Book excerpt: This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1909 edition. Excerpt: ...month or two, and it seemed that my mind in some way became confused and impaired, and I took to drinking too much spirituous liquors. One day, some time in the spring of 1849, my brothers John, Thomas, Isham or Whin, and I were at a little grocery store near Dog river, about twelve miles from Mobile. I drank too much spirits and became intoxicated, and in that situation I imagined every man I saw was trying to arrest me. I fell in with a man by the name of Smith, an Irishman, and a difficulty occurred between us; I con cluded that he intended to arrest me. I drew my double-barrel shot gun upon him and intended to kill him. He was too quick for me; he threw up my gun, drew his dirk and stabbed me just above the collar bone. The wound did not quite penetrate the cavity of the chest, or it would have killed me; I threw down my gun and ran about two hundred yards and fainted. My brothers then carried me about two miles, and one of them went home and got a carriage and took me home. Smith went to Mobile and told the news. A party came out and tracked me up by the blood, and arrested and carried me to Mobile jail. I was now in the worst situation I ever was in my life. One indictment against me in Alabama for larceny, and another against me in Mississippi for murder, and the requisition of the Governor of Missippi then in the hands of the officer to carry me there to be tried, The question was which trial to avoid; if found guilty, as I felt certain I would be, in-both cases, one would be the penitentiary for not less than four years, and the other would be hanging. I employed the best counsel that could be procured in" Mobile. and on consulting with him and making him fully acquainted with all the facts, he advised me.to plead guilty of...