ESSEX was his name, but to all the children on the plantation he was "Unc' Essick." When I first knew him, Unc' Essick was a very important personage on my father's plantation. I was a little late arriving, being the eleventh of a family of twelve children, and was born some years before the outbreak of the Civil War. As far back as I can remember, Unc' Essick was my father's foreman, general director - "right-hand man." On many of the Southern plantations the foreman was called "The Driver," and he was the driver literally. He carried his heavy whip, and did not fail to lay it on the backs...