Great pits were dug which were filled with oak stumps and logs, and
burned for about twenty-four hours before the cooking began. These logs
were reduced to a perfect bed of live coals. Over these, old-fashioned
Southern negroes, of whom there were many in the neighborhood, cooked
quarters of beef, whole sheep, pigs, chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese.
There were at least five thousand people on the ground. My blacksmith
friend, Allison, was firing a salute with an old cannon. He fired the
cannon after it was loaded, with an iron rod, one end of which was kept
heated in a small fire. I attended to the fire for him. After the
discharge the gun was wiped out with a wet swab. The powder was done up
in red flannel cartridges. Allison, with heavy, buckskin gloves on his
hands, would hold his thumb over the vent or tube of the cannon. Two
men, first slitting the lower end of the cartridge, would ram it into
the gun. During each loading process I straddled the gun, looking
towards Allison. After a number of discharges, the heat burned a hole
through the glove that Allison was using, and his thumb, coming in
contact with the hot metal, was withdrawn for an instant, while the
assistants were sending home a charge. There was an immediate premature
explosion. I was sitting astride the gun, and felt it rise up and buck
like a horse. Allison's eyes were nearly ruined, and his face filled
with powder, the marks of which stayed with him the rest of his life.
The two assistants were horribly mutilated, but neither of them was
killed. For a time I thought I never would hear again. My ears simply
shut up and refused to open for some time.

It would seem that this disaster should have been sufficient for one
day, but it was not. That night there was to have been public speaking
in front of the Western Hotel, by many prominent politicians. Opposite
the hotel was a two-story brick building, with a veranda built around
it. All of the offices on the second floor opened on this veranda. It