Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1888-05-24


inserted the inflammatOry article, ant
that you promised to issue an extra edi
ton containing retraction of the state
ment and an expression of your regret
| repeat that You are slow to find the in
fanny of this charge. You have liveC
quietly under it for more than twenty
years, and now, for the first time, ash
who is responsible for making known
your agency in fomenting that murder
Gus riot.
On my way to Philadelphia, in ac
cordance with preexisting engagements
l spoke at Montgomery, Ala, in Geor.
gia, at several points in North Carolina
and at Danville, W. Va, without arous-
ing any prejudice, though the address
was in each case substantially that which
I was making when your minions fired
upon me and the thousands of people
who had assembled to hear me. Soon
after my return home my constituents
and fellOw-citizens at large gathered by
thousands, with music and banners and
blazing flambeaux, and congratulated
me on my seemingly miraculous escape
from the murderous mob which you had
Kissed upon me. They came on the eve
ming of June II, 1867, and what l said
to them in response to their address of
congratulation was reported in the col
umns of the Philadelphia Inquirer. The
opening passage of that address, as re-
ported, read as follows:
Ny FRIENDS, NEIGHBORs AND Con
STITUENTS- am profoundly grateful for
this demonstration of your affectiOnate
interest. | never knew how sacred that
word home" so felicitOusly uttered by
Mr.. Pierson, was until during my recent
absence from you when covering before
more than a hundred bullets, or while my
body was shielded from them by those of
two negroes, who periled their lives to save
mine. | realized how dear were home, kin
dred and friends. left you at the invi-
tation of the Governor of Louisiana and
the Mayor of New Orleans to visit that
distant State and city, hoping that might
serve our distracted country, and eager to
view that nearly One-half of our country
from which by reason of my love of per-
sonal liberty | had been so long excluded.
did not dream of danger. Others spoke
of it, but l scoffed at the idea. l went
bearing no hatred to any man, but believ-
ing that the truths which for eleven years
last l have been in the habit of proclaim
ing to you would be specially useful to the
people of that section. l gladly availed
myself the opportunity of uttering them
kindly and cOurteOusly in their midst:
and, my friends, throughout my extended
excursion was received with all the kind
ness and courtesy the people were able to
beStow upon me save in one city. there
fore beg you not to charge the murderous
spirit of the Mobile mob to the Southern
people at large. Applause. That out
rage was due more largely to Andrew
Johnson, the reactionary President of the
United States, than even to the municipal
authorities of Mobile, or the mob they
should have held in subsection. The chief
promoter of that murderOuS riot was re-
creant Northerner, who had been sent to
that city by the President as Assessor of
Internal Revenue, Colonel Mann, form
erly of Michigan, who owns the Mobile
Times. That paper had, in advance of
my arrival, excited the passions of the
Southern people against me, and in an ar
ticle on the day preceding my arrival
every allegation in which, Colonel Mann
admitted, in the presence of two gentle
men now present, to be wholly false and
unfounded- inflamed the passions of
the Irish citizens of Mobile against me-
But, not to detain you with the details of
that sanguinary scene, let me say that the
outbreak was provoked by no indiscreet
word of mine. 1t had been planned be-
fore | went to the meeting, if not before
arrived in Mobile, and the man lmme- |
diately behind me would have been shot
through the head, as he was, and another
not five feet from me would have been |
l,Nrr OF 4l,a tod
signal, had been reading the litany or
the Lords prayer. l am told it has been |
sneeringly said that | got under table. |
/ have never been soldier, or sought |
reputation at the cannon'S mouth, and |
very freely admit that when bullets were
whizzing and pattering against the wall |
behind me-, l would have thanked AL |
mighty God for bullet-pr00f table under |
which to creep.
The paper containing that address was |
mailed to you and other citizens of Mo-
bile, but more than this, the Union Re-
publican Congressional Executive Com |
mittee published it, together with those |
1 had made in New Orleans and at |
Ala, in a pamphlet entitled
'sThe South; Its Resources and Wants"
OF this pamphlet more than 10000 |
copies were distributed, and in my anx-
iety to vindicate the Southern people |
from the suspicion of the crime you had
this pamphlet was widely dis
tributed throughout the country, and |
was mailed to you. But again, when in
1870 Henry Carey Baird & Co., of Phil !
adelphia, published volume of my |
speeches, letters and addresses, this pam
phlet made part of its contents, and thus
found further circulation. hope that |
my reply to your question will prove sat
isfactory to the whilom proprietor and
editor of the Mobile Times.
U,F n