There was a cot in the office, but I was too excited to sleep, so I followed Messervy’s advice and removed my face furniture, all but the moustache and whiskers, of course. It’s a great delight to see your chin again after a hard slog in the field; reminds you that there are finer things in life, like England, and home, and sleeping sound, and strolling down Piccadilly with your hat on three hairs, and women, and drink … and Elspeth.
I was grinning at myself in the mirror when Messervy bowled in and told me to put on my cap and coat, double quick, and to muffle up well: he had something to show me. I followed him, wondering, along an alley between the armoury buildings; he stopped at a door and told me to pull my cap well down over my brows.
“Stay close behind me,” says he softly, and led the way. There was an open inner door ahead, with men’s backs turned to us. Messervy went right up behind them, and I followed, peering over his shoulder. The little room was crowded with people, standing and sitting, all intent on a man lying propped up on a palette against the far wall, and I bit back a gasp: it was J.B.
He’d never been a happy sight, but now he looked like the proceeds of a grave robbery. They’d washed the blood out of his hair and beard, and given him a clean shirt, but his face was gaunt and pallid, tight over the bones, and there were dark stains under the sunken eyes – but they were burning still, with that same grim fire, and his voice was harsh and strong as ever. For he was croaking away on the old line, about how he’d come to free the slaves, and for no other purpose; no one had sent him here but God and J.B. – or the Devil, if that was how they chose to view it – and he could have got clear away, but had been concerned for his hostages (and the fears of their wives and daughters in tears, if you please), and had wanted to reassure anyone who thought he was only there to burn and kill.
Someone cried out that he had killed people going quietly about the streets; J.B. replied that he didn’t know about that, and had done his best to save lives; he’d been fired on repeatedly without shooting back.
“That’s not so!” cries another. “Why, you killed an unarmed man by the tracks – yes, and another one!”
J.B. turned his head with an effort and pointed a talon at the speaker. “See here, my friend, it’s useless to contradict your own people who were my prisoners. They will tell you otherwise.”
There was a babble of protests and questions, and I saw that two fellows sitting close to him had pencils and notebooks – newspaper reporters, if you’ll credit it. The rest of them were sober citizens; Lee was there, and a dignified cove who I believe was the Governor, and Jeb Stuart with a face like thunder – and all crying out and badgering away at the old beggar, and him with a hole clear through to his kidneys, and his head cut to bits.
My first thought was, why, you bloody vandals. I don’t shock easy, and have no more of the milk of human kindness than you’d put in a cup of tea; I’ll taunt and gloat over a fallen foe any day, and put a boot in his ribs if he sasses back – but I’m a brute and a bully. These were your upstanding pillars of society, bursting with Christian piety and love thy neighbour, and here they were, shaking their sanctimonious heads as they harassed and goaded a seemingly dying man – aye, and feasted their eyes on him as though he were a beast in a circus, when you’d have thought that decency (on which I’m an authority, as you know) demanded that he be let alone. They even had the effrontery to argue and hector him, now that he was beat and helpless – I’d have liked to see ’em argue with him eight hours back, when he was standing up with his guns on.
Why, Flashy, you ask, this ain’t pity or sentiment, surely? Not a bit of it: don’t mistake disgust and contempt for the tormentor with compassion for the victim. I didn’t pity J.B. one jot, but I was enraged, at first sight, by those worthy ghouls enjoying the sensation (“Say, don’t talk to me about John Brown – why, I sat as close to him as I am to you this minute! Spoke to him, too – an’ told him, yes, sir!”), and as I watched him, old and stricken and frail, answering so calm and courteous … well, I couldn’t help thinking: good for you, J.B., that’s your sort.
And then it dawned on me that the old bugger was fairly revelling in it. He’d got his audience at last, hadn’t he just, the first of that world-wide congregation who would revere his name and sing his song and enshrine him in history forever. I’ll swear he knew it – Lee had asked him if he’d like the mob excluded, but J.B. wouldn’t hear of it; come one, come all, was his style, so that he could preach to as many as possible. That they were enemies, who’d come to vent their abomination of him and his notions, or to gloat, or just to indulge their curiosity, made it all the better for him; he could answer their harrying and abuse with urbanity and resolution – and that’s where the legend was born, believe me, in that shabby little paymaster’s office, for in whatever spirit they came, they left in something like awe … and admiration. “The gamest man I ever saw,” the Governor said, and Jeb Stuart (who was bloody rude to him at the time, I may say) remarked to me years later that without men like J.B. there wouldn’t be an America.
You see, like so many legends, it was true. He deserved their respect – and didn’t he know how to make the most of it, the vain old show-off? Here were his enemies, the ungodly oppressors of the enslaved, against whom he’d struggled for years, who’d cursed him for a border cutthroat and nothing more – and now they were hanging on his words, recognising him in dead earnest, with wonder and no little fear. Ironic, ain’t it? He’d failed … and found his triumph. Wounded and doomed, he was a man uplifted, and he laid it off to them with his matchless mixture of deep sincerity and sheer damned humbug.
You can read all three hours of it in the New York papers of the time, and it’s an education. I heard only some of the words, but they should be enough to give you the tune, which was truly extraordinary. There he was, wounded in half a dozen places, too weak to stand, fagged out and facing certain death, and talking as easily and pleasantly as though he were in a drawing-room, answering their questions like a kindly old professor dealing with backward students. When a young militia greenhorn scoffed that he couldn’t have hoped to achieve anything with just a handful of men, J.B. looked him over, smiled, and said patiently: “Well, perhaps your ideas and mine on military matters would differ materially,” and when another demanded that he justify his acts, he sighed, as though explaining something to a dunce for the umpteenth time:
“I don’t wish to be offensive, but I think, my friend, that you of the South are guilty of a great wrong against God and humanity. I believe it is perfectly right for anyone to … ah, interfere with you so far as to free those you wickedly and wilfully hold in bondage. Please understand, I don’t say this insultingly.”
He went on to lecture them on the Golden Rule of doing unto others as they would have others do unto them, which for some reason put Jeb Stuart in a bait, for he accused J.B. of not believing in the Bible, and got a pained look and a gentle “Certainly I do”, in reproof. Jeb, the ass, came back at him: when someone asked how much he’d paid his followers, and J.B. said, no wages whatever, Jeb cried out piously: “The wages of sin is death!”, to which J.B. replied gently:
“I would not have made such a remark to you, if you had been a prisoner and wounded in my hands.” He rubbed salt in it by observing that he could have killed Jeb “just as easy as a mosquito”.
They tried to make him tell who his Northern backers were, and got nowhere. “Any questions that I can honourably answer, I will,” says he, and when they quoted a letter in the papers from a prominent Yankee abolitionist predicting a slave uprising, he even raised a laugh by saying drily that he hadn’t had the opportunity of reading the New York Herald for the past day or two. More soberly he went on:
“I wish to say that all you people of the South should prepare yourselves for a settlement of the slave question, and the sooner you are prepared, the better. You may dispose of me very easily; I am almost disposed of now, but the question is still to be settled.”
Once or
twice, I regret to say, he lied. He claimed that he’d been wounded “after I had consented to surrender, for the benefit of others, not for my own”. He didn’t surrender, ever, not that I heard. He also claimed that he had not impressed any slave against his will – and to my astonishment someone called out, “I know of one negro who wanted to go back”, and who should it be but Aaron Stevens, lying on a palette farther along the wall; I had to crane my neck to see him, mighty pale, with a bloody bandage on his chest. Who that negro was I don’t know. But J.B.’s biggest stretcher was that he’d done his damnedest not to kill anyone … I dare say he meant it, but you’ve read my account and can judge for yourselves.
When someone called him a fanatic, he bristled up and said they were the fanatics, not he, at which the Governor weighed into him, telling him his silver head was red with crime, and he’d do well to start thinking of eternity. J.B. put him down in his best style.
“Governor,” says he cheerfully, “judging by appearances, I have about fifteen or twenty years start on you in the journey to that eternity of which you so kindly warn me. Fifteen years or fifteen hours – I’m ready to go. The difference between your tenure of life and mine is only a trifle, and I tell you to be prepared. All you who hold slaves have more need to be prepared than I.”59
“It’s going to be worse than I feared,” says Messervy, when we were back in my quarters. “Far worse. If only he didn’t sound so almighty reasonable … and … and saintly, damn it!” He was more upset than I’d seen him; absolutely tweaked his moustache instead of stroking it. “What did you think of him … from an English point of view, I mean?”
What I was thinking was that I was damned glad I’d shot Joe when I did. I’m as sentimental as the next man, you see.
“From an English point of view? Well, they’d not take him in Whites … not sure about the Reform, though. Oh, very well, seriously, then – they mayn’t put him up in Trafalgar Square in place of Nelson, but it’ll be a close-run thing. If you hang him, that is. Put him in a madhouse, and nobody’ll notice.”
“He’s not mad,” says Messervy. “I’m not sure he wasn’t the sanest man in that room. No, he’ll hang. Before the next election, fortunately, or he’d be liable to beat Seward for the Republican nomination. Join me in a drink? My sorrows are in need of submersion.” He poured them out. “I ask myself … if he talks like that when he’s shot full of holes, what will he be like when he’s better and standing up in court, with every paper in the country reporting him? We’ll be lucky,” says he thoughtfully, “if this doesn’t lead to war. Well, we must just hope for the best.”
I thought he was talking through his hat – one crazy farmer being topped for murder and treason didn’t strike me as a reasonable casus belli. Which shows how much I knew. But it didn’t matter to me, anyway, so I devoted myself to the brandy and contemplation of home while he sat meditating. Finally he gave a little rueful smile, and said reflectively:
“D’ye know, Flashman, sometimes I wish I had Presidential power … and the whole U.S. Treasury to draw on, secretly.”
I said I’d fancy it rather above half myself, and what had he in mind?
“At this moment? I’ll tell you. I’d consider very seriously paying you and Pinkerton a fortune to rescue John Brown from the clutches of the law and spirit him to Canada. ’Twould be an international scandal, I dare say, and a great rattling of sabres, but I’ve no doubt Buchanan and Palmerston could settle it without too much fuss … possibly with the assistance of Prince Albert and our Northern Liberals. Interesting idea, don’t you think?”
“Highly diverting. What good would that do?”
“Apart from sparing us a martyr, it would unite North and South as nothing else could. Perfidious Albion meddling in our most sacred private quarrel – even the diehard abolitionists would be up in arms against you.”
“You could have him shot trying to escape,” says cynical Flashy.
“Too late now,” says he, and closed his eyes. “If only he could have stopped a bullet in that engine-house … if only that ass Green had been carrying a sabre instead of his toy sword.60 What we might have been spared … well, we can only leave it to the lawyers and politicians and the great American public, now.”
Chapter 21
We’ve come to the parting of the trails, J.B.’s and mine – and high time, too, if you ask me. He was to take the high road to the gallows and immortal fame, and I the low road to … well, I’ll come to that in a moment. First I should tell you briefly, and at second hand, what happened to him in the little time that was left to him, and the momentous effect it had on America and, I dare say, on the world.
My last memory of him is in that paymaster’s office, propped up on his mattress, battered but bright-eyed, not two pounds of his stringy old carcase hanging straight, but laying down the law in his best accustomed style, God help him … and I suppose I must say God bless him, too, for form’s sake. Of all the men of wrath who have disturbed my chequered course, he’s about the only one towards whom I feel no ill will, old pest and all that he was. He was decent enough to me, and if he led me through hell and high water … well, you might as well blame the lightning or the whirlwind.
I wasn’t there to see his departure from the Ferry next day, but he came near to being lynched. There was a great crowd full of drink and fury when they put him on the train to Charles Town; he and Stevens had to be carried through the throng baying for their blood in panic as well as rage, for the wildest rumours were flying – that the raid had been only the prelude to a general invasion, that the slaves were on the brink of rebellion, that a great conspiracy was brewing in the North – it was even reported that a family in a village just a few miles from the Ferry had been massacred, but when Lee went galloping to the scene he found everyone safe in bed, and the slaves tranquil.
The fact was that not a single slave had joined in the raid, other than those taken by Stevens from Washington’s farm and places nearby, and most of them had slipped off home as soon as they could, or been passive altogether. But the mischief was done: a great thrill of fear ran through the South, Virginia was preparing for war, some places were under martial law, Dixie suspected (quite mistakenly) that it was sitting on a black powder-keg ready to explode, and the storm that broke in the newspapers only added to the hysteria. One of Lee’s first acts had been to send Jeb Stuart to the Kennedy Farm, where they found all J.B.’s papers and correspondence, with the names of his Northern supporters, which the brilliant old conspirator had left behind in a carpet bag, and once the Democrats and pro-slavery journals got hold of the names, the fat was in the fire. The “Black Republicans”, the Secret Six, and even moderate abolitionists, became the villains of the day, plotting to wreak havoc in the South, and among those who came in for special vilification, and serve him right, was William H. Seward, the cigar-chewing blighter who’d blackmailed me into the business in New York; he was “the arch agitator who is responsible for this insurrection”, and for all I know this may have cost him the Presidency.
It did no good for him and other Northerners, including Lincoln, to condemn the raid; all the South could hear was the growing peal of admiration for Brown the champion of liberty, which came even from those who deplored what Brown the raider had done. You can see the South’s point of view: he was a murderous old brigand who was out to overthrow them. And you can see the North’s: he was a fearless crusader who wanted only to set black men free. Both views were true, and one can’t blame the Southerners for believing that he represented the North in its true colours, or the North for believing, as one speaker put it, that whether his acts had been right or wrong, J.B. himself was right. The truth was that he’d fuelled the passions of the wildest elements on both sides, and convinced even sensible and moderate people that the only answer was disunion or war.61
His trial, which began only a week after the raid, fulfilled Messervy’s glummest fears. Here was the poor old hero, so weak and wounded that he had to be toted into co
urt on a cot, submitting to his fate with Christian patience – in fact, he wasn’t as poorly as he looked, and could walk when he had to. And he put on the performance of his life, telling them he’d never asked for quarter, and if they wanted his blood they could have it there and then, without the mockery of a trial. As to his defence, he was “utterly unable to attend to it. My memory don’t serve me; my health is insufficient, although improving. I am ready for my fate.”
I’ll bet there wasn’t a dry eye from Cape Cod to Cincinnati.
The trial was a formality, or a farce, if you like. Much was made of the speed with which it took place, but if they’d given him until 1870 it would have made no difference, for there could be no question of his guilt, or the penalty. His lawyers would have had him plead insanity (half his ancestors were barmy, you know), but the old fox wouldn’t hear of it – and d’ye know, if I’d been called to testify on the point, I’d have had to back him up. I know that in these pages I’ve frequently called him mad, and lunatic, and suggested his rightful place was in a padded cell, but that’s just Flashy talking; we all say such things without meaning that the object of our censure is seriously deranged. No, he wasn’t mad; read his letters, his speeches, the things he said to reporters, and take the word of one who knew him well. A fanatic, yes; a man driven by one burning idea, certainly; a fool in some things, perhaps, but never a madman.
It wasn’t a long trial, but seems to have had some interesting features; one of the prosecutors was too drunk to plead, they say, and t’other was the father of one of the men who’d murdered Bill Thompson on the bridge (which I’d have thought made for a nice conflict of interest, but I’m no lawyer). None of that, or the legal wrangling about jurisdiction and delays, was of the least importance. Only one thing mattered, and that was the bearing of the accused – that’s what the world remembers, “the brave old border soldier”, calm, dignified and unflinching, rising gamely to speak with a chap supporting him either side, lying patiently on his cot as sentence of death was passed, closing his eyes in unconcern and pulling the blankets up beneath his chin. Even the most hard-bitten pro-slavers couldn’t but admire “the conscientiousness, the honour, and the supreme bravery of the man”. You may imagine what the good ladies of Concord and Boston thought, and the fervour with which they wept and prayed for him.
Flashman Papers Omnibus Page 330
