The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1879-02-14

| nl1c nunuTcu, III quest Oh WHISKY
For one drink around they had agreed to
leave the premises.
The old deacon was badly frightened
and sorely puzzled what to do. 1t was
my advice not to let them in, whoever
they might be, but to defend ourselves
to the best of our ability. The question
of an entrance was soon put to an end,
for suddenly the door was dashed in.
The three of us had just time to step
into the deacon's room and bar the door,
before the hall was filled with armed
guerrillas. My sleeping room was the
first one entered by them. I could dis
tinctly hear the conversation of the ma
rauders who had evidently come there
to annihilate Deacon A, and clean
out the plantation generally. They
ransacked the house from cellar TO gar
ret and finally came to the door of the
room in which our little party was be-
seiged. heard some one say, "Cap'en,
there's three or four men in that room.
think we had better keep out" At any
rate no attempt was made to force an en-
trance. 1 soon after head the crowd
walking out of the hall upon the YER
andah
stepped through into a connecting
adjoining room, where l could look
through the back window and see the ruff
fans plainly, 0here being no light in
the room which l was in) as they were
passing down stairs. I raised my double
barreled gun and pointing it directly in
to the crowd, pulled both triggers and
over forty buck shot, with eight drachms
of powder in their rear, went twirling
through their bodies, and five or six of
the plunderers fell head foremost down
the steps upon the bricks below.
The effect of these shots, so terribly
destructive. coming from an unknown
quarter, caused the thirty or forty guer-
rillas to beat hasty retreat, taking with
them twenty four of the deacon's mules,
large quantities of bacon, whisky, sugar,
etc, from the store room and numerous
other articles that they had plundered
from the rooms above. They also took
the bodies of their dead and wounded
comrades.
On several occasions during the ex-
citement / had called the deacon in a
low tone of voice, but had not received
an answer. 1t was nearly daylight and
the guerrillas had gone, yet the deacon
was no where to be found AS I passed
down stairs into the back yard, heard
fearful groan as from some one in dis
tress. About this time some of the
negroes from the quarters came up.
One of them passing near one of the
outhouses heard call for "help! helpp'
as though coming from beneath the lit
tie building. A few movements reveal
ed the situation. The head and neck only
of Deacon A-were in view. 1t was
the work of some minutes to extricate
him from his sad predictment He, it
seems. had left the beseiged room while
the guerrillas were inside the house and
passed out through his secret passage
way, hoping thereby to gain the cane
field a short distance from the house.
He was in the act of crawling when he
discovered man, probably picket on
duty, but few rods ahead of him.
The old deacon made flank movement
and crawled under the out building
where in his desperate fright he lost his
hold and slipped into the predictiment
in which we found him.
/ dispatched letter to the general
commander at Baton Rouge and before
ten O'Clock that day was in pursuit of
our visitors of the night before with a
hundred cavalrymen at my back. The
chase was fruitless, however, as we gain
les of four guerrillas that had been left at
a plantation about twelve miles away.
| was considerable loser by the raid as
in my haste to get out of my room on
the night of the arrival of the guerrillas
l left my gold watch and pocket book
containing several hundred dollars, under
my pillow.
1t was nearly three weeks after the oc-
currence named when started out again
at one O'Clock in the morning with four
teen picked cavalrymen to make a raid
into the country of the enemy At day
light had divided my little force for
the purpose of getting into the front and
rear of certain locality where guerril-
las were supposed to rendezvous. At the
head of seven men, just after daylight, as
the sun rose and cleaned its light upon
their arms, we discovered and surprised
seven mounted guerrillas just returning
from a raid with over twenty horses and
mules in their possession. We rushed
upon them instanter. The assault was
sharp, quick and decisive The fight
lasted but few minutes. Not one of
the men with me was hurt. We killed
six of the base crew and captured the
seventh man, whom we took prisoner to
Baton Rouge, where he was delivered
over to the military authorities.
didn't recover my watch but was
not much poorer in greenbacks than
when started out to look after the do
ings of Deacon A.