The victims, bound securely, were brought out of the boat twelve at a time; of these, six were blindfolded and made to kneel down with their backs to the soldiers, who stood some three or four paces from them. These six executed, the other six were put through the same ghastly ceremony; then twelve others were brought from the boat; and so on, until the terrible and sickening tragedy was over. As each lot were murdered their bodies were cast aside to make room for the next lot.
An eyewitness says of these martyrs to liberty: "They behaved with firmness, evincing no hesitation or trepidation whatever." Among those shot was a lad of fifteen who begged earnestly on his knees that some one be sent to him who could speak English, but not the slightest attention was paid to him. One handsome young man desired that his watch be sent to his sweetheart. After the first discharge those who were not instantly killed were beaten upon the head until life was extinct. One poor fellow received three balls in his neck, and, raising himself in the agonies of death, was struck by a soldier with the butt of a musket and his brains dashed out.
Colonel Crittenden, as the leader of the party, was shot first, and alone. One of the rabble pushed through the line of soldiers, and rushed up to Crittenden and pulled his beard. The gallant Kentuckian, with the utmost coolness, spit in the coward's face. He refused to kneel or to be blindfolded, saying in a clear, ringing voice: "A Kentuckian kneels to none except his God, and always dies facing his enemy!"—an expression that became famous. Looking into the muzzles of the muskets that were to slay him, standing heroically erect in the very face of death, with his own hands, which had been unbound at his request, he gave the signal for the fatal volley; and died, as he had lived, "Strong in Heart." Captain Ker also refused to kneel. They stood up, faced their enemies, were shot down, and their brains were beaten out with clubbed muskets.
[ROBERT BURNS WILSON]
Robert Burns Wilson, poet of distinction, the son of a Pennsylvania father and a Virginia mother, was born in his grandfather's house near Washington, Pennsylvania, October 30, 1850. When a very small child he was taken to his mother's home in Virginia; and there the mother died when her son was but ten years old, which event saddened his subsequent life. Mr. Wilson was educated in the schools of Wheeling, West Virginia, after which he went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to study art. When but nineteen he was painting portraits for a living. In 1871 he and John W. Alexander, now the famous New York artist, chartered a canoe and started down the Ohio river from Pittsburgh, hoping in due course to dock at Louisville, Kentucky. They had hardly reached the Kentucky shore, however, when they disagreed about something or other, and young Alexander left him in the night and returned to Pittsburgh. The next day Mr. Wilson ran his boat into a bank in Union county, Kentucky; he lived in that county a year, when he went up to Louisville. He gained more than a local reputation with a crayon portrait of Henry Watterson, and he was actually making considerable headway as an artist when he was discovered by the late Edward Hensley, of Frankfort, Kentucky, who persuaded him to remove to that town. Mr. Wilson settled at Frankfort in 1875, and he lived there for the following twenty-five years. His literary and artistic labors are inseparably interwoven with the history and traditions of that interesting old town, for he was its "great man" for many years, and its toast. As painter and poet he was heralded by the folk of Frankfort until the outside world was attracted and nibbled at his work. The first public recognition accorded his landscapes was at the Louisville and New Orleans Expositions of 1883 and 1884.
Mr. Wilson's first poem, A Wild Violet in November, was followed by the finest flower of his genius, When Evening Cometh On, which was originally printed in Harper's Magazine for October, 1885. This is the only Southern poem or, perhaps, American, that can be mentioned in the same breath with Gray's Elegy. Many of his poems and prose papers were published in Harper's, The Century, and other periodicals. His first book, Life and Love (New York, 1887), contained the best work he has ever done. The dedicatory lines to the memory of his mother were lovely; and there are many more poems to be found in the volume that are very fine. Chant of a Woodland Spirit (New York, 1894), a long poem of more than fifty pages, portions of which had originally appeared in Harper's and The Century, was dedicated to John Fox, Jr., with whom Mr. Wilson was friendly, and who spent a great deal of his time at the poet's home in Frankfort. His second and most recent collection of lyrics, The Shadows of the Trees (New York, 1898), was widely read and warmly received by all true lovers of genuine poesy. Mr. Wilson's striking poem, Remember the Maine, provoked by the tragedy in Havana harbor, was printed in The New York Herald; and another of his several poems inspired by that fiasco of a fight that is remembered, Such is the Death the Soldier Dies, appeared in The Atlantic Monthly. The Kentucky poet's battle-hymns to the boys in blue were excelled by no other American singer, unless it was by the late William Vaughn Moody. Mr. Wilson's fourth and latest work, a novel, Until the Day Break (New York, 1900), is unreadable as a story, but the passages of nature prose are many and exquisite.
While he has always been a writing-man of very clear and definite gifts, Mr. Wilson has painted many portraits and landscapes, working with equal facility in oils, water-color, and crayon. He is held in esteem by many competent critics as an artist of ability, but nearly all of his work in any of three mediums indicated, is exceedingly moody and pessimistic; and his water-colors, especially, are "muddy." It is greatly to be regretted that he did not remain the poet he was born to be, instead of drawing his dreams—many use a stronger word—in paints.