USA > Tennessee > History of the Twentieth Tennessee regiment volunteer infantry, C.S.A > Part 3
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All of this is in perfect keeping with Puritanical inconsis- tency.
Mr. Hoar was sent by Massachusetts to Charleston to lay in formal complaints, but was at once dismissed. On his return he expressed great indignation and appealed to the Massachusetts legislature, and in revenge it passed the " Personal Liberty Bill" which was done to obstruct the "Fugitive Slave Law," which was then in force.
Up to this time abolitionism was only discussed as a moral question, but now it had gained such a headway that its leaders had determined to carry it into politics, where they expected to make it a stepping stone to power and emolument.
In 1838 they reckoned their strength and found that they were to weak to form a political ticket of their own in the state of New York for Governor, so they began dickering with leading politicians. At this time Mr. Marcy and Mr. Seward were the candidates for Governor of the opposing parties in the state. Now the proper thing for the abolitionist to do at that time, would be to see which one of these candidates would commit himself to their doctrine. This, W. H. Seward readily did, and was elected Governor. It so happened that at that time in the State of New York there was a law called the "Sojournment Act"
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which allowed a slave holder to bring his black servants with him and remain in the State of New York for nine months, without prejudice to his rights.
When Mr. Seward was interrogated about this law in 1838, he sustained it; but in 1840, after he was elected Governor, he changed his mind, and refused to honor a requisition for a fugi- tive slave from the state of Virginia.
As late as 1840 the state of Ohio passed a resolution by its legislature, to the effect that slavery was an institution recog- nized by the Constitution, and the unlawfui, unwise and un- constitutional interference by the fanatical abolitionists of the North with the institutions of the South were highly criminal.
What could have been plainer, more truthful and more manly, than that resolution, yet twenty years later Ohio sent 317, 133 soldiers to overthrow it.
The abolition party of New England was becoming so imbit- tered toward the South, that it forced some of the Southern States to change their sentiments toward emancipation ; for instance Alabama had so changed as to pass an act in 1840 en- slaving all free blacks who remained in the State after Aug. I 1840.
In 1838, when the abolitionists met, they concluded that they were two weak to put out a State ticket in New York, but the next year they met at Warsaw, N. Y., and set on foot a po- litical party with a candidate of their own for president of the United States, and this candidate was Mr. Berney, who received in the presidential election in Nov. 1840, as its first abolition candi- date 7,000 votes.
The discussion of the slavery question in the campaign in 1840 also received a new stimulus from the Texas revolt.
In 1836 an insurrection headed by Americans broke out and the independence of Texas soon followed, and a scheme was set on foot to annex it to the United States.
At first Daniel Webster favored this scheme, but he was after- wards induced to change his mind, just as Mr. Seward, when Governor of New York changed his mind about the "Sojourn- ment Act," when it was to the interest of his party to do so.
The New Englanders opposed the annexation of Texas as they
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did the Louisiana case in 1805, more on the ground of jealousy of the South than any thing else.
At this time the leading politicians did not know whether to support annexation or not. Henry Clay who opposed it lost the presidency in 1844. Martin Van Buren who opposed it failed to be renominated by the Democratic party in 1844.
Texas was admitted March 3, 1845, but with the agreement that four States should be formed out of the territory besides the one already in existence, and that the States so formed should be ad- mitted with or without slavery, as their inhabitants might de- cide, but slavery should not exist north of latitude 36. 30.
President Van Buren was defeated for a renomination for president, in the Democratic convention of 1844, which irritated him very much, so he raised a new party in New York that was called the Free Soil party, which meant no more slave states anywhere. Now this was directly opposed to the agreement that was made with the Southerners on the admission of Texas, which the Democratic party never forgot, but this Free Soil party that Van Buren begot answered its purpose, it divided the Democratic party in the state of New York and elected the oppo- sition.
This alarmed the people of the South who were not pacified until the compromise act of 1850, which act Mr. Seward vio- lently opposed.
One of the prominent measures of this compromise act of 1850, was the Fugitive Slave Act, yet the anti-slavery people kept up such an agitation that several of the Northern States were in- duced to pass Personal Liberty Bills, in imitation of the example set by Massachusetts.
In 1852, the abolitionists dropped Mr. Berney and selected David Hale the Boston Auctioneer and Sunday-school teacher as their candidate for the presidency. He received 157,000 votes as against their former candidate Mr. Berney of 7,000 in 1840, and in 1856 Jno. C. Freemont the abolition candidate for president received 1,334,553 votes.
These questions were kept alive at the North by discussion as to citizenship of the free blacks; several States had be- stowed upon them suffrage as a practical proof of their right to
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rank as citizens. This controversy was settled by the United States Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case.
Dred Scott was a negro who lived in Missouri, his master being a surgeon in the United States Army from the above state, who moved from Missouri to the state of Illinois, then later to Minnesota, taking the negro with him. While in Minnesota, this negro man married a negro woman owned by the same master and had born to them two children.
Dred was afterwards taken to St Louis and sold, he then brought suit for his freedom. This case went through the chan- nel of the courts until it reached the United States Supreme Court, which rendered its decision in December 1857, which said ; - "That the negroes were not citizens of the United States and could not be- come so under our constitution, they could not sue or be sued and therefore this court has no jurisdiction in the case."
A slave was simply personal property that could be taken from state to state, the same as other property without his mas- ter losing ownership in him.
This decision of the highest court in the land was rendered by its Chief Justice Taney with six other members of the court, making a total of seven of the nine judges of a full bench, while only two dissented. This almost unanimous opinion ought to have been conclusive, and was entirely in accord with the fundamental principles of our constitution.
This decision was received by the South with its hearty appro- val, while at the North it created bitter dissatisfaction, and that high tribunal of justice and learning was scathingly denounced.
The abolitionists of the North said that the "Constitution of the United States was a league with death and a covenant with hell."
It did look as if these people had no respect for law, order or God when any of these came in contact with their hatred to the Southern people.
The Dred Scott decision was rendered in 1857, and during the winter of 1857 - 58 John Brown, who had been a leader and pro- moter of the troubles in Kansas, put himself at the head of a party (this he acknowledged), for the purpose of inflaming the public mind on the subject of slavery, and effected an orginiza- tion to bring about servile insurrection in the slave States.
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To accomplish this, he colleted a number of young men inclu- ding two of his own sons, and with the funds and arms that had been furnished for his Kansas lawlessness, after he had been run out of there by the Federal officers, he placed these young men under military discipline at Springdale, Iowa. In the spring of 1858 he took them to Chatham, Canada, where on May 8, 1858, he called a convention of his followers and adopted a Provisional Constitution for the people of the United States, the preamble of which began by saying : - "Whereas,-Slavery throughout its entire existence in the United States, is none other than a most barbarous, unprovoked and unjustifiable war of one portion of its citizens upon another portion, Therefore, we citizens of the United States and the oppressed people, who are declared to have no rights, which the white man is bound to respect, do ordain and establish for ourselves the following Provisional Constitution, to better protect our person, property, lives and liberties."
Two days afterwards, after appointing a committee with power to fill all vacancies in their Constitution that the conven- tion had adopted when assembled in a foreign land, they ad- journed "sine-die," and Brown then took his party to Ohio and disbanded them subject to his call. However one of them, a Capt. Cook of Connecticut, he sent to Harper's Ferry, Va. to make himself familiar with the surrounding country and its citizens, especially the negroes, in order that he might inform his leader. John Brown, under the assumed name of Isaac Smith went to the neighborhood of Harper's Ferry about July 1, 1858 and spied out the country for future military operations, going as far up the valley as the little city of Staunton.
He led the people to believe that he was a farmer from New York. He had with him two of his sons and a son-in-law, all under the pretense of renting or buying a farm. He soon rented a small farm four and a half miles from Harper's Ferry on the Maryland side of the Potomac. This was known as the Kennedy farm, where he did some work in the farming line to cover his secret, lawless intentions. He also claimed to be an expert in mineralogy, and expected to find valuable deposits in the moun- tain regions about Harper's Ferry.
In the mean time he kept two of his party at Chambersburg,
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Pa., who received arms, ammunition and military stores that had been collected for warfare on southern sympathizers in Kan- sas, to be sent to him at Harper's Ferry when ordered ..
On Oct. 10, 1859 he issued his general order No. 1, which was to organize his provisional army into companies, regiments, brigades, and divisions, and signed his name John Brown, Com- mander in Chief.
This order was issued while at the Kennedy farm, but he soon after moved to an empty schoolhouse near Harper's Ferry, where he stored hundreds of carbines, pistols, spears, sabres, cartridges, caps, powder, and military supplies with which he intended to arm the negroes when they rose in insurrection in response to his call.
Everything was now ready, and the unsuspecting Virginians were to receive a thunderbolt from a clear sky.
On Sunday night Oct. 16, 1859, about eleven oclock, John Brown, the assumed Commander in Chief, at the head of four- teen white men from Connecticut, New York, Ohio, Iowa, Pa, Maine, Indiana, and Canada, with five free negroes from Ohio, Pa., and New York, in all twenty insurgents fully armed, crossed the Potomac into Virginia at Harper's Ferry ; they overpowered the guard at the Baltimore and Ohio R. R. Bridge and also cap- tured the armory and arsenal in the town and the rifle factory on the Shenandoah above the town, and placed guards on the corners of certain streets.
Brown established himself in a thick walled brick house at the armory gate, one room of this house was used for a fire engine. He then sent out six men under Capt. Stephens in the dead hours of the night, to seize a number of leading citizens in the neighborhood, and incite the negroes to rise and murder their owners.
This party broke into the house of Col. L. W. Washington, five miles out from Harper's Ferry at 1.30 A. M., and forced him and four of his servants to go with them, they also took a farm wagon of the Colonel's.
On their way back at 3 A. M. they captured Mr. Allstadt and six of his negro men, and armed the latter on the spot.
When they arrived at Harper's Ferry, Cook, the spy, was sent with five of the captured negroes and Col. Washington's four
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horse wagon over to the schoolhouse on the Maryland side, to bring up the ordinance stores that Brown had deposited there.
Brown then halted a railroad train on the Baltimore and Ohio Road, one of his men killing the guard at the bridge.
His men captured the citizens of Harper's Ferry as they appeared upon the streets in the early morn, to the extent of about forty.
He placed Col. Washington and Mr. Allstadt, two of the most prominent citizens, in the engine house room which he had sel- ected to make his point of defense. By this time it was day- light, and the news spread rapidly and the citizens of the surrounding country began to flock in, armed as best they could to resist this high handed invasion of their homes. By 11 A. M. of the 17th, The Jefferson Guards of Charlestown, Va. arrived.
They were soon followed by other companies, two from Shep- ardstown and one from Martinsburg, all under the command of Col. R. A. Baylor.
These troops soon forced the invaders within the armory enclosure and had them surrounded. Brown then withdrew his forces to his principal point of defense and carried ten of the most prominent citizens that he had captured with him.
He called them his hostages, in order to insure the safety of his band.
From the opening that they made in the building they fired on all the whites who came in sight.
This state of affairs continued during the 17th; but after sun- set Capt. B. B. Washington from Winchester arrived and three companies from Frederick City, Maryland, under Col. Shriver, and later came companies from Baltimore under Gen. C. C. Edgerton, and a detachment of U. S. Marines under Lieut. Green and Major Russell, accompanied by Lieut. Col. R. E. Lee of the 2nd U. S. Cavalry, with his Aide, Lieut. J. E. B. Stewart of the Ist U. S. Cavalry.
Col. Lee happened to be at his home at Arlington, Va., when he was ordered to proceed to Harper's Ferry, and take charge of the situation, recapture the U. S. Armory and Ar- senal and restore order. This he proceeded to do by crossing the Marines over the Potomac during the night and disposed them on the Armory ground, and then invested the whole
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situation with the Volunteer troops. He waited for daylight instead of making a midnight attack on Brown's stronghold, to keep from sacrificing the lives of the ten citizens that Brown had forced to remain in there with himself and his band.
By daylight of the 18th, everything was ready for the attack on Brown's stronghold.
Col. Lee under flag of truce sent Lieut. J. E. B. Stewart to John Brown, with a written demand to surrender himself, his associates and the prisoners he had taken, and restore the pil- laged property ; if he would do this, he and his associates would be kept in safety to await the order of the president of the United States ; but if he was compelled to take them by force, he could not answer for their safety.
This offer was spurned by Brown, and in a few minutes Col. Lee ordered twelve Marines under Lieut. Green to attack Brown's stronghold, batter down the doors and bayonet his party, being careful not to injure the citizens or slaves that Brown had as prisoners, unless they should resist.
The attack was made at once, but Brown had so barricaded the doors from the inside with the fire engine ropes etc., that the sledge hammers were of no avail ; so Col. Lee ordered up a por- tion of the reserve with a ladder as a battering ram, and this knocked a hole in the door by which the assaulting party gained admission.
Up to this time Brown's fire was harmless, but as the Marines dashed through the door, one of their number was killed, but the others in a few minutes ended the contest by bayoneting the insurgents that resisted.
Lieut. Green cut down Brown with his sword, and the entire party was captured except Cook.
A party of marines under Lieut. Stewart was sent to the schoolhouse and the Kennedy farm to take charge of the muni- tions of war that Brown had stored there, and they were enough for a respectable campaign.
Col. Lee made an official report of the entire affair to Col. Cooper, then Adjutant General of the U. S. Army, in which he reported Brown as having said, that he intended to liberate the slaves of Virginia and the whole South, but he had been disap-
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pointed in the expected aid from the blacks and also from the whites in the North as well as the whites in the South.
Not even the negro men he had captured and armed, and had in his stronghold at the engine house, took any part in the bat- tle, and returned home as soon as released. The defeat of his whole purpose showed the result of a fanatic and a madman.
Col. Lee, by order of the Secretary of war, John B. Floyd, turned over to the U. S. Marshal and sheriff of Jefferson Co., Va., Brown, two white men and two negroes. Ten white men and two negroes in Brown's band were killed during the battle. One negro was never accounted for, and Cook, the spy, escaped, but was afterwards captured and executed.
The insurgents killed in the battle, three white men: Mr. F. Beckham, the mayor of Harper's Ferry, Mr. G. W. Turner, and private Quinn of the Marines; also a R. R. porter, and wounded eight white citizens and one marine.
Col. Lee in his report thanked Lieuts. Stewart and Green and Maj. Russell for their efficient service, and enclosed a copy of the Provisional Constitution that Brown and his party had prepared for the people of the United States, while they were in Canada.
During the afternoon of the 18th, Gov. Henry A. Wise of Virginia, arrived at Harper's Ferry, and took such precaution- ary measures as he thought best for the protection of Virginia and the enforcement of the laws.
Brown having been turned over to the civil authorities of Jef- ferson County, and the regular fall session of the circuit court meeting on the 20th of October, only two days after Brown's. capture, he was indicted by the grand jury for treason and mur- der.
He was prosecuted by Hon. Andrew Hunter of Va., who made a national reputation by the able manner in which he con- ducted the case.
Brown was defended by able counsel from Virginia and other States, including the Hon. Dan W. Voorhees, of Indiana. He was convicted and condemned; his trial lasted nearly a month; and Brown himself, admitted that it was fair and impartial.
He was condemned to be executed on Dec. 2nd, 1859. His counsel asked the Court of Appeals for a stay of execution, but this was refused.
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After Brown was convicted and waiting his execution, Madam Rumor had it that Northern sympathizers would make an effort to release him, but Gov. Wise had about 1,000 State troops in and about Charleston, and among these were cadets from the Vir- ginia Military Institute under command of Col. F. M. Smith; Maj. T. J. (Stonewall) Jackson was present in command of the cadet artillery.
After the execution on Dec. 2nd, Jackson wrote to his wife and said, that his command was in front of the cadets, all facing South. He also said, "I put a portion of the artillery under Mr. Trueheart, on the left, and I remained with the other on the right, and other troops were in different positions about the scaf- fold."
"It was a solemn scene, to think that a man in the vigor of health must in a few moments enter eternity."
"I sent up a petition that he might be saved. I hope he was prepared to die, but I am doubtful."
On the day of Brown's execution, bells were tolled and guns were fired in many places in the North, and public meetings were held for the purpose of glorifying his bloody deeds, and midnight assassin assaults, recognizing him as a martyr to their works and teachings. His name became a slogan to the men who afterwards overran the South.
It is interesting to note the men who were more or less con- nected with the investigation, capture and execution of John Brown and his comrades, and who figured greatly in our civil war as Confederate generals. They were S. Cooper, R. E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, J. E. B. Stewart, John B. Floyd and Henry A. Wise, also Colonels J. C. Faulkner and A. R. Boteler. In a committee appointed by the U. S. Senate to inquire into the facts concerning the invasion, were Jefferson Davis and J. M. Mason, and they had before them as witnesses Hon. W. H. Sew- ard, J. R. Geddings, Henry Wilson and Andrew Hunter. John A. Andrews, Governor of Massachusetts secured the funds to pay Brown's counsel.
About this time appeared one of the most remarkable and das- tardly publications that was ever written, in' its hatred and ma- lignity towards the Southern people. This was " Uncle Tom's Cabin," written by Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. She was a sis-
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ter of Henry Ward Beecher, the man of God, who, when the Kansas trouble was going on, got up in his church in Brooklyn and subscribed twenty-five Sharpe's rifles to murder the border ruffians, as he called the Southern sympathizers in Kansas, and said "that he would raise the money to pay for them in his church the next Sunday," which he did.
What an unholy aspect it was to behold a pretended follower of the meek and lowly Jesus, whose teachings have always been "peace on earth, good will towards men," aiding, abetting and advising the shedding of blood, murder, arson and lawlessness, instead of praying to God, the ruler of the affairs of men, to pour oil on the troubled waters.
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" contained overdrawn and highly col- ored pictures of the punishment of the negroes by their masters. This was intended to inflame the minds of the Northern people. It also irritated the Southern people, for they knew its falsity, and this helped to widen the breach between the two sections.
Now, this invasion of Virginia, by John Brown, for the pur- pose of setting free her slaves, and those of the other slave States, as he himself said, did it not justify Virginia in enforcing her laws and protecting her property? Let us see. Of the sixteen States and territories holding slaves in 1860, Virginia held a com- manding position. Of the 384,884 slave-holders in the United States, 52, 128 lived in Virginia-about one-seventh. Georgia came next with 41,084; Kentucky, third with 38,654; Tennessee, fourth, with 36,844; now, these four States contained nearly half of all the slave-holders.
Of the 3,953,743 slaves in all the Southern States and territo- ries, Virginia owned 490,865, or about one-eighth of the whole; Georgia held second place with 462, 198; Mississippi third, 436,- 631; South Carolina fourth, 402,406. These four States owned nearly one-half of all the slaves at the beginning of the war.
The Southern States to a great extent, had bought this enor- mous property from the Northern people, and the money that they paid for these negroes had been invested in the North, and as the compact of 1787 would never have been signed had it not guaranteed the protection of negro slavery, Virginia would have been nothing ess than a traitor to her people if she had done less.
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than she did, viz: wipe John Brown and his band from the face of the earth.
If there had been an invasion of the North to destroy factories built by money that southern people paid for northern negroes, a howl of distress would have gone up, that would have been greater than the rebel yell that went up at Chickamauga on the Sunday evening after Snodgrass Hill was taken.
While John Brown was carrying on his bloody work in Virginia in 1859, which was approved by the abolitionists of the North, a book was written to be circulated in the campaign of 1860 called the "Impending Crisis." This book was to show that the free labor of the North was more profitable than the black labor of the South, therefore, the black labor ought to be abolished.
This book referred to slavery and the Southern people in very unbecoming terms. I will make a few quotations from it, in order that the reader may form his own opinion as to its feelings towards the South.
Page 149. "We are determined to abolish slavery at all haz- ards, in defiance of all opposition, of whatever nature, it is possible for the slavo-crats to bring against us; of this they may take due notice and govern themselves accordingly."
Page 156. "On our banner is inscribed, No cooperation with slave holders in politics, no fellowship with them in religion, no affiliation with them in society. In fact no recognition of pro- slavery men except as ruffians, outlaws, and criminals."
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