t he was born the slave of Arch Kendricks
in Crawford County, Georgia, two hours before day on a certain Fourth
of July, one hundred and four years ago, recalls several instances in
his long and eventful life in which he contends the accuracy of these
forecasts was borne out by subsequent occurrences. The most striking
of these he says was the time his young master succumbed from the
effect of a wound received at the first battle of Manassas after
hovering between life and death for several days. The young master,
Sam Kendricks, who was the only son of his parents, volunteered at the
beginning of the War and was attached to the army in Virginia. He was
a very impetuous, high-spirited young man and chafed much under the
delay occasioned between the time of his enlistment and first battle,
wanting to have the trouble over with and the difficulties settled
which he honestly thought could be accomplished in the first
engagement with that enemy for whom he held such profound contempt.
Sam Kendricks, coming as he did from a long line of slave-owning
forebears, was one of those Southerners who felt that it was theirs to
command and the duty of others to obey. They would brook no
interference with the established order and keenly resented the
attitude and utterances of Northern press and spokesmen on the slavery
question. Tines Kendricks recalls the time his young master took leave
of his home and parents for the war and his remarks on departing that
his neck was made to fit no halter and that he possessed no mite of
fear for Yankee soldier or Yankee steel. Soon after the battle of
Manassas, Arch Kendricks was advised that Sam had suffered a severe
wound in the engagement. It was stated, however, that the wound was
not expected to prove fatal. This sad news of what had befallen the
young master was soon communicated throughout the entire length and
breadth of the great plantation and in the early evening of that day
Tines sitting in the door of his cabin in the slave quarters a short
distance from the master's great house heard the cry of a whippoorwill
and observed that the voice of this night bird seemed to arise from
the dense hedge enclosing the spacious lawn in front of the home.
Disturbed and filled with a sense of foreboding at this sound of the
bird, he earnestly hoped and prayed that the cry would not be repeated
the following evening, but to his great disappointment it was heard
again and nearer the house than before.