Miss Elizabeth Brown of Portsmouth, Va. claimed
Sheridan as her property. He spoke rather kindly of her, and felt that
he "had not been used very hard" as a general thing, although, he wisely
added, "the best usage was bad enough." Sheridan had nearly reached his
twenty-eighth year, was tall and well made, and possessed of a
considerable share of intelligence.
Not a great while before making up his mind to escape, for some trifling
offence he had been "stretched up with a rope by his hands," and
"whipped unmercifully." In addition to this he had "got wind of the
fact," that he was to be auctioneered off; soon these things brought
serious reflections to Sheridan's mind, and among other questions, he
began to ponder how he could get a ticket on the U.G.R.R., and get out
of this "place of torment," to where he might have the benefit of his
own labor. In this state of mind, about the fourteenth day of November,
he took his first and daring step. He went not, however, to learned
lawyers or able ministers of the Gospel in his distress and trouble, but
wended his way "directly to the woods," where he felt that he would be
safer with the wild animals and reptiles, in solitude, than with the
barbarous civilization that existed in Portsmouth.
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