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Letter from Edward Bridgman. May, 1856

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Letter from Edward Bridgman. May, 1856 Document A Video Clip: America: The Story of Us Chapter 7: Bleeding Kansas and John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry (9 min 21 sec) Document B Source: Letter from Edward Bridgman. May, 1856 Note: John Brown is closely associated with the proslavery and free-state struggle of the Kansas Territorial period, 1854-1861. John Brown followed five of his sons to Kansas in 1855 where he saw an opportunity to help make Kansas a free state-bringing a wagon load of weapons along with him. In May of 1856, a small party consisting mainly of Brown and his sons raided the cabins of proslavery men killing five of them. Up to that time there had been little bloodshed between proslavery and free-state groups. Brown's raid brought retaliation. On August 30, 1856 Brown and his followers where attacked by a large force of border ruffians. In the "Battle of Osawatomie" five of Brown's men, including one of his sons, were killed and the town burned. “Since I wrote the above the Osawatomie company has returned to O. as news came that we could do nothing immediately, so we returned back. On our way back we heard that 5 men had been killed by Free State men. the men were butchered -- ears cut off and the bodies thrown into the river[.] the murdered men (Proslavery) had thrown out threats and insults, yet the act was barbarous and inhuman whoever committed by[.] We met the men going when we were going up and knew that they were on a secret expedition, yet didn't know what it was. Tomorrow something will be done to arrest them. there were 8 concerned in the act. perhaps they had good motives, some think they had, how that is I dont know. The affairs took place 8 miles from Osawatomie. The War seems to have commenced in real earnest. horses are stolen on all sides whenerver they can be taken.... Since yesterday I have learned that those men who committed those murders were a party of Browns. one of them was formerly in the wool business in Springfield, John Brown[.] his son, has been taken today, tho he had no hand in the act, but was knowing to it....” Document C Source: Letter from Mahala Doyle to John Brown while he was in jail. 1859 Note: The Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), determined that the issue of slavery in the Kansas Territory was to be decided by popular sovereignty. Thus began the race between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces into the territory in order to win upcoming elections and establish a government based on their respective views. The competition led to violence that became known as “Bleeding Kansas.” In response to the sacking of the free- state town of Lawrence by pro-slavery forces, Brown led a force of anti-slavery men (including his abolitionist sons) on an expedition of vengeance in May 1856. This resulted in the deaths of five pro-slavery men. The victims were not slave-holders and were unarmed. They were hacked to death by a broadsword and the incident became known as one of the most famous events of “Bleeding Kansas.” One of the victims was James P. Doyle. The following is a testimony of his widow, Mahala Doyle: “Although vengeance is not mine, I confess that I do feel grateful to hear that you were stopped in your fiendish career at Harper's Ferry. With the loss of your two sons you can now appreciate my distress in Kansas when you…entered my house at midnight and arrested my husband and two boys, and took them out of the yard and in cold blood shot them dead in my hearing. You can't say you did it to free our slaves. We had none and never expected to own one. It has only made me a poor disconsolate widow, with helpless children. While I feel for your folly, I do hope and trust that you will meet your just reward. Oh! how it pained my heart to hear the dying groans of my husband and children… My son, John Doyle, whose life I begged of you, is now grown up, and is very desirous to be in Charlestown on the day of your execution, and would certainly be there if his means would permit it. Document D Source: The following is from the Petersburg (Virginia) Express and is dated October 25, 1859. Note: Southerners were outraged by the increasing activities of radical abolitionists in general and the Raid on Harpers Ferry in particular. Southern newspapers were full of criticism of John Brown and northern abolitionists. “This Harpers Ferry Affair is but a small eruption on the surface of a diseased body. Brown and his desperados are but a sign of the cancerous disease with which a great part of northern society is polluted by the traitorous views of men who have been raised to honor, and surrounded by applause, and maintained in power, by whole communities, and even whole States. The Harpers Ferry Affair was but premature fruit. A whole harvest of sterner rebellion and bloodier collusion is growing up and ripening from the seed these men have sown. Disguise it as we may, large portions of the North are our enemies – more bitter, more deadly hostile than though hereditary enmity had pitched their opposing hosts on a hundred battle- fields.” Document E Source: “A Plea for Capt. John Brown” by Henry David Thoreau – October 30, 1859 Note: A Plea for Captain John Brown is an essay by Henry David Thoreau. It is based on a speech Thoreau first delivered to an audience at Concord, Massachusetts on October 30, 1859, two weeks after John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, and repeated several times before Brown’s execution on December 2, 1859. It was later published as a part of Echoes of Harper's Ferry in 1860. “I am here to plead his cause with you. I plead not for his life, but for his character, - his immortal life; and so it becomes your cause wholly, and is not his in the least. Some eighteen hundred years ago Christ was crucified; this morning, perchance, Captain Brown was hung. These are the two ends of a chain which is not without its links. He is not Old Brown any longer; his is an angel of light.” Document F Source: John Brown’s speech in court during his trial – November 2, 1859 “Had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of their friends…and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this interference…every man in this court would have deemed it worthy of reward rather than punishment...I believe to have interfered as I have done…, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it be deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children, and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit: so let it be done." Document G Source: Editorial printed in The Richmond Enquirer, November 15, 1859. “With all due reverence to the memory of our forefathers, I think the time has arrived in our history for a separation from the North. The Constitution has been violated. If the Union stands we have no security for either life or property. Emissaries are in our midst, sent here by a party which claims to have the good of the country at heart, but in fact are assassins. There are papers in the South supported by Abolition money. We must separate, unless we are willing to see our daughters and wives become the victims of a barbarous passion and worse insult… The day of compromise is passed. We should not listen to the words of the Northern men who are continually telling us we are safe, while they attempt to ridicule this “Harper’s Ferry business.” Watch those fellows. Gentlemen may cry peace, but there is no peace. Every gale that sweeps from the North brings new instruments of death in our midst. We publish to the world the causes that impel us to a separation… The hour has now come. The curtain falls, and the Republic framed by the hands of Washington and Jefferson fades from view. Better civil war than injustice and oppression. Document H Source: Richmond "Whig" newspaper editorial quoted in the Liberator, November 18, 1859 “Though it convert the whole Northern people, without an exception, into furious, armed abolition invaders, yet old Brown will be hung! That is the stern and irreversible decree, not only of the authorities of Virginia, but of the PEOPLE of Virginia, without a dissenting voice. And, therefore, Virginia, and the people of Virginia, will treat with the contempt they deserve, all the craven appeals of Northern men in behalf of old Brown's pardon. The miserable old traitor and murderer belongs to the gallows, and the gallows will have its own.” Document I Source: A letter from Frances Watkins, a free black living in Indiana. November 25, 1859 “Dear Friend: Although the hands of Slavery throw a barrier between you and me, and it may not be my privilege to see you in the prison house, Virginia has no bolts or bars through which I dread to send you my sympathy...I thank you that you have been brave enough to reach out your hands to the crushed and blighted of my race.
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