Louis Weichmann

[Pamela]

The antebellum South was a white supremacist culture, and there were plenty of other folk in the north and west that felt the same way. I realize that southerners and others weren't born into families and simply decided one day to be white supremacists because it seemed like a good idea. You don't need to talk down to me. It was a culture and a mindset that our whole country, (other countries and cultures, too) and especially the south, were born into. When I researched my genealogy, I found ancestors in the Va colony. I came across property lists that included slaves, two with the names "Buck" and "Doe". I thought, wow, they animalized those poor people. Of course antebellum whites didn't see themselves as WSs, to them it was just reality and truth of their families and their culture, especially in the early days of slavery.

Did Powell feel the same guilt after beating Annie Ward? I think even he was shocked at the magnitude of his carnage at the Seward home. As for Powell being chivalrous towards Mary, you, of course, know many more historical details than I, but as far as I know, it didn't require chivalry to feel compassion for a woman so obviously suffering, and in large part due to his stupid return to her house and her poor judgement in reaction to it. Now that I would call an error on his part, his brutal attack on Seward and others, was not. He had weeks to consider his actions.

If there was anyone who behaved chivalrously, and who was truly a religious young man, it was dot dot dot Weichmann. He ran every errand she asked of him, accompanied her to church, was a polite and gentile boarder in her home and gave the strongest character testimony for her (and her louse of a son, John) of any witness in the trial. The only time I noticed sarcasm in his book was when he referred to Powell as "that distinguished gentleman".