became one of my bitterest opponents. I attributed
it to the influence of a son of his, named Absalom, who had gone off
from the county during the war when he was only a youth, and had stayed
away for many years without anything being known of him, and had now
returned unexpectedly. He threw himself into the fight. He claimed to
have been in the army, and he appeared to have a deep-seated animosity
against the whites, particularly against all those whom he had known
in boyhood. He was a vicious-looking fellow, broad-shouldered and
bow-legged, with a swagger in his gait. He had an ugly scar on the side
of his throat, evidently made by a knife, though he told the negroes, I
understood, that he had got it in the war, and was ready to fight again
if he but got the chance. He had not been back long before he was in
several rows, and as he was of brutal strength, he began to be much
feared by the negroes. Whenever I heard of him it was in connection
with some fight among his own people, or some effort to excite race
animosity. When the canvass began he flung himself into it with fury,
and I must say with marked effect.

"His hostility appeared to be particularly directed against myself, and
I heard of him in all parts of the district declaiming against me. The
negroes who, for one or two elections, had appeared to have quieted
down and become indifferent as to politics were suddenly revivified. It
looked as if the old scenes of the Reconstruction period, when the
two sides were like hostile armies, might be witnessed again. Night
meetings, or 'camp-fires,' were held all through the district, and
from many of them came the report of Absalom Turnell's violent speeches
stirring up the blacks and arraying them against the whites. Our side
was equally aroused and the whole section was in a ferment. Our effort
was to prevent any outbreak and tide over the crisis.

"Among my friends was a farmer named John Halloway, one of the best men
in my county, and a neighbor and friend of mine from my boyhood. His
farm, a snug little homestead of fifty or sixty acres, adjoined our
plantation on one side; and on the other, that of the Eatons, to whom
Joel Turnell and his son Absalom had belonged, and I remember that as a
boy it was my greatest privilege and reward to go over on a Saturday and
be allowed by John Halloway to help him plough, or cut his hay. He was
a big, ruddy-faced, jolly boy, and even then used to tell me about being
in love w