Sentence:  The Southerners caught him ; and, as a natural consequence of his capture, he was, after a little preliminary cowhiding and railriding, tarred and <WSD>cottoned</WSD>; the soft and downy substance growing in the pod of the cotton plant being in the sunny South the substitute for 'the penal plumes' —as Sydney Smith in humorous euphuism called the feathers wwibh, in combination with a coating of pitch, made up the ignominious livery of an offender whom the Americans delight to dishonour. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  To cover with cotton bolls over a layer of tar (analogous to (tar and feather) )