[The Pulaski boys] decided to disperse to their homes while they waited to see whether Jefferson Davis had any employment for them. A prearranged signal would call them back to Hawkinsville if the good news came that they could go to war.
The signal was to be the firing of an old cannon that the town owned - no one could remember where it came from - and the man entrusted with handling the gun, when the time came, was seventeen-year-old Sam Stephens. Stephens's fellow soldiers would one day describe him as "a whole-souled man and a brave soldier" but also as "the mischief man of the company". He had requested the honor of firing the signal shot with a promise "to give a report that would be heard by the members in the remotest corners of the county, even those who were asleep."
In mid-May ... word came ... that the company ... should start at once for Richmond. [Captain] Ryan told Stephens to go ahead and fire the cannon. Afterward Sam never would tell his friends in the company just how much powder he had used. He carefully placed the gun next to a very large tree and somehow contrived to stand behind the tree and reach around it to apply the slow match to the touchhole of the cannon. The report was indeed heard for a considerable distance, and one of the Pulaski boys later reported, "It is said that only one small portion of the cannon could be found, and that was in the rear of Manning's store ... a distance of three or four hundred yards, where it had fallen and killed a hog." Sam was unhurt, though the tree was much the worse for wear.
