I did
not, however, repeat Butman's promise to the crowd. I thought
he ought to go without conditions. The time approached for
the train to pass through Worcester for Boston. It went from
a little wooden station near the site of the present Union
Depot, about half a mile from the City Hall. It was determined,
on consultation, to take advantage of an apparently pacific
mood of the crowd, and to start Butman at once for the station
in time to catch the train. I took one arm and I am quite
sure Colonel Higginson took the other; a few policemen went
ahead and a few behind; and we started from the back door
of the City Hall. The mob soon found what we were after and
thronged around us. It has been estimated that a crowd of
two thousand people at least surrounded Butman and his convoy.
I suppose he had no friend or defender among the number. Most
of them wanted to frighten him; some of them to injure him,
though not to kill him. There were a few angry negroes, I
suppose, excited and maddened by their not unnatural or unjustifiable
resentment against the fellow who had been the ready and notorious
tool of the slave-catchers, who would have killed him if
they could.
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