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Millard Fillmore (search for this): chapter 7
them the man under arrest, who was not handcuffed. After a moment's beckoning the prisoner saw his opportunity, fell in with the jubilant procession, and amid continued uproar was got outside the Court-House, when the crowd scattered in all directions. It was an exploit which, as has been well said, would hardly have furnished a press item had it been the case of a pickpocket, yet was treated at Washington as if it had shaken the nation. Daniel Webster called it a case of treason; President Fillmore issued a special proclamation; and Henry Clay gave notice of a bill to lend added strength to the Fugitive Slave Law, so as to settle the question whether the government of white men is to be yielded to a government of blacks. More curious even than this was the development of antislavery ethics that followed. The late Richard H. Dana, the counsel for various persons arrested as accomplices in the rescue of Shadrach, used to tell with delight this tale of a juryman impaneled on that
Winfield Scott Belton (search for this): chapter 7
lyze it, this early emotion was not created by the wish for praise alone, but was mainly a boyish desire for a stirring experience. No man so much excited my envy during my whole college life as did a reckless Southern law student, named Winfield Scott Belton, who, when the old Vassall House in Cambridge was all in flames, and the firemen could not reach the upper story with their ladders, suddenly appeared from within at an attic window, amid the smoke, and pointed out to them the way to follow. Like most boys, I had a passion for fires; but after this the trophies of Belton would not suffer me to sleep, and I often ran miles towards a light in the horizon. But the great opportunity never occurs twice, and the nearest I ever came to it was in being one of several undergraduates to bring the elder Professor Henry Ware out of his burning house. It was not much of a feat,we afterwards risked ourselves a great deal more to bring some trays of pickle-jars from the cellar,--but in the
Bums (search for this): chapter 7
. Later the long trial unrolled itself, in which, happily, my presence was not necessary after pleading to the indictment. Theodore Parker was the only one among the defendants who attended steadily every day, and he prepared that elaborate defense which was printed afterwards. The indictment was ultimately quashed as imperfect, and we all got out of the affair, as it were, by the side-door. I have passed over the details of the trial as I omitted those relating to the legal defense of Bums, the efforts to purchase him, and his final delivery to his claimant, because I am describing the affair only as a private soldier tells of what he personally saw and knew. I must, however, mention, in closing, a rather amusing afterpiece to the whole matter,--something which occurred on October 30, 1854. A Boston policeman, named Butman, who had been active at the time of Burns's capture, came up to Worcester for the purpose, real or reputed, of looking for evidence against those concerned
Richard Turpin (search for this): chapter 7
responding to this courtesy, were even more anxious than usual that I should not miss the train. In Boston, my friend Richard Henry Dana went with me to the marshal's office; and I was seated in a chair to be looked over for identification by the various officers who were to testify at the trial. They sat or stood around me in various attitudes, with a curious and solemn depth of gaze which seemed somewhat conventional and even melodramatic. It gave the exciting sensation of being a bold Turpin just from Hounslow Heath; but it was on a Saturday, and there was something exquisitely amusing in the extreme anxiety of Marshal Tukey--a dark, handsome, picturesque man, said to pride himself on a certain Napoleonic look — that I should reach home in time for my Sunday's preaching. Later the long trial unrolled itself, in which, happily, my presence was not necessary after pleading to the indictment. Theodore Parker was the only one among the defendants who attended steadily every day, a
Abby Kelley Foster (search for this): chapter 7
to the United States Senate practically followed from it. The whole anti-slavery feeling at the North was obviously growing stronger, yet there seemed a period of inaction all round, or of reliance on ordinary political methods in the contest. In 1852 I removed to Worcester, into a strong anti-slavery community of which my Free Church was an important factor. Fugitives came sometimes to the city, and I have driven them at midnight to the farm of the veteran Abolitionists, Stephen and Abby Kelley Foster, in the suburbs of the city. Perhaps the most curious case with which we had to deal was that of a pretty young woman, apparently white, with two perfectly white children, all being consigned to me by the Rev. Samuel May, then secretary of the Boston Anti-Slavery Society, and placed by him, for promptness of transportation to Worcester, under the escort of a Worcester merchant, thoroughly pro-slavery in sympathy, and not having the slightest conception that he was violating the laws i
Austin Bearse (search for this): chapter 7
new that there was now no chance of the rescue of Sims. The only other plan that had been suggested was that we should charter a vessel, place it in charge of Austin Bearse, a Cape Cod sea-captain and one of our best men, and take possession of the brig Acorn, on which Sims was expected to be placed. This project was discussed ateen best, but we had not quite reached that point, so an executive committee of six was chosen at last,--Phillips, Parker, Howe, Kemp (an energetic Irishman), Captain Bearse, and myself; Stowell was added to these at my request. Even then it was inconceivably difficult to get the names of as many as twenty who would organize and nts passed rapidly. We caught first one member of the committee, then another, and expounded the plot. Some approved, others disapproved; our stout sea-captain, Bearse, distrusting anything to be attempted on land, utterly declining all part in it. Howe and Parker gave a hasty approval, and-only half comprehending, as it afterwa
Watson Freeman (search for this): chapter 7
as to describe the weapon,--a Malay kris, said to have been actually picked up in the street. For years I supposed all this to be true, and conjectured that either my negro comrade did the deed, or else Lewis Hayden, who was just behind him.1 Naturally, we never exchanged a 1 Lewis Hayden apparently fired a shot in my defense, after entrance had been made, but this was doubtless after the death of Batchelder; and the bullet or slug was said to have passed between the arm and body of Marshal Freeman. When Theodore Parker heard this statement, he wrung his hands and said, Why did he not hit him? word on the subject, as it was a serious matter; and it was not till within a few years (1888) that it was claimed by a well-known journalist, the late Thomas Drew, that it was Martin Stowell who shot, not stabbed, Batchelder; that Drew had originally given Stowell the pistol; and that when the latter was arrested and imprisoned, on the night of the outbreak, he sent for Drew and managed
William W. Rice (search for this): chapter 7
hout from the mob, which seemed to feel for a moment that the Lord had delivered the offender into its hands. As a horse with a wagon attached was standing near by, it was hastily decided to put Butman into the wagon and drive him off,--a proposal which he eagerly accepted. I got in with him and took the reins; but the mob around us grasped the wheels till the spokes began to break. Then the owner arrived, and seized the horse by the head to stop us. By the prompt action of the late William W. Rice,--since member of Congress,--a hack was at once substituted for the wagon; it drove up close, so that Butman and I sprang into it and were whirled away before the mob fairly knew what had happened. A few stones were hurled through the windows, and I never saw a more abject face than that of the slave-catcher as he crouched between the seats and gasped out, They'll get fast teams and be after us. This, however, did not occur, and we drove safely beyond the mob and out of the city towar
Charles Devens (search for this): chapter 7
to be done at the trial itself. And yet all sorts of fantastic and desperate projects crossed the minds of those few among us who really, so to speak, meant business. I remember consulting Ellis Gray Loring, the most eminent lawyer among the Abolitionists, as to the possibility of at least gaining time by making away with the official record from the Southern court, a document which lay invitingly at one time among lawyers' papers on the table. Again, I wrote a letter to my schoolmate Charles Devens, the United States marshal, imploring him to resign rather than be the instrument of sending a man into bondage,--a thing actually done by one of the leading Boston policemen. It is needless to say to those who knew him that he answered courteously and that he reserved his decision. No other chance opening, it seemed necessary to turn all attention to an actual rescue of the prisoner from his place of confinement. Like Shadrach, Thomas Sims was not merely tried in the United States C
George H. Munroe (search for this): chapter 7
l in the Civil War. This vital part of the facts, at the one point which made of the outbreak a capital offense, remained thus absolutely unknown, even to most of the participants, for thirty-four years. As Drew had seen the revolver loaded in Worcester, and had found, after its restoration, that one barrel had been discharged, and as he was also in the attacking party and heard the firing, there can be no reasonable doubt that the revolver was fired. On the other hand, I am assured by George H. Munroe, Esq., of the Boston Herald, who was a member of the coroner's jury, that the surgical examination was a very thorough one, and that the wound was undoubtedly made by a knife or bayonet, it being some two inches long, largest in the middle and tapering towards each end. A similar statement was made at the time, to one of my informants, by Dr. Charles T. Jackson, the reported discoverer of etherization, who was one of the surgical examiners. It is therefore pretty certain that Stowell'
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