Please give directions for forwarding to Elmira and name the
price of tickets.
At first Miss Lewis thought of forwarding only a part of her fugitive
guests to the Committee in Philadelphia, but on further consideration,
all were safely sent along in due time, and the Committee took great
pains to have them made as comfortable as possible, as the cases of
these mothers and children especially called forth the deepest sympathy.
In this connection it seems but fitting to allude to Captain Lee's
sufferings on account of his having brought away in a skiff, by sea, a
party of four, alluded to in the beginning of this single month's
report.
Unfortunately he was suspected, arrested, tried, convicted, and torn
from his wife and two little children, and sent to the Richmond
Penitentiary for twenty-five years. Before being sent away from
Portsmouth, Va., where he was tried, for ten days in succession in the
prison five lashes a day were laid heavily on his bare back. The further
sufferings of poor Lee and his heart-broken wife, and his little
daughter and son, are too painful for minute recital. In this city the
friends of Freedom did all in their power to comfort Mrs. Lee, and
administered aid to her and her children; but she broke down under her
mournful fate, and went to that bourne from whence no traveler ever
returns.
Captain Lee suffered untold misery in prison, until he, also, not a
great while before the Union forces took possession of Richmond, sank
beneath the severity of his treatment, and went likewise to the grave.
The two children for a long time were under the care of Mr. Wm. Ingram
of Philadelphia, who voluntarily, from pure benevolence, proved himself
to be a father and a friend to them. To their poor mother also he had
been a true friend.
The way in which Captain Lee came to be convicted, if the Committee were
correctly informed and they think they were, was substantially in this
wise: In the darkness of the night, four men, two of them constables,
one of the other two, the owner of one of the slaves who had been aided
away by Lee, seized the wife of one of the fugitives and took her to the
woods, where the fiends stripped every particle of clothing from her
person, tied her to a tree, and armed with knives, cowhides and a
shovel, swore vengeance against her, declaring they would kill her if
she did not testify against Lee. At first she refused to reveal the
secret; indeed she knew but little to reveal; but her savage tormentors
beat her almost to death. Under this barbarous infliction she was
constrained to implicate Captain Lee, which was about all the evidence
the prosecution had against him. And in reality her evidence, for two
reasons, should not have weighed a straw, as it was contrary to the laws
of the State of Virginia, to admit the testimony of colored persons
against white; then again for the reason that this testimony was
obtained wholly by brute force.
But in this instance, this woman on whom the murderous attack had been
made, was brought into court on Lee's trial and was bid to simply make
her statement with regard to Lee's connection with the escape of her
husband. This she did of course. And in the eyes of this chivalric
court, this procedure "was all right." But thank God the events since
those dark and dreadful days, afford abundant proof that the All-seeing
Eye was not asleep to the daily sufferings of the poor bondman.
* * * * *