indefinitely postponed. - -The repast had not yet been disposed of when the voice of a man was -heard calling, “Whoop! whoop!” - -“That is Den Bardun,” said Uncle Jesse, as he sprung from the table to -the door. - -“Hello! What’s wanted?” he shouted in reply. - -“Man here from Baconsville wants help. Says they’re killing all the -colored people over there. Will you go?” - -“Come over; come over, and bring him along;” and Uncle Jesse hastened -back to the table to finish his meal while the twain should be pacing -the two hundred yards intervening between the two dwellings. - -They entered presently, both much excited, and the Baconsville man -bearing a double barreled shot-gun. - -“What is the matter?” asked the host, gulping down a half cup of -coffee and leaving the table to greet his guests. “I couldn’t hear half -you said.” - -“Ugh! Matter enough!” replied Den. “Tell him, Sterns.” - -“Why, the town of Baconsville is just running over of armed white -men—rifle-clubs, regular cavalry companies, and they’re going to kill -all the niggers, ravish the women, and burn the houses, and put all the -children to death!” - -“No! no! no!” cried Uncle Jesse. “Tell a man something he can believe -now! They won’t do no such thing as that. The white folks has got more -sense ’n that. They won’t do no such things, and I don’t believe it! -You are scart and excited.” - -“Just go and see then, Mr. Roome. If you don’t believe me, may be you -won’t believe your own eyes,” replied the man. - -“Well, Roome, come on! Let’s go and see for ourselves; for if it is -true, we ought to help,” said Brother Gibson. - -“No sir! You just wait, and keep inside the law!” said Jesse Roome, -after scratching his head thoughtfully a moment. “I believe in _law_, -and them that has kept inside the law is the ones that is coming out -ahead.” - -Sterns then gave a graphic description of the incidents, threats, and -indications in Baconsville, up to the close of the court-scene at about -half past four o’clock. - -Of course the whole group were intensely excited, and Aunt Phebe -listened, shrieked, and prayed by turns; but Uncle Jesse was still -firm in his first decision to keep inside the law.” - -“There’s been heaps of threats, I know, enough to make a man intimidate -of his shadow; but there’s a pile o’ bluster and brag in these old -aristocrats; just like a barking dog though, he’ll never bite.” - -“Heigh! but they be a biting _now_, sho,” said Sterns with a shrug. - -“And then our folks ha’n’t always done right,” Mr. Roome continued. -“It’s a new thing for us to make laws and be officers, and all that; -and some thinks ’cause they make the laws, that they needn’t keep ’em; -and some is mighty ambitious, and likes to pay off old scores through -the laws. Now that a’n’t right, and it can’t do no good, nohow. Some -laws has been made wrong, and some has been executed wrong, and it -a’n’t reasonable to suppose that a man that has been a slave all his -life, and ha’n’t had nothing to do ’bout no laws only to be lashed when -his master has a mind to, is going to rise right up and know everything -at once. And the masters that has been masters over us so long, I -suppose it’s mighty hard for them to stand the nigger majorities in -this State, and have the niggers that they used to have under them, -just like that dog now, making laws for them, and in the offices. -Well, now, we ought to think o’ these things, on both sides, and have -patience and do the best we can, and _keep inside the law_. If the -militia company and the white folks has got up a quarrel over there in -Baconsville, and either of them is going to breaking the laws—well, I -a’n’t going over there to join ’em in doing it! That is all.” - -“But it’s the white folks that is breaking the laws; and I’m surprised -that yo,’ Mr. Roome, a’n’t ready to help us against ’em. They’re all -there, mounted and armed, and officered; and they says they shall have -these men and their guns. The militia ha’n’t got guns enough there, and -not scarcely no ammunition; and they’re just going to be massacred!” - -“No! no!” replied Uncle Jesse, “that won’t be done. Them white folks -know we’ve got a Governor and courts.” - -“But there’s too many of ’em for the courts to stop ’em. There’s two or -three thousand, all armed, and some of ’em is the biggest men in the -State, the old aristocrats; and the Governor’s militia can’t do nothing -against these Rifle Clubs yo’ know, these old confederate soldiers that -served in the war. They’re all _them_, or the one’s they’ve trained up, -are officering now.” - -“I know, I know,” said Jesse, “but you know there’s the United States. -The United States won’t see us killed off that way.” - -“‘Cause the United States is _too fur off_ to see it; and when we’re -all killed, the United States can’t bring us alive again.” - -“Why didn’t they just let them two young fellows go through that -company in the first place on the 4th of July? It’s mighty provoking -to see the niggers celebrating the 4th with the same flag _they_ used -to brag so much about ’fore the wa’, (though they have hated it ever -since), and the State guns, and all! We’ve growed so big now, we can -afford to stoop down to such little fellows as they’ve got to being. -What’s the use o’ keeping up a quarrel when we’ve got to live together?” - -“Now, Jesse,” said Den Bardun, “we’ve been stooped mighty nigh double -all our lives, and our fathers and grandfathers before us, and some of -their backs is getting stiff. It’s well enough to make a bow, but some -folks don’t enjoy being rid over, and I reckon _yo’r one_.” - -“I can’t stay to hear yo’ talk, and if yo’ a’n’t men enough to go and -help yo’ neighbors when they is getting jist _slayed_, I’m gwine to -find some _men_ somewhar; and if ever yo’ wants help like us, to save -yo’ life and property, maybe yo’ll get it. I hope so,” and Sterns -hastened away. - -Uncle Jesse paced up and down the room for some moments, with his arms -folded and his chin upon his breast; while Den Bardun leaned against -the door-post, and watched alternately this neighbor and the chickens a -hen was endeavoring to call into a coop in which she was confined near -the door. - -“It _seems_ hard! It does seem hard!” said Roome, without raising his -eyes from the floor, “and it seems cruel like, I know it does. But it -is _right_! _I know it is right!_ and I feel it right in my breast,” -looking up with an assured manner, and striking his broad chest with -his palms. “Sit down, Den, sit down. What do you think about this -doings?” - -“I believe it’s a mighty hard affair, and I’m afraid it’s a big one; -and I don’t believe it’s all about the 4th of July scrape, either. It’s -more like the democratic party, and they’re playing off that it’s the -militia.” - -“What makes you think so, Dan?” - -“Well, Deacon Atwood, he says to me the other day, says he, “All the -officers of the Republican party has got to be killed out, shor;” and I -asked him what for?” - -“Was he talking of the colored officers or of all of ’em?” - -_White_ and _black_, making no exceptions. He says, “we’re going to -have this election, and the only way we can get it, will be to kill out -the leading men, and then the ignorant men will do right.” - -“Mr. Atwood came here the other day,” said Jesse, “I’d hired Mott -Erkrap, you know, to work for me, and he left me because I wouldn’t -give him 4th of July; and he wanted to come back, and I wouldn’t take -him back. The Deacon came concerning him, and he said then that the -Republican party, before long, was going to ketch the Devil, (Uncle -Jesse lowered his voice as if in awe of his Satanic Majesty.) Says he -“There’ll be worse than seventy-seven claps of thunder striking right -against them. Of course we was astonished at his speaking so rash and -’reverent right here in the yard. We was all very much astonished, me -and my wife, and Mott Erkrap, and a stranger from the city that came -with Mott, at his speaking so rash and ’revrent at what would happen to -the Republican party in short time.” - -“Hark!” exclaimed Aunt Phebe, raising her hands. “Oh, Lord! they be a -killing ’em!” - -The sound of small arms came unmistakably upon the evening air. - -“Oh, no! It takes more’n one bird to make a spring. It a’nt so strange -to hear a gun fire!” said Uncle Jesse; at the same time approaching the -door to listen. - -“But there’s another! and another! and heaps of ’em!” said she, -becoming almost frantic with excitement. - -“Good Lord! they be a fighting!” exclaimed both Dan and Jesse. - -Several of the nearer neighbors soon came running up, breathless and -alarmed, to ask what should be done. - -“What _is_ all we gwoine to do, Uncle Jesse?” asked a small coal-black -man, rushing up to the yard, gun in hand. “Don’t ye think we ought to -go down and help ’em!—!—! but it’s awful to hear them guns and stand -here with my good rifle in my hands doing nothin’;” and he strode back -and forth in front of the door where the group was standing, clasping -his trusty weapon to his breast. - -“You’d best remember the Lord in such a time as this, anyhow, and not -be swearing,” replied Roome. “The more goes there, the worse and the -bigger that fuss has got to be, and the more colored people will get -killed any how for the whites has got to beat. No, no, Penny you’d best -keep away if you don’t want to be killed.” - -“I wonder where Deacon Atwood is?” asked Den Bardum. - -“He a’n’t there, you may be shor. He’ll talk big, and put the rest up, -but keep safe hisself,” said Jesse. - -“How about that Sheriff’s office?” and Penny looked significantly at -both Jesse and Den. - -“That’s so,” said Den, “we three did promise to get him nominated -on the Republican ticket, didn’t we? He was mighty in love with our -Governor then.” - -“But the Governor won’t support this kind of doings,” said Roome. - -“Goodness gracious! Just hear the guns!” said Penny, “We’ll see fire -pretty soon. They’ll be burning houses, certain.” - -“I do hope this isn’t our folks begun this,” said Jesse. “I hope -they’ll keep inside the law, and then the United States can protect -us, and not let the white folks here kill us all off. But if our folks -begun this, the good Laud knows what will become of us all. If Deacon -Atwood goes in for this kind of thing, I’ll go back on _him_; for I -won’t stick to any body that violates the law. My motto is to punish -every man, white and black, that violates the law. It does seem mighty -hard to stand here, and hear them guns, and believe that somebody’s -getting killed; but I feel in my breast that it is the right thing to -do. Does any of you know who’s gone over from Bean Island?—any of the -neighbors?” - -“Of the white folks? or the colored?” - -“Either one.” - -“Dr. Ave, Joe Ennery, Coot Hogg, and Ramal Bardun, John Rammel, and -Robert Blending has gone; and Captain Black, and Williams, and I expect -the Payne boys.” - -“Do you _know_ that, Penny?” and Uncle Jesse bit his lips. - -“Yes, I met them near sundown, gallopping hard that way; or rather, I -didn’t meet the Payne boys.” - -“Hist! There comes the old man.” - -“Good evening Mr. Payne,” said the host, extending his right hand in a -cordial welcome, while with his left he made a sign behind his back, -commanding caution. - -This was clearly visible, though the sun’s light had entirely faded; -for the cabin door, near the outside of which they stood, was wide -open, and a fire of fat pine was filling the broad chimney’s throat -with a sheet of flame. - -“Old man Payne” was a small man, with a large head, quick, deep-set -gray eyes, under a broad brow which was crowned with snowy hair. - -He it was who had counselled discretion, moderation and honorable -dealing at the Club meeting at which Watson Atwood was initiated into -the mysteries of modern southern politics. - -A descendant of an honored southern family, he yet seemed from -infancy to have inherited many notions which were antagonistic to the -environments of his childhood, and which several seasons spent in New -England, in the early home of his mother, served to strengthen and -intensify. - -His wife, always fully Southern in ideas and sympathies, had reared -their children so, aided by their surroundings, while he had very -quietly cherished his own sentiments. - -A chair was brought, and he seated himself without speaking, sighed -heavily, folded his small nervous hands, and gazed away into the -darkness; and as volley followed volley, he shuddered, and wept. - -“Good God,” said he at length, “I had hoped this kind of thing was -over! Jesse, what do you know about this?” - -“Nothing,” was the prompt reply. “I know nothing; at least, I’ve just -_heard_ that there’s a fuss between the Militia company and the white -folks. Do you know who’s in it, Mr. Payne. Who begun it, I mean?” - -“I only know they say the officers would not go to court, but just -fortified themselves in the armory, and defied the law, and said they -were going to fight. Joe Morey says they’ve been making awful threats -lately, and so the Rifle clubs were called out to sustain General -Baker, who undertook to conduct the suit for Robert Baker and Gaston.” - -“Defied the law? How’s that, Mr. Payne?” - -“I don’t know Jesse, but that is what Joe Morey said.” - -“Is that all you know about it?” - -“Yes.” - -“Has any body gone over from here, from the Island, I mean?” - -“Yes, some on both sides, I guess.” - -“And what is the intentions of the white folks?” - -“I do not know, except that they intend to get some security that the -negroes shall give up their guns, and stop drilling. They say they -do not feel secure in their lives and property while the Militia is -drilling with arms in their hands.” - -“What has the colored people ever done? And why don’t they treat them -so well that they won’t be afraid of them? They’re State Militia.” - -“I know, I know that Jesse; but our boys will listen to nothing. I’m -afraid of the consequences, and do not want another war.” - -“A good many of ’em is pretty old “boys,”—old Confederate soldiers,” -said Roome, “and there can’t be much that is worse than this, judging -by the guns we hear. How do you know there’s any gone?” - -“They went by my store, and I tried to persuade them not to go.” - -“Who was they?” - -“I can not give names, Jesse.” - -“Did Hankins go, Mr. Payne?” - -“I cannot tell, Jesse; but I’m glad you are all here. If you stay here, -you will not be hurt. But I didn’t think till now,——some of them may -be straggling off here, and I had better go back to my store,” and the -old man walked sadly away. - -The night had set in, dark and moonless; and an hour’s brisk discharge -of small arms was followed, (after an interval of respite), by the -booming of cannon, which heightened the terror and direful forebodings -of the listeners. - -Uncle Jesse’s dwelling became a tabernacle to the Lord that night; for -from it arose the ceaseless voice of true prayer—“the soul’s sincere -desire,” through all those hours of darkness and terror, till just -ere the dawn of the Sabbath morning, his neighbors departed to their -several places of abode. - - - - -CHAPTER IX. - -THE SITUATION. - - “Peace fool! - I would have peace and quietness, but the fool will not.” - - SHAKESPERE. - - -UNCLE JESSE, as the reader is by this time aware, was a man of -influence among his neighbors, few of whom, of either race, were -capable of such just and comprehensive views of their political and -social relations. - -Little influenced by color prejudice (which is common to both races, -though from widely different causes and in various degrees, throughout -the United States), he possessed great reverence for law, as such; a -fact mainly due to a residence of several years among the law-abiding -people of that portion of the State of Ohio known as The Western -Reserve, at a period when his mind was peculiarity receptive. - -Born a slave in 1834, he seized the first opportunity offered by the -late war, to flee from bondage and learn to live like a man. - -Aunt Phebe preferred to wait with their two little children, her -invalid mother, and aged grandfather, for the coming of the “Yankees,” -which was confidently and hopefully expected. - -And so in 1867 Uncle Jesse returned and found her and their children -free, and thriving, in the same cabin in which he left them, though -the “big house” was vacant, and the plantation in new hands. - -At that time the Southern States were rife with utter lawlessness -and bitter animosities; and acts of malicious and cruel outrage were -frequent occurrences. - -From the first settlement of the State, society had been divided into -many and antagonistic classes, throughout which, however, prevailed an -universal and sycophantic _aping_, each class of that above it; while -the upper stratum sat in serene security of social distinction—fortune -or misfortune, personal respectability or degradation, culture or -ignorance, plethora or poverty, _all_ were forgotten or obscured in -the penumbra of that formidable and enigmatical word _birth_, untitled -though it must be. - -Now that the old landmarks had to some extent been swept away, there -followed a general and tumultuous scramble in the debris, each being -anxious to secure all that was possible, or failing, to resent the -affront of another’s success. - -Thus the worst elements and characteristics of every class were made -prominent. - -Families bred in opulence, and accustomed to claim the unpaid toil of -others as their rightful due, and to believe political leadership and -oligarchal control their birth-right, and who, like their ancestors -for generations, cherished contempt for all who worked for their -own subsistence, found extreme humiliation in laboring for their -own bread, and submitting to the legal restrictions imposed by the -general government, controlled as it was by those they had formerly -derided as the “mud-sills” of the North, even though those restrictions -were equitable and generous. In resentment of the equal citizenship -conferred upon their former chattled slaves, they committed, and -defended in each other, such outrages upon the persons and property of -the negroes and resident northern whites, as are not even admissable -between civilized enemies at open war. - -Not a few planters who formerly owned thousands of acres of land, -and from three to five thousand slaves, were, by the failure of -the Rebellion, for the success of which they had staked all their -possessions, as poor as the “cracker” families, which had formerly -“squatted” like caterpillars and locusts upon the skirts of their -plantations. They were even sometimes subjected to these as magistrates -and officials, as they often were to their former slaves. - -This haughty planter-race, having utterly failed in its last great -pretension in bitterness of spirit still cherished its disdain for -those it could not conquer, into which disdain the education of two -hundred and fifty years of _irresponsible ownership of laborers_ -has concentrated the egotism, the selfishness and the cruelty thus -engendered. - -The intelligence of this class was never commensurate with its wealth. -Schools were necessarily few in the South during the existence of -slavery, and family feuds and favoritisms notoriously controlled the -distribution of the honors of those that did exist, and social and -political distinction depended upon culture in no degree. Hence there -was little to spur the laggard, or to encourage and inspire genius, and -the actual ignorance, or at best, the superficial scholarship of “the -first families” was astounding. Since the war, poverty and aversion -to the North have materially lessened southern patronage of northern -schools, and under the “carpet-bag” administration the higher schools -of the State, and the common schools in country districts in which the -aggregate number of pupils did not warrant the opening of more than one -school, were accessible to colored students; a recognition of equality -which the whites would not tolerate; and so they consigned themselves -to ignorance. - -The class formerly known as “sand-hillers,” “crackers,” or “poor white -trash,” were lazy, filthy and ignorant, and frequently degraded below -the level of the slaves. These, with the class next above them in -the social scale—the “working people,” who owned few or no slaves, -and labored with their own hands on small farms, or as mechanics, -experienced a social promotion nearly equal to that of the slaves; as -emancipation, the ravages of war, and a more general distribution of -land, through confiscation and sales for delinquent taxes, broke up -the land monopoly and political retainership which had so long existed -to the opulence of the planters, and the semi-mendicity of the lower -classes. - -The confederate service had also given acceptable occupation and wages, -and even some inferior military titles to men who had formerly begged, -or stolen, or starved, rather than earn their bread by honest labor; -and such military glory, won in defence of “The Lost Cause,” could not -be utterly ignored in the contest for recognition of some sort. - -The class called “respectable people,” consisting of artists, merchants -and professional men, teachers, &c., whose title to recognition rested -upon wealth and culture, probably received the change with the most -equilibrity, while the freedmen had everything to gain, and nothing to -lose. - -The most ignorant of them well knew that it was to “de Yankees,” “de -Lincum sogers, de United States,” or “Mar’s Lincom,” that they were -indebted for emancipation. The raving of their masters against northern -abolitionists was, to them, quite sufficient evidence that somehow the -war had its origin, near or remote, in northern antagonism to slavery. - -History will never fail to record the good behavior of the freedmen of -the southern states of America, the causes of which were manifold. - -The experiences and legends of the slaveship, and centuries of -repetition of similar evidence, had taught the African that there were -other powers, stronger than brute force, which he could not command. - -Again, he was not self-liberated. The brother of his master had been -his deliverer (whatever may have been his motive), and gratitude, -the moral attraction of gravitation, is the strongest moral power in -the universe; which the All-Father well knew when He sent His Son to -suffer. - -This deliverer, this brother, believed in _law_, the invisibility -and incomprehensibility of which appealed to the superstition of the -emancipated slaves. This northern brother had struggled desperately -with the tyrant, poured out his treasure and shed his blood without -stint in the conflict; and having conquered, stood with weapons in -either hand, to command the peace in the name of this invisible -and incomprehensible _law_; while the religious, industrial, and -educational influences which he summoned from his northern home, coming -up while yet the atmosphere was tremulous with the sounds of expiring -conflict, brought food for hungry bodies, intellects and souls; healing -for lacerated spirits; and the vesture of a better civilization for the -nakedness of the black, and the mail-chafed form of the white. - -Women who pressed to the battle-front with a cup of water for the lips -of the dying, and a pillow for the wounded head that lay upon the -bloody sward, from hearts baptized to self-sacrifice, and pens lit with -the zeal of the Nazarene, sent white-winged, burning messages all over -the news-reading North; and while from thousands of homes there, brave -men came with flaunting flags, and beating drums, and booming cannons, -singing as they marched: - - “We are coming, Father Abr’am, - Three hundred thousand more,” - -and - - “We’ll hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree.” - -(and voluntarily broke that pledge,) from out those same homes stole -a procession of women, not clandestinely, not timidly, but brave of -soul and strong of heart and inflexible of purpose, though without -ostentation. The bible and spelling-book were their only weapons, and -their song was of “the mercies of the Lord forever,” and their “trust -under the feathers of His wings!” “Neither the terror by night,” “the -arrow by day,” “the pestilence in darkness,” nor “destruction at noon,” -nor the “thousand falling on their right hand,” and on their left, -could make them afraid; “because they had made the Lord their strength, -even the Most High their refuge.” They went forth to “tread upon the -lion and the adder, the young lion and the dragon.” Scorn, insult, -slander, poverty, loneliness, sickness and death, they trampled under -their feet; for “through the work of the Lord were they made glad,” and -they “triumphed in the work of His hands.” - -Away on in the Elysian fields of heaven, when the cycles of eternity -shall have encircled the universe, and rolled back upon their track in -such repeated and intricate mazes as only the Infinite mind can trace, -they shall receive from the lips of the ransomed of all nations, “the -blessing of those once ready to perish”; and the blessed assurance that -the torch they lit in the freedman’s hut, lit a beacon that illumined -the world. - -If the South is saved to civilization, its chief human savior was “the -nigger school-teacher.” - -To these evidences of kindly interest on the part of the Northern -people, and the influence of, and confidence implied in the immediate -presence of feminine representatives of the best and most peaceable -element of the North, certainly not less is due than to the natural -timidity of the race, or their great faith in ultimate Divine -deliverance, which needed intelligent direction. - -Evidently the most difficult lesson, and yet that most needed by all -the former inhabitants of the southern states is _reverence for, trust -in, and submission to law_. The old habit of irresponsible authority, -of domination instead of true democracy—the idea that the sovereign -citizen may be superior to the law enacted by the popular will, is hard -to eradicate. - -Like the writhing beheaded serpent, which responds with slow-dying -malice to the glow of the sun that does not make night because its -green eyes are sightless, beheaded slaveocratic feudalism blindly -ejects its spite at inevitable oncoming civilization. - -Through the philanthropic movements which have been indicated, an -entirely new ingredient was injected among the heterogeneous elements -of southern society which were seeking a new basis, and a few -northern soldiers, enamored of the delicious climate and naturally -productive soil to which war and conquest had introduced them, and -from which slavery had formerly excluded them, brought their families -from Northern homes, or married daughters of this sunny land, and -became permanent residents. Then followed capitalists, allured by the -numerous apparently good investments the almost universal bankruptcy -afforded. - -With these came money, and such industry, enterprise, skill and public -spirit as was before unknown in that slavery-cursed land; and the -pecuniary results of which the Southerner can only account for by -supposed political corruption or downright stealing from the public -funds—the most familiar means. - -Still the formerly favored class, true to its arrogance, and not -ignored by those accustomed to worship at its shrine, ranks the -possessor of one of its patronymics, especially if garnished by -military title won or sustained in confederate service, among the most -enviable of men; for “The Lost Cause” is as dear to South Carolinians -as ever—an ideal worshiped all the more devoutly because of its -unreality, and with demonstration necessarily somewhat restrained. - - - - -CHAPTER X. - -THE ATTACK. - - - “Shepherd—Name of mercy, when was this, boy? - - Clo.—Now, now; I have not winked since I saw these sights; the - men are not yet cold under water, nor the bear half dined on the - gentleman; he’s at it now. - - Shep.—I Would I had been by to have helped the old man! - - Clo.—I would you had been by the ship’s side, to have helped her; - there your charity would have lacked footing. - - * * * * * - - Shep.—This is fairy gold, boy, and ’twill prove so; up with it, keep - it close; home, home, the next way. * * * * - - Clo.—Go you the next way with your findings; I’ll go see if the bear - be gone from the gentleman, and how much he hath eaten; they are never - curst, but when they are hungry; if there be any of him left, I’ll - bury it.”—Winter’s Tale—Shakespeare. - -IMMEDIATELY after the interview of the four colored men with General -Baker, Rives hastened to the drill-room, where he soon found the -Captain of the militia company. - -“Doc,” said he, “Gen. Baker says if you do not give up the guns, he -will melt the ball down before ten o’clock to-night.” - -“Judge, just step this way,” and the Captain took him through a -communicating door into his own bedroom adjoining. - -“General,” said he, in a confidential tone, “yo’ are the Major General -of the militia of this Division, isn’t yo’?” - -“Yes.” - -“Now, here. I am willing to do this. I’ve sent for the Colonel, over -and over, three times, but he don’t come. Now, while I believe that, -under the law, I have no right to give up the guns to yo’ but yo’ being -the General of Militia, I will give yo’ these guns to keep, if yo’ will -take ’em and take my chances.” - -“I have no right to take those guns out of your hands,” replied Rives, -(too glad that it was so.) “The law does not give me any such right, -and I’m not going to demand them. You can do just as you please. I want -the thing to be settled, if possible, but I don’t demand the guns.” - -“Well,” said Captain Doc, “if yo’ don’t take ’em, I don’t intend to -give ’em up to General Baker.” - -“You do not say that you intend to fight?” - -“No, sir, I don’t say anything of the kind; but I don’t intend to give -up the guns to General Baker; but if yo’ will take ’em to relieve the -responsibility of blood being shed in town from me, I will give ’em to -yo’.” - -“No. I have no right to demand them. Yo’ must use your own discretion -about it,” replied Rives. - -“Well, if that is the way yo’ are going to leave me, I’m not going to -give ’em to General Baker.” - -Doc then hastily penned the following note and dispatched it: - -“Gen. Baker:—These guns are placed in my hands, and I am responsible -for them, and have no right to give them up to a private citizen; I -cannot surrender them to you.” - -Signed. - -A reply came. - -“I must have the guns in fifteen minutes.” - -“Well,” Doc coolly remarked, “then he’ll have to take ’em by force, and -I shall not be responsible.” - -He was in the armory with less than forty men, only twenty-five of -whom were members of the militia company; the others having fled there -unarmed, for protection. - -“Now boys,” said he, “we may as well settle down to work, for we are in -for it, shor. Yo’ keep away from them windows, for any of ’em will be -firing in here. I’ll go on top of the roof, and see what they’re doing.” - -So saying he ascended through a scuttle, and took observations - -General Baker was riding hither and thither, assisted by his aid, the -Colonel of the same name. As he waved his gloved hand, and indicated -their positions, the men immediately assumed them. - -First, twenty-five or thirty men were stationed in front of the armory. -The building, as has already been stated, stood facing the river, and -the broad street before it was not less than one hundred and fifty feet -in width. - -Next, behind an abutment of one of the railroad bridges fifteen or -twenty more were placed, and still further down the stream thirty or -forty more. A continuous double line of cavalry encircled the entire -square, while up the river’s bank, near and above the scene of the -encounter of the young men and the militia company on the 4th, stood -some hundreds more in reserve. - -With all the consequential airs of an officer who knows himself for a -great General about to win for his already honor-burdened brow fresh -wreaths that shall be amaranthine General Baker proceeded to place -squads of men here and there, on the corners of the streets and in -other commanding positions, clear across the sub-level half-mile from -the river to the hills, and even upon its slope, till all the streets -were thoroughly picketed and guarded, and escape made presumably -impossible. Seeing all this Captain Doc descended to his men, and -distributed them between the windows, and in the front corners of the -room, under protection of the walls. - -“Jes, see ’dem five men’s settin’ on deir hosses, ovah ’dar on de -rivah-bank!” said corporal Free, rising upon his knees from his -crouching position below one of the high windows, and peeping out. -“Cap’n, I don’t like de looks of tings out dar!” - -“Well, then, don’t look out, but make yor’self easy, and stay right -where I put yo’.” - -“That’s jest what we’re bound to do, Cap’n; we’ll make ourselves easy -and peaceable.” - -“Dare comes Gen’l Baker from down street, on hossback, an’ he an’t -more’n fifteen yards from ’dis building! Now he’s motioned his hand to -dem five mens, an’ dey done rode right off down towards de road bridge! -Oh, laws! I seed a mighty big crowd o’ Georgia white men coming up de -street, wid guns in deir hands;” and he hurriedly crouched down to his -former position, little knowing that the city police, stationed at the -bridge in extra numbers, allowed no colored people to pass. - -“Harry Gaston and a posse is running all the women and children out of -the streets, that was looking over this way!” said another militia man, -who stood peeping out at the side of another window. “Boys, it do look -like thar’ was gwoine to be a fight here, shor!” - -“The Intendant asked for time to get the women and children out o’ -town, an’ General Baker said he’d give ‘half an hour,’” said another. - -“_Onus fifteen minutes_, it was,” roared Mansan Handle, “Onus fifteen -minutes to get ’em all out, an’ he swore about _that_. I’m glad _my_ -woman’s gone.” - -The sound of rapping at the door below was heard, and a voice called: - -“Doc, Captain Doc!” - -“Don’t none o’ yo’ go near the windows, but just yo’ keep still where -yo’ be,” said the Captain, who then threw up a sash, and looking down, -asked what was wanted. - -“You see, Captain, that General Baker has all his men ready to attack -you, but he gives you one more chance. The fifteen minutes are up, and -he sent me to ask if you are going to surrender, and give the guns up?” - -“I can’t give them up to him. I don’t desire no fuss, and we’ve got -out of the street into our hall for the safety of our lives, and there -we’re going to remain; but we are not going to give up the guns to -anybody without authority to take ’em.” - -The messenger galloped back to his chief. - -It was a time of too intense feeling for speech, in that hall. A brief -moment of suspense, and the sound of hoofs was heard, and the horsemen -who had been stationed in front of the building removed to a street in -the rear. - -Then down by the river-bank came a flash, a quick, sharp report, and a -small column of smoke rose straight up into the air. It was a signal -gun, and quickly followed by a volley from the men stationed behind the -abutment of the railroad bridge. - -“Crash! crash! crash!” came the bullets like hail through the glass -windows, for the strong shutters had not been closed; the little band -preferring exposure to suffocation and ignorance of the enemies’ -maneuvers. - -As the colored men had less than five rounds of cartridges, they -reserved their fire twenty or thirty minutes. Then Captain Doc gave the -order. The discipline of the men was excellent, and their small supply -was eked out by irregular and infrequent discharges. - -“Good Laud!” exclaimed several at once, after firing a light volley. - -A young man down by the abutment was seen to throw up his arms and fall. - -“That was Merry Walter,” said one of the men. - -“Was it?” asked Doc. “He’s gone at his work hind side before. Not -more’n two hours or so ago, he said, “We’re gwoine to kill all the -colored men in Baconsville to-day, and then we’ll take the women and -children, and then I’m going to kill all that are against me.” That’s -just the words he said.” - -“Oh!” was the general exclamation. - -“_That’s just awful!_” said Friend Robins. “But he’s gone to meet it. -I a’n’t prepared to die myself, but I shouldn’t like to meet the Laud -right after saying such a thing as that.” - -“We may all have to meet Him ’fo’ dis job is done,” said another. - -The attack commenced about six o’clock, and soon every pane of glass -in the numerous windows was strewed in fragments upon the floor, yet -not one of the men was injured, and Merry Walter was the only white man -harmed during the whole affray except one slightly wounded by a comrade. - -Night was coming on apace, calm, but moonless; and Captain Doc went -upon the roof again to take observations. Several of his men were -already there, though each unaware of the presence of the others, on -account of the peculiar construction of the roof. - -Doc there discovered that the attacking party was gradually closing -up towards the armory, and he immediately descended again. He found -the men still talking, and seeming to have become accustomed to the -straggling shots that occasionally visited them. - -“I think if I _is_ to go, I’d send some of ’em ahead o’ me if I had a -gun,” said Pompey Conner, “but I don’t mean to go if I can help it.” - -“Yo’re mighty quiet, Watta,” said Doc. - -“What’s the use of talking? Better be shooting. It’s a pity we cannot -clear out all that vermin.” (With a gesture of disgust.) - -Half an hour more of irregular firing against the brisk one from -outside, (where the enemy continued to approach,) and a voice was heard -there: “William McFadden, go across the river and bring two kegs of -powder, and we’ll blow this building up.” - -“Bring me some long arms, too—two cannon—I can’t drive these niggers -out with small arms.” - -Only Captain Doc caught the order fully, but he recognized the voices -respectively of Colonel Pickens (probably a descendant of a valiant -Colonel Pickens, who, in the early days of the State’s history, drove -a large party of Indians from their homes. They took refuge in a -deserted house near Little River in the present County of Abbeville, -near Aiken, Pickens _burned them there_. They died without a murmur; -the few who attempted to escape were driven back or shot by the -surrounding riflemen. The next day Captain William Black, in going from -Miller’s Block-house, on the Savannah River, heard a chain rattling -near the ruins. He paused, and found a white neighbor baiting his -wolf trap with a piece of one of the dead Indians.” _History of the -Upper Counties of South Carolina_ by J. H. LOGAN, A. M. pp 67-68), -Baker and the gallant General, and sprung upon the roof again, but -soon hastened down, and quietly slipped from the hall down the stairs -of his private apartments, and so out upon the street. Aided by the -darkness and his own dark skin, and some confusion just commencing in -the hitherto orderly ranks of the enemy, he soon found the weakest -point in the surrounding force. Re-entering the hall with hammer, -saw and nails from his own ample supply, he tore down boards from a -rough partition there, and constructed a rude ladder. This he fastened -securely to the sill of one of the rear windows of the hall. By this -time the men had become thoroughly alarmed; and, but for the strong -controlling influence of their Captain, a panic must have occurred. In -his immediate presence, however, they were yet controllable. - -“Here, Lieutenant Watta, yo’ go down first, and receive the men; and -all yo’ men follow him. Not too fast, now! Some of us will keep firing -once and awhile, and so make them think we are here yet. I’ll go last, -but yo’ receive the men, and keep them till I come. I know just where -we’ve got to make a break, and I’ll get yo’ all off if yo’ keep cool, -and not get excited; though yo’ll have to fight right smart to get out -even the best way, for we are surrounded.” - -This was attempted, but when the brave Captain left the dark, deserted -hall, and reached the ground, he found but fourteen of the men there. - -“Where is Lieutenant Watta?” he inquired. “He’s got excited and gone -off, and controlled off the best part of the Company. He wanted to take -us along too.” - -“Well, men, we are surrounded, and I think there is over three thousand -men here in Baconsville, and there is more coming over from the city -all the time. The lower part of Market street is completely blocked up -with ’em for two hundred yards; looks like as thick as they can stand; -and in Mercer street it’s the same, and in Main street the same. But -right in front of the building there isn’t so many; and if yo’re ready -to fight pretty sharp and mind orders, I’ll get yo’ out safe, maybe. - -“We’d best go up to Marmor’s office, and out that way. They won’t -expect us to go up street towards old man Baker’s; they’ll expect us to -go towards the city bridge, or to Sharp’s hill.” - -While the crowd was intent upon the arrival, placing, and firing off -the cannon, the fifteen men reached the street. - -“Here they come! Here they come!” shouted the mob, as the men sought to -cross Main street. - -The numbers against them were, of course, overwhelming; but the colored -men were fighting for life, and the darkness and their dark skins were -to their advantage. - -They dodged, or hid, or ran, or stood and fought bravely, as either -best served them; till, after two or three hours of such effort, they -were all safe together out of the town, in a strip of thick bushes -which bordered “a branch” (a small tributary of the river), in one -of Robert Baker’s fields. Only one was wounded, and be not disabled. -Here all sat down to rest and give thanks for deliverance. But the -brave Captain was troubled about the Lieutenant and the men he had -“controlled off.” He was sure they would “get squandered;” and that if -they did, they would be killed. - -So, leaving his comrades with many injunctions to remain there -quietly, where no one would expect them to take refuge, he returned, -and through numerous hair-breadth escapes, at length reached the -besieged square. - -The most of the houses there, as is quite common in the South, stood -upon wooden spiles, or short brick pillars, for coolness and less -miasma. - -Imagination is active and potent in the Southerner, and his contempt -and resentment towards a “nigger” that dares thwart the will of a -white, feed his courage best when the dark skin is visible. - -So there stood the brave Southerners encircling that devoted block, and -firing into it at random, no one having yet attempted search under the -houses where the negroes would be the most likely to secrete themselves. - -But Captain Doc, escaping the bullets, called in subdued tones under -several of the dwellings, and received two or three responses. - -“Yo’ll get ketched here, bye-and-bye,” said he, “shor as the worl. Yo’ -come along, an’ I’ll get yo’ in a better place.” - -With the end of his gun he knocked a few bricks from the walled -underpinning of a building that was nearer the ground than the others. - -“Crawl in, an’ I’ll brick yo’ up.” - -They obeyed with alacrity, and he replaced the bricks and went in -search of other parties. - -Looking out from a little cornfield, he saw one of the men whom he -sought, run across an adjacent garden, and called to him. - -The fugitive was the Town Marshal, or chief of police. Bewildered by -fight, or not recognizing the voice, the man ran on and leaped the -fence into Mercer street. The moon had now arisen, and shone very -brightly. - -“We’ve got you now!” shouted Harry Gaston, with a terrible oath; and -with several of his comrades immediately surrounded Carr. - -“We’ve got you now! You’ve been Town Marshal long enough. Going around -here and arresting white men; but you won’t arrest any more after -to-night.” - -“Mr. Gaston,” said the Marshal with the assured voice and manner of an -innocent man. “Gaston, I know yo’, and will ask yo’ to save my life. I -havn’t done anything to yo’. I have only done my duty as Town Marshal.” - -“Y-e-s,” replied Gaston with a sneer. “Your knowing me a’n’t nothing. -I don’t care nothing about your marshalship. I ha’n’t forgot that five -dollars you made me pay for dipping my head in Ben’s Spring, and I’ll -have satisfaction to-night, for we’re going to kill you;” and the six -men all fired upon the unarmed Marshal at once. - -“Oh Lord! Oh Lord!” cried the unfortunate man. - -“You call on the Lord, you —— ——?” said they. - -“Oh Lord! Oh Lord!” rang out loud and clear upon the midnight air, and -as he uttered the words a second time they fired again, and he fell. - -While his flesh still quivered, southern chivalry proceeded to draw -a pair of genteel boots from his feet, and a valuable watch from his -pocket; and then left him with the stars gazing into his dead face, -and the witnessing angels noting testimony for the inquest of a just -heaven. - -Captain Doc had climbed upon a timber of the railroad trestle, and was -looking through the tassels of corn which grew around him and made a -friendly shade. - -“By ——!” said one of the ruffians, “I reckon some of us had better go -over in that cornfield. There’s good hunting thar, I reckon.” - -Stealthily Capt. Doc now crept between the corn-stalks diagonally to -the left, till he reached and entered Marmor’s printing office, which -was, like the Justice’s office, connected with his dwelling. Here he -remained an hour or more, supposing himself to be alone, and listened -to the sounds of violence without, and of many men coming over the long -bridge from the city, whooping and yelling like demons. - -Then came blows upon the front door of the office, threatening its -destruction, and our Captain made his exit through the one at the rear. - -When Lieut. Watta had “controlled off” more than half the men who -escaped from the armory, he took them right into the teeth of the -enemy. At once the little squad was scattered in every direction, in -their own expressive dialect, “squandered;” but most of them soon -rendezvoused in Marmor’s printing office, entering at the back door, as -Doc and his men had done. - -“Boys, let’s run out. They’ll ketch us here, shor,” suggested one of -the party, and opened the front door, but quickly and noiselessly -closed it again, as the foe were numerous there. - -“If you go that way, you’ll get killed,” said the Lieutenant; and all -immediately ran out at the back door, and secreted themselves in the -yards and under the houses; all but Corporal Free, who crept under a -counter in the office. - -When the door was eventually broken in, and the mob proceeded to -demolish the machinery and whatever else they could find, a fragment -struck the wall, and, rebounding, threatened the concealed head of the -Corporal, who dodged, and thus revealed his presence. - -“Hello! There’s a great nigger poking his head out,” exclaimed the -rioters. - -“I surrender! I surrender,” cried the poor fellow, as they dragged him -out. “Where is Gen. Baker? Where is Gen. Baker?” - -“Who is this?” asked one of the white men, pausing in his work of -demolition, and approaching where the light of their lantern fell upon -the face of their captive. - -“Why it’s John Free. Don’t yo’ know me?—de man dat libed neighbor to -yo’, Tom Sutter, for a year or mo’?” replied the prisoner. “I’m John -Free, John Free. _Yo’_ know I’m a honest man as don’t do nobody no -harm. I wants to see Gen. Baker.” - -“—— —— you!” said the white man Tom Sutter, looking down into the -dark face, “you’re one of Capt. Doc’s militia-men, first corporal. -We’ll fix _you_ to-night.” - -“Oh, please send Gen. Baker to me if yo’ please. He is a high-toned -gem’man, I’ve heard ’em say, and he won’t let any of his men hurt a -prisoner dat surrenders. I tell yo’ I surrender! I surrender!” - -“You go to ——! We’re going to fix you pretty soon;” and beating him -with their guns, they dragged him out at the front door, and down Main -and Market streets, to a place where fifty or sixty ruffians (“the good -people of South Carolina”) stood shoulder to shoulder in a circle, and -backed by a crowd of hundreds, were guarding thirty or forty other -unarmed captives. - -A demoniac howl of delight arose from the drunken, blood-thirsty throng -on his approach; and as each victim arrived, the “high-toned gentleman” -and “chivalrous General and his aids applauded their subordinates -with—“Good! boys, good! (with oaths). Turn your hounds loose, and -bring the last nigger in! Can’t you find that—Capt. Doc?” - -There Corporal Free found his first and second lieutenants, and with -them and the others he was compelled to sit down in the dust of the -street. - -While Capt. Doc stood at the back of Marmor’s office, undecided which -way to flee, and hearing the work of destruction and the pleadings of -the captured man within, he looked across the gardens to his own house, -and saw it all alight, and men there breaking furniture, pictures and -mirrors dashing upon the floor, and destroying beds and clothing. They -had also commenced to scour the entire square for their prey. - -He leaped a fence which separated Marmor’s back yard from his garden, -and as he did so a gruff voice called “Halt!” - -At the same instant the old time slave-hunter Baker, rushed from Dan -Lemfield’s back door, pistol in hand, and fired. - -“—— —— him! I’ve got him!” said the gray-haired sinner, as he -stooped to examine what had a moment before been the habitation of -an immortal soul, now fled for protection to the High Court of the -Universe. - -Urged by his host, the old man re-entered the house, repeating as -a sweet morsel to his tongue, “I’ve got him! I’ve got him!” though -ignorant what “nigger” he had got. - -_But had he?_ - -“Fear not them which can kill the body, and after that have no more -that they can do.” - -Our Captain now crept softly through the little cornfield which -occupied the centre of the square, diagonally, to the extreme corner; -to the dwelling and office of the Postmaster, and made his way to a -second-story verandah which extended the entire length and breadth of -the two rear sides of the edifice. This verandah was thickly latticed, -but a few strips were broken off, high up on the end next Market street. - -There he stood, looking down upon “the dead-ring” we have already -described, till day lit the east. - -Mann Harris was a large, black man—a porter in a store in the city -opposite, and he sat among the other prisoners in the dust of the -street almost beneath Doc’s feet. - -Having conveyed his invalid wife to a place of safety, he had returned -to protect his property. He sauntered about the streets, watching the -current of events while that remained safe, and then retired to his own -dwelling, probably supposing that “every man’s house is his castle,” -and he would there be at once beyond the reach of attack, and the -temptation to resentment. Peeping down from a second-story window (for -he closed the house to give it the appearance of being deserted), he -saw ‘old man Baker’ and his son Hanson standing at the corner of his -house, pistols in hands. - -His inoffensive neighbor Pincksney approached, and was about to pass. - -“Where are you going?” demanded Baker. - -“I’m going to the drill-room.” - -“You can’t go.” - -A brief parley resulted in a repetition of the prohibition, “I tell -you, you can’t go, and you may as well go back!” emphasized with an -oath. - -“All right,” and the colored man walked back. Soon another attempted to -pass on the opposite side of the way. - -“Where are you going?” shouted Baker. - -“Going about my business!” - -(A fearful oath). “You’d better go back, or I’ll shoot you!” - -The young man retreated precipitately, and hid in a back yard. - -Soon after this the attack opened, and Mann Harris sat in a back room -of his home, listening to the terrible sounds for hours; or with unshod -feet crept across the floor lest a footfall might be heard by some -lurking foe, and watched the flashing of guns from the windows of the -armory. - -Then followed the booming of cannon. “Good God!” he exclaimed, “we is -all done killed! They will shoot down every house in the town! But I’ll -have to take it as it comes.” - -He heard the shout, “Here they come! Here they come!” and heard Baker -and his friends fire upon the negroes as they crossed the street, and -Doc’s men fire in return. - -Four times after this the cannon shook the windows, as it belched forth -its canister, and sent terror through the town and surrounding country. - -The sound of small arms continued in various parts of the village, -while the debauched desperadoes sought their victims in their -hiding-places. - -Then the familiar stentorian voice of John Carr, crying, “Oh Lord! Oh -Lord!” and the succeeding volley which silenced it, struck terror into -the poor man’s soul, and he fell upon his knees alone in the darkened -room, and with forehead upon the floor, and trembling in every limb, -he whispered, “God Almighty, I’m an awful bad man! I a’n’t prepared to -die. Oh, save me, Jesus Christ!” - -The discharge of firearms nearly ceased, at length, but was succeeded -by loud shouts and sounds of violence and cursing, the shrieks of -women, and the cries of little children, and the alarm of fire—for -the ruffians dragged the helpless innocents from their houses, some -of which they set on fire, in their zeal to arrest every ‘nigger’ and -‘radical.’ - -Harris’ house, and that of General Rives, joined and communicated by -folding doors: indeed, were only different apartments of the same -dwelling. - -The sound of numerous heavy feet was soon heard upon the porch. A blow, -and Rives’ door flew open. - -The occupants had fled, but the shouts and oaths, the heavy blows, and -cracking furniture, and crashing crockery and glass, told that “the -white-livered Judge” was no exception when Republicans must suffer. - -“Oh laws!” said Harris, mentally, “from the sound of that smashing up -of things and going on, I feel pretty bad myself! Though they has done -all the shooting niggers in the street, the next turn will be mine, -shor!” - -He stood in the hall, ready for exit through the front door, and when -he heard the butts of their guns strike upon the folding doors which he -had secured the best he could, he walked out upon the porch. - -Ten or twelve blood-thirsty men stood at the foot of the steps, and -vociferated. - -“Come down, you —— big nigger! come down!” - -“I ha’n’t done nothing,” said Harris. - -“No, none of you ha’n’t done nothing,” was the response, while as many -as could, laid hold upon him, and speedily, though not tenderly, -conducted him to the “dead-ring.” - -“Let me stand up,” said he, attempting to rise from the dust where they -had seated him. “A man can’t see outside at all,—can’t see among the -white folks at all.” - -“You sit down there, you great big nigger!” said little Gaston, -sticking him with a gun; and Mann Harris sat down. - -The next moment, with a great shout and halloa, Lieutenant Watta was -brought, and compelled to sit down close beside Harris. - -“Good! good! boys,” shouted the great General. “But can’t you get that -Captain? I want that Captain, now.” - -“What sort of a looking man is he?” - -“Oh, he’s a saucy-looking fellow, and has side whiskers and a -moustache.” - -“I’ll write it down,” said one producing a pencil. Failing to find -paper in any of his pockets, he turned towards the moonlight, and wrote -it upon his shirt cuffs. - -“Halloa Tom, let me have your pencil while I write it upon my -shirt-front,” said another. “The starch makes it as good as paper. -We’ll catch him before long now.” - -Little did they think he was just above their heads, watching their -writing. - -Watta’s white blood, which had boiled and seethed all day and in the -early evening, had spent its fury, and the gentler nature of the man -had assumed control. - -“Oh, they’ve fotched _you_, Watta,” said Harris, really more alarmed -for him than for himself. - -“Mann,” said Watta in a low tone, “what do you think of this?” - -“I don’t know what to think of it.” - -“Do you think they will kill any of us?” - -“Yes I do, just so.” - -“Do you think they will kill me?” - -“I do Watta; that I do: and all you have got to do is to pray God to -save your soul.” - -“Oh, my poor wife and children!” cried the poor man, softly, folding -bis long thin hands across his knees and dropped his head in the -anguish of despair. - -“Just give up your wife and children, and every thing else, and be -prepared to die,” said Harris, “for they are going to kill you. There’s -been so many envious niggers telling lies on you, and the white folks -is ‘allus’ ready to believe ’em; and they have been making such threats -about you, and I’m satisfied they’ll kill you.” - -Watta bent his head lower, and the tears fell fast. - -“That you?” asked Harris of another. - -“Yes, I was hid under my own house, an’ ’dey was gwo’ine to shoot me -dar, an’ I tole ’em I surrendered, ’an ’dey brung me heah.” - -“And Dan Pipsie! you here too?” exclaimed the inquisitive Harris. - -“Yes, me and Eck Morgan was on top o’ de drill-room, along wid Sam -Henry and tree or fo’ more of ’em. We went out de back way when de -cannon come, an’ we jumped Marmor’s fence, an’ went up onto his shed, -an’ got into a back window.” - -“Was Marmor there?” - -“No, nobody wasn’t ’dar; only jes de white men come ’dar an’ broke -open de house, an’ de out-houses, an’ dry goods boxes; an’ we could -see ’em looking to see if dar war any niggahs’ dar. Den’ dey come into -de house, an’ broke eb’ry ting up, an’ carried off eb’ry ting; and den -dey just broke open de do’ whar’ we war; an’ Ben Grassy, an’ George -Wellman, ’dey jumped out o’ de window we got in at, an’ I don’t know -war’ dey got to; but de men dey just kotched us, and fotched us heah.” - - - - -CHAPTER XI. - -A MASSACRE. - - “Slaying is the word, - It is a deed in fashion.” - - JULIUS CÆSAR. - - -THE “dead-ring,” as has been said, was on Market street, and quite -near the Post Master’s residence, which occupied the corner and stood -flush with both Market and Cook streets. Captain Doc stood in the upper -verandah, almost over the heads of the crowd surrounding “the ring,” -and looked down upon them. - -“It is about time we began the killing,” said one of the crowd, “We’ve -been hunting and capturing long enough. Now who shall be killed?” - -“Kill ’em all, of cose,” replied one of his fellows. - -“We’d better find out what Gen. Baker says,” said a third. “We’ll go -round to Dunn’s store, and see what he says. Whatever he says, I say -it’ll be right.” - -“If yo’ say _dat_, yo’ won’t kill any of us,” said Corporal Free; -“fo’ Gen. Baker is too high toned a gem’man to allow a man dat has -surrendered, to be killed. He’s a gem’man from one of de first families -of de State.” - -“You shut up your mouth,” said one of the chivalry, as he threw a -handful of dirt into Free’s face. - -“Now, I tell you what,” said another speaker, fingering a huge pistol; -“all get on this side of these —— niggers, and we’ll just fire into -’em.” - -At that moment a cheer arose, and hats of all descriptions were swung -wildly in the air. - -“Hurrah! Here comes our chief!” shouted the mob, and made room for -horse and rider to approach the ring, though the single solid circle of -armed men remained unbroken. The poor fellows upon the ground raised -their heads, and cried out each for his life, “Oh, Gen. Baker!” “Oh, -Gen. Baker!” “You will save me!” “You will save my life,” “Gen. Baker, -I surrendered right off, I did,” “I han’t done nothing,” “I’m just a -honest, hard-working man.” “Don’t let ’em kill me, Gen. Baker!” “Yo’ -will set _me_ free, General Bakah, I’m sho fo’ yo’s a gemman!” and -beseeching hands were uplifted, and dark faces upturned in earnest -pleading for the protection they felt sure “a high-toned gentleman,” -and “chivalrous chieftain” would give. - -“Is William Daws here in this ring?” asked the General. - -“Yes sah,” was the prompt and confident reply. - -“You’re the black rascal that burned my house down,” and with a vile -epithet this personification of southern magnanimity rode away. - -“Ah! Ah!” groaned the crowd, in derision of the misplaced confidence of -the negroes. - -“There’s Alden Watta,” said a mocking voice. “You’re a _magistrate_, I -suppose! You’re a —— nice looking magistrate!” and he scooped up a -handful of soil and threw it into the back of Watta’s neck, as his head -hung down. “There’s a baptism for you.” - -Watta did not heed it. - -“Boys, we’d better go to work, and kill what niggers we’ve got; what’s -the use o’ waiting? We shan’t be able to find Capt. Doc,” said a new -speaker. - -“We’ve had our orders from Gen. Baker, so far, and we’d better get -orders from him now,” said another, who was possibly more merciful. - -“If we don’t kill all, they’ll give testimony against us, some day to -come,” said the first speaker. - -“That’s so,” said a third. “Gen. Baker has got us here, and we ketched -the men as he told us, and I think we’ve got something to say now.” - -“No, gentlemen,” said a fourth, “just pick out the Republican leaders -and kill them, and let the rest go. They’re all Republicans, I know, -but they a’n’t all leaders; and some of these boys didn’t never hurt -nobody. Some of ’em is good fellows!” - -“A—h! that a’n’t worth a cent! We’ve come out here to have some fun, -and now let’s have it.” - -So they contended till the excitement became quite alarming, and -pistols were drawn upon each other by the mob. - -“Well now,” said a new voice, “I’ll tell you how you must do it.” - -“Listen! Listen! Hear the Judge’s son! Hear the the young Georgia -Judge!” shouted several men; and so there came a calm. - -“This has been a military affair so far,” said the young man, “and -let us carry it through so. We must just have a court-martial. These -niggers are prisoners of war. This is a conflict between the South -Carolina Rifle Clubs, the natural offspring of our honored Confederate -Cavalry, (cheers), and the National Guards, the pets of the Yankees, -(groans). The South Carolinians have been victorious, [tremendous -cheers], as they always will be, [vehement applause]. And now, as -becomes the sons of noble sires, [cheers], sons who are honored [when -in uniform], by wearing the gray of our “Lost Cause,” [cheers], and who -to-night have done honor to the gray, (cheers), let us not forget to be -generous to our prisoners; but choose from our number twenty men, who -shall retire and consider the case of each of these we have captured; -and as they decide, so the man shall fare.” - -Applause and assent followed, when another voice added, “And if any -of you have old scores you want settled, just bring them before the -court-martial.” - -The men were selected, though not without difficulty and some final -dissatisfaction and threats, but as the Captain was acceptable to the -most violent, the matter was finally adjusted upon a compromise. - -Capt. Sweargen, [the same who menaced Mr. Springer during the last -conference held with Gen. Baker previous to the commencement of active -hostilities], withdrew and organized his court, and soon returned to -the “dead ring,” and gave the following elegant military order. - -“All you black scamps, get up here; we’re going to carry you to the -county seat, and put you in jail.” - -“No; we’ll start for there, but we’ll lose them on the road,” said a -bystander. - -“That’s it,” said another, “we’ll leave them in the swamp.” - -“Come on, boys, come on this way, we’ll attend to the—s,” said Capt. -S—, and the ring and crowd moved down the street about twenty yards. - -“Halt! Now all you blasted niggers, sit down!” - -“Capt. Sweargen! Capt. Sweargen!” said Mann Harris, “As yo’ are the -Captain of this killin’, I will ask yo’ to save my life.” - -“You hush; yo’ talk too much, you great big nigger you,” said one of -the crowd. - -“I’m gwoine to talk. It’s life or death for me, an’ I’m gwoine to talk -for my life.” - -“Captain! Captain! Oh, don’t let them kill me!” said Sam Henry. “I’ve -allus been a industrious and honest fellow, and ha’n’t never hurt -nobody, nor stole, nor nothin’.” - -“Yes, but you’re a blamed Republican, and so is all the rest of yo’, -and that’s enough. We’ll carry South Carolina Democratic now, about the -time we kill four or five hundred of yo’ voting niggers. This is only -the beginning of it. We’ve got to have South Carolina, and these clubs -has got to go through the State.” - -“Yes,” added another, “the white man has got to rule here. This is a -white man’s government.” - -The excitement was again increasing, and all talked at once on this -topic, on which alone all seemed to agree. - -“Now, men, we’ve got this court-martial, and must proceed according to -military law,” shouted Captain S. - -“There a’n’t no law,” cried a voice. “The law has run out at the end of -a hundred years, and there a’n’t no constitution neither.” - -“There a’n’t no court in South Carolina that can try us anyhow,” said -another. - -“That’s so! That’s so!” resounded through the crowd. - -“Hello! Hurrah! here comes another nigger! Got Capt. Doc this time? -Capt. Doc! Capt. Doc!” (with oaths), rang through the swaying mob which -surrounded the dead ring, as a posse from the General’s headquarters -advanced with the new victim. - -Not without difficulty a way was opened for the conveyance of—not -Captain Doc (who was watching and listening attentively at the Cook -street end of the verandah, and not twenty paces from the spot), but a -good faced boy, yet in his teens. - -His eyes rolled wildly about, he trembled violently, and his breath -came quick and short, though without a sound. - -“Oh, Friend Robbins,” said Watta, “I’m sorry they have got you? Your -widowed mother and the children need your support. Where is Joey? (the -company’s drummer-boy).” - -“I don’t know,” whispered Friend. - -“Ha! This is the boy that wouldn’t sell us ammunition in Mrs. Bront’s -store,” shouted one of the assassins. “I cursed you well then, old -chap; but we’ll give _you_ all the ammunition you want, and more’n -you’ll ask for.” - -Poor Friend had passed a dreadful night, (for this was now in the -small hours of the morning), since he slipped down the ladder from the -drill-room. - -He had taken refuge in Marmor’s office, from thence fled to the street; -been driven back through the rear yard, leaped Dan Lemfield’s fence, -escaping a shot aimed at him, hid under a pile of railroad cross-ties -in Lemfield’s yard during a dreadful hour, only then to be dragged out -by three men with pistols and lanterns in their hands, searching every -hiding place. They took him out upon the street, and to their commander. - -“Who is that?” asked the lofty General. - -“It is Friend Robbins,” answered the boy, looking frankly into the -officer’s face. - -“What are you doing here?” - -“I have not been doing anything; the men came in there, and brought me -out.” - -“Do you belong to the militia company?” - -“I do, sir.” - -“Well, we killed one —— nigger down there to-night, and I want you to -go down there and see him, and see if you know him. Two of you men take -him down there.” - -This was done; and there upon the ground lay the dead man, his eyes -wide open and staring away through the clear, white moonlight, away -from the blood-stained earth towards that infinite One, before whose -face the escaped soul stood, corroborating the testimony of his blood -which “cried from the ground.” - -“Who is that?” asked one of the guards. - -“That’s John Carr,” replied the boy. - -“He’s the Town Marshal, a’n’t he?” - -“Yes sir.” - -“Well, he’ll be Town Marshal no more!” - -“I don’t know sir.” - -Friend was then conducted back to the General. - -“Are you ready, sir?” asked the men, each presenting his pistol. - -“No; don’t kill him,” said the General, “but take him yonder, and keep -him till I call for him.” - -They took him down under a rail road trestle, and kept him half an hour -surrounded by men, who amused themselves by torturing him with all -sorts of alarms, questions and indignities. - -At the expiration of that time, General Baker rode by, and directed -that he be taken to the “dead ring.” - -“Oh, here you are Tom,” said Gaston, approaching the corner of the -Post-Master’s house. “I’ve been looking for you. You know we’ve got -Watta down there.” - -“Yes, that’s a streak of good luck; but I wish we could only get hold -of their ringleader, that Doc. I’m mighty glad we’ve got Dan Pipsie, -though.” - -“Yes,” and the young men laughed. “I want Doc mighty bad too, but I’m -thinking more about what we’re going to do with what we have got. I -reckon the Court Martial is the best way. Captain Sweargon has got -great respect fo’ General Baker. They shan’t let Watta and Pipsie off -nohow.” - -“No,” said the General, who rode up at that moment and caught the last -remark. “Watta and Dan Pipsie are two dangerous men, and ought to be -taken care of.” - -“Now, General,” said a stumpy little man, strutting up to that -dignitary, “yo’ve brought us all here, all this crowd, and we’ve got -the niggers; and now if you won’t kill them, they’ll just go and give -testimony agin us, and get us into trouble.” - -The General stared at the little man with the most serene contempt, and -turning his horse’s head, rode away without speaking. - -But the little man was neither abashed nor silenced. He -continued,—“Here General Baker has brought us here, and kept us up all -night helping him to capture a lot of niggers, and he ought to kill the -last one of ’em; for if he don’t they’ll be up here to vote against us, -and they’ll be giving testimony against us.” - -“That’s true enough, Volier, true enough,” said several of his -associates. - -“I’m sleepy and tired,” continued Volier. “Here, Bub,” addressing a -small boy of twelve years, “You ought to be abed and asleep long ago.” - -“No, sir-_ee_,” said the boy, ejecting a volume of tobacco-juice from -his mouth. “_I_ a’n’t sleepy.” - -“Let’s go up into this piazza, and go to sleep,” urged the little man, -“Come, come on!” - -“No, I _sha’n’t_,” replied the boy. “I want to go and spit on them -niggers some more.” - -So the little man yielded, and accompanied the lad in quest of his rare -sport; much to the relief of Captain Doc’s mind. - -At the same time Gaston and Tom Baker approached the “dead ring” also, -and the name of Alden Watta was immediately called, as that of the -first victim to be sacrificed. - -“We’ll fix you! we’r’e going to kill you now, without a doubt,” cried -the mob. - -“Gentlemen,” said Watta, standing up in a calm manner, “I am not ready -to die, and haven’t done anything to be killed for. Will you allow me -to prepare to meet my God? Please let me pray.” - -“You ought to have been praying before now; you have talked enough -without praying, and we’re going to kill you now. I don’t care,” said -young Tom Baker, with numerous oaths. “But we’re going to kill you.” - -“Oh, gentlemen, do spare my life! I will not interfere with you. I will -only take care of my family as an honest man should. I will go clear -away out of the State, if you will only spare me to take care of my -wife and my little children!” - -“Watta, old chap, is that you?” cried Gaston, crowding nearer, (with an -oath). “We’ll fix you directly.” - -“Oh, Gaston! Gaston! What do you want with me? Please do, do all you -can for me, and I will be your friend as long as I live, and leave the -legacy of gratitude to my children!” - -“Yes, I _will_ do all I can for you; I’ll do it in a short while. He’s -had time enough, boys.” - -As many as could lay hands upon him did so, and they carried this -Second-lieutenant of the National Guards, this County Commissioner, -this graduate of a Freedman’s High School, this teacher of a colored -school, this correspondent of the —— —— _Times_, this influential -Republican, this husband and father, this young man who bore the -general reputation of being a straightforward and truthful man, a man -that could be depended on, and had a great deal of resolution; not a -violent man, not given to insolence nor trouble of any kind, a pleasant -and affable man though one of spirit, this American citizen, and they -bore him away to be sacrificed. - -By main force they took him several rods down the street and into the -edge of a field. - -Each individual of the crowd panted for a share in so great a service -to southern Democracy. - -When he was allowed to stand upon his feet again, he looked around -upon a wall of circular steel mouths, each ready to belch forth hot, -blazing, sulpherous, leaden death; for every man presented the muzzle -of his gun or pistol at the hapless victim. - -Falling upon his knees he cried out, with clasped hands and upturned -face, “Oh, God! there is neither justice nor mercy upon the earth! I -cast my naked soul and all I have upon Thy mercy!” - -He paused and pressed his hands over his face. A tremendous volley, -followed, and Alden Watta’s soul leaped into the presence of that Judge -whom no Ku Klux Klans can corrupt or intimidate; and the murderous -throng hastened back to procure another victim. - -“Oh, Free, and all of yo’, what is yo’ gwoine on so a beggin’ fo’?” -said Dan Pipsie. “If dey is gwoine to kill us all anyhow, what is de -use o’ beggin’ so? I only wish I had some o’ my wife’s ’ligion now; and -I’d like fo’ her to pray fo’ me.” - -The committee soon returned from the court, and announced the Armorer -of the militia company, Dan Pipsie, as the next condemned. - -With an air of perfect indifference he arose and accompanied the -murderers to the field of blood. - -A volley was heard, and the committee returned, but Dan did not. - -Ham Sterns was the next called. He was a large mulatto, and was sick. - -“O. Gentlemen!” he pleaded, “I haven’t done anything. What do you want -to kill me fo’? I a’n’t a member of the militia company, and I was -just peaceable at home when some of you just come and dragged me out -here; and now you’re going to kill me. I a’n’t even a ’publican leader. -Please let me go!” - -“Ham Sterns, I reckon yo’ know _me_,” hissed an evil-eyed, sallow-faced -man, stepping before him, and shaking his fist in his face. “Now I’ll -be quits with you on that sale affair; you and Alf Minton. I’ll learn -yo’ to outbid me!” - -“Come out here! come out here?” shouted the mob, and Ham Sterns was led -away. The guns fired, and the committee returned, but Ham Sterns never -did. - -“Oh them tremendously firings!” said Sam Henry, with a shudder of -horror, as he buried his face in his palms and began earnestly to pray -for divine deliverance. - -“Is this you, Sam,” asked a kindly voice at his ear. “Get up, Sam,” -and a white man who stood behind him took hold of his arm and said, -“Gentlemen, this is a boy that I know, (they were all “boys,” even if -grey-headed) and he is a harmless boy. He don’t belong to the militia -nohow. I’ll be responsible for him,” and he led him away. - -Alfred Minton was now called for, but no response came. - -“Alf Minton! Alf Minton!” was repeated with oaths and imprecations, and -still no response. - -The committee entered the ring, and touched each man upon his head, -asking, “Who’s this?” - -At last a small, sick, weakly-looking young man acknowledged the name. - -For the credit of human nature be it recorded that one of the mob -begged that the poor, sick boy be let alone; and others were evidently -tiring of bloodshed. - -But the majority were not yet satiated, and with profanity, they -shouted, “O, we’ll fix him! We’ll _cure him_!” and they led him also -away. The guns fired; the crowd returned; but Alfred did not. - -During this execution another white man conveyed Friend Robbins -away; learning which, when too late to interfere, some of the more -sanguinolent ran up to headquarters with complaints; but the moving -spirits there having had their own desires for revenge measurably -satisfied, and despairing of the arrest of Captain Doc; and perhaps, -the inflaming effects of their potations beginning to wane, they began -to think of possible court scenes in the future. So they were but -indifferent listeners, and even suggested the possibility of some other -method of disposing of the remaining captives. - -Pompey Conner, a noted thief and gambler, whose skill at cards had -often taxed the purses of some of this fastidious throng of captors was -the next called at the “dead ring.” - -“Pompey you _run_,” whispered Mann Harris, who sat beside him. - -Pompey was a powerful man, when he chose to exert his strength, and he -darted through the crowd like an arrow; stooping a little, and with his -brawny shoulder cleaving his way. - -When he reached a clear track, numerous shots followed, and the mob -thinking him severely wounded jeered and shouted triumphantly; while he -crouched behind a tree, rolled his great eyes, nodded his woolly head, -and muttered audibly as he turned up the leg of his trousers, “It only -just scalped my leg, af’er all.” - -“What better fun do you want than that, boys? This _is_ fun! ha! ha! -ha! Let’s let ’em all go, and shoot after ’em like rabbits,” cried a -mere boy. - -“Oh, no! you’ve done enough for to-night. Now let these prisoners go.” - -“Yes, let these prisoners go,” chimed in another. - -“Let’s pile ’em up like frogs and shoot into ’em,” said another, with -an oath that should make the blood curdle; while still another said, -“No don’t do that, but let ’em go and don’t shoot after ’em.” - -“Oh, no, we ought not to leave none to tell the tale. Let’s kill ’em -all!” - -“We came out for _fun_; now let’s have it, and not give up so,” said a -very young man, a minor. - -“If we kill them all, there’ll be nobody left to tell the tale; and if -we leave anybody, they’ll go and testify against us; and I tell you we -might as well make a sure thing of this,” was repeatedly reiterated. - -“Oh, let them go,” said a new speaker. “Let us swear them before they -go, not to tell anybody, nor anything about it.” - -After much discussion, this counsel prevailed. - -“Now all you —— black rascals you, get up here,” said Captain -Sweargen. - -The prisoners quickly obeyed. - -“Now, you all get down again, on your knees, and hold up your right -hands.” - -All obeyed. “I solemnly swear,” said the Captain, “I solemnly swear,” -repeated the prisoners, “that I will never go into any court to -testify, [repeated] nor to know anything about this affair, nor what -has been done in Baconsville this evening, nor to-night, nor that I -know any of the men who was in the party.” - -The prisoners all took the oath. - -“Now, you —— rascals, get away from here!” - -Each sprung to his feet, and all but two ran for life. Corporal Free -dodged behind a tree, and Mann Harris, who was on the edge of the dusky -group, stood still. - -Fifteen or twenty of the irrepressible “chivalry” leveled their guns -upon the liberated prisoners whom the South Carolina rifle clubs had -captured from the National Guards, and fired; “just like they was -shooting at birds.” - -As evidence of the skill of these riflemen it may be mentioned that but -one of those colored men was wounded, and he but slightly, though the -firing was at fifteen paces. - -“Mann Harris, where do you live?” asked a maimed relic of the -confederate service. - -“I live right on the corner opposite Dan Lemfield’s.” - -“Well, you go on home.” - -“I can’t do it.” - -“Why can’t you?” - -“I’m afeard to go through them men by myself.” - -“Come on, I’ll go with you.” So that one-armed white man sat upon his -horse, and the great muscular negro walked beside it, holding upon the -saddle for protection. They passed from Market into Cook street, and -wended their way among the slowly dissolving crowd. - -Nearing Mercer street, the escort began to converse. “Well, Mann, now -you see what the result is when niggers vote against the white people.” - -“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” replied the colored man. - -“Have you always voted?” - -“Yes, I has; I voted the ’publican ticket all the time.” - -“Well, you don’t intend to say you want to vote it?” - -“If this fuss is about, I sha’n’t vote no kind of a ticket.” - -Another horseman on the opposite side of the narrow street overheard -the last remark, and approached. - -“Harris, I know you,” said he. “We was boys at the same time, and have -known each other all the while along; and I know that you are a nigger -that has got good sense, good common sense. You see where this nigger -is lying, here?” [They had just come upon the body of John Carr.] “Yes, -sir; I see him.” - -“_Well, just so will we lay you, if you ever vote the Republican ticket -again._” - -“Well, sir, I will not vote no kind of a ticket.” - -“No, —— that’s the plan,” said the proud Southern, “and we intend to -carry it out; and the only way for you to save yourself is to come over -and vote with us; because we know that you know mighty well, when you -vote against us you are voting against your interest.” - -“I didn’t know it was so much against your interest as to kill a man,” -replied Harris. “I had no idea that it was any such thing as that.” - -“Well, you see what the consequence is, and we’re going to carry this -State, and we intend to do it if we have to kill every nigger, and this -rascally Governor too; he is the head of all the thieves in the State, -and the white people don’t intend to stand it no longer; they intend to -break it up.” - -Harris and his protector then moved on, and soon reached their place of -destination. - -“Mann,” said Mr. W——, “I’ve got a little talk for you. I, to-night, -by your being recommended to me, saved your life; and now you can do me -a favor, and I will tell you what it is.” - -“All right, Captain. There a’n’t nothing that I could do that I -wouldn’t do for yo’, for yo’ saved my life.” - -“Yes; what I want to say to you is, that you don’t know anything about -the affair at all; that they had you around there, but you knowed -nobody; that these are unknown parties; and if any one comes to get you -to go into court to testify, or say anything about calling anybody’s -name, _you don’t know_. This time we will let you off; but next time -we get at this thing, we’ll _git_ you. Now I will tell you as you do -me a favor, and don’t you call anybody’s name; don’t you own to them -that you do know; and tell them, the rest of them, not to say anything -about it; that you seen the boys, but you didn’t know who it was. If -any one asks you, tell ’em you don’t know; it was unknown parties. -Good-night;” and his magnanimous benefactor rode away, and left Mann -Harris upon his door-step. - - - - -CHAPTER XII. - -INCIDENTS AND PARTICULARS. - - Sabbath holy - For the lowly - Paint with flowers thy glittering sod; - For affliction’s sons and daughters, - Bid thy mountains, woods and waters - Pray to God—our Father God. - - Still God liveth, - Still he giveth - What no man can take away; - And, oh Sabbath! bringing gladness - Unto hearts of weary sadness, - Still thou art an holy day.” - - _Whittier._ - - -UNDER cover of the morning fog Captain Doc descended from the verandah -of the Postmaster’s residence. As he slid down a pillar of the open -piazza of the lower story, a black face stared from one of the lower -windows, with an expression of mingled terror and surprise. Reassured -by a smile upon Doc’s face, he raised the sash cautiously, and -whispered, “Does you want to come in?” - -“No, no, Dick!” was the reply, “this town isn’t a safe enough place to -hold me when the day comes. The hounds will be back again, when they -have fed and slept a little. Have you been there all night?” - -“Yes; and all alone too. The family knowed it wa’n’t safe for ’em -here, pertic’lar Mr. Rouse. And so dey left me to see after tings. -Gen. Baker, nor none of ’em’ dar’n’t _touch dis house_, cause the Post -Office is yere, and dat’s dee United States—they are ’afeared o’ de -Yankees you see. But, oh my! Ha’n’t it been a long night, and a _awful -one_! ’Pears like I’m a hundred yeah old. How many’s been killed?” - -“I don’t know. Enough, anyhow.” - -“Dey didn’t git yo’? I’m surprised, Doc.” - -“No, nor they won’t;” and waving an adieu to Dick, the Captain walked -noiselessly to the back part of the garden, and leaped the fence into -Mercer street. - -There, stiff and stark lay the body of John Carr, the Town Marshal; and -further up, close beside the fence, a shapeless heap, as it appeared, -which Doc knew must be the body of Moses Parker, whom the slave-catcher -had “got” on the previous evening. - -Keeping on towards the hills and near the railroad, he escaped -unobserved; till, when ascending the hill, he heard his name spoken, -quite near him. Though startled for an instant, he was immediately -joined by Ned O’Bran, who came out from a clump of bushes where he had -spent the night in terror; and, in company, the two men walked to the -county seat, distant nearly twenty miles. There they found an excited -people, and several refugees from the scene of massacre, among whom was -Elder Jackson. - -“Phebe,” said Uncle Jesse, early that morning, “I don’t believe you’d -best go up to church to-day. I don’t believe there’ll be many women -there, for I reckon they all would leave the town last night.” - -“And _I_ don’t believe dar’ll be _no men_, nor no church nuther; fo’ -Eldah Jackson bein a Legislatur man, an’ a Radical, ’ll have to streak -it, yo’ may be sho; fo’ of co’se de white folks has beat de niggahs, as -dey allus does.” - -“Well, now, it’s queer; but I never did thought about the Elder last -night? For certain they’ll be after him; for there’s a political side -to this ’ere fuss. Now you git breakfast just as quick as you can, and -I’ll go over and see.” - -“I’m afeared to have yo’ go.” - -“But somebody ought to see after Elder Jackson.” - -“Dat’s so; I wish I could go wid yo’.” - -“No, no. Maybe I shall have to escape myself, and it’s a heap easier to -escape on horseback, than it would be in a wagon, and two of us.” - -“Hadn’t yo’ best git Den Barden to go ’long, Jesse?” asked his wife as -he arose from his hasty breakfast. - -“No, Phebe, I’m just agoing to leave the Laud Jesus Christ here, to -take care of you and the children, and get God Almighty to go ’long -with me, and see after me; and I’m going to go without anybody else at -all.” - -So after reading with much needful moderation, and not without verbal -errors, the 69th Psalm, he knelt with his little family upon the -cottage floor, and repeated the same sentiments from a full heart. - -Though not more than three miles from the village in a direct line, a -good five miles or more of circuitous and somewhat lonely road lay -between Jesse’s home and the scene of the massacre; and he had ample -time for reflection. - -He had long maintained, among his neighbors, the only attitude an -unprejudiced lover of justice could; but it had brought to him alike, -confidence and distrust, reverence and envy, respect and aversion; -and while his assistance and advice were sought by the moderate and -by the extremists on both hands, he scarcely knew whether he had a -friend on whom he could certainly rely, or an enemy who would betray -him. Fortunately his road did not cross the river, for the city police -yet stationed at the bridge still denied passage to persons of color, -though allowing whites to pass freely. - -As he entered the little town, he saw a number of men moving along the -principal street, and evidently carrying some heavy burden. He did not -approach them, but went directly to Elder Jackson’s house. - -He found it deserted, and large charred spots upon the surface gave -evidence that attempts had been made to fire it; and the garden was -trodden down and utterly destroyed. He then turned toward Springer’s -house. This stood back from the sidewalk, and not without misgivings he -entered the trampled yard, and rapped at the closed door. - -Springer answered the summons in person, and greeted his friend with -genuine cordiality. - -“Why, brother Jesse, I’m surprised and glad both, to see you this -morning.” - -“And I’m thanking the Laud, this minute to find you alive, and to get -inside the shelter of your house. It ’pears like the streets is full of -ghosts, or something a man’s glad to get away from. What is going on -down street? I seen ’em carrying something into society hall.” - -“Come in and set down Brother, Jesse. I suppose they’re collecting the -dead. The Intendant was in here, and wanted me to go down and see them -before they moved ’em—to go on the coroner’s jury, in fact; but I told -him I couldn’t. I’m sick. This last night’s job is worse than a fever. -You didn’t come up, Jesse?” - -“No, I didn’t. I couldn’t think it would be right, nor any good, -somehow, and so I staid away. But maybe now I ought to ha’ come?” - -“No, you hadn’t; you’d only been another one. My mother-in-law is very -bad this morning. The scare last night was enough to kill a well woman, -and you know she was pretty sick and weak before. I guess we’d best -go away to talk. Come right up stairs, and we’ll set and talk all we -want to, and she won’t hear us;” and Mr. Springer took his guest to a -tasteful chamber. - -The house was not large, but was well furnished and neatly kept. - -“Where is the Elder?” asked Mr. Roome, when they were again seated. - -“That I don’t know. He may be in the Kingdom of Glory, but I suppose -he left town, and went to the city maybe. He and Ned O’Bran went off -together, and the last I saw of him they were going up Main street, -making for Ned’s house.” - -“How many is killed, and who be they?” - -“Seven killed and two wounded that we know; and there’s a good many -more missing that we don’t know whether they’re dead or not. Marmor is -one o’ them.” - -“Marmor? Well, if there was one man in town to be killed, Marmor would -be that man. There ain’t no man in Baconsville them white democrats -want to kill so bad as they do Marmor, without it is Watta!” - -“Watta they’ve got! He’s gone! and I’m afeared they’ve got Marmor also.” - -“_Watta’s gone?_ I _knowed_ he’d be killed!” - -“Yes, and Den Pipsie, and Ham Sterns, and John Carr——” - -“Why, Springer! You don’t say John Carr is killed?” - -“He was the first man they took; then Moses Parker——I heard them both -shot, and knew the voices. Alfred Minton, he got shot too, but they say -he an’t dead yet. Oh, that makes me remember (rising). His father came -here just before you did, and wanted me to go down there. They wanted -somebody to pray; for he can’t live. I suppose I must go, but I tell -you I can’t bear to. All these things seem so awful that they make me -sick, and I can’t help it. Won’t you go Jesse? Go down and pray with -the poor fellow.” - -“Where is he?” - -“Lying right there on the ground where they shot him, last night; and -they say somebody has mommucked him up awfully.” - -“Well, Brother Springer, I’ll go, but I want you to go ’long.” - -“Do they know who shot him?” asked Uncle Jesse, when they were on their -way. - -“It is said to be unknown parties that done all the shooting from this -“dead ring” they had, but there’s one comfort—the Lord knows who done -it; and He knows who started the thing, and put these unarmed victims -into the hands of an armed posse big enough to arrest the whole of -Aiken County. There,” (as they reached a point between Dan Lemfields’ -corner, and the railroad trestle-work), “this is where Moses Parker -fell, and laid till an hour ago. You can see the blood.” - -Mr. Roome looked, but did not speak. Passing under the trestle-work, -and advancing a few steps, they came upon a pool of blood. - -“This is where our Town Marshal was shot between nine and ten o’clock -last night. I heard him holler, “Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!” twice, before -they fired. It was a great volley, several guns, and I wonder they -didn’t some of ’em kill him instantly. He begged mighty hard before -they shot. I heard him.” - -The men resumed their walk, turning down Cook street, and so coming out -upon Market street, and then turning down that. - -“There, right there was the “dead ring,” they say, where they had -twenty-five or thirty prisoners, the Lord knows how long; and finally -shot some of ’em, and then swore the rest not to testify against them, -and let ’em go, and shot after ’em as they went.” - -“Brother Springer,” said Uncle Jesse, grasping his companion’s arm, -“don’t tell me no such talk! You don’t expect I’m going to believe it’s -more than an awful bad dream you’ve had.” - -“Did you dream you saw the blood back there? and there’s four or five -dead men in this hall at your left.” - -“That’s a fact! Nor I didn’t dream the threats I’ve heard made; but I -really thought it was mostly blow and bluster; half of it any how!” - -“So did I, so did I,” replied Springer, “and I wouldn’t believe, though -I seen all these streets thick with armed men in the evening, that they -meant to kill anybody,—only to scare the colored people,—till I heard -’em shoot John Carr, and then I was scared.” - -By this time the two men had passed another street and an embankment -of the lower rail road, and approached a small group of citizens, both -colored and white. Upon the bare ground, in a great pool of blood, lay -the poor boy Minton, apparently in the last agonies of death. He was in -great distress, and unable to converse at all. - -Fire-arms alone had not sufficed for the fiendishness of his murderers; -for blows as with an axe or hatchet, had gashed his side, broken his -ribs, and cut a large piece of flesh from his thigh. It was a horrible, -sickening sight. - -“Alfred! Alfred!” cried Uncle Jesse, falling upon his knees at the -boy’s head. - -“Alfred, who cut you so? Tell us who did it, Alfred; it makes fury boil -all over me!” - -A groan was the only response; and then from the depths of his great -heart, so uniformly held in subjection to his clear reason, and -well balanced judgment, Uncle Jesse poured forth such a prayer as -had never been heard by those spectators before,—a prayer for the -departing soul; that it, going from this body weltering in blood shed -by murderous hands, might go up to the righteous Judge innocent of any -vengeful or unforgiving spirit;—a prayer full of righteous indignation -at these atrocious crimes against his people, and of the spirit which -said ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ - -As he arose from his knees, Sam Pincksney touched his elbow, and they -shook hands in silence. Minton groaned and seemed to desire a change -of position. The father and brothers turned him upon his back. Another -groan, a quick gasp, a sigh, and death released him from suffering. - -Many hands waited to give all needed, assistance and so Springer -invited a few of his neighbors to accompany him to his house, that Mr. -Roome might learn more particulars of the affair of the previous night. - -“Now I want to get a clear idea of this matter as I can get,” said -Uncle Jesse when they were all seated in Springer’s chamber. - -“I can tell you how it begun,” said the host, “but it will take us all, -and more too, to tell how it went on.” - -He then narrated the history of the trouble from the collision on the -4th of the month, up to the time when General Baker rode to the city -across the river, substantially as the reader already has it. - -“All this time while he was gone,” said Springer,—“about half an -hour,—armed bodies of men continued to come into town; and in fact, -a portion of them stopped and threw themselves into line right in -front of the house here. As soon as General Baker got back, they -mounted again, and went up on Mercer and Cook streets, and so on over -to the river there, and there they fell into line. Then myself and -Judge Rives, and Pincksney, and Elder Jackson, had an interview there -with General Baker; and we asked him if there was anything we could -do,—what was necessary to bring about peace. - -“He said nothing would satisfy him but the surrender of the men and -their arms. The white men were so boisterous they treated us very -badly. One man, Captain Sweargen, drew his pistol while we were having -this interview with General Baker;—and really, I thought he seemed to -be looking at me, and that he was going to shoot; but when he saw me -looking at him, he put his pistol in his pocket again. - -“Pincksney was whipped in his face, cut right in, as you see, and so -then we got away as quick as possible.” “Didn’t the General stop these -things?” - -“No, not at all. Didn’t appear to notice ’em at all. Then the firing -begun pretty soon down on the river-bank.” - -“The white men down there are saying this morning that it was the -Militia that begun the firing,” said Sam Pincksney. - -“No? Why, they can’t say that! It sounded like right from, the -river-bank,” said Tim Grassy, an intelligent-looking mullato, about -thirty years of age, who was a brother-in-law of Springer. - -“Well, _I_ know the _white men_ fired first, for just let me tell you,” -said Ben, a younger brother of Tim Grassy. - -“George Hansen was at our warehouse, (Ben was bookkeeper in Springer’s -cotton warehouse,) and he told me there was going to be trouble, and -he wanted me to go up to his plantation with him, and see his game -chickens. But I told him I couldn’t get off. He told me he saw a great -crowd of white men gathered up back there in the country. An hour after -he left, squads of men commenced coming in, and half an hour after that -I went into the armory for protection. The white men opened fire and -kept it up as much as fifteen minutes, and maybe half an hour, before -they gave the colored men a _chance_ to fire at all. I know, for I saw -it.” - -“Did any white men get killed?” - -“One, Merry Walter.” - -“Then I suppose some of our people must have killed him!” said Uncle -Jesse, sadly. - -“Well, I don’t know,” said Mann Harris, who had sat quietly listening, -though reputed the greatest talker in Baconsville, “they quarrelled -among theirselves, some.” - -“Yes,” replied Ben, “but Merry was a Democrat, and I suppose they -wouldn’t want to kill him themselves.” - -“I heard some of ’em talking this morning, some respectable-looking -gentlemen from Georgia, and saying that they had been told that this -had been all to break up a nest of thieves and robbers—that the people -in Baconsville was that, and that Capt. Doc is a rowdy, and the Militia -Company is a band o’ thieves; and Hanson Baker said that is a fact and -just so.” - -“I never heard anything like that in all the years I’ve lived here,” -said Springer, the oldest resident except Uncle Jesse, who assented to -his testimony. - -“They talked about Pompey Conner’s robbing market wagons, and even -hauled up that old graveyard affair, more than three years old; and -they know the Republican niggers are after every thief they know of, -and punishes ’em too. Pompey took his turn in jail, and so did that old -republican nigger that dug them three graves open; the democratic one -got away, but I’ve seen him back just the other day. I don’t believe -they cared anything for the graves; they only thought there was some -money buried somewhere in the graveyard during the war.” - -“That mean democratic nigger that lives over back of the hill there, -was in town yesterday, and some of ’em said that he told the white -folks where to find men—where their houses were, and if that is true -it is just contemptible!” said Springer. - -“The fact is,” said Ben, the niggers are getting a bad name everywhere, -with these old white aristocrats, and especially since this fuss.” - -Ben was young, and his honest, expressive face glowed as he spoke, with -animation which subsided immediately into grave thoughtfulness. - -“What has become of Capt. Doc?” - -“Don’t know; nobody knows. He’s sharp though, and I hope he has got -away. If they were to get him they would think he must be drawn and -quartered, I expect,” said Ben. - -“Springer, you said Marmor is among the missing?” said Uncle Jesse. - -“We don’t know what has become of him. Old man Baker was in Dan’s house -a good part of the night, Pincksney says; and the houses join, you -know; and the last seen of Marmor, he was jumping the fence into Dan’s -back yard. Dan’s folks are there this morning, but don’t seem to want -to see nor speak to anybody. There’s a mystery about it somehow.” - -“Dan is a kind of a queer dark man, you know. Jews mostly is,” said Tim -Grassy. - -“Dan is a likely sort of fellow,” said Mr. Roome, “I wish he didn’t -sell so much whiskey.” - -“Between twelve and one o’clock,” resumed the host, “I heard Col. Baker -(at least I took it to be his voice). Some of them just opposite here -had said the house was afire, and I heard him sing out to the crowd, -‘Put that fire out! nothing like that shall go on; I don’t want any -burning.’ Soon after that I heard firing again, and I heard somebody -else holler. I don’t know who it was, but I suppose it was Moses -Parker.” - -“Who shot him?” - -“That I don’t know.” - -“Where was Watta killed? Poor fellow! I knowed he’d be killed, if -anybody was.” - -“Down at the ‘dead-ring,’” said Harris, who then gave the account the -reader has had, and continued, “When I stepped into my house I stepped -right onto some of my wife’s clothes. They had taken ’em all out of -the bureau, and flung ’em all over the floor, broke open three large -trunks I had, and taken away every rag of clothing I had, and my wife’s -bran new dress that she had made very fancy to be baptized in next -month—had never had it on—they taken that away, and her watch and -chain, and all her jewelry, and all my clothes; and taken a pin of mine -that didn’t cost me but sixty-five dollars; and I don’t suppose some -of them fellers ever had sixty-five dollars in their lives; and I told -Pick. Baker so this morning. Just so; and he said it was some of the -factory crowd from the city, none o’ his men hadn’t done it. I said I -don’t know; I seen some of his men looked pretty bad too, and I thought -they’d take things just as quick as anybody. - -“He says, ‘Well, there’s bad men in all crowds.’ Everything in my -house is broken up. They carried off all my lamps and such things, tore -down my curtains, broke my dishes, and carried off what they couldn’t -break—all the victuals and everything. When I told Gaston so this -morning, he offered me twenty-five cents to get me something to eat, -and I told him I thanked him. They just walked right over my wife’s -clothes, and spit on ’em.” - -“Harris, what do you suppose they did all this for?” - -“Well, they said before it happened that I would see the white people -intended to carry the state democratic, and I expect this is to -intimidate us. Hanson Baker told me last night, (or this morning it -was) when I was going home after they done killed the men that was -lying there; and I asked them how they intended to carry the State -Democratic, and they said, ‘You see there? Well, that’s the way we’ll -lay you just so, if ever you vote the Republican ticket again;’ and I -said, ‘If that’s the way you’re going on, I an’t a going to vote nohow. -I’m done voting,’ and they said, ‘You’d better be done voting, unless -you vote the Democratic ticket.” - -The whole company accepted this view of the motives of the rioters. - -“They didn’t disturb you, Springer?” asked Uncle Jesse. “You didn’t -finish.” - -“Well,” he resumed, “this shooting and hollering and setting fires and -so on, continued till the hours I named; and when they got through -killing those they wanted to, or could get, the crowd commenced going -away. You could hear them passing out in different directions, -hollering and cursing and cavorting around, and saying what they had -done. They would swear and say that they had got Baconsville all right -now; thought they had killed a sufficient number to prevent nigger-rule -any longer in the county—thought they had put a quietus on nigger-rule -in the county for all time to come. They went on hollering and calling -the names of the men they had killed; and one would say, ‘He don’t -answer,’ and another would say, ‘He’s looking at the moon and don’t -wink his eyes,’ and they went on making sport of the men they had -killed, and cursing all the time. - -Then they commenced robbing, and you could hear it all over town. -It looked like they had parted themselves up into squads for that -business. You could hear them go to a man’s store, and burst it open -and go in, all along the streets. They broke open my warehouse, -and destroyed all my books and papers, and tore up the floors and -partitions—well, just ransacked the place entirely. Then they came -here. I had become alarmed at that time, and said to these young men -who were here with me, ‘I think it is best for us not to remain in this -building, I think they will come here.’ Up to that time I was basing an -opinion that they would not come here, upon the part that I had taken -in the whole affair during the day. I felt that it would keep me out of -danger; but then I saw very readily that even General Baker had lost -all control over the men, and I became alarmed, and thought best to -leave the house. - -I thought probably they would not interfere with my wife; but if _we_ -were found here, they would kill us. Sure enough, I suppose we hadn’t -any more than got out of the house and passed round from the front to -the back side, before we heard the footsteps of them passing up the -front steps. I was then behind the house, and there was a light in -my wife’s bedroom, and I saw one of the men in that room. I didn’t -recognize him, though I heard him very distinctly ask her where I was, -and where Benny was. She told him that she didn’t know where I was; -that I had gone away somewhere. They then commenced ransacking the -house; and they took a couple of shot guns I had here, and carried them -off; and they did use some very abusive words to my wife. That’s the -extent of what occurred here.” - -“No, that’s not quite all, Sam,” said Tim Grassy. “They asked my -sister, who is staying with my mother who is sick, you know, they -asked her where was Springer’s money? She told them they didn’t have -any. They told her she was a cursed liar. I heard that distinctly, for -I felt uneasy about my sick mother, and crept back close up to the -window. They staid there some time, and we heard them coming down, and -I jumped over in Mrs. Dunn’s yard opposite her cow house, and stayed -there till I knowed all of them was gone.” - -“Well, suppose we all go down to the hall and see the bodies of the -dead, and then I must go home,” said Uncle Jesse. - -The six men walked slowly down to the old warehouse, which had been -reconstructed into a hall for the use of the various secret societies -of the village, of which the people of the South are so fond. - -There arranged in a row, were the bodies of five men; all murdered for -possessing greater or less proportions of African blood, and being -true to the National Government which gave them freedom—nothing more -nothing less. - -But for these it had been no crime to pass ordinances protective of the -public peace and convenience, or to enforce them—no crime to be an -intelligent leader among one’s fellows—no crime to practice in the use -of arms under sanction of law and the nation’s flag. - -The homes of these men had been completely sacked, and not a whole -chair or table was left in some, on which to lay a coffin, though the -wife in one had given her only bed, a poor stack of straw, to ease the -removal of wounded Merry Walter to his home across the river. - -The body of the highly respected and beloved Watta was in his home, -where a distracted widow knelt beside it comfortless; and two -fatherless little ones clung to her skirts, and wept in sympathy, -though ignorant of the magnitude of their loss. - -A large number of spectators thronged the hall and vicinity, among whom -were many white people from the adjoining State of Georgia. Blacks were -still denied passage by the A— police. - -“How many were wounded?” asked one. - -“Three colored and one white!” - -“Talk about Georgia! Talk about Georgia?” said he. - -“It’s all this Captain Doc and his lawless band,” said another -Georgian. “This Baconsville is an awful place,” he continued, -regardless of the presence, shrieks and wailings of the families of the -slain, except as he must needs pause occasionally for the sounds to -subside, that he might be heard. “They are all a set of thieves. It’s a -very Sodom!” - -“There’s no more of that kind of doings here than in any other place in -the South,” said a third, “the fact is there a’n’t more than forty-five -or fifty white persons live in this village, and the Bakers and Gaston -and them, think they shouldn’t be responsible to any laws passed by -_colored men_, and think it is an outrage if they or other white folks -are arrested for violating them; and the niggers have mostly let them -do as they pleased, which has made the exceptions seem personal and -harder to stand. - -“On the other hand, it’s likely the niggers don’t waste any love on -old Bob, as they naturally can’t forget how he got his property; and -it is likely there’s all the envious feelings the poor are apt to have -against the rich, besides, which makes their overbearing ways and -impositions, and violations of town ordinances seem more offensive; -and it’s possible they take offence sometimes when none is intended; -maybe it is so on both sides, though the niggers are not _naturally_ -suspicious, we know. It’s just an envious, suspicious village, with -overbearing and suspicious white neighbors.” - -“There’s a little more than that too,” said another man. “Here’s a -State with a big nigger majority on election days, and a county with a -bigger one; and a State and national campaign a coming, and it’s the -centennial, and the nigger ‘gush’ is tantalizing to them that don’t -want a union with the North, unless they can control it; and the whites -naturally want to begin the next hundred years with the State in their -hands.” - -“Oh, fol-de-rol-dol! The superior race _ought_ to rule. That’s the -whole of it,” said another. - -“All that doesn’t make this right,” said the first speaker. “The whites -have had the best chance to be civilized, and the negroes have _never -done anything_ like this. Talk about Georgia! Georgia has never been -guilty of such a barbarous thing as this, and had it not been for those -Bean Island men, it never would have happened.” - -“_That stirs fury all over one, sir_; to have that said after I have -strove so hard to keep things quiet in Bean Island!” said Uncle Jesse, -“I shall inquire about that;” and scarcely bidding a hasty adieu to his -friends, he abruptly left the place, and mounting his horse, rode home, -and hastened to the residence of Deacon Atwood. - -“Deacon,” said he, “a very nice gentleman from Georgia says that had it -not been for Bean Island people, that them men would never have been -killed.” - -“It’s a lie! It’s a lie!” cried the Deacon, “and if they go on talking -that way, the whole cat will be let out at once. There an’t a word of -truth in it! There wa’n’t a Bean Island man shot a gun. Dr. Ava and -Joe Ennery guarded the prisoners, and when they were to be killed, they -were to be delivered into the hands of unknown parties that the law -couldn’t detect them. That was a plan laid before. They didn’t fire -a gun there, nor kill a man; _not one!_ There was nobody stayed over -there from Bean Island, but some drunken fellows that couldn’t get -away; and if they keep on talking in that way, the whole cat will get -out of the water.” - -“Deacon Atwood, that was wrong then. You ought never to have killed -them men after taking them prisoners.” - -Dea. A.—“I agree with you there.” - -Uncle Jesse.—“They ought not to have killed them after they stopped -fighting.” - -Dea. A.—“They ought never to have stopped fighting till they killed -them _in the fight_!” - -Uncle Jesse.—“They didn’t kill any of them in the fight; they must -have been very poor marksmen, as many as they was there, and couldn’t -kill anybody, and had to wait till they got out of ammunition, and then -took ’em out and killed ’em. Why didn’t they let ’em be taken by the -law, and be tried and had justice done ’em?” - -Dea. A.—“I suppose the men were so ambitious that they didn’t intend -they should live. Now I tell you, Jesse, what this Georgia gentleman -said, isn’t so. Bardon Ramol and Bob Blending met a young nigger this -morning just before they got to Horse Creek, a coming home, and Bardon -he says to him, ‘Now, don’t you go down there. Didn’t you hear the guns -down there last night? The last one is killed, and it’s all over, and -it an’t worth while to go.’” - -Uncle Jesse.—“And so they got him to turn back? That’s well enough, -but not much.” - -Dea. A.—“Yes. Now they’re accusing Sam Payne, and Tad Volier—that -little fellow not more’n four feet high—to day, and I’ll swear it’s a -lie; for them men were not killed by anybody that is on this side the -river.” - -Jesse Roome did not tell his neighbor how well all this conversation -assured him that he was privy to all the plans, at least; but simply -asked, “Sam Payne was not there?” - -Dea. A.—“No, Jesse, he wasn’t there.” - -Uncle Jesse.—“Well, Deacon Atwood, I’ve always been a good friend to -you, and I’ve told you some things that the colored people were going -to do that was wrong, and we have been pretty confidential a great many -times; but I just tell you, sir, if you go to violating the law, then -I’ll back down. I will not stick for anybody that will violate the law. -My motto is to punish every man, white or black, that will violate the -law.” - - - - -CHAPTER XIII. - -THE SCALLAWAG. - - “Get thee gone! - Death and destruction dog thee at the heels. - - * * * * * - - If thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas, - And live with Richard from the reach of hell. - Go, hie thee from this slaughter-house - Lest thou increase the number of the dead.” -—KING RICHARD III. - - -WHEN Col. Baker ordered Mrs. Marmor to leave her home, she would not -ask shelter in the house of her nearest neighbor—that most Christian -Jew, Dan Lemfield—lest her presence might jeopardise the safety of her -husband; and she stood upon the doorsteps with her infant in her arms, -and little Louie beside her, gazing up and down the street in utter -dismay, and not knowing whither to flee. Only a few steps at her left -was the drill-room, the centre about which all the warlike preparations -were arranged, and every dwelling in the beleaguered square, except her -own and Lemfield’s, was the abode of at least one colored family, and -therefore clearly unsafe. - -“Where is my papa? Why don’t he come and go with us, mamma?” asked the -little boy in the piping voice of childish grief. - -“Hush, child! Mamma’s glad he is not here. Keep still and maybe the -soldiers won’t hurt us.” - -“Will they hurt us maybe, mamma?” The boy now began to wail piteously, -and the babe cried in sympathy. - -“Hush, Louie! Mamma will tell you,” said Mrs. Marmor. She sat down -upon the steps, in presence of the armed foe by which the street was -occupied, and, placing her own person in range of any possible shot -that might be aimed at Marmor’s boy, she spoke in low and rapid tones:— - -“If you cry, these men will see you; and if you keep still, maybe they -won’t notice, and sister will keep still too. You don’t want little -sister to get hurt. You will be a brave man, like papa, won’t you? Papa -isn’t afraid, and he keeps still.” - -Pressing both his little hands over his mouth for an instant, and -choking back one or two great sobs, the child looked up into his -mother’s eyes, smiling through his tears, and repeated—“I cried unto -God with my voice, even unto God with my voice, and he gave ear unto -me. Mamma, there’s Mr. Dan. See! Mamma, see!” - -Turning, she saw the Jew at his door, beckoning her with earnest -gesticulation, although beside him stood the burly Rufus Baker. As she -approached, she heard Mr. Lemfield say something about hostages, and -Baker replied with a significant wink and nod. - -“We will all die together, if we must,” said the distressed wife and -mother, mentally. - -“Co im, Mrs. Marmor. Co im,” said Lemfield. “Don’t sthop out here mit -de leetle kinder. You huspand go vay? Dat ish pad. May pe he’ll come.” -A quick glance at his shrewd face, and she accepted his invitation, -and entered the hospitable door with her little ones. - -Dan soon followed, and taking her aside, said hastily, “You must not -tell. You pe like you know not vare de man ist. I tink I co get old -Bob and feed ’im viskey. Ven he trunk he shleeps much, and vants more -viskey. He pe here he not tink you huspand be here; and ve knows he pe -killing no mon. Now you take care.” - -Poor Mrs. Marmor took the cue quickly. - -Almost immediately after this the first gun fired. The Jew flew to the -front door, and soon returned accompanied by the great bushy-whiskered -negro-hunter, who was much excited. - -Mrs. Marmor feigned great uneasiness and anxiety for the safety of -her husband, and could but shudder under the piercing eye of the old -man, while Louie hid behind her chair and peeped out at him with the -fascination of fear. - -Their host seemed to forget the presence of his other guests in his -solicitude for Mr. Baker’s comfort. - -“You not pe vell I see. Dat ish pad. Vat ish te matter?” - -“I’m excited, and I reckon I’ve taken cold. Give me some whiskey,” -replied the hypochondriac. “I’ve sweat too much. The day has been -terribly hot!” - -“Ya. Dat ish goot. Col. Paker tole me shut up mine par; but I not open -it to serve you. I shust pring it here, and you trink mit my family. -Vill I make shling? oder toddy?” - -“O sling, sling.” - -“Alle right. Dat ish goot;” and Dan bustled away to the bar-room and -brought a bottle of strong liquor, from which he soon mixed what he -called “de ferry pest shling eber made in de country,” and with great -show of solicitude presented it to the old man, who gulped it down and -smacked his lips with evident satisfaction. - -In common with all mankind Robert Baker had an impressible point; and, -as with every other tyrant, that point was vulnerable to flattery. By a -discreet use of this depletive, and a vigorous administration of sling, -and industrious cultivation of his hypochondriacal tendency, the Jew -soon had him upon his back, and courting a perspiration which should -relieve him of numerous imaginary ills. The rapid discharge of firearms -upon the street, however, kept the patient nervous and excited; and -Dan’s family screamed and exclaimed, and Mrs. Marmor and her boy wept -silently as volley followed volley. - -“Where is my papa?” Louie sobbed into his mother’s ear; for to him “old -man Baker” was an ogre, who would devour any little boy he chanced to -observe. - -“Let us pray God to take care of him. He is taking care of _us_. See, -little sister is asleep.” - -“What makes you cry, mamma?” - -“Oh, just hear the guns? Somebody will get hurt,” and they wept and -trembled together, while Lemfield continued to ply his patient with -whiskey, till even his eagerness for the fray could not master the -oncoming stupor of drunkenness. - -Two hours or more passed thus, and it was dark, when fearful yells -burst out, curdling the blood of every listener. They were like the -jubilations of demons, and were soon followed by the booming of cannon. - -Couriers brought frequent advices of the progress of affairs, which -Lemfield carefully received for the old man, and as carefully withheld -from every occupant of the house except the refugee in the chamber. - -At the sound of the artillery, Baker rolled from the sofa, and -gleefully exclaiming, “We’ll get ’em now —— them!” he reeled from the -front to the rear door, pistol in hand, chafing under the restraint of -his self-appointed nurse, like a hound in the leash when the horn of -the huntsmen is heard. - -A tramping sound in the back yard drew both men to the door. - -“Who ish dat?” demanded Dan, peering into the darkness of a shady part -of the enclosure. - -“There goes a —— nigger! Here he goes! Here he goes!” shouted the old -slave-catcher. - -“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” cried the Jew; but while he yet spoke it -was too late. - -“I’ve got ’im! I’ve got ’im!” cried the old man, running to his fallen -game. - -“Co im quick! Co im quick, Meester Paker! Somebody vill shoot _you_,” -and the excited little man caught the murderer’s arm and dragged him -into the house, while the dusky form of Nat Wellman crept on all fours -into a yard still further to the rear, and found safety in a deeper -shade. - -Filled with such terrors the night wore on, and Marmor’s were not the -only infants that sobbed themselves to sleep in the midst of those -dreadful alarms, though many were laid in the shadows of the cornfields -or the dampness of the swamps that surrounded the besieged town. - -“_Ich vill make ine shling, vat vill make_ Old Bob _shleep, so Ich -vill_!” muttered Dan, as he mixed a few drops of laudanum with a fresh -mug of the steaming beverage. “Ich hab no more mens killed by mine -house.” - -The patient was at length awakening great echoes in his bed room, with -his stentorian breathings, notwithstanding renewed disturbances upon -the premises, and that most Christian Jew stole up to Marmor’s retreat. - -“For your life, Meester Marmor, do co hide somevare! Dey pe hunt you, -and say dey vill purn your house. Dey shware dey vill hab you. Dey -say you be ine —— scallavag, ine republican, and dat you pringht -ammunition to de nigger militia.” - -“It is false!” said Marmor, “the only ammunition I ever brought to this -town is republican newspapers.” - -“Dat make no odds. Dat pad ’nough, dey tink, and dey pe hunt you; dey -co tru mine house shust now. Dey find Shimmy’ (Jimmy, Marmor’s servant) -in yo’ yard, and dey vip ’im to tell vo you ist; but he know notting.” - -The hunted man fled to the house top, where he lay long, listening to -the crashing of his printing presses and furniture, and the shrieks -and cries of colored women and children whom he saw violently dragged -from their houses by fiendish men athirst for the blood of their -husbands and fathers for whom they sought; and wondering if his own -mother was suffering similar indignities, he blamed himself for hiding. - -He saw houses fired, in various directions, but the flames were -soon extinguished by the less reckless of the assailants, or by the -occupants, some of whom were thus captured. - -About two o’clock in the morning the tumult in his own house was -renewed and increased; and, driven from their hiding place there, two -colored men leaped from a window of the second story, upon a roof -beneath it, and with almost superhuman effort, climbed upon that of a -higher part of the building, and scarcely less miraculously escaped -death by the pistol of their friend Marmor, who mistook them for foes. - -“For mercy’s sake don’t shoot!” cried one, just in time to arrest a -second discharge. - -The three men lay flat upon the roof to avoid discovery, but the sound -of the pistol and the voice had betrayed them, and several of the -rioters attempted to follow the young men. - -Meanwhile the three men slipped down through the scuttle into -Lemfield’s house. - -Obliged to abandon pursuit in that direction, the ruffians re-entered -the window, descended to the street, and pouring into the next house, -rushed to the stairs. - -“Vas fur you co up mine shtair? Co town! Ich say, co town!” cried Dan. -“Ich been goot freund to _ebery man_, so you shall not break mine -tings. You must go vay, mine vamily pe sick up dar, and you will schare -mine cronk poy so he co todt!” and pushing past them, he mounted the -upper steps, still persisting in his opposition, and obstructing the -way. - -“_Ich no niggah, no’ publican, no notting dat votes’ cainst you. So you -co vay!_” - -“We won’t hurt you, nor your family, Dan, if we find you all right, -but, (the reader must imagine the vilest and most profuse epithets and -profanity), Louis Marmor is up there, and we _will have him_. He’s a -scallawag, and a republican, and is helping the niggers, and we must -get him. He has got to die as well as the rest.” - -“Er nicht dar.” - -“You’re a lying Jew dog!” - -“Ich schvare youns, Louis Marmor ist not pout mine blace, _py de beard -of Abraham_!” - -“You swear to that, do you?” asked the leader. - -“Ich schware! Ich schware!” - -“B-o-y-s, b-o-y-s,” said old man Baker, staggering from the couch -where Mrs. Marmor had shaken him into consciousness, “Boys, oh, -come back! come, come, come back! Dan’s a good fellow. I’m quite -unwell, quite unwell,” drawled he, “and he has taken care of me and -pro—pro—protected me from them —— niggers, and I’ll protect his -house and family. Now just come back. Don’t go up there. I’ve been -here all night, so far, and hide nor hair o’ Louis Marmor ha’n’t been -seen about here. I’ll vouch for _this_ house, and guard it too. So -don’t go up.” - -“If you say so, Mr. Baker, we’ll come back, but we thought he was thar -sho’.” - -“Ha’n’t been about here to-night. I’ve been here and could see, and -Dan’s all right.” - -The ruffians yielded, and the three men, who had been unable to reach -the scuttle and escape, were saved; though, confident of a speedy -return of their foes, the colored men immediately sought another place -of concealment. - -The cries and pleadings of another captive were soon afterwards heard -in the back-yard, and he was conveyed in triumph to the “dead-ring” -which was still insatiable while ungraced by the persons of Marmor and -Doc. - -Though the house was not again entered by the mob, so strong and -general was the suspicion that Mr. Marmor was upon the Jew’s premises, -that after his return to his home even Robert Baker was persuaded to -believe it, and a vigilant watch was maintained several days thereafter. - -While Aunt Phœbe was hastening the preparation of Uncle Jesse’s -breakfast the next morning, Jane Marmor sat beside her husband in the -Jew’s chamber, and described the condition of things, as she had found -them in their home; for she had already ventured there, and had looked -in upon her mother-in-law, who had locked herself into her own little -shop, and remained there, alone, and (strangely), unharmed, through the -night. - -Harry Gaston, and Hanson, Tommy, and old man Baker relieved each other -on watch all the next day, each being assisted by a band of trusted -followers; and Marmor, close behind Dan’s window-shades, listened to -their threats against himself, and their attempts to convince such -negroes as ventured near them, that he, Kanrasp, and the “carpet-bag -Governor,” were solely responsible for the massacre; and while his -colored friends were anxiously conjecturing his fate, his experiences -in the affair had scarcely begun. - -As the day declined, Mrs. Marmor joined her entreaties to those of -their host, urging upon her husband the necessity of attempting escape, -as there were indications of more decided search of the premises. - -Night came at length, and spread her dark mantle over the village; but -the hunted man had scarcely escaped the house when the rising of the -full moon made concealment almost impossible. - -As the weather was very warm, and he must make speed, he went without -a coat. Choosing a time when the sentry had passed to the extreme of -his beat, he walked up the street with apparently careless moderation, -hoping to be mistaken for a laborer, and to reach a small station on -the railroad three miles distant, before the arrival of the next train. - -This he accomplished in safety, but arrived too early. - -A congregation was gathering at a church near by, for the Sunday -evening service; and as his lips were parched with thirst, he -approached and procured a drink of water. - -Several persons there knew Marmor, but as he had shaved his beard, and -otherwise slightly disguised himself, they were not confident of his -identity. - -However, on his return to the carriage-road, he was at once confronted -by six armed men. - -The click of their gun-locks was his first intimation of their -presence, and with the bound of a wild deer, he dashed into a black -swamp hard by. - -His pursuers were mounted, and therefore could not enter it; but the -swamp, though over a mile long, was narrow; and they hunted him on -either side. - -It was a cane-break, and but for the extreme drought of the season, -would have furnished but poor footing indeed. - -The tall, stiff reeds reached far above his head, and some skill -was needful to break them over with the font and thus secure a -standing-place. His hat was soon knocked off by a shot, and his -low-quartered shoes lost in the mire. At length a place was reached -where a point of firm land extended into the swamp, and on this several -of his pursuers took position, (for their number had been increased), -to cut him off, should he attempt to pass. - -They had lost sight of him, but as he approached he distinctly saw -Robert Baker directly opposite and facing him, and not far distant. He -noted the resolute bearing and determined visage of the old hunter; -but felt himself still incompetent to fully sympathize with the hunted -slave of the former times; whom no arm in the State or nation was -strong enough to deliver from his master, or this hired hunter and his -blood-hounds. - -But, having little time for sentiment or reflection, he took a hasty -survey of the positions of such of his pursuers as were in sight, -deliberately approached the edge of the swamp, took aim at the old -hunter, who he felt sure would not scruple to take _his_ life, and -firing, ran rapidly in a direction he thought they would not suspect; -and thus escaped for the time. - -But, instead of approaching the town as he intended to do, he wandered -in a circuitous direction, and returned to the church. - -The services were over, and as he saw that many of the men were -mounting horses, he retreated to the woods again, where he lay till -morning. - -His pursuers inquired of the worshippers, and finally got upon his -track the next morning, bringing their trained dogs. From that time -till Wednesday morning they chased him up and down the woods and -swamps. His feet were wounded and swollen, his bare head exposed to the -burning July sun, and he had eaten nothing since Sunday morning. - -On Tuesday morning he became desperate, and resolved to leave the -swamp. He did so, and ran along the road. On several occasions the -dogs were upon him when he again intrenched himself among bushes -surrounded by water, and lay watching, pistol in hand. But as he had -no ammunition besides that in his revolver, he determined to make that -as useful as possible, and reserved for a probable extremity. - -Once they caught sight of him at two hundred yards distance and cried. -“There he is! There’s the —— scallawag!” and hissed their dogs upon -him. - -On Wednesday morning he eluded them and reached the residence of the -Intendant of Baconsville, on the outskirts of the town. He was a -pitiable object indeed; with clothing torn and covered with mud, feet -bare, swollen and bleeding; fair broad brow burned to a blister, auburn -hair, unkempt; famished, fainting, and only his determined energy left -of his former self. - -Refreshed by a cup of coffee and a judicious breakfast, and a bath for -his feet, he hobbled to his home, which he reached about ten o’clock. - -It had become his sole wish to see his family once more, and if he must -die, to die with them; and his apprehensiveness had become so great -that he with great difficulty persuaded to tarry at his neighbors for -food. To be driven from home, and hunted through swamps and forests, -like a ferocious beast, had become an insupportable thought. - -And wherefore _was_ he? - -Because he sought through that great instrument of enlightenment, the -press, to disseminate his political opinions, and the principles of a -Republican government, and to strengthen and perpetuate the Union. - -An hour after reaching home he became aware that the foe was on his -track and approaching, but the house was kept closed, and guarded by -leading citizens, and he remained till the afternoon of the following -day; when, so disguised as to be unrecognized by familiar friends, he -took the railroad train for the Capitol, and escaped. - -A band of those white ruffians boarded the train, and passed through it -several times, enquiring for him, and even propounded their questions -to him, without recognizing him. - -The horrors of this massacre were but the commencement of a succession -which blackened the history of the political campaign of the year 1876 -in the State of South Carolina, and in other Southern states, and -disgraced the Republic in the sight of the nations she had invited -to witness the successes she had achieved under a free and popular -government. - -Is it asked what punishment was meted out to those miserable offenders? - -They were arrested, liberated for several months under bail of $500 -each, and clearly convicted upon trial; but because the jury of twelve -was empanelled upon a strictly party basis, and the six white men were -_avowedly_ opposed to conviction on any evidence, a mistrial ensued. - -As under “the conciliation policy” of the national administration -which followed the next subsequent election, the United States’ troops -which had been sent into the State at the request of the Governor -were withdrawn, the defeated Democratic candidates for Governor and -Legislature, supported by the unchartered and hence illegal rifle -clubs usurped the State government, and all further proceedings against -the rioters were dropped, and the notorious General Baker was elected -to a seat in the Senate of the nation, by that spurious legislature of -his State. - -Such is the justice, and such the tender mercies, to which have been -consigned the emancipated slaves of the Southern States, and these and -similar experiences have caused the “Exodus” of the freedmen to the -great north-west. - -With such fearful odds, can the reader wonder at their seeming timidity? - - - THE END. - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Other Fools and Their Doings, by Anonymous - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OTHER FOOLS AND THEIR DOINGS *** - -***** This file should be named 51777-0.txt or 51777-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/7/7/51777/ - -Produced by Giovanni Fini, Suzanne Shell and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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