Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1878-07-05
Mrs. tapt. Jenhs.
An AUDACIOUS WITNESS.

Mrs. jerks was upon the witness stand
before the Potter committee again, June
9th, for a number of hours She WIS aS
pert. impertinent and audaciOus as before
quick at repartee, dextrous in rarrying que'-
tons, but there was not single fact elected
or old fact denied, nor was her former tcsti-
muny in the slightest controvcrtcd. There
wa only one moment when she seemed to
falter it was directly after arraigning Gen.
Butler for having in his possession her letter
lrom Gov. Kellogg. Gen. Butler turned to
hcr and told her Kellogg had given him a
package with letter in it. At this she ap-
peared for 4 moment confused. She did not
seem to know what that package might have
in store for her.
Her testimony, unless it can be broken
down, proves that Sherman did not write the
famous Sherman letter. Who did? 1t is
because her testimony defantly stops there
that the witness makes very bad impres-
sion upon those who hear her. She says she
dictated the letter, bur she goes no further
to state 20 whom she dictated it than to de
tlslt iilib INT wis W u
pen, n pen with feathers lpOn it, an amanu-
ensis extraordinary. held by person whose
name she said she had committed to oblivion,
and she would cut of her right hand before
she revealed it.
The woman is n social and political phe-
nOmenon. She belongs to political conditions
unknown in the North She talks of states
men with whom she has held interviews
and to their terror says that all of
these interviews, reduced to short hand
are recorded i'll great ledger. She plain
ly mtimated that the person who wrote
the Sherman letter at her dictatiOn was
dead, or. as she describes it in her weird
dialect, " he may have gone to the land
OF shadows. @ know the beginning and
the ending cf the letter" said she
alone now know the ending of it. People
die in Louisiana sometimes | alone nov
know the beginning OF it. | won't tell who
did write it. will not say did not write
it." That is all the committee with its
machinery and the most skilful cro>s-exam-
;ners in America have been able to obtain
from this remarkable woman respecting that
not less remarkable letter.
Throughout she assumed the character OF
the defender of Sherman from the machina-
tions of people with whom she associated.
and whose wIles she declared she knew Too
we'll. She went 50 far as to open the letter
written bv Weber and Anderson to Shcr-
man, intru>ted to her as messenger, to see
that there was nothing offensive in it to so
great dignitary as Sherman. Sh. did this
in an unconscious moment, biting OF the end
Of the envelope. and finding that offensive
language in it. Knowing that the word of
Sherman was good enough without written
guarantee, she dictates the reply herself,
through this plumci mechanical instrument,
an amanucnsiS extraordinary, to the person
whose name rests in oblivion. She plainly
intimatcd that Anderson was not to be trust
ed il there was any Democratic money any,
where to he obtained.
She treated Gen. Bntler iE patroniz ing
way, bidding hm tn compose himself, until
she discovered that he had more of her let
tiers, when she commenced Il vigorous cross
examination of him. She said, - don't
like the independents, they have no politics
at all" She is Disconnected that Gov. kel-
logg seems to he playing into the hands of
Gen. Batter. She declared she had nothing
in comuon with Kellogg. She helped to seat
him, as Anderson helped to seat SpotiOrd,
hut that Kellogg was seated merely as n par
ty measure, and that had he been FIJI
Islander hc would have been seated all the
same.
As the day wore on, however, there was
something too much OF this The singular
story she tells respecting the origin of the
letter may be true. 1t is in harmony with
what evidently is her scheming and adyen-
tttr Il hpl,l t,, ro.Npailo