Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Poetry and Incidents., Volume 3.
Frank Moore, Ed.

Yes, my dear Sir, we live too near the borders of Missouri not to feel intensely excited by the scenes that are being enacted in that State. Secession and rebellion are rampant on the very borders of Illinois. The newspapers have informed you of the undermining of a railroad bridge by the rebels, by which scores of men, women, and children were suddenly sent into eternity, and great numbers, who were not killed outright, were maimed for life. Scenes equally brutal, though not so destructive, by wholesale, of human life, are every day perpetrated by the ‘Secesh’ of Missouri. A more cowardly set of savages does not exist. Two of my three sons are now in the Union army. The oldest is captain of a company, but Frank, our youngest boy, is only a private. [38] Both are in the field in Missouri, and both have frequently enjoyed the gratification of smelling gunpowder in battle with the Secession rascals. One day a small party of Missourians, concealed behind a wood-pile close to the railroad, fired into the cars as they were passing, and killed an excellent young man who was sitting by the side of Frank. The young man assassinated in that cowardly manner was Frank's bosom friend, and both were born in the same county. Ever since that day Frank has never been in a skirmish with the Missouri rebels without taking deliberate aim and dropping his man; for the boy is a capital shot, and always hits his mark. He says he feels no more compunction in killing a Missouri rebel than he would in killing a mad dog.

You can hardly realize the ferocity with which slavery inspires the owner of a negro or two. Even woman, when she owns a slave, or one is owned in the family, seems, in many instances, to have cast aside her feminine nature and to have become savage. A woman of wealth, the owner of quite a number of slaves, when a band of Cherokee Indians, a few months ago, came to the south of Missouri, where she lives, to join the Secession army, under McCulloch of Texas, that woman, or rather fiend, publicly offered the Indians a large reward if they would bring her ‘Yankee free-soil’ scalps enough to make a counterpane for her bed. There is no mistake about it.

The same ferocity exists wherever slavery is found. Last June, a beautiful and accomplished girl, a native of Western New York, employed as a teacher in New Orleans, was dragged, on Sunday morning, to Jackson Square, and placed in ad nuditate naturoe in the presence of many hundreds of spectators, including scores of well-dressed women. To the latter the poor girl made a heartrending appeal, that they would save her sex from such an outrage. But they replied only by jeers and insults, telling her it was no more than every Yankee woman deserved. The unfortunate girl was tarred and feathered, and then banished from the State, without receiving the salary due her. You may rely upon the entire truth of this statement. It comes on the authority of a spectator, upon whose words as implicit reliance can be placed as upon that of any man in the community.

I hope and trust that God designs to make this wicked rebellion the instrument for ridding our land from the curse of slavery.