d, and had lost my
way. I knew that this was my only chance. They tried to make me say that
I had come from the Yankees, as they were in camp near Holly Springs.
They thought the Yankees had sent me out as a spy; but I said the same
as at first--that I had lost my way. A soldier standing by said: "Oh! we
will make you talk better than that;" and stepping back to his horse, he
took a sea-grass halter, and said: "I'll hang you." There was a law or
regulation of the rebel government directing or authorizing the hanging
of any slave caught running away; and this fellow was going to carry it
out to the letter. I talked and pleaded for my life. My feelings were
indescribable. God only knows what they were. Dr. Carter, one of the
soldiers, who knew me and the entire McGee family, spoke up and said:
"You had better let me go and tell Mr. Jack McGee about him." The
captain agreed to this, and the doctor went. The following day, Old Jack
came, and steadily refused to consent to my being hung. He said: "I know
Edmund would not have him hung-ung. He is too valuable-aluable. No, no!
we will put him in jail and feed him on bread and water--too valuable a
nigger to be hung-ung."

They tried again to make me say that I was with the Yankees. They
whipped me a while, then questioned me again. The dog-wood switches that
they used stung me terribly. They were commonly used in Mississippi for
flogging slaves--one of the refinements of the cruelty of the
institution of slavery. I refused to say anything different from what I
had said; but when they had finished whipping me I was so sore I could
hardly move. They made up their minds to put me in jail at Panola,
twenty-two miles away, to be fed on bread and water. The next day was
Sunday, and all arrangements having been made for taking me to the place
appointed for those whose crime was a too great love for personal
freedom, they started with me, passing on the way Old Master Jack's,
where they halted to let him know that his advice respecting me was to
be carried out. The old man called to my wife: "Come out and see Louis."
Some one had told her that they were going to hang me; and I shall never
forget her looks as she came out in the road to bid me good-by. One of
the soldiers was softened by her agony, and whispered to her: "Don't
cry, aunty, we are not going to hang him--we will only put him in jail."
I saw this changed my wife's looks in a minute. I said a few words to
her, and, with a p