got all our plans to our notion; we then determined to undertake
the rebellion at every hazard, and make as many friends as we
could for that purpose. Every man’s business being assigned him,
I started to Natchez on foot, having sold my horse in New Orleans,–
with the intention of stealing another after I started.
I walked four days, and no opportunity offered for me to get a horse.
The fifth day, about twelve, I had become tired, and stopped at a creek
to get some water and rest a little. While I was sitting on a log,
looking down the road the way that I had come, a man came in sight
riding on a good-looking horse. The very moment I saw him, I was
determined to have his horse, if he was in the garb of a traveler.
He rode up, and I saw from his equipage that he was a traveler.
I arose and drew an elegant rifle pistol on him and ordered him to dismount.
He did so, and I took his horse by the bridle and pointed down the creek,
and ordered him to walk before me. He went a few hundred yards
and stopped. I hitched his horse, and then made him undress himself,
all to his shirt and drawers, and ordered him to turn his back to me.
He said, ‘If you are determined to kill me, let me have time to pray
before I die,’ I told him I had no time to hear him pray. He turned around
and dropped on his knees, and I shot him through the back of the head.
I ripped open his belly and took out his entrails, and sunk him in the creek.
I then searched his pockets, and found four hundred dollars and thirty-seven
cents, and a number of papers that I did not take time to examine.
I sunk the pocket-book and papers and his hat, in the creek.
His boots were brand-new, and fitted me genteelly; and I put
them on and sunk my old shoes in the creek, to atone for them.
I rolled up his clothes and put them into his portmanteau, as they were
brand-new cloth of the best quality. I mounted as fine a horse as ever
I straddled, and directed my course for Natchez in much better style
than I had been for the last five days.
‘Myself and a fellow by the name of Crenshaw gathered four good
horses and started for Georgia. We got in company with a young
South Carolinian just before we got to Cumberland Mountain,
and Crenshaw soon knew all about his business. He had been
to Tennessee to buy a drove of hogs, but when he got there pork
was dearer than he calculated, and he declined purchasing.
We concluded he was a prize. Crenshaw winked at me; I understood
his idea. Crenshaw had traveled the road before, but I never had;
we had traveled several miles on the mountain, when he passed
near a great precipice; just before we passed it Crenshaw asked
me for my whip, which had a pound of lead in the butt; I handed
it to him, and he rode up by the side of the South Carolinian,
and gave him a blow on the side of the head and tumbled him
from his horse; we lit from our horses and fingered his pockets;
we got twelve hundred and sixty-two dollars. Crenshaw said
he knew a place to hide him, and he gathered him under his arms,
and I by his feet, and conveyed him to a deep crevice in the brow
of the precipice, and tumbled him into it, and he went out of sight;
we then tumbled in his saddle, and took his horse with us, which was
worth two hundred dollars.
‘We were detained a few days, and during that time our friend went
to a little village in the neighborhood and saw the negro advertised
(a negro in our possession), and a description of the two men of whom
he had been purchased, and giving his suspicions of the men.
It was rather squally times, but any port in a storm:
we took the negro that night on the bank of a creek which runs