ls through its body
before it reached the ground. His nerves were as calm and steady in a
fight as in his sleep, and while with us his trusted "navy" was always
strapped under his coat, while in his coat-pocket he carried a small
pistol ready for any emergency at close quarters. It would have been
impossible to capture him alive."

Barclay Coppock's escape and the execution of his brother but
intensified his hatred and horror of slavery. He was now thoroughly
aroused and intent upon plunging anew into the fight. Returning to Iowa,
and convinced that civil war was now inevitable, he prepared actively
for the conflict.

"Now comes one of those remarkable facts of super-epochal history,"
continues Bonsall, "which go to show that when revolutionary periods
focalize, revolutions in public sentiment are brought about in almost a
twinkling. In the spring of 1861, just about one year from the time the
United States Government was offering a reward of one thousand dollars
for Barclay Coppock, dead or alive, the same government lifted its hat
and humbly bowed to him, and begged him to accept a first lieutenant's
commission in Company C, Third Kansas volunteers. He accepted the
commission and at once proceeded to organize his company. Captain Allen
of Ashtabula of the same company, came to Salem to recruit volunteers
and the writer, together with half a score of other abolition boys,
enlisted in Coppock's company.... Soon after Lieutenant Coppock was on
his way from Springdale to Fort Leavenworth to join his regiment there.
The rebels in Missouri, hearing of his coming, burned the railroad
bridge across the Little Platte river near St. Joseph, and the train
carrying the troops was precipitated into the river in the darkness of
night and brave Lieutenant Coppock was killed in the wreck."

Thus perished, still in his boyhood, as heroic a heart, as noble a soul,
as ever gave up his life in the cause of freedom. Had he been spared he
would without doubt have become one of the famed heroes of the war of
the rebellion.

Edwin Coppock was executed from the same gallows as his old chief, but
two weeks later. His trial, like that of Brown, was a farce. Conviction,
sentence and execution of all of Brown's men that were captured was a
foregone conclusion.

While awaiting the execution of his sentence, Edwin wrote to Mrs.
Brown, wife of his dead leader:

"I was with your sons when they fell. Oliver lived but a very few
moments after h