I rejoice to be able to say that this sufferer has at last escaped with his wife and child, into a free state.  He was assisted by some white men, but I do not know all the particulars of his escape.

Our overseer had not been long able to ride about the plantation after his accident, before his life was again endangered.  He found two of the hands, Little Jarret and Simon, fighting with each other, and attempted to chastise both of them.  Jarret bore it patiently, but Simon turned upon him, seized a stake or pin from a cart near by, and felled him to the ground.  The overseer got up—­went to the house, and told aunt Polly that he had nearly been killed by the ‘niggers,’ and requested her to tie up his head, from which the blood was streaming.  As soon as this was done, he took down his gun, and went out in pursuit of Simon, who had fled to his cabin, to get some things which he supposed necessary previous to attempting his escape from the plantation.  He was just stepping out of the door when he met the enraged overseer with his gun in his hand.  Not a word was spoken by either.  Huckstep raised his gun and fired.  The man fell without a groan across the door-sill.  He rose up twice on his hands and knees, but died in a few minutes.  He was dragged off and buried.  The overseer told me that there was no other way to deal with such a fellow.  It was Alabama law, if a slave resisted to shoot him at once.  He told me of a case which occurred in 1834, on a plantation about ten miles distant, and adjoining that where Crop, the negro hunter, boarded with his hounds.  The overseer had bought some slaves at Selma, from a drove or coffle passing through the place.  They proved very refractory.  He whipped three of them, and undertook to whip a fourth who was from Maryland.  The man raised his hoe in a threatening manner, and the overseer fired upon him.  The slave fell, but instantly rose up on his hands and knees, and was beaten down again by the stock of the overseer’s gun.  The wounded wretch raised himself once more, drew a knife from the waistband of his pantaloons, and catching hold of the overseer’s coat, raised himself high enough to inflict a fatal wound upon the latter.  Both fell together, and died immediately after.

Nothing more of special importance occurred until July, of last year, when one of our men named John, was whipped three times for not performing his task.  On the last day of the month, after his third whipping, he ran away.  On the following morning, I found that he was missing at his row.  The overseer said we must hunt him up; and he blew the “nigger horn,” as it is called, for the dogs.  This horn was only used when we went out in pursuit of fugitives.  It is a cow’s horn, and makes a short, loud sound.  We crossed Flincher’s and Goldsby’s plantations, as the dogs had got upon John’s track, and went of barking in that direction, and the two overseers joined us in the chase.  The dogs soon caught sight of the runaway, and compelled