SPOTSWOOD RICE

I want you to understand that Mary is my Child and she is a God given right of my own and you may hold on to her as long as you can but I want you to remember this one thing that the longer you keep my Child from me the longer you will have to burn in hell and the quicker you will get there…. We are now making up about one thousand black troops to come up there … and when we come woe be to Copperhead rebels and to the Slaveholding rebels for we don’t expect to leave them there root nor branch…. We that have Children in the hands of you devils we will try you vultures the day that we enter Glasgow I want you to understand … that where ever you and I meet, we are enemies to each other I offered once to pay you forty dollars for my own Child but I am glad now that you did not accept it Just hold on now as long as you can, and the worse it will be for you. You never in your life before I came down here did you give Children anything—not anything whatever, not even a dollars worth of expenses. Now you call my children your property. Not so with me. My Children is my own and I expect to get them and when I get ready to come after Mary I will have both the power and authority to bring her away and to execute vengeances on them that holds my Child …. I want you now to just hold on. I have no fears about getting Mary out of your hands this whole Government gives cheer to me and you cannot help your self.

I want you to understand that Mary is my Child and she is a God given right of my own and you may hold on to her as long as you can but I want you to remember this one thing that the longer you keep my Child from me the longer you will have to burn in hell and the quicker you will get there…. We are now making up about one thousand black troops to come up there … and when we come woe be to Copperhead rebels and to the Slaveholding rebels for we don’t expect to leave them there root nor branch…. We that have Children in the hands of you devils we will try you vultures the day that we enter Glasgow I want you to understand … that where ever you and I meet, we are enemies to each other I offered once to pay you forty dollars for my own Child but I am glad now that you did not accept it Just hold on now as long as you can, and the worse it will be for you. You never in your life before I came down here did you give Children anything—not anything whatever, not even a dollars worth of expenses. Now you call my children your property. Not so with me. My Children is my own and I expect to get them and when I get ready to come after Mary I will have both the power and authority to bring her away and to execute vengeances on them that holds my Child …. I want you now to just hold on. I have no fears about getting Mary out of your hands this whole Government gives cheer to me and you cannot help your self.