TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. Changes to the text are noted at the end of the book. LIFE AND BLOODY CAREER of the executed criminal, JAMES COPELAND, THE GREAT SOUTHERN LAND PIRATE LEADER OF A DEVASTATING CLAN RANGING OVER A GREAT PORTION OF THE NATION, PARTICULARLY THE GULF STATES, SPREADING TERROR AND INSECURITY EVERYWHERE. MYSTIC ALPHABET OF THE CLAN, FOR THEIR SECRET CORRESPONDENCE, GIVING A LIST OF ALL THE MEMBERS THROUGHOUT THE UNION, WITH AN APPENDIX OF PROFOUND RESEARCH, BRINGING TO LIGHT MORE OF CRIME, CORRUPTION AND DISSIMULATION, UNVEILING THE MANY WAYS IN WHICH TALENT, WEALTH AND INFLUENCE HAVE GIVEN ASSISTANCE. [Illustration: Decorative Image] BY DR. J. R. S. PITTS. [Illustration: Decorative Image] JACKSON, MISS.: PILOT PUBLISHING COMPANY, PRINTERS AND BINDERS, 1874. Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1874, by DR. J. R. S. PITTS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. All rights reserved. MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. The author of the ensuing publication was born in Effingham county, Georgia. His grandfather, Dr. Soda, was a native of Cologne, an ancient city on the Rhine, in Prussia. Here educated to the science of physic, he afterwards became a practicing physician. Rather early in life, he came to the United States of America, and settled in the city of Savannah, Georgia, where the remainder of his life, some thirty years, was spent. Here, and during this time, he practiced in the medical profession with success and distinction. He married an American lady, the issue from which consisted in only one son and one daughter, Robert and Jane Rosettah. About the year 1830, the latter, with J. G. W. Pitts, were married in the city of Savannah, Georgia. The result from this nuptial union is the existence of the “author.” With him, in 1834, his parents removed from Georgia to Rankin county, near Brandon, Mississippi; but the wife and mother did not long survive afterward, as will be seen from the following record found in the family Bible: “Mrs. Jane Rosettah Pitts, wife of J. G. W. Pitts, departed this life the 7th day of January, A. D., 1835, in the 21st year of her age, after severely suffering under a complicated disease of two years’ standing, which battled the skill of the best physicians.”