He was brought in chains over the mountains to Morganton-a sad plight for one of the great leaders in our war for independence. The sheriff of Burke County at the time, William Morrison, had served with Sevier at King’s Mountain, and he was appalled that his old commander should be treated thus by order of the craven politicians in Raleigh. Sheriff Morrison struck off the prisoner’s chains, and granted him bail so that he might remain in Morganton, but not under lock and key, awaiting trial. The bond money was put up by the grandfathers of Eliza Grace McDowell. These old soldiers, Charles and Joseph McDowell, were themselves brothers, and also brother officers of John Sevier’s, one a colonel and the other a general in the Revolution.
Sevier must have had powerful enemies in North Carolina government, or perhaps the politicians merely wished to make an example of anyone who would question the state’s authority. They meant to hang John Sevier, right there in Morganton, but that faithful old soldier-turned-sheriff William Morrison would have none of it. Before the court could be convened, word went out to John Sevier’s son that his father was at liberty within the town, but in peril of his life come the trial date. By and by, Sevier’s brother and his son John Jr. rode into town with some of his supporters, leading Sevier’s favorite saddle horse. Young Sevier found his father in the tavern with his old comrades, the McDowells of Quaker Meadows. “I’ve come to take my father home, sirs,” the young man told his father’s companions.
The McDowells wished John Sevier Godspeed, and they watched him ride off with his faithful friends toward the Yellow Mountain Road, which would take them at last into Tennessee and away from the jurisdiction of the state of North Carolina. No posse ever set out to bring them back. Nothing more was ever done by the sheriff of Burke County or by the state of North Carolina to prosecute John Sevier. Indeed, in the autumn of the very next year, Sevier was elected to the North Carolina Senate, and he took his place in that august body and was present when the legislators voted to reinstate his rank of brigadier general. It was as if he had never been a shackled prisoner and the object of North Carolina’s vengeance.
Surely that was the incident in John Sevier’s life that John Boone had been thinking of-not the war, not the attempt to secede from North Carolina, not the incident with the Tennessee lady, but the escape from the Burke County jail. The successful, unpursued escape from the very jail that Sheriff John Boone was now sworn to guard. Sometimes justice can best be served by avoiding the process of the law.
Frankie Silver escaped from jail that night.
Many stories were put about as to how she was able to flee, and I cannot say with any certainty which story is true. Everyone agreed that intruders had entered the building through a basement window and had unlocked the cell by means of a key. It seemed to have been done in stealth, for there was no battle between guards and rescuers. The most fanciful storytellers claimed that Frankie Silver’s brother Jack had made a wax impression of the lock of her cell door, and that he carved a key that would fit that lock, but I have never put much faith in that tale myself. I think-though I should never dream of saying it, much less trying to prove it-that a kind and scrupulous man could not bear the thought of hanging that poor, friendless little girl, and so, taking his text from the example of his predecessor Sheriff William Morrison, this gentleman left his own keys where the friends of the prisoner might get at them and thus spirit her away-perhaps, like John Sevier, to Tennessee, and then onward to the great empty Western lands, where she could disappear forever, beyond the reach of North Carolina’s terrible revenge. Or justice. Call it what you will.
The next morning word of Frankie Silver’s escape spread around the county as fast as a horse could run. I was sitting peacefully at the breakfast table when a commotion in the hall alerted us to the presence of an urgent visitor, and one of the young constables burst in past the servant to tell me the news. I set down my cup and stared at the fellow. He fairly danced on the handwoven rug in his muddy boots, rifle in hand, and he had not even remembered to take off his hat when the servant let him in the front door. “She’s fled in the night, Mr. Gaither!” he said, and his eyes were bright with excitement as if he were announcing a fox-hunting party rather than a grim search for a killer. “Frankie Silver has broke out of jail!”
I stared at him for one stricken moment, thinking a dozen thoughts at once. Finally I managed to say, “Was anyone hurt in the escape?”
He shook his head. “No one knew she was missing until they saw her cell empty this morning. Spirited clean away! Some of us are riding out in hopes of picking up her trail. Will you be going with us?”
I looked across the table at my wife’s expression of dismay. She had clapped one hand to her mouth, as if determined to keep from crying out in protest of my going. I had no intention of doing so, however. Surely Elizabeth did not imagine that a respectable country lawyer and clerk of court would abandon his day’s business to go haring through the mountain wilderness with a horde of vigilantes? After the spring rains, the roads would be indistinguishable from the creeks. And what would her father the squire say if the fine saddle horse he had given me as a wedding gift came back lame from such a fool’s errand?
“I leave the chase in your capable hands, Jack,” I told the constable. “As an officer of the court, I should stay in town. There may be warrants to be drawn up, or other legal matters that need tending to.”
He saw the sense in this-indeed, he saw more sense in this than there was, for I foresaw no legal business that would require my presence-but the excuse satisfied him, and presently Elizabeth and I were able to return to our breakfast in peace, though neither of us had much appetite for it any more.
“She has escaped from jail!” said my wife in a tone of wonder. “I cannot believe it! How could she manage such a thing?”
“With help, no doubt.” It was not my place to speculate on such matters, and I keep my thoughts to myself. Elizabeth has too many sisters to confide in.
“But who could have helped her?”
I smiled, thinking again of John Sevier. “Perhaps it was Eliza Grace McDowell, my dear. Her family seems to make a practice of it.”
“Oh, Burgess, do be serious!” I don’t know whether Elizabeth took my meaning or not. I did not remind her of the incident. At last she said, “Do you think they will catch her?”
“I hope not,” I said, before I thought better of it. I realized that my reluctance to see the prisoner recaptured was the real reason that I had been unwilling to join the searchers-though I am sure that I would have been of little use to the seasoned hunters and woodsmen who were on her trail. I did not want her found. So much simpler to let the prisoner disappear into the wilderness of Tennessee, as John Sevier once did a generation ago. Then John Boone would not have to dread the grim duty of hanging a woman, and we could end all of the clamoring to young Governor Swain, whose concerns lie elsewhere. Besides, if they caught Frankie Silver, I felt sure that it would go hard on her father and brother, who surely took her away-but it might also cause harm to the person who let her go. Such a trial would divide Morganton into hostile opposing camps, and such a rift would profit nothing. So, guilty or innocent, I wished Mrs. Silver Godspeed in her flight across the mountains, and I prayed that I might never see her again.
Her escape was a nine days’ wonder in our little country town. People seemed to talk of nothing else, and they never tired of speculating on who might be responsible for the escape. I told no one of my conversation with John Boone, and he rode west with a search party, for it was his sworn duty to bring back an escaped prisoner, whatever his private feelings in the matter may have been.