Two black men were however seized, taken into the Prairie and put to the torture.  A physician by the name of Parrott from Tennessee, and another from New England by the name of Anson Jones, were present on this occasion.  The latter gentleman is now the Texan minister plenipotentiary to the United States, and resides at Washington.  The unfortunate slaves being stripped, and all things arranged, the torture commenced by whipping upon their bare backs.  Six athletic men were employed in this scene of inhumanity, the names of some of whom I well remember.  There was one of the name of Brown, and one or two of the name of Patton.  Those six executioners were successively employed in cutting up the bodies of these defenceless slaves, who persisted to the last in the avowal of their innocence.  The bloody whip was however kept in motion till savage barbarity itself was glutted.  When this was accomplished, the bleeding victims were re-conveyed to the inclosure of the mansion house where they were deposited for a few moments. ’The dying groans however incommoding the ladies, they were taken to a back shed where one of them soon expired.’[13] The life of the other slave was for a time despaired of, but after hanging over the grave for months, he at length so far recovered as to walk about and labor at light work.  These facts cannot be controverted.  They were disclosed under the solemnity of an oath, at Columbia, in a court of justice.  I was present, and shall never forget them.  The testimony of Drs. Parrott and Jones was most appalling.  I seem to hear the death-groans of that murdered man.  His cries for mercy and protestations of innocence fell upon adamantine hearts.  The facts above stated, and others in relation to this scene of cruelty came to light in the following manner.  The master of the murdered man commenced legal process against the actors in this tragedy for the recovery of the value of the chattel, as one would institute a suit for a horse or an ox that had been unlawfully killed.  It was a suit for the recovery of damages merely.  No indictment was even dreamed of.  Among the witnesses brought upon the stand in the progress of this cause were the physicians, Parrott and Jones above named.  The part which they were called to act in this affair was, it is said, to examine the pulse of the victims during the process of torture.  But they were mistaken as to the quantum of torture which a human being can undergo and not die under it.  Can it be believed that one of these physicians was born and educated in the land of the pilgrims?  Yes, in my own native New England.  It is even so!  The stone-like apathy manifested at the trial of the above cause, and the screams and the death-groans of an innocent man, as developed by the testimony of the witnesses, can never be obliterated from my memory.  They form an era in my life, a point to which I look back with horror.

[Footnote 13:  The words of Dr. Parrott, a witness on the trial hereafter referred to.]