Semi-Weekly Mississippian [Jackson, MS], August 21, 1860
Dr. Pryor writes to the State Gazette, under date of Dallas, July 23 and 24, the following additional particulars of the progress of the Vigilance Committee in their work of ferreting out the guilty parties in the late outrages in that county:
The Vigilance Committee have been in session all day, and this evening they announced that there of the ring leaders of the insurrection are to be hanged tomorrow. These hardened scoundrels were amongst the number. The decision seems to give general satisfaction. The crowd dispersed after this announcement, and a strong guard was detailed to watch the jail in which are confined six or eight of the criminals. The police are active and unremitting in their efforts, and it would be impossible for the whole abolition fraternity to surprise us now, although we might be easily overpowered. They would have to fight for it, however.
Tuesday, July 24. This evening at 4 o’clock the three ringleaders, Sam, Cato, and Patrick, were escorted from the jail under a strong guard to the place of execution. An immense concourse of citizens and negroes assembled to witness their exit from the scene of their wickedness. As they passed through the town they surveyed with composure the ruins of the once flourishing town, that now lays in a blackened mass before them. Patrick Jennings (so called) remained calm and collected during the whole day, and betrayed no remorse or feeling whatever in view of his approaching doom. He it was who fired the town, and that night after its destruction glorified himself for the deed, and pronounced it only a commencement of the good work. These facts were obtained from many witnesses, who testified to the same facts without any hesitations or contradiction of each others’ statements.—Sam Smith, so called from the name of his master, was an old negro preacher who had imbibed most of his villainous principles from two abolition preachers, Blunt and McKinney, who lived in the country a year before, and had had much intercourse with said negro; this old negro was a deep dyed villain. Cato had always enjoyed a bad reputation. They met their fate with a composure worthy of a better cause. Patrick Jenning with unparalleled nonchalance died with a chew of tobacco in his mouth, and refused to make any statement whatever.
They were hung on the bank of the river above town, and are buried beneath the gallows.
Investigations are still going on throughout the country, all of which tend to confirm the facts elicited at this place. The evidence obtained before the committee will be published in due time. More anon.
The Quitman incendiary, who was fired upon and escaped, leaving his shavings and matches in front of Sparks’ law office, had not been discovered. The Herald extra says:
Since our paper yesterday, [giving an account of the attempted incendiarism,] made its appearance, we learn that Mr. Ed. Pollit, residing some fifteen or eighteen miles south of this place, saw a stranger, on Thursday last of suspicious appearance. He came to Mr. Pollit through the woods, and inquired if he could get through to Quitman, and came on in this direction. On the day after the attempt to fire the town, about noon, a man, answering fully the description, came through the woods to Mr. Gilbreath’s, about fourteen miles southeast of this place. He said he was lost. What a stranger can mean to be straggling through the woods is a question which very naturally excites suspicion. Some of the citizens are inclined to the opinion, from a combination of circumstances, that this is the identical man shot at on last Friday night.
We will give these circumstances as we hear them, thinking, perhaps, they may lead to some light upon the subject.
The Herald says:
Our streets are now nightly guarded with eight men, who will require a strict account from all who may be seen lurking in suspicious places, white or black; and slaves will not be permitted to straggle through the town at a late hour, even with the written permission of masters, unless on urgent business, and then not without the company of a guard.
We believe (says the Houston Telegraph), every city and town in the State, or nearly every one, is now guarded by a vigilant volunteer night police. There are no evidences amounting to anything of there having been any plot in the Southern half of the State.—Still, these vigilant guards have done much good in arresting vagabond white men, and runaway negroes.