Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 | Page 5

order that they might bury the dead, and flee to the wilderness for
safety.
Suddenly a startling phenomena presented itself to their astonished
view. The heavy embankment and timbers protecting the magazine
appeared to rise from the earth, and the next instant the dreadful
explosion overwhelmed them, and the next found two hundred and
seventy parents and children in the immediate presence of a holy God,
making their appeal for retributive justice upon the government who
had murdered them, and the freemen of the north who sustained such
unutterable crimes.[3]
Many were crushed by the falling earth and the timbers; many were

entirely buried in the ruins. Some were horribly mangled by the
fragments of timber and the explosion of charged shells that were in the
magazine. Limbs were torn from the bodies to which they had been
attached. Mothers and babes lay beside each other, wrapped in that
sleep which knows no waking.
The sun had set, and the twilight of evening was closing around them,
when some sixty sailors, under the officer second in command, landed,
and, without opposition, entered the Fort. The veteran sailors,
accustomed to blood and carnage, were horror-stricken as they viewed
the scene before them. They were accompanied, however, by some
twenty slaveholders, all anxious for their prey. These paid little
attention to the dead and dying, but anxiously seized upon the living,
and, fastening the fetters upon their limbs, hurried them from the Fort,
and instantly commenced their return towards the frontier of Georgia.
Some fifteen persons in the Fort survived the terrible explosion, and
they now sleep in servile graves, or moan and weep in bondage.
The officer in command of the party, with his men, returned to the
boats as soon as the slaveholders were fairly in possession of their
victims. The sailors appeared gloomy and thoughtful as they returned
to their vessels. The anchors were weighed, the sails unfurled, and both
vessels hurried from the scene of butchery as rapidly as they were able.
After the officers had retired to their cabins, the rough-featured sailors
gathered before the mast, and loud and bitter were the curses they
uttered against slavery and against those officers of government who
had then constrained them to murder women and helpless children,
merely for their love of liberty.
But the dead remained unburied; and the next day the vultures were
feeding upon the carcasses of young men and young women, whose
hearts on the previous morning had beaten high with expectation. Their
bones have been bleaching in the sun for thirty-seven years, and may
yet be seen scattered among the ruins of that ancient fortification.
Twenty-two years elapsed, and a representative in Congress, from one
of the free States, reported a bill giving to the perpetrators of these
murders a gratuity of five thousand dollars from the public treasury, as

a token of the gratitude which the people of this nation felt for the
soldierly and gallant manner in which the crime was committed toward
them. The bill passed both houses of Congress, was approved by the
President, and now stands upon our statute book among the laws
enacted at the 3d Session of the 25th Congress.
The facts are all found scattered among the various public documents
which repose in the alcoves of our National Library. But no historian
has been willing to collect and publish them, in consequence of the
deep disgrace which they reflect upon the American arms, and upon
those who then controlled the government.
[Illustration: (signature) J. R. Giddings]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Vide Executive documents of the 2d Session 13th Congress.
[2] It is believed that this report was suggested by the humanity of Col.
Clinch. He was reputed one of the bravest and most energetic officers
in the service. He possessed an indomitable perseverance, and could
probably have captured the Fort in one hour, had he desired to do so.
[3] That is the number officially reported by the officer in command,
vide Executive doc. of the 13th Congress.

The Fugitive Slave Act.
Few laws have ever been passed better calculated than this to harden
the heart and benumb the conscience of every man who assists in its
execution. It pours contempt upon the dictates of justice and humanity.
It levels in the dust the barriers erected by the common law for the
protection of personal liberty. Its victims are native born Americans,
uncharged with crime. These men are seized, without notice, and
instantly carried before an officer, by whom they are generally hurried
off into a cruel bondage, for the remainder of their days, and sometimes
without time being allowed for a parting interview with their families.

Such treatment would be cruel toward criminals; but these men are
adjudged to toil, to stripes, to ignorance, to poverty, to hopeless
degradation, on