“Well, they said before it happened that I would see the white people intended to carry the state democratic, and I expect this is to intimidate us. Hanson Baker told me last night, (or this morning it was) when I was going home after they done killed the men that was lying there; and I asked them how they intended to carry the State Democratic, and they said, ‘You see there? Well, that’s the way we’ll lay you just so, if ever you vote the Republican ticket again;’ and I said, ‘If that’s the way you’re going on, I an’t a going to vote nohow. I’m done voting,’ and they said, ‘You’d better be done voting, unless you vote the Democratic ticket.”
The whole company accepted this view of the motives of the rioters.
“They didn’t disturb you, Springer?” asked Uncle Jesse. “You didn’t finish.”
“Well,” he resumed, “this shooting and hollering and setting fires and so on, continued till the hours I named; and when they got through killing those they wanted to, or could get, the crowd commenced going away. You could hear them passing out in different directions, hollering and cursing and cavorting around, and saying what they had done. They would swear and say that they had got Baconsville all right now; thought they had killed a sufficient number to prevent nigger-rule any longer in the county—thought they had put a quietus on nigger-rule in the county for all time to come. They went on hollering and calling the names of the men they had killed; and one would say, ‘He don’t answer,’ and another would say, ‘He’s looking at the moon and don’t wink his eyes,’ and they went on making sport of the men they had killed, and cursing all the time.
Then they commenced robbing, and you could hear it all over town. It looked like they had parted themselves up into squads for that business. You could hear them go to a man’s store, and burst it open and go in, all along the streets. They broke open my warehouse, and destroyed all my books and papers, and tore up the floors and partitions—well, just ransacked the place entirely. Then they came here. I had become alarmed at that time, and said to these young men who were here with me, ‘I think it is best for us not to remain in this building, I think they will come here.’ Up to that time I was basing an opinion that they would not come here, upon the part that I had taken in the whole affair during the day. I felt that it would keep me out of danger; but then I saw very readily that even General Baker had lost all control over the men, and I became alarmed, and thought best to leave the house.
I thought probably they would not interfere with my wife; but if we were found here, they would kill us. Sure enough, I suppose we hadn’t any more than got out of the house and passed round from the front to the back side, before we heard the footsteps of them passing up the front steps. I was then behind the house, and there was a light in my wife’s bedroom, and I saw one of the men in that room. I didn’t recognize him, though I heard him very distinctly ask her where I was, and where Benny was. She told him that she didn’t know where I was; that I had gone away somewhere. They then commenced ransacking the house; and they took a couple of shot guns I had here, and carried them off; and they did use some very abusive words to my wife. That’s the extent of what occurred here.”
“No, that’s not quite all, Sam,” said Tim Grassy. “They asked my sister, who is staying with my mother who is sick, you know, they asked her where was Springer’s money? She told them they didn’t have any. They told her she was a cursed liar. I heard that distinctly, for I felt uneasy about my sick mother, and crept back close up to the window. They staid there some time, and we heard them coming down, and I jumped over in Mrs. Dunn’s yard opposite her cow house, and stayed there till I knowed all of them was gone.”
“Well, suppose we all go down to the hall and see the bodies of the dead, and then I must go home,” said Uncle Jesse.