"Barclay and Edwin"

 

Edwin Coppock was hanged for treason on December 16, 1859, in Charlestown, Virginia.  Was he a spy for a foreign country?  No.  Did he defect from the U.S. Army?  No.  Is he one of our ancestors?  Yes and no.  Edwin Coppock, born June 30, 1835, is a distant cousin.  His great-great grandfather John Coppock had several sons, among them John (our direct ancestor) and Samuel (Edwin's great grandfather).

Have you ever heard of the abolitionist John Brown?  He was very active in anti-slavery campaigns in the United States during the 1850's.  While trying to raise money and volunteers in Springdale, Iowa,  Edwin and his brother Barclay, both Quakers, became avid followers.  John Brown eventually recruited 22 men to follow him to Virginia, to rage war against southern slavery; however, he needed ammunition to do so.    

On October 16, 1859, they raided the military arsenal in Harper's Ferry, VA.  Several soldiers and a few citizens were either killed or wounded during the 3-day raid.  Robert E. Lee, then a U.S. Army officer and graduate of West Point, led the forces that eventually ended the ordeal.  Of the 22 volunteers, 10 were killed by U.S. troops (including John Brown), 5 escaped, and 7 were executed by hanging.

Barclay Coppock escaped!  He was born January 4, 1839, in Columbiana County, Ohio.  He and his brother Edwin were raised by relatives in Springdale, Iowa, where they first met John Brown.  Brown and his fellow activists were then raising support for his Kansas Anti-slavery raids.  After the fiasco at Harper's Ferry, Barclay managed to escape via the Underground Railroad.  His escape was aided by the Gurney sect of Quakers.  He was aided by 20-year old Richard Beeson Engle, even living for awhile with the Engle family.  Richard, supplied with ample funds by the Quakers, eventually led Barclay to Canada.

Barclay was a wanted man, and even in Canada, there were men looking for him.  Eventually, with the Civil War looming and the fighting in "Bloody Kansas", Barclay was forgotten.  He made his way back to Springdale, Iowa, and eventually to Kansas, to join with other abolitionists.  Barclay enlisted in the Union Army at the outbreak of the Civil War.  He was a 1st Lieutenant in the Kansas 10th regiment, Company C.

While on a munitions train near the Platte River, Confederate Raiders had cut through the supports of the railroad bridge. Barclay's train plunged in to a ravine.  The incident is referred to as the "Platte River Bridge Railroad Tragedy".  Barclay Coppock, 22, died on September 4, 1861.  He is buried at the Hope Cemetery in Salem, Ohio.

Were Barclay and Edwin heroes or villains?  Was their cause just and worthy, even though they acted in defiance of their government?  Whatever the answers, they both died tragically at a very young age.  It is interesting, though, that a "wanted man" was able to enlist in the same Army that he had rebelled against only 2 years before.  That would not happen today, for sure.  

So, if anyone ever asks you if your ancestral research has uncovered any "skeletons in the closet", you can now tell them the story of long-ago cousins Barclay and Edwin.

DAC    7/21/2021