I know that my Redeemer liveth.
Erected by a Friend.
I was curious to learn what suggested the last two scriptural quotations, and found that the friend had the idea that, as Peel did not have fair play, the Lord would avenge his death in some signal manner. The other sentence was thought to properly express the idea that the man was living who would redeem Peel’s name from whatever obloquy might attach to it, because of his having “died with his boots on.” Could there be a more strange interpretation of the scriptures?
CHAPTER XLIV
JOSEPH A. SLADE
Good men who were intimate with Joseph A. Slade before he went to Montana gave him credit for possessing many excellent qualities. He is first heard of outside of his native village of Carlisle, in the State of Illinois, as a volunteer in the war with Mexico, in a company commanded by Captain Killman. This officer, no less distinguished for success in reconnoitre, strategy, and surprise, than service on the field of battle, selected from his regiment for this dangerous enterprise, twelve men of unquestioned daring and energy. Slade was among the number. A comrade of his during this period bears testimony to his efficiency, which he said always won the approbation of his commander. How or where his life was passed after the close of the war, and until he was intrusted with the care of one of the divisions of the Great Overland Stage route in 1859, I have no knowledge. This position was full of varied responsibility. His capabilities were equal to it. No more exalted tribute can be paid to his character than to say that he organized, managed, and controlled for several years, acceptably to the public, to the company, and to the employees of the company, the great central division of the Overland Stage route, through six hundred miles of territory destitute of inhabitants and law, exposed for the entire distance to hostile Indians, and overrun with a wild, reckless class of freebooters, who maintained their infamous assumptions with the pistol and bowie-knife. No man without a peculiar fitness for such a position could have done this. Stealing the horses of the stage company was a common crime. The loss of the property was small in comparison with the expense and embarrassment of delaying the coach, and breaking up the regularity of the trips. If Slade caused some of the rascals engaged in this business to be hanged, it was in strict conformity to the public sentiment, which in all new countries regards horse-stealing as a capital offence. Nothing but fear could restrain their passion for this guilty pursuit. Certain it is, that Slade’s name soon became a terror to all evil-doers along the road. Depredations of all kinds were less frequent, and whenever one of any magnitude was committed, Slade’s men were early on the track of the perpetrators, and seldom failed to capture and punish them.
The power he exercised as a division agent was despotic. It was necessary for the service in which he was employed that it should be so. Doubtless, he caused the death of many bad men, but he has often been heard to say that he never killed but one himself. It was a common thing with him, if a man refused to obey him, to force obedience with a drawn pistol. How else could he do it, in a country where there was no law?
In the purchases which he made of the ranchemen he sometimes detected their dishonest tricks, and generally punished them on the spot. On one occasion, while bargaining for a stack of hay, he discovered that it was filled with bushes. He told the rancheman that he intended to confine him to the stack with chains, and burn him, and commenced making preparations, seemingly for that purpose. The man begged for his life, and, with much apparent reluctance, Slade finally told him if he would leave the country and never return to it he would give him his life. Glad of the compromise the fellow departed the next morning. This was all that Slade desired.
Stories like these grate harshly upon the ears of people who have always lived in civilized communities. Without considering the influences by which he is surrounded, this class pronounce such a man a ruffian. An author who writes of him finds it no task to blacken his memory, by telling half the truth. People who have once heard of him are prepared to believe any report which connects his name with crime. Wrong as this is on general principles, it has been especially severe in the case of Slade. Misrepresentation and abuse have given to him the proportions, passions, and actions of a demon. His name has become a synonym for all that is infamous and cruel in human character. And yet not one of all the great number of men he controlled, or of those associated with him as employees of the Overland Stage company, men personally cognizant of his career, believe that he committed a single act not justified by the circumstances provoking it.
He could not be true to his employers and escape censure, any more than he could have discharged the duties expected of him without frequent and dangerous collision with the rough elements of the society in which he moved. That he lived through it all was a miracle. A man of weaker resolution, and less fertility of resource, would have been killed before the close of his first year’s service. Equally strange is it, that one whose daily business required a continual exercise of power in so many and varied forms, at one moment among his own employees, at the next among the half-civilized borderers by whom he was surrounded, and perhaps at the same time sending out men in pursuit of horse-thieves, should have escaped with so few desperate and bloody encounters.
The uniform testimony of those who knew him is, that he was rigidly honest and faithful. He exacted these qualities from those in his employ. Among gentlemen he was a gentleman always. He had no bad habits at that time. Men who were brought in daily contact with him, during his period of service, say that they never saw him affected by liquor. He was generous, warmly attached to his friends, and happy in his family. He was of a lively, cheerful temperament, full of anecdote and wit, a pleasant companion, whose personal magnetism attached his friends to him with hooks of steel.