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.Immediatelyafter 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 theColonel, 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 observationsGeneral 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 aboutthat. I’m gladmywoman’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’mgoing 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 Iisto 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, Pickensburned 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 CarolinabyJ. 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 surroundingforce. 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 remainthere 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 thestars 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, butquickly 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 fixyouto-night.”“Oh, please send Gen. Baker to me if yo’ please. He isa 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 prisonersin 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 violenceand 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, andspeedily, 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 fotchedyou, 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 jumpedMarmor’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 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.Immediatelyafter 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 theColonel, 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 observationsGeneral 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 aboutthat. I’m gladmywoman’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’mgoing 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 Iisto 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, Pickensburned 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 CarolinabyJ. 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 surroundingforce. 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 remainthere 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 thestars 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, butquickly 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 fixyouto-night.”“Oh, please send Gen. Baker to me if yo’ please. He isa 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 prisonersin 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 violenceand 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, andspeedily, 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 fotchedyou, 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 jumpedMarmor’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.”
“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.
“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.
Immediatelyafter 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 theColonel, 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 aboutthat. I’m gladmywoman’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’mgoing 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 Iisto 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, Pickensburned 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 CarolinabyJ. 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 surroundingforce. 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 remainthere 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 thestars 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, butquickly 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 fixyouto-night.”
“Oh, please send Gen. Baker to me if yo’ please. He isa 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 prisonersin 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 violenceand 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, andspeedily, 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 fotchedyou, 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 jumpedMarmor’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.”