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[286]

XII. lodged in jail.

After a public exhibition of more than thirty hours, as they lay unattended and bloody on the floor of the guard house, interrogated by unmanly politicians and insulted by the brutal mob, the surviving Liberators, on Wednesday evening, October 19, were conveyed to the jail of Charlestown, under an escort of marines.

A United States Marshal from Ohio, after the political inquisitors had finished with the whites, endeavored to extort from the negroes, Copeland and Green, confessions to criminate the friends of freedom in his native State. He succeeded in procuring no confession whatever, but only a few brief answers to leading questions, which served to show at once his political purpose and his depravity of heart.

A Virginia journalist thus describes the journey to Charlestown :

On Wednesday evening they were conveyed to the jail of Jefferson County, under an escort of marines. Stevens and Brown had to be taken in a wagon, but the negro Green and-Coppoc, being unhurt, walked between a file of soldiers, followed by hundreds of excited men, exclaiming, “Lynch them;” but Governor Wise, who was standing on the platform of the cars, said, “O, it would be cowardly to do so [287] now;” and the crowd fell back, and the prisoners were safely placed on the train. Stevens was placed in the bottom of the car, being unable to sit up. Brown was propped up on a seat with pillows, and Coppoc and Green seated in the middle of them; the former was evidently much frightened, but looked calm, while the latter was the very impersonation of fear. His nerves were twitching, his eyes wild and almost bursting from their sockets, his whole manner indicating the dreadful apprehensions that filled his mind. This fellow was a member of Congress, under the Provisional Government, had been very daring while guarding the arsenal, and very impudent while in the engine house, but when the marines entered it, he jumped back among the imprisoned, and cried out that he was a prisoner; but Mr. Washington thrust him forward, and informed the besiegers that he was one of the guerillas, upon which a stab was made at him, but missed him, and he still lives to expiate his guilt on the gallows.

These statements, with regard to the negroes, are in all probability false. The Virginians, who had not dared to fight them armed, mustered courage to insult them when manacled.

On the same evening there was another panic at Harper's Ferry: it was Cook, this time, who was murdering all the people at Sandy Hook! The marines hastened out to protect the citizens, but found neither Cook nor a broil there. When they returned to Harper's Ferry, the Virginia militia, who had been afraid to follow, now valiantly offered to go out to defend their fellow-citizens.

But the limits of this volume will not permit me to recount how often and pusillanimously the Virginians acted. From the arrest of the Liberators till the death of their Chief, the shivering chivalry of the once gallant State of Virginia suffered from a chronic but ludicrously painful fright.

Governor Wise and Mr. Hunter accompanied the prisoners to Charlestown, where they were lodged in jail, and placed under the charge of Capt. John Avis. Of the jail and jailer a trust-worthy writer says: [288]

Brown is as comfortably situated as any man can be in a jail. He has a pleasant room, which is shared by Stevens, whose recovery remains doubtful. He has opportunities of occupying himself by writing and reading. His jailer, Avis, was of the party who assisted in capturing him. Brown says, that Avis is one of the bravest men he ever saw, and that his treatment is precisely what he should expect from so brave a fellow. Avis is a just and humane man. He does all for his prisoners that his duty allows him to. I think he has a sincere respect for Brown's undaunted fortitude and fearlessness. Brown is permitted to receive such visitors as he desires to see. He states that he welcomes every one, and that he is preaching, even in jail, with great effect, upon the enormities of Slavery, and with arguments which every body fails to answer. His wounds, excepting one cut on the back of the head, have all now healed, without suppuration, and the scars are scarcely visible. He attributes his very rapid recovery to his strict abstemious habits through life. He is really a man of imposing appearance, and neither his tattered garments, the rents in which were caused by sword cuts, nor his scarred face, can detract from the manliness of his mien. He is always composed, and every trace of disquietude has left him.

On the following day--Thursday, October 20-the body of Kagi was taken from the river, and the other corpses were buried in a large pit. The body of Watson Brown, however, was crammed into a box and carried off for medical dissection. The corpses of the negroes were horribly mutilated by the brutal populace. A. D. 1859-Va., U. S. A.

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