WAGES’ AND HARDEN’S PLOT TO KILL ROBERT LOTT AND THOMAS SUMRALL.
When we landed at Natchez we all stopped at different hotels, but while there, some ten days, we had interviews and consultations every day. It was then that Wages and Harden made the plot to kill old Thomas Sumrall and old Robert Lott, and for that purpose Wages furnished Harden a map of all the roads in Perry county, Miss. Harden then informed us that he had a partner in Tennessee by the name of Goodwin, and that he expected Goodwin had, in a cave in the Cumberland mountains, several negroes then waiting for him to run off and sell, and that he must go up with the first rise of water so as to come down with the spring freshet. We all then made an arrangement to meet in New Orleans at a certain place on the Fourth of July coming, so as to collect our money from Welter, and for Harden to get the money on his draft for the negro sold on the Arkansas river, which he had deposited in bank for collection.
Our ten days in Natchez having expired, Harden and I took passage on a steamboat, Harden for Tennessee, and I for Vicksburg to await the arrival of McGrath. Wages was to be at Vicksburg in three or four days. I landed at Vicksburg; Harden went on. I went to one of the hotels, put up and waited for McGrath. On the sixth day Wages came, and went to another hotel, and we both waited there another week and still no McGrath. We began to get uneasy. However, three or four days after, I was standing on the bank of the river, when I saw a man dressed in coarse negro clothing, black and ragged, an old flapped hat, a pair of old saddle-bags on his arm and a big stick in his hand. He came up to me to inquire the road to Jackson. I did not know him at first, but he soon made me know him. It was McGrath. He inquired for Wages; I told him Wages was there; I told him to go to the cheapest boarding house, which he did, and his appearance caused him to have to pay his dollar in advance. That night we all got together, Wages, McGrath and myself; we went below the city and had a long consultation. We told McGrath what we had done, and gave him a full history of Harden and his two free negroes, and where Harden had gone, etc. He next gave us a detail of his voyage through the camp meeting and since, up to that time.
He said the next day after the seven negroes had left the camp ground he saw their mules and wagon, and no person appeared to be about them. A very likely young negro watered and sometimes fed the mules, and on the second day he went to the negro and asked what had become of the negroes that came with that wagon and mules. The boy answered first he did not know, and looked confused. He then said to the negro to tell him the truth and he would keep the secret and not expose him; the negro then told him the whole truth about the matter, and then asked McGrath’s advice. He told him to take care of the mules and wagon until the meeting broke up, and then take them to their owner, and inquire of him why his negroes went off and left their mules and wagon so long, and not return at all, and give him the trouble to bring them home; and if any person attempted to whip him to make him tell anything about the matter he was to run away, and on the next Sunday night to meet him, McGrath, at a certain place and he would tell him what to do, and to be sure and keep everything a profound secret.