Whether he is accurate in his statement of what occurred on the day of “the Riot,” each reader must determine for himself or herself. For myself, individually, I doubt the literal truth of parts of his narration, while I concede that in the main it is true and it certainly throws more illumination on the actual occurrences than the testimony of any other single witness.
I detect a note of braggadocio through all Parker’s narrative, which slightly discounts its truthfulness. His defiance of “all United States”; his admitted attempts to deceive Gorsuch as to the presence of his slaves on the premises; and his avowed purpose to shoot Gorsuch influence my judgment. Such considerations might not have weight with those who believe a man may be a good citizen who violates and defies a bad law. The literary style of “The Freedman’s Story” leaves little room for doubt that his manuscript was edited by some one with a purpose other than strictly historical.
On the other hand, no other person was in so favorable a position as Parker to tell the actual story of the Riot, if he saw fit to do so, and when this version was published Parker had nothing to gain or lose from telling the truth, but the zeal of his editor to exalt “the freedman” may have tinctured the story. That he could remember its details so exactly as to verbally reproduce the many conversations in the Atlantic fifteen years later, is more than doubtful—it is impossible; and his pretense to do so discounts the attempt. In many respects the narration accords with the testimony of other eye-witnesses and it is not out of harmony in the main with the evidence produced on the trial. While it ascribes language to Mr. Gorsuch that likely he did not use, and may put into his hands weapons that he did not carry, Parker’s story certainly gives the Gorsuches, father and son, due credit for valor; and it makes some of their allies scarcely more timid than the trial disclosed them to have been.
Howbeit, the story told by Parker is an essential part of the history of the case and it is here reprinted out of fairness to all parties so far as it relates to the Riot and events immediately preceding it.
William Parker’s Story.
The Atlantic Monthly article, Part II, March, 1866, to which attention has been given, presupposes a previous account of Parker’s early life, the escape of the Gorsuch slaves, the warrants for their recapture, the departure of Deputy Marshal Kline to execute them and “Sam Williams’s” mission to Lancaster County to warn them and their friends of the impending raid upon them, substantially as they have been told already. Parker then proceeds:
The information brought by Mr. Williams spread through the vicinity like a fire in the prairies; and when I went home from my work in the evening, I found Pinckney (whom I should have said before was my brother-in-law), Abraham Johnson, Samuel Thompson and Joshua Kite at my house, all of them excited about the rumor. I laughed at them, and said it was all talk. This was the 10th of September, 1851. They stopped for the night with us, and we went to bed as usual. Before daylight, Joshua Kite rose, and started for his home. Directly, he ran back to the house, burst open the door, crying, “O William! kidnappers! kidnappers!”
He said that, when he was just beyond the yard, two men crossed before him, as if to stop him, and others came up on either side. As he said this, they had reached the door. Joshua ran up stairs (we slept up stairs), and they followed him; but I met them at the landing, and asked, “Who are you?”
The leader, Kline, replied, “I am the United States Marshal.”
I then told him to take another step and I would break his neck.