While I was absent on my last runaway trip, the Yankees had made a raid through Panola; and our people had become greatly frightened.  As soon as they had got back with me and my fellow runaways, they assembled a gang of slaves for the purpose of taking them to Atlanta, Ga., to get them out of the reach of the Union soldiers.  Among the slaves selected for the transfer were myself, my wife Matilda, and the seamstress.  The others all belonged to Dr. Dandridge and Blanton McGee.  Both the Drs. Dandridge went with us to Atlanta.  We traveled across the country until we came to Demopolis, Alabama, where we found Boss camped on the bank of the Tombigbee river with all the farm slaves from Bolivar county.  This was the first time I had seen Boss since he was captured and taken to Helena.  As my wife and I were the only ones in the gang who belonged to Boss, we left those with whom we had come and joined his gang.  We all then went aboard a boat and were taken to the salt works, situated on the Tombigbee, ninety miles from Mobile.  These salt works belonged to the rebel government.  The first president of the works was Mr. Woolsey, of Salem, Alabama.  During Mr. Woolsey’s term, the first part of 1864, when we had been there some time, he wrote to Boss asking if he would sell myself and wife, and offering $3,000 for both of us.  Boss was indignant at this and curtly refused.  My wife acted as cook at the salt works, in the headquarters for the president, managers and clerks.  Mr. Woolsey was delighted with her cooking; her bread and rolls, he said, could not be surpassed.

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M’GEE’S great scheme.

When the election of officers of the works came off in the fall, Mr. Gallatin McGee was chosen president.  Boss then hired us all, about 100 in number, to labor in these works, but he, of course, received all the revenue.  The work assigned me was that of butler at headquarters, and my wife was cook.  Both women and children, as well as men, were employed in these works.  After some months labor here, soon after Gallatin McGee became president, Matilda and I were removed to the Montgomery headquarters, where we remained until nearly Christmas.  A few days before that time, Boss came to Montgomery and arranged for us to meet him in Mobile.  We started at the appointed time, reached the city in the morning, and I went directly to the hotel where he told me he would be.  I found him at once, and he informed me all about his plans for the future, and what he expected to accomplish.  He had purchased an island in the bay, a little way from Mobile, where he had decided to establish salt works of his own.  All the brick and lumber for the buildings had been carried there, and work upon them was to be commenced immediately after Christmas.  He intended to make a home for the family on the island; and, as soon as he could complete the works, to remove all his hands from the government works to his own.