The sanctity of the
day was well observed throughout the camp, and increased by an impressive
sermon, preached by Bishop Clark. In the afternoon, passes were given to the
men to visit the city. The day closed with a dress parade, President Lincoln
and other functionaries being present.
SOURCE: Theodore
Reichardt, Diary of Battery A, First
Regiment Rhode Island Light Artillery, p. 8
MASSACHUSETTS, November 29.
Dear Friend: I have written to you once before, but fear it has never reached you; and now I try again, trusting in the generosity of Capt. Avis. Be of good cheer, dear, brave old friend; your dear ones will be generously and lovingly cared for all the rest of their days! Last evening there was a crowded and enthusiastic meeting at the Tremont Temple, Boston, the proceeds of which were to go to your stricken family. Every where, from all parts of the country, money is pouring in, in large sums and small, for the cause your self-devotion has made sacred to all Christian hearts. I would gladly relinquish ten years of my mortal life, if thereby you could hear even the echo of the noble things that were said by the noblest men in our land last night, I longed for wings to fly to you and tell the words of life, beauty, and eternal truth uttered so eloquently by that poet and philosopher, Mr. Emerson, in behalf of you and your cause. Not many eyes were dry; and every body that had a heart throbbed in unison with your own. God is very good, my friend. He never forgets us; and, in our darkest hour, he sends us the light and strength we need. Thousands of true men and women will never tire of trying to fill the void your death will make to the afflicted family at North Elba. Trust me when I say we will never forget them. . . . Dear, brave old friend, I honor, love, and bless you for the immortal testimony you have given to truth and right. I consecrate myself anew to the cause of the oppressed. Go bravely to your death! God and His holy angels stand ready to receive you, and generations yet unborn will cherish with love the remembrance of John Brown at Harper's Ferry. Farewell!
Please give poor Stevens my heartfelt sympathy and
admiration for his fortitude and patience. God bless you both!
* A Massachusetts matron. Redpath indicates that she is the author of the first letter in this chapter.
SOURCE: James Redpath, Editor, Echoes of Harper’s Ferry, p. 425-6
DEAR SIR, I have just returned from a visit of some days into the western part of New York, where I have seen our common friend, the Rev. Mr. May. He has written a letter to you, which I take pleasure in forwarding. I attended service in his church last Sunday morning, where he administered the communion, and spent at least half an hour in enforcing our duty to follow the example of Jesus Christ in our conduct rather than in our profession or creed. He pathetically lamented the apostasy of so many of the clergy at the present time, and their active agency on the side of wrong; and he said, what I and I doubt not many others were rejoiced to hear, that, while so many doctors of divinity were proving faithless to their highest trust, Theodore Parker, the man whom they denounced as an infidel, was more ably and conspicuously faithful to the cause of truth than any of their number. It produced a strong sensation, as home-truths always will. . . .
SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 300
Dear Friend: A few humble believers, some of whom have been fasting and praying for thee and thy fellow-prisoners, desire that ye should know that ye are thus remembered. He who searches the heart can make known the fulness of what we feel but forbear to express. Dear friend, if thou knowest the way of life, thou hast help the world knows not of; but if thou hast never known Him whom to know aright is life eternal, we entreat thee in tender love to look to Him in this hour of need. Read the 46th Psalm and the 14th Chapter of St. John. Pour out thy supplications to thy Redeemer: He hath His loving eyes upon you there; His ear will be specially open to thy cry in the name of Jesus. It is Christ alone on whom we can rest. Be instant in prayer, remembering that the true Church is wrestling with thee. We have fear lest, from the bravery and magnanimity of thy spirit, thou shouldst not be sensible where thy strength lieth, as we poor weaker ones are, and have therefore affectionately entreated thee to keep very near in dependence on thy Divine Redeemer. We hope the rest of thy prisoners may see this letter, for we would point them all to the only refuge. O friends, look to your Redeemer in supplication, and thus draw down by prayer His loving kindness unto your wounded hearts, We pray for you, but you must pray for yourselves. We will also do what we can for your family if they need.
SOURCE: James
Redpath, Editor, Echoes of Harper’s Ferry, p. 415
Ilion, New York, November 24.
Dear Brother in Christ: How I would like to spend this night with you in your cell, and converse for a season on the joys that await you beyond this world of sin and sorrow. I have tried to spend this day in prayer and thanksgiving to Almighty God for the many blessings received at His hand the past year, but in spite of all my efforts in this direction, it has been a sorrowful day to my soul, as my mind has dwelt almost constantly on your death scene. I cannot be joyful; I mourn not so much for you, (for, like the hero of Tarsus, you seem ready to be offered,) but I mourn for my country. I spent the past winter in the South, spending four months in nine of the slave States; and more than once I had to press my lips and clinch my fists, to keep back the feelings of my soul. I saw Slavery in all its phases, and many a night I have wet my pillow with my tears, as I called to mind the sufferings of the poor slave. I had hard work to control my feelings, but did so, and cannot think but it was the best course. Among the slaveholders I found some of the noblest men I ever met with kind, obliging, hospitable, pious, and to all appearances without a fault; so I returned to my home to hate the sin and not the men. I made the acquaintance of Gov. Wise, and found that it was not Wise that killed Cilley; it was not Wise that fought for Slavery at the South; it was his education — for a nobler heart never filled the breast of man; and had he been favored with a birthplace on the shores of Lake Champlain, and a home among the Adirondack mountains, he might have been your general in this conflict, and lying wounded by your side to night.* Would to God these brethren could read our hearts. O, could they see how we love them; how we desire their present and future happiness; what a change would at once take place in their feelings towards us. Did Gov. Wise know Christ as did Paul when soundly converted, there would not be power enough in all the military force of Virginia to hang John Brown. But enough of this.
I have never believed that Virginia, for her own honor, would hang you; but she may, (my heart is too full, my tears flow too fast to write,) if she does, such a funeral as the sun never saw before, will follow.
Keep up good courage; a few more rising and setting suns, and the struggle will be over; and the thrice welcome words will reach your ears, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you."
I have been a resident of Washington County for thirty-eight years; left Fort Edward, New York, May, 1858, and am sure I have met you, but cannot tell where; but if faithful to the grace already given, I am sure I shall meet you again, and I know where. Praise the Lord, on that blissful shore, where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are forever at rest. You will not be permitted, like Moses, to return after forty years to engage afresh in the struggle for freedom: but God will raise up others, in his own good time, to carry forward the work.
Farewell, till we meet in Heaven; for, when we reach the landing place,—
“In the realms of endless light,*What miserable cant! "Pious" trafficars in God's children; "pious" robbers of God's poor; "pious" brokers in the souls for whom Jesus died! "Kind, obliging, hospitable!" No doubt of it! To compel men and women to work without reward, is so kind; to barter for base gold the offspring of slave mothers, is so obliging; to rob a race of every social, civil, political, matrimonial, paternal, filial right, is so hospitable an act, that it is not surprising that the class who practise it should be “to all appearance without a fault!" And Wise, the assassin of Cilley, the representative murderer of John Brown, the laudator of the Slave Pens, the acknowledged head and champion of the vilest Commonwealth that the sun looks down on, of course, he deserves the eulogy bestowed on him, when the writer says, that a “nobler heart never filled the breast of man." There are no murderers, there are no assassins, there are no base, nor cowardly, nor wicked men, if the philosophy of the writer be correct. It was not Judas, then, but Judas's education?
Ellenville, New York, Nov. 25.
Dear Brother: We are personally strangers, but we cherish for God and Humanity the same love and trust. Permit me, then, a brother in bonds with the bound, to extend to you my Christian sympathy and prayer in this hour of your trial. Be assured, my dear brother, that the heart of the nation is with you; that whatever the difference in the mode of our operation, our purpose, "to break every fetter," is the same. I am grateful that God and your own heart sustain you in your journey “Home.” You and I do "worship the same God," the God of righteousness and justice, who weigheth motives; and though acts are defeated, will not fail to reward good intentions. I trust there is upon your mind no doubt of your acceptance with God through the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ. The little I have read of your confident avowal of the Divine Mercy towards you, cheer me with the hope that though men kill the body, God will nourish the spirit the man- under His own pavilion of light forever.
I trust you will esteem it no reproach that wicked men plot against you, and put you to death on the gibbet. The gibbet, and the cross, and the fagot, have often been honored by men of whom the world was not worthy. Had you been successful, men would have called you a hero; but because defeated — I forbear the rest. My heart sickens at the thought that conscience, and divine trust, and self-sacrificing benevolence must lie in a cell and await a cruel death. But we now build monuments for those whom others murdered, and God shall yet build yours, not perhaps in bronze or marble shaft, but in a nation of free and happy men, who shall rise up and call you the Moses of their Redemption. You need not fear that your family will suffer want; God and the good will succor them. And now, my dear brother, will you not indulge me with at least a short reply. I shall cherish it long, and gather inspiration from its sight for other conflicts in behalf of religion and liberty. I too have a family of children, and I desire that they should live for the oppressed; and, if such is God's will, die fighting their battles. I will surely swear them at God's altar to eternal hatred of American and every other Slavery. I shall pray fervently every day until you depart, that God may be with you and comfort you. . . .
April 19.
Yesterday the rebels at the Ferry made arrangements for Col. Higginson to meet General [W. S.] Walker this morning under a flag of truce. The request was that the Colonel in command here should send over a boat to bring the General across. But the Colonel concluded to go over to them at the hour appointed. I would have gone with him but for my lameness, a wrench to the knee from the Quartermaster's poor horse falling upon it. The Colonel was met by the General's staff with an official letter, but when informed what regiment he represented, they replied that their orders were to hold no official Communication with officers of such regiments. The Colonel learned that General Walker is the W. S. Walker of the regular army, who was under my care in Worcester in the autumn of 1852, and who subsequently in 1856, at the head of a company of dragoons, was sent by Gov. Geary to meet the Colonel on the plains of Kansas while he was at the head of an armed emigrant train. The meeting then was one of mutual surprise, and instead of arrests being made and the train stopped, they went together to the Governor, and the affair took a less stringent turn than had threatened. Yesterday the Colonel took especial pains to send him word that his old acquaintance, T. W. H. would have been happy to send his compliments, had he been treated with due respect, and that his old medical friend, Dr. R. was also here.
In the absence of the Chaplain today, Thomas Long of Co. G held the divine service. His prayers were so deep and simple and touching that we all found our sight somewhat dimmed by tears. In the course of his sermon he said; "If each one of us was praying men, it appears to me that we could fight as well with prayers as with bullets, for the Lord has said that if we have faith, even as a grain of mustard seed cut into four parts, you could say unto that sycamore tree, arise, and it will come up."
I have not received a letter from you for several days, as there seems to be something wrong with the mails again.
Grant has come to a dead halt before Petersburg and Richmond. It is believed that the next fight will take place across on the north side of the James River. The Richmond papers state that there is encouraging news from Georgia, but they will not tell us what it is, because they say they do not want Grant to find out about it. Hood may have Sherman in a tight place.
About twelve thousand men from Richmond have been sent into the trenches at the front. Many of them were in the Government service and many others were gentlemen of leisure. The authorities sent everybody. The police would capture men in all parts of the city and send them under guard to some point to be organized and put under the command of officers who happened to be in Richmond from the army. A man told me these officers were seized in the same way on the streets, and that the authorities would even send out and capture a colonel and put him in command of the whole battalion. A medical officer would sometimes be seized. He would plead that he was due at his command and that he was a noncombatant, but they would tell him he was the very man they needed to attend to the wounded. It delights soldiers to hear of these things. It does them good all over. The soldiers are accustomed to these sudden dashes at the front, but the miserable skulkers almost die of fright.
We are building chimneys and fixing up things in our camp as if we are to remain here. If I were sure of it, I would have you come out and stay with me awhile. It is useless for me to try to get off now while we are so tightly pressed I saw Billie this morning. I carried a haversack full of biscuits and ham to him. I will have ham, light bread and coffee for breakfast in the morning. I have been living well this year.
We have a new chaplain in our brigade named Dixon. I heard him preach yesterday, and he does very well. If Congress would pass a conscript law bringing the preachers into the army we could have chaplains. They have acted worse in this war than any other class of men.
We are having rain to-night and I am very glad to see it, for the weather was dry and the roads were dusty.
Washington, March 17, 1850.
MY DEAR SIR,—I thank you for your letter, which contains thoughts and suggestions lying below the common surface.
It may be very true, that it was no part of the economy of the Divine Government, before the advent of the Messiah, to Judaize all such Gentiles as should come within the immediate contact of the Nation; whereas it is certain, that when the Gospel of Jesus Christ was introduced, it was intended for all nations; and commandment was therefore given to preach it to every creature under the whole heavens.
There is, my dear Sir, a difference between the spirit of the old system and that of the new, which is wonderful and marvellous, and which appears to result from those ways of God which are past finding out. In the Old Testament, the general tone of command, respecting the Gentile nations, is, "root out and destroy." In the new, it is, "convert and save." Nevertheless, I cannot but think that slavery was regarded by Christ and his Apostles as an evil, an injustice to be overcome, by inspiring individuals with that meekness and that love which the gospel enjoins.
There is no direct denunciation of slavery, none of despotism, or monarchy, none of war; although we are well informed whence wars and fightings come. The great end of his teaching, who taught as never man taught, seems to me to be to probe and purify the heart, and to enjoin the performance of personal duties, religious, moral, and social. Christianity confirms and recognizes the Decalogue; but the Decalogue is but a list of commandments for the observance of personal duties. But more than all, and above all, the Divine Sermon on the Mount, that heavenly summary of Christian instruction, addresses every one of its precepts to the heart and conscience of individual man, telling him what ought to be the affections of his heart, and what his performance of the private and personal duties of life.
My dear Sir, I am getting out of my sphere and beyond my depth; but I am happy to be called by your friendly letter to enjoy an hour, in the freshness of the morning, in conversing with you upon subjects of such vast and enduring interest.
Washington, February 15, 1850.
MY DEAR SIR,—I was a good deal moved, I confess, by reading your letter of the 9th January. Having great regard for your talents and character, I could not feel indifferent to what you said, when you intimated that there was, or might be, in me, a power to do good, not yet exercised or developed. It may be so; but I fear, my dear Sir, that you overrate, not my desire, but my power to be useful in my day and generation.
From my earliest youth, I have regarded slavery as a great moral and political evil. I think it unjust, repugnant to the natural equality of mankind, founded only in superior power; a standing and permanent conquest by the stronger over the weaker. All pretence of defending it on the ground of different races, I have ever condemned. I have even said that if the black race is weaker, that is a reason against, not for, its subjection and oppression. In a religious point of view, I have ever regarded it, and ever spoken of it, not as subject to any express denunciation, either in the Old Testament or the New, but as opposed to the whole spirit of the Gospel and to the teaching of Jesus Christ.
The religion of Jesus Christ is a religion of kindness, justice, and brotherly love.
But slavery is not kindly affectionate; it does not seek another's, and not its own; it does not let the oppressed go free. It is, as I have said, but a continual act of oppression. But then, such is the influence of a habit of thinking among men, and such is the influence of what has been long established, that even minds, religious and tenderly conscientious, such as would be shocked by any single act of oppression, in any single exercise of violence and unjust power, are not always moved by the reflection that slavery is a continual and permanent violation of human rights.
But now, my dear Sir, what can be done by me, who act only a part in political life, and who have no power over the subject of slavery, as it exists in the States of the Union? I do what I can to restrain it; to prevent its spread and diffusion. But I cannot disregard the oracles which instruct me not to do evil that good may come. I cannot coöperate in breaking up social and political systems, on the warmth, rather than the strength, of a hope that, in such convulsions, the cause of emancipation may be promoted.
And even if the end would justify the means, I confess I do not see the relevancy of such means to such an end. I confess, my dear Sir, that in my judgment confusion, conflict, embittered controversy, violence, bloodshed, and civil war, would only rivet the chains of slavery the more strongly.
In my opinion, it is the mild influences of Christianity, the softening and melting power of the Sun of righteousness, and not the storms and tempests of heated controversy, that are, in the course of those events which an all-wise Providence overrules, to dissolve the iron fetters by which man is made the slave of man.
The effect of moral causes, though sure, is slow. In two thousand years, the doctrines and the miracles of Jesus Christ have converted but a very small part of the human race; and among Christian nations, even, many gross and obvious errors, like that of the lawfulness of slavery, have still held their ground.
But what are two thousand years in the great work of the progress of the regeneration and redemption of mankind? If we see that the course is onward and forward, as it certainly is, in regard to the final abolition of human slavery; while we give to it our fervent prayers, and aid it by all the justifiable influences which we can exercise, it seems to me, we must leave both the progress and the result in His hands who sees the end from the beginning, and in whose sight a thousand years are but as a single day. I pray you, my dear Sir, accept this, the product of half an hour of the evening, and unread by the writer, as a respectful and grateful acknowledgment of your very kind and friendly letter.
DAN'L WEBSTER.
SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 353-5
Bright and frosty.
This is the day
designated by the President for worship, etc., and the offices and places of
business are all closed. It is like Sunday, with an occasional report of cannon
down the river.
I doubt whether the
clerks in the trenches will pray for the President. Compelled to volunteer under
a threat of removal, they were assured that they would only be called out in
times of great urgency, and then be returned to their offices in a few days.
They have now been in the front trenches several months; while the different
secretaries are quietly having their kinsmen and favorites detailed back to
their civil positions, the poor and friendless are still “left out in the
cold.” Many of these have refugee families dependent on them, while those
brought in are mostly rich, having sought office merely to avoid service in the
field. The battalion, numbering 700, has less than 200 now in the trenches.
Hundreds of the local forces, under a sense of wrong, have deserted to the
enemy.
Gen. Breckinridge
has beaten the enemy at Bull's Gap, Tenn., taking several hundred prisoners, 6
guns, etc.
Mr. Hunter was at
the department early this morning in quest of news.
Gave $75 for a load
of coal.
Messrs. Evans &
Cogswell, Columbia, S. C., have sent me some of their recent publications : “A
Manual of Military Surgery, by I. Julian Chisolm, M.D., 3d edition;” “Digest
of the Military and Naval Laws,” by Lester & Bromwell; “Duties of a
Judge Advocate, etc.” by Capt. R. C. Gilchrist; and “A Map of East Virginia and
North Carolina;” all beautifully printed and bound.
Syracuse, N. Y.,
Nov. 26.
Captain John Brown,
thou Friend of God and Man: Will you allow a line from me to mingle with the
thousands of expressions of sympathy that reach you in your prison house? But
my words are feeble things, when God is so manifestly with you. His presence
and the consolations of His grace are richer and far better than all I possess,
or can impart. I have long loved you for your works' sake; for you have shown
yourself a man. Be of good courage, and our Father in Heaven will sustain you
and make you conqueror "through Him who loveth us and gave Himself for
us."
I am the possessor
of a single hair from the head of the immortal Clarkson, presented me, some
years ago, by your friend and mine, Mrs. Geritt Smith. I value it very highly.
My desire is, that you may send me by mail, accompanying your own handwriting,
a lock from your own head, and I will make many of your friends partners in its
possession.
The Lord make His
face to shine The Lord lift up His countenance
"The Lord keep thee and bless thee. upon thee,
and be gracious unto thee. upon thee, and give thee peace," is the
daily prayer of
November 26th.
* So labelled by
John Brown.
My dear Friend: I
have only time to say I got your kind letter of the 26th Nov. this evening. Am
very grateful for all the good feeling expressed by yourself and wife. May God
abundantly bless and save you all. I am very cheerful, in hopes of entering on
a better state of existence, in a few hours, through infinite grace in
"Christ Jesus, my Lord." Remember the "poor that cry," and
"them that are in bonds as bound with them."
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Nov. 26.
My Dear Christian
Brother: I hope you will not consider it impertinent or intrusive in me to
write you. I am only a stranger to you; but, as a minister of Christ, I feel
anxious to send you some word of encouragement and consolation at this trying
moment of your life, standing as you do under the very shadow of approaching
doom. The executors of penal law, under which you are held, manifest no
disposition to relent or mitigate the rigors of the penalty pronounced upon
you. I therefore feel that in coming to you by this epistle I am intruding upon
you in the midst of reflections and solemnities inconceivably momentous and
sacred. Of the brief and waning period allowed you by your captors, only six
days now remain, and by the time this shall meet your eye this meagre fragment
of space will have dwindled to hours, and the gloomy death-pageant preparing to
encircle your execution will be about ready for the gaze of eager thousands,
whom sympathy, curiosity, or hatred will gather together. I long to say
something to you that may in some way breathe consolation and inspire fresh and
holy outgoings of hope, courage and confidence in God. And yet I know God is
with you, and his presence and favor are infinitely better and dearer than any
sympathy and condolence of your brethren in Christ. And yet I know that a sad
yet hopeful, a painful yet prayerful, remembrance of you by those who are in
spirit with you, while widely separated from you, will not be painful to you
nor unacceptable to God.
I most fervently
pray that you may find, through Divine Grace, that however severe the trial
that approaches, and however sad all that is now passing upon you may be,"
according to your day so shall your strength be." God exercises His
government in wisdom, love, and mercy, and he does and will overrule all things
for His glory and the final good and salvation of all that put their trust in
Him. Fear not; God will gird thee with strength, and give a meetness and a
divine readiness for your great trials; and may he turn your captivity and
death, if you must die, to His glory and the final deliverance of all the
oppressed of this land. "Faithful is He that hath called you, who also
will do it."
The events that have
been brought about recently through your agency have convulsed the nation, and
stirred the popular heart to its utmost depth, and the minions of oppression
have been made to quake with fear. What is to be the result God only knows, but
this, I think, is already apparent, the cause of Freedom is immeasurably
stronger than it was before you struck your blow at Harper's Ferry, and were
permitted to stand forth a captive among slaveholders and doomed to die.
I herewith inclose
you a few lines which I have penned almost involuntarily upon one of the most heroic
sentences that have been pronounced in modern times, which the public prints
record as yours. This alone is enough to give glory to your captivity; and the
spirit that could give utterance to it will make your death a triumph, both for
yourself and suffering humanity. Very truly and sympathetically,
P. S. Should time
and your dying condition permit, write merely enough to say you have received
this, and send in the enclosed envelope. Such a note will be received as a memento
from a dying brother in Christ, and martyr for the cause of our oppressed
fellow men.
THE HOARY CONVICT.
“I do not know that I can better serve the cause I love so much than by dying for it.”
— JOHN BROWN, in prison.
Providence, Rhode
Island, Nov. 26.
My Dear Sir: Permit
me, an utter stranger to you, to intrude a moment, just that I may say, God
bless you! Be of good cheer. You bore your witness against American Slavery
with voice so loud that all the civilized world now listens, all breathless, to
its every echo. More than this: by that act four million slaves have learned
with such force of impression as never was theirs before, that they have a
right to be free. Washington, and those with him, fought for their own homes
and their own liberties; but you, with broader benevolence, having no freedom
to gain for yourself, took the sword in behalf of a race oppressed infinitely
more than our fathers. I do not say that I think it right to appeal to arms, but
I do say that if the first was right, then by logical necessity, was the
second. It is an axiom in religion that the blood of martyrs is the seed of the
church. Jesus baptized his new faith with his own blood. In all ages truth is
most advanced by those who most suffer for it. Greater love hath no man than
this, that he lay down his life for another. Let these thoughts console you. I
have read your speeches and letters studiously, and from them verily believe
that you have acted from altogether righteous motives. Remember, if you have a
truly honest and prayerful conscience towards God, He will accept your
intentions. I beseech you to read His Word much, and with all the power of your
nature to trust yourself entirely to his infinite care. It may perhaps somewhat
cheer you to know that beyond question the greater part of the Christian world
will approve your intentions. From tens of thousands of hearts prayer is
continually made for you. Posterity will look upon you as the Moses of the
American bondmen. Your name will be a watchword henceforth for Freedom. Coming
ages will put your statue in high places, and build glorious monuments to the
honor of your name. God be with you now, and comfort you, and receive you into
the glorious company of confessors and martyrs above.
Central Village,
Plainfield, Conn., Nov. 27.
Dear Friend: . . .
The moral effect of your bearing since your capture seems to me worth more than
any immediate physical good which would follow your victory. I think Slavery at
the South and every where is weaker than it could have been made by the exodus
of a thousand slaves under your lead. I need not explain the particulars of
this view; but there does seem to me a special providence in your being spared
beyond the hour of your capture, to be tried as you have been, and to appear
loftier and braver than your conquerors, as you have. It is God that has called
and disciplined you for this, and He sustains you, and will sustain you to the
end. . . . I shall probably be at Hartford on Friday of this week, the day
appointed for the execution of your sentence. That will be far easier than the
execution of yourself; for we believe your life and heroism are not lost in any
death. The Lord be with you in your last earthly hours.
SOURCE: James
Redpath, Editor, Echoes of Harper’s Ferry, p. 402
PROVIDENCE, RHODE
ISLAND, Nov. 27.
Dear Brother: I feel
constrained to write a few lines to you. I have long wished to write; but
fearing to do so, the distance being so very long, that it would not reach you.
I have long wished to hear from you personally, to know how you are getting
along, and how your wounds are, and whether your health is any better. I take
three papers, and read them with great interest to know all. But they say one
thing one day, and contradict them the next. O, if I could only be with you,
could hear you and comfort you in my own feeble way in this trying hour of your
confinement! But it cannot be. To God I wish that I could be with you in this
hour of trial! O, that I had the money that is daily thrown away for
foolishness! I would come to you, and on bended knees ask permission to remain
with you. But, as I said before, it cannot be. But if I am not with you in
person, I am with you through the eye of vision, talking with and hearing your
sad trial of sorrow and incarceration. These visions will never be forgotten by
me and my family, as I sit by my fireside rehearsing to them the history of one
whom I shall ever remember with a brother's love.
O, that I could find
words to express myself, but my mind wanders and my hand trembles so, that I
scarce can write! You will, I hope, forgive my many mistakes. I write not for
fame, but from friendship's dictation. O, if I could compose myself to write!
But, as I have said, my mind wanders back to things past and gone — gone; known
only in history's pages. When I call up things that have been done since 1776,
to the present time, 1859—but enough of this. God worketh all things for his
own good; for he is a God of Justice, and doeth all things well, and in his own
time. If there is no hope on earth, there is hope in Heaven. If we meet not
here, we will meet there. I trust in Him who ruleth all things. Call on him and
he will not see you want, for He hath said so in his Holy Word: "That
whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life." . .
. Ever believe me,
New Haven,
Connecticut, Nov. 28.
Dear Sir: Permit a
friend of liberty and equitable law to address you a few brief thoughts, which
I hope may be acceptable to you and your family. Prayer was yesterday offered
for you in a colored congregation in this city, to whom a descendant of Africa,
a son of Georgia, a minister of Liberia, and also the writer of this farewell
letter, preached the true gospel.
You may be gratified
to know that I remember with interest your interview, some two years since,
with the cordial friends of Kansas in this city, while that injured territory
of our common country was subject to the scorpion lash prepared for the honest
advocates of the rights of man, and especially of that freedom which you
struggled to establish. These, your New Haven friends, some of whom so ably and
so kindly expostulated with our Chief Magistrate in reference to the wrongs of
Kansas, remember you with Christian sympathy in your present sufferings.
Take it to your
heart that a God of Justice and of Mercy rules, and the Deliverer of Israel
from their bondage in Goshen, has mercy in store for a greater number of
bondmen and bondwomen, truly as wrongfully oppressed. He has not granted you
the full measure of your wishes, but he has allowed you the opportunity of
conspicuously and emphatically showing your sympathy for the injured Slave
population of our otherwise happy country, and of preaching the duty of giving
"them that which is just and equal."
Forty years ago I
went among the savages of Polynesia, and preached the gospel of Him whose
office it was to proclaim liberty to captives. I plainly taught kings and
queens, chiefs and warriors, that He that ruleth men must be just, ruling in
the fear of God. I freely exhibited the opposition of God's law and our
Saviour's gospel to oppression and every sin found to be prevailing there, and
aided my associates in giving them the entire Bible in their own language, and
in teaching their tribes to read it and use it freely in all the ranks of life.
Though I labored
with them a score of years, and have corresponded with them a score of years
more, I have not, lest I should damage my mission, ever told them that I
belonged to a nation that deprives three or four millions of their
fellow-subjects of Jehovah's Government, of their dearest rights which God has
given them one of which is the free use of his own Holy Book.
But when the story
of your execution shall reach and surprise them, I will no longer hesitate to
speak to my friends there of your sympathy for four millions of the inhabitants
of our Southern States, held in unchristian bonds in the only Protestant
country on the globe that endorses Slavery.
I can, next week,
well afford to endeavor to give them an echo of that protest against the whole
system of American Slavery, which on and from the day of your execution, will
be louder in the ear of High Heaven than its abettors have been accustomed to
hear; rising from the millions of freemen in this noble cordon of Free States,
and other millions of now slaveholding freemen, and some slaveholders
themselves, in the Slave States.
Have you a kind
message to send to the Christian converts at the Sandwich Islands, or to the
heathen of Micronesia, a month's sail beyond, where my son and daughter are
laboring to give them the Bible and the richest blessings of Christianity? I
would gladly forward it to them if you have time to write it.
And now, dear sir,
trust in your gracious Saviour; forgive those that have trespassed against you;
leave your fatherless children, God will provide for them, and tell your widow
to trust in Him, in His holy habitation. "The hairs of your head are all
numbered," and not one "shall fall to the ground without your
Heavenly Father." Should a lock of your hair fall into my lap before the
execution shall help you to shake the pillars of the idol's temple, it would be
valued. The Lord bless you, and make your life and death a blessing to the
oppressed and their oppressors. Farewell!
PROCLAMATION.
APPOINTING A DAY FOR
PUBLIC WORSHIP.
It is meet that the
people of the Confederate States should, from time to time, assemble to
acknowledge their dependence on Almighty God, to render devout thanks to His
Holy name, to bend in prayer at His footstool, and to accept, with fervent
submission, the chastening of His All-wise and All-merciful Providence.
Let us, then, in
temples and in the field, unite our voices in recognizing, with adoring
gratitude, the manifestations of His protecting care in the many signal
victories with which our arms have been crowned; in the fruitfulness with which
our land has been blessed, and in the unimpaired energy and fortitude with
which He has inspired our hearts and strengthened our arms in resistance to the
iniquitous designs of our enemies.
And let us not
forget that while graciously vouchsafing to us His protection, our sins have
merited and received grievous chastisement; that many of our best and bravest
have fallen in battle; that many others are still held in foreign prisons; that
large districts of our country have been devastated with savage ferocity, the
peaceful homes destroyed, and helpless women and children driven away in
destitution; and that with fiendish malignity the passions of a servile race
have been excited by our foes into the commission of atrocities from which
death is a welcome escape.
Now, therefore, I,
Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, do issue this
my proclamation, setting apart Wednesday, the 16th day of November next, as a
day to be specially devoted to the worship of Almighty God; and I do invite and
invoke all the people of these Confederate States to assemble on the day
aforesaid, in their respective places of public worship, there to unite in
prayer to our Heavenly Father that He bestow His favor upon us; that He extend
over us the protection of His Almighty arm; that He sanctify His chastisement
to our improvement, so that we may turn away from evil paths and walk
righteously in His sight; and that He may restore peace to our beloved country,
healing its bleeding wounds, and securing to us the continued enjoyment of our
own right to self-government and independence, and that He will graciously
hearken to us while we ascribe to Him the power and glory of our independence.
Given under my hand
and the seal of the Confederate States, at Richmond, this 26th day of October,
in the year of our Lord 1864.
