Speaking his Mind in a Crowd

Among the crowd of persons who were on the levee yesterday morning, looking at the steamboats loaded with the Fort Donelson prisoners, was one individual who made himself quite prominent by the tone and manner of his conversation; remarking that the prisoners on those boats “had, if the truth were then known, more friends than they would have had were they Union men in the hands of the secessionists,” with much more of a seditions sort of winding up by saying, “It’s not safe for a man to speak his mind now-a-days in this city, for he does not know his friends from his foes, as people are often arrested for remarks made in common conversation, and there might be an officer in this crowd now, in fact, nearer me than I am aware of.”

“That’s so; I am that man; and you must come along with me,” broke upon the astonished ears of the secessionist, who was none other than W. J. Stratton, Esq. of this city, who felt a heavy hand laid upon his shoulder.

“What does this mean?”

“It means that I arrest you for treasonable language.”  At the same time the officer displayed to the astonished vision of Mr. Stratton a silver shield, warn as a badge, with “U. S. Police” legibly engraved thereon.

The upshot of the whole affair is that Mr. W. J. Stratton is now confined in the city military prison, corner of Fifth and Myrtle streets, where he will have ample time to reflect on the consequence of “speaking his mind in a crowd.” – Mo. Dem.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, February 27, 1862, p. 2