the town in every direction, evoking all the elements of hostility, and
organizing the same into a deadly mob, to act at convenient opportunity.
I was ignorant of the great length to which this feeling had attained;
so also were the parties immediately interested in my personal safety. I
was therefore greatly surprised when, on the occasion of my last visit
to Fulton, and while in company with the lady, both of us visiting at
the house of a mutual friend, residing about two miles out of town, a
party rushed into our presence in hot haste, bidding me, if I wished to
escape with my life, to "fly with all possible speed!" The party who
performed this kindly office had scarcely gone, when, on looking out of
the window, I beheld a maddened multitude approaching--about six hundred
white men, armed with tar, feathers, poles and an empty barrel spiked
with shingle nails! In this barrel I was to be put, and rolled from the
top to the bottom of a hill near by. They also brought a sleigh, in
which the lady was to be taken back to her father's house. They intended
no harm to her.

Knowing the character of an American mob, and also knowing how little
they value the life of a man of color, I expected, as I saw the
multitude surrounding the house, to die--in fact, prepared for death.

Having assembled about the premises, they began to cry out in the most
uproarious manner, "Bring him out!" "Kill the Nigger!" "Hang him!" "Tear
down the house!" Shouts, groans, maledictions of all sorts and degrees
followed. No one who has not witnessed an American mob can have the
slightest idea of the scene which presented itself at this point. Had
six hundred beasts of the forest been loosed together, in one
promiscuous assemblage, they could scarcely have sent up howls and yells
and mad noises equal to those made by these infuriated men. There is no
exaggeration in this statement. For the sake of humanity, I only wish