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A Sampler of Civil
War Literature |
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Pardon of Mrs. Hutchins
Harper's Weekly, January 7,
1865 |
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| It would be a great
satisfaction to know why the President has pardoned Mrs. Hutchins, a woman of Baltimore,
who gave a sword to Harry Gilmore, the leader of the raiders into Maryland last summer,
and by reputation one of the most active and malignant of rebel emissaries and abettors.
Upon trial and conviction she was sentenced a few weeks since to five years’
imprisonment, and now she is turned loose again, nor is there any intimation that she is
to be sent beyond the lines. A woman like this Mrs.
Hutchins may, and constantly does, give the information that Mosby and every guerrilla
marauder most desires, and which is of the utmost service to Davis and Lee at Richmond.
From the beginning of the war, from Mrs. Greenhow down to Mrs. Hutchins, women have been,
because of their sex, the most useful agents of the traitors, and they have very seldom
been punished, although in a few instances they have been sent to the rebels.
How many a precious, noble, loyal life have such women
virtually taken! To how many massacres have they not directly shown the way! Of what
infinite sorrow to private hearts, and of injury to the public welfare, have they not been
the occasion!
Of course in the absence of all other knowledge than the
public announcements of Mrs. Hutchins’s crime, trial, sentence, imprisonment, for
five years, and release at the end of five weeks, we have no right and no disposition to
do more than suggest that in such cases it is very easy, and would greatly conduce to
public satisfaction, if the Government would state briefly the reasons of the respite. It
would cost no more time or trouble than the announcement that a Colonel is promoted to be
General for heroic conduct in a battle, and it would certainly greatly relieve the minds
and hearts of those whose sons and brothers may have been killed in resisting Harry
Gilmore’s raid, to know why his accomplice is set free. The fact of the release
gratifies Mrs. Hutchins’s friends. To know the reason would satisfy the friends of
her victims.
Harper's Weekly,
January 7, 1865 |
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