A Shot in the Moonlight: How a Freed Slave and a Confederate Soldier Fought for Justice in the Jim Crow South by Ben Montgomery

Author:Ben Montgomery [Montgomery, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780316535564
Google: xmDhDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Hachette UK
Published: 2021-01-26T00:00:00+00:00

Grider wasn’t quite finished making his argument. On the morning of July 2, the defense called Zack Murray, the first man Dinning saw after the shooting. He lived a mile away, and he’d been asleep when Dinning woke him with a bellow. He got up, leaving his wife in bed, and went to the door.

“Did he make any complaint of some wounds that he had received that night?” Grider asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you examine him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell the jury what you found.”

“I found a place on his arm—I don’t remember which arm,” Murray said. “His shirt was torn across and there was a scratch or sore on his arm.”

“Did it appear to be a fresh wound?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was it bleeding at the time?”

“No, sir.”

Murray said he didn’t hike up Dinning’s sleeve to inspect it closely, but he saw a “sore place and it looked white.”

“Did you notice his head?” Grider asked.

“Yes, sir,” Murray said.

“What was the matter with his head?”

“When he first came to my house, I suppose it was something like a half hour before he had me to examine him,” Murray said. “There was a swollen place in the center of his head—about the size of the end of my finger—and I looked at it the next morning and it was swollen a good deal more, and there was a little ridge running up his head to another place, I suppose about a half inch broad.”

“Not swollen so much when you first saw him?”

“No, sir.”

“You say it was swollen considerably next morning?”

“Yes, sir, and there was a ridge running from the center of his head on up.”

Finn, on cross-examination, cut to the chase.

“Mr. Murray, that scratched place there on his arm,” Finn said, “what was the nature of that wound? Is that a scratch or a gunshot?”

“I don’t know that it was a gunshot.”

“I will ask you if that shirt was torn the way the wound ran?”

“No, sir,” Murray said. “It was torn across the wound.”

“Did George tell you that somebody had been over there throwing dynamite and bombs at him?” Finn asked.

“He said that they had been throwing dynamite and bombs at him and I tried to reason with him and told him if they had they would have killed him,” Murray said.

“What did he say to that?”

“He never claimed that there was any guns that were shot,” Murray said. “He said it was dynamite and bombs.”

“Did he say it rattled?”

“He said it hit the floor like gravel.”

“Did he say it hit on the upper floor?”

“Yes, sir. And he said the first one struck him on the arm.”

“Where did he say he was when it struck him?”

“Downstairs.”

“Where did he say he was when he shot?”

“He said he grabbed his gun and ran upstairs, and he said there was six or seven of them down there below and he shot into them after he was shot in the head,” Murray said. “And I asked him if he hit any of them and he said he shot some of them if the gun was loaded right.

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