Altho vengeance is not mine, I do feel gratified that you were stopped in your fiendish career at Harper's Ferry. You entered my house at midnight and shot my husband and two boys dead in my hearing. We had no slaves and never expected to own one. I hope you meet your reward.
Original passage & context
"Altho vengeance is not mine, I confess, that I do feel gratified to hear that you ware stopt in your fiendish career at Harper's Ferry, with the loss of your two sons, you can now appreciate my distress, in Kansas, when you then and there entered my house at midnight and arrested my husband and two boys and took them out of the yard and in cold blood shot them dead in my hearing, you cant say you done it to free our slaves, we had none and never expected to own one [...] I do hope & trust that you will meet your just reward."
The widow of James Doyle, killed by Brown's men at Pottawatomie, Kansas, in 1856, writes to Brown in jail. Five days outside the Oct 16 – Nov 15 window; kept because the feed needs what it says about who Brown also was. The best available transcription is secondary rather than from the manuscript, and 'vengeance' vs. the manuscript's 'vengence' is uncertain.
Read it in the original — transcription; original ms. Gilder Lehrman GLC07590 ↗