the Colonel with a ring of triumph in his voice.
"Colonel Shepperd!" exclaimed Patton, in the utmost amazement and chagrin as he looked at the small, insignificant speaker. "Yes, sir, Col. Shepperd, who has promised to hang Col. Patton whenever he caught him," said Shepperd, drawing from his pocket a pair of handcuffs which he had carried for months for the purpose of braceleting Patton if ever captured.
With a spring like a tiger Patton shook himself free from the troopers that surrounded him, and catching up a limb of a fallen tree he put his back against a large oak, and exclaimed, "Col. Shepperd, you shall never subject me to the disgrace of handcuffs; I will die first. I claim the usage of war, to be treated like an officer and a gentleman. I will never submit to be handcuffed."
"You are a robber, and a murderer, and have forfeited all the consideration due a soldier, sir," answered Shepperd, bitterly. "I wear the uniform of a British officer, sir, and I demand to be treated like an officer of his Majesty's army. I give you my word of honor to make no effort to escape. I will go alone with you, or any one else to headquarters. I will consider myself your prisoner and deport myself accordingly without constraint, but I never submit to personal indignity, and no man will handcuff me alive."
"Shepperd was no fool; and he saw plainly enough that Patton would make a desperate resistance, in which he would have to be either killed outright, or so badly hurt that he would be unfit for travel, so the plan of handcuffing him was abandoned, and accepting his parole, Shepperd made ready, and both men mounted their horses, and set off alone for Gates's headquarters near Asheville, eating, sleeping, and riding together like brothers until they reached the American camp where Shepperd turned his prisoner over to the authorities, and he was tried by drumhead court martial, condemned, and executed.
Hon. Augustin Shepperd, a member of Congress for thirty years, was his nephew, and he was the father of William and Mrs General Pender; Captain Frank Shepperd, of Georgetown, and Hamilton Shepperd, Esq., of Warrenton, Va., are his near kinsmen. One of his sisters Pamela, married Col. Paoli Ashe, from whom descended Hon. Thomas S. Ashe, of the Supreme Bench of North Carolina, and other brilliant men. Col. Shepperd left three sons, William, Egbert and Henry, all of whom afterwar moved to the Western District of Tennessee.
Two of his sons married daughters of Marmaduke Johnson, Esq., a wealthy gentleman, of Warrenton, Va., William, his eldest son, was most happily married to Mary Haywood, and their daughter, Mary, is the wife of John L. T. Sneed, Chief Justice of Tennessee, who was a nephew of the illustrious Judge William Gaston, of North Carolina. Col. Shepperd's daughters were equally fortunate in their alliances. Of his daughters two were married to the two Governors, Ashe of North Carolina, that is--Elizabeth married Col. Sam. Ashe, son of Gov. Sam. Ashe, and had William S. Ashe and others; Mary married Samuel Porter Ashe, son of Col. John Baptista Ashe (the oldest son of Gov. Sam. Ashe, a U. S. Senator, elected Governor, but died before qualifying.) He was a citizen of Fayetteville before he removed to Tennessee, his oldest daughter, Sarah married Wm. Barry Grove, a member of Congress and a banker in Fayettesville; Susan married David Hay, Esq., a gentleman of fortune, whose sister, Susan, was the first wife of Judge Wm. Gaston.
David Grove, a son of Wm. Barry Grove and Sarah, married Susan Hay Ashe, a daughter of Sam. Ashe and Elizabeth. John Baptista
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