Year: 1878

| "TPine eye hath looked
On fearful deeds, for still their shadows hang
Ger its dark orb"


The war closed in April, 1865, anC
then the reign of license and terror
began. Everywhere the spirit o.
vengence was abroad in true diabol


ical style. The fountains of the
great deep of human weakness anc
human rascality were touched with
an internal charm, and scheme after
scheme of blighting villainy was
carried into effect until the wide
spread depravity shook civil order
from its base to its apex, tearing
and cOnvulsing society into fearful
parOXisms of horror! Men were
found tied to trees with dying
agony, horrible to see, in their dis
torted faces and hung to limbs and
left staring with tongue out and
eyes protruded from thei- sockets.
Were found by the roadside with a
bullet sent crashing through the
brain by an unseen hand; with
throats cut, almost, in their savage
ness, seyering the head from the
body. Roasted to death before their
own hearthstones, turpentined and
set in blaze to make them yield
up in many cases that which they
did not possess-money! Shot
through windows in the midst of
wife and babes whilst passing the
cup to the lip at tea table by the
lurking assassin, who imagined he
had some petty grievance to avenge
upon the warrior who had passed
unscathed through an hundred bat
ties! Thus, for months the simeon
of death and destruction swept the
country in its colossal strength.


During these terrible times ''that
tried mems SOULS" sleeping them in
the bitter waters of Marah, there
were four noted men-noted
for their heartless cruelty, always
wearing in their depradations black
Grape wells doubled over their faces
mounted on superb horses carrying
terror to the people wherever they
went. Their operations were chiefly
confined to the interior of one of
the Gulf States. A vigilance com
mittee had failed to capture or
lessen the atrocities of these dread
ed merauders, though almost in con
stant pursuit, and the heart of the
people had grown sick and hopeless
with feeling of insecurity.


1t is very long lane, so says the
threadbare adage, that never turns,
and the day of retribution was on
their track like a sleith hound, and
ere many months went by their cap
ture would be heralded to the world.


In all these weary months the
mother of the wayward son, whose
history is being sketched in these
pages in a feeble way, believed hlm
from his own lips in a distant city
in the employ of the government
whose uniform he had worn during
the strife; and believing as she had
long done that he had no need of
her, felt a fierce physical pain al
ways gnawing at her heart, and not
caring to live would have welcomed
the yelled men, had they mercifully
put an end to her miserable life.


Death ending annihilation her
heart, grown hard in suffering, could
scarcely see beyond these terrible
words to those who yearn for a Re
decmer's love and a glorious future
beyond this storm-drenched world
TO a peaceful rest.


On the morning of a dark sleety
day in November, the trees bending
with their heavy coats of ice and
wiatry gloom settling over the little
city, the dash and wild clatter of
hoofs are heard. The news is being
borne by a courier that the veiled
men are captured! A fight ensued,
one of the murderers had been
killed and two of the vigilance had
been wounded slightly. A great
fright seems to seize the people as
if a calamity instead of a blessing
had been rendered, as they are told
these men are in chains and on
their way to the city. No shout of
greets their appearance on
the Square, to which hundreds had
and stood with the rat
Ting sleet falling on their umbrellas
scanning curiously the faces of the
criminals whose hands were reeking
in the hot blood of their victims
men whose crimes were unexsmpled
in history.


Among the three men in hand
cuffs there was one with long brown
glossy hair, and beautiful beard
his face upon which no