Читать книгу The Other Side of Lincoln - Welby Thomas Cox Jr. - Страница 4

In 1856, an incident occurred which Fremont regretted, in-as-much-as, it occurred in eastern Kansas while under his command and protection. Just before midnight of May 24 the James Doyle family received surprise visitors at their remote farm. The knock on the door was loud and persistent...Doyle rushed to answer the door while rousing his family. He opened the visual trap door and saw his neighbor from Osawatomie on horseback. He made the judgmental error to open the door.

“James Doyle...I am John Brown... the Angle of the Lord...come for penance and retribution for your sinful degradation against fellow human beings.” Brown shouted while sitting erect in his saddle and pointing his long arm and willowy yellow stained finger with equally long fingernails at Doyle.

Five other horsemen backed up Brown, two of them with flaming torches, tried to soothe their mounts, pranced and nickered at the fire and the frenzy. The flames cast a strange glow across the countenance of John Brown, wiry, stiff short gray hair which stood about the head as unreasonable as was the root of its existence, bony faced and gaunt frame. His voice had a deep and religious tone that went to the very marrow of Doyle, who was stricken with fear by Brown’s very sight, frozen so that Doyle could not be pulled into the house by his son’s who labored to extricate him from the evil that lurked in the darkness, now illuminated by torches waved by horsemen outside the door.

“Hell hath no fury or even a space for a slaver of your disgusting reputation Mr. Doyle...you have been previously warned to amend your despicable mistreatment of human kind.” Brown continued to rant in an almost demonic cadence. “But you have refused to recant or to cease the demonic occupation of the body, the heart and spirit of the slaves you oppress.”

“Vengeance is mine seethe the Lord...his messenger has arrived for your sins and the brutal canning of one of his precious children whose name I leave for you to remember and pray over the spirit of Charles Sumner, his servant, will surely be in heaven one day.” Brown swore loudly.

No sooner than he had completed the chastising, Brown rode up on the porch and slashed out at Doyle with a saber slashing his neck and head as his two sons, continued their effort, to pull their father into the safety of the house.

Doyle could not speak but finally screamed the name of his wife... “Mahala!”

His wife hearing him... screamed out in a woeful and chilling manner.

Ropes were thrown over the sons of James Doyle and they were drug into the barnyard and butchered by the marauding abolitionist. Two innocent young men, no more or less guilty as any slave...punished for the sins of the father over whom they had no recourse. Born in the wrong era, to the wrong parents...cut down before they could carve out a philosophy or pass on the genetic make-up predisposed to carry on the rage, the hatred from generation to generation.

The law was unable to apprehend Brown or to stop the clandestine assassinations of those flowing into the Kansas prairie who were vociferous in their support of slavery, certain to form a majority in Kansas as a Slave State under the provisions of the Kansas-Nebraska Act to the chagrin of the Abolitionist who knew they could not kill all the Proslavers...that would take an army, of the size which only the federals could and would muster in 1861.

Fremont did not condone the use of slavery. He was adamantly opposed to its spread throughout the west seeing what it had done in the south. But at the same time he was a man who believed in the rule of law and the orderly procedures for addressing issues framed on either side. He was contrite over the loss of life experienced by the Doyle family, by Charles Sumner and hundreds of slaves whose names and faces went unnoticed as history played out their dilemma and Fremont’s role in it.

He swore to get John Brown and bring him to justice and Electus Dominus Lenahan would be the man who would deliver the information necessary to bring him down.

This would be no easy matter. Communication was difficult, though improving and there were several trails, which had been recently forged making it plausible for an inventive man like John Brown to elude and evade justice, difficult but nonetheless, passable by men on the move, regardless of motivation or intention.

The army had its handful with the Indians, even though certain treaties had been negotiated for the safe passage of settlers and prospectors. They were often angered by settlers moving through stopping to hunt, fish and rest...and a growing number... putting down roots on hallowed grounds, with centuries old hunting, fishing and other natural resources which the nomadic Sioux, Apache, Cherokee, Ute, Comanche’s, Pawnees, Kiowa and the Arapahos depended upon.

The discovery of Gold in California in 1848 had brought a crush of wealth seekers over one of the major trails. The Oregon Trail north of Larimer County, ran westward through Wyoming to Oregon, California and Utah.

A Mormon battalion on its way to Salt Lake City enters the mountains west of La Porte bringing with them an unorthodox religious belief of the polygamist (one man with several wives) causing problems for the army which could not have been imagined on the Western Plains, requiring manpower continuing to diminish the small army’s strength.

Another route was forged by the Cherokee Indians in conjunction with an Anglo-American named William Russell, blazed a trail which started in Pueblo went to Fort S. Vrain on the South Platte, crossed the South Platte at the mouth of the Cache La Poudre and subsequently entered the mountains and headed for the Laramie Plains and westward to California, became known as The Cherokee Trail.

William Russell was a miner and geologist by trade. He had left his family in Pittsburgh consisting of a wife and two small children, while he attempted to quench the wanderlust and Gold fever. He had successfully organized a trip to California utilizing a pact with the Cherokee as guides across the Rockies, through the plains and into California, but returned empty handed. While attempting to organize a second expedition to California he began prospecting along The Cherokee Trail at Ralston Creek. Whereupon he made his first strike causing him to rethink his need to go to California. The news of this strike was leaked bringing forth an influx of gold-panning prospectors, many of whom had been to California and come home empty handed as well.

By then Russell had moved on making similar finds in what became known as Russell Gulch and Clear Creek. Russell was beside himself with the fever and the realization of his dream. After mining for several months he was persuaded by conscience to pack up and return to Pittsburgh for visits with his wife and two growing daughters, Marianna and Rebecca...nieces of Ima Longing Russell.

Although Mrs. Russell was from a wealthy Pittsburgh family in the printing and publishing business, and the family wanted him to learn the trade, Russell would have none of it. He was a miner and geologist; he had told her of his quest prior to marriage... his business was in Colorado. She deferred to his plans for the future of their family.

They finally agreed to let the girls remain in school in Pittsburgh while living with the maternal grandmother. The Russell’s would make the

return trip to Colorado and the two girls would come west for the summer. An event neither of the children could imagine nor anticipate the changes, which would occur in their young lives.