A hush fell over the square as the crowd gave Eddie its attention. Only the flapping of the flags and banners broke the silence.
“Two days stand out in my life,” said Eddie. “The first was when my Pa took us off from our slave quarters in Maryland. We left in the middle of a night pouring the worst rain I’ve ever seen. Pa said the patterollers wouldn’t be able to track us with their Nigger dogs ‘cause the rain would wash away our footprints. So we went on through that pourin’ rain. We took the old Indian trails through the woods until we reached the Cumberland Mountain.
“We were powerful hungry up on that mountain, and we were plumb worn out. But Pa kept sayin, ‘A little further, just a littler further, chillun, just a little further to Freedom.’ And one morning, the sun come up, and we saw a little town down in the valley. Pa went down to see about it. He came back and says, ‘We are in Pennsylvania! We are free!’ He got down on his hands and knees and kissed the ground.
“Pa knew to look for the Quakers, because folks said that Quakers helped the slaves that run away. So we stayed hid up there on that mountain till Pa found where the Quakers met. Those Quakers sure enough did take us to Michigan. We settled in Cass County where folks protect Negroes from slave catchers.
“We prospered there as free men and women. I worked for the Quaker farmers until I grew up. In between the planting and harvest the Quakers educated me and the other colored children in their schools. When I grew up I took me a wife.” he looked at Emma. “And then I went to work as a baker for my own account. We have made many good friends in Cass County. We were living a life blessed with the freedom that the Good Lord meant for all people to have.”
A smattering of applause went through the crowd. Eddie smiled broadly.
“Thank you. And that brings me to the second most memorable day of my life. That was last May the 10th. It started out as a beautiful spring day. I had just woke up. Emma was cooking breakfast. Suddenly the dogs started barking, then four strangers busted through the door. They knocked me down, shackled me, and stuffed a rag in my mouth. But Emma tricked those men. She told them they could eat our breakfast. While they were filling their faces she snuck out the back door and rode into town to get help from Sheriff Parker.
“The Slavers bound and gagged me and the other Negroes. They nailed us in coffins and threw us in a wagon. They hauled us around in those coffins four days with no food or water. Kept me wallowing in my own filth, my arms and legs stiff and aching. I wanted to scream but couldn’t with that rag stuffed in my mouth.”
Eddie looked at his wife Emma and put his arm around her.
“If it hadn’t been for this brave lady who rode off to alert the sheriff they would have taken all of us across the Ohio River and sold us back into slavery, that is if any of us lived long enough to get there. Now I’ll turn the story over to the heroes who saved us.”
Eddie sat down and Sheriff Parker took the stage.
“Thank you, Eddie. Like Eddie was saying, Emma kept a cool head. She fed the Slavers then snuck out the back and rode three miles into town in her nightclothes to tell me what had happened. We got together a posse of Cass County men to rescue Eddie and the other Negroes. I sent riders out to every county seat in northern Indiana and northwestern Ohio to alert people to be on the lookout for them.
“The Slavers were discovered taking the Negroes down the Tippecanoe to the Wabash. Some of our friends from St. Joseph’s County, Indiana got there first and blocked the river. We got there the next day.
“We told the slavers they could go home if they’d let the Negroes go. Their answer was to fire on us. We lost five our Cass County men killed that day. Those men didn’t give up their lives because they were Republicans or Abolitionists. They gave their lives to save their friends and neighbors and fellow citizens of Cass County, Michigan from being returned to slavery. ‘No greater love has a man than to lay down his life for his friends.’”
Sheriff Parker paused. Many of the women and a few of the men had teary eyes.
“And maybe they died fighting for their own freedom too. Maybe they knew that if they didn’t stop the Slavers here and now, they would have come back again and again, thumbing their noses at us, and kidnapping any person of color off the fields and streets that they took a fancy to. Our men felt that it was better to fight, and to lay down their lives if necessary, than to be become slaves of the Slavers!”
The crowed roared its approval. The Wide Awakes banged their drums.
“Now let me introduce Lewis Schneider of the late Elmer Ellsworth’s Chicago Zouaves Militia Company.”
Lewis Schneider took his place at the podium.
“Thank you Sheriff, and thanks to your men of Cass County, and to the men of St. Joseph’s County, Indiana who blocked the Slavers and gave us time to get there and help with the rescue.”
Schneider’s eyes became moist.
“Elmer Ellsworth was a peaceable man. He never expected us to be engaged in combat. But he didn’t shirk from doing his duty when the time came.” Schneider wiped his eyes with his handkerchief. “He was the first of our men to die. I was standing right next to him when the Slavers shot him. Thirteen of our men died. Sixteen more were wounded, some gravely.
“The survivors of Elmer’s Company are defending us on the Illinois Front. I would be there too, if I hadn’t stopped a bullet.” Schneider grabbed his limp left arm and held it up. “I lost use of my arm at Delphi, but that is so very little compared with those who lost their lives. Let’s remember what Elmer and the other heroes of his company and of Sheriff Parker’s posse died fighting for. They died fighting to keep the Free States free for all men, the way our Founders decreed it to be free! Freedom isn’t freedom if it is just for some men. It has to freedom for all!”
The crowd whistled and cheered.
As Schneider turned to sit down President Lincoln stood up and embraced him.
“Thank you Eddie and Emma and Sheriff Parker and Captain Schneider. You have brought home to us the evil of the Slave Power: how it violates the homes of free men and women; how it kidnaps them and nails them into coffins; how it inflicts violence not only on the slaves but on our law-abiding people here in the Free States.
“Elmer Ellsworth was one of my dearest friends. He embodied all the ideals that are right in young men. And he had the courage to die for those ideals at a tender age. Slavery killed him. It killed his men and Sheriff Parker’s men. It has killed our Free State men in St. Louis, in my hometown of Springfield, and in many other towns across the Free States.”
Mr. Lincoln shook his head and seemed about to weep.
“Oh, how I hate slavery! Not only do I hate its oppression of the slaves, but I hate it for the violence it inflicts upon the free men who dare to oppose it!
“But even though I hate it, I never thought of interfering with the institution in the states that permitted it. We only went out of the Union when the Slavers sought to force their slave laws upon us!
“Let us never forget how precious is this legacy of freedom our Fathers handed down to us. I learned about it when I was knee-high to a grasshopper. I would listen, around the fireplace, to the stories my father and uncle Mordecai told. My favorite stories were about those olden days soon after the Revolution when the pioneers followed Daniel Boone on the Wilderness Road from Virginia into Kentucky.
“I remember their telling of how hungry and fatigued they grew from travelling the barren wilderness across the two hundred miles of mountains, constantly guarding against Indian attack. How they rejoiced when they reached the Cumberland Gap! From there they looked out over the green fields of the Cumberland Plateau that stretched to the horizon. They had reached their Promised Land!