This place where I was halted was Nelson’s farm, and the house was held as headquarters for a company of rebel soldiers, known as bushwhackers.  While they belonged to the rebel army, they were, in a measure, independent of its regulations and discipline, kept back in the woods, ready for any depredation upon the property of unionists—­any outrage upon their persons.  The soldier who had halted me took me up to the house, and all began to question me.  I told them that I had been sent on an errand, and that I had lost my way.  The next morning I was taken about a mile away down in the swamp, over hills and through winding paths, till at last we came to the regular rebel camp.  I was in great fear and thought my end had come.  Here they began to question me again—­the captain taking the lead; but I still stuck to my story that I had been sent on an errand, 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