“Dat us will, honey. En den you des watch me mow niggers ef dey come er prowlin’ round dis house!”
“Did you kill many Yankees in the war, Nelse?”
“Doan know, honey, spec I did.”
“Are you going to take the gun or the sword?”
“Bofe um ’em chile. I’se gwine ter shoot er pair er niggers fust, en den charge de whole gang wid dis swode. Hain’t nuttin’ er nigger’s feard uf lak er keen edge. Wish ter God I had a razer long es dis swode! I’d des walk clean froo er whole army er niggers wid guns. Man, hit ’ud des natchelly be er sight! Day’d slam dem guns down en bust demselves open gittin’ outen my way!”
When the sun rose next morning the bodies of ten negroes lay dead and wounded in the road about a mile outside of town. The pickets thrown out in every direction had discovered their approach about eleven o’clock. They were allowed to advance within a mile. There were not more than two hundred in the gang, dozens of them were drunk, and like the Sepoys of India, they were under the command of a white Scalawag. At the first volley they broke and fled in wild disorder. Their leader managed to escape.
This event cleared the atmosphere for a few weeks; and the people breathed more freely when another company of army regulars marched into the town and camped in the school grounds of the old academy.