The planters and slaveowners of this period obtained the greater share of their recreation in attendance at political rallies, horse races, and cock fights.  Jobe Dean and Gus Abington who came to Trenton from their home near La Grange, Tennessee were responsible for the popularity of these sports in Phillips County and it was they who promoted the most spectacular of these sporting events and in which large sums of money were wagered on the horses and the game cocks.  It is said that Marve Carruth once owned an Irish Grey Cock on which he bet and won more than five thousand dollars one afternoon at Trenton.

No Negro slave was allowed to go beyond the confines of his owner’s plantation without written permission.  This was described by “Uncle” Henry Turner as a “pass”; and on this “pass” was written the name of the Negro, the place he was permitted to visit, and the time beyond which he must not fail to return.  It seems that numbers of men were employed by the County or perhaps by the slaveowners themselves whose duty it was to patrol the community and be on constant watch for such Negroes who attempted to escape their bondage or overstayed the time limit noted on their “pass”.  Such men were known then as “Paddy Rolls” by the Negroes and in the Southern states are still referred to by this name.  Punishment was often administered by them, and the very mention of the name was sufficient to cause stark terror and fear in the hearts of fugitive slaves.

At some time during that period when slavery was a legal institution in this country, the following verse was composed by some unknown author and set to a tune that some of the older darkies can yet sing: 

  Run nigger run, the Paddy Roll will get you
  Run nigger run, it’s almost day. 
  That nigger run, that nigger flew
  That nigger tore his shirt into. 
  Run nigger run, the Paddy Roll will get you
  Run nigger run, it’s almost day.

Both Bart Turner and his brother Nat enlisted in the services of the Confederacy.  Nat Turner was a member of the First Arkansas Volunteers, a regiment organized at Helena and of which Patrick R. Cleburne was colonel.  Dick Berry and Milt Wiseman, friends and neighbors of the Turners, also volunteered and enlisted in Cleburne’s command.  These three stalwart young men from Phillips County followed Cleburne and fought under his battle flag on those bloody fields at Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Ringgold gap, and Atlanta; and they were with him that day in November in front of the old gin house at Franklin as the regiment formed for another and what was to be their last charge.  The dead lay in heaps in front of them and almost filled the ditch around the breastworks, but the command though terribly cut to pieces was forming as cooly as if on dress parade.  Above them floated a peculiar flag, a field of deep blue on which was a crescent moon and stars.  It was Cleburne’s battle flag and well the enemy knew it; they had seen it