rward I was notified by the Governor to attend
similar examinations before Mr. John W. Stephens (called "Chicken
Stephens" by Jo. Turner). Mr. Stephens was a justice of the peace
in Yanceyville. He was likewise a State Senator, but the
legislature was not then in session.

I proceeded to Yanceyville via Danville, Va., leaving the
railroad at the latter town, and driving sixteen miles across the
country. Reaching Yanceyville in the forenoon, I noticed several
groups of men, apparently laboring under suppressed excitement.
Beginning to understand the popular temper I feared a riot if the
cases should go on before the magistrate that day.

I stated my apprehensions to the Honorable John Kerr, the leading
attorney for the defendants and suggested that, to avoid a
possible riot, his clients should waive examination, and give
bail for their appearance at the next term of the Superior Court,
which they could do easily.

All of the Yanceyville lawyers appeared with Judge Kerr for the
defendants, doubtless volunteering their services with patriotic
fervor. After further consultation, my suggestion was adopted and
thus, it may be, bloodshed was then avoided. At any rate, events
soon to follow in Yanceyville, justify the belief that Stephens
would have been put out of the way on the spot, had the trials
proceeded.

When the cases had been disposed of, Stephens came to my room.
He was a slender, sinewy man, with fair complexion, pale blue
eyes and light brown hair, not prepossessing in manners or
appearance; illiterate and unpolished, but very earnest;
belonging to the plain classes of the South. His origin was
respectable, although born into a poor family, in Guilford
county. He had courage and tenacity. He was the leader of the
Caswell county Republicans, being one of the few white men who
dared to profess Republican principles in that locality. He was
bitterly hated by the "Conservatives," and this boded him no
good. Yet knowing it all, accused of petty crimes, which he had
not committed, held up to ridicule by such a man as Jo. Turner,
then a veritable potentate, Stephens had stood up boldly in the
midst of a hostile population, with no backers but the timid
negroes, which only intensified the hatred of his enemies. No
romance of chival