Sharyn McCrumb - The Ballad of Frankie Silver

“But four members of the original jury signed her petition.”

“Eight jurors did not sign,” the squire replied. “The governor will go with the majority.”

“But think of all the names on the entreaties to Swain! Think of the ladies’ petition: your wife, and her mother Mrs. Sharpe, Miss Mary, and Mrs. Sam Carson, and all the other gentlewomen in Morganton.”

“Ladies cannot vote. What does it matter what they think?”

“But the governor is acquainted with all of them socially. How can he say no to them without seeming like a brute?”

“That is just what I have been asking myself, Burgess. It is what interests me most about the whole affair. He will have to be very clever about it, to be sure.”

“There has never been a woman hanged before in the state of North Carolina,” I said.

“I daresay that if she were a slave woman you could save her, by pleading that her death would constitute the loss of valuable property to her owner. Then she might be let off with a good flogging. But Frankie Silver is a white woman of no breeding, wealth, or influence. She is of no use to anybody.” The squire turned his back on the mountains and the setting sun. “Time to head for home, I think,” he said. “Unless you’d care to have a look at James’s bull?”

The letters and petitions were duly sent off to Raleigh, and then all Morganton waited anxiously for the official reply, although very few of us doubted that the governor would grant a request so universally favored among the constituency, particularly since a number of prominent people had championed Mrs. Silver’s cause. But the days stretched into weeks, and it came time for preparations to be made for the execution, and still there was no word of reprieve from Raleigh.

“The governor is waiting until the last moment,” people said. “He wants to make a dramatic flourish of his benevolence.” Then they began to worry that he would misjudge the speed of the stagecoach mail delivery, and that the good news would arrive too late to save the prisoner.

At last, though, on Thursday, the eleventh of July, W. C. Bevins received the long-awaited letter. He brought it to me at the courthouse, where I was going over the material pertaining to the duties of a clerk of court in the event of an execution. I had obtained a copy of the death warrant, and I was trying to determine whether there was any set formula by which I should report to the state government that the sentence had been carried out. I have the honor to inform you… did not seem quite apt under the circumstances.

Bevins gave me a stiff bow of greeting and set the letter on the table atop my law books without a word.

Executive Department

Raleigh 9th July 1833

Dear Sir:

I have received your letter without date but postmarked in the 3rd Ins., together with the accompanying Petition of a number of the most respectable ladies of your Vicinity in behalf of the unfortunate Mrs. Silvers, who before this communication can reach you will in all human probability have passed the boundarys which separate us alike from the reproaches of enemies and the sympathies of friends. All that it is now in my power to do, is to unite in the anxious wish, which doubtless pervades the whole community to which she belongs, that she may find mercy in Heaven, which seemed to be necessarily denied upon earth, a free pardon for all the offenses of her life.

I beg you to spare the fair Petitioners, with the most of whom I have the pleasure of acquaintance, that the kindest motives which influenced their memorial in behalf of the unfortunate convict, are duly appreciated and that no one can participate more deeply than I do in their sympathy for her melancholy fate.

I am, Sir, very respectfully

your obt. Servt.

D. L. Swain

To: W. C. Bevins, Esq.

I set down the letter, hardly trusting myself to speak. “The governor appears to think that Mrs. Silver has already been executed,” I said at last.

“So it would seem,” said Bevins.

“But how can he think that? David Swain himself ordered that stay of execution not three weeks ago. He himself postponed the date of her death from the twenty-eighth of June until the twelfth of July, acting upon a request from Thomas Wilson. I saw the letter myself. How can he write now and say that the sentence has already been carried out?”

“Perhaps he has other things on his mind,” Bevins suggested, but I thought I detected a sneer in his voice.

“Very well, let us apprise him of his mistake,” I said. “We will go directly to the stage office and draft a letter that Colonel Newland can-”

My voice faltered, and Bevins nodded, seeing that I had realized my error. “Mr. Gaither, you had forgotten the date.”

I stared at him. “It is the eleventh of July,” I said. “Certainly it is too late to rely upon the stagecoach to send an answer, but-”

“It is too late altogether,” Bevins said quietly. “Mrs. Silver is to be hanged tomorrow. And no power on earth could get a letter from Morganton to Raleigh and back again in less than a day. The governor knew that when he posted his reply.”

“Then why equivocate with this pretended misunderstanding of dates? Why did he not simply say, I refuse to pardon the prisoner. ”

“He has said it, Mr. Gaither. As plainly as any politician ever spoke.”

THE KNOCK at the door brought the sheriff out of his reverie. Spencer hobbled to the door without bothering to peer out the window to see whose vehicle was in his driveway.

There stood Charles Wythe Stanton, holding a potted plant with a yellow satin bow stuck into the soil among the leaves. Spencer had not seen the man for twenty years, except as a face in a news photo or a fleeting image on a television screen, but he recognized him at once. Colonel Stanton looked much as he had at the time of his daughter’s death. A little grayer, perhaps, and leaner, so that the lines on his face were more prominent, but he was still as handsome as a recruiting poster. The sort of person of whom people were wont to ask, “Are you somebody?” on the off chance that he might be Oliver North or Harrison Ford, or some other larger-than-life person that one never expected to meet in the flesh.

Spencer stepped back and motioned for him to come inside.

“Hello, Sheriff,” he said, holding out the plant as if it were a peace offering. “I’m glad to see that you’re up and about.”

Spencer set the arrangement on the nearest flat surface and followed his guest into the living room. Colonel Stanton had walked over to the sliding glass doors at the far end of the room, and he was admiring the view of green mountains reflecting cloud shadows in the sunshine. “It’s so peaceful up here,” he said. “I wanted to bury Emily in a cemetery near Johnson City, so that she could be encircled by mountains. She loved it up here. Anne wouldn’t hear of it, though. She wanted to bring our daughter home. To be near us. Perhaps she was right to do that. I don’t know.”

Spencer didn’t see that it mattered. “How is Mrs. Stanton?” he asked politely.

Stanton turned away from the view and did not look at it again. “We divorced some years back,” he said. “Emily was our only child. Losing her was hard on us. I expect there was more to the breakup than that, but it was certainly the precipitating cause. Chalk up another death to Lafayette Harkryder. One marriage.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Spencer.

The colonel shrugged. “These things happen.” He seemed for the first time to notice that his host was still standing. “Please sit down,” he said, gesturing toward the sofa. “I know you’re an invalid at the moment. I didn’t mean to keep you on your feet, Mr. Arrowood.”