Squire Pemberton was a wealthy man, and he had always been a person of
great influence in the place. He had occupied all the principal official
positions in town and county. He had come to regard himself, as his
townsmen were for the most part willing to regard him, as the social and
political oracle of the place. What he thought in town meeting was
generally the sense of his fellow-citizens, and when he expressed himself
in words, his word was law.

When, on Sunday morning, with Fort Sumter in ruins, with the national flag
trodden under the feet of traitors, with the government insulted and
threatened, Squire Pemberton ventured to speak in tones of condemnation of
the free North, the people of Pinchbrook listened coldly, at first, to the
sayings of their oracle; and when he began to abuse the loyal spirit of
the North, some ventured to dissent from him. The oracle was not in the
habit of having men dissent, and it made him angry. His treason became
more treasonable, his condemnation more bitter. Plain, honest men, to
whatever party they might have belonged, were disgusted with the great man
of Pinchbrook; and some of them ventured to express their disapprobation
of his course in very decided terms. Some were disposed to be indulgent
because the Squire had a sister in Georgia who had married a planter. But
there was not found a single person, outside of his own family, who was
mean enough to uphold him in his treacherous denunciation of the
government.

The squire was too self-sufficient and opinionated to be influenced by the
advice of friends or the warning of those who had suddenly become his
enemies. He had so often carried the town to his own views, that, perhaps,
he expected to manufacture a public sentiment in Pinchbrook that would
place the town on the side of the rebels. All day Sunday, and all day
Monday, he rode about the Harbor preaching treason. He tried to convince