My Soldier stepped out on the porch and confronted the mob, who were yelling, cursing, and brandishing pistols, knives, and all manner of weapons. Looking at them for a few seconds he said:
"Boys, what does all this mean? What is all this trouble about? You don't know what you are doing. That cowardly dog there, sneaking and crouching down behind you to save his own worthless carcass, is not your friend. For a few handfuls of money he will lead you to steal, lie and kill. All he wants is what he can make out of you. Don't trust him, boys. These miserable Yankee scalawags haven't any love for you. They never owned any negroes. We who owned you are your friends. We have been brought up together and understand each other."
"Dat's so, niggers; dat's so," cried Uncle Tom, who had come up with the mob as if he were one of them in spirit. "You better listen to Marse George. He sho' is tellin' you de trufe, niggers—de gorspel trufe."
"Stand back! Stand back!" cried my Soldier, suddenly starting forth and waving both hands. "Stand back, I say!"
The negroes fell back on both sides and my Soldier went down between them to where the white renegade was cowering behind his poor, ignorant, impulsive black dupes, and, seizing him by the collar, shook him with all his force. The collar broke and the man fell to the ground. My Soldier jumped on top of him and called, "Bring me that rope!" pointing to the clothes-line stretched across the road. "Come, boys, let's tie the scoundrel!"
After they had securely bound him the General ordered some of them to pick him up and carry him to the smokehouse and lock him in, which they did with great satisfaction, their mercurial natures having now veered completely to the side of my Soldier.
"Now, boys," said he, "get into your boats and go back home, and be thankful that the bad man locked up there in the haunted smokehouse with the rats and ghosts has not made you all commit a crime, too, for which you would be sent to jail."
The reference to the spectral inhabitants of the smokehouse was, for the colored people, a sufficient bar to their possible change of sentiment and return to the rescue of their former leader. They believed implicitly in the uncanny reputation of that house and, to their view, the ghost of old Grundy, who had hanged himself from its rafters and who, as the story goes, when the flames were devouring the old colonial home within a stone's throw of it, came out shaking his fist at them, thus saving the smokehouse from the fire, was more formidable than the armies of the whole world. The next morning the sheriff took the prisoner to Richmond, where he was jailed and promptly brought to trial. He was found guilty of inciting a riot and was sent out of the country.
Uncle Tom was an old servitor of the Pickett family. He had been at Turkey Island when the mansion was burned and had contrived to save a few relics from the ruins. Among them was a medallion which had been presented to my Soldier's grandfather by La Fayette. It was set in gold, framed in blue velvet, and hung in the library under La Fayette's picture. As one of Butler's men was carrying it to the steamer the medallion fell out, and Uncle Tom picked it up and had saved it all these years. In his own logical way he explained the selection of the one to whom it should be given.
"I done studied 'bout dis 'heritance a heap, en I says to myse'f, 'Well, I gwine to give dis 'heritance to Miss Sally, kase she Marse George's wife en Marse George he is de oldest chile.' Den I says, 'No, dat ain't ret; I gwine to give it to Miss Lizzy, kase she Marse Charlie's wife en Marse Charlie is de youngest chile.' Den I says, 'No, I gwine let de wifes 'cide fer darse'fs which gwine to have de 'heritance, en I gwine to give it to de one dat treats de ole man de best.'