Life and bloody career of the executed criminal, James Copeland, the great Southern land piratePitts, J. R. S. (James Robert Soda)
History
Life and bloody career of the executed criminal, James Copeland, the great Southern land pirate
Pitts, J. R. S. (James Robert Soda)
Copeland, James, 1823-1857; Criminals -- Gulf States -- Biography
Wages, in his adventure, was not so successful as we were. On the
same night, he and McIntosh camped near Tallahala, not far from old
Sumrall’s and in the vicinity of Bryant Barlow’s. Barlow happened to
pass their camp early in the night and discovered Wages. He raised
a company and got after Wages, themselves and dogs, and Wages had
to leave and take the woods for home again. McIntosh and Wages’ wife
turned back for Mobile on the Big Creek place, where they all landed
about five days after. There we were all in the vicinity of Mobile
again; Wages had made a water haul and we had done worse. Wages was
laying out, Brown and myself were in the same situation. It became
necessary for Wages, McGrath and I to hold a private consultation,
relative to our future operations, and to devise some plan to get rid
of old Brown. We could see no way to do that, unless it would be to lie
to him and frighten him to leave, which we did. Our next plan was to
manage to get our money from Catahoula, and deposit it about the Bay of
St. Louis, near the sea coast, where we could get it on a boat. Wages
and McGrath were to attend to that matter, and I was to assist Brown
over the Mississippi. So Wages went to Brown and told him that there
was a reward for both of them, and said he, “I am going to leave, and
you had better do the same, for Maffitt has a crowd now on the look out
for us.” Brown had but little money. He then enjoined it upon Wages
to take Harvey’s note and give him the money for it. Said he, “if he
won’t pay the note you and McGrath kill the d——d rascal.” So saying,
Wages gave him the money for the note, and loaned him sixty dollars
more, and then told Brown that James Copeland would go with him and
assist his family to travel, while he, Brown, could dodge before and
behind. So the matter was understood, and in a few nights Brown rolled
off and crossed Dog River at Ward’s bridge, where Wages, McGrath and
I joined him; I took charge of the teams and family, and Brown took
his rifle and to the woods, mostly in the daytime. We did not want for
fresh meat; Wages and McGrath left for Catahoula by way of Harvey’s,
and crossed at Fairley’s; we crossed at Robert’s and old Green court
house, and up Black Creek, on by Columbia, Holmesville and so on to the
mouth of Red River. After crossing the Mississippi, I loaned old Brown
twenty-five dollars more, bid him good-by and returned to the vicinity
of Mobile. I was gone over four weeks.
WAGES AND M’GRATH KILLED BY HARVEY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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