they invited to shower insults of any kind upon the unhappy McKees. The rowdies spat tobacco juice in his eyes; and as they arrived in front of the bar-rooms, threw him violently on the ground for the amusement of the cruel and debased creatures who usually congregate about such places. After the mob had shouted. their approbation, he was taken up and conveyed to the next shanty, where the same operation was performed. McKees fainted several times from complete prostration, and buckets of cold slops were thrown over him to restore consciousness.

He begged them to kill him, rather than to torment him in such a manner. Tiring of this, they took him to an old shanty, and securing an old dirty negro, they made McKees shake hands with him, and then, amid the jeers of the crowd, told him "to take a drink with his old Uncle," and compelled him to drink "Old Abe Lincoln's health." After this, they seemed to be satisfied with demoniac sport of this kind, and two of the ruffians prevailed upon the others to release him, on condition that if he was caught again attempting to escape, he should be hung.

McKees was no sooner out of their clutches, than he fell into the hands of others of the same party, who heaped all sorts of indignities upon him in the street, and hired boys to pelt him with rotten eggs, and call him a negro-lover. Being hourly in fear of his life, he resolved upon another attempt to escape from his persecutors, and started on foot for the mountains, hoping to reach Mexico.

When six miles from Orange, the excited band overtook him and completely surrounded him, and with cowhides and pistols in hand, swore if he made any attempt

to escape, or offered any resistance, they would blow his brains out.

Jim Worsham grabbed him by the throat, and accused him of being a d―d miserable Abolitionist, while Joe Jordan applied the lash to his back, and whipped him till his strength was exhausted. McKees, who was now speechless, motioned to them to spare his life, as he saw Joe Jordan take from his coat-pocket a clothes-line, well knowing that they intended to hang him. The gang, which consisted of the two Saxton brothers, Jim Worsham, Joe Jordan, and three others, seized the defenceless man, and placing the rope around his neck, carried him across the road to a large tree, where they hung him.

The news was soon circulated throughout Orange that one d-d nigger-stealing Abolitionist was taken care of, and the citizens saw the fiend, Jim Worsham, parading in the bar-rooms, infuriated with liquor, swearing boastingly of what he and his confederates had accomplished for Texas by ridding her soil of an Abolitionist, while on his back they recognised poor McKees's clothing.

The next morning Mr. Hope Cooper, a farmer of Orange county, was driving to the town of Orange, when he was horrified at the sight of McKees's lifeless body suspended from a tree at the road-side. He drove back, and informed one of his neighbors, when they both returned and cut down the ghastly and terribly-mutilated form of the murdered man, and buried him in an adjoining field.

As soon as Jim Worsham, Joe Jordan, and their followers heard what Mr. Cooper had done, they swore with terrible oaths that they would cut the heart out of the Yankee sympathizer that had removed the body of an Abolitionist; but Mr. Cooper and his neighbors were

cautious, when questioned about the body, to plead entire ignorance of the whole affair.

MURDER OF MR. JAMES AND MR. MARSHALL.

IN the month of August, 1861, a man by the name of James arrived in the town of Orange, from Galveston, and put up at King's Hotel. He reported, in the course of his conversation with a crowd in the bar-room of the house, that he had just arrived a few weeks previous at Galveston, from California. It is said that in the evening of the day of his arrival he was seen conversing with one or two negroes by Jim Worsham and his gang, who were lying in ambush for him.

In his interview with the negroes, it is asserted that he told them his mission was to liberate them, and that if they would prepare themselves the next night, he would secrete them on board a small schooner which belonged to him, and which was anchored in Sabine river, on the Louisiana side. One of the negroes to whom he revealed his plans, belonging to a Mr. Smith, a NewYorker, who had been in Texas about a year and a half, went to his master and narrated the full particulars of the conversation that had taken place between Mr. James and himself, telling his master that James wanted to meet him (the slave) that night at twelve o'clock, and that he had promised to do so. Smith, upon learning this, determined to ferret out the matter, and accordingly dressed himself in his slave's suit of clothes, and, blackening his face, sallied out at the appointed time to meet Mr. James.

So complete was the disguise, that with the knowledge

obtained from the ignorant or treacherous negro, he succeeded in drawing from his unsuspecting confidant the whole of his plans. Making an agreement to meet again, the supposed negro vanished.

The next morning Smith reported to Charles Saxton, Jim Davis, and Jim Worsham what he had heard, and it was at once decided to take the life of Mr. James, who was expected to leave Orange that day. About nine o'clock Mr. James chartered a small boat, and hired a Mr. Marshall to row him across the Sabine river.

Both James and Marshall were in the boat, and Marshall was standing up pushing off from the shore, when Jim Davis, a notorious thief, and his companions, came rushing down the bank. The boat was not more than a dozen yards from the bank when Davis aimed a revolver at Mr. James, exclaiming, with an oath. "You are a d-d Yankee scoundrel, that tried last night to entice our negroes away, and I am going to shoot you on the spot, you miserable thief!" Mr. Marshall stood in front of Mr. James, expostulating with Davis, telling him he was mistaken in the man, and begging him to spare Mr. James's life. This intervention aroused all the beastly fury of Davis, who swore he would kill both of them, and suiting the action to the word, he fired upon Mr. Marshall, who fell in the bottom of the boat, exclaiming, "Great God, what have you done!" The ball entered the right breast, and passed nearly through the body.

They then put out a small boat, and brought both James and Marshall to the shore, and securing James, they laid Marshall under an old shingle-shed, where the hideous monster, Charles Saxton, took out his jack-knife and began to probe the wound for the bullet, cursing Marshall for groaning at the pain he was suffering.

Marshall besought him to let him alone, and in the

name of God to send for his wife and children, that he might see them before he breathed his last. At first this request was refused, but after earnest entreaties the wretches granted the dying man's only wish; and Mrs. Marshall, with her family of five small children, arrived just in time to witness his dying struggle.

Mrs. Marshall was so terribly stricken with grief at the loss of her husband that she survived his murder but ten days. Her babe of two years, and a bright little boy of six years, were laid at the side of their parents in two weeks after their death. Mr. Marshall was a native of the western part of Louisiana, a brickmaker by trade, and had always been respected as an honest and hardworking man.

After these desperadoes had got rid of Marshall, they turned their whole attention to Mr. James. They carried him before the civil authorities, on the charge of enticing negroes to desert their masters. Jim Davis produced several letters, which were known by loyal witnesses to have been forged, and affirmed under oath, that they found these letters in Mr. James's coat-pocket. The testimony was so strong and conclusive, that he was found guilty, and the sentence of death was passed upon him early in the forenoon by the judge. At night a mob broke into the jail, and dragging Mr. James to the nearest tree, hung him on the spot. After the body had been suspended fifteen or twenty minutes, it was cut down, and eight or ten blood-thirsty fellows removed the corpse to the interior of the jail. In a few minutes Dr. Hudson of Orange, and another doctor of the same town, assisted by the crew, whose malicious perjury on the witness-stand had been the cause of the sentence, began to mutilate the body, and while doing so, gave vent to the most horrible sentiments. Dr. Hudson cut out the