The Richmond palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1855-1875, 1869-12-14


fellow prisoners, Copeland, Green, Cop
pic, Cook, and Stevens, quarter each,
bade them goodbye. and went out in
his slippers, as the citizens tell me. and
was drawn up the hill behind a span of
grays. They tell you every thing here
in detail.
Standing on the the spot of the scaf-
fold you easily summon back the scene
around it on that day ten years ago
! three thousand Virginia militia dressed
in blood-red jackets, inclosing the scat
fold in hollow square, their bayonets
cleaning in the December sun, the field
dotted for fifteen miles with sentinels
and scouts, and near by was cannon
pointed at the scaffold to blow the pris-
oner to sh-eds, in the much feared
event Of an attempted rescue. In the
background was the miserable, ragged
town, filled with bowling dogs and guz.
zling loafers from all the Old Domin-
ion. That was one of the cavlary's
field days Virgins danced her fa-
nous reel when she hung John Brown
In one of the lines OF tue scarlet-jack-
eted soldiers that stood three deep
around the scaffold that day. there
stood, dressed to his throat in
this gaudy toggery, young man twen-
ty-three years old, black-eyed and pal
lid, with close cut hair crisping over his
temples, and form elrect as a statue.
a man with evil purpose, older than his
years in his looks, who had been fired
already by the colored spectacles on
many a stage, and was destined to be-
come the chief actor in tragedy which
should culmiuate this. It was Wilkes
Booth. taking his first lesson in assas
situation. True to his lst er instincts, he
had joined q Richmond company at it's
first call to keep the rope firmly around
the liberator's neck. He had arrived at
Charles,own the night before, and. dres
sed in his uniform, with his characters
tic effrontery. had gone into the house
of one Of the most respectable citizens.
of the little pla e, and passed the even
ing reading Romeo and Juliet to the
daughter. On this hill top old John
Brown fell dangling at last, spectacle
Of martyrdom, in slippers, making his
gallows u cross; and not one Of the five
thousand Virginians who witnessed it in
the least suspected that he had not
seen John Browns "last kick" and that
the rebound of that gallows beam would
in less than gve years give one half OF
that Wanting array to the sword. Pick
ing up for the marching souls sake, a
fragment Of quartz from the spot of the
the scaffold, have come back into the
dllapidated town. The single street run
ming through the place bisects the whole
cluster of memories left by the liberator
here The court in which the "conspir-
ators against Virginia" were tried is on
one side and the Jail in which they were
imprisoned on the other. The former
now is a roofless she'll of walls,
grown up inside with tail poke-weea,
and used as town sink.
This courthouse was erected not
more than five years before the John
Brown trial, and in its brief time was a
building massive and handsome, front
ed with four great columns of stucco,
after the most approved Virginia style.
Over the street. under the face of court
house ruin, stands little brick office,
written over the door:
ANDREW HUNTER, ATTORNEY AT LAW.
Andrew Hunter was Virginia's coun-
sel-ln-chief prosecuting John Brown.
Through all changes and memories, he
sticks to the little town, and has the
abiding satisfaction to look from his of
flee window through the four columns
over the way, into the ruined chamber
of the court, and recall the vision Of the
old man lying helpless and weak from
his pallet asking him and the Court in
vain for a little delay of trial.
Hunter demanded judicial alacritv, on
the ground, as he said, that he did not
want the present position of the proce-
cution weakened! That little piece OF
judicial alacrity' brought on other alac-
rites, and, ten years older, the attor-
ney has time to reflect now how that IN
H. 4,
the bricks of this law temple, removing
courts and practice TO distant localities
Browns speech at the close of the
trial in this courthouse, was a master
piece of simple eloquence, unmatched
by anything save Lincoln's Gettysburg
address the tw in emancipators and
martyrs filled with the same inspira-
tion.
The resonance of the words of the
two men come back to us pitch
ed III the same key. Lincoln's speech
is familiar. Brown. closing, said: Il say
l am yet too young to understand that
God is any respector of persons. 1 be-
lieve that to have interfered as / have
done, as I have freely admitted have
done, in behalf of his desp,sed poor
was not wrong, but right. Had I so in
terfered in behalf of the rich, the pow
erful, the intelligent, the so-called great
or in behalf of any of their friends. eli
ther father. mother, sister, wife OF chill
dren, or any OF that class, and suffered
and sacrificed what have in this inter
ference, il would have been all right
and every man in this court would have
deemed it an act worthy OF reward than
punishment. Now it is deemed nee
essary that should forfeit my life
for the furtherance Of the ends of jus
tice. and mingle my blood further with
the blood OF my children and with the
blood of millions ald millions in this
slave country whose rights are disre.
garded by wicked. cruel, and unjust en-
actments; submit; so let it be done.
Over the weeds and filth and foul odor
around this fslling Gourt-H use, these
words seem to echo yet sweet immor