Perish from the Earth

by Jonathan F. Putnam

  “Say, are you planning to land Lovejoy’s new press tonight?” I said, thinking back to what Elijah had told us of its imminent arrival. “Because I think there’s quite a large group fixing to disrupt those plans.”

  The men looked back and forth among themselves and reached an unspoken agreement. Owen said, “If Elijah sent for you, that must make you friends of the cause.”

  “You can trust us,” said Martha with force.

  “The rumor around town is that the new press is arriving tonight,” Owen continued quietly, though no one else was within earshot. “There’s a mob trying to get up its courage at this very moment to try to prevent us from bringing it ashore.” The man nodded over my shoulder toward the taverns. Then he leaned toward us and added, “Only—the rumor’s wrong. We landed it last night and secured it inside the warehouse. A group of twenty of our supporters is inside right now, ready to defend it. With force if necessary. There’s nothing the mobbers can do to prevent Elijah from continuing to be a herald of freedom.”

  “We have no truck with the mobbers,” I said, “nor, in truth, much with you. We’re here to see Lovejoy about a private matter.” I waved the note again. “I can’t imagine it will take more than ten minutes, if you’ll let us in to see him.”

  But the men did not move from their post in front of the door. I was about to push past them when a horn blast sounded from somewhere deep inside the town. Immediately, a low rumble arose from behind me. Turning, I saw several rivers of men starting to stream toward the warehouse from the taverns.

  “That must have been their signal,” Owen Lovejoy said to his companions. “Let’s take care, boys.”

  Before we could react, they had opened the warehouse door, darted inside, and locked it behind them. I pounded on the door and shouted for them to let us in. There was no response. The mob grew closer. Many of the men carried apple-sized cobblestones that had evidently been pried loose from the streets; others carried burning whale-oil torches. In the advancing front rank, I recognized a familiar face, and I raced up to intercept him.

  “Runkin! What are you doing here?” I said.

  “Wouldn’t miss this mobbing for all the riches of the Orient,” replied the prison guard, “especially not after I missed the last one.” He peered at me through unfocused eyes from beneath his low cap. “I’m glad to see you taking part.”

  I shook my head frantically. “You’ve got to help me call them off,” I said, gesturing to his fellow rioters, who were closing in on the warehouse all around us. “The Abolitionists inside the building are armed. Someone’s going to get hurt.”

  “Hurting’s the point,” said Runkin as he tried to push past me. His wool jersey and coarse whiskers smelled strongly of cheap liquor. “To hurt stinkin’ Lovejoy. So he leaves Alton and don’t never come back.”

  “But—”

  “Out of my way!” He shoved me with both hands, and while I was off-balance, several other members of the mob surged by and knocked me from my feet. I crashed to the ground, landing hard on my elbow, then quickly rolled out of the way just in time to avoid being trampled by the next line of men in their ragged formation.

  “Joshua!” cried my sister’s voice above the din.

  Scrambling to my feet, I spotted Martha off to the side of the warehouse, just beyond where the mob was taking up position. I raced over to her, threading my way through the cobble-wielding crowd.

  “What do we do?” Martha asked, clenching my arm with both her hands. For the first time I could remember, there was fear in her features.

  Together we hurried up the side of the hill into which the warehouse was set. When we turned back, a jostling semicircle of close to two hundred men had formed in front of the warehouse entrance.

  There were malignant yells from the crowd for Elijah Lovejoy to show himself. Then one of the men standing near Runkin took his rock and heaved it toward an upper window. It missed, striking a horizontal lintel piece and falling back down onto the paving stones with a harmless crash. But the idea immediately appealed to the crowd, and soon a full fusillade ensued, the shower of rocks producing a cacophony of thudding stones and shattering glass. Within a minute, every window on that side of the building was broken.

  A dignified man in a formal frockcoat appeared at one of the upper-story windows.

  “You’ll never land the press, Gilman,” called one of the mobbers.

  “What cause have you to create a disturbance at this hour?” the warehouse owner shouted down to the mob, which had paused its assault to stare up at the brave—or perhaps merely foolhardy—man. “I will defend my building and everyone and everything in it with my life.”

  “Give us the blasphemer Lovejoy and we’ll leave you alone,” called back the voice. “We have no argument with you.”

  One of the men in the front rank of the mob far below Gilman reached into the pocket of his pantaloons and drew out a pistol. In the warehouse, one of Gilman’s friends must have seen the threat, because a hand reached up from below the sill and abruptly pulled Gilman away from the window.

  The crowd jeered at Gilman’s unceremonious retreat, and a new shower of paving stones rained against the walls of the warehouse. Several men in the crowd had tin horns, and they blew a rousing huzzah.

  A few men now appeared at the very top windows of the warehouse, and they started heaving bulky objects toward the crowd. When the ungainly projectiles landed on the streets, they shattered into a thousand tiny fragments. They were hurling earthenware pots against the mob, I realized, as one of the pots landed scarcely ten feet from us and I felt my legs being peppered by shards. I took Martha’s arm, and we scrambled farther up the hill.

  A chant emerged from the mob: “Burn them out! Burn them out!” A flaming torch was procured, and one of the rioters leaned a ladder against the long windowless side of the building. The ladder only reached to the second story, but after a few moments, a second ladder was found, and the two of them were lashed together with thick rope. The new double ladder was hoisted into position, and it just reached up to the wooden roof of the warehouse. A cheer of success arose from the mob.

  Runkin himself seized the torch and shook it about recklessly. But the guard swayed drunkenly as he made his way over toward the ladder, and he managed to climb only three rungs before he lost his balance and toppled over onto the pavement. The mob jeered him good-naturedly.

  A small boy, no more than ten or twelve years of age, was now pushed forward and handed the torch. He hesitated, but the mob urged him on with brandished stones and shaking fists, and the boy plainly concluded there was more safety up the ladder than on the ground. He scurried up the rungs, the cool end of the flaming torch clenched in his teeth.

  The men inside the warehouse must have sensed the attempt from their blind flank to fire them out, because all of a sudden there was a great whoop, and a half dozen men burst forth from the warehouse door and ran toward the ladder. Owen Lovejoy was leading the charge. Pointing their pistols toward the sky and shooting wildly, the men chased off those who had been supporting the base of the ladder. They clustered together, hands reaching against the rungs, and with a great heave, they pushed the ladder away from the warehouse wall.

  The ladder hovered in midair, defying gravity. There was a brief moment of almost absolute silence as the mob and the defenders alike looked skyward at the small boy, who was dangling from a rung some thirty feet above the cobbled streets. Then the ladder passed its balance point and began coming down. The boy screamed; the mob gasped. The ladder fell. There was a great crash, and everything clattered to the ground. From our vantage point, it appeared the boy had landed atop two or three of the revelers and had been spared serious injury.

  The mob surged forward again toward the warehouse. In response, four men appeared at the top-floor windows, rifles in hand. There was a shouted signal and four explosions in close succession. The crowd below swayed in horrible ecstasy at this introduction of a mortal threat. It seemed at first that the
rifle shots had all missed their marks, but a shouting arose, and a group of men near the wharf bent down over a prone figure.

  “He’s been hit! Lyman Bishop’s been hit!” went out a cry, which hurtled through the crowd like the whine of an approaching cannon ball.

  As the crowd parted, we saw the unfortunate victim being hustled toward us. Bishop was being carried as a large hog might be, with each of his limbs clutched by a different man, as his torso swayed helplessly in between. As they rushed past our position, I heard the man holding onto Bishop’s dangling left leg call out, “Beal’s surgery is just around the corner.”

  Bishop had a young, sweet face still dotted by adolescent whiskers. I doubted he had ever held a blade to it. Blood was oozing out of his right shoulder and his opposite hip. There would be nothing for Dr. Beal to do.

  Martha’s face had gone a ghostly pale. “Can’t we do something to stop this?” she asked.

  “It’s too late. If the mob wouldn’t listen to the warehouse owner, Gilman, they won’t listen to us.” I took her arm. “Let’s go! Now! I fear those won’t be the last shots fired tonight. I can’t expose you to any more danger.”

  But Martha wouldn’t move. “We need to learn what Lovejoy knows,” she said. “Mr. Bingham’s case may depend on it. And look, the crowd’s starting to disperse.”

  Indeed, Bishop’s shooting had cast a pall over the mob, many of whom, it now appeared, had joined up for a night’s entertainment without any thought of serious—to say nothing of mortal—consequences. The rioters milled about in confusion and clustered in small groups near jugs of whiskey, which were passed around without merriment. But soon calls of “Get the Abolitionists!” and “Avenge Bishop!” rang out, and the mob found renewed purpose.

  The double ladder was retrieved from the ground and leaned against the stone walls of the warehouse again. A new climber was recruited—a skinny youth in his teens who was dressed incongruously, as if for a society party, in a black top hat and tails. The youth was handed a metal bucket that smoldered and smoked—burning pitch, I guessed at once.

  This time, the mob seemed to realize the need to protect the climber on his way to the roof. On the wharf beside the warehouse lay a large woodpile, about twenty feet long and four or five feet high, comprising discarded barrels and a large steam boiler. Three men, each clutching a rifle, now positioned themselves purposefully behind the woodpile, which had a ready sight line to the base of the ladder.

  “Look!” cried Martha, pointing at them. “Aren’t those the same men we saw in the hotel that afternoon when we were talking with Lincoln?”

  With a start, I realized she was right. They had seemed determined enemies of Lovejoy then, and they seemed even more determined now. The men rested their rifles on the top layer of the woodpile, their eyes looking down the gun barrels toward the warehouse.

  The top-hatted climber was within ten feet of the roof when the warehouse door burst open again and a group of men rushed toward the base of the ladder. This time the defenders included both Lovejoy brothers. Elijah Lovejoy’s full, proud face carried an expression of calm that contrasted greatly with the frenzy of the moment. While the other fellows sprinted pell-mell toward the ladder, firing pistols into the air as they ran, Lovejoy was unarmed, and he strode along without evident hurry or fear.

  All around the square, cries rang out: “Lovejoy! It’s Lovejoy! Look—Lovejoy!”

  “Lovejoy.”

  Instinctively my eyes moved to the woodpile, and I saw the men lying in wait there hesitate. They looked at each other in confusion. For an instant, I thought calmer heads were to prevail. Then, all at once, they turned back to the Abolitionist, gripped their rifles, and fired.

  All three bullets ripped into Lovejoy’s torso. His body froze in midstep, his arms spread out as if embracing the universe. Then he shuddered and collapsed onto the ground. A dark tide of blood spread out from his prone form.

  Owen Lovejoy gave a heartrending scream and threw himself atop Elijah’s body, and the living brother convulsed in great, heaving sobs. Tears streamed down Martha’s face. She buried herself against my coat.

  Somewhere in the distance, a church bell started ringing.

  CHAPTER 26

  We watched the aftermath of Lovejoy’s murder in a kind of mental fog, the ringing church bells drowning out everything, even our own thoughts. Lovejoy’s defenders carried away his body, shrouded in a white sheet stained red with the martyr’s blood. A hoard of mobbers forced their way into the warehouse and carried out the new printing press, piece by piece, and flung it into the river.

  For good measure, the mob completed their design to set the warehouse roof on fire. We watched it burn orange and red against the black night sky. The air swirled with bitter smoke. As we looked on, the burning timbers gave way, and half of the roof collapsed inward with a great crash and a plume of sparks. What remained of the mob, which stood in scattered clumps on the street and the wharf far below the towering flames, gave a brief cheer. It did not contain much joy.

  Eventually, Martha and I found our way back to the hotel. Kemp was at his post, watching us closely, the news of the murder etched across his face, but we walked past him without a word. In our room, I lay down on my half of the mattress still fully dressed, my arms pinned to my sides. My sister did the same. I closed my eyes and contemplated the knot in the pit of my stomach until at last I drifted off to sleep, my boots still laced tight.

  I slept fitfully, haunted all night by visions of Lovejoy’s tranquil, self-possessed face in the instant before he was murdered and by the piercing sound of his brother’s wail in the instant after.

  A cold, hard rain fell unrelentingly on Alton for the next two days. There were no celebrations by Lovejoy’s opponents in the streets on which it fell, nor any public lamentations by his remaining allies. Both sides were shocked and spent by the events. There were no words left to be said, no emotions to be felt. The final verdict was apparent to all. The mob had won.

  Word filtered around the somber public room of the hotel that Lovejoy had been buried in a simple pine casket near his home on the outskirts of town. It was said that his wife, seven months pregnant with their second child, had been too distraught to attend the funeral. His brother Owen had made it through two lines of his eulogy before he’d broken down in tears.

  “Do you think Mr. Bingham’s trial will go ahead?” Martha asked.

  “How can it?” I said.

  Lincoln’s words from the day we had visited Bingham at the state prison echoed in my head. We must remain a nation of laws. I could hardly have disagreed more with Lovejoy’s views on the popular topics of the day. Yet I mourned his death. And having witnessed his murder in cold blood, I understood as never before Lincoln’s admonition. If the mob was to take matters into its own furious hands—if the mob was to become the law—what was the point of laws? What was the point of trials? For Bingham or anyone else?

  That afternoon, Nanny Mae reappeared on her chair in the hotel lobby as if she’d never left, her knitting work in her hands. Martha ran up and gave her an embrace.

  “It was terrible,” Martha said quietly. No explanation was necessary. “He was killed for what he wrote. For an opinion.”

  Nanny Mae released my sister and held her at arm’s length. The expression on Nanny Mae’s ancient face, her lips pursed in a flat line, was unreadable. Then she said, “It’s a dangerous campaign he was involved in. There will always be casualties in war.”

  Martha recoiled as if she’d been hit in the mouth. “How can you say that?” she exclaimed.

  Nanny Mae took my sister’s hand in hers and caressed it. “When you’ve lived as long as I have, my dear, you come to understand a few things about the decisions people make with their lives. Mr. Lovejoy had been on the road toward a premature grave for quite some time. He might be worth more dead than alive to the cause he pursued so single-mindedly. And I daresay the man himself knew it.”

  As Martha stared at her companion
, only partially mollified, I considered there was great truth in the old woman’s observation. I could already imagine the thunderous, self-righteous editorials in the New-York papers, blaming each and every slaveholder across the nation for the murderous actions of the Alton mob.

  At supper that evening, Avocat Daumier glided into the public room of the hotel. His smooth, childlike face, topped by his lavender bonnet, glowed with serenity. I motioned for him to join us.

  “Ah, Miss Bell,” he said with surprise when he saw Martha seated next to me. “You are still in the company of your aunt?” Daumier looked around for Nanny Mae, who was nowhere to be seen. “Or in the company of . . .” He looked at me and trailed off, his face suddenly marred by a frown.

  “It’s a long story,” I said, suppressing a smile. “How did you get back to town?”

  “Aboard the War Eagle, of course,” said Daumier. “I never left it. You’ll be surprised to hear Captain Pound and I have become friends. Or very familiar acquaintances, at the least. I think his testimony at the trial will prove most satisfactory to the prosecution. As will the testimony of the members of his crew.”

  “If there is a trial,” said Martha.

  Daumier looked at her with surprise. “Why wouldn’t there be? Judge Thomas and the other circuit riders are approaching town as we speak. Are you thinking of what happened to the unfortunate Monsieur Lovejoy?” He made a clicking sound with his tongue. “I hardly think the world will stop spinning because of the death of one man.”

  “Shouldn’t you be investigating his murder?” I said.

  Kemp had placed a large slab of pork on the table, and Daumier took an enthusiastic bite before answering. “There’s nothing to investigate,” he said, chewing. “I understand the circumstances of the death were apparent to all.”

  “So the men who shot him will be charged with murder?” said Martha. Several of the diners at the other end of the common table stared at her, and I motioned that she should lower her voice.