"I done ax um dat, suh," replied Uncle Plato, "an' dey say p'intedly dat dey want ter see you." "Very well; where is Mr. Sanders?" "He out dar, suh, makin' fun un um." When Meriwether Clopton went out, he was told by old man Isaiah, the foreman of the field-hands, that the boys didn't want to be "Bledserd." It was some time before the master could understand what the old man meant, but Mr. Sanders finally made it clear, and Meriwether Clopton sent the negroes about their business with a promise that none of them should ever be "Bledserd" by his consent. A year or two before this "rising" occurred, General Jesse Bledsoe had died leaving a will, by the terms of which all his negroes were given their freedom, and provision was made for their transportation to a free State. But the General had relatives, who put in their claims, and succeeded in breaking the will, with the result that many of the negroes were carried to the West and Southwest, bringing about a wholesale separation of families, the first that had ever occurred in that section. The impression it made on both whites and negroes was a lasting one. In the minds of the blacks, freedom was only another name for "Bledserin'." Nevertheless, when, after the collapse of the Confederacy and the advent of Sherman's army, the Clopton negroes were told that they were free, a large number of them joined the restless, migratory throng that passed to and fro along the public highway, some coming, some going, but all moved by the same irresistible impulse to test their freedom--to see if they really could come hither and go yonder without let or hinderance. Uncle Plato and his family, with a dozen others who were sagacious enough to follow the old man's example, remained in their places and fared better than the rest.