Personal Recollections of Distinguished Generals

by William Franklin Gore Shanks

"I want all my friends who think these negroes are guilty to help me hang them."

He was answered by a wild shout and by the click of hundreds of pistols. As he had spoken, young Joyce drew a huge knife from a sheath fastened to his body, and, encouraged by the answering cry of his friends, sprang toward the negroes. As he did so, however, Rousseau, who stood between him and the prisoners, caught him by the throat with one hand, and with the other clasped the wrist of the arm which held the uplifted knife. It was but the work of a moment for a powerful man like Rousseau to thrust Joyce back again in his seat and pinion him there while he turned and confronted the crowd, who had made a rush for the negroes, but who were being beaten back by the sheriff and one or two policemen. As soon as they saw the position of young Joyce, still held in his chair by the powerful arm of Rousseau, the crowd made a rush in that direction. Rousseau was again prompt and decisive.

"Mr. Joyce," he said, "tell your friends that while they hang the negroes I'll attend to you."

Joyce waved his friends back with the only hand left free, and quiet again succeeded. It is hardly probable that even this promptness would have saved Rousseau had he not been personally popular with the crowd. As the crowd shrank back he released Joyce and turned abruptly to the judge, who had ordered the sheriff to summon a force of the police to protect the prisoners, and said,

"Don't do any thing of the sort. Don't do any thing of the sort, your honor. We can protect the prisoners and ourselves. There are enough true men here to protect them from the fury of this young man."

"Where are your friends?" cried the still furious crowd.

"You are!" exclaimed Rousseau, turning abruptly to them—I might say on them. And then, without a single second's hesitation, he began a brief speech, in which he passionately urged and entreated them to aid him in preventing Joyce, whom he characterized as "this unfortunate young man," from committing a deed which would forever be a curse to him as long as he had a memory of it, and which would forever disgrace them as a law-abiding community. While he was yet speaking the crowd calmed down, and when he had finished painting the enormity of the offense and the remorse of the young man if he had been permitted to commit so great a crime, they cheered him, and through the room went frequent and repeated whispers, "He's right;" "he's right;" "Rousseau's always right!"

The trial thenceforth proceeded in quiet until the announcement of the verdict of "not guilty," when another terrible scene ensued; but provision having been made for such an occurrence, the negroes were carried off to jail for protection. The people were satisfied that the negroes were guilty, and the verdict (obtained by Rousseau by showing the inconsistencies of the confession and the circumstances, the threats and the terror, under which it was extorted) only increased their passion. The jail was surrounded, and the night after the acquittal the negroes were taken out by the mob and hung on the trees in the City Hall grounds. During the riot the mayor of the city, Mr. Pilcher, while endeavoring to quiet the crowd, was struck by a missile in the head, and died soon after from the effects of the injury received.

This and several other trials eventually resulted in increasing Rousseau's popularity. Two or three of his most important cases embraced the defense of men accused and undoubtedly guilty of aiding negroes to escape from slavery. It is hardly comprehensible that less than a decade ago this offense was considered the most criminal act a man could commit in Kentucky, or that men were sentenced to fifteen years' hard labor for such offenses, or that convicts are still working out their term for these offenses in Southern penitentiaries. To engage in the defense of such criminals a few years ago, even in the latitude of Louisville, was to be set down as an "abolitionist," and but few of the Kentucky lawyers of the decade just before the war cared to bear such a character. Rousseau, without courting the reputation, did not fear it; and his manly bearing in all such cases, and in the political excitement of the time, so advanced him in popular estimation that in 1860 he was elected to the State Senate of Kentucky without opposition and as the candidate of both parties, whose only rivalry with regard to him was as to which should first secure his acceptance of the nomination. It was while holding this position as state senator that Rousseau began his bold opposition to Kentucky neutrality, which brought him so prominently before the country, and opened to him that career in which he has won so much honor and such a high rank.