slaves who were being whipped. They would
moan and groan in agony, but the whipping went on until the master's
wrath was appeased. John Stokes, a white plantation owner who lived near
the Davis' plantation encouraged slaves to steal from their masters and
bring the stolen goods to him; he would purchase the goods for much less
than their value. One time one of the slaves "put it out" that "Massa"
Stokes was buying stolen goods. Stokes heard of this and his wrath was
aroused; he had to find the "nigger" who was circulating this rumor. He
went after him in great fury and finally succeeded in locating him,
whereupon, he gave him a good "lacing" and warned him "if he ever heard
anything like that again from him he was going to kill him." The
accusations were true, however, but the slave desisted in further
discussion of the affair for "old Massa Stokes was a treacherous man."
On another occasion one of the Stokes' slaves ran away and he sent
Steven Kittles, known as the "dog man," to catch the escape. (The dogs
that went in pursuit of the runaway slaves were called "Nigger dogs";
they were used specifically for catching runaway slaves.) This
particular slave had quite a "head start" on the dogs that were trailing
him and he hid among some floating logs in a large pond; the dogs
trailed him to the pond and began howling, indicating that they were
approaching their prey. They entered the pond to get their victim who
was securely hidden from sight; they dissapeared and the next seen of
them was their dead bodies floating upon the water of the pond; they had
been killed by the escape. They were full-blooded hounds, such as were
used in hunting escaped slaves and were about fifty in number. The slave
made his escape and was never seen again. Will relates that it was very
cold and that he does'nt understand how the slave could stand the icy
waters of the pond, but evidently he did survive it.

Civil War: It was rumored that Abraham Lincoln said to Jefferson Davis,
"work the slaves until they are about twenty-five or thirty years of
age, then liberate them." Davis replied: "I'll never do it, before I
will, I'll wade knee deep in blood." The result was that in 1861, the
Civil War, that struggle which was to mark the final emancipation of the
slaves began. Jefferson Davis' brothers, Sam and Tom, joined the
Confederate forces, together with their sons who were old enough to go,
except James, Tom's son, who could not go on account o