“All this time while he was gone,” said Springer,—“about half an hour,—armed bodies of men continued to come into town; and in fact, a portion of them stopped and threw themselves into line right in front of the house here. As soon as General Baker got back, they mounted again, and went up on Mercer and Cook streets, and so on over to the river there, and there they fell into line. Then myself and Judge Rives, and Pincksney, and Elder Jackson, had an interview there with General Baker; and we asked him if there was anything we could do,—what was necessary to bring about peace. “He said nothing would satisfy him but the surrender of the men and their arms. The white men were so boisterous they treated us very badly. One man, Captain Sweargen, drew his pistol while we were having this interview with General Baker;—and really, I thought he seemed to be looking at me, and that he was going to shoot; but when he saw me looking at him, he put his pistol in his pocket again. “Pincksney was whipped in his face, cut right in, as you see, and so then we got away as quick as possible.” “Didn’t the General stop these things?” “No, not at all. Didn’t appear to notice ’em at all. Then the firing begun pretty soon down on the river-bank.” “The white men down there are saying this morning that it was the Militia that begun the firing,” said Sam Pincksney. “No? Why, they can’t say that! It sounded like right from, the river-bank,” said Tim Grassy, an intelligent-looking mullato, about thirty years of age, who was a brother-in-law of Springer. “Well, _I_ know the _white men_ fired first, for just let me tell you,” said Ben, a younger brother of Tim Grassy. “George Hansen was at our warehouse, (Ben was bookkeeper in Springer’s cotton warehouse,) and he told me there was going to be trouble, and he wanted me to go up to his plantation with him, and see his game chickens. But I told him I couldn’t get off. He told me he saw a great crowd of white men gathered up back there in the country. An hour after he left, squads of men commenced coming in, and half an hour after that I went into the armory for protection. The white men opened fire and kept it up as much as fifteen minutes, and maybe half an hour, before they gave the colored men a _chance_ to fire at all. I know, for I saw it.” “Did any white men get killed?” “One, Merry Walter.” “Then I suppose some of our people must have killed him!” said Uncle Jesse, sadly. “Well, I don’t know,” said Mann Harris, who had sat quietly listening, though reputed the greatest talker in Baconsville, “they quarrelled among theirselves, some.” “Yes,” replied Ben, “but Merry was a Democrat, and I suppose they wouldn’t want to kill him themselves.”