Note 48 — Chapter XLVII · AN AUTUMNAL VISIT.

The case seems to have been precisely parallel to that of Spencer Kellogg Brown, hung in Richmond, September 25th, 1863, as a spy. On the 18th of that month, Brown told the Rev. William G. Scandlin of Massachusetts (see the latter’s published letter), that they had kept him there in prison “until all his evidence had been sent away, allowed him but fifteen hours to prepare for his defence, and denied him the privilege of counsel.” Brown was captured by guerillas, not while he was acting as a spy, but while returning from destroying a rebel ferry-boat near Port Hudson, which he had done under the order of Captain Porter. The hanging of this man was as shameless a murder as was ever perpetrated by Thugs. But Slavery, disappointed in the hanging of Captains Sawyer and Flynn, was yelling lustily for a Yankee to hang; and Jeff Davis was not man enough to say “No.”