The Underground Railroad
Among those thus notified, were brave hearts, who did not believe in
running away from slave-catchers. They resolved to stand up for the
right of self-defence. They loved liberty and hated Slavery, and when
the slave-catchers arrived, they were prepared for them. Of the contest,
on that bloody morning, we have copied a report, carefully written at
the time, by C.M. Burleigh, editor of the "Pennsylvania Freeman," who
visited the scene of battle, immediately after it was over, and
doubtless obtained as faithful an account of all the facts in the case,
as could then be had.
"Last Thursday morning, (the 11th inst,), a peaceful
neighborhood in the borders of Lancaster county, was made the
scene of a bloody battle, resulting from an attempt to capture
seven colored men as fugitive slaves. As the reports of the
affray which came to us were contradictory, and having good
reason to believe that those of the daily press were grossly
one-sided and unfair, we repaired to the scene of the tragedy,
and, by patient inquiry and careful examination, endeavored to
learn the real facts. To do this, from the varying and
conflicting statements which we encountered, scarcely two of
which agreed in every point, was not easy; but we believe the
account we give below, as the result of these inquiries, is
substantially correct.
Very early on the 11th inst. a party of slave-hunters went into
a neighborhood about two miles west of Christiana, near the
eastern border of Lancaster county, in pursuit of fugitive
slaves. The party consisted of Edward Gorsuch, his son,
Dickerson Gorsuch, his nephew, Dr. Pearce, Nicholas Hutchins,
and others, all from Baltimore county, Md., and one Henry H.
Kline, a notorious slave-catching constable from Philadelphia,
who had been deputized by Commissioner Ingraham for this
business. At about day-dawn they were discovered lying in an
ambush near the house of one William Parker, a colored man, by
an inmate of the house, who had started for his work. He fled
back to the house, pursued by the slave-hunters, who entered the
lower part of the house, but were unable to force their way into
the upper part, to which the family had retired. A horn was
blown from an upper window; two shots were fired, both, as we
believe, though we are not certain, by the assailants, one at
the colored man who fled into the house, and the other at the
inmates, through the window. No one was wounded by either. A
parley ensued. The slave-holder demanded his slaves, who he said
were concealed in the house. The colored men presented
themselves successively at the window, and asked if they were
the slaves claimed; Gorsuch said, that neither of them was his
slave. They told him that they were the only colored men in the
house, and were determined never to be taken alive as slaves.
Soon the colored people of the neighborhood, alarmed by the
horn, began to gather, armed with guns, axes, corn-cutters, or
clubs. Mutual threatenings were uttered by the two parties. The
slave-holders told the blacks that resistance would be useless,
as they had a party of thirty men in the woods near by. The
blacks warned them again to leave, as they would die before they
would go into Slavery.
From an hour to an hour and a half passed in these parleyings,
angry conversations, and threats; the blacks increasing by new
arrivals, until they probably numbered from thirty to fifty,
most of them armed in some way. About this time, Castner
Hanaway, a white man, and a Friend, who resided in the
neighborhood, rode up, and was soon followed by Elijah Lewis,
another Friend, a merchant, in Cooperville, both gentlemen
highly esteemed as worthy and peaceable citizens. As they came
up, Kline, the deputy marshal, ordered them to aid him, as a
United States officer, to capture the fugitive slaves. They
refused of course, as would any man not utterly destitute of
honor, humanity, and moral principle, and warned the assailants
that it was madness for them to attempt to capture fugitive
slaves there, or even to remain, and begged them if they wished
to save their own lives, to leave the ground. Kline replied, "Do
you really think so?" "Yes," was the answer, "the sooner you
leave, the better, if you would prevent bloodshed." Kline then
left the ground, retiring into a very safe distance into a
cornfield, and toward the woods. The blacks were so exasperated
by his threats, that, but for the interposition of the two white
Friends, it is very doubtful whether he would have escaped
without injury. Messrs. Hanaway and Lewis both exerted their
influence to dissuade the colored people from violence, and
would probably have succeeded in restraining them, had not the
assailing party fired upon them. Young Gorsuch asked his father
to leave, but the old man refused, declaring, as it is said and
believed, that he would "go to hell, or have his slaves."
Finding they could do nothing further, Hanaway and Lewis both
started to leave, again counselling the slave-hunters to go
away, and the colored people to peace, but had gone but a few
rods, when one of the inmates of the house attempted to come out
at the door. Gorsuch presented his revolver, ordering him back.
The colored man replied, "You had better go away, if you don't
want to get hurt," and at the same time pushed him aside and
passed out. Maddened at this, and stimulated by the question of
his nephew, whether he would "take such an insult from a d----d
nigger," Gorsuch fired at the colored man, and was followed by
his son and nephew, who both fired their revolvers. The fire was
returned by the blacks, who made a rush upon them at the same
time. Gorsuch and his son fell, the one dead the other wounded.
The rest of the party after firing their revolvers, fled
precipitately through the corn and to the woods, pursued by some
of the blacks. One was wounded, the rest escaped unhurt. Kline,
the deputy marshal, who now boasts of his miraculous escape from
a volley of musket-balls, had kept at a safe distance, though
urged by young Gorsuch to stand by his father and protect him,
when he refused to leave the ground. He of course came off
unscathed. Several colored men were wounded, but none severely.
Some had their hats or their clothes perforated with bullets;
others had flesh wounds. They said that the Lord protected them,
and they shook the bullets from their clothes. One man found
several shot in his boot, which seemed to have spent their force
before reaching him, and did not even break the skin. The
slave-holders having fled, several neighbors, mostly Friends and
anti-slavery men, gathered to succor the wounded and take charge
of the dead. We are told that Parker himself protected the
wounded man from his excited comrades, and brought water and a
bed from his own house for the invalid, thus showing that he was
as magnanimous to his fallen enemy as he was brave in the
defence of his own liberty. The young man was then removed to a
neighboring house, where the family received him with the
tenderest kindness and paid him every attention, though they
told him in Quaker phrase, that "they had no unity with his
cruel business," and were very sorry to see him engaged in it.
He was much affected by their kindness, and we are told,
expressed his regret that he had been thus engaged, and his
determination, if his life was spared, never again to make a
similar attempt. His wounds are very severe, and it is feared
mortal. All attempts to procure assistance to capture the
fugitive slaves failed, the people in the neighborhood either
not relishing the business of slave-catching, or at least, not
choosing to risk their lives in it. There was a very great
reluctance felt to going even to remove the body and the wounded
man, until several abolitionists and Friends had collected for
that object, when others found courage to follow on. The
excitement caused by this most melancholy affair is very great
among all classes. The abolitionists, of course, mourn the
occurrence, while they see in it a legitimate fruit of the
Fugitive Slave Law, just such a harvest of blood as they had
long feared that the law would produce, and which they had
earnestly labored to prevent. We believe that they alone, of all
classes of the nation, are free from responsibility for its
occurrence, having wisely foreseen the danger, and faithfully
labored to avert it by removing its causes, and preventing the
inhuman policy which has hurried on the bloody convulsion.
The enemies of the colored people, are making this the occasion
of fresh injuries, and a more bitter ferocity toward that
defenceless people, and of new misrepresentation and calumnies
against the abolitionists.
The colored people, though the great body of them had no
connection with this affair, are hunted like partridges upon the
mountains, by the relentless horde which has been poured forth
upon them, under the pretense of arresting the parties concerned
in the fight. When we reached Christiana, on Friday afternoon,
we found that the Deputy-Attorney Thompson, of Lancaster, was
there, and had issued warrants, upon the depositions of Kline
and others, for the arrest of all suspected persons. A company
of police were scouring the neighborhood in search of colored
people, several of whom were seized while at their work near by,
and brought in.
CAstner Hanaway and Elijah Lewis, hearing that warrants were
issued against them, came to Christiana, and voluntarily gave
themselves up, calm and strong in the confidence of their
innocence. They, together with the arrested colored men, were
sent to Lancaster jail that night.
The next morning we visited the ground of the battle, and the
family where young Gorsuch now lives, and while there, we saw a
deposition which he had just made, that he believed no white
persons were engaged in the affray, beside his own party. As he
was on the ground during the whole controversy, and deputy
Marshall Kline had discreetly run off into the corn-field,
before the fighting began, the hireling slave-catcher's eager
and confident testimony against our white friends, will, we
think, weigh lightly with impartial men.
On returning to Christiana, we found that the United States
Marshal from the city, had arrived at that place, accompanied by
Commissioner Ingraham, Mr. Jones, a special commissioner of the
United States, from Washington, the U.S. District Attorney
Ashmead, with forty-five U.S. Marines from the Navy Yard, and a
posse of about forty of the City Marshal's police, together with
a large body of special constables, eager for such a manhunt,
from Columbia and Lancaster and other places. This crowd divided
into parties, of from ten to twenty-five, and scoured the
country, in every direction, for miles around, ransacking the
houses of the colored people, and captured every colored man
they could find, with several colored women, and two other white
men. Never did our heart bleed with deeper pity for the peeled
and persecuted colored people, than when we saw this troop let
loose upon them, and witnessed the terror and distress which its