Viewing page 16 of 191

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

first of June last. Ware lives about 12 miles west of Bladen Springs. I met him in his yard and told him my errand. I requested a full statement of the affair which I assured him I should strictly investigate. He manifested a good deal of trepidation perhaps at the presence of soldiers, but at length told his story thus; On Saturday night about the first of June two negroes dressed in grey, came to his house and requested supper and lodging. He provided them both; in the morning they changed their clothes for a suit of blue. He gave them breakfast and about noon they went away previously asking him whether he had him a gun. He told them he had. In the evening they returned with a third negro, one who had been living in swamps and subsisting upon what he could surreptitiously obtain. Ware ordered them off his premises. They told him he was a rebel and would take his life. They left shortly. but the following morning returned again. He went into his house and took his gun and sat in his doorway. They went around his premises and coming up towards him demanded his gun. He refused to give it up and told them he would shoot them if they came any nearer to him and told them to go away from his premises. They said they were not afraid of him and started for him