In the wake of Sherman's Army which passed through Brunswick, Virginia, toward Washington, came and stopped two white men, Lewis and McGiffen. They were desperadoes and outlaws, carried Winchester rifles and were fine shots; said they hailed from Maine; to intimates, the leader, Lewis, boasted that he had killed his step-father and escaped the hangman by playing crazy. They leased the farm of a "poor white," Mrs. Parrish. Lewis opened a negro school and a bank, issuing script for sums from twenty-five cents to five dollars; he organized a Loyal League, collecting the fees and dues therefrom. He armed and drilled negroes and marched them around to the alarm of the people. Court House records show lawful efforts of whites at self-protection. August 8, 1868, Lewis was tried before William Lett, J. P., for inciting negroes to insurrection, when, under pretense of preaching the Gospel to them, he convened them at Parrish's. He was sentenced to the penitentiary for seven years. The State was under military rule, and the decision of the civil court was set aside and Lewis left at large. John Drummond was a witness against Lewis. Lewis soon had the negroes well organised; he established a system of signal stations from the North Carolina line to Nottoway and Dinwiddie. By the firing of signal guns, they would receive notice to congregate. Suddenly, all hands on a man's plantation would stop work and say: "Got orders, suh, tuh go tuh de Cote House." And all at once roads would be lined with negroes from every direction bound for the Court House. In a few hours the little town would fill with darkeys, a thousand or more on the streets. They would collect thus from time to time, and hold secret or public political meetings, Lewis, McGiffen and other speakers working them up to a state of great excitement. At one meeting, a riot occurred in which several men were killed or wounded. Mr. Freeman Jones, later Sheriff of the County, gave me a version of it. He said: "Meade Bernard (afterwards Judge Bernard) and Sidney Jones were set upon. Negroes knocked the last-named gentleman senseless, continuing chastisement until he was rescued by the Freedmen's Bureau officer. When Bernard was attacked, his old coloured nurse, Aunt Sally Bland, rushed into the melée, crying: 'Save my chile! save my chile!' Sticks were raining blows on his head when she interfered, pleading with them to desist until they stopped. These white men had shown all their lives, only kindness to negroes. When set upon they were doing nothing to give offense, they were simply listening to the speeches. One negro, observing their presence, cried out: 'Kill the d----d white scoundrels!' Others took up the cry.