d chief to
victory or death. It proved to be death for them both and when it came
they met it with a calmness and resignation possible only to the
loftiest heroism.

Barclay Coppock was barely twenty years of age at the time of the attack
on Harper's Ferry. His escape was almost a miracle. A heavy reward was
offered for him dead or alive. After weeks of the most intense privation
and suffering, lying concealed in the brush during the day and moving
chiefly by night, he picked his way back to the family home at
Springdale, Iowa. The governor of Virginia issued a requisition for his
return, which was not granted. The young men at Springdale and that
vicinity organized to protect young Coppock and served notice on the
Virginia officers who were on his track that "Springdale is in arms and
is prepared at a half hour's notice to give them a reception of 200
shots."

In the following spring Barclay returned to Salem and here again the
Virginia authorities renewed their efforts to capture him. But Barclay,
now among his old neighbors and friends, defied them. He sent word to
the officers in pursuit of him as to where he might be found, but they
wisely refrained from attempting to take him.

It was at this time that Barclay was a guest of the Bonsall family of
Salem, the elder Bonsall being one of the leading abolitionists of that
day. Charles Bonsall, his son, who still lives at Salem, knew the
Coppock brothers well and has a distinct recollection of Barclay's stay
at his father's home.

"During Barclay's sojourn at our home," writes Charles Bonsall in a
personal letter, "a detective of Salem heard of his being in our
neighborhood and boasted of his intention to arrest Barclay and secure
the reward there was on his head. Barclay heard of the boast and wrote a
letter to the detective informing him that he might select five other
men and he would meet them all single-handed and alone at any point
outside the city that he might name, and they could have the privilege
of capturing him and securing the reward. The detective did not
undertake the job.... Barclay Coppock never knew what fear was. When a
boy in his teens he often went to the woods and slept alone all night on
the ground, under the trees, from the sheer love of adventure. He was
the best shot with his eight-inch Colt I ever saw. On one occasion, in
his uncle's woods south of Salem, with his revolver, he shot a grey
squirrel from a big oak tree and put two more bal