Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1860-02-24
Letter from the Mother Of Cop.
i DOck to Gov. Letcher.
SpR1NGpALE, Iowa, I'd Mo-, I'd, 1860.


stances of a very painful and affecting nature
that am nowinduced to address thee, although
personally stranger. Some time last Sum
mer, two of my sons, Edwin and Barclay, left
home without informing me of their destina-
ton or designs. On hearing of the unlawful
outbreak at Harper's Ferry, we learned with
great surprise and horror that Edwin was
engaged there, in an action so unlike his pre-
vious course of conduct. At first our SYM
pathies were enlisted on your side, feeling
that your rights had been invaded Had you
let common law and justice take its course,
and only punished the intruders according to
their deserts, the sympathies of the world
might still have been with you. But since
you have suffered yourselves to run wild with
rage and insane revenge, which you are still
endeavoring to carry to the utmost, the tide
has turned against you, so that John Browns
highest aims may yet be attained.
Was there ever such farce acted IN
professedly Christian nation? eve have a
law, and by our law he ought to die" seems
to have been the ruling principle OF that pre-
tended court of Justice Fifteen northern men
have been murdered, in one way or another,
in revenge for the five killed by them in self
defense (If they killed more than five, you
have not told US of it.) Poor old Brown,
knocked down after he had surrendered, and
then knocked after he was down, in most
cowardly manner! Two were killed after
they had surrendered; two more were shot
while bearing flag of truce in the open street;
another was literally riddled with balls, on
the bridge One Of the principal actors in
this bloody deed had the audacity to boast of
it IN open court. All this is contrary to the
laws OF war, as we'll as most inhuman. Five
more, after being insulted by farcical repre-
sentation Of the forms of law, were hanged, as
had undoubtedly been predetermined. Two
more you are probably reserving for the same
fate; although one, whom you call Hazlett,
no one has been found to recognize; yet,
judging from analogy, it is presumed he will
have to die. There were people of good feel
ing and benevolence in Charlestown and
vicinity, who, after getting acquainted with
Edwin, finding him to be pleasant and
benevolent man, joined their efforts with
those of his numerous friends in other parts
of the United States, to try to have his SEN
tence mtigated; and although really clear, in
the eyes Of the public, of all those shameful
charges cast upon him, yet what was the
result? Why, he must be strangled to death
and for what? To crafty a revengeful feeling,
so prevalent in Southern brains, when spark
of ignited combustion rariies them. This
peculiar quality in the Southern character,
having 81 wil'' for its motto, with so little
specific gravity, in the shape of true Christian
dignity, is what every ones good, sound sense
ridicules, and God abhors. You have hanged
five of your fellow creatures, up between the
heavens and the earth, for endeavoring to put
into practical form the great principles of the
brotherhood of man, promulgated by Christ,
endorsed by the fathers of the Republic, and
the basis of the Christian church; thereby
shaming humanity, and mocking God, who
has said, "Thou shalt not kill, y and Love
thy enemies" Their blood will be a testimony
against you But the most disgraceful part,
the most contemplate for the "Great State of
Virginia to do, remains to be told.
You are hunting all through the land poor
fatherless boy, whom somebody has said that
somebody imagined had had some connection
with Brown, but who really never signed any
Constitution or pledge of allegiance to Brown;
nor was he in Virginia at the time If the
Harper's Ferry affair; neither has he at any
time injured any of you. Yetyou are chasing
him with biped bloodhounds and big bloated
marshals, secret patrols and spies, and, most
inhuman Of all, the thousand dollars reward
for him, dead or alive to encourage the off
securing of creation to murder him, if an
opportunity should offer. Some of these
things could scarcely credit, until requisi-
ton sent from thyself to our Governor capped
the climax We all considered this an insult
to the Governor as we'll as to the State of Iowa.
Could you get Barclay, what would you have ?
1t Itremnds me of lEsop's fable of the mountain
in labor, which brought forth mouse; and
of David's appeal to Saul. After whom is the
King of Israel come out? After whom dost
thou pursue? After a dead dog? After
flea? My son is just recovering from severe
attack of asthma, so bad that he could not lie
down, nor scarcely breathe, yet all the while
rumors were ahoat that an officer or mob
were coming to take him. Would Virginia
mothers like to be placed in my situation? Our
Northen Bibles say, "Do uuto others as ye
would that they should do unto you;" "Visit
the widow and fatherless, and them that have
none to help them" You say, Hang the
fatherless, chase them for prey, shoot them
down, let their mothers gray hairs 60 down to
the grave with sorrow" l would not write
thus, did not facts stare me in the face. My
spirit grieves for you, and my soul IS in
mourning for my country. Although the
plans and schemes of the wicked have been
confounded, and my poor consumptive boy
has thus far been preserved through all his
suffering by cold and starvation in the noun
tains, and from the clutches of rapacious men,
yet would be willing to give up this son,
also, with the addition of my own life, if
thereby the distressed bondsmen might be
liberated, and their masters purged of their
sins. You hang men for murder, while at the
same time you are encouraging it by your
rewards You are hanging men for treason,
when thou thyself hath uttered reasonable
sentiments in thy inaugural message, and
when Southern members of Congress are
continually obtruding it before the people.
If YOU want to leave the Union so badly, why
don't you go? Who forbids you? Where is
the Northerner who weuld not count it good
riddance to be clear of helping you to hold
four millions of human beings In slavery?
Who among them would not like to see the
pinions of the great American Eagle stretch
from Maine to California, north OF Mason and
Dixon's line, over a great and enlightened
republic, where free vegetation springs up and
expands under the dews and rains of Heaven,
and not under the tears and blood of the slave?
where the cultivators of the soil are free to
think and speak, and free to perform their
whole duty to God and man; where the man
hunter and kidnapper is practically unknown;
where honest Irishmen do not get abused and
insulted merely for saying that free labor is
better than slave labor, and for trying to
obtain their just dues where respectable citl-
zens are not driven from their homes because
they hold unpopular opinions; where worthy
school teachers are not sent OFT at an hours
notice for triAing remark where the backs
of ministers Of the gospel are not scored by
the merciless lash; and where the jails are
not filled with honest men? But if you sep
arate, do so peaceably, and see how long you
can hold your slaves without US. ..sa.
Since writing the foregoing, information has
been received that the second requisition has
| been sent from thee to Gov. Kirkwood, (the
first having failed through infol olmality,) Still
messing thy hostilities against a poor old