William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 2

[130] Oliver has turned on his employers and made a clean breast of the dirty business. Gray, a member of the Black League, heard in his lodge the purposes of his chiefs. He learned that Vicksburg was to be attacked by Negro troops, assisted by a Negro mob, and that all the White citizens were to be killed. Gray set out to warn some people who had been kind to him of the impending massacre. Jeff Tucker, an officer in the League, suspected Gray, and ordered him to be slain. Oliver expresses deep regret, for Gray had never injured him; but Tucker was his officer, and he was bound by oath to do whatever he was told, even to the shedding of a brother's blood. When Tucker bade him go and kill Gray he went and killed him, never asking why, because he dared not ask. He says he acted out of fear. If he had not killed Gray, he would have been killed himself.

In Georgia the coloured people seem content, but who can say how long this calm may last? The Negro is a child of mystery. No man can guess what he will do or will not do. Voices move him, fetishes inspire him. Traces of his African superstitions cling to him, even in a Georgian school and