“That’s a fact! Nor I didn’t dream the threats I’ve heard made; but I
really thought it was mostly blow and bluster; half of it any how!”
“So did I, so did I,” replied Springer, “and I wouldn’t believe, though
I seen all these streets thick with armed men in the evening, that they
meant to kill anybody,—only to scare the colored people,—till I heard
’em shoot John Carr, and then I was scared.”
By this time the two men had passed another street and an embankment
of the lower rail road, and approached a small group of citizens, both
colored and white. Upon the bare ground, in a great pool of blood, lay
the poor boy Minton, apparently in the last agonies of death. He was in
great distress, and unable to converse at all.
Fire-arms alone had not sufficed for the fiendishness of his murderers;
for blows as with an axe or hatchet, had gashed his side, broken his
ribs, and cut a large piece of flesh from his thigh. It was a horrible,
sickening sight.
“Alfred! Alfred!” cried Uncle Jesse, falling upon his knees at the
boy’s head.
“Alfred, who cut you so? Tell us who did it, Alfred; it makes fury boil
all over me!”
A groan was the only response; and then from the depths of his great
heart, so uniformly held in subjection to his clear reason, and
well balanced judgment, Uncle Jesse poured forth such a prayer as
had never been heard by those spectators before,—a prayer for the
departing soul; that it, going from this body weltering in blood shed
by murderous hands, might go up to the righteous Judge innocent of any
vengeful or unforgiving spirit;—a prayer full of righteous indignation
at these atrocious crimes against his people, and of the spirit which
said ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.’
As he arose from his knees, Sam Pincksney touched his elbow, and they
shook hands in silence. Minton groaned and seemed to desire a change
of position. The father and brothers turned him upon his back. Another
groan, a quick gasp, a sigh, and death released him from suffering.
Many hands waited to give all needed, assistance and so Springer
invited a few of his neighbors to accompany him to his house, that Mr.
Roome might learn more particulars of the affair of the previous night.
“Now I want to get a clear idea of this matter as I can get,” said
Uncle Jesse when they were all seated in Springer’s chamber.
“I can tell you how it begun,” said the host, “but it will take us all,
and more too, to tell how it went on.”
He then narrated the history of the trouble from the collision on the
4th of the month, up to the time when General Baker rode to the city
across the river, substantially as the reader already has it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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