Page:Journal of Negro History, vol. 7.djvu/344



from above; and then no one could go upstairs without forcing his way against great odds. There was a plentiful supply of firearms with abundant ammunition. Twenty men could resist successfully a hundred, or more, if the attacking party had no artillery. But if a lodgment could be effected below, what could prevent the firing of the dwelling and the destruction of its inmates?

Here Stephens had lived and kept his enemies at bay; and he was as brave as any of them and much more desperate. The cowards who attacked negro cabins in the dead of night, with overwhelming numbers, never invaded Stephens's premises, for that sort took no risks. Yet he felt secure, for he had said that he suffered none to approach him, but those he knew to be his friends. I suppose he thought Wiley was his "friend."

Let us go back a few weeks. At spring term (April, 1870) of the Caswell Superior Court, an alarm was given that the Kuklux were coming to kill Stephens, Judge Tourgee, and all Republicans and break up the court. This disquieting intelligence was conveyed to me by Judge Tourgee himself. At the time, I occupied a room in Mitchell's house, already mentioned. My apartment, although joined to the dwelling, had no door opening into the main building, so that one had to go into the yard to get to the entrances of that part of the structure. Hon. James T. Morehead, an aged lawyer, who had been famous in his day, and now attended the court from habit, occupied a room of the same size as mine, and opening into it, and detached, as mine was, from the main building.

On Monday afternoon, the first day of the term, Judge Tourgee told me that one Hemphill had informed him of the contemplated raid, and that it was to occur the next Wednesday night. He desired me to go with him to Stephens 's house (where the judge boarded during the court), as one of the garrison, to help defend it. The proposition looked absurd to me and it seemed that, if I went, it might subject me to ridicule. No one likes to be ridiculed; at least, I do not.

It may be remarked, in passing, that Judge Tourgee had offended the lawyers, because he boarded with Stephens. They considered it beneath the dignity of so high an official to make his home with a man so low in the social scale, and they were all the more hostile toward the judge because he would do this. They insisted that they would have treated him with respect, if not