Jack Hitt

Once he landed and all these men with guns showed up,

He tried to convince them that he was, you know, a human.

Because he wrote at one point, he says, many of them thought that I was the inhabit of some ethereal or infernal region who had floated to Earth to do them damage and injury.

He cut one open.

They'd frozen, right, being out in the very, very cold.

Cut one open to show them that there's just ice inside.

But, of course, he later realized that was the worst thing he could have done because one of them immediately said, how could anyone but a devil put so large a piece of ice through so small a place as that nozzle?

That's an excellent point.

Got to give it to him.

He was not convincing anybody that he was a normal human.

So, of course, they all thought he was some kind of Yankee spy.

So at this point, he's been arrested by these planters and these foremen out in the field.

And he's being taken into Unionville to go to jail because he's a spy.

And when he gets there, they can't put him in it because it's already packed with, quote, abolitionists.

Wow.

Okay.

So they take him to the hotel where they're going to put him in a room under armed guard.

Now, they do recognize, because he's on a top hat and tails, that he might be a man of some means or someone of importance.

And somebody does finally find some, like, local sort of erudite person who has heard of Thaddeus Lowe.

And so he vouches for him and keeps him out of jail for the day.