The Strange Story of Harper's Ferry, with Legends of the Surrounding CountryBarry, Joseph
History
The Strange Story of Harper's Ferry, with Legends of the Surrounding Country
Barry, Joseph
Harpers Ferry (W. Va.) -- History; Harpers Ferry (W. Va.) -- History -- John Brown's Raid, 1859
For some years before the war there resided in the neighborhood of
Harper's Ferry a schoolmaster named Law. He claimed to be a brother of
the famous George Law, of New York. He was an eccentric man, but he
appeared to have a good deal of strength of character, for he always
denounced slavery and advocated its abolition. For the expression of his
sentiments on this subject he was driven out of Harper's Ferry, shortly
after the Brown raid, and narrowly escaped a coat of tar and feathers.
On the breaking out of the war he attached himself to the union army as
a spy, and he was murdered, as it is supposed, by some of Mobley's gang.
One of them related to a friend of the author the manner of Law's death
and it was as follows, according to the confession: Having made him a
prisoner, they took him to a lonely part of the Loudoun Mountain, laid
him flat on his back and fastened him to the ground with withes twisted
'round his limbs and driven into the earth with mauls, and firmly
secured. There he was left to perish of hunger, thirst, cold or any
more speedy death from the fangs of wild animals that Heaven might
mercifully vouchsafe to him. Whether all this is true or not, there is
no doubt of his having been murdered, and considering all the
circumstances, there is reason to believe that the poor fellow was
treated as stated.
When General Lee a second time invaded the north on his disastrous
Gettysburg campaign, again did Harper's Ferry change masters, and, when
he again retreated, the re-occupation of the town by the union army was
a matter of course, and the place then remained in the uninterrupted
possession of the latter for a year.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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